Even in the daylight, the flashes from the lightning were blinding, forcing Lex to squeeze his eyes shut.
When he opened them again, before the accompanying peals of thunder had even begun to fade, the sight that awaited him was a heartening one. Starlight Glimmer lay unmoving on the ground, the blasted area around her already turning into a mud pit thanks to the deluge that had accompanied the brief storm. But the rainfall was already ending as the cloud that Thermal Draft and Cloudbank were jumping on finally lost its cohesion, breaking up into nothing now that its cache of water and lightning had been expended. And while that meant that Vanhoover’s weather supply was that much smaller, Lex considered it a small price to pay for defeating such a dangerous pony.
As it was, it had been a stroke of good fortune that he’d spotted Cloudbank when he had. He’d cast his whisper spell with the intent of ordering her to start clearing the battlefield of everypony who was unconscious. The chance that some of the injured ponies would be hit by one of Starlight’s sprays of makeshift shrapnel was too great for Lex’s liking, and raising black crystal shields around them all would have depleted his remaining stores of dark magic in no time.
But before he’d been able to communicate his wishes, Cloudbank had whispered her plan to Thermal Draft, not realizing that his spell had also carried her words to his ears; another lucky break, there. Hearing their intent, Lex had changed tactics, and instead coordinated with the pair. The two of them had kept him apprised of Starlight’s movements as they’d gotten their cloud into position, and after which he’d lashed out with an attack to one of Starlight’s legs, eliminating any chance that she’d dart out from underneath the cloud before the lightning struck her.
And it had apparently worked, with Starlight not so much as twitching now. But as relieved as Lex was, he had been in too many fights – and Starlight had proven herself to be too tough an opponent – for him to let his guard down so easily. Instead, he concentrated on his circlet, the magic item still augmented thanks to the power he’d poured into it before, letting his vision slip back into the magical spectrum. Given Starlight’s affinity for magic, this would be the quickest way to verify if she was actually incapacitated or not.
He had just started examining the spell auras around her when Thermal Draft and Cloudbank landed next to him.
“Lex!” blurted the latter, reaching for him only to recoil as she finally got a good look at him and saw how he was flickering, her eyes widening at the unnerving sight. “Are…are you alright?”
Thermal Draft looked similarly disturbed, which was probably why she glanced around instead, her eyes widening as she spotted the orange prism lying nearby, dropped by Starlight before she could put it into orbit around Lex. Fluttering over, she scooped it up, peering at the faceted jewel curiously. “What do you want me to do with this?” she asked at last, glancing back at him. “That mare was trying to put this on you, so should I go put it on her instead?”
Lex, however, ignored the question, instead keeping his attention fixated on Starlight. The were still a few active spell auras around her, but their composition revealed them to be the enhancements that he’d noticed on her when he’d arrived. Similarly, there was a mess of residual auras clinging to her, almost all of which were the imprints left from the magical attacks she’d unleashed.
The glut of magical residue clinging to Starlight was heavy enough that Lex almost missed one other aura, frowning as he caught a faint glimpse of it amidst the others. Scrutinizing it closely, he saw it was for an expired spell, suggesting that it wasn’t a cause for concern, but its design was different from the attack spells Starlight had used. Instead, this one was defensive in nature, and it took Lex only a moment to recognize it as the remnant of the shield spell Starlight had cast just before he’d injured her back leg, causing her to collapse. But that was less notable than how the lingering aura had only just barely started to deteriorate, as though…
His breath catching, it took Lex only a fraction of a second to calculate the aura’s rate of decay, then apply that metric in reverse, confirming that Starlight’s spell had ended precisely seven-point-eight seconds ago.
Which was point-two seconds after the lightning had struck.
Suddenly everything fell into place.
The free-floating nature of her shield, which would have allowed Starlight to point it in any direction, even upward if she so desired. The way the rainfall had preceded the lightning, giving her a brief warning of what was about to happen. The bright electrical flash that had hidden any last-second actions she might have taken.
Withdrawing his vision from the magical spectrum, Lex opened his mouth to give the other two a warning, but even as the words left his lips he could see that it was already too late.
Her undamaged foreleg digging into the damp ground, Starlight Glimmer began to rise. Mud clung to her coat. Water dripped from her mane. Blood trickled from her hind leg. An aura gathered around her horn.
And murder filled her eyes.
Cloudbank felt like everything was happening in slow motion.
Across from her, Starlight Glimmer – Lex having told her the mare’s name while coordinating their attack with the thundercloud – was somehow, impossibly, starting to get up. The mare’s eyes were bloodshot, her lips pulled back in a vicious snarl, and her horn was already lighting up. The sight was as intimidating as whatever it was that Lex had done to himself, but that wasn’t what made Cloudbank’s heart suddenly clench with terror.
It was that Drafty, with her back to Starlight as she held the orange prism out toward Lex, had made herself into a perfect target.
Her girlfriend could obviously tell that something was wrong. Cloudbank could see her eyes widening, a look of fear starting to form on her face even as she started to turn, trying to look behind her in order to figure out how to react. But she wasn’t going to make it; Cloudbank could already see Starlight lowering her head, aiming her horn right at Drafty’s unprotected back.
You’ve always been the reason I can be brave. Because no matter what happens I know that you’ll be there.
All of a sudden, Cloudbank was surging forward. She didn’t even remember doing it; one second she’d been standing there next to Lex, the next she was flying forward so fast that her wings felt like they were going to fall off. But she didn’t care.
This wasn’t going to be like before. This wasn’t going to be like all those times that she hadn’t been able to save Drafty from some horrible monster. I don’t care if it’s ghouls or krakens or crazy unicorns! Cloudbank screamed to herself, accelerating even as she banked sharply, straining to cross the last few yards even a little faster. I’ll protect her!
A beam of light shot from Starlight’s horn toward Drafty. Even moving as fast as she was, Cloudbank could tell that it was going to be close. But rather than worry her, that knowledge infuriated her, driving her to push herself even a little harder, fighting to go even a little faster, not caring about anything except the goal that at that moment was everything.
I’ll protect her from ALL OF THEM!
With split-second timing, Cloudbank threw herself in front of Drafty inches before Starlight’s spell struck home.
The exultation that she felt then was all-encompassing. Cloudbank didn’t know anything about unicorn magic, but if the brightness of the beam and the look of seething rage on Starlight’s face were anything to go by, her attack was meant to be a killing blow. But that was fine, because it was a blow that would never reach Drafty now. Even though she had only been back for a few hours, even though Lex had said that he couldn’t perform another resurrection, Cloudbank felt nothing but triumph.
She’d done it.
She’d protected the one she loved.
That was enough.
With a smile on her face, Cloudbank turned her head, wanting to look at Drafty one last time before the end.
Because of that, she didn’t see the wall of black crystals that rose up between her and Starlight’s spell at the last possible instant.
Starlight screamed in rage as her attack was thwarted.
The fact that the wall of black crystals was thin enough that it shattered under the weight of her assault, the beam punching through it to send those two mares hurtling backward, did little to quell her anger. The feedback she received was enough to let her know that the sudden wall had absorbed most of the force of her blast, leaving only a meager amount to push through and likely doing little to truly hurt those ponies that had been on the other side of it. And Starlight knew exactly who was to blame for that.
“It’s always YOU!” she bellowed, fury driving her to her hooves as she glared at Lex. Two of her legs were still numb, and the punctures on her remaining hind leg ached fiercely in response to her putting her weight on it, but she didn’t care. Right now the only thing that mattered was the miserable, wretched, selfish stallion who kept getting in her way! “They admire you and they praise you and they fight for you and they defend you! All because they think you’re special! WHY?!” She hollered the last word so loudly that it tore at her throat. “WHAT’S SO SPECIAL ABOUT YOU?!”
“Starlight…”
“TELL ME!” she screamed, not hearing the soft voice coming from behind her. “Is it your cutie mark?! Your horn?! Your shadow?!”
Her ire only grew when Lex gave her a look of disdain, as though she wasn’t worthy of knowing the answer. “You’re…a fool if…you think…it’s something…so petty…”
He had barely finished speaking when a rod of black crystal suddenly shot out of the ground next to her, the rounded tip aiming for her head. But Starlight had been on the receiving end of that attack before, and even in her weakened state she managed to avoid it, clumsily ducking under the strike. “Then what?!” she raged, firing another beam of energy. With no more pieces of debris close to him, her only choice was to aim at Lex directly, and her rage flared again as she saw it go through his flickering form, the sight of him grimacing soothing her not at all. “Is it your intellect?! Your magic?! Your religion?! TELL ME!”
“Starlight.”
“TELL ME SO I CAN TAKE IT AWAY FROM YOU!!!”
“Starlight!”
“WHAT?!”
Turning as the voice from behind her refused to relent, Starlight watched as the pony it belonged to flinched. “What do you want, Double Diamond?!”
Her angry snarl made the stallion – and the rest of her friends, who were gathered around him – flinch, but only for a moment. Biting his lip, he pulled his burlap cloak from around his neck, and Starlight’s anger was marred by confusion as he bunched it up in his hooves like a rag. But that lasted for only a moment.
Then Double Diamond reached out and brushed it along her flank.
“What are you doing?!” yelped Starlight, moving away from him as best she could on her injured legs. But she had her answer a second later as she saw his cloak come away wet with black and purple paint, her blood running cold at the sight. The rainwater! she realized suddenly. I forgot!
Frozen, she could only watch as the ponies she’d brought here from her village looked at her, their faces twisted in expressions of disbelief and betrayal.
“Starlight,” began Double Diamond slowly. “Why do you still have your cutie mark?”