After Equestria: The Crystal War

  V

Radiance

Radiance dozed off mid-way through the teleportation.

  She didn’t mean too, of course- in fact nopony had ever before fallen asleep during teleportation. But for some stupid reason as soon as Somepony yelled, ‘NOW!’ the world turned dark, an oddly comfortable feeling took hold. Like, when you’re dozing off to sleep in a warm, comfortable bed (though she had not slept in that kind of a bed in quite some time) and so a drowsy feeling that she had not felt all morning, suddenly overcame her.

‘Sleep, Child,’ a voice whispered in her ear. The voice was female, with a tone similar to one a mother uses when speaking to her young child. Except with this voice, Radiance got the feeling that if she disobeyed the mares orders, she would never wake up.

  Somepony was yelling something incomprehensible, several others were just screaming. Something was going on, Radiance was sure of this, but she couldn't bring herself to open her eyes.

Five more minutes, she promised herself, but then five minutes passed and she still made no attempt to awaken from her strange condition-partially asleep and partially awake.

‘You are weary,’ they voice sympathized. ‘Fighting a war you cannot win, why bother? Why do you fight this war, for your so-called, friends? Trust me child, you would be better off without them.’ The voice sounded beautiful, melodious almost heavenly, and the more she heard it, the more she agreed with it. ‘They will betray you at the earliest opportunity.’

Why should she bother? There was no point in life anyway, she would die eventually … why not die now?

‘Sleep, child, when you wake all your troubles with disappears. You will-‘

No. Radiance thought fear overcoming her. Shut up, you’re lying! You –you –you’re- then she realized what was happening; charmspeak, Radiance thought, defiance overcoming all her emotions.

‘Child don’t bother-‘

SHUT UP! Radiance screamed at the top of her voice, GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

The darkness vanished, and Radiance found herself falling a hundred feet from the sky.

~

“What the fu-?” Somepony screamed as they fell.

“RADIANCE, POWER-UP THE SPELL CELESTIA DAMN IT!” Eclipsed Star yelled from somewhere above her.

  Radiance shut her eyes concentrating; a buzzing feeling-like numbness-over took her horn.

“Na stamatí̱sei se kíni̱si̱!”Radiance screamed, her horn flared with light, tendrils of light engulfed her friends as well, slowing their descent.

Unfortunately, the spell didn’t hold. For about five minutes the eleven ponies –and a dragon- Slowed to a stop ten feet from the ground. Then the spell wore off, and they continued their descent.

“I HATE EQUESTRIA!” Somepony yelled.

“Na stamatí̱sei se kíni̱si̱!”Radiance said again, once more eleven ponies … and a dragon froze in mid-air, four feet from the ground. Then they fell and hit the ground.

“Ugh, I think I broke something,” Firestorm groaned, the others muttered or groaned in agreement.

  “Radiance,” Eclipsed Star said, looking concerned. “Are you alright? I mean, you've never … well, missed our destination during teleportation before.”

“I-”Radiance hesitated, “I don’t know …”

Firestorm narrowed his eyes. “You don’t seem so sure about that,” he said suspiciously.

“Back off,” Eclipsed Star snarled at Firestorm. “What are you saying huh? That Radiance is lying?”He demanded, sneering at Firestorm now.

  “Possibly,” Firestorm said, coolly.

    “And why in Tartarus would she do that?” Eclipsed growled, taking a step forward with the air of a pony who was about to attack Somepony he/she despise.

   Firestorm shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe she’s being affected by dark magic? That would explain why she-“

BAM!

Eclipsed Star slammed his hoof onto Firestorms face, the latter stumbled backwards nearly losing his footing.

  “Don’t ever talk about my friends like that!” Eclipsed Star growled. “You’re a stupid egoistic, selfish, narcissistic bastard! Why don’t you go-“

   Firestorm tackled him before Eclipsed Star could finish his rant.

  “TAKE THIS, AND THIS, AND SOME OF THIS!” Firestorm snarled pummeling Eclipsed with his hooves.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Radiance yelled, “stop! Apo̱thoún!”

A golden beam of energy erupted from her horn and stuck right in between the two unicorns, sending Firestorm flying off Eclipsed Star and the latter rolling away as if he’d been pushed.

  Radiance stepped in between them before they could get into another fight.

  “Lucky your gi-marefriend is here to save your ass,” Firestorm said, mockingly to Eclipsed Star.

   “At least I have friends,” Eclipsed Star snarled. “What about you?! You’re nothing but a pathetic loser with no friends,even you’re cutie-mark is stupid and useless! You’re nothing Firestorm!”

“Be quite, both of you!” Radiance snapped, though the two stallions ignored her and continued their fight.

  “Wow.” Firestorm said, neither his mocking tone nor his sneer faltered. “You’re judging me by a tattoo on my ass? Hey,” Firestorm paused for a moment, his sneer replaced by a thoughtful expression-before being replaced by a sneer, again. “Why are you looking at my ass? I know I’m hot but-“

“Shut up!” Eclipsed Star snapped, and then his horn flared with energy. BAM! A beam of dark-purple magic blasted Firestorm off his hooves and onto the dirt.

“Star!” Radiance said, shocked. “What the hell did you just do?!”

Eclipsed Star looked just as shocked and horrified as Radiance; he stared blankly at Firestorms unconscious body then turned to Radiance, before her was blasted off his feet by a bright blue beam of energy.

“My word!”

“What the hell?!”

“Hey, that wasn’t very nice!”

“What in tarnation?!”

“Wha-?”

“Take that, scumbag!” Firestorm snarled, spitting out a wad of blood from his mouth-maybe as a sign of disrespect and disgust at Eclipsed Star, maybe to clear his mouth of blood.

Eclipsed Star got to his feet, cussing like a sailor-pony; he growled them charged at Firestorm, who powered up his horn saying, “Oh, you want some more?”

“ENOUGH!” Somepony shouted, a purple force-field appeared, stopping the two headstrong stallions from killing each other. Twilight Sparkle stepped in between the stallion’s right next to Radiance. Despite the situation a spark of excitement went off inside her; she was standing next to the Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship!

   Twilight turned and scowled at Firestorm, anger radiating from her, a kind of primordial rage.

   “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?!” She yelled at Firestorm, who glared right back, panting, seemingly from rage. “WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS FIGHTING?! FIRST RAINBOW DASH AND NOW ECLIPSED STAR, WHAT IN TARTARUS IS YOUR –“

“Why don’t you just say it,” Firestorm said in strange disembodied voice that was not his, a strange hush fell upon the group. “You think I’m worthless, that my presences here is nothing but another obstacle that you and you’re little friends have to overcome. Isn’t that true, Twilight Sparkle?”

“No,” Twilight said quietly.

“Liar,” Firestorm hissed, his irises turned blood red and the whites of his eyes turned greens, and green mist was spewing out the corners of his eye. “I’m not a tool or a chess piece to be manipulated as you please!”

“Calm down man,” Andrew told him, trembling slightly.

“David, what-?” Spike began; trying to reason with Firestorm, but the latter ignored him. Suddenly, Firestorms eye color returned to normal and the green mist vanished.

“I’m done,” Firestorm said in his normal, voice, trembling with fury. “I’m done.”

  “If you try something-“Rainbow Dash began.

   “David don’t-“Spike was saying at the same time, but Firestorm ignored them. Radiance stared, half in awe half in shock, at the enraged stallion, whose horn was engulfed in blue aura.

  Then there was a flash of light, and he was gone.

~

  Radiance stared ahead, into the deep of the Everfree where –hopefully- they would find the Lunar Republic, thought at the moment it seemed highly unlikely that they would find anything but tress and stupid Manticores. They had been attacked so many times that, Radiance had honestly lost count. Thankfully though, no one died … yet. And now they were mid-way through crossing a swamp-Rarity didn't exactly seemed eager to walk into what she called, ‘a soup of dirt and disgust.’

  Eclipsed Star seemed to have fallen into shock and even days after Firestorm’s departure he was stoic and seemingly in shock. Eclipsed Star usually stood at the head of the ‘pack’ helping others as much as he could; now, it was up to Twilight and Radiance to make sure he didn’t get killed.

It was hard enough trying to use that magic trail to find the HQ of the Lunar Republic, but nooo, it had to be at the center of one of the most dangerous places in all of Equestria; The Everfree Forest.

Firestorms departure seemed to have sucked all the joy out of everypony, Pinkie Pie became moody and depressed, Sunset Shimmer took her place, trying to cheer up everypony to no avail. Twilight become distracted and angry-Radiance guessed it was because Twilight thought she was partly the reason Firestorm had ran off.

Rainbow Dash become even more reckless and became easily agitated for little while, before cooling down. Once Rainbow-Radiance still thought calling one the saviors of Equestria by her first name was weird-had cooled down she was determined to make sure they all made it to safety. And Andrew seemed slightly relieved that Firestorm was gone, and he also seemed to feel guilty because of that. Truth be told, Radiance thought that Andrew –what strange name, Radiance thought – was a little afraid of Firestorm. But why? Radiance thought, what happened to make this poor colt-

  “CRAGIDIAL!” Twilight yelled snapping Radiance out of her stupor. A ten-meter Cragidial with three-inch claws and a tail nearly as wide as Radiance's chest, leaped out of the water.

  “RAAA!” The Cragidial roared, leaping out the swampy water, straight for Applejack.

  For a terrible moment Radiance thought the Bearer of Honesty was dead, however, Applejack kicked off the ground, striking the Cragidial's nape for extra momentum. The rock-covered beast hissed and snarled as it rose from the scummy swamp water once again, its tail thrashing, sending waves rippling outwards

“TAKE THIS!” Rainbow Dash yelled, diving at the Cragidial, and then kicking in the snout when it tried to bite her hoof.

  “HARAGHH!” The beast roared, showing off its incredibly large teeth, the biggest was half the size of her hoof.  A purple beam of energy struck the beast, it recoiled, pausing for a brief second in which Rainbow Dash managed to get out the Cragidial’s range.

Another beam of energy-this one dark purple- struck the reptile as well; unfortunately this one didn't have the same effect, only leading to the beast turning its attention to the caster; Eclipsed Star.

  Snarling the beast charged at Eclipsed Star with surprising speed, and yet Eclipsed Star made no movement to evade the seven ton reptile that was barreling his way.

Radiance yelled, “NO! Aió̱nia fo̱tiá!”

A massive wave of bright blue flames lit up the night, the flames engulfed the Cragidial, which roared in pain, backing away from Eclipsed star-who stumbled backwards and landed on his rump.

For a moment, Radiance felt pretty proud of herself, then the Cragidial dove into the shallow swamp in a last ditch attempt to extinguish the flames. To Radiances horror the lake caught on flames.

Stupid!  Radiance chastised herself, hadn’t she learned that everlasting fire could only be put off by one spell? Think! Think, what was that spell?

“Antístrofo!” Somepony screamed, a torrent of air erupted from Radiances left, extinguishing the flames.

“RADIANCE!” A familiar voice yelled, “wha’ th’ hay were you thinkin’?!”

Radiance wheeled around to face the sound of the voice, she couldn’t believe her eyes; running towards her, was Big McIntosh.

Big Mac stopped abruptly with a strangled gasp, “Applejack?”

“Er … righ’, that’s me!” Applejack said, nervously crossing her left leg over her right.

Lyra ran up next to him, her hard eyes wide with shock. “The Savior Six,” she whispered.

Radiance couldn't even imagine what her leader was thinking at the moment, of all these … bizarre occurrences, this one definitely takes the cake.

Big Mac ran toward Applejack and wrapped his hooves around her neck,

“ah can’t believe yer okay,” Big Mac was saying, sobbing as he did.

“Uh, well, ah am so … no need ter fret …” Applejack said awkwardly, patting Big McIntosh on the back.

Lyra turned to Eclipsed Star and Radiance, her facial features still expressing shock. “Eclipse, Radiance, wha-?” She trailed off, shaking her head as if the question was too difficult to say.

“We’ll tell you later,” Radiance promised her.

“Yeah, it’s a pretty long story,” Eclipsed Star said, a faint smile gracing his face.

Lyra peered at Radiance for what seemed like eternity, her amber eyes searching for any form of deception in Radiance yellow ones.

“Alright,” Lyra said after awhile. “Let’s go.”