Setting the Stage. Zipp's battle within.
Perhaps, dear readers, the beginning of this story sounds familiar.
It all started when a portal of an unknown origin appeared in front of the Together Tree in Maretime Bay. The ponies were naturally cautious and weary of such a thing, afraid of what could come from the other side. After much debate on what should be done, it was decided that a team of ponies would go and investigate the mysterious object. That was comprised of Zipp Storm, her sister Pipp Petals, her coltfriend Hitch Trailblazer, along with dragon son Sparky, and her close friends Misty Brightdawn, Izzy Moonbow, and Sunny Starscout.
Together, they entered the portal to discover the snowy world of Starlight Ridge, along with the auroricorns that called it home. Initially frightened by the presence of strange ponies in their village, the auroricorns soon came to welcome their new guests. With two of them, Violet Frost and Comet, acting as their guides, they showed the six ponies around their home and all of the fun actives the did during Starshine Time.
However, the fun was not to last, as suddenly the auroricorns' friendly nature changed to one of worry as they quickly put an end to everything and attempted to usher their guests away. Unsure as to what was going on, our heroes initially complied and went back to the portal. However, they knew in their hearts that something was wrong, and that they had to do something for their new friends.
And so they returned to the village to find the auroricorns acting strangely, walking around with massive, unsettling smiles on their faces, as if they were in some kind of trance, looking for something in the snow. And that was when they saw her.
Allura.
A winged, purple snow leopard, along with her rabbit minion Twitch, who had the power of hypnosis that she used on the Auroricorns. The site of seeing her take control of Violet despite her resistance was frightening for all to watch, but it was Zipp who was scared the most at seeing the feline's powers in use.
Able to conceal her fear for now, she and the rest of her friends were able to encounter Violet and Comet as they entered into the woods in their mindless search of something for Allura.
By sheer dumb luck, the Mane Six were somehow able to snap them out of their hypnotic state. Once free, the auroricorns explained their story of how Allura suddenly appeared one day and made herself the self proclaimed leader of the village by forcibly taking the Nova Charm. They also mentioned how Allura was able to get them to obey her commands with just simple purring, and how she was using that power to make them search for a special star that would allow her to move between realms.
Hearing that only frightened Zipp even more. It was only because her friends were equally shocked that they didn't notice her fears.
They had considered fleeing from the village with everypony, but when Comet ran back to gather everypony, he fell back under the trance just by being in the area.
Any composure Zipp had at that point had all but evaporated. She began to pant heavily as her vision blurred and her legs became weak, unable to keep her balanced that she almost fell atop of Misty. "Whoa! You okay, Zipp?" Misty quietly asked her.
Leaning up against Misty for support, Zipp was barely able to find her footing. "Y-yeah." She assured the unicorn with a forced smile. "I'm fine."
"What'd we do?!" Violet nervously asked. "What'd we do!? What'd we do!?"
Sunny looked at the Nova Charm hovering by Allura as she flew around and inspected the auroricorns at work. "Hmmm." She thought of a plan. "If whoever has the Nova Charm is in charge..."
"Then all we need to do is take it back and everypony will be freed!" Violet realized before she asked. "But how are we going to do that?"
"First we'd need somewhere safe to plan." Sunny proposed before telling the others. "Quick, everypony, to the mess hall."
Zipp, who had been toning out what Sunny and Violet had been saying, heard that a nearly blurted out loud enough for Allura to hear them. "What!?"
"Ssssshhh!" Pipp quickly covered her sister's mouth. After checking to make sure they weren't spotted, Pipp lowered her hoof and whispered. "You gotta be quiet, or else we'll be caught." She scolded Zipp.
"And you think walking into the village square won't get us caught faster?" Zipp retorted.
"If we keep our heads down, and stay away from Allura, we should avoid her hypnotic powers." Sunny assured her before she lead the others into sneaking towards their sanctuary.
Using the snow sculptures they made earlier as cover, they were able to avoid Allura's detection and trance. For the entire way, Pipp stayed by Zipp's side, consistently having to help keep her sister grounded and not fly away any time Allura got close to them like a frightened bird. Zipp's behavior worried Pipp immensely. She hadn't seen her older sister this afraid for months.
Once they had arrived in the mess hall, Sunny and Violet had started on brainstorming a plan to get the Nova Charm from Allura, with Izzy taking the front stage with a song about creativity. As that was going on, everypony else was listening in. Well, almost everypony else.
If Zipp was listening, she wasn't doing a good job of showing it. Instead, she seemed to be more focused on watching the window like a hawk, refusing to look away for a split second. This behavior eventually did get the attention of those closest to Zipp, and once Izzy was done singing and started working on the plan with Sunny and Violet, they went over to Zipp to see what was troubling her. "Hey, honey." Hitch said as he, Pipp, and Misty walked up to the pegasus.
With her being so distracted by what's going on outside, Zipp didn't hear their approach until Hitch spoke, and jumped when she heard him. "Aah!" She exclaimed as she placed a hoof on her heart to calm it down before she turned to look at the group. "Hitch!" She scolded him.
"Sorry." Hitch apologized with a sheepish smile. "We just wanted to make sure you were doing okay."
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine." Zipp lied, but her nervousness made it very obvious.
Not needing any convincing to know her sister wasn't fine, Pipp walked up to her and wrapped a hoof over her shoulder. "Zipp, come on, it's us. We never judged you before, we're not going to judge you now." She assured her big sister. "You can tell us what's scaring you."
Sparky decided to do his duty as Emotional Support Dragon and cuddled up to his mother's leg. However, despite the cute gesture, it wasn't enough to get Zipp to calm down as her head snapped back to the window to make sure they weren't spotted. The others saw this, and started to get an idea of what could possibly be frightening Zipp. "It's Allura, isn't it?" Hitch guessed as he joined Pipp at Zipp's side.
Zipp said nothing, and instead only nodded while keeping her gaze on the outside, and the evil snow leopard flying around. Noticing the pegasus also seemed to be emitting shame from her feelings, Misty stepped up to comfort her. "Hey, it's all right. We're scared too." She told Zipp. "I mean, having powers like hypnosis? That's scary for anypony."
"No! You don't get it!" Zipp told them as she broke off from the embrace. "It's more than just her powers being scary. It's what could happen if she uses those powers on me." Just the thought was making the pegasus start to panic, and those with her did their best to comfort her.
"Hey, Zipp, look at me." Pipp said as she held her sister's face, forcing the white pegasus to look into her eyes.
This gesture seemed to calm Zipp down just enough so she was speaking again. "The last time a villain mind controlled me, it nearly ruined my life." She said shakily.
"Opaline's necklace was designed to bring out the worst of the pony wearing it." Misty explained what she knew in hopes to calm the pegasus down. "Allura's spell seems to just be taking away a pony's free will and forcing them to obey her." Pipp, Hitch, and even Sparky gave the unicorn looks of unamusement at her information. "What?" Misty said in her defense. "My point being its not the same form of mind control. Even if Allura uses it on us, it won't be the same as when Opaline-"
"How can you be sure?" Zipp shakingly asked. Before Misty or anypony else could respond, she asked again. "How can you be sure!?" She shouted, now gaining the attention of the planning group. "It doesn't matter what the purpose of the spell is, all that matters is that I would be losing control of myself again! And what could happen after that? What if I end up going even more insane than last time! My dark side could actually get the better of me this time! I could kill all of you!" She started hyperventilating at the thought of loosing herself again.
"Wait, what?" Violet said at all of this.
"It's a long story." Izzy assured her. "About five or so hours. Just let them handle it. They know her best."
On the verge of another panic attack, Zipp nearly collapsed to the floor, but thankfully Hitch caught her in time. "Zipp. Zipp." He said gently. "It's going to be okay."
"But how-" Zipp was about to ask before Hitch answered for her.
"I know because we've been through this before. And we over came all the impossible odds." Hitch took Zipp's hooves into his own just as he had when he comforted her on their first date. "And no matter what happens, we will overcome this too."
"Mmmhmm!" Everypony else nodded in agreement before Pipp said her piece. "We will get out of this unharmed, Zipp." She assured her big sister.
Zipp looked at her little sister and quietly asked in a plea. "Promise?"
"Promise." Pipp promised everything was going to be okay.
It all went wrong. The plan to trick Allura into thinking she found the special star she needed had initial gone as planned, but then it all fell apart. Turns out having the Nova Charm or not didn't matter to Allura, not when she had her powers of Purr-suasion. And she demonstrated this on Zipp's friends.
After entrancing Comet again, and having him bring the Nova Charm to her, Allura first turned her powers on Misty and Izzy. The unicorns tried to dodge, but Izzy fell over and Misty wasn't fast enough and they gained massive, creepy smiles as they fell under Allura spell. "No!" Zipp shouted at seeing this.
Hitch grabbed Sparky and tried to run away, but running with three legs made him susceptible to tripping, and that left him vulnerable to Allura's attack from behind. "Hitch! Sparky!" Zipp cried at seeing her lover and son mind controlled.
Then, as if she was doing this all on purpose to torture Zipp, Allura quickly turned around and purred at Pipp. The pink pegasus could only back up fearfully, before she started laughing under the snow leopard's spell. "PIPPPPP!" Zipp cried at seeing her sister fall. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" She repeated at everything going just as she feared.
Speaking of fears, it seemed Allura decided the older pegasus was next to entrance. Zipp saw the snow leopard facing her direction, and knew what was coming next. "NOOOO!" She shouted before she spread her wings and launched herself into the sky, flying away from the village as fast as her wings could carry her.
"ZIPP, wait! Come back!" Sunny shouted and was about to fly after her, but Allura suddenly appeared in front of the alicorn and stopped her.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about her anymore than you should for yourself." Allura said before she purred at the earth pony.
Zipp didn't know how far or how long she had been flying. She was too afraid to look back in fears of slowing down. Only when she eventually felt that she had out flown Allura enough did she decided to land to rest her wings. Once on the snow, Zipp was able to properly take in everything that had happened. “You promised that nothing would go wrong.” She started to cry before shouting. “You promised!” The memory of seeing what happened to all of her friends made the pegasus fall to the ground and sob into her hooves.
She stayed like that, crying into the snow, not knowing what to do now, until she felt somepony behind her and heard a very familiar voice. “Well, isn’t this a sad sight to see.”
Recognizing the voice, Zipp immediately stopped crying and gasped. “It can’t be.” She said as she raised her head and turned around to see her dark self standing behind her with an annoyed look on her face. “You!” The pegasus gasped as she fell over in shock.
“Nice to see you’ve barely improved since we last spoke.” Dark Zipp said sarcastically.
"Wh-what are you even doing here?" Zipp stammered out. "How are you even here?"
Dark Zipp raised an eyebrow at the question. "Seriously?" She said in response before giving a proper answer bluntly, like she was lecturing a child. "Did you just forget my final words from the last time we met? I am a part of you. We can't have one without the other."
That wasn't the answer Zipp was looking for, but she decided it was probably best to just leave this mystery unsolved. The less she spoke to this evil her the better. "Whatever. I don't have anything to say to you, and I'm not listening to anything you have to say." She told her other self firmly before turning around and walking away.
Dark Zipp did not take kindly to being snubbed and appeared in front of the pegasus, startling her. "Oh, you're going to listen to me this time. Because right now, I'm the side of us that's thinking logically." She firmly told Zipp.
"Thinking logic-" Zipp stammered out what she was told before saying. "How in Equestria are you the one thinking logically? All you've ever done is tell me to betray my friends and take power for myself."
"Oh, so like what you just did?" Dark Zipp rhetorically asked.
That made Zipp freeze in place. "Wh-what?" She said in disbelief. "I-I never-"
"When you stomped me into goo, which I wanna let you know really hurt, you said that you weren't going to be a coward anymore. And at first, it seemed that you were taking said advice to heart, defending your sister, son, and others. But here we are now, you running away with your tail between your legs while your friends are under some freaky feline's hypnotic control, no chance of breaking free and being trapped for the rest of their lives, all because you're worried she would do the same to you."
"That's not what happened!" Zipp shouted in her defense.
"Please." The alicorn version rolled her eyes. "I don't have to be able to read your mind to know that's a huge lie."
"It's not!" Zipp retorted again.
Seeing the pegasus was stubbornly denying the truth again, Dark Zipp knew she'd need to take a different approach compared to last time. So, with a smile, she changed her game. “Oh, I get it. It was a tactical retreat so you can figure out a plan to kick that wannabe ruler’s rump. Not exactly what I would've done, but I do approve of the forceful options regardless."
“What?!” Zipp gasped at what her evil self suggested. “No! No! There is no way I can fight her!” She stated firmly.
“So then you did abandon your friends.” Dark Zipp said.
“No!” Zipp quickly yelled back.
“Then you’re going back to fight Allura then?” Dark Zipp asked. “You either do that or leave your friends behind.” She stated
"No, no." Zipp retorted before coming up with another plan. "I'll just find the portal and fly to Zephyr Heights and tell Mom what happened. She can send the royal guard, and then we'll..."
"Oh, give me a break." Dark Zipp rolled her eyes. "You know just as well as I that the portal doesn't have that long left. And it probably will have less with so many ponies crossing it." She then, somehow, grabbed Zipp and pulled her in close. "You don't get a third option here. You either go back and fight for your friends, or leave them and go back home. There's no alternate angle to take." The alicorn let the white pegasus go and asked the question. "What's it going to be?"
Zipp didn't reply. Instead she looked back the way she flew. She thought about her friends, under Allura's spell, trapped with the auroricorns in this hell, not knowing real from fake anymore.
She thought about Hitch and Sparky. The stallion she loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Now she may never get that chance. Or see her son grow into a powerful dragon and soar alongside her.
She thought about Pipp and Misty; her sisters. After all they've been through, all the struggles they faced together, now she would be on her own. Never see Pipp preform again, or have fun with Misty again.
Unless she fought back.
"What I need to do." Zipp answered her dark self's question as she spread her wings and took to the sky.
Dark Zipp smiled at a job well done. "This will be fun." She said before disappearing.
Author's Note
And we end part one of a cliffhanger. I'd laugh evilly, but you all knew it was going to anyway.
So, the saga continues, now delving into the Secret of Starlight Special. An OK episode, but seeing what Allura did to Zipp pisses me off.
I have been saying for a literal year now, 'If Allura ever hypnotizes Zipp again, I will make her into a through rug'. And by I, I mean my OC, as obviously I can't kill a fictional character. I've been planning on a revenge story for the longest time, but since the show ended, there's not much reason to post anything (unless something happens in the many leaked episodes being released) and that story was getting to weird for my liking, so let's just call this my revenge and leave it at that.
But revenge over a pony waifu is not the main reason I wrote this. Just, one of the reasons. The others I would love to get into, but that would require me to spoil things going forward. So you'll have to wait till tomorrow to see the thrilling conclusion of this story and find out if Zipp will be able to rise to the challenge or not.
Ascending Beyond. Zipp vs Allura.
Back in Starlight Ridge, the rest of the Mane Six were now being used by Allura as more slaves in finding the special star of hers. Misty and Izzy used their unicorn magic to pluck stars out of the sky, while Hitch searched on ground. Pipp and Sunny had their wings put to use as they flew up to the sky and grabbed stars with their hooves, or at least ones that were brought down low enough for them to grab. They then would look at the stars to see if they fit the description Aurora gave them, shake their heads no when it wasn't and toss them away, only to end up getting picked up again by somepony on the ground. All while having the smiles that would give anyone watching nightmares.
All of this happened while Allura continued to supervise their work. "'Even with these new ponies, they're still as useless as ever." She growled in annoyance. "All these years, and nothing has changed. What could I be missing?"
On her back, Twitch made some noises, implying he was trying to say something. Allura looked at her rabbit minion, saw him pointing at the entranced newcomers, and seemed to get an idea on what he was saying. "Yes, you do have a point. These trespassers tell us that there's more ponies around besides just the auroricorns. Meaning there's more to this realm than I originally thought." The snow leopard smirked as an idea started to form in her head. "Perhaps we could use this information to our advantage."
Then Twitch started to say something else again. From the way he grabbed his ears and flapped them, Allura guessed he was talking about the one pony that got away. "The white one? Why should I be worried about her? You saw the fear in her eyes as she fled. She wouldn't come back for them."
Suddenly, as if fate heard her words. "ALLURA!!" The loud shout rang through the village. It was so loud that everyone turned their heads to the source, not just Allura and Twitch. Standing atop a large snow drift was Zipp, wings flared and eyes glaring at the snow leopard.
"Well, well, well." Allura said in amusement to seeing the pegasus return. Twitch seemed to say something, probably about his mistress being wrong, but she ignored him. "Seems the little pony still has some fight in her."
internally shaking, Zipp stood her ground and delivered her demands. "Let my friends and the auroricorns go, then leave and never come back!"
"Hehehehe!"' Allura chuckled at the pegasus' attempt at bravery. "And just what, pray tell, are you going to do to make me comply?" She mockingly asked.
Zipp crouched down, ready to take off at a moments notice, before replying. "Either do what I say, or I will make you." She threatened.
But Allura wasn't at all concerned as she flew to the ground, allowing Twitch to hop off her back. "I have to admit, nopony has truly ever stood up to me like this before. What is your name, young one? I'd like to remember it."
"Zipp." Zipp simply replied.
"Well, Zipp." Allura said as she slowly spread her wings. "Perhaps we can come to a better understanding when you starting seeing things more.....my way." She said before purring hypnotically at Zipp.
Zipp didn't waste anytime in deciding if it could reach her from her location or not and rocketed into the sky before the waves could hit her. Seeing her prey try to escape, Allura flapped her wings and perused after the pegasus. Knowing Allura would try to attack from all angles, Zipp had her senses on high alert, especially her ears. It wasn't too hard to recognize the sound of the snow leopard's purring, locate where she was coming from, and then maneuver her flight path out of harms way.
Allura was starting to get annoyed with her opponent's lack of actual combat. And she wasn't the only one. "What are you doing!?" Dark Zipp yelled angrily inside of the pegasus' head.
"What does it look like?" Zipp responded.
"It looks like you're doing nothing but running away again!" The alicorn version said.
"I'm not running away." Zipp tried to counter, getting a little frustrated as her evil self's complaining was distracting her and leading to many close calls, before Dark Zipp interrupted her again.
"Flying away and not even hitting her is still running away. Just because it's not on hoof-" Now Dark Zipp found herself getting interrupted.
"The plan is to wear her down." Zipp explained her strategy while barrel rolling out of more waves. "And it'd be a lot easier to do so if somepony shut their trap." She added bitterly.
"Oh, wow. Great plan. One for the history books." Dark Zipp replied sarcastically.
"Unlike you, I'm not actually an alicorn." Zipp pointed out to her other self. "So I don't have the magical power to fight her head on. And have I forgot to mention she is clearly larger than me?" She said before noticing Allura wasn't following her anymore. "Where'd she go?" She asked herself aloud.
As if to prove Zipp's point, Allura decided to forget the hypnosis for now and instead use a more physical form of attacking. Lowering herself to the ground while the pegasus was distracted, she suddenly pounced from out of nowhere on the white pony.
Zipp only had time to shout in surprise before she found herself falling to the ground. She had no time to recover herself before she crashed in the middle of the auroricorns. More specifically, amidst her friends. groaning as she got up, Zipp looked to see the unnerving smiles they were giving her. "Uh-oh." She said.
"Told you it wouldn't work." Dark Zipp told her other self.
"Seems you are still much of a flighter over a fighter." Allura said as she came to a much smoother landing. "If I can't purr-suade you to join me, perhaps your friends can do a better job." She finished by letting out a roar.
That roar was actually a command to the hypnotized ponies. One that said to go from searching from the star to capturing the pegasus. The five ponies slowly turned their heads towards the pegasus and began marching towards her, all while laughing creepily.
Seeing the danger she was in, Zipp quickly shot back up to the sky before her friends reached her. But she wasn't out of the clear yet as Pipp and Sunny followed after her. "Great, just what I need." She said to herself as she avoided to giggling pegasus and alicorn, together being harder to evade than just Allura.
"Any day now." Dark Zipp said impatiently.
"I am not attacking my friends!" Zipp shouted firmly at her other self just as she dodged Sunny's shield spell.
"Well, they clearly want to hurt you, so I'd start swinging some hooves to protect myself." Dark Zipp pointed out.
"Oh, you are just loving this, aren't you!?" Zipp growled in frustration at her evil side and evading Pipp grabbing her.
"Okay, just because I told you your friends suck doesn't mean I said to kill them. If you remember clearly, I enslaved them just like this ice bitch is doing." Dark Zipp reminded her pegasus self. But she didn't give Zipp a moment to respond before warning her. "And keep up with the flying if that's all you're going to do, unless you want the unicorns to grab you!"
"Unicorns?" Zipp looked down and saw Izzy and Misty looking up at her with glowing horns.
"They're trying to pull you down!" Dark Zipp cautioned. "So you need to keep moving fast unless you plan on taking them out of the fight."
"I told you already, I am not hurting my friends!" Zipp shouted at herself. "I just need to think of another strategy."
From the ground, Allura and Twitch were watching Zipp evade her friends' attempts to capture her. "This is disappointing, Twitch." The rabbit made some noises in confusion before Allura went into detail. "For being the first pony to come along and challenge me, I expected them to at least attempt to put up a fight. But it seems I was getting my hopes up for some good entertainment." She gave a sigh of disappointment. "I guess it's time to end this and get back to work."
Twitch seemed to be asking how she planned on doing that when the pegasus wouldn't stand still for her to hypnotize. "Oh, everyone has a weakness." She said as she eyed the only two not currently trying to catch Zipp.
Back in the air, Zipp was still working on keeping herself away from her friends' grasps, much to her other self's annoyance. "So, have you figured out a plan yet, or are we just going to keep trying out for the Aerobats?" The alicorn Zipp asked impatiently.
"It's a little hard to think when I have to keep dodging ponies at every turn!" Zipp bitterly reminded her dark half. "Maybe you can actually try helping instead of just making sarcastic comments." She suggested.
"I've been helping you all I can. It's you that's the one ignoring my adv-hold on a minute." Dark Zipp's rebuttal was stopped when she saw something out of the corner of her eyes, or rather Zipp's eyes. "Hey, you might wanna get a better look at this." She said in a seriousness that Zipp hadn't heard from her other self before.
And that was concerning.
Focusing her eyesight into that corner, what Zipp saw terrified her.
Down below, Allura approached Hitch and Sparky, the father and son just standing in place with massive smiles. "Don't you move." Allura commanded them. "This will be quick."
"Yes, Allura." Hitch obeyed and didn't move a muscle. Not even when Allura stopped and raised a paw into the air, intending to bring it down on both him and Sparky.
Seeing her lover and son in imminent danger, Zipp didn't hesitant in deciding what to do next. "NOOOOO!" She screamed before diving after them.
"NO, YOU FOOL! IT'S A TRAP!" Dark Zipp yelled, but her other side didn't listen or care.
With the speed she was going, as well as the paw coming down, Zipp made it in time to push Hitch and Sparky out of harm's way, into a snow bank, and take the force of the paw.
At least, that's what she thought it was going to be. But Allura had planned for this. "Gotcha." She said before hypnotically purring at the pegasus at point blank.
"AAAAAAAHHHH!" Zipp screamed as the waves made contact. Despite this, she didn't immediately fall under Allura's spell. Instead, it appeared that she was resisting the control. But Allura was patient. The pegasus would fall soon enough. Everypony did.
In the meantime, she continued to take enjoyment at watching the pegasus who attempted to defy her crumble. In Zipp's head, she kept hearing the same thing repeat itself over and over again. "Obey. Obey. Obey. Obey. Obey. Obey. Obey. Obey. Obey. Obey. Obey. Obey." Slowly driving her mad. Even Dark Zipp was suffering from this madness, cursing her other self for falling victim to such an obvious trap and not taking the chance to finish this sooner. Now it seemed that chance would never come.
But when it seemed it all was over, Zipp heard a voice call out to her. "ZIPP!"
In her struggling, Zipp opened an eye and saw something that shocked her. There, off to the side, was Hitch and Sparky, looking at her with absolute fear for her safety, but safe and freed from the spell. "Hitch?" She said in disbelief.
"DON'T LET HER CONTROL YOU, ZIPP!" Hitch shouted. "YOU CAN FIGHT IT!" Sparky blabbered his own cries of encouragement.
Allura was surprised to see the stalion and dragon free, but decided to ignore them for now. She could entrance them again easily enough. But this stubborn pegasus wasn't falling, and it was getting annoying. She strengthened her purring in an attempt to defeat her opponent. But now Zipp's resolve was growing stronger with every wave being sent to her.
Both of them were so fixated with each other, neither noticed the Nova Charm in the center of the village started to glow. The auroricorns in the village just stared mindlessly at the bright light. Hitch, Sparky, and Twitch saw the glow, but didn't say anything to distract their fighter, and also because they had no idea what it meant.
Back in the struggle, Zipp's spirit continued on pushing back against Allura's spell. Suddenly, she felt something enter and flow through her whole body. Dark Zipp started feeling the same thing. At that moment, both pegasus and alicorn versions of the mare saw eye-to-eye, and thought the same thing. "NO YOU DON'T!!!" They shouted as one before there was an explosion of light.
The blast knocked Allura back and she landed in the center of town. Snarling as she stood back on her feet, the flying leopard was surprised to see the pegasus had completely vanished. "What?"
Lowering his hoof from covering Sparky's eyes, having turned away to shield his own, Hitch also was surprised to see his marefriend had suddenly disappeared. "Zipp?" He said nervously, worried for her safety after such a magical explosion.
Allura was also on edge, though more so due to the lack of knowledge on what had just occurred. "Where are you?" She demanded to know before yelling out loudly. "Show yourself, Zipp!"
Allura got a response for that. That response being getting hit in the face by something going the speed of a bullet. This knocked Allura back even further than the blast of magic did, and sent her crashing head first into the snow. "Whoa!" Hitch gasped in disbelief at what he just saw. "So fast."
Sticking her head out and shaking the snow off, Allura looked around for her attacker. "Who dares?" She demanded to know before she got her answer when she turned around.
There stood Zipp, only she was looking very different. Her normally pink mane and tail now appeared much brighter, while the blue streaks in the middle were darker than normal. And her wings, they were glowing. Feathers would become light, than dark, than light again, than dark again in an almost hypnotic pattern.
Hitch's jaw dropped when he saw Zipp like this, and Sparky kindly closed his father's mouth before it broke.
Allura was also speechless when she saw what had happened to the pegasus. "Wh-what is this?" She said with genuine fear in her voice.
Zipp looked the snow leopard dead in the eyes, frightening the feline more with her lack of emotions being displayed. "This, Allura, is what is going to kick your ass!" Zipp shouted, an echo coming off of her as if it was two ponies talking simultaneously, before she flew straight at Allura.
Allura smirked at this choice of attack. "Fool." She said before she purred at the pegasus.
But it was Allura who was the fool as Zipp already anticipated such an obvious attack and countered this by shielding herself with her wing. The wing, now having expanded, not only kept Zipp safe, but actually deflected the attack back at the leopard when it swung open. Allura had to quickly dodge to not accidentally fall under her own spell, but this left her open to Zipp striking her with her wing, the feathered limb feeling like steel.
Allura fell back, but quickly got back up and snarled at the pegasus. Zipp smirked at a job well done before flying in for more attacks. First she smacked the feline's face with her hoof, then she roundhouse kicked before she could recover, lastly she bucked Allura down with both hindlegs.
"Stay still!" Allura growled in frustration as she was unable to land one hit on her opponent.
"Oh, is this too fast for you?" Zipp asked mockingly. "Allow me to fix that!" With the flap of her wings, she sped towards Allura even faster. Flying around the confused big cat in circles so fast it looked connected, Zipp started flying straight into her opponent from all angles so quickly one might mistake it as multiple pegasi attacking at once, especially as it started to speed up even more
Off to the side, Hitch could only watch in wonder and amazement as his marefriend was literally flying circles around Allura. "She's so cool." He whispered to Sparky, who babbled in agreement.
"Hitch!" He heard Zipp call out to him and saw her and Allura in a struggle, trying to pin the other down. "Our friends! You gotta find a way to free our friends and everypony else from the spell!" She told him.
"Y-you got it!" Hitch stammered out his assurance as Zipp seemed to win the struggle and now held Allura in a restraint hold similar to his own. But his pride in her skills had to wait as he now had the massive task of saving his friends, which now seemed to be marching towards him with Twitch leading from atop Sunny's head.
Seeing the evil rabbit controlling his friends infuriated Hitch greatly. Sparky seemed to be just as, if not even more mad as he actually leapt out of Hitch's grasp and tackled the rabbit off of the orange mare. "Sparky!" Hitch worryingly called out to his dragon son, but didn't have time to be concerned for long as he was now starting to get surrounded.
"Okay, Hitch, think." The stallion told himself as he backed away. "What was it that snapped you and Sparky out of the trance?" Last thing he remembered was getting tackled by Zipp, most likely to save him. "It's worth a shot." He said, quietly praying his friends wouldn't be too mad at him for this, before he charged towards Sunny and knocked her down onto the village square. Unfortunately, it seemed that did nothing as Sunny slowly stood back up, still with the creepy AF smile and giggling. "OK, that didn't work." Hitch told himself as he tried to formulate a new plan, while also knocking his friends back to keep them at bay.
Sparky was faring much better than his parents currently were. Twitch stood ready to fight, even making a fighting pose for dramatic effect. But to a dragon, a rabbit is nothing more than a toothpick, even as a baby as Sparky quickly demonstrated by breathing fire at Twitch. The evil bunny screamed before running out of the way, but not before getting some of his tail burned. Sparky seemed to have that mischievous side of him thinking this was a game, called 'Burn the Tail off the Rabbit', and started chasing after Twitch, continuously blowing fire at the panicking lagomorph.
Back with Hitch, his friends were beginning to push him back out of the square and into the snow. "Not good. Not good." He said as he shoved Comet out of the way when he got too close for comfort.
However, when he did it this time, Comet landed in the snow. And when he did, his eyes flashed purple briefly. "Huh?" He said in confusion as he got back up onto his hooves.
"Comet?" Hitch said in surprise to seeing the auroricorn free from the trance.
"Hitch?" Comet said with equal confusion before asking. "What's going on? Did we win?"
"But how?" Hitch asked before he remembered many things. How they snapped Comet and Violet out of it, how he and Sparky were standing on the snow when they fell, what Violet said about the snow being magical.
"Hitch?" Comet asked again as the earth pony stallion was in thought. "Seriously? I have no idea what's going on and I would like some context. Like why is Izzy looking at me like that?" He said as he backed away from the hypnotized mares.
"THE SNOW!" Hitch suddenly yelled. "IT'S THE SNOW! That's what breaks the spell!"
"Wait, really?" Comet wondered as he decided to test that theory. Grabbing a snowball with his magic, he threw it at Violet, and the same thing happened to her.
"Huh? What?" Violet asked once freed from the spell.
"It works!" Comet cheered as he hugged his friend, much to her confusion.
Meanwhile, Hitch worked on saving the rest of his friends. "Okay." He said as he framed where the four of them were and angled his snow ball on that. "Here goes nothing!" He said before throwing the snowball, and it missed all of them. "Oh, come on!" He groaned before going down to make another one.
But it turned out he didn't need to as while the snowball missed the ponies, it hit a tree and that was enough to shake the branches. This caused the snow on said branches to fall right on top of Sunny and the others. "Aaah!" They gasped before they poked their heads out. "What happened?" Sunny asked.
"Did we beat her?" Misty asked.
"Where's Zipp?" Pipp asked.
"What year is it?" Izzy asked.
"Oh, thank hoofness." Hitch sighed in relief. But now a new problem arose. How were they going to free all the other auroricorns, scattered throughout the village and beyond. While Zipp was currently keep Allura occupied, that didn't mean she couldn't find away to hypnotize them all again if she noticed them throwing snow at everypony.
There had to be a way to free them all at once, and Hitch had a feeling he knew the one pony able to do that. "ZIPP!" He called out to the battle pegasus.
At the current moment, Zipp had just thrown Allura off of her when she heard her lover call her name. "What is it!?" She asked as she stood back up, making sure to keep her eyes on Allura.
"It's the snow! That's what breaks the spell!" Hitch informed the pegasus as the rest of their friends walked over to him to see what had happened to Zipp while they were out of it.
"Is that Zipp?" Sunny asked, surprised at seeing pegasus appear so differently.
"If it is, then that is one makeover I never could top." Pipp said in admiration to her sister's beauty.
"The snow, huh?" Zipp said as she smirked with an idea forming in her head. "Isn't that funny? A snow leopard whose weakness is snow." She joked at Allura.
Allura, unaware of both what Hitch had been doing and discovered, only snarled at the, in her eyes, poor attempt at humor. "What are you rambling on about?" She demanded to know.
However, Zipp decided not to answer that, at least not directly. "How about I show you with a new trick I learned?" She said before she flew at Allura again.
Allura tensed as she prepared for more pelting from the pegasus, but nothing came. Instead, she saw Zipp flying in fast circles around her. "What is this?" She wondered, before she soon got her answer as Zipp went faster and faster. Her surroundings soon began to chance to ones of blurriness.
The reason for this was because Zipp was flying so fast in a circle that she was actually starting to form a small tornado in the circle she was flying in. As it grew, not only was Allura lifted off her feet, but the tornado also began sucking up the surrounding snow into it. Zipp's friends gasped as the tornado got taller and taller.
When it seemed to have reached its apex, Zipp flew out from it, and with a flap of her wings, said. "Let it snow!" Before the gust she created blew up the tornado and sent snow flying everywhere. It landed on all of the auroricorns, and every single one was soon freed from Allura's trance.
"Whoa!!" Everypony gasped at what they had just witnessed. "Is this something normal for you pegasi?" Comet asked Pipp.
"No, this is all new to me." Pipp answered.
The blast also made Allura get sent flying again. But just as it seemed she was able to correct her position and recover, flying down rather than falling, she was suddenly grabbed by Zipp. "Oh, we still have one last ride to go on." She told her captive with a smile that worried the snow leopard.
Zipp then ascended high into the air before she made a U-turn and started to descend rapidly, even adding some spinning. The ponies down below watched nervously as Zipp got closer and closer to the ground, worried she was going to crash into it. But at what seemed like the last minute, though really more when Zipp felt she was the right distance both in the air and from the ground, did she release Allura from her grasp and sent only her crashing into the snow.
With her work done, Zipp came down slowly, a look of pride on her face. "Had enough of that, Allura? Because I can keep going all day." She mocked her opponent.
The response was Allura bursting from the snow in a rage. "I've had just about enough of you! You think you can just come in here and destroy everything I've worked so hard on!?" She shouted at the pegasus.
"Yeah, it kinda seems that way." Zipp shrugged.
This only infuriated Allura further. Without even thinking, she roared and looked like she was about to try something again. But with her mouth opened, this gave Zipp the opening she needed to throw a snowball that went directly into the cat's mouth.
Allura actually almost choked as a result of the sneak attack, but she was able to cough up what she could like a snowy hairball. "You'll pay for that." She snarled before trying one last time to use her hypnotic purr on the pegasus. Emphasis on trying as when she did, nothing came out. "What?" She gasped before trying again. Again, nothing came out. "What have you done to me!?"
"I took a lucky shot, and it would appear that doing so took away your hypnotic powers." Zipp said as her friends joined behind her, each carrying snowballs in their hooves or magic. "You no longer have any powers over the ponies here. Now, I'll say this again. Leave, and never come back."
Find the tables turned and now she was the one being surrounded on all sides by angry auroricorns, Allura flew into the air. "All you have done today was ensure that I will return one day and have my revenge."
"And we will be ready for when you do." Violet said before tossing the snowballs in her magic at the flying, purple tyrant.
Wiping the snow off of her face, Allura snarled at the ponies that defeated her one last time before flying away.
Once she was gone, everypony cheered at the defeat of their oppressor. With the adrenaline from the battle gone, Zipp began to feel the toll she had placed on herself with all of her tricks. Glowing brightly again, she turned to normal and was about to collapse on the ground. "I gotcha!" Pipp shouted before catching her sister in her hooves. "Zipp, that was amazing!" She praised the older pegasus.
"It was nothing." Zipp said bashfully at the praise from her younger sister.
"Nothing?" Violet said in disbelief. "You fought Allura all by yourself and won! Nopony has ever stood up to her like that before!" She exclaimed.
"Well, I wouldn't say all by myself." Zipp said as she looked over to Hitch, who picked up Sparky in his hooves. The young dragon gave a small belch, and the fire from it burned the ice shield surrounding the Nova Charm.
"Don't go selling yourself short, Zipp. We wouldn't have been able to help had you not snapped us out of it." Hitch reminded her.
"Yeah, I guess." Zipp had to admit.
"How did you even do that?" Pipp asked. "I mean, it was like you became an alicorn back there, only you didn't have the horn to go along with your wings."
"I think I remember hearing about something like that before." Sunny spoke up. "It was back when Lord Tirek first returned to Equestria. Twilight and her friends used something that transformed them and gave them a massive magical boost to defeat him."
"That could be it." Zipp guessed. "Truth is, I was afraid about facing Allura, worried she'd hypnotize me and I'd regress back into the mental mess I have been for months. But, ironically, it was that side of me that helped me realize that if I didn't fight through my fear, I'd lose everything." She didn't say anything, but Zipp could see her dark self in the back of the crowd, smiling proudly at what the pegasus assumed was her own work.
"I still have no idea what all that means." Violet admitted before proposing. "But with what you did, I think I speak for everypony here when I say you should be our new leader!" She announced proudly.
As all the other auroricorns voiced their agreements, Zipp couldn't help but chuckle as she got out of Pipp's embrace and stood back up. "Whoa there, everypony. I'm flattered, but I already have one kingdom I'm going to rule over one day with my sister, I don't think I can handle two." She politely declined the offer.
This surprised the auroricorns. "But if you won't be the town leader, who will?" Violet asked.
Thankfully for her, Izzy had the answer. Or rather an answer. "Simple! We get creative, and use a democracy!" She beamed.
After having decided that Violet should be the new leader of Starlight Ridge, the Equestrians said their goodbyes and returned home, with both the Nova Charm and Comet joining them.
Once they appeared back in Maretime Bay, ponies immediately flocked around them, asking Zipp for answers. "Princess, what happened?"
"What was on the other side?"
"Are they dangerous?"
"Calm down, everypony." Hitch assured them, deciding to take the burden off his marefriend for a bit. "The portal did not lead us anywhere dangerous."
"That's a little debatable." Izzy muttered to Misty, who quickly shushed her to avoid starting a panic.
"The ponies on the other side were friendly. One of them even decided to come home with us." The stallion said as he gestured to Comet, who waved nervously at the crowd.
"Uh, hi, everypony." He greeted the crowd awkwardly. "I'm Comet, and I hope to get to know all of you."
As Comet met many new friends, the two pegasus sisters decided to take the opportunity to leave and avoid the crowds as they took off to the sky. "See? I told you we would get out of there unharmed." Pipp told her sister.
Despite knowing that wasn't how she envisioned Pipp's promise going, Zipp realized the pink pegasus was still right. "Yeah, I guess we did."
As they flew off, and everypony else welcomed in Comet or asked questions about Starlight Ridge, Sunny felt troubled. As happy as she was for Zipp, something kept nagging in the back of her mind and brought her mood down. Something Blaize had said when she first visited Maretime Bay.
"I expected more from an alicorn."
After everypony was gone on both sides, the portal still remained. And after she had licked her wounds enough, Allura appeared, having been looking for the portal. "I was right, they did have one of their own." She said to herself, now that Twitch was nowhere to be found. "I suppose in this situation hitchhiking isn't a bad option." She said before entering.
When she appeared on the other side, she wasn't in Maretime Bay. Instead, she was at what seemed to be an old bridge with a sick tree. But to Allura, the location didn't matter. All that mattered to her right now were two things.
The first was finding her brother.
The other was revenge.
"I will find you, Zipp." She vowed. "And I will take everything from you."
What the snow leopard didn't notice was that on the tree, a purple flame appeared on one of the branches like a blooming flower. A flame that was alive. "Now that's something I would like to see."
Author's Note
Revenge Complete! Try angering me now, Allura!
Okay, jokes aside, hopefully you all enjoyed this story. This was not an easy fight to compose. First it would've just been Zipp vs Allura without any magic, but I couldn't figure out how to make that work, especially with the battles I had as inspiration from Pokemon and Dinosaur King.
But then once I started to get Dark Zipp involved, I decided to toy with something that the show was possibly hinting towards, but never got to fully utilize. That of course being the rainbow transformations. Only Zipp's isn't something she achieves via acting brave. It's a little more complicated then that. And something she's going to have to learn going forward if she's to survive what is coming.
Still, while this is still technically the Zipp Saga, we're about to enter a new phase.
A more Sunny one.
