Friendship is Magic Redux

by paiohelohelo

Ch. 17- White Knight

The sun had now completely set behind the horizon, and the stars had come out to adorn the dying light of early evening. The six girls were now hurrying, as quickly as their tired bodies would let them, for Harmonics was very close by indeed. They all came upon a large, quite turbulent river before them. The land right in front of the river was taken up by marshlands as far as the eye could see; what remained of dry land lay under what appeared to be a large, ancient Equestrian amphitheater, dug out of the earth, furnished with eroding, falling stone columns and overgrown in moss and vines.

“If I’m not mistaken, this is the beginning of the ancient Equestrian temple complex,” Rarity informed Twilight as they all entered the amphitheater around its edges, looking all around them in otherwise stony silence. “Now, I’ve never come this way before, but the main structure where Harmonics is held shouldn’t be too far away, darling, and there should be a bridge to cross the river right behind this coliseum,”

Mother… Twilight thought to herself with a sort of blind, intractable hope born of both love and desperation; she picked up her pace, listening to her heart rapidly beating in step with the multitudes of crickets which had started to come out in the gentle afterglow of the day. Mother, hold on… I’m coming…

Rarity was busy marveling the amphitheater’s exquisite architecture when her sharp eyes noticed a strange black obelisk in front of her; she stopped abruptly to avoid hitting it, as her eyes focused on its surface to try to read some of the archaic Equestrian inscribed there. Those very same eyes widened as she gasped with horror; the black obelisk hidden in the absence of light was not actually an obelisk at all but a Shadowbolt, looming and exceptionally well- decorated with Equestrian runes and abstract illuminated adornments covering the entirety of its body. Rarity’s gasp quickly turned into a scream as its eyes activated and glowed brightly.

The girls all started towards Rarity’s blood- curdling shriek, but then were forced to stop in shock; Shadowbolt warriors suddenly appeared from behind every towering stone column, their glowing eyes suddenly popping out through the darkness and their weapons all pointed at them.

Rarity’s heart stopped as the heavily decorated Shadowbolt walked up to her, its artificial male voice emitting what sounded like “tsk, tsk, tsk”. It’s great black metallic head shook gently, as if it were taunting her.

“After all the trouble that you have caused The Alicorn Queen, my fair barbarian, it is indeed a great pity that all it had taken to catch you was a bit of slumber, still and deep,” it spoke as Rarity slowly backed away from it, tripping over a loose stone and falling to the dirt.

The girls all pointed their weapons around them, but they were unfortunately outnumbered and outgunned. Rainbow Dash and Applejack kept cursing as all their helmets shuttered closed.

“You all have put up a fairly decent, very noble struggle,” he stretched out his arms as he addressed the entire group, “However,” he continued as he now bent down to stare at Rarity directly. “As Her Majesty’s High Priest and The Supreme Commander of The Shadowbolts, I just cannot allow this little escapade of yours to come to any sort of fruition. And so… you all must die now, I’m afraid,”

In between the bouts of sheer terror wracking her brain, Rarity was focusing on one word that he had used, noble, as she tried to think of a way to stay alive… what was it that she had learned about ancient Equestrian society from Dr. Heartstrings?

Rainbow Dash snorted as she took aim at one of the many Shadowbolts surrounding them. “Pssst, give me a break…”

“That’s your big bad guy speech?” Applejack shouted insultingly as the girls all grimly continued to aim their weapons at the enemy, their prospects looking bleaker and bleaker by the second. “Eh... I’ve heard better.”

The Priest only laughed cruelly. “Yes, YES! Oh yes, DO put up a fight, struggle, resist us… it’s been MUCH too long since I have personally taken a life that still kicked in desperation to continue!!!-”

“EXCUSE ME,” Rarity suddenly cut into the beginning of his monologue and began addressing the Priest. “Excuse me, but… you there, in the fancy, luminescent armor…”

The Shadowbolt turned back towards her, smiling in his insanity. “Yes, my dear?”

Rarity stood up erect; she thought that it would help her improvised planning if she acted her part with some bearing.

“High Priest,” she began to inquire, “You are of the nobility, correct?”

“Woman, none but the noble houses may supply Equestria with the keepers of the sacred traditions; even a filthy barbarian commoner such as yourself should know that,”

“Ah, but you are grievously mistaken, sir,” Rarity stuck her chin out, “for I am no commoner.”

The Priest only laughed at her. “You, a noblewoman? Surely you jest, wench.”

Rarity huffed. “I, sir, am none other than Lady Rarity of The House of Belle, from The Duchy of-“ she sighed, suddenly thinking about her ill- dressed parents and her rambunctious little sister, “-Minnesota.”

The other girls all looked at each other and simultaneously mouthed “Duchy of Minnesota” together, frowning in confusion.

The Priest laughed with his glowing, fanged mouth. “A colonial aristocracy? Why, I have never heard anything as pathetically absurd in either my life OR my death…” he proceeded to give a little bow with a flourish of his hand, “LADY Rarity,”

Rarity smirked; now she could proceed with the next part of her plan.

“As you and I are both of noble blood, Priest, then hear me and consent- I challenge you, sir, to a duel,” Rarity announced with regal flourish as she pulled out her Light Foil and extended it.

“WHAT?!” Applejack shouted out in disbelief.

“Applejack, please, be quieeeet…” Rarity sang to her as she continued to look the Priest in the eyes. “You heard me, Priest, now, what say you?”

The Priest merely laughed again. “What good would such a sacrifice on your part even accomplish in your current state of affairs, my lady?”

“A matter of honor, sir, a matter of personal honor,” Rarity continued. “To kill a noblewoman as she stands defenseless against her attacker would be a most heinous and ignoble act to perpetrate upon her, indeed,”

The Priest thought this over. “What terms do you propose, then, my lady?”

“Fair terms, good sir… if I defeat you in a duel, to the death, your men shall give us all passage to the Temple, unmolested. And you will swear on it, sir, by The Elements of Harmony themselves,” she elaborated.

Rarity was no fool; she didn’t truly expect that this psychotic High Priest or his men would ever keep to his word, even if he did agree to her terms; however, she had witnessed the effect that taking out the Centurion did to the enemy formation it commanded in their firefight earlier, and she desperately hoped that if she could defeat the Supreme Commander of The Shadowbolts, or at the very least distract him, even at the cost of her own life, then maybe she could give the others a chance to get out of the amphitheater alive.

“Rarity- NO!” Twilight shouted and started towards her when she realized what she was proposing and exactly why she was doing it; however, the Shadowbolts stepped in closer in a ring around the group, guns drawn, and she stopped running.

“I gotta agree with Twilight, sugarcube, that sounds jus’ nuts,” Applejack argued.

“And I gotta agree with both of ‘em, Rare,” Rainbow Dash licked her lips nervously, “this is some real weird Medieval Times shit right here.”

“Giiiirls… please,”

The Priest cocked his head slowly in the other direction. “And if I win, my lady, then I assume that I may act as… ignoble... as I please with your party?”

Rarity blanched at the specifically sinister way that he had phrased the word “ignoble”. “I suppose…” she responded, very quietly and grimly, “In that event, I would not be in very much of a position to protest, now… would I?”

The Priest laughed darkly. “I agree to your terms, Lady Rarity, and because you have dared challenge THE MIGHTY CHAMPION OF EQUESTRIA-” he shouted for all of his minions to hear, “-It would now seem that MY personal honor is at stake, in dueling with a colonial wench such as yourself-“ he bowed in mock apology, “-even a noble one at that, my lady… thus, I will grant you an additional boon in the unlikely event that you emerge the victor… by The Elements of Harmony, if you shall win this duel, I pledge that my men shall all suffer the same fate that will be inflicted on your party in the event of MY victory… that is to say, DEATH... do those sound like fair terms to you, my lady?”

Rarity’s eyes popped open. “What… what do you mean?”

The Priest raised his arms towards his Shadowbolts. “If I am defeated, then all of the Shadowbolt warriors that you see here before you shall join me, their immortal vessels snuffed out like candles that have long burned past their usefulness. I am well aware that you have an Equestrian systems specialist with you; ask her to check on our programming, and she will tell you that what I say is the binding truth.”

Rarity continued to stare at him, her heart racing; she turned to Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie Pie, darling?”

Pinkie fiddled with her EGO for a minute, and then widened her eyes in shock. “Holy- moley… he’s telling the truth, Rarity! He’s just written a program into their network where his deactivation would trigger all of their deactivations!”

“Are you absolutely sure about that, dear?”

Pinkie nodded. “Unless he reverses the directives himself, they’ll execute when he’s executed… I’ll keep monitoring their network and let you know if he tries to do anything funny,”

“Ah, but there is no need… for it is not I who shall be the one executed,” The Priest replied in supreme hubris, still smiling sadistically at Rarity, and flourished his hand again. “But you… my lady,”

Rarity just waved her Light Foil in front of her body, smirking. “We’ll just have to see about that…”

“Then come, let us not waste the night,” The Priest floated high into the air on his wings and then settled down slowly towards the center of the amphitheater, beckoning her.

Rarity wasted no time as she began to run down to meet him; the stakes were now too high for her to not give it everything she had.

“Rarity!” Twilight called out to her from on high. She turned back around to look at her friend, whose eyes were pleading with her not to go; Twilight shook her head.

“Don’t worry, darling, this won’t take long,” Rarity’s voice quivered a bit as she tried to smile reassuringly at Twilight. Her smile faded a little, and she silently mouthed the words “when you can, go”. Twilight shut her eyes tightly and turned her head. Rarity nodded to the rest of her friends, and then hurried down to meet an uncertain fate.

As Rarity entered the ring, she faced her opponent who stood at the ready, his Light Foil extending out from his hand. He bowed to her and she bowed back before bringing her own sword to bear before her, taking a fighting stance.

“En garde,” she warned him as she closed her helmet over her head.

The Priest smiled briefly and then came rushing at her, roaring. He swung wide at her head and Rarity easily dodged it, rolling forward on the ground as he passed by her. When she was upright again on one knee she sliced at the back of his legs, but to her surprise the Priest backflipped before her blade could touch him. When her own sword passed by, he landed on his feet again, spun around, and aimed a downward cut at the defenseless side of her body; Rarity quickly spun her blade around, shifting on the ground, and raised her Light Foil upwards to block his blow, glowing edge on glowing edge. The sheer force of his attack sent a shockwave jarring through her arms and body, but she grit her teeth and stopped his movement cold. The Priest sneered at her evilly and laughed.

“My, you are a FEISTY ONE, aren’t you?!” he exclaimed with a sort of depraved relish.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she grinned in her helmet as she shifted her blade, deflecting his sword’s forward force downwards towards the dirt, and spun to aim a cut at his unprotected body.

The Priest was quick, however, and counterturned to meet her blade again, and then again after that when Rarity attempted to rapidly change direction and strike lower at him. He rolled his wrist and spun her blade out of the way in an attempt to stab at her, but Rarity jumped in the air and spun with her body parallel to the ground until she had landed behind him; she immediately slashed at the back of his head, but the Priest simply blocked her attack without even facing her. She broke off contact, panting.

“My, my, my, well, aren’t you surprisingly fast for your size,” she taunted.

“And aren’t you extraordinarily difficult to exterminate for yours,” he taunted right back, smirking.

Rarity changed tactics and charged at him; the priest simply blocked her attacks as she pressed him out of the center of the ring and towards a wall. When he finally made another powerful downward slash at her, she deflected it lightly out of the way, ran up to the wall and lept off of it, lunging at his back in a stab. The Priest rapidly spun and slashed at his attacker, this time catching her fully in her chest. Rarity screamed out in agony as her PALADIN fizzled and she hit the dirt, sprawling and gasping for air. The girls all shrieked loudly when they saw that she had been hit.

“RARITY!!!” they all cried out and ran forward, but were immediately stopped by Shadowbolts brandishing weapons.

Rarity coughed as she lay on the ground. The Priest merely laughed as he encircled her as a predator encircles its prey. She checked her abdomen to find a large black scorch mark slashed across it, her armor still smoking.

“I regret to inform you, Lady Rarity, that your armor will be of much less use against my Light Foil then, say, a Rifle,” he explained with some measure of glee. “It won’t be long before my hungry blade finds a spot on that soft, warm flesh of yours…”

Rarity struggled to get to her feet, and then resumed her fighting stance. “En garde,” she called out again as she prepared herself for another round.

The Priest cocked his head in amusement before rushing forward again, putting Rarity in the defensive position. They exchanged blows and parries, but this time Rarity was having trouble pressing him onwards, much less keeping her ground; she eventually found herself pushed back against the wall; the Priest stabbed at her and she jumped high in the air, backflipping; when her legs were in the position to push off from the wall of the amphitheater, she sprung off, reversing direction and front flipping high over the priest. His sword penetrated the wall to the hilt, and Rarity smiled in mid- air, thinking that he had been trapped; she landed behind him and immediately turned in a wide, slashing maneuver, but the Priest merely dodged her blade by crouching and swept his leg back to trip her, fully turning around just as Rarity hit the ground, defenseless. The Priest laughed as he walked up until he was standing right over her; he pushed the tip of his sword into her armor, and it crackled and glowed as Rarity screamed out in pain once more.

“YOU BASTARD!!!” Applejack shouted down from the sidelines as she watched her friend being viciously tortured by an exceptionally sociopathic opponent.

“Rarity!!!” Twilight shrieked, covering her mouth and cringing at this sick little game playing out right in front of her.

“YOU CALL THAT NOBLE, YOU SICK, TWISTED FUCK?!?!” Rainbow Dash added in anger and helplessness.

Before the blade had a chance to fully compromise the PALADIN plating, the Priest pulled it away and Rarity rolled over, gasping and coughing, clutching her chest as she tried to get to her elbows and knees. Her EGO was beeping frantically about the state of her armor; the Shadowbolt Priest leisurely paced in front of her, laughing with genuine mirth.

“Oh, do be a dear, Lady Rarity, and at least put some EFFORT into it,” he sneered at her cruelly, “If I grow any more bored with you, then I'm afraid I will just have to end this… that really wouldn’t be very much fun for me, now, would it?”

Rarity simply struggled to get on her knees again, her head threatening her duel with a total black out. Her EGO was still beeping.

“Well, it seems as if you, sir, are refusing to take me seriously,” Rarity coughed again, and then glared at her opponent. “In that case, I’m just going to have to ‘step up my game’, so to speak,”

The Shadowbolt Priest made a clucking sound at her, even though he had no tongue to speak of. “You do only fool yourself, Lady Rarity, and perhaps your pathetic little friends whom you shall never have the chance to see die, quite slowly, by my hand-”

“If the good sir is quite finished,” Rarity interrupted him irately, “and if he would be so kind as to consent, then I would like to ask of him one, last, teensy- tiny little favor,”

“And what is that, my lady?”

“Another Light Foil, please, if you'd be so kind,” she stood up defiantly to meet his eyes.

The Priest cocked his head in amusement. “Very well,” he acquiesced, and motioned towards a Shadowbolt covering the other five. It immediately opened up its arm and pulled out a Light Foil, which it promptly threw down into the ring, right at Rarity’s feet. She picked it up and extended it before readying herself in a twin swordfighting stance.

“I’m warning you, Lady Rarity, I grow weary of this children’s play that you call a duel,” the Priest took up a fighting stance as well.

“As do I, sir, as do I, however…” she stole glances at the other five that seemed to read “what are you all still doing here?! GO!!!”, to which they all just shook their heads at her, eyes bulging with fear for their friend in the ring. Rarity just sighed in return, and then turned back to face her opponent. “…I suppose we all must make sacrifices.”

With that, the Priest cocked his head in amusement before charging at her fiercely, his opponent armed with two Light Foils at the ready. He smirked, preparing to easily strike her down, but Rarity had transformed into an entirely different creature; instead of making use of any fancy footwork, she began twirling, with the grace of a dancer, her dual swords becoming long streaks of light that protected her in a cocoon of elegant fury; the Priest soon began to go from attacking to merely deflecting the maelstrom of blows that were soon aimed at every portion of his body; as soon as he deflected one blade, the other would come swirling towards his weak spot, and he began to struggle to keep from getting hit. Eventually, though, Rarity, deftly flipping a Light Foil in one hand, managed to jab it into his torso and, as he tried to remove her sword, she slashed the other around and across the Priest’s face; he recoiled and shrieked, obviously not out of pain, but in infinite rage that she had dared to deform his elaborately decorated, immortal vessel.

“ARRRGGHHHH!!!!” He shouted, and his eyes seemed to glow brighter with livid rage, “YOU WENCH!!! YOU SHALL PAY FOR THAT WITH EACH OF YOUR LIMBS, SLOWLY, AND ONE BY ONE!!!”

When his metallic face had cooled down from the touch of the Light Foil’s energized edge, he looked to find that Rarity had quickly bolted to the far side of the ring, turning around to face him again, both swords at the ready.

“Vanity is one thing, darling, believe me- I KNOW!!!” Her helmet flipped open and she pulled her skullcap off to reveal her very luscious, if a little sweat- drenched, raven locks of hair; she stared at him, proud and tall, in all her radiantly defiant splendor.

“HOWEVER-“ she shouted as she ran forward and the Priest bellowed in his rage and ran at full speed to meet her. They both rushed towards each other for a final, killing blow; before Rarity reached the Priest, she suddenly reached out to the ground, both blades angled carefully out of the way, and propelled herself, spinning forward; she pulled in her legs and crossed her arms to tighten her flip as she began to sail right over the Shadowbolt Priest; he shrieked in fury as he aimed a mighty blow at her head, or rather, where her head should’ve been; as Rarity spun above him, the Priest became confused by her mass of silky, spinning hair and his blade cut at it and nothing else. When his opponent saw her chance, she sprung out her legs, locking her body as straight as an ironing board as it hovered above him; as her spin began to slow down she uncrossed her arms and, in a literal flash, completely decapitated the Priest. She landed behind him with the prodigious skill of an Olympic gymnast, not even a single step taken out of place. As the Priest’s body fell to the dust and his eyes some distance away went dark, she allowed herself a little smirk from one corner of her mouth.

“…There’s really no need to go losing one’s head over it, now, is there?” she finished, her deadly blades glowing at her sides.

At that precise moment, all of the other Shadowbolts holding her friends captive suddenly turned dark, falling dead to the floor. Their prisoners stared around themselves in shock before erupting in a massive, celebratory cheer. They all ran down at full speed to hug a very exhausted Rarity, almost tackling her over with excitement as she retracted her two Light Foils, grinning.

“Rarity!” Twilight shouted in relief as she hugged her, tears in her eyes. “Oh, Rarity, thank God you’re ok… I mean, you are ok, right?”

“Why, yes, darling,” Rarity was still panting as she hugged them all.

“BOOM! Right before she hit the ground- SHOOM!” Pinkie Pie gave her blow- by- blow account of Rarity’s killing blow, “NAIL- BITING ACTION OVERLOAD!!!”

Rarity giggled. “To be honest, girls, I really wasn’t quite sure that the two- handed technique would even work, I mean it’s all still very experimental… buuut,” she gestured to all the dead Shadowbolts littering the amphitheater, “…it all turned out quite nicely, don’t you think?”

The others all laughed happily; suddenly, though, Twilight gasped and reached out for Rarity’s butchered locks on her head.

“Oh, no, Rarity, your beautiful hair,” she cooed in sympathy.

Rarity, her adrenaline rush fading, finally noticed her hair with a pout, but quickly smiled. “Oh, it’s fine, my dear... short and uneven is in this season, you know... and besides…” she sadly played with her still silky tresses, “…It’ll grow back…”

Rainbow Dash snorted, gesturing to the headless Shadowbolt Priest on the ground next to them. “Well, he sure won’t be growing anything back, that’s for damn sure.”

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THE END OF A DEEEEEEASATTTHHH bbAAAATTTTTTTTTLLLLEEEEE