The Withering Cherry Blossom
“SAYAKA!” Kyoko, battered and bleeding, screamed as the azure, Mermaid-like Witch, Oktavia Von Seckendorf, squeezed the consciousness out of the pink pig-tailed girl, Madoka, in her giant, armored fist. With the demented symphony of the Witch’s Labyrinth trying to drown out her thoughts, the crimson Magical Girl instantaneously gripped her long spear, lunged upward and severed the hand at the wrist, causing cobalt ‘blood’ to flood and drench the girl.
“Come on!” Kyoko shouted through the deluge, “You told me you were believed in your power! You said you were only gonna use it to help people, remember?!”
The Witch merely growled monstrously as it brought down a colossally heavy blade, striking the floor of the labyrinth with enough force to completely shatter it. With the combined weight of the girls and the Witch, the ground of the corrupt concert hall collapsed beneath them.
Now, with everyone plummeting head first to the next floor below them, time seemed to slow as images from Kyoko’s life flashed before her eyes.
…This is it, she thought, Magical Girls really can’t go back after becoming Witches… It’s over…
With tears escaping her eyes and flying upward as gravity forced her downward, she mumbled aloud, “Hey God, if you’re there, my life sucked… so, for once, please?” She choked, “Let me have a happy dream…”
After the deranged orchestra played its final notes, Kyoko’s body convulsed in pain as she hit the floor with a resounding thud, followed by the clanging of her spear. Breathing heavily, she pulled herself into a sitting position and looked to see where Madoka had landed.
She sighed in relief to see that she had been caught by the mysterious, black-haired Magical Girl, Homura Akemi. She laughed a little. She didn’t exactly trust Akemi, but the girl did have a good sense of when to show up from out of nowhere.
“Kyoko...!” Homura spoke worriedly as Kyoko’s spear disintegrated into purple flames.
With deep cuts and mortal scars marring her body and her scarlet dress torn and tattered, the crimson Magical Girl painfully struggled to stand up. She breathed, “Yo… How’s it hangin’…?”
“Are you…?” The raven-haired girl inquired.
Kyoko chuckled again, “Me and my stupid ideas… She shouldn’t have come… Take care of her, alright?”
Homura gasped and tried to retort, but Kyoko quickly turned and cut her off, “Ya can’t fight and carry her! You’ll get us both killed…” She gave a small smile, “Nah, it’s okay… you were right after all.”
Kyoko felt magic her diminishing. There wasn’t much left. What she did have, she was gonna give it all for a last-ditch effort to end this. As warm blood dripped form her now-limp right arm and her legs began to shake, she courageously turned to face Oktavia, using a portion of her remaining power to cast magical barrier to protect Homura and Madoka.
She grimaced in pain as she choked, “You gotta focus on the one thing that matters most, ya hear? You gotta focus on the one thing that matters most and protect it to the end.” She chuckled as she ripped the bow from her hair and flung her cross-shaped barrette into the air, releasing her long ponytail, “Heh… That’s kinda funny… This whole time, that’s exactly what I thought I was doing…”
Catching the barrette, she fell to a praying position. As she tapped into the last of her magic, she erupted into a blaze of indigo flames as her spear had done. She commanded, “Get outta here. I’ll take care of Sayaka.”
As giant, pillar-like spears broke through and shot up through the ground, Homura nodded and fled with Madoka in her arms.
As one spear emerged from under Kyoko and brought her up to eye level with the incarnation of sorrow, the girl consoled, “Sayaka, it sucks to be alone… believe me, I know…” She gave a small grin, “But it’s okay now… ‘cause I’m here with you…”
Attaching her magic-drained Soul Gem to her barrette, she kissed it and chucked it at Oktavia. Her spear appeared in her hands once again. Charging up for one last attack, her purple flames burned more intensely. A contented smirk stretched across her face and her vision went to black as an explosion started erupting right between the two.
* * * * *
“Hey, Twilight! This is crazy! You gotta check this out!” Spike the dragon leapt from his cozy bed and clambered down the wooden steps from the loft of Golden Oaks library, carrying a book he found particularly intriguing.
Twilight turned from reorganizing the library books and giggled, “Oh, what is it, Spike?”
With a beaming grin, he showed her a page from ‘A Certain Magical Index: An Intermediate’s Guide to All Things Magic’ by Starswirl the Bearded and exclaimed, “Did you know that all magic is interwoven and can be felt by everyone if it’s strong enough?”
The Alicorn giggled again, remembering how intensely she’s studied that particular book at least a hundred times, “Yes, it’s called the ‘Magic Equilibrium’. But that’s just a theory, Spike. Starswirl could only hypothesize that only the most gifted of unicorns and alicorns were able to feel it and there’s never ACTUALLY been a strong enough magic to test it. The closest we’ve come to seeing anything similar would be Pinkie Pie’s ‘Pinkie Sense’, and I hardly think that that could be considered actual magic.” She paused, then raised a confused eyebrow, “…Why you even reading that book anyways, Spike? I thought you were more into the comics and stuff.”
The dragon let his claws go limp as he squinted and deadpanned, “Don’t underestimate the power of boredom, Twilight. It’s very dangerous.”
Twilight shook her head and chuckled, “Well, if you’re THAT bored, I’m sure I’ve got some chores-“
“NOPE!” Spike gasped and interrupted, “No, I’m good! Got me a nice book, a cozy bed to read said book, and I’m set!”
At least happy that Spike had taken a liking to reading—despite the cause—, Twilight rubbed his head with her wing and smiled, “Well, okay Spike. If you find anything else interesting, just let me know!”
He grinned, “Will do!” Then, he furrowed his brow, “Hey, Twi, why are ya casting a spell now of all times?”
“What?” Twilight asked, crossing her eyes to look up at her horn, “I’m not—“
Her jaw dropped as her horn emanated a purple aura.
A purple aura she was not in command of.
Just then, a small tingle tickled in her chest. As seconds passed, tingle grew painful, eventually causing her to double over and topple to the wooden floor in agony.
“What’s wrong?!” Spike called worriedly.
“I… don’t… know!” Twilight painfully replied, trying to hold back her tears.
As the pain became unbearable, the Alicorn screamed and her vision went white.
Immediately, the wooden floor under her changed to what felt like cold steel. With the pain in her chest gone and her vision returned, she noted that she wasn’t in Golden Oaks Library, but rather, what appeared to be a pillar in some form of crazy looking auditorium of sorts.
Placed her hoof over her mouth and mumbled, “That was some crazy magical energy… Where did it come from? Did I use a teleportation spell to put it at ease?” She looked to her hooves and gasped, “Am I… standing on a giant spear?!”
After looking around some more, she immediately got her answer. Her ears dropped to her head and her pupils shrank in fear as she discovered what seemed to be a giant mermaid creature facing a smaller creature burning in indigo flames at the tip of the spearhead. She recognized the smaller being as a human from her time in Cantorlot High. She could tell that the human and the mermaid were fighting. And the human was losing.
Trembling in fear, the Alicorn stuttered, “W-What’s g-going on?”
Then, the rumbling of an imminent explosion caused her to jump and panic, “OHNOHONOOHNO! NOT GOOD! NOT GOOD! NOT GOOD!”
As the explosion started, she gasped, “The human won’t survive that!”
Without further thought, she dashed over to the spearhead and placed her hoof through the flames onto the human’s back. To her surprise, the flames weren’t hot, but instead were made of magic! The flames themselves did something that surprised her even more. They oscillated from the human and into Twilight’s horn. With immense power now flowing in her, Twilight’s eyes went white as she powered up another teleportation spell, casting it just as the blast nearly devoured over them.
When her vision returned once again, she sighed in relief to see the wooden floor of Golden Oaks library, now with human girl in a crimson, tattered dress collapsed and unconscious in the middle of it.
“…What did you just do?!” Spike stared in disbelief.
Twilight blinked and chuckled, “Apparently, I just proved Starswirl the Bearded’s theory as truth while rescuing a human girl from certain death.”
Spike calmed down a bit and deadpanned again, “So, basically, the usual.”
Twilight nodded and grinned, “Pretty much.”
“So,” Spike scratched his chin and stared at the beaten and battered human, “What up with him?”
“It’s a ‘her’, Spike,” Twilight frowned and corrected, “I know it’s one of those human creatures from when I went to Cantorlot High about a year ago, but this one’s different, and I don’t know why…” She levitated the girl onto her back and grunted, “Help me get her into a good resting place. She’s badly wounded.”
Spike nodded, ran to her side and lifted up the girl’s scarlet boots so her feet wouldn’t drag on the ground, “What happened to her?”
Laying the girl on a nearby couch, Twilight then levitated a blanket and wrapped up the crippled human, “I don’t know. I think she was fighting a monster, and giving a last-ditch effort... I think she was about to die.”
“It’s a good thing you saved her then, huh?” Spike stared at the crimson-haired girl’s gashed and torn face, “She doesn’t look too good…” Then something glimmering caught his eye back to where the girl was collapsed. He gasped as his mouth watered, “Oh man! It’s a Ruby! I loved Rubies!”
He jogged over and reached down for the cracked, scarlet gem that seemed to be on the verge of breaking. After picking it up, it burned his claw and he dropped it instantly, shooting his pained appendage into his mouth to salve it, “OWOWOWOW! HOT! HOT! HOT! That burns…”
Twilight gasped, feeling intense magic radiating from the gem, “That must have been the epicenter for the explosion!” she cast a protective stasis shield bubble around the Ruby and levitated towards her, “I must have teleported it with me by mistake…” she grimaced as she stared into the shield at the gem, glowing blazingly hot, “I think it’s still trying to explode too… and I only slowed it down…”
“The epi-whatty for the whosenow?” Spike asked, mouthful of claw.
She glared at him and ordered, “Spike, don’t touch this gem anymore. It’s very dangerous, and I don’t want to risk having the stasis shield drop.”
He shrugged, “Alright, Ms. Brainy Pants. I’m just gonna go back to reading my book. Tell me if that girl wakes up. I wanna meet her.” As he stepped up the stairs, he muttered quietly, “Jeez… I just wanted to eat a Ruby… Didn’t have to get so huffy…”
Twilight rolled her eyes and called, “I heard that,” she sighed as she shifted her gaze to the girl sleeping on the couch, “I do hope you’re okay, though…”
