Boom.
Charm grit her teeth as the world shook around her, yet her hooves never stopped moving forward.
“Ten seconds…” She muttered to herself, closing her eyes and allowing a brilliant blue flame to flicker into existence at the end of her horn, “Namic, Mandius - ready the Disruptor!”
The pegasus and zebra duo nodded to the unicorn mage in the purple garb, locking their hooves around the buoyant sphere of fizzling, grey magic suspended over a pedestal composed of a trash can lid and a roundish boulder. The pony mare gave a little smile to her friend, and the zebra replied with that never-faltering twinkle in his eye and a smirk showing off the single tooth he had grown out and sharpened.
“On my mark!” Shouted out the crimson mare with the blinding blue flare attached to her forehead as she looked out upon the writing, screaming mass of black and silver that surged towards them, “Three, two, one – do it!”
As one, two sets of interlocked hooves squeezed down on the orb, forcing it to let out a shriek and release a pulse of similarly static-laden magic. This force, this anti-magic field, bubbled outward from the dissipating Disruptor spell, and while it bounced harmlessly off of the golden sphere containing the light blue unicorn stallion drenched in sweat and heat, the orange force field that surrounded all eight of the group shattered like glass.
With absolutely no delay, the golden glow around the murmuring stallion flashed, and the orange began to rebuild itself from the ground up, but not before the red-coated mare released the spell she had been charging up, out through their protective shield, and towards the thousands of charging ponies.
Their orange protector managed to recompose itself only a split second before every living entity in a quarter-mile radius around the impact location of Charm’s Displacement Array spell teleported to the horizon line. Gasping for breath, the enchantress dropped to her knees, but not before Almondrius and Syringe leapt to her side, catching her before she hit the ground.
“Easy, Charm!” Shouted the battle-scarred shapeshifter, infusing a fair portion of his energy into her as he did so, “Don’t you dare do that again - we all know you can’t spare the strength!
The mare coughed, and only a little blood matted the front of the white gryphon’s chest she lay on. “You’re… one to talk, Syringe.” She said, doing her best to bite back the pain in her leg where one of the horrible, armored pegasi had glanced her with a bullet as she ran out to grab the Book, “Between all of us, I doubt we can make enough love for you to cast a single heal spell. Don’t push yourself…”
Alm laughed, a deep, throaty one that told tales of times long since passed. “It matters not. Your Displacement spell functioned as you said it would, and Starswirl continues the enchantment undisturbed. Well done, Charm Seeker.”
She smiled back weakly, but at the mention of the colt trapped deep within the confines of the nameless spell, Charm couldn’t help but to stare at her once-coltfriend, surrounded as he was in the impenetrable, golden bubble.
“I just hope-“
CRACK.
The very peak of the mountain behind them was frozen in time for the smallest of intervals. And then it was everywhere, as a venomous green explosion rocked the landscape, hurling chunks of what was once Canterlot in all directions. The shield held up marvelously against a fragment of mountain that would’ve surely doomed them all, sliding it off with a ringing crash.
Not a single soul moved. The pegasus embraced the zebra. The two earth ponies huddled next to the injured dragoness, who draped a wing over them protectively. The changeling and gryphon gave each other wordless looks of fear. And one unicorn got as close to the other as the golden glow would permit.
“They… They have Charges…” Trey whispered to himself, yet everyone heard through the dead silence of the aftermath. Suddenly, it didn’t matter how many forces they had. It didn’t matter how strong each member of their faceless attackers were. In fact, only two things mattered anymore.
How many Charges they had, and how well they could aim.
CRACK.
Another blinding explosion rang out, this time a ways in front of them. Soil and debris alike were simply vaporized in the blast. Geysers of long-forgotten origins sprouted from the instant, jagged crater in the ground, and the echoing blast parted the thick, black clouds.
“They know…” Was all that could be said before the third one hit the orange, two-foot-thick wall of magic dead on.
CRACK.
For an instant, Charm couldn’t see. Or feel. Or hear, or smell, or even know. For that instant, the gates of heaven beckoned welcomingly, and images of the past – images of before the first Greater Charge hit, of before Headmaster Magus’ Stasis Field brought them into the living nightmare of the future – flooded her mind. Her childhood. The first time she meet each of her friends. The day Starswirl asked her out for their very first date. Their engagement.
And then seven sets of eyes snapped open. Every atom of their being hurt, every fiber of their bodies ached, and every neuron in their mind screamed out in agony. But they were alive. The shield had held.
With jerky, shuddering movements, Charm once again looked at the colt she had met one lonely afternoon in Manehattan. His face was still a mask of perfect serenity, even as sweat poured down his face in a torrent. He had done it again. He had saved them.
“They stopped!” Exclaimed Namic, face a river of tears that hadn’t been there a minute ago, “They aren’t sending any more at us!”
Alm managed to nod, “They assume we’re dead – never before have they seen a target survive a direct hit from a Charge, for…! Syringe!”
The changeling blinked. “What is it? What happened?”
Nopony moved for a little while, until Ava raised a large, yellow claw and pointed at his face. “Syringe, you’ve… cracked…”
The lightness in his eyes froze up, looking straight at the dragon’s talon. Slowly – oh, so painfully slowly – a holed hoof reached up and brushed against the chitin on the left side of his face. He swallowed, and brought it back down.
“How long should Starswirl be? He asked, sounding explicably shaken up. The entire left side of his head was cracked like an old porcelain tile, and a steady drip-drop of green fluid leaked out, drop per precious drop. For a changeling, whose innards were composed of nothing but this fluid, this particular happenstance was most definitely not a good thing.
“How long until Starswirl finishes channeling his spell?” He repeated, more insistent this time, “I… Please…”
Charm nodded solemnly and lay a hoof on his shoulder.
“Everything’s going to be fine, Syringe, everything’ll be okay…” Her gaze was once again pulled to the grey-maned pony in the now-pulsing sphere, still oblivious to the world, “… I promise…”
All of a sudden, a whistling. A simple, horrible, frightening, murderous sound that froze blood and stopped hearts. The fourth near-imperceptible white trail of smoke descended towards them, following the same trajectory as the third. Time itself seemed to slow as the group of friends, lovers, and siblings joined up next to the glowing sphere of the apprentice wizard, ignoring the gashes, holes, gouges and cracks that riddled their tired bodies. Ava spoke first.
“Two months we’ve been stranded here, a miracle in itself we’ve all pulled through…” She peered at the twins curled up under her tattered wing.
“The change has been drastic since the world ended, and even if our beacon of hope is to be extinguished in this moment, let it shine with the intensity of a thousand suns!”
Charm smiled weakly. She closed her eyes. She let her head rest on the shoulder of whoever was next to her. Each member of their little group did the same, until their foreheads were all touching together, eyes shut gently against the world.
“We came here to learn,” Began the unicorn, in tune.
“Of regrets we have none,” Said the gryphon.
“For more we won’t yearn,” Said the dragon.
“For no matter what, we’ll have fun,” Said the pegasus.
“So we stand here, united,” Said the changeling.
“For better, or for worse,” Said the first twin.
“And we’ll study here, incited,” Said the second.
The whistling was close, so mercilessly close. This was it. Their final moment.
A second. Ten seconds. A minute.
“… Under a rambling, old horse…” Came the end of the Magi School of Magic and Such’s silly little anthem.
Immediately, seven sets of eyes turned to the eighth voice, and a warm, unnaturally golden glow smiled back.
“Hey again, guys.” Said the glowing, golden, almost-god. Starswirl, encased within his impenetrable bubble, had moved. Had responded. After six long days of waiting, after everything that they had endured… Was it over?
“… Starswirl…” Charm breathed, voice almost lost to the nonexistent wind, “We’re alive… How did…?”
“The spell on the last page of Magi’s book.” He said, gesturing at the ashes of what was once the greatest collection of spells in the world, “For all we did to finish it, for everything we’ve gone through to make it whole, it can only do one thing.”
“What?”
He smiled a smile whose warmth was matched only by the kind in his eyes and soul.
“Anything.” He said, pointing with a hoof towards the sky, as energy from the runes etched into the stone of the ground flowed freely into him, “… It can modify the inevitable.”
The sphere of molten death, the fourth Charge that never hit, floated through their protective barrier, the flames encasing the metal sphere frozen in time. With a pop, it vanished.
“It can raise the sun.”
The clouds parted, and for the first time in forever, the flickering rays of the celestial body hit the scorched, barren earth.
“It can bring life.”
Syringe took in a deep breath as the splintering injury healed up without a trace.
“It can bring death.”
Ava shuddered, gasped, and the unyielding, fungal rot that had consumed her entire leg shriveled up and ceased to exist, leaving unmarred scale beneath.
“And, above all, it can create gods.” He let that statement ring in the air for a time. “All I have to do is ask.”
Charm coughed once more, and tried to push against the golden field that split them apart, only to find it was just as solid to her as it was to the rest of the world. She looked up at Starswirl.
“Can… it let me be with the pony I fell in love with, so many decades ago?”
Starswirl looked at her, genuinely puzzled, before letting the smile once again grace his face.
“I suppose you’re asking if we can have our happily ever after, then?”
God. That line. That moronic, stupid line that the idiotic colt had refused to stop bringing up every time she had approached him with a question like that. Without doubt, that part of Starswirl was the one she was annoyed with the most, that ignorant little portion that wouldn’t give up, that fraction of his soul that would see things through to the very end.
“… Yes, yes I am.” She said, gesturing to their silent compaions, “I want to feel alive again. I want to spend a warm summer lounging on the beach with my – with our - friends. I want to teach a generation of fillies and foals about everything that we’ve seen, and everything we will see.”
The glow around Starswirl began to dissipate, and gold began to pour into the ground surrounding them, stretching out far across the land.
“And…?”
Charm Seeker bit back a smile of her own. Always with the ‘and’s and the ‘ do go on’s.
“And… And I want to wear that stupid silver band with your name etched into it. And see you with one on, too,” She said, feeling the magic pour through her veins, feeling it lift her off the ground and towards the stupid colt she never grew out of, “I want to feel the world again. And most of all…”
They reached out, and ignoring the rest of the world, brushed their hooves together in a way they hadn’t for nearly two hundred years.
“… I want to see you grow out that damn beard of yours.”
Starswirl the clean-shaven laughed. They embraced.
“Then let’s do just that.”
Report 307
Targets have vanished, status unknown, assumed dead after direct impact of our strongest weaponry. However, on further observation, we have found an indentation in the land exactly one-mile large in radius from target’s location, prompting further investigation.
Report 307 (2)
Upon further investigation, scanners indicate an immeasurably large amount of time-modifying magic by-product interlaced in surrounding matter. It is now reasonable to assume that the targets acquired a means of escape rendering pursuit impossible.
End Report.
Author's Note
For Ben, as proof: The conclusion to a nonexistent Starswirl the Bearded origin story, where they are forced into a magical stasis when the world-ending events of Fallout: Equestria began. I didn’t use proper terminology because why in the world would a random group of eight non-stable beings know all of them fancy words?
(… In short, Starswirl the Bearded was just some random magical college student in Twilight’s era that sent himself and his friends a little too far back in time in their escape from the stupid metal pegasi and creepy ponies led by Metaleye the Evil :D)
(Apologies to the rest of my readers for throwing so many fics at you :v)
