Amore

"Our [trump cards], we thought to be infallible; ponies and creatures that represented the ideals of our great nation, that represented loyalty, kindness, generosity, laughter and honesty. However, due to past events, we have decided that such a thing as infallible good in any creature is a lie. That such an idea is naive, foolish and catastrophic to believe in."—Preamble of the Aurora Concordat, Chancellor of the Equestrian Council

Three mares.

The wind beat against their shadowed coats, fumes of black mist wafting off of them. Ducking down, the cloud layer fading away, they saw them, the Sister's Towers in the distance, touching the clouds over the Tartarus Pit—and the towers saw them; energy arcing, thunder-cracks shaking at the mares' bones as the lighting from the towers coiled round and round and whipped right between the three. They veered out of its way, twisting their bodies nimbly around it, the lesser arcs licking after them.

As they neared closer to the towers, little specks known as unicorns could be seen on walkways around the towers, rising up the entirety of the structures. They started to wink, little distant lights streaking from them to the mares.

Boom! Boom! Boom! The streaks of light exploded as they shot toward the mares, faint bubbles shielding them as they curved their flights around the explosions. The middle sized one darted towards the pearly tower, ignoring the sparking bolts of energy burning at the bubble around her. Energy built around her horn before punching into the wall. Glowing purple fumes grew across the impact, purple sparks bursting from tiny cracks in the wall.

She slammed into the weakened wall, her hooves crumbling the marble until it gave. Her body cleared through the rubble and skid across the catwalk that spiraled up the tower around the white beam of energy. The smallest mare flew over her, landing briefly on the railing of the walkway. Bracing precariously on the rail as momentum caught up with her, she took flight, following up the beam.

The middle sized mare started after her, ignoring the unicorns yelling and blasting at them. She and the smallest mare landed on the highest catwalk. As thundering hoofsteps came from either side the middle sized one flicked her horn to both sides, putting the encroaching unicorns in temporal lock.

The tallest mare flew up and landed, and the three formed a triangle around the beam that poured out of the bottom of the sphere, and pillared into the sky through the glass dome overhead. Energy built around their horns, a shimmering purple layering over the middle sized mare’s horn, and the other two both had a light blue glow; small white lines curling out from the threes’ horn tips and weaving around the white sphere, which sat invariably in the air above them. The beam feathered away, the orb falling slightly in their magic.

Boom! The glass ceiling of the tower exploded, knocking the orb out of their magic and down the centre of the tower. The middle sized one dove after it, her and the orb neared closer and closer to the ground. She grabbed at it with her magic, but her regular telekinesis slipped off it like hooves on oil. The tips of her hooves nudged at it, just out of grasp, and she refocused her telekinetic grab to the air itself. Flapping her wings to ease her descent and condensing the air underneath the orb, despite the popping in her ears as the pressure changed, she slowed the orb down just enough for her hooves to slip around it.

Pop! She teleported, purple energy wavering in the air as she returned back to the top of the tower. She settled on the catwalk, near the other two mares, and released the orb; the smell of burnt coat filling the air as she shook the char off her forelegs.

Above them glistened a light blue dome, polygonal shapes giving it a multiple image effect. Venatores; Alicorn Hunters, unicorns suited in magical armour fitted with artificial wings. A group of five stood atop the magic shield the tallest and smallest mare held, with several others in the air above.

The three looked at each other for a moment, before the smallest touched her hooves to the orb; freezing cold crystal spreading out from her hooves, encasing the side of the sphere and her hooves. Crack! The other two touched hooves to her back, the threes’ horns glowing, Crack! as the thundering of anti-magic blasts ate away at the shield above them. Pop! Five suits of armour fell in, four landing on the catwalks and one tumbling down the tower centre. The trio had teleported away, the dome having disappeared as its creators left.

"Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell on this earth forevermore. Still, I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul, but I can't walk on the path of the right because I'm wrong."—Shawn James