Violet Magica - The Arrow of Light

“So... you knew of that witch before, right?” Rose looked up at Violet, her steps unsure. Violet looked over the side of the bridge with her usual cold stare, watching the rising flow of the Kami river as she led Rose onward. It had been a day since Amber's passing, so her death was still all that Rose could talk of.

“I have studied the witches for a very long time. The aura of this one felt very unusual to me when I entered its realm.”

“Then maybe Amber felt it as well...”

“She didn't.” Violet immediately answered right as Rose had uttered her last word. “Despite her experience in the world of Sorceresses she did not have the ability to sense a witch's potential by studying their aura.”

Violet took a glance behind her. Rose had stopped in her tracks, staring at the cement floor of the bridge, pupils vibrating.

“You tried to save her, Violet... but she didn't trust you... she wouldn't listen...”

Violet slightly raised her voice while still maintaining her solemn tone. “She made up her mind and it was not within our power to change that.” Violet streaked through her mane, making it flow like a wave for a second. “So, do you still intend on becoming a Sorceress?”

Rose didn't react, her mind still stuck on other matters. “Is it true that no pony will ever find out what happened to her? No pony will wonder where she went or be able to find her?”

Violet looked over the side again, letting out a sigh. “When a witch is defeated the barrier bound to its magic will collapse, taking every trace of the witch with it. However, it also has the side effect of swallowing up any leftover body parts, dropped items, blood stains, anything that is not needed anymore and does not have the power to break free of the dying monster's magic. Spirit was fully aware of such implications when she went into battle. This is the end of a Sorceress. And no, the world will not notice she has left. She had no close relatives and hardly any friends besides other Sorceresses. Based on her not appearing to school anymore she will only be a missing case, never to be resolved.”

“...I won't forget her...”

“Huh?” Violet turned towards Rose, who slowly lifted her head up from the floor.

“If the world will not remember Amber, then I will! I will never forget what she did for us, how she put her life on the line to protect us and what she has taught us. I will not let her name be lost!”

Violet scoffed. She knew better. “I'm sure she would be proud to hear these words. She must have been truly blessed to have had a friend like you.”

Turning her head away, Violet got ready to leave.

“I will remember you too, Violet!”

Immediately turning around, Violet engaged in a focused eye-contact with Rose. Her stare almost burned through Rose's vision and threatened to pierce right through her. She had to put on a stare to keep her welling emotions intact.

“The way you jumped in there and saved us from that witch, I will never forget that! Even if you leave us or something happens to you I will always remember you!”

For a few moments, Violet's gaze bored even deeper into Rose's face, until she turned around once more and galloped away.

As Violet disappeared on the horizon, a singular tear soared through the air.

***

The covetous witch: the next on the list. This witch's pattern had proven to be quite interesting in past time-lines. It would try to find a big group of ponies and lead them to a secluded area, where it would pull them into their barrier and consume them. However, it didn't appear on every time-line, unless Violet had missed its existence due to the way it stalks its prey.

To track down this witch Violet devised a plan to oscillate between all the places that had shown to be suitable for the witch's barrier while looking out for big groups of ponies moving in unison on the way. If she started this when the witch appeared her chances of finding it before it could take the souls of its prey would be pretty high.

However, there was one thing she had not accounted for: when she arrived at the witch's barrier, it was already fading before her eyes, a teal-coated pony coming into her sight between the blurred lines of the washed up remains of the witch's magic. Rose was standing at her side.

“Marina... so I see you have become a Sorceress as well?”

Azure tried to catch her breath as she struggled to remain in a standing position. “You... you are late... You are lucky that I was here, or else all of these ponies...” she gestured towards a crowd of ponies, lying unconscious on the floor of an old warehouse, “would have been dead before long.”

“I would have been here soon enough, trust me.” Violet subtly puffed her chest out.

“Trust you?” She glanced over at a spot next to her, searching for an invisible being. “You tried to kill Kiubee, you stood up against Amber! She had no reason to trust you, and neither do I!”

Rose approached Azure from the side. “Azure, I don't like seeing you get beat up like that, can't we fight together with Violet? We should all be holding together if we are up against such terrible things...”

“What do you know?” Azure scoffed.

Violet inspected Rose. “So... you have kept to it then and have not become a Sorceress, Rose? At least I was able to save one of you two...”

Shouting at her, Azure rushed over towards Violet. “Hey, hold on a minute, what gives you the right to–”

Time Lock! Time Release!

Violet suddenly stood right in front of Azure's face, making her stop dead in her tracks. “No, youhold on a minute. Do you think you can prance around here like the big hero? The one who gives herself up to defend ponykind? I didn't think I would have to ask this: do you have any idea what you have just signed up for? I thought seeing how all of this had worked out for Spirit would make you reconsider, yet you still insist on throwing your life away? For what? For something that I could have done myself anyway? Something that I was about to resolve? You know nothing!” Violet moved so close to Azure's face that she almost touched it, yet Azure did not flinch.

“I am different, Violet. I will not make the same mistakes that Amber did, nor will I become as misguided as you have become! There is no way I will ever regret what I have done! Now get out of my sight!”

Violet 'teleported' out of sight again. “...So be it then.”

***

With Amber's death and Azure's contract the following events were steered into a certain direction. On this road however, many different forks in the path still proved to be unclear, only the general course of which things would happen next, which events would no longer be an option or how some ponies would react to others in this cycle had been set to an initial state. This allowed Violet to consider her future actions and pull up different strategies and plans, which she learned to devise in past time-lines.

When Azure and Crimson met for the first time once more, with a still non-Sorceress Rose, one of these strategies was put to action.

While Azure was patrolling the city with Rose, Crimson appeared and got into a fight with Azure. After Azure got beaten up, Violet jumped in to put an end to the fight and told Crimson to back off or she would have to interfere again. Crimson obliged and they parted ways for that day.

This was the setup Violet was looking for.

Crimson took a bite of an apple as she trotted through the streets of the Kamino suburbs. On her back she balanced a bag full of fresh apples, swaying from side to side, always an inch away from toppling over but still maintaining its balance.

She tried to take another bite but was interrupted by an almost silent voice. “Come over here.” She took a closer look at the apple and held it next to her ear, listening closely. “What exactly do you think you are doing Phantasma? Over here, on the other side of the wall.”

Crimson leaned over the side of the wall and discovered a familiar pony on the other side. At first, hopping over the wall looked like a great idea, but as the bag of apples began to soar through the air and scattered a bunch of apples on the grass, the idea did not seem that great anymore.

“You are more of a klutz than I remember you. You know you can use your invisible pouch in public too, if you disguise the motions well enough.”

Crimson looked up at Violet glaring at her. “You again! You interrupted my fight with that little newbie the other day! How do you know me?”

Violet streaked through her hair and let it soar in the wind for a second. “Actually, that is not very important right now. Let's say I have seen you before, but you haven't seen me. Maybe you should observe your surroundings better next time. Especially, when you grab yourselves more of these.” She pointed at the apples on the ground.

“Pah! No pony else saw me, they never have for months now! But you being the first one to see me do it must mean that you are quite the special one... Why are you here?”

Violet focused her eyes. “In about two weeks a horrible witch will come to this city, a witch that outrivals anything you have ever witnessed. It is too much for a single Sorceress to take out on her own, so I ask for your assistance, Phantasma.”

“Ha! You know how to grab my attention! Why not, but I thought you already had your partner in that other one? Are you trying to fool me?”

Violet subtly shook her head. “Marina's fighting prowess is practically zero. She is inexperienced and reckless. She throws herself into any fight without thinking about it, and her magic only complements her uselessness. No, what I need is an experienced veteran, a battle-hardened fighter who rises above her enemies and can even defeat them without even using their illusion magic. Though I'm sure you would love to use it, wouldn't you?”

Crimson's eyes grew enormous upon hearing that question, accompanied by an instinctive flashing of her fangs. “Are you joking me?”

Something appeared on Violet's face that she had been missing for a few days. A grin. “I have my—yellow-coated—sources.”

“...Amber...” Crimson gritted her teeth even harder.

“You have rejected your wish after it had already come into effect, after it had fulfilled its purpose. Surely you know that a Sorceress's magic stands in direct connection to her wish. Our powers are fueled by our wish and take their shape accordingly. But you threw that all away, you could not bear to fight under the banner of such a wish. You have inadvertently cursed yourself and destroyed the majority of your magical capabilities. You are lucky that your wish had already come to fulfillment, abandoning a wish that has yet to take its full effect would probably have disastrous consequences attached to it. You are luckier still, that you didn't lose your entire magic, you can still regenerate your body or conjure your weapon and levitate it, but the ability to create... what was it again?”

“Illusions, phantasms, clones, whatever you want to call it. It worked with my own body, my weapon, and anything else I could get my hooves on.” Crimson's sparkle in her eyes did not go unnoticed.

“You see, despite losing such an incredible ability you have adapted. You have shifted your battle style and refused to give up. After all that you have been through you managed to grow into a formidable foe, one of the strongest I have ever faced. And I need somepony with exactly that sort of attitude and potential to fight that ginormous witch with me.”

“Ha, you are smearing so much honey around my snout I can almost taste it! Ah what the heck, count me in!”

Crimson extended her hoof, waiting for a hoofshake.

“One more thing, Phantasma.”

Crimson bent her hoof, unsure whether to retreat it or not.

“That other Sorceress, Azure Marina, you need to stay off her. I will deal with her myself, understood?”

Fully retreating her hoof, Crimson smirked. “Sure, why not.”

***

Despite Violet's warnings, Crimson had yet again confronted Azure and challenged her to a fight. As their confrontation was witnessed by Rose, she ran between them and tossed Azure's Soul Gem into the Kami river, where it was retrieved by Violet after Rose and Crimson had a good look at the soulless body of Azure.

In all her travels, her empathy for Rose had never wavered, yet she had begun to despise herself in these situations. The yearning to protect Rose no matter the cost and her desire for Rose to be happy clashed each time they met and caused a violet storm of emotions within her that she fought to suppress. Her stoic look was not out of choice.

“Violet... thank you for meeting me here,” Rose said while looking down at the table.

“I had nothing better to do.” Violet was seated opposite of her, supporting her head with a hoof on the table and eating ice-cream with the other.

Usually a place for meet-ups of a different constellation, this time the ice-cream parlor became the host of a meeting between Violet and Rose.

After the events of Azure's and Crimson's confrontation had ended, Crimson had apologized and retreated. To Violet's dismay, before Azure's Soul Gem was tossed, Crimson had already seemed to have developed a liking for teasing Azure. After Azure's lifeless body hit the floor and during her apology, Violet had wondered if Crimson had already been tainted.

After Azure came to again, Rose and Violet escorted her home, where she took her rest, while Rose urged for Violet to join her at the ice-cream parlor right away, even though it would soon be closing.

“It's really nice here... I especially like the vanilla flavor, it's very... light and soft.” Rose's voice still quivered, though she was at least able to produce mostly normal sentences now.

“I instead chose the Stracciatela, because–” Violet tried for once to sound normal, but looking at Rose's uneasy face she found it hard to continue. “I'm sorry I couldn't help sooner.”

Rose slightly shook her head “It's alright, Violet, I'm glad you were there to save Azure at all. I might never have been able to forgive myself, if she–”

“Things like that happen sometimes. You don't have to beat yourself up over it. It's yet another way we Sorceresses have to pay for the miracles granted to us.”

“But how can you say that? Crimson and Azure were terrified when they found out what was going on, but you act like it's natural!” Rose's voice quivered with emotions in every word.

“I have seen this happen often enough, and I have known about it for quite some time. There is no use for me to fear it anymore. I have to move on and focus on what's ahead. Besides, if I can spare you from having to go through such terrors with your own body, then I'm content on having saved at least one pony. I am sorry I could not stop Marina from becoming a Sorceress.”

Rose sat in silence for a minute, stirring the slowly melting mush of Vanilla in front of her.

Violet glanced out the window. The sun had just set, and their meeting would end soon. Even though it was under such circumstances, Violet relished every second she could be with Rose, even if she stayed tough to achieve her goal.

“There must be something we can do... You know so much about Sorceresses, surely there is way for her to turn back? Become a normal pony again?”

“There is none. Nothing short of a miracle could do that. And those would only then be followed by yet another curse.” By this time, Violet was about done with her ice-cream. She wouldn't want any ice-cream go to waste while sitting at a table with Rose. Even though Rose herself seemed to not be very interested in her own ice-cream.

“Then we must support her as much as we can! When we walked her home, I had never seen her so depressed before... And how eager she was to fight all those witches and Crimson... I'm worried something terrible might happen to her...”

“Marina... is going down a path that I can't dissuade her from. Even you won't be able to. She became a Sorceress on a whim, not knowing the full extent of her contract. And even if she did, with the zeal she inherited from Spirit, she would have probably chosen to walk this path still. Kiubee might have deemed Marina worthy of a Sorceress, but I would have never allowed her to make that contract. She might have met the requirements to become a Sorceress, but not the qualifications. In this field of work, even the best ponies often don't make it very long. As for someone like Marina...”

Rose stared at the desk again, her eyes slowly watering.

“...give up on her.”

***

“So, this is your house, Violet? It's er... pretty cool!” Probably the greatest understatement to ever come out of Crimson's mouth. Violet's abode failed to even look like a house from the inside. Instead, it looked like a Sorceress version of a barrier.

“You see, Phantasma, I took a page out of the witch's books and created my own realm in the confines of my home.” Violet drew a wide lying circle in the air. “The first step was to project my magic along the walls of this room—which used to be the living room—and use it to create the illusion of a vast space where there is none.”

Crimson looked around herself. Where there should be walls was instead a seemingly endless world of bright white nothingness. It felt like they were standing in the middle of a ginormous pearl white plane in nirvana, no noticeable sort of landscape in the distance. The only objects in this realm were a strange round table, circular benches placed around the table, floating portraits and diagrams at about the place where the walls should be, and a giant apparatus with spinning gears a few meters above the table, which rose up skywards into the infinite.

This room provided the perfect answer to a problem Violet had faced herself with in her travels: “How do I transport all the information I gather from one time-line to the next?” The solution: connect everything she came to know to an ethereal space that she can re-create at whim. So she created a room within her mind and her mind within her room.

Turning around, Crimson noticed the door behind her shut and vanish instantaneously.

“I have taken a few liberties to create a space suitable to my liking, but don't try to pay too much attention to the purely visual details here. Instead, we should–”

While Crimson was still looking around the room in amazement, she randomly talked without paying attention to Violet. “Oh by the way, I couldn't mention it yet, but I'm sorry. I kind of got carried away and went after Azure again, I just couldn't stop myself you know? She is so naive and brash, all while spouting all these big words...”

“And so you invited her over to have a chat with her earlier today?”

“How even–”

“Listen, Phantasma. That pony is doomed, and you know that. Don't get too close to her, you will only regret it. You don't want to end up like Spirit.”

Crimson did not respond.

“Anyway, focus on this instead.” She walked towards the table and pointed at a map of Kamino city that was laid out there. Levitating a pen, she drew on the map. “The witch—or Walpurgisnacht as it's called—will appear over here, right above the park. From here it will fly eastwards, towards the suburbs. I can only guess that its first instinct is to search for prey, and the suburbs are the closest concentration of ponies to the park.”

Crimson, still confused by her surroundings slowly waved her hoof in the air as she tilted her head sideways. “How exactly do you know all that? I have never even heard of such a witch and yet...” She took a few glances around herself. The floating portraits showed depictions of witches, some of which Crimson had fought herself or watched Azure fight, and others who she never encountered herself. Along with them were verses in a strange language, and diagrams that seemed of almost random nature and did not allow for Crimson to gather any useful information other than one bar being slightly longer than another one. “Yet you seem to know so much about the witches and this Walpurgisnacht...”

Violet's serious expression and tone did not waver. “I have gathered all my information from statistics. This is nothing that should concern you.”

“I too would like to know where you have gotten that information from.” Violet's eyes widened, Crimson turned around immediately.

“Kiubee, what do you want here? You are not welcome here!” Crimson pointed at Kiubee.

“You see, Violet, I have watched you lately. Your actions are quite interesting... Irregulars are quite rare, yet not the worst of my problems. However, you seem more irregular still... You knew what witches would appear, where they would appear. You have tried your hardest to stop me from contracting Rose Daybreak, the pony with the greatest potential I have ever come across, without even possibly knowing my intentions. What exactly are you trying to do here?”

“I have nothing to say to you.” Violet did not move her body from the table and merely threw an off-hooved glance at him.

“You heard her! Get out!”

Kiubee waggled his tail. “Have it your way. But before I leave, are you sure you don't want to hear what I have to say about Azure Marina?”

Violet appeared agitated for a second and had to hold herself back from bursting out and saying something unwise.

“So, what will you do now if I told you that Azure's curse is growing faster than expected and that she will prove to be a 'problem' before that Walpurgisnacht arrives?”

With a sudden flinch and without words, Violet immediately rushed past Crimson towards the materializing door and slammed it open, galloping out.