The Grey Path of Arcane Gears

When Arcane opened her eyes the ghostly vision of Silent Brook was gone, but somehow she could feel her smiling from whatever corner of reality she stood on. She knelt down and thought of the runes for ‘fire’, the swirling text for ‘feather’, and the braille for ‘push’ at the very same time. It came so easy to her, yet simultaneously a chaotic flood of emotions stabbed out from memories she wasn’t recalling by choice. What could normally be pushed into the back of her mind was playing itself on loop. Falling, hitting, joy, a broken unicorn at her feet. Falling, hitting, joy, a broken unicorn at her feet. The cliff, mudmane, jealousy, revenge. Jealousy, revenge. Love, hate.

She grit her teeth and jumped into the air. Time ran slow for a few overwhelming moments. Her hooves glowed bright pink as a pocket of heat expanded rapidly between feet and ground. She felt the resistance of gravity weaken as raw force blended with an explosion going off under her. That moment of clarity soon broke as time regained it’s pace. Arcane’s scream echoed through the sky as jets of bubblegum colored flame flowed out from under her brightly glowing hooves.

A moment of panic ran through her when Arcane realized the Alicorn Emulator granted her neither horn nor wings, perhaps because there were never wings or horns there to be healed? Nothing to work with? She strained her thighs to keep hooves in place. It seemed they were the only thing keeping her airborne. Thankfully, the Pegasus magic was present enough to make gravity forget how heavy a full grown mare was. The panic turned into a laugh as she looked at her hands. Her fingertips were practically finger-tip shaped hooves. With arms spread out she curled her fingers and focused the same ‘push’. She pushed harder with her left hand, letting her bank right, then did a full barrel roll.

Arcane was a child for just a few wonderful seconds. She arched her back and watched the world tumble end over end. She dove towards the ground and flew low enough to smell the dust before climbing back up. The moment broke as a purple-cyan blurr raced past her. The Glimmer Dragon was in a steep pivoting dive, her skeletal wings angled and prepared to swoop back up once she met her current target.

A young Unicorn mare had stumbled on a rock without her four squad mates noticing. All of them were too concerned with getting wherever they needed to be, the sound of the wind too loud for her cries for help to reach them.

The dragon screeched out in blind rage as her claws came down towards the mare’s forehead. The demon could have aimed for her throat, but of course they didn’t want dead ponies. They wanted slaves.

Arcane flickered into reality three meters above the mare. Her fist was primed and aimed square at the dragon's jaw. With a raw scream Arcane leaned into her punch and sent the dead thing spinning up into the air. The Unicorn barely recognized what she saw before a white earth pony vanished in a flash of pink.

Arcane reappeared high in the air. She waited for the dragon to regain her balance before shouting out a taunt, calling the dragon an ‘Egg sucker’. The undead creature seemed to understand what that implied and naturally chose Arcane as her next victim.

Glimmer’s wings reared up and violently whipped back to rocket her gaunt frame through the air. Arcane waited, observed. Her left hand began to quiver as fingers strained as if wanting to claw out those hollow eyes of that boney bitch. She wrote it off as nerves, nothing more than an involuntary muscle spasm. Arcane didn’t notice as the fur around her earring went black and the flesh under it shifted into a dark lavender. Spots of dark hues formed and merged slowly down her neck, slower across her left cheek.

Arcane waited seconds before flicking out of space only to reappear fifteen meters behind Glimmer. Her eyes searched the space between for something she suspected to be there. Dead things don’t remain animated without a significant amount of magic provided by something commanding it.

“You tricky bitch!”, Arcane yelled out. Arcane found what she was looking for. It appeared as a pale white chain made of runes. They were similar to unicorn magic, at least enough for her to cobble together some meaning. Every link read, ‘Your life for mine’. She tilted her head and pivoted her hooves to fly towards it.

“Your Lives for mine?”

Shadows closed around Arcane. The dragon had called in all those copies of herself to attack from every angle. She grit her teeth and looked at the runes dancing On Glimmer’s gazelle-like horns.

“Monkey see…”

The mare appeared to the side of one Glimmer, then another, then another. Copies of Arcane reared their hand back once again. In one unified motion the duplicates of Arcane attacked. Their fists flew downward and at an angle that would meet roughly eight meters below, dead center between Glimmer’s eyes. The Glimmers tumbled down and merged into one unmoving figure. Arcane flew to the ground as she melded back, or more to the point, slowed down.

The mare came to a hovering landing as the bag of bones crashed and bounced four times.

“Melding a speed and teleport spell to appear in multiple places. Gotta remember that one.”

Arcane spoke as she walked quickly to that magic chain. Her left hoof rose and slammed down on runic links, though to anyone else looking it would seem she merely stomped on empty space.

A pained moan came from the dragon as it tried to push itself up from the ground only to collapse. Arcane moved forward and watched. The mare’s hand quivered again before it went rigid. Fingers spread and bent so all five points were aimed right at Glimmer.

“What the-“. Arcane looked down at her arm in shock. Her other hand moved to put it down, away, anywhere but directly at another being. She could feel hate well up inside her. It was her, and not her. These bastards hurt her family, hurt her Alloy. They were going to enslave her race so why the hell was she hesitating! They needed to die!

Arcane realized something about ‘corruption’ at that moment. Beings label things as bad when they see it as a threat. If what was inside her wasn’t so full of an absolutely valid rage it would be considered ‘accession’. It was nothing more than her repressed subconscious waking up, practically taking a life of its own.

“Stop!”

Arcane screamed. Tears ran down her face as her fingers glowed pink and arcs of electricity began to dance ever faster over her palm. The creeping black ran past her elbow, past her wrist. The pink glow shifted to lavender once fully consumed.

The fire that made up Glimmer’s form began to flicker and burn out. The light was dimming. By the time Arcane looked up from her hand, Glimmer was on her back with arms propping up her chest. She looked as if trying to crawl away yet frozen in terror. Those hollow eyes stared back with tiny lights quivering in the place of pupils.

Muscle, tendons, flesh, followed by dark purple scales grew on those blackened bones. Eyes wide and wet with tears looked back at a mare with murder in one eye and tears running out of the other.

The lavender arcs of lightning slowed their dance before crackling out of existence, leaving only the faint smell of ozone. Arcane collapsed onto her hands and knees, physically and emotionally drained from fighting her own mind.

A slender hand touched the mare’s shoulder. Arcane felt a warmth flow through her. It was like warm water flowed through her bones and relaxed her muscles. The water became cool and eased her mind. Arcane looked up to see an earnest Draconic face looking back at her.

“Thank you.”

The mare looked in disbelief, able to think of a single thing in response. The eight dragons were not the dead ones, the one in control was.

“Go to command. You’re alright now, but you’ll need fluids and food once that spell has fully worn off. You already know that, I bet.”

Glimmer gave a weak laugh and a little nod.

“Are you going to be alright by yourself?”

Arcane smirked and looked about. Streams of bold colors in the distance, streaks of light were all she could see of Celestia’s knights.

“I’m far from alone. Now go.”

Glimmer gave a small nod before cyan flames spun around her form. In a flash she simply vanished.

Arcane drew in a deep breath as she raised to her hooves. Her body slowly rose above the ground as the corruption crawled up her cheek. It moved faster across her back and down her right thigh. Her right hoof glowed pink then shifted to lavender.

A white scaled form swooped down from the sun’s glare, sapphire from beyond the dome. Three meters from Arcane, a shockwave of hot air and red dirt swept past her thighs. When it parted the Dragon Celestia stood with a scowl etched in her slender maw. Arcane wasn’t surprised to see the dragon Queen looked a little more haggard now. Her eyes were slightly deeper set, her crown of horns not quite as smooth and healthy.

“Where is my Knight?!”

A smirk creeped up the left half of Arcane’s muzzle as the corruption reached the bridge of her nose. She closed her eyes and let out a little sigh as the left eyebrow became violet. That same hue ran down the left half of her hair as the wavy nature of those strands went slack and straight. Her eyes opened. That left eye was now gold, piercing and predatory.

“Why do you care? Are you in a hurry to rescue a dragon that was defeated by a lowly Earth Pony?”

The Draconic Celestia was taken aback. She didn’t seem quite prepared for an answer like that. Her eyes locked onto the blue-gold orbs of this odd floating novelty and stepped closer.

“She was mine. It’s an insult to take what is owned, even worthless things.”, the dragon’s tone came out either as a threat or a flirt. Perhaps in her world it was one in the same.

“Even if a better possession replaced the first?”

Arcane hovered closer and showed no fear, no hesitation to come within Celestia’s reach. Her knees bent and thighs reached to curl around the tall white dragon’s waist. She let her inner thighs touch that smooth stomach.

Celestia perked an eye-ridge and tilted her head.

“Is that a sword?”

Arcane lowered her muzzle to brush the side of a smoothly scaled neck as her white hand rose up to stroke one of those prismatic horns on Celestia’s temples.

“A little blunt for a sword. And a little too thick, don’t you think?”

Celestia began to chuckle as her taloned hands brushed up Arcane’s thighs, one lightly tracing the contrasting line between black and white along the mare’s back.

Arcane could feel something broad and tipped brush under her tail, right along the buttoned slit in the rear of her fatigues.

“My sweet little thing, you’re not the only one in possession of a ‘sword’.”