The Dark Poison of his Heart
Her Knight in Shining Armor and the Dark Poison of his Heart
She walked across the hall way, strewn with the fallen bodies of her down and beaten friends, each bearing the scars of a long fought battle. Her deep, hellishly violet mane flowed with eerie magics as she passed by each and every one of them.
Pinkie Pie, the mare who's sole purpose in the whole wide world was to bring joy to other ponies across the world, now weeping at the friend now lost and the scattered and shattered comrades surrounding her. Tears and sweat soaked her face as the pink mares broken psyche struggled to comprehend what had just happened.
Fluttershy, who's stare could pierce boulders was now shattered upon the cold stone, animals of every blood temperature, coat color and breed scattered asunder around her yellow body and wings.
Rainbow Dash, who's rainbow mane was now matted in blood and dirt. Her speed and skill was legendary through out the nation, but even the sonic rainboom that only she could perform was naught but a cheap parlor trick compared to what she could do now.
She turned to see her old best friend, Applejack, now laying unconscious against the aged grey of the ancient palace of the eternally old royal pony sisters. Even from that distance, she saw her arms and legs shattered in many places. Her eyes tilted upwards, the emerald swearing vengeance upon the mare that had defeated her, but her chances of delivering were not even slim to none. She would be lucky to ever walk again.
Twilight Sparkle, who had fallen last and had fallen hardest on the old pedestal of where the elements of harmony had rested once upon a time, her mauve coat releasing a small amount of smoke and soot coating her wings and mane. Her violet eyes burned with determination as she fought to understand how it was that she, student of Princess Celestia, had lost to her friend so easily. Her wings were disjointed and broken and her horn splintered around the room. A garden of scorch marks regaled the tale of their small war between goddesses.
It was hard fought, but eventually, the powers of darkness had won over the powers of good and righteousness. A small, satisfied smile crept upon the face of the nearly black, violet mare, now near the size of Celestia herself. Her blue eyes, like sapphires, beamed with a level of pride alien to even her and her enchanted mane of purple and white flowed in the night and the might of the Everfree wind.
Finally, she turned to the last one standing and took pause at his tenacity. A look not of hatred, but of determination gleamed within his green eyes. "Rarity," he said weakly, belaying any story of strength that his pupils would have wanted to tell. "Please. Stop."
"Why should I?" She began, her voice haughty and arrogant. The moonlight gleamed off her golden armor, befitting a pony of her new found power. "They would have abandoned me the first chance they came across!"
"Rarity-" He staggered closer, holding a millennia year old sword he'd found scattered to the floor of the castle of the Everfree in one claw and the red shattered remnants of something else in the other and the armor of the many long sense slain.
"For somepony who would have done nothing for them!" Her rage poured from her mouth, like the emotionally rabid mare that she was. Her cat like eyes continued to burn with an unheard of intensity. "After everything we've been through!"
"Please," Spike begged, moving one step closer every few seconds, hardly able to stand on his own two feet. "Listen."
"But you," she took on a now fox like grin, her mane wrapping itself around the young dragon. "You remain standing even after a so-called alicorn falls! You really think I can bring her back?"
"I do," he continued to stagger forth, power emanating from the mare he loved and that fueling him. "If it takes all of Equestria and the Princesses, I'll do it."
Her face became more grave. "But what is a Princess..." She let lose a mighty shock wave of darkness, laughing hysterically all the while. "TO A GODDESS?!"
The young dragon of violet and green was pushed back all the to the entrance of the court, the heavy and ancient oaken doors breaking several of his emerald spines, leaving the sword nearly where his journey to pain had begun, but still bearing the ruby red shards.
He coughed twice, a small measure of blood leaving his mouth. He smiled forcefully. "But what is a Goddess," her eyes widened before he finished. "To a non-believer?"
Her blue eyes flared once more as another shock wave of darkness was sent the way of the tiny hero. If not for his dragon skin, he almost certainly would have perished from that last attack, but for anything that could survive the molten center of the Equestrian core like his kind could, it was little more than a hard shove.
"Please, Spike," she mocked him and his tenacity, the small part of her that was still Rarity hoping he would stop. "What makes you think you of all could bring me down and defeat me?"
A blackish blue magic now enveloped the baby dragon, the darkness of the nightmare his one true love now stinging every open scratch and wound he'd taken on during the battle. Her mane rubbing beneath his scaly chin, he tried his hardest to move his head away, but it was all for naught.
"Do you not find me beautiful anymore," she made a duck face, the novelty contrasting starkly with the malicious aura and her predatory eyes. "Spikey Wikey? Am I not still your 'lady' in waiting?"
He looked back her with an emotional cocktail of fear, anger, love, hope and hatred. "I'd never abandon Rarity," tears began to from his eyes. "But... YOU!" He delivered a striking headbutt against the corrupted husk of the mare he loved. "ARE," another one followed, this time actually stunning her. "NOT!" She let go of him, now somewhat dazed at his assault. "RARITY!" And lastly, he let loose a torrent of emerald flames on her face.
"Gah!" She staggered back, dumbfounded not from the pain, but from the sheer surprise that the young dragon had it in himself to make an attack like that against her. "You... dare?!" She grabbed him once more with her magic, nightmarish tendrils reaching out and grabbing him by his head, arms, legs, tail and neck. "TO ATTACK ME?! THE MOST PRECIOUS THING YOU HAVE IN YOUR MISERABLE LITTLE LIFE?!"
He only stared back at her, his armor gathered from a hundred fallen, millennia old soldiers now coated in stark black soot or broken off, but even still, he held firm to the shards of ruby red in his right claw.
He gave no answer, only silence as her golden armor glared back into his soul, along with her heinous sapphire eyes. "It seems that even a knight can go back on his oaths," she began once more, noting his final act of defiance against her. "I will ask you one last time for the sake of what I am to you," she brought him closer to her own eye level just so he could see how dire his situation really was. "Join me as my own personal vassal and perhaps eventually consort," she shot a sadisticly sensuous smile at him. "And I will spare you."
"I will never abandon Rarity," he echoed one last time, boiling tears now streaming down his face, sadness and love now the dominant emotions in his mind. For one last instant, he gave the Nightmare one last look of sheer, unbridled defiance. "Ever."
"Then I have my answer," her voice, a darkened corruption of the element of generosity, declared, lifting him high into the sky of the long since abandoned castle. "Goodbye, my Spikey Wikey," she echoed, sending him through the stone ceiling as if he were shot from a cannon.
And in an instant, the baby dragon that had saved her from diamond dogs, the child had assisted so integrally against the darkness of King Sombra... was no more.
A single tear fled from the right, blue eye of the corrupted heroine. "I'm... sorry," she turned her back on what had happened, hoping to put the misdeed of her would-be champion. Suddenly, she heard shards striking the rocky floors of the dead palace.
She turned her head to see the scarlet remnants of a rather large gem. Her head held high, she moved closer to the fragments left behind by the small dragon child. Each step slow and methodical, she finally knelt over to see them.
Her blue, unholy magic lifted up each crimson piece and, for what seemed like hours, she occupied herself trying to reassemble broken gem. Finally, after an eternity of finding every last available combination, everything just seemed to click in the shape of a heart.
And then everything seemed to click into shape in her heart.
Every last memory she'd ever shared with Spike poured from the fire ruby and into her eyes, mind, soul and heart as a new surge of personal strength flooded the goddess mare's spirit.
A high pitched, resonating voice struck out from deep within her core, stirring emotions the nightmare had thought she'd left behind. Feeling a new wave of pain and sadness, the hellish mare collapsed to the floor, crumpled at the sudden realization of what she'd just done.
Dark smoke emanated from the mare she was, the nightmare she'd become. "No... I'm..." Tears flooded from her eyes, the salty liquid falling all over her face and matting her coat everywhere they crossed. "I'm sorry!"
"Nooo!" A deep voice, one in stark contrast to her own, rose up from her center as well. "There is no turning back, Rarity! Your friends are shattered! Your love is lost! You have destroyed everything that you have ever held dear to your heart!"
It's accusations pierced her soul and her spirit, broken but now still fighting. "You forced me too..."
"You could have stopped any time you wanted to," he continued on, his smoky appendage now rubbing her chin. "Face it, my dear. You wanted," the room began to shake, subtly at first. "This?"
"No," rage replaced the sadness in her mind. "I. Did. NOT!!!"
The court, made of solid stone, began to shake apart as if it were made of only the weakest tissue paper. "What is... You are a fool. Rarity! If Princess Luna could not resist us without the elements of harmony, what chance do you have against us?!"
"BECAUSE I AM AN ELEMENT OF HARMONY!" She shouted in her loudest possible voice, turning the tides against her internal turmoil, rage and tears now mixed together with her new found strength to create a near indomitable spirit. "AND YOU ARE A DECEIVER, A LIAR, A DESTROYER OF THE INNOCENT!"
Her body began to rise from the cold, stone floor, her eyes glowing a brilliant hue of blue and her entire body crackling at the sensation the power was giving her.
"You would not have killed him if you did not truly want-"
"ENOUGH!" She shouted, more and more of the tainting darkness leaving her. The shadows that had once enveloped her body began to depart the unicorn mare, slowly leaving behind the mare she once was and was always destined to become. "MURDERER! TODAY, YOU HAVE CLAIMED YOUR LAST INNOCENT!"
She screamed to the heavens, purging herself once and for all of the darkness that had taken her in a moment of devout weakness and sending them back to the Hell from whence they had come from.
Exhausted, a small, white unicorn mare fell to the floor, knowing what had been done. She knew that her friends would forgive her what she'd done tonight, but as she looked to and retrieved the fire ruby Spike had given her from the floor, she knew for a fact that she would never forgive herself.
As she crumpled once more on the ground, nestling the scarlet gem close to her breast, she began to weep.
Equestria had lost its greatest hero this night.
