Chapter 10 (Stinium_Ruide)

Twilight and her friends (minus Spike, obviously) gasped.

The formerly lovely settlement of Sire’s Hollow had degraded into numerous heaps of rubble dotting the surrounding landscape. The entire town was shrouded in a shadowy mist of ethereal void as mystical lightning crashed and crackled from the centre of the city. An endless cacophony of discordant sounds emanated from within, sending constant shivers down the spines of Twilight and her friends.

“Twilight, we must hurry, the monster has already torn through the entire town!” Sunburst exclaimed as he put on a burst of speed towards the centre of the town. “We need to find Starlight NOW!”

Twilight blinked, before rushing after Sunburst with the rest of her friends rallying from behind, passing by yellowing grass and demolished cottages. As they leapt over random bits of rubble on the cracking pavement, they swiftly arrived at the central plaza.

“STARLIGHT!” Sunburst yelled.

A loud, maniacal laughter boomed from the shadowy figure before them, accompanied by abhorrent flashes of lightning. Winged and certainly capable of magic, the creature revealed an almost impenetrable umbra in a flash.

“Sunburst!” a weak, though audible voice rang out.

The shadowy figure conjured a claw out of its very being and enveloped Starlight’s black cocoon. “Ah, I’m glad you all have come to join us. It’s all working… as planned.”

Twilight trotted forth slowly. “Who are you? Wh-”

“Who am I? That is a very… interesting question with a very… interesting answer,” the shadow began as its claws playfully tossed Starlight’s cocoon like a tennis ball.

“Give it up, shadow… uh, thing!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed brashfully. “Stop this now, or Twilight will blast you with her magic!”

The shadow chuckled. “Blast me with her magic? Then I’ll just kill Star-”

“No! You can’t do this!” Twilight shouted exasperatedly. She couldn’t let her first student, and one of her best friends go if she could help it. She had to think of a way to get Starlight out of there, pronto!

She had to distract it.

“Just… who are you?” Twilight shouted, trying to sound calm, though the breaks in her voice were evidently giving that away. “And why are you doing this to Starlight?”

“Who I am…” the shadow’s mouth-like features morphed into a thin, wry smile. “Specifically, a scorn scooting scoundrel scything through the scene seamlessly; a shadowy sapient sentient specially sent to sentence a sure sentiment of senseless servility; a self-appointed sentinel sentry to severely sever the setting select. So I shower sadness and sorrow to swallow the sheer sharpness of shame, to scatter shades of sham in the shambled shards of space. S-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you seriously recite that everyday in the bathroom mirror just for this?” Rainbow Dash sighed heavily, shaking her head. “I didn’t know shadows can be eggheads.”

“Ye — I mean, SILENCE!” the shadow boomed. “So I shall subjugate you stupid sentiments—”

“I’m pretty sure that not even how you use the word ‘sentiments’, Shadow,” Twilight interjected loudly, her voice somehow managing to cut through the figure’s own as she smirked.

“SHUT IT!” the shadow howled deafeningly. “I practised and refined this over generations and I’m gonna—”

“No, sh—”

“No, you shut up! I’m the mastermind here!” the shadow bellowed out. “I’ll just send Starlight to limbo before you all even have a chance to save her!”

An eerie silence hung thick in the misty air. Twilight tried to think, but her mind was filled with the prospect of losing Starlight forever to this weird, shadowy thing. She racked her brain for a solution, but before she had a moment of genius, Sunburst suddenly leapt forward to confront the beast himself.

“I will never let you send my best friend to limbo without a fight!” Sunburst exclaimed, before charging his horn to fire a blast at the tainted creature. A sharp orange beam struck the creature, dead-on, accompanied with howling cries of pain.

But those cries didn’t come from the shadow.

It came from Starlight.

“Sunburst! Stop!” Starlight cried out in certain agony from her prison. “You… you’re killing me!”

“Foals… did you seriously think that you can hurt me with your puny blasts of magic?” the shadow goaded as Sunburst ceased his magical attack. “I’ll just channel your destructive energies into something that can… manage it.”

“Shadow, please. Why are you holding Starlight hostage?” Twilight asked, hoping that it would help to de-escalate the situation. Maybe if she could better empathise with this shadowy mass…

Author's Note

Written by Stinium_Ruide.