Act III - 09 - Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Act Three:

"I Am Iron Mare"

Chapter Nine

"Shine On You Crazy Diamond"

“Okay, then, let’s see what this baby can do.” Light Bright muttered to himself as he levitated the helmet onto his head. The helmet was silver and had a small knob on the front. His horn lit up and the knob glowed yellow and turned to the first setting, labeled one. Immediately a tingling sensation washed over his body as he felt his magic levels rise.

“Whoa. Best massage ever.” He giggled as his horn light up. He could feel the feeling of pure magic running through his body. It felt like a strange yet pleasing combination of tickling and shivers.

He glanced over to a pen laying on a nearby desk. “I wonder…” he muttered to himself. His horn glowed and the pen glowed light blue and started to shake and vibrate violently. Suddenly the pen exploded, spraying ink everywhere.

Light Bright began to giggle like a school colt. “Awesome! I blew the pen up! Fine Focus is gonna love this!” He spun around and trotted out of the room.

“This is going to be so awesome! Finally Focus is going to appreciate me! He always looks down at me. No more!” Light Bright muttered to himself.

He went into the dining room where a grumpy looking Fine Focus and a constantly twitching Lock Pick sat.

“Well, thanks you Lock Pick, it seems we can’t exactly go and sell the stuff we have now can we? Little hard to sell merchandise that the government is looking for isn’t it, Lock Pick?” he shot Lock Pick a dirty look, who shied away.

“Well, there’s no use whining like little fillies, let’s see what we got.” Fine Focus grumbled. He levitated the big saddle bags and poured their contents out on the table.

“Well…” Focus huffed. “It seems that I’m the only one to actually steal something worthwhile. AGAIN.” All that was on the table was a rather large laser gun.

Lock Pick shrugged. “Well boss…ya know…the lasers…the shooter thingy. It was scary.” He continued to twitch. Focus simply gave Lock Pick a unimpressed look.

“Your pathetic you know that?” Fine Focus grumbled. Lock Pick shied away again and continued to twitch.

“Um…Focus…” Light Bright said, raising his hoof. “I managed to snatch this.” He pointed at the helmet, which was still on his head. Fine Focus looked at Light Bright.

“Light Bright. What the buck is that?” He replied.

“Well, the label said it was a helmet for soldiers that enhanced magic.” Light Bright rubbed his foreleg. “And, I, um, you know…”

Fine Focus facehoofed. “What is Faust’s holy name are you blathering about? Out with it you nimrod.”

That snapped Light Bright out of his worried state. “Don’t call me that.” He snapped. He suddenly felt the helmet kick in again. Pure power welled through his body. “Or I’ll blast you.”

Fine Focus simply snickered. “Don’t tell me what to do Light Bright. Ya ain’t got the magic to blast me and you know it. All it does is make a nifty lightshow and that’s it.”

“Wrong. The helmet helped me blow up a pen.”

Fine Focus simply rolled his eyes. “Oh! Big bucking deal. I’m shaking in my horse shoes.”

Light Bright suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head.

“What? Lighty Brighty having a head ache?” the larger unicorn said, getting up. “Your magic isn’t enhanced by that stupid excuse for a hoofball helmet. It’s just a stupid chuck of metal with a lot of fancy knobs.”

Light Bright shook his head to clear away the head ache. “Cut it out Focus. I’m not kidding.” His horn started to glow. Fine Focus rolled his eyes again.

“Oh please. You’re a pathetic excuse for a unicorn and you know it. Now cut out this stupid magic helmet nonsense and give it over.” Fine Focus’ horn glowed he tugged at the helmet. Light Bright once again felt a sharp pain in his head as Fine Focus’ magic attempted to override his own.

“Come…give…it…over…” Fine Focus grunted. Suddenly a high pitched whine came from the helmet as Light Bright felt his magic suddenly go into overdrive. A massive blast of magic briefly flared up at the end of Light Bright’s horn before suddenly collapsing in on itself shooting directly back into Light Bright’s horn and head. And then everything went white.

Now every unicorn at least once in their life has encountered magical feedback. Most of the time it usually causes a slight headache and that’s it. Well, the helmet Light Bright was wearing was, unbeknownst to him, already enhancing his magic ten times. Add to that the fact that unicorn magic feeds off emotion, and Light Bright was in quite the emotional situation, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Which is exactly what happened.

Instead of a simple bit of magic feedback, instead Light Bright was blasted with 100 times the force of magic he was exerting. So obviously this did quite the number on his body. Which is why when he finally came too, he was in for quite the shock.

At first, everything was fuzzy and hard to make out. He did notice however, a strange, unnatural glow illuminating the room. He also felt a strangely warm feeling like the sun all over his body.

He looked around. The room seemed to be in shambles. The walls where blackened and covered with ash. Where the table once was there was simply a pile of ash as well.

“What the hay happened?” he muttered as he slowly lifted himself to his hooves. A quit sizzling sound greeted his ears. Was something burning? He around looking for the source of the sound. He shot a quick glance at his feet and froze.

Instead of his normal light blue coat, his legs where now glowing a pale shade of blue. And around his feet, the wooden floor was smoking.

Light Bright’s eyes widened. “What the hay?” he lifted his hoof to his face. It looked somewhat transparent and seemingly made out of pure energy.

Slowly Light Bright looked around the room. Where had Fine Focus and Lock Pick go? As if to answer his question, Light Bright took two steps forward and tripped, landing face first.

When he looked to see what he had tripped over, his eyes were met by a disturbing sight. Beside his right leg was a blacked pony skull. It must have been Fine Focus. Light Bright felt like vomiting. He was now a walking glow stick that had apparently completely vaporized everypony in the room except for himself. Great. Just perfect. Totally normal. Nothing wrong with that. Not at all.

Time to freak out.

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

It had been a week since her phone call to her mother, and Rarity had decided that the best way to deal with such emotions was the solution that had helped her so many times in the past. Work.

But, all it managed to do was distract her from the obvious. Her mother’s words still circled in her mind like a flock of vultures. Disrespectful. Arrogant. Narcissistic.

The words had cut into her heart and lodged themselves there, slowly poisoning everything Rarity did.

It didn’t matter that she had finally done something good for the world, to her mother that was just her being a glorified show pony in a fancy suit.

Stupid stuck up bitch. Was all Rarity was able to call her mother, if only in her thoughts. She’d always felt that, deep down in her soul, but now, her mother’s actions just seemed to confirm it.

She looked in the vainty mirror. Her mane was unkempt and ragged. Her eyes were bagged and her fake eyelashes hung limply. A ragged cigarette hung in her mouth

And yet, down at the very bottom of her soul, Rarity couldn't deny that in her own twisted way, her mother was right.

She WAS arrogant. She had decided that she was the one who knew right from wrong, like some kind of avenging spirit sent from above. And yet here she was, a chain smoking mare who was only in this situation because of her own vanity.

She WAS vain. She had attacked only those who had attacked her, those who had thought they were somehow some form of justice. True they had also been murderers and terrorists, but that hadn't mattered to Rarity before. She could have gone her whole life ignoring the obvious. No she only cared once they had come and beaten her and killed her friend.

So why continue? Wasn't the only reason she'd built the suit was to act on pure anger and revenge?

No. She assured herself. I didn't do this just for revenge. I did this because it was the only option. She reminded herself of Kili. He had been an innocent. He had never done anything wrong. And that's why Rarity had gone over there, back to that desolate hellhole of a nation, not, as her mother said, to throw a temper tantrum, but rather, to go and avenge the one who would never have been avenged otherwise.

And her mother just didn't care. All that mattered, it seemed to Rarity, was that Rarity had acted independently from her, had dared to do something without her all-powerful permission.

Rarity started to smirk. Take that. She thought. I'm free now. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

She sucked in the smoke from her cigarette and puffed it back out. Wow. She thought. I look like a dragon.

“Time for a shower then…” She muttered to herself and slowly walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

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

Rarity emerged from the shower approximately two hours later with her purple mane now properly wrapped up in a towel and her body clothed in a bathrobe.

She dried herself off and opened the door and walked down the hallway. The sound of the television greeted her ears.

"Hello?" she walked into the living room to find Braeburn watching the news.

"Oh, Braeburn. Didn't expect you here. Shouldn't you be at the office?"

Braeburn simply shook his head, not taking his eyes off the screen. "Nah, I decided to take the day off."

"Um, okay then. Where's Sweetie Belle?" Rarity asked.

"She's with Spark Plug. Sparky took her shopping. We were outta flour or something." he replied, obviously paying more attention to the television then to Rarity.

"Um, okay then..." Rarity said, walking into the kitchen. "You wouldn't happen to know where Starburst Shine is would you?" she checked the coffee pot. Nothing.

"Yeah, she's at a business meetin’ fer me." Braeburn replied. "She was the one who suggested that I take a day off anyways."

Rarity opened the pantry. Completely bare.  "For Faust's sake do we have any coffee at all? No wonder Spark Plug went shopping, it's like Old Mother Hubbard's in here..."

With that she closed the pantry and walked back into the living room. Braeburn was still standing there, watching whatever it was on the television.

"Braeburn what is it? What's on the TV?"

"Wha?" Braeburn snapped out of his apparent trance and looked at Rarity. "Didn't ya see the news?" he asked, looking somewhat confused.

"Um, no. I haven't had a chance. I've been in the workshop for most of the week, so I'm a little out of the loop." she replied. "Why? What happened?"

"That." Braeburn pointed to the television screen. Rarity followed his extended foreleg to see a image that was both bizarre and frightening.

On the television there was a newscaster commenting on some live footage from Downtown Canterlot.

What looked like a glowing blue unicorn was stumbling around wildly, almost as if in a panic attack. Every few seconds a random shot of what seemed to be pure magic (or electricity) shot out from either his horn or one of his forehooves, towards members of the Equestrian National Guard, which the newscaster had reported were called in to deal with the seemingly deranged pony.

The first thing that came to Rarity's mind was a character from that movie, Watchpones, Dr. Manehattan.

The newscaster continued. "No one knows where this pony has come from nor the exact cause of his rampage. All we know right now, and reports are sketchy, is that he apparently calls himself 'The Living Laser'. That's all we know for sure right now. As soon as any more information is revealed, we'll be sure to inform you of it."

"Oh dear Faust" Rarity whispered. "How long has this been going on?" she turned to Braeburn.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I just turned on tha television 'bout 15 minutes ago and found this here freak."

Rarity slowly shook her head, still trying to process the incredibly bizarre image.

“Rarity…you okay?” Braeburn said, finally taking notice of Rarity’s stunned silence.

“All those poor innocent ponies…” She whispered. “He’s killing them.”

“Do you wanna to try tha suit?” Braeburn asked, sounding concerned.

Rarity’s face took on a grim look.

“Yes. Yes I do.” She said, calmly and coldly. She instantly turned and headed straight back to the workshop.

“Wait up!” Braeburn said, catching Rarity just as she opened the workshop door.

Without looking at Braeburn, Rarity shoved the door open and walked into the workshop.

“What?” She asked curtly, as she quickly took a shot of some old coffee that was left lying on a worktable.

“Rarity…Rarity” Braeburn said, trying to keep up as Rarity walked straight towards the armor, spitting her old cigarette into the trash.

“What is it Braeburn.” Rarity replied her voice focused as she levitated parts of the suit onto her body.

“Well, I just feel that yer bein’ rather heady with all this, I mean all we know is a glowin’ blue unicorn is blowing stuff up in downtown. Now he looks mighty power and I’m not sure if the suit-”

“The suit will be able to handle it.” Rarity snapped, as the final pieces of the suit clicked into place.

“Why? What are you suggesting? That I just sit there watching the television while that psychopath is killing innocents?” she stepped closer to Braeburn with each step, her metal boots making a loud thumb with each step.

“Um….no….” Braeburn responded, taking a step back. “I just feel a little worried. That’s all.” He said, straitening up, his face both concerned and stern. “I just want ya be safe, ya know?”

Rarity’s stern expression softened. She let out a sigh. “I sorry, didn’t mean to snap like that. I just, I just…” she let out a sigh.

“Ya just what?” Braeburn asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I just feel that this will be my first time actually helping ponies…not just going to exact revenge or something or other…” Rarity said, blinking hard to clear her slightly watery eyes while she looked down at the floor.

Braeburn started to smile. “Well, why didn’t you just say so.” He said, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “I think that right there is the noblest thought a pony could have.”

Rarity looked up. “You really think so?”

Braeburn nodded. “I know so. Now, go kick that colt’s flank.”

Rarity smiled. “Okay then.” They hugged.

“Just remember, be safe.” Braeburn said.

Rarity stepped back and smiled. “Of course I will.” With that she closed the helmet and ignited the suits rockets and blasted off into the sky.

"Shine on you crazy diamond.

Now there's a look in your eyes,

Like black holes in the sky.

Shine on you crazy diamond."

• Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part I by Pink Floyd