Act III - 10 - And We All Shine On...

Act Three:

"I Am Iron Mare"

Chapter Ten

"And We All Shine On..."

Rarity flew as fast as her suit could take her towards Downtown Canterlot. She looked around, looking for some sort of sign as to where this Living Laser fellow was. She didn’t have to search that long, however, because suddenly a deafening explosion rocked 43rd street. She did a hard bank to the right and looked down.

Sure enough, on the ground below was Living Laser, now blasting a government tank that had shot at him with a thunderous blast of magic. The tank exploded into a massive explosion of fire and smoke.

Rarity thought for a moment. It was obvious that she couldn’t just up and charge him head on, so a slightly more gentle approach would be needed.

She took a quick glance at her heads up display. “Weapons system menu please.” She told the voice commanded computer. Something Spark Plug had insisted upon.

The menu popped up and various weapons types flicked in front of Rarity’s face. A small, yet very powerful, rocket system caught her eye.

“That’ll do.” She said as she mentally selected the rocket and primed it to fire. She aimed her forearm towards the glowing blue unicorn. “Fire.”

A small door opened on her foreleg and a small rocket popped out. It lit up like a firecracker and went flying towards the blue unicorn.

The rocket impacted and a loud explosion sent Living Laser tumbling into a nearby building.

Rarity winced as the small building’s ground floor was completely devastated by Living Laser’s energy. There was a cloud of dust that obscured the rest of what happened from Rarity’s view.

“Infrared please.” She ordered as the view screen switched to infrared. She hoped that the rocket had done its job and possibly knocked the unicorn out, but as soon as the infrared engaged and she looked into the dust cloud, her hopes died.

Instead of ending the crazed unicorns’ rampage, all the rocket had done was manage to cause a brief disturbance in the unicorn’s body. He quickly shook it off and turned to look for whatever had shot at him.

His glowing eyes narrowed the instant he spotted her and he let out an inarticulate roar as he fired a blast of pure energy from his horn.

The proximity alarms in Rarity’s suit went wild, and Rarity tried to dodge out of the way of the bolt of energy. The blast however, was much too fast for her and it hit her head on, sending her flying into an office building directly behind her.

She smashed through the glass and several office cubicles before finally coming to a stop, much to the surprise of the buildings occupants.

“Ugh.” She groaned as she stood back up, and

“Um, lady, you okay?” a green earth pony with a black mane and beard and Pony Floyd T-shirt asked as Rarity shook the debris off of her.

“Oh, it. Is. On.” She spat as she ignited her rockets and blasted back out of the building.

The earth pony simply watched as the mare in the purple suit of armor flew off. “Um…I’ll take that as a yes?”

///////////////////////

Living Laser shook himself off and looked around for the thing that had dared to challenge his power. No longer was he the puny and weak Light Bright, target of scorn and ridicule. No, he was the Living Laser, complete panicle of unicorn magic and strength, a god among mortals, made of pure magic and energy.

He scanned the skies, looking for whatever fired that stupid puny rocket at him. He spotted a unicorn pony in a suit of purple armor. He had heard some scattered rumors about it but had honestly never thought that it was real. It didn’t matter, of course, because he was about to knock that puny pony from the skies.

He roared and fired a blast of magic directly at the pony, which tried to dodge it and failed spectacularly as the magic bolt slammed directly into it and sent it flying into the next building.

Living Laser chuckled to himself and turned to continue his rampage.

Before he could proceed in humbling these mere mortals to his mighty power, however, a loud yell caught his attention. He turned in the direction of the yell only to get an armored purple hoof to the face.

The pony’s punch sent Living Laser tumbling again, and he landed on the street hard, carving a small trench in the asphalt.

Living Laser, however, rapidly recovered and stood back up, his head moving back and forth rapidly as he searched for the purple thing that had socked him.

He spotted the armored pony crouching next to a music store.

“You stupid pony!” he snarled. “You dare challenge the Living Laser?!” he fired off another blast, but this time the armored pony dodged the shot and launched into the air.

“Living Laser? Seriously, that’s the name you’re going with?” the pony said in a sarcastic feminine voice.

A girl?! Did he, the Living Laser, just get punched by a girl?! And furthermore, was this mere mortal finding him funny?! This will not stand! He thought as he fired another blast at the pony, who, once again, dodged it. It suddenly aimed its forehooves directly at him and a sudden blast of energy came exploding from the rockets in its hooves.

The shot sent him tumbling again, this time into a nearby diner. He got up and shook debris off of himself.

“NO FAIR!” he shrieked.

The other pony laughed. “No fair? What are you? Five? You have energy weapons and I have energy weapons, grow up dear.” She fired another blast at him. This time he was able to deflect it with a blast of his own, which caused both beams to go flying wildly into some nearby buildings, blowing out several dozen windows.

Living Laser ignored the rain of glass and this time levitated a nearby cart and sent it flying directly at the armored pony. The armored dodged again, as the cart slammed into the ground just inches away from her.

“DAMN IT! STAND STILL SO I CAN BLOW YOUR SORRY FLANK TO LITTLE PIECES!!!!!” he shrieked as he fired a series of rapid magic energy blasts at her as she launched into the air again.

“OH NO YOU DON’T!” He roared as he grabbed her with his magic slammed her into a nearby building as if she were a rag doll.

He galloped over, this time being sure to finish her off himself.

///////////////////////

Rarity dodged the flying cart by mere inches.

Damn it. He’s stronger then I thought.

“DAMN IT! STAND STILL SO I CAN BLOW YOUR SORRY FLANK TO LITTLE PIECES!!!!!” Living Laser shrieked. Rarity looked up to see a series of magic bolts coming right for her.

She launched into the air as fast possible and the bolt just missed her and slammed into the building behind her, sending glass and bits of concrete flying.

She was about to make a turn and try and fire on him again when she was suddenly enveloped in an aura of blue magic.

“OH NO YOU DON’T!!” Living Laser roared and Rarity suddenly felt herself flying out of control towards a nearby office building.

Rarity shook off the various bits of office equipment and debris again only to find Living Laser galloping directly towards her like a wild bull.

Rarity lifted a forehoof and fired off a blast. The blast simply bounced off of him like a rubber ball.

“Oh snap.” Was all Rarity was able to say before Living Laser lifted a hoof and punched Rarity in the chest and sent her flying again.

She coughed and sputtered as her stabilizers automatically kicked in and righted herself before she hit another building.

She looked around for some kind of weapon to use, anything that might slow the crazed unicorn down. Her eyes landed on a large oak table in a nearby office. She flew over and bucked the table with all of her suit’s enhanced strength. The buck sent the table flying directly into Living Laser’s face as it shattered against him, finally causing him to slow down.

However, since he was apparently made of pure energy, he shook off the bits of oak which burned away in little puffs of smoke.

“You stupid little bitch!” He spat. “Now you’re going to pay for challenging the Living Laser!”

Rarity couldn’t take his inane rambling anymore. “Oh, shut up, you!” she shouted back as she fired off a blast directly into his face.

This time however, the blast didn’t bounce off or cause a big light show, but rather it seemed into his face as if he were a sponge.

“Oh right. Pure energy.” She muttered as he flung a blast at her and she rolled out of the way again, hitting a cubicle.

Suddenly out of nowhere came a bright blast of purple and out of it emerged a very, VERY familiar lavender unicorn.

It was Starburst Shine, and she was wearing a black spandex cat suit that covered her legs and body.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” Rarity shouted only to be greeted by Starburst whipping her head around.

“Shut up and take his left flank, I’ll handle his front.” With that she teleported away again and appeared directly in front of Living Laser, who obviously hadn’t seen this coming.

“Who the hell are you?!” Living Laser snarled as he readied another spell to blow Starburst away.

Starburst didn’t say a word as she conjured a shield spell that suddenly covered Living Laser in a strange violet glow.

The spell Living Laser was preparing only managed to make the violet shield grow tighter around him.

However, this still left his legs with the ability to move and he made a wild buck towards Starburst, who simply teleported out of the way and appeared behind him and roundhouse kicked him in the face as he turned to try to kick her again.

Starburst’s hooves landed directly on Living Laser’s chin and managed to do absolutely nothing at all.

Living Laser grinned and grabbed Starburst while she was still in the air socked her one in the face. A small spurt of blood came from Starburst’s nose and he flung her aside.

Rarity meanwhile, had managed to get her suit back up online and fired another blast at Living Laser. This blast, unlike the last one, actually managed to do some good and sent Living Laser sprawling.

“Now,” Rarity panted as she walked over to him. “Give up, and maybe, just maybe, we can get you some help and fix you up.”

Living Laser snarled. “Help? Does it look like I need any help from such mortals as you?! I am a god among mortals and I shall rule over you with my mighty power!” and with that he lunged at Rarity again, but before Rarity had a chance to fire back Starburst appeared in a burst of light again and wrapped her legs around his neck and twisted them, causing Living Laser to suddenly gag and slump down to the floor unconscious.

“Well….that finishes that.” Starburst huffed, wiping the blood from her noise and casting some sort of spell that caused Living Laser’s head to briefly glow purple then fade back to its normal blue glow.

Rarity opened her helmet. “Well,” She huffed. “It seems you’ve got some explaining to do, ‘Starburst Shine’.” She narrowed her eyes, practically spitting the name.

The purple unicorn sighed and rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you’re being such a bitch about it. I saved your life.”

Rarity continued to stare. “I could have bloody well handled it. Who do you work for?” She asked. She wasn’t going to just up and shake hooves with a pony that so obviously had military training and was quite capable of killing her right then and there.

“Well, that’s rather confidential.” Starburst said.

“Well, ‘rather confidential’ isn’t going to cut it. I feel like I deserve some answers.” Rarity said, stamping her foot on the ground.

The purple unicorn sighed. “Okay then. You sure you want all the facts?”

Rarity nodded.

“Because this is some highly confidential information.”

“Just tell me.”

“Alrighty then.” Starburst sighed. “First off, my name’s not really Starburst Shine. It’s Twilight Sparkle.” The unicorn now known as Twilight Sparkle said.

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Really? And how do I know you’re not lying?”

“Because right now would be an incredibly stupid time to lie now wouldn’t it?” The unicorn snapped back.

“Well, I must say then, the name Twilight Sparkle sounds like a cheap vampire novel.” Rarity said.

“Why does everypony have to say that?” Twilight shook her head. “Anyways, do you want to know why I’m here, because, personally, I’d rather be working in the field.”

“Oh really? And what kind of field would that be?” Rarity asked.

Twilight huffed. “The field of black operations. That’s what. I work for N.E.I.G.H.S.”

“N.E.I.G.H.S.? What in Equestria is that?” Rarity asked, stepping forward.

“N.E.I.G.H.S. is an acronym.” Twilight groaned. “It means National Equestrian Intelligence Group of High Security.”

Rarity simply stared for a second, not knowing what to make of the mysterious unicorn. It was obvious that she’d been fooled for quite awhile, and that this unicorn could have killed her at any time and Rarity wouldn’t have been any the wiser.

“Well, okay then, Twilight Sparkle, why is it that you helped me today and simply didn’t let me handle this myself?”

“Because when I got back with Sweetie Belle from shopping I saw the fight on the news. I knew I couldn’t just let you up and get yourself killed because you didn’t think ahead. That’s why.”

Rarity listened carefully to the tone of Twilight’s voice. It was obvious that she wasn’t pulling her leg and was actually concerned. All those years working in the deceitful world of fashion had taught Rarity to spot a liar from a mile away, so the fact that this unicorn had been able to fool her for so long was a testament to her abilities.

“Okay, so let’s say that you work for this N.E.I.G.H.S., what interest do they have with me?” Rarity asked, sitting down. Twilight sat down as well.

“Well, that’s pretty obvious.” Twilight motioned to Rarity’s glowing diamond arc. “That’s obviously something worth looking into.”

Rarity cast a glance down at the diamond arc. “Okay then…why didn’t you just up and take it?”

“Well,” Twilight got up and Rarity instantly got up as well and readied her weapons. Twilight rolled her eyes and lifted a hoof. “Don’t freak out. I’m getting a cola. You want one?” Twilight said as she trotted over to a soda machine that had somehow survived the massive battle in the office.

“Um….sure….that’d be fine.” Rarity replied, now completely baffled as she sat back down.

“Cool.” With that Twilight bucked a hole in the machine and pulled out two cans.

She pulled up a table and put the two cans on the table. “Here you go.”

“Thank you, I think….” Rarity said as she levitated the can over and opened it.

“So where was I?” Twilight asked as she took a sip of her soda.

“You were explaining to me why N.E.I.G.H.S. wanted the arc.”

“Right, right.” Twilight waved a hoof. “Well, the head of N.E.I.G.H.S. told me to check in on you and make sure you weren’t making some weapon of mass destruction or something.”

“But I don’t see how he found out about my diamond arc. I never told a soul besides Braeburn and Spark Plug.”

Twilight gave Rarity a bemused look. “That time at Mr. Fancypants’ party?”

Rarity thought back to that night. A look of realization crossed her face.

“Damn me.” She groaned as she facehoofed, forgetting the fact that she was still in her armor. It hurt.

“Yeah, that tends to happen to the uninitiated. But,” Twilight took another sip of her cola. “with all I’ve just said, I’d be safe in saying that we’re both fully initiated, aren’t we Rarity?” she extended a hoof for a hoofshake.

Rarity was still rubbing the sore spot on her head when she realized that Twilight wanted to shake hooves.

“You still seriously want to shake hooves with me?” Rarity asked.

Twilight nodded. “Yeah, I figure we should be honest with each other from now on. No use denying the obvious.”

Rarity looked down at Twilights hoof and then at Twilight’s face. Twilight wore a small smile and her eyes looked like those of a friend. Rarity then looked down at the unconscious glowing unicorn.

“What about him?”

Twilight looked at Living Laser for a second. “Oh, I cast a sleep spell on him, he won’t be awake for at least three days. I’ll call some agents and they’ll take him somewhere where he won’t cause any trouble.”

Rarity sighed and then shook Twilight’s hoof. “Okay then. Where’d you get that name anyways?”

Twilight tilted her head. “What name?”

“Starburst Shine.” Rarity said.

Twilight thought for a second. “I think it was from some gum ad or something, I honestly don’t remember.”

Rarity laughed. “I knew it! I said that the name sounded like a cheap brand of chewing gum.”

Twilight simply rolled her eyes and pulled out a small device with a screen and spoke into the mouth piece.

“This is Agent Sparkle calling Agent Spike, come in Spike?”

There was a brief pause then some static appeared on screen, followed by the image of a purple dragon.

“Yeah, this is Spike, what is it Agent Sparkle? Did Rarity find out?”

“Yes. Yes she did. Mainly because we had to deal with this fellow right here.” She turned the device towards Living Laser.

“Wow, that’s quite a catch. You want us to take him in?” Spike asked.

“Yeah, how fast can you get here?”

“I think we can have some pegasi there within the next fifteen minutes, give or take.”

“Okay, good. Agent Sparkle out.” And with that Twilight turned the device off and tucked back into the pocket of her cat suit.

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “And who was that?”

“That was one of my fellow N.E.I.G.H.S. agents. He says backup will be here in fifteen minutes to take care of this fellow here.”

“Oh, okay then.” Rarity said, turning to look towards the large hole where she had been thrown inside the building by Living Laser.

The sun had started to set and brilliant beams of light reflected off the various shards of glass.

Rarity let out a sigh. “Wow, this actually rather beautiful isn’t it?”

Twilight cast a glance at in the direction Rarity was looking. “I guess so, yeah.”

They both sat for a while, letting their sore bodies rest and watched as the light bounced off the glass and created beautiful patterns on the ceiling.

Eventually the sound of pegasi could be heard as a group of pegasi, all in military outfits all flew up and into the building. On the back of one of them was the purple dragon Twilight had been speaking with. The group of pegasi landed and the dragon hopped off the panting pony. As it turned out, he seemed to be rather tall and some what thin, standing at about the height of an average stallion. He glanced back at the rather tiered looking pegasus who had carried him in.

"Sorry about making you carry me Phil," he patted the pegasus on the back, who simply waved a hoof dismissively.

"No prob Spike...."

Twilight and Rarity meanwhile, had been watching the scene with amusement and Twilight waved and got up to greet them.

“Well, Twi, it seems you had some fun around here.” The dragon said, putting his claws in his suit pockets.

Twilight chuckled. “Yeah I guess you could say so Spike. That’s Rarity over there.”

Spike looked over at Rarity and waved. Rarity waved back.

“Well, I guess this means that we take him back with us?” Spike pointed at Living Laser.

“Yeah.” Twilight said.

Spike nodded. “Okay boys, let’s finish up. The city can clean the rest, but this guy is ours okay?” he motioned to several pegasi who flew over and tied Living Laser up before hoisting him into the air.