Violet Magica - The Arrow of Light

On the outskirts of Kamino laid relics of ancient villages. The overgrown remnants of a great watchtower stood among those. Even though the tooth of time slowly gnawed away at its facade, it still rose to a considerable height.

As the trio approached the tower, it didn't take them long to notice that atop the tower stood a solitary pony, leaning over the edge. Her silken mane drifted in the winds above the abyss. Violet tried her hardest to confirm it, but from the base of the tower it almost seemed like the pony smiled. A smile that bore itself into her mind.

Violet panicked. She turned towards Rose and shook her, but noticed she only caused the troubled look on Rose's face to intensify. “Daybreak, we need to do something! She might–”

With one small hop the pony tossed her body off the edge and hurtled towards the ground. Violet and Rose let out a sharp shriek while covering their mouths with their hooves. Even before the pony landed, Violet had already concocted every possible image the dead pony would paint. She could not stop painting these, even if her mind screamed at her to do something, anything. She had resigned herself.

A few meters before the ground, the falling body somehow decelerated in its descend. Sparkling ribbons of extreme length materialized in mid-air, forming a haphazard safety net. With this, the pony slowed down just enough that when it reached the ground it had completely lost all its momentum and with the ribbons disappearing, landed smoothly.

Violet swung her head around and noticed Amber, once again sporting a horn, the gem attached to it radiating with a golden glimmer which engulfed the rest of the horn. The glow stopped momentarily as she galloped over to the pony lying on the ground. Violet and Rose followed her.

Amber took a closer look at what she found. “It's okay, she's just unconscious. She must have been controlled by the witch.”

Rose immediately jumped at Amber, wildly flailing her hooves around. “That was amazing, Amber!”

Amber finally cracked a smile. “Thank you, Rose. But next time, how about you lend me a hoof instead of just staring?” Rose quickly averted her face while biting her lip.

“Erm, Spirit?” Violet approached Amber. “That horn... Why do you need that?”

“Well, the horn is quite important actually. It allows us to amplify the magic of our Soul Gems and focus it on whatever spell we are trying to use. I shouldn't really call them 'spells' though, since we use magic in a flexible way. Unlike some fictional stories about wizards and sorcerers you might have read, we don't really use set-in-stone spells that you could read up in a book, we have certain abilities and ways to use magic, and apply them to our needs on the fly.”

Having made sure the civilian pony was okay for now, the three entered the tower. As expected, it only consisted of scattered pieces of stone that were once part of the building, overgrown by the rampant nature. The subtle smell of flowers mixed with the sound of birds chirping and the sight of a peaceful ruin had a strangely relaxing influence on Violet.

Amber's Soul Gem now glowed even brighter than before, giving off an audible humming noise. Lowering her head and pointing her horn forwards, she shot a small burst of energy that bounced against an invisible wall in the center of the room. Incomprehensible scribblings and foreign runes formed in mid-air, until they almost completely covered the invisible wall. Bolts of crackling red lightning shot across its surface and tore a hole into it, destroying some of the runes.

Instinctively, Violet had buried her head in the grass when the sound of rolling thunder boomed through the tower, but she at least managed to watch with one eye. The recent events did take a toll on Violet's fitness, which she noticed: she could feel a little sting in her heart, yet it was not enough to cause concern just yet.

Rose pointed towards the strange array of magic. “This gateway will lead us into the witch's lair. Even though we can make for the exit at any time I want to make sure: do you still want to come along? You can turn around at any point if you want to.”

Violet gulped while looking ahead. The runes floating in front of her whirred with a deep hum. Strangely, they also smelled faintly of rot. For a moment, while there was silence, Violet felt dwarfed by the display of magic in front of her. Any second, an unseen threat could attack her and she would be defenseless if she was by herself. “We are gonna make it aren't we? You do this all the time right?”

Rose raised her usual smile once again. “Usually Sorceresses hunt witches on their own, but we even have two of them, one of which is a seasoned veteran. And we also have you to cheer us on! With all of this, we have plenty of things to fall back on, should anything go wrong.” She grabbed Violet's hoof. “If everything goes as planned, the barrier will crumble around us and we will find ourselves back out here.”

Raising her hoof into the air Rose shouted: “Okay everypony here we go! Today we will make Komaria one witch safer for ponykind!” With one small leap Amber traversed the gateway, momentarily disappearing behind the runes. Violet tried to shout for her, but was instead dragged by Rose into the gateway.

The other side of the gateway provided a look of similar impossible nature to the barrier Violet had already found herself in before. Turning around, no immediate way back out could be seen anymore. Instead, the trio stood on a lengthy bridge towering over a great chasm that reached into an impenetrable darkness. The chasm and bridge seemed to be inside an enormous circular tower, as Violet spotted walls of constantly shifting cardboard paper—dyed in different hues—as far as the eye could reach in every direction. No base for these walls could be seen and no ceiling which they might have held up, almost like there was also a chasm above them.

Amber raised her voice. “Let's not wait around for too long. We should destroy the witch as soon as possible!” With this, Amber galloped forwards, followed by the other two ponies.

Violet started huffing rather soon but tried to get some words out in between her breaths. “Why do we need to hurry so much?” She suppressed the now spreading pain in her extremities as much as she could.

Amber turned her head around while still galloping at a high speed. “It is unwise to stay in a barrier longer than needed, since you will attract more minions each minute. This minimizes the danger for you.”

Before Violet could ask what minions are, traces of laughter sounded from the chasm. With each passing second the laughter grew louder, until it became almost unbearably loud.

“They found us!” Rose stopped in her tracks. Momentarily, a shining light engulfed her body and in the next moment, her horn appeared out of thin air with sparkles of pink light-beams.

Just as Rose had completed her transformation, an army of pony-sized cotton balls wearing—probably fake—mustaches shot up from below, now towering over the trio on all sides. They counted somewhere between seventy and a hundred.

Violet immediately threw herself on the ground and shielded her face, her body trembling. She tried to let out a scream but could not muster the air to produce one. She thought she had just stuck her face on the rather cold floor, yet she felt oddly warm. It was a pleasant, soothing warmth. Additionally, she noticed a light through her closed eyelids. When she opened her eyes, she saw that a sparkling ring of light engulfed her. Violet wanted to ask what that ring of light was, but instead had her attention was glued to what she beheld.

Amber jumped high into the air, her horn starting to glow. Reaching the apex of her jump she floated in mid-air, and with a screeching sound, a wall of silver guns materialized in front of Amber. She pointed one hoof at the minions while lifting her other skywards. She dropped her hoof downwards and slammed it onto her other hoof, and her weapons fired golden burst of energy, one from each weapon. These shots either pierced the cotton balls, causing them to poof, or embedded themselves inside them, only to then explode and tear them apart from the inside.

Meanwhile, Rose turned towards the other side and summoned a bow, fashioned out of twigs and branches, and levitated it in front of her in a vertical position. Atop the bow, a tiny rose stood up from a twig. Using her magic, she grasped the string. As she pulled it, a ray of light manifested as a sort of arrow, while a flame flickered atop the rose. The further she pulled the string, the greater and brighter the flame of pink hue grew, until it developed into a flare of considerable size. Releasing the shot, the magical arrow zoomed forwards and punctured one of the cotton balls as they came closer. Suddenly, the arrow exploded in a bright light which then engulfed a massive amount of cotton balls. As the light faded, none of the minions the light had touched could be seen anymore.

After both finished their attacks, only a few clouds of smoke remained around the bridge. Rose turned around, only to see Amber suddenly tossing one of her weapons towards her. Quickly ducking, she evaded the flying gun and watched as it hit a last cotton ball behind her.

Amber took a quick breather. “That should have been all of them. You can get up now Violet.” Violet had still been cowering on the floor, having a hard time to listen to Amber's words over the sound of her own heartbeat and the ringing in her head after the blaring gunshots.

As she finally willed herself onto her hooves again, the warm light around her disappeared. “You were never really in danger. I put a protection field around you to keep you safe. It takes up a fair bit of magic to conjure up and it only works in a very small radius, so it's not very useful for oneself.” She raised an eyebrow as Violet patted some dirt off herself. It probably was dirt, judging from where it came from, yet it flickered with a spectral glow. “It's perfect to protect other ponies though.”

Violet's jaw dropped to the floor as she looked around herself and saw none of the minions remaining. She witnessed flickering orange and pink flakes of magic falling down around her, illuminating the surrounding darkness. Such destructive power, combined with such beauty. This must be what true heroes are like. “Wow that was amazing. No wonder you were so confident in yourself!”

Rose jumped at Violet and hugged her while breaking into a laugh. “I told you we are the greatest Sorceress team ever to walk Komaria!” Violet squinted back at her, but couldn't help but laugh along with her. “I didn't? Well I did now!”

Amber coughed loudly to grab their attention and then pointed towards something peculiar on one end of the bridge, after which the trio started galloping ahead once more, this time in a more lighthearted manner.

While on their way, Violet glanced at Amber. “Those weapons you used, what are they?”

“Oh these?” While still in motion, she conjured a gun and levitated it alongside her. “This is a musket. It is capable of propelling a single shot at a high speed. This might seem hard to believe, but these are made entirely out of magic. Same with the ammunition I use. That doesn't make them any less deadly, which you probably noticed.”

The muskets appeared and disappeared into thin air each time, accompanied only by orange-colored flashes of magic. Violet was not particularly fond of weapons, yet what she saw of Amber's magic subtly intrigued her. She thought about wanting to do something cool like that herself, but quickly buried that thought amid visions of hardships the sorceresses must face, like getting badly wounded, or even dying and losing one's corpse in a barrier.

After a fair bit of galloping, the trio finally reached what they had been aiming for: a door.

At first, Violet wanted to lean on the edge of the bridge to rest, but the sight of the abyss below made her instinctively recoil, throwing her sight upwards where she recoiled again at the same sight above.

Violet instead dropped to the ground, completely out of breath. Without even noticing how much her body revolted against her movements, she had made her way all the way to her destination, but now that moment of respite made her aware of that burning pain in her chest. She took off her glasses to wipe her face clean of sweat before she spoke. “Please tell me this is it. I didn't know I would have to gallop so much.” She took a deep breath every few syllables, her chest bulging each time. At least, despite everything, Violet felt like she was alive, since exhaustion and pain could not be felt by a corpse. She had not embraced life in the last few years.

Amber and Rose stared at each other. Both of them still seemed perfectly fine, and the distance they covered wasn't even that far to begin with. “You're in luck. This is the entrance to the core of the barrier.” Amber said as she leaned over Violet.

Violet glanced past the door for a second. It didn't actually lean against a wall and the bridge continued behind it. In fact, it seemed like the walls were as distant as ever. The rules of reality certainly did not apply here.

Suddenly Amber started to speak. “Don't try to question a barrier too much, it is magic after all. A witch's magic is quite different from ours if you look at it. While we control ours in well thought-out bursts, they let their magic flow freely around them, bending the space inside their barrier to whatever wicked mind they have. Every witch has their own special barrier which they project their magic into. At least they are all nice enough to have a core a Sorceress can aim for.”

Rose made a puzzled expression. “How do you know all this?” As soon as she had spoken, she immediately backed off. “I'm sorry I didn't mean to undermine your eh...” She scratched the back of her head while producing a comically bad smile. “I just eh... don't understand how you could know that much from just hunting witches.”

Amber locked eyes with Rose for a few seconds before tilting her head and breaking into a smile of her own. “It's simple. I don't.” Violet's and Rose's eyes shot far open, along with their mouths. “Would I be more of a help if I said I have no idea what we are running into? Would you still follow me as you did?” Her voice grew more solemn with every word. “I want to protect you as best I can and telling you all this calms you down, doesn't it?” The other two didn't respond. “Besides, it's not like I'm trying to lie to you on purpose. In fact, my 'information' is based on a year-long observation. I gather as many facts about the witches as I can while fighting them and traversing their barriers, to back up my ideas.”

She didn't wait for their response and instead reached for the door handle. As her hoof was still an inch away from touching it, the door suddenly opened on its own. The barrier around them contorted its shape as it shifted its nature. After only another second, the trio found themselves in a different room all together, the door in front of them gone.

Giant images of various tapestries hushed over the walls, folding around the walls as circular tapes. The floor mimicked an oddly misplaced field of grass, yet strands of black vines laced with thorns entangled and suffocated it. Scattered around the field laid common objects like ladders, scissors, and rulers, yet blown up to an enormous size—big enough to make ponies seem like ants next to them.

In the center of the room sat a being of repugnant form. Its form and texture resembled that of a heart or a liver, big enough that even a tower of ten ponies couldn't touch its top. Its head—at least it was in the position a head should be—resembled a melting clump of moss that leaked pieces of it down onto its body. Despite its horrid appearance, it remained seemingly peaceful in its position, as if sleeping.

“That's what we came for.” Amber lent a hoof to Violet to get her back on her hooves. “The witch of this lair.”

Rose stepped forwards and took a look at the witch from afar, before turning to Amber. “Amber if you'd let me, I would like to fight the witch alone this time.” Amber furrowed her brows as Rose continued. “I won't be defeated by a witch again. And if anything does go wrong you can jump in at any time.”

Amber appeared to be lost in thought for a second while Violet's eyes shot far open. “Surely Spirit won't–”

“All right, go ahead Rose.”

Violet wildly flailed her hooves around as she frantically bounced her gaze between the two. There was no space to test ideas or try new things, one wrong move could spell the end, one little mistake could kill Rose, and yet Amber sat back? No matter how Violet looked at it, if a witch was cut from the same cloth as the familiars, then fighting it at maximum capacity was the only logical strategy.

Rose did a little hop towards Violet. “Don't worry Violet. Ever since I became a Sorceress this is what I wanted to do. Having Amber here is almost unfair to the witches since we usually fight alone.”

Amber quickly averted her face. Violet couldn't make out why Amber turned away as she got distracted by Rose suddenly jumping towards the witch.

“Don't worry, you'll be safe here,” Amber said as she turned her face back around. Something in her eyes had changed, but the rest of her face went back to its usual stern and determined look. “If the witch comes over here I can conjure that shield around you again.”

Shouldn't she be caring about Daybreak instead of her?She couldn't work up the courage to talk back at Amber when her face looked as serious as this, yet she would never forgive Amber if she lost Rose today. Besides, her body and parts of her mind were already exhausted to the point that mostly ran on autopilot, unable to take any sort of control of the situation she found herself in.

The witch of diligence: it longed to construct an environment that was proper. In its desire to create, shape, and rearrange it ended up shaping a world that delighted none but the witch itself. Ultimately, it was blinded by its own vision and regarded even the existence of anything foreign as an attack on its ideals.

Rose slowly walked towards the witch, carefully stepping over the thorny vines as she got closer. After having traversed about half the distance, the witch's head sprouted rose flowers, two of which were larger than the rest. The flowers danced around the moss for a while before suddenly snapping into position at its front, all pointing at Rose. Directly afterwards, the witch shuffled towards Rose at an alarming speed.

As the witch rushed towards her, Rose still found the time to take a small bow before the witch, before conjuring her wooden bow. Right as the witch was about to hit her, Rose jumped high into the air, far higher than any pony should have been able to, and leaped above the witch. From there, Rose fired a series of quick shots which all missed their target as the witch had already jumped towards the wall with tremendous speed.

Landing back on the floor, Rose fired even more arrows at the witch, who now ran across the outer wall of the room, dodging every arrow effortlessly. Despite its enormous size, the witch actually managed to out-speed the much smaller Rose. Additionally, its movements appeared unreasonably erratic as its body shifted from one side to another in an instant, constantly changing shape in split-seconds. After having circled the entire room, the witch flung its body directly at Rose. She managed to only barely dodge by flinging herself to the side, tumbling away from the impact while she lost her magical grip on her bow.

Just as Rose tried to get back up on her feet, a small army of butterflies emerged from the floor below and surrounded her. Before she could react, the butterflies banded together to form a lengthy chain which wrapped itself around one of Rose's hindhooves. The chain pulled her up into the air while the witch jumped around the room like a madpony.

For only a hoofful of seconds, the chain seized its movement, during which Rose tried to reach out with her magic for the bow on the ground. She barely managed to get a grip on it again and levitated it up towards her. Right then the chain flung her around the room while Rose fired a handful of pink dart-like arrows towards the ground, creating tiny holes in the field of grass. Just then, the chain let go of Rose and tossed her headfirst into the wall.

Violet screamed and immediately covered her open mouth with both her hooves while Amber conjured up a few muskets and aimed them at the jumping witch.

“No, Amber! I'm okay!” Rose's voice sounded from the large imprint she had left in the wall as she leaped back into the air.

Suddenly, the witch stopped jumping and instead moved towards the holes Rose shot into the ground earlier. Just as it got close, long glowing vines erupted from the floor and shot high into the air. The roses on the witch's head shifted around once again, until the witch had conjured an army of flying scissors, which it tried to cut the vines with. While the witch was distracted, Rose conjured a giant arrow. As she drew the string back, the flame atop the rose reappeared and grew larger and brighter than ever. Finally, she let the shot go.

The arrow hit its mark as it tore deep into the witch's body. Just a split-second later, a bright light erupted from within its body, right before a loud bang ripped it apart from the inside, scattering bits of it all over the field of grass. Victory!

Violet rushed towards Rose as her horn disappeared with a bright smile on her face. Amber followed her, also transforming back.

Violet took a leap and divehugged Rose who fell onto the ground along with her. At that moment, the barrier crumbled and shifted out of existence as they found themselves in the old tower again.

“Daybreak! Are you all right?” Violet released her grip on Rose to take a look at her.

“I'm fine, really.” As she said that, Violet threw herself at Rose again.

“I was so worried...” Violet said while suppressing the urge the clench her chest, which still hurt as much as ever, though she could now additionally feel a certain warmth surrounding her heart. The sudden rush of emotions that overcame her in that moment felt like a liberating roar. She internally shouted and screamed that they were all alive and she knew she had made the right choice accompanying Rose.

Meanwhile, Amber moved towards the center of the room, where a small black object of round shape rested on the floor. She picked it up and carried it over to the other two ponies who interrupted their hug to face Amber.

She placed the object in Rose's hoof. “You did fantastic today. Why don't you show your reward to Violet?” Rose cracked a smile as she agreed. She placed her Soul Gem on the floor and gestured Violet to watch it. “Do you see what I'm gonna be addressing next?”

Violet didn't have to inspect the Soul Gem closely to notice the sparkling color of the Soul Gem was visibly darker than before and black clouds hushed over its surface. “What is happening to it?”

Rose took a quick glance at Amber who nodded back at her. She then turned back to Violet. “Basically, whenever we use magic, our Soul Gem turns darker. In order to always be able to cast our magic, we need to make sure it stays as pristine as ever. The only way to do this, is to use these here.” She took the black object—which looked like a small round metal cage trapping a black cloud—and held it in front of Violet's eyes. “This is a Grief Seed. It is dropped by witches and allows us to cleanse our Soul Gem of its blackness. Just look.” She placed the Grief Seed right next to Soul Gem. With a small sizzling sound, a black cloud of smoke left the Soul Gem and gravitated into the Grief Seed.

“Wow, it's all shiny again!” Violet said with a wide open mouth.

Rose took another look at the Grief Seed before tossing it over to Amber. “I think this one has another use left in it.”

Amber caught the Grief Seed and took a quick glance at it. “You're right.” She took out her Soul Gem and cleansed it just like Rose did. She turned towards the other two again. “You did really well today, Rose. And thank you for coming along today, Violet.”

Violet felt something rumble in her mind. Thanks for what?

Amber continued. “I think it's time we head back for now. You are all welcome to join me for a cup of tea.”

***

Something had happened to Violet that she hadn't experienced in a long time: she felt like the time she spent was worth spending. Even before her illness she had many days at the end of which she had felt like she had not experienced anything worthwhile and had wasted another 24 hours. As a side effect of this, the past few days felt a lot longer and so it came that by the time her meet-up with Azure, Rose, and Leafy in the ice-cream parlor came around, she already felt a lot better about the time she spent with her new friends.

Azure put down her ice-cream on the table and inspected Violet's mane. “You really want to keep braiding your hair? I'm sure if you were to remove those ribbons and liberate your hair you would look a lot cooler.” She tried to reach for the ribbons, but Violet swatted her hooves away.

“No Marina! I like them how they are.”

“Aw you're no fun! I was gonna get those glasses next you know?”

Sitting around a rectangular table, the four of them leaned back to unwind after a hard week of studying. They passed most of their time talking about random topics, alongside more serious matters.

Leafy glanced at Azure. “Have you visited Slate today? How is he doing?”

Azure let out a sigh. “Not a whole lot better. He's not making any progress.”

While Azure was busy talking to Leafy, Rose leaned over the table to whisper in Violet's ear. “Slate is an old friend of Azure's. Recently, he was in an accident and had trouble moving one of his fore-hooves.”

Violet looked over at Azure. The happiness visibly drained from her face the more she talked about Slate's state.

“Maybe the doctors can figure something out. There must be some way they can get his hoof working again.” She stared out the window. “But even if they can't, I hope they at least figure out a way he can play his violin again. When I came into his room today, he just stared out the window like this. He barely even noticed me until I sat down next to him. And even then he didn't even seem to realize I was there, he looked right through me. I don't want to see him like this...”

Leafy patted Azure on the shoulder. “Don't worry so much. I'm sure he'll get better.”

Violet could have sworn the color of Azure's fur had grown pale. She was slumped over in her seat and her body was noticeably shivering. Violet tried to catch her eyes, but there was no gaze to be met.

Azure took a deep breath. “You're probably right.” In one quick motion, she turned her head 90 degrees and looked at Violet, her eyes suddenly ignited with a new flame. “Enough about that, we got a new one here. So, Violet Somnia, what brings you to Kamino of all places?” Azure took another swing at her ice-cream while she waited for an answer.

“Actually, it wasn't my idea really. My parents thought it would be a good idea if I were to get out of Bluegrass.” She wasn't quite sure of the exact reasoning behind her move, but she simply scratched it up to a whim of her parent's. Not that it would matter to her either way.

Azure tilted her head. “Had some trouble over there?”

“It wasn't that really. It doesn't matter.”

“So, what do you think of Kamino? Took a tour around the city yet?” Leafy said.

Violet scratched the back of her head. “Not quite but... I did see some interesting parts of the city.”

“That reminds me,” Azure said while tapping the table with her spoon, “whenever I glanced over at you in class you seemed to be looking over at Ging, our class pet newt. Are you interested in him? Want me to tell you some stories about him? I got some wild ones to tell ya if you want to. There was this one time he–“

“Well it's just that erm... I haven't seen many newts around so I was a bit curious what they were like.” Violet scratched her head while looking for more words. She had looked at him a few times in class, but that was mostly to make sure he wasn't dead. She could not admit that.

Rose took a quick glance at a clock that hung over the exit. “Oh I forgot. Me and Violet have some place to be. I'm sorry we have to cut it short this time.”

Azure shifted her body forwards while raising her voice. “What? But I haven't even asked her yet what her favorite song is! How am I gonna live with myself not knowing that? And besides, where–“ She paused momentarily as her eyes darted back and forth between Rose and Violet. Finally, her eyes met with Leafy's, who nodded back at her in approval. Then, she fell backwards and nodded to herself. “Oh I see what it's like. Not even a week and you are already going out together.”

“Shouldn't you be mad Violet is stealing your beloved away?” Leafy added.

“I told you it's not like that!” Azure raised her hoof in anger and waved it at Leafy.

Rose cracked a laugh before turning and heading for the exit with Violet.

“Where does that pony even got those ideas from?” Violet said, looking back at Azure. As ludicrous as Azure's joke was, if she lived in a different dimension where it was true, Violet probably would not have minded.

“That's just her. She's actually a really nice friend. Ever since we were foals she was always the one to make the day interesting and entertain us. And even if she might seem rude sometimes, I can guarantee you she doesn't mean it.”

Finally outside, Violet spoke to Rose in a slightly lower tone. “And you think you can keep your Sorceress business a secret from her and Leafy?”

Rose continued in her regular tone. “She hasn't behaved any differently ever since I became a Sorceress, so I don't think she suspects anything. I want to keep it a secret if I can, since I don't want to drag too many ponies into this.”

Violet slumped down and let out a sigh. Rose tapped her on the shoulder. “Don't be like this. We absolutely had to save you, and the witches and familiars attack ponies at random, so you shouldn't fault yourself for getting yourself caught up in all of this. Also, I'm quite happy that I can share my new world with at least one of my friends.” She pointed ahead. “Now let's get going, we promised to meet Amber in a few minutes. She said it was something important.”