The Magic of Animosity

Trixie watched in horror at the sight rolling past her vision.  With each street Dreamcatcher ran through, Trixie saw more and more destruction and chaos.  There was always at least one or two Odium being fought back by one of the Equestrian unicorns, donned in their silver armor and horns ablaze with magic.  Trixie glanced back at an unconscious Twilight, who was surrounded in the same cloud of white shimmering magic as she was, courtesy of Dreamcatcher, who was sparing no time in getting the two unicorns to safety.

The dark clouds high in the sky were still looming, the same clouds that had created the once-impenetrable wall of black.  Trixie couldn't see a single fire within town from her vantage point, but smoke was still preeminent, and the atmosphere was tinted with a depressing shade of dark-red.  Appleloosa had been reduced to a battleground, and the city was not going to get out of the fight unscathed.

A flash of a glowing, bubble of pulsating green energy twice the size of Dreamcatcher suddenly flew past the unicorn's face, just barely grazing her snout as she skidded to a halt right in front of the attack.  The Head Captain turned and glared at the unicorn several feet away to her left, who had just shot the attack and was looking like she was about to pass out from what she’d just done.

“Oh!  I—I’m so sorry, Captain, I didn’t—”

Realizing it was nothing more than a mistake, Dreamcatcher calmed down and unclenched her jaw; her eyes closed for a moment as she quickly collected her thoughts.  “…It’s fine, just make sure you know what you’re hitting before you shoot at it.”

The mare promptly sat and saluted the unicorn.  “Yes, ma’am!”

Dreamcatcher nodded to her subordinate and continued on her marathon for the crack in the south wall.  It surprised her how much this small town of Appleloosa had grown in the past few years since it was first constructed.  In fact, business seemed to have boomed right after the buffalo incident that occurred, despite it destroying a majority of the town; it was almost as if the wrecking of the town is what made it grow so much faster.  ‘If that’s the case, this town is going to turn into a metropolis after what’s happening here…’ Dreamcatcher mused sarcastically.

It wasn’t too much farther to the south wall, where the defenses were strongest and ponies were on stand-by to help any Appleloosians who were injured or ponies that had just been freed from their Odium jail.  Dreamcatcher had assumed she was home free; she was deep in the Equestrian side of the battle, having already passed the front line a while ago, surprisingly enough without having to do battle with a single enemy.

Unfortunately, Lady Luck proved to be a bitch, as always; Dreamcatcher, who had had uncanny fortune in not meeting up with the shadow, stopped dead in her tracks when a familiar house-sized claw randomly slithered past her in the crossing street, blocking her way forward as it moved forward on its own path.  At first, the arm didn’t even noticed her, but it froze seconds after its head passed her and turned back around to immediately strike at its enemy; the fact that it didn’t first see her amused Dreamcatcher, seeing as how it didn’t have any eyes in the first place, but could still somehow recognize her presence.

It was still missing its thumb; only the three fingers on the top of the claw remained of its massive hand.  As opposed to the sludge-like form and movement of the usual Odium, the arm—more specifically, the claw—was more like the hard glass that made up the four walls surrounding town.  With a charge and a screech, the claws came straight at Dreamcatcher with the intent to kill.  It really hated her, and didn’t even want to turn her into one of its minions—after what she’d done to it, it only wanted her dead.  Diving its open maw into the dirt in an attempt to crush the unicorn, Dreamcatcher swiftly dodged the attack.  She was still holding on to Twilight and Trixie on the side, and Trixie looked about ready to have a heart attack.

“What on earth—why is the Maximus’s arm alive?!” the azure unicorn exclaimed.  She was covered in a cold sweat as she continued to watch her savior do battle with the giant claw.  Trixie wanted as much as she could to help Dreamcatcher out, but not only was she stuck in the unicorn's white magic, but Trixie herself had no magic to give.

“The what?” Dreamcatcher questioned, giving herself but a moment to look at Trixie with a questioning brow.  Her attention was brought back to the arm though as it struck like a python at her a second time, and she leapt out of its way again.  She continued trying to speak with Trixie as a cone of white magic shot off her horn and sent the hand reeling several yards backward, making it flip upside-down and wriggle like it was convulsing.  “Anyway, have you two had any progress with the shadow?  Heard you went down a dark hole in the ground after it.”

“We, uh…oh!  We recovered the black box,” Trixie said, remembering the small cube Twilight had recovered in the cave.  “Any idea what’s in it?”

“Sorry, but—augh!”  Dreamcatcher nearly got stuck down when the Maximus’s arm swung itself into an arc in the air and body-slammed the ground, taking out what was left of a nearby house in the process.  “…I have no clue what you’re talking about.  Neither Princess mentioned anything about a black box to me.  They did say tha—hyah!”  A beam of light blasted out Dreamcatcher’s horn and blew a hole in the arm’s side, discombobulating it for a few seconds so she could speak properly.  “They did say something about Twilight Sparkle having to send back some artifact to Appleloosa, something they had rigged up for the shadow—a trap of some sort.  But since Twilight Sparkle never met with the Sheriff, I suppose the trap failed.”

Trixie thought hard on what Dreamcatcher had just said.  “You don't say…” the magician said, impressed at the idea of this apparent ‘trap’.  “But yes, the Sheriff is currently one of the Odium creatures; the last we saw of him—Twilight Sparkle and I—was deep in the bottom of this one cave under Appleloosa.”

Dreamcatcher surrounded herself with her own white aura, and she charged straight into the arm, which had just begun to get back up from the ground.  The arm rolled on the ground several times before sliding into a house, demolishing the front side.  It deep voice squealed in pain, despite having taken the other, harder hits previously without complaint.  “Odium?” Dreamcatcher asked before saying anything else.  “Anyways, we have to get the Sheriff back.  Apparently he has the other half of the artifact that the Princesses were referring to.  Why this is, I have no idea, but he does, and if he’s a slave to the shadow that can only mean that his half of the artifact is with the shadow as well.  By the way, you didn’t happen to see any magicane while you were down in that mine, did you?”

Before Trixie could answer, a very loud cracking noise nearly split her and Dreamcatcher’s eardrums, and the two unicorns looked to the north and saw Luna, a tiny speck flying distant in the air, sending a barrage of different magical attacks straight at the Maximus.  Its arm was split down the middle into five pieces, then its eyes were blown out by two giant cones of dark-blue energy, followed by the earth rumbling just before the Maximus itself was covered with Luna’s magic, and with an explosion it promptly collapsed into the ground; apparently, a pit had been formed just underneath it, and it screamed from an unseen mouth as it quickly fell down the chasm.

Trixie and Dreamcatcher turned their heads slowly to look at each other in the eye, dumbfounded by what they had just seen.  Twilight started to shuffle slightly, waking up from the sounds the Maximus had just been making.

“Hmm…?  What in the…?”  Twilight was confused as to why her sight was slightly obscured by white.  Then she saw the dark-green, purple-eyed, black-maned unicorn standing nearby, her horn glowing the same tint of white.  Immediately connecting two and two, Twilight spoke up, rather confused, “Dreamcatcher?  What are you doing here?”

Dreamcatcher emitted a noise that sounded like a mix between a groan and a sigh, just as the Maximus’s arm made another swing at her again.  “There’s no time for me to explain again, okay?!”

“What in the—what’s the Maximus’s arm doing here?!” Twilight exclaimed.

“That’s nothing!” Trixie yelled excitedly, “You should’ve JUST seen what Luna did to the Maximus!  She sent it flying down a giant hole, I think.  The sonic boom from her attack hurt my ears!”

Twilight rubbed her own ear with her hoof.  “I was wondering why my ear was ringing…”

Dreamcatcher charged up a small speck of white light at the tip of her horn and sent it off, the speck filling up into a pony-sized orb of blinding radiance just before it hit the claw and sent the first few layers of its ‘skin’ spraying across both her and the ground around her.  “Y’know, not to extol myself, but I think perhaps what I’m doing here is somewhat important…”

“I’m far too drained to be of any help to you,” Trixie replied nonchalantly.

“We don’t even have any magic left in us,” Twilight added, though she sounded much more concerned for the Head Captain than Trixie did.

One of the claws of the Maximus clipped Dreamcatcher’s left shoulder when it charged down for another attack.  The unicorn was gripped in pain for a moment, but quickly brushed off the wound and said to the now-frightened mares near her, “That’s why I was wondering if you’d found any magicane down in the mine.  That stuff is a massive magic reservoir—have a unicorn like yourself touch one kilo of it, and you’ll be completely replenished.  Absorb a few more kilos, and—augh!” she tripped over her own leg, her shoulder injury beginning to hurt more and more, “…and you’ll feel like you’re on top of the world, with the amount of magic you’d have.”

“I like the sound of that,” Trixie said absentmindedly.  She was still concerned about Dreamcatcher’s bleeding wound.

“I’d give you two some of my own magic, but…well, you can assume that I don’t have much left to give.”  The claw was putting up a fight like nothing Dreamcatcher had ever faced before.  It could dish out attack after attack, and at the same time take any hit she could throw at it and get right back up.  It wasn’t natural, the amount of stamina this thing had—but she knew very well why.  “The shadow has been consuming ridiculous amounts of magicane, and you two need to do the same!” she yelled at the two unicorns floating helplessly in her white aura, watching her fight a losing battle with the serpentine arm of the Maximus.

“How the heck are we supposed to do that?!” Twilight exclaimed.  “If all that gray rock in that cave used to be magicane, then there’s no way there’s any left—the Maximus must have found it all and taken it!”  Twilight knew plenty about this newly-discovered rock, but she hadn’t considered that that was what the source of the smooth gray stone in the cave had been from.

“And why us, anyway?” Trixie said snottily.  “I can barely move, and you want to send us back into the cave to go on a treasure hunt?!  It’d be a different story if I could actually gain the energy to walk straight, but I don’t have that at the moment!”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Dreamcatcher said powerfully, “I have no idea what Celestia and Luna had planned, but that plan is now scrapped.  You and your friends have accomplished a world-saving feat not just once, but twice.  Granted, none of the other Elements of Harmony are here with you—all you have is this…‘Trixie’ mare…”  Trixie huffed at the way the Head Captain had said “Trixie”, “But there is no other pony better suited…for saving Equestria, a third time…” Dreamcatcher was getting out of breath.  “I’m afraid I’ve sent you two as far as I can.  Make for the crack in the south wall—that’s where the unicorns have set up a makeshift camp.  Refresh yourselves, and then get back into the fray!”  She turned to face the claw, which was getting back up once again from one of her attacks, and it snarled at her as it stared her down.  “Now go—I’ll hold this thing back!”

“But—”

“GO!”

The dark-green unicorn catapulted the two mares up and over the Maximus’s arm using her magic, aiming them towards the south wall.  She turned her attention back to the creature facing her.  “Good, now I can fight you without any distractions.  Now come get some!” she said heavily and angrily, panting hard and dirt sticking to her hot, sweating body, beckoning another strike from her opponent.

The hand screeched and dove for her again.

Twilight and Trixie landed with a thud, a considerable distance from Dreamcatcher and the Maximus arm.  Only several houses were standing between them and the end of the great black wall, which now sported a massive fracture.  The two ponies slowly trudged to their hooves; in the distance, the sounds of spell after spell being cast could be heard, as well as the constant colorful lights flashing from every which-way, diffracted from the pillars of smoke that were rising from demolished houses.

Twilight took a single step forward, and tripped over her own leg.  “Augh!  Trixie…I, I’m completely worn out.  Not a single shred of magic is left in me…”

Trixie stood up and didn’t move, not wanting to humiliate herself by tripping the same way the purple unicorn just did.  Trixie looked down at Twilight, and a small, sincere smile actually grazed her lips.  “Don’t worry, Twilight Sparkle.  We only have another block to go before we reach the outside world.  There must be Equestrian soldiers around here—there should be, considering how close we are to the wall…”

“I…I don’t see anypony,” Twilight said in a defeated tone.  “Even when—if—we make it to the other unicorns, I don’t see how the heck we’re supposed to regain enough energy to fight properly.  Didn’t you say yourself though, that Luna had taken care of the Maximus already?”

“I doubt it’s finished off for good,” Trixie said ominously.  “Take a look around, at the Odium that are attacking this town.  Certainly by now, you can tell that they share—”

“—a hivemind, yes, I had assumed so myself,” the brainiac said.

Trixie shot the unicorn an annoyed look for having interrupted her.  “…Yes, and since all these Odium ‘puppets’ aren’t falling to the ground like an electronic with its cable cut, one can only assume that the Maximus is still alive, controlling its minions deep down in that pit.”

“…and we’re gonna have to kill it, once and for all.”  Twilight tried to get back on her hooves again, but this time she couldn’t even muster the strength to bring herself onto her front hooves.  She grunted softly as she continued the fruitless struggle with her depleted body.  “…If only we had some magicane with us…!”

Trixie looked on sadly; she was still standing perfectly still, the only thing keeping her upright was her knees, locked in place to keep gravity from getting the better of her.  Suddenly, she looked straight forward, and with a gasp her pupils dilated almost past her irises.  “Twilight Sparkle!  We may actually have some with us!”

Twilight cocked an eyebrow at the unicorn.  “What are you talking about?  I didn’t see a single shred of the rock in that cave, and we didn’t bring any along, nor did any of the Appleloosians give us any—I’d know magicane if I saw it, since I’ve been rigorously studying it since its discovery.”

Trixie rolled her eyes at the stubborn unicorn.  “Twilight Sparkle, think for a moment: from everything we saw in that cave, what was the one thing none of the Odium had touched?”

Twilight gave Trixie a look; she had no idea where the unicorn was going with this, and she had no clue what the answer was, either.  “Trixie, there wasn’t a single thing they…wait…”  Her eyes widened and her head darted to her saddlebag.

“Exactly,” Trixie said, knowing Twilight now knew the answer as well.  “At first, we figured it was some strange quirk about them, but know you realize—they won’t touch water.  When I used a water spell on an Appleloosian mare that was being taken by the Odium, the sludge completely disappeared.”

Twilight added, “Now, it’s a bit of a stretch to say that they’re water soluble, but one fact does remain: they don’t like water.”

“But why were those three just standing at the water’s edge, staring at it?” Trixie asked.  “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Twilight glanced at her bag, giving Trixie the answer in a single look.  She grabbed the bag with her hooves and swung it over her head so it was in front of her.  “Perhaps…they were looking on…longing for something that it couldn’t touch…something they couldn’t reach.”

Trixie smiled at her and Twilight’s own problem-solving skills.  “If I’m not mistaken, magicane is a type of shale, a sedimentary rock?  Again, if I’m not mistaken, sedimentary rocks are the most…water soluble…?”

Twilight brought out a glass jar half the height of her arm, and just as wide; it was half-filled with water.  Twilight held the jar up in front of her eyes and grinned.  “I wonder just how much magicane is sitting under that underground lake?”

Trixie’s smile waned when she saw the telltale jar.  “…There doesn't seem to be very much…actually, there doesn't seem to be any in there.”

Twilight looked up at Trixie and chuckled.  “Oh, believe me, Trixie.  We don’t need anywhere near ‘very much’ when it comes to magicane.  There’s probably only a minute amount, but a small trace…and yet, that will be enough.”

Trixie cocked an eyebrow at the purple unicorn.  “Enough to take on the Maximus?”

Twilight shook her head.  “Enough to get more.”

On that, Twilight gripped the tightly-closed lid on the jar and tried to pry it open with her hooves.  She wasn’t used to doing things without any magic.

“Uh, here, allow me…I think I have enough left magic to open a jar.”  Trixie puffed out her cheeks in concentration, trying her hardest to bring out any reserve-reserves of magic left in her.  Her horn gave off two tiny sparks of blue light, and like a car starting it flickered just before glowing.  With an egotistical grin of poise with herself, Trixie used her magic to grip the lid that was currently halfway in Twilight’s mouth, snug in-between a set of teeth, and she popped the jar open.

Twilight didn’t move for a second; she only stared at the open jar of water.  Then she looked up at Trixie and let a sly grin slip onto her face.  She held the jar up with her hoof for a toast.  “To…agreeing to disagree.”  She put the mouth of the jar up to her lips and tilted the jar back, letting the spring water flow down her parched throat.  After downing half the jar, she handed it to Trixie.

Trixie didn’t even say anything, she just brought the jar up to her mouth and chugged the remaining liquid.  At first she didn’t feel any different.

But then, the trace amounts of magicane took their effect.

Trixie felt a cool breeze blow from inside her body; a contrast to the warmth one feels after taking a drink of wine, though it was a good feeling, and the freshness of it gave Trixie a chill down her spine.  The pain on her joints, muscles and back felt as if they were literally being washed off of her, the wintry sense feeling much like a nice shower after spending a day in a sandstorm.  As the cold traveled up her spine and reached her head, the pounding immediately went away, and she felt a stream of energy flow through her vertebrae and directly into her horn; she let out a relaxed sigh as it happened.  No longer having to lock her knees to be able to stand, Trixie adjusted her hooves and stood up erect and proud.  She couldn’t even see any of the mystical magicane in the water she just drank, and yet what she had just felt from that minuscule amount was…pure ecstasy.

Trixie looked over to Twilight and noticed that the unicorn looked considerably less enthused with the magical element flowing through her veins.  “Is this some kind of a drug?” the magician half-joked, half-honestly asked.  “I’m not going to develop an addiction to this, will I?”

Twilight chuckled.  “No, what you just felt was your body first adjusting to the magicane.  You’d better cherish that feeling, because each time you use it now, the feeling will be but a fraction of what you just experienced, if anything at all.  I can feel the energy flow back into me, but it's nothing compared to what you've felt—judging by your expression, at least," she added with a grin.

“Wait, you’ve used magicane before?”

“Well, duh!  I did say I rigorously studied it, didn’t I?  That kind of implies that I at least tried it out first-hand once or twice!”

“I feel…completely restored, brand-new,” Trixie said, dumbfounded at the effect the magic rock had on her.

“We both still look awful, though,” Twilight said backhandedly, glancing over the gray-and-yellow-plastered unicorn.

“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!”

Both unicorns were startled by the booming voice overhead, and both looked up to see Princesses Celestia and Luna descending down to the ground.  Celestia had never looked so relieved to see her faithful student.  “Thank goodness, I was afraid I’d lost you!"  Turning away from Twilight after looking her over and seeing she was fine—and overlooking how raggedy the pony looked—she saw the azure unicorn next to her for the first time.  I take it this is ‘Trixie’?”

“That’s ‘The Great and Pow—unagh!”

Trixie was cut short from a very powerful kick in the rib.  Celestia had blinked, and only caught a swift blur of something purple that had shot straight into the magician’s side, making her crumple to the ground and force back tears.  Celestia gave Trixie a very worried look.  “Trixie, are you alright?!”

“Don’t worry about us, Princess,” Twilight said enthusiastically, while also wearing a very fake smile.  “The two of us are more than capable of handling the Maximus on our own.”

“I highly doubt that, Twilight,” Celestia said sternly.  “The shadow is much too powerful, and there is no lone spell powerful enough to take it down.  That’s why I had sent you to bring the fixed half of the artifact to the Sheriff, but I now realize that it was a foolish idea to send you off on your own like that.  The plan couldn’t have gone any more wrong, and I’ve put you and your friend in grave danger.”

“Oh, nononono, this mare’s not my—anyway, you gave me a task, and now it’s expanded a bit to a different job, but I still expect to see it through, Princess Celestia.  No matter what may get in our way!”

Luna cocked an eyebrow at the purple unicorn.  “Are you seriously suggesting you and this…Trixie,” she glanced at the other blue, silver-maned unicorn hunched over on the ground, “are going to try and take on the shadow yourselves?  You’re mad.”

“Actually, we think we understand a fair amount about this ‘shadow’,” Twilight said confidently.  “For example, we’ve learned that it has a weakness to water.”

Celestia interrupted, “While water does have the strange effect of turning the shadow into vapor, that is nothing more than a setback for it, much like every other spell one could think of to throw upon it.  And vaporizing the shadow isn’t the brightest idea, either—you certainly don’t want something like that freely travelling with the wind.”

Twilight was slightly let down by her mentor’s negativity.  “Nonetheless, Trixie and I are going to take on the Maximus and his fleet—we know how to get the strength to fight it!”

“Oh?” Luna asked, intrigued.  “Did you happen to find a spare reserve of magicane down in the mines?”

“I suppose you could say that,” Twilight replied.

“Well, as much as I’d like to go there myself and regain some lost fuel, I’m afraid Celestia and I don’t have the time.”

“Twilight…honestly, I don’t think you have the capability to take on the shadow…” Celestia said, “But if you are really that confident in yourself, I suppose I can be, too.”  She gave a weak but encouraging smile.  “Go on, you and Trixie—go and fight back the shadow; Luna and I will continue efforts aboveground, freeing any ponies still under its control.  Also…” she looked up at the burning houses and increasing amount of smoke in the village.  “…we’d better contact Canterlot and tell them about the damages…”

“Well, with your blessings, we’re now off!” Twilight exclaimed eagerly, and grabbed a still-reeling Trixie with her regained magic, encasing the unicorn in a pinkish-purple aura.  She was about to start on her way, back to the center of town, but she stopped abruptly, remembering something.  “Oh, Princess!  I just remembered—Captain Dreamcatcher!  She saved our lives, and she was fighting off one of the Maximus’s arms!  I don’t know if she’s okay…please, go find her and help her!”

The alicorns’ eyes widened at this news; neither had expected the severed arm to actually come to life.  “On it,” Luna immediately said, and jumped off into the sky to search for the dark-green unicorn and long black arm, which shouldn’t be that challenging of a feat.

“I certainly hope she’s okay…” Celestia said softly as she watched Luna speed off into the air.  The alicorn then looked back at her student.  “Twilight, please be careful.  I cannot stress this enough.”

“Thanks, Celestia, but I don’t really have time for a lecture at the moment,” the unicorn teased, and with Trixie in tow, she used her magic and vanished in a flash of light, teleporting closer to the massive pit in the center of town.

“Oh, Twilight…” Celestia sighed.  Then her expression hardened as she remembered something.  “…Twilight?  Twilight Sparkle!”  Celestia flew high up in the air; she saw Luna already down near a long slender black tube snaking through town, but she was looking for someone else.

“Twilight!” she yelled out.  “The artifact!  I didn’t tell you about it…!  Oh, for Pete’s sake…”

The alicorn grit her teeth and reluctantly let the issue go as she joined her sister again, close to the ground to continue the fight.