The Tragedy of Twilight Sparkle

…right on a few strands of Twilight’s, mostly, purple mane. She was repeating the same 3 words over and over in her mind when she was drawing back the arrow. “Hear cry. Roll.” Twilight stood up on all fours and looked beside her to see the pain ridden body of Trixie, her eyes were closed and also in tears because of the excruciating pain the arrow had produced. Grabbing Trixie’s bow that she dropped and the quiver that was present on her back, Twilight knocked an arrow, aimed it towards Trixie’s head and with a dangerous voice, she said;

“Hey Trixie.”

Trixie opened her tear stained eyes at the recognition of her name and looked around for the source of the sound that was when she caught the dangerous, non-sympathetic look of Twilight Sparkle.

“What’s your favorite brand of bottle water?”

Trixie gasped as she knew what was going to happen next and tried everything to avoid it, she tried to wriggle away, but that only cause her more pain as Twilight forced one hoof on her chest. The grip was like an anvil for Trixie’s body, she was fastened in place. Trixie’s horn was now useless, if she tried to teleport, she might as well perform the impossible. Twilight was staring at Trixie with cold, unforgiving eyes, she pulled back the arrow a little further and continued;

“Mine’s Arrow Head.” She fired the bow.

Blood spurted from the puncture the arrow had caused, spraying Trixie’s now lifeless body as well as Twilight’s, the force of Twilight’s shot contained so much momentum that the arrow completely shot right through Trixie’s skull and even dove into the earth supporting them. Twilight, wiping away the blood from her eye, dropped the bow to the ground that landed with several wooded clunks, picked up her sword several meters away from when Trixie had disarmed her and slowly trotted back to the deathbed of Trixie. She stood above the lifeless face of her, held her sword high and forced it down upon Trixie’s throat, sliding down her spine the sword unable to break it, blood oozed from the laceration forming a puddle in merely no time at all.

She maneuvered the sword so it dug deeper into Trixie’s flesh, leaving Trixie’s body covered with her own blood in to time at all; at last, there was nothing more to cut leaving Twilight with the spine and a small amount of flesh behind it. Wiping her eyes for the second time, she threw the sword to one side and raised one of her front hooves, Twilight closed her eyes and forced her hoof down with as much power as she could muster, as she stepped on the spine connecting Trixie’s head and body that was when she heard a *CRACK* that signaled the breaking of Trixie’s spine followed by an expediential amount of blood spray over her hoof and body. The spine stood no chance with the force of the step and neither did the small strips of flesh that was behind it, simply outmatched, Trixie’s head was dismembered from her body.

Twilight tilted the head so the flesh pointed upwards blood still gushing from the open wound, grabbed her sword lying a meter away from her, raised it high in the air and forced it into Trixie’s lifeless head. Twilight closed her eyes before she stabbed the sword to avoid the waves of blood being squeezed from the new puncture. She then held the sword with Trixie’s head on it up high, stood on the ledge and yelled;

“TRIXIE HAS BEEN KILLED!!” Twilight’s voice tore through the battle cried and concentration of the warriors she was speaking to, her voice was amplified using her magic, she ignored the dripping of Trixie’s blood onto her mane and hooves. She caught sight of the blood trickling down her hooves and thought “Rarity will scream at me is she saw me in this state.” The fighting immediately ceased as soon as Twilight yelled her message. Everypony looked towards Twilight who was brandishing her Trixie’s-head-on-a-sword.

“TRIXIE HAS BEEN KILLED!!” Twilight repeated, “For all ponies who take the side of your ‘Great and Powerful Trixie’, flee now while I still have the leniency to allow you to live!”

Everypony on the opposing side of Twilight dropped whatever they were holding and galloped away as fast as they could while the ponies on Twilight’s side cheered for victory. With the constant dripping of flood from Trixie’s head began to annoy Twilight, she removed the head from the tip of the sword and placed it in a foldable pouch she was carrying with her, she then drew her bow and scanned the scene below her for any foolish ponies from Trixie’s side who have still not fled. The battleground itself was not to pretty of a sight, fatalities from both sides were clearly visible for blood ridden capes and armor where sprinkled around the field blood stained ponies who were walking back towards Celestia’s castle, bloody weapons and shields, parts of ponies from both sides and what was clearly visible form Twilight’s point of view, blood stains upon the field. That was when she spotted a stallion, clearly injured due to limping, trying to keep up with the rest of the pack.

“No excuses.” whispered Twilight.

She drew an arrow from the quiver, knocked the arrow and aimed while muttering to herself, calculating the trajectory she needs the arrow to go. For a minute or two, she mumbled indecipherable words before at last, seemingly happy with her calculations, fired the arrow. Twilight watched the arrow sail off into the horizon and hopefully kill the pony that was limping away for his life. The arrow began to dive down and at last, it struck the unfortunate pony’s unprotected back section of its helmet. The arrow entered its skull and out again in one smooth movement before thudding into the ground, the force behind the arrow was so strong that the stallion was lifted from his hooves becoming airborne for a second or two before skidding onto the ground until he came to a halt, lifeless blood forming in a puddle around his life void face.

Twilight took a brief nod acknowledging her word. The field was almost empty as ponies who were alive started to walk back to the castle. Twilight heard voices below her yelling something undecipherable, she looked down to see her five best friends forever waving at her. Twilight flapped her arms about to signal Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy to catch her. Twilight jumped off the ledge that she was standing on, taking her saddle bag containing Trixie’s head in it, the two pegasi caught her before she came in contact with the ground. The six best friends forever all group hugged one another before slowly walking back to Celestia’s castle, Rainbow Dash started the conversation.

“Good shot Twilight!” She exclaimed, excited by the war.

“You rock!” Fluttershy cheered in her voice to her right. “Woo-hoo!”

“That was a great job ya did there Twi!” Applejack praised, “You really showed her who’s really in charge.”

“GREAT JOB TWILIGHT!!” Pinkie shouted pushing her party cannon along with them.

“Darling, that was marvelous…” Rarity started but seeing the state that Twilight was in made her mouth dry, she still managed to let out, “B-but your m-mane…”

Twilight grinned at Rarity’s facial expression; “Knowing her” Twilight thought “She is probably thinking about solutions to remove the blood or something similar of the sorts.”

“How did you guys go?” Twilight questioned looking left and right.

“I tells ya, that was some war!” Applejack exclaimed. “Whoo-wee! These ol’ kickers can only buck so many times before they hit the hay!” Twilight looked at Applejacks legs to find them bloodstained from her hooves to her thighs.

“Fluttershy needs to TRAIN on her hind legs,” Rainbow Dash sighed while being airborne. “She can’t even kick a thunder cloud hard enough to produce a lightning bolt.”

Fluttershy opened her mouth to object to that statement.

“One that can ACTUALLY shock and KILL opponents.” Rainbow Dash continued taking notice of Fluttershy’s attempt to object.

Twilight assumed that Fluttershy indeed produced a lightning bolt, just not one that actually KILLED an opponent.

“Applejack?” Rainbow Dash called.

“Mhm?” Applejack responded.

“Do you think you would train Fluttershy’s hind legs so you can put a bit of muscle on them?” Dash asked.

“When we have some free time,” Applejack replied “I’ll give it the best I’hve got, maybe after this war, she could even help out a bit on the farm.” Applejack turned to Fluttershy. “D’you think you could Flutters?” she asked.

“Well um...” Fluttershy began timidly “I-I can try, I guess.”

“Oh my gosh!” Pinkie exclaimed out of a sudden. “I knew that was going to be crazy, but not THIS crazy, I mean my party cannon is almost EXHAUSTED and what would I do to cheer ponies up when my cannon breaks? Swords and shields? *pfft* BOOOORRIING!!”

“Darling, you do realize that you kill a few ponies every time you fire that outrageous cannon of yours,” Rarity stopped to give the cannon a quick disgusted look before turning back to Pinkie and finishing “…do you?” She questioned.

“Well of COURSE I know that Rarity!” Pinkie argues “And I have a perfectly good reason for that as well, see, all the ponies where crowding around this one injured pony, and all the surrounding ponies where being meany jerks to him, he could NOT do anything as he was visibly injured so I simply HAD to do SOMETHING to those meany pants or else they would not have ceased the torments! So I just yelled a warning for them to stop, and…they just CHARGED at me! And of course, I HAD to defend myself and so I just fired my cannon to make them happy, they looked like they were really grumpy all the time and-”

“Whoa, wait a second!” Twilight exclaimed, stopping. All of her friends stopped with her, Twilight waited for Pinkie to close her mouth. As soon as Twilight opened HER mouth to speak, Pinkie cut her off.

“-I just wanted to make them happy! I didn’t realize that it would KILL them, maybe they die in happiness, but-”

“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted.

“What?” Pinkie questioned.

“I said wait!” Twilight stated.

“I know! For a second, I waited for a second.”

Twilight, bewildered, took a few seconds to realize what Pinkie just said. Finally seeing the “Pinkie” logic behind it, she performed a facehoof.

“No, that’s not what I meant!” Twilight said. “’Wait a second’ is a figure of speech!”

“How can speech be a figure?” Pinkie questioned befuddled. “Can you feel speeches?”

“*sigh* just forget about it, my question was who WERE the ponies you killed?”

“Hm…” Pinkie said puzzled at the question “I don’t know what they looked like but they were wearing light bluishy capes…in fact…” Pinkie looked towards Twilight and pointed towards her head sack. “Pretty close to the blue on Trixie’s mane though a lot, lot, LOT darker!”

Twilight heaved a sigh in relief. Killing your own ponies in was penalty with a death sentence. No exceptions, no negotiations, no excuses, she did not want Pinkie to be executed.

“Pinkie,” Twilight began “Do you know what will happen if somepony witnessed you kill your own ponies during war? Do you understand the consequences that follow?”

“I’m not too sure.” Pinkie said with a quizzical look on her brow, “But I’m sure that whatever happens, it’s not worse than death!” she finished with her optimism returning.

Twilight started walking, shaking her head at Pinkie.

“Well actually, the penalty IS death!” Twilight said bluntly.

“Aww well THAT’S a bit mean!” Pinkie cried in dismay, “What happens if it is an accident?!”

“Well that is understandable,” Twilight explained, “But the circumstance I am talking about is when somepony actually witnesses you killing somepony deliberately, the punishment is then head decapitation. I’m just warning you to be careful with that cannon, one day, you may kill somepony by accident, and when that day comes, you will be in trouble, or worse, dead.”

Twilight heard a voice. Something beckoning her to the woods to her left, she cannot recognize what this strange and mystical force attracting her is but it was there and she was growing in curiosity.