"Jeez, how long is it to this airfield?" Private Hardfield asked, shifting his spear from his left to his right. "I'm friggin' starvin'."
Private Half-Lance chuckled. "I tell ya, we get back home, you're all invited to my pa's restaurant. Best rigatoni you'll ever eat. I tell ya, the cauliflower's amazing."
"Lance, ye ain't quite right," mocked Private Peterstone.
"Ah shut up you country-colt," replied Half-Lance, nudging Peterstone across the train car.
Twilight looked down at her uniform, and then back at the other soldiers. 1st Infantry? They've only seen action when Celestia and Luna tried to free the Crystal Empire.
"Knock it off, this isn't boot camp." Sergeant Peregrine, who was talking the two soldiers back in line, carried an unmistakable Brass Coated W2 Half Spear, a weapon designed to work in the close quarter fighting experienced when engaging in blinding snow storms. It was discontinued after the disappearance of the Crystal Empire, after King Sombra's defeat.
"You look green. What's the matter Two Tail, ain't winters like this back in Vanhoover?" Private Hardfield spoke to Twilight.
"Uh, yeah." Twilight nearly choked on her new voice. It was a much deeper, coarser voice, like that of a stallion's. What did the Card Master do now? They barely spoke after the last card, and this time she didn't even notice the scenery slip into place. Twilight shuddered in discomfort as the biting wind blew into the train car.
To make the cold worse, a hole in the roof was kept open for the crystal operator. He sat in the suspended chair swiveling a conical crystal around, aiming the pointed end at every rock he saw.
"Look at all this snow guys!" the operator called down from his post. "I sure ain't in Fillydelphia anymore!"
"Well, you can be thankful for that," mumbled the sergeant.
Twilight gripped the thing nearest to her, a Hoofington spear. The spear was much longer than the Half Spear, and made of a heavier wood core and coated with a denser metal. She tested its weight, and noted that the model was a Hoofington Wind Model, specifically designed to be thrown. It extra weight gave it more impact when it hit its target, though given the condition of the snow outside, Twilight doubted she would be aiming at anything anytime soon.
The operator took a crystal shard to the chest and dropped down from the roof. Hardfield was the first to rush to him, while Half-Lance rushed for the next train cars to call for a medic.
"Private," the sergeant shouted, pointing at Twilight. "Get on that crystal and give us some covering fire!"
The other soldiers opened up the doors on the train cars and returned fire at the attacking ponies with spears and magic. Twilight got out of the way of the incoming crystal shards being fired at the train and pulled herself up onto the operator's chair. She imitated the operator, placing her hooves on two horseshoe handles, and aimed at the ridge where the crystal ponies were coming from.
Activated by the sense of her touch, the conical crystal hummed with the magical power stored in it, and fired a rapid stream of beams at the snowy ridge. Twilight was jolted by the feedback of magic as it discharged, feeling herself invigorated with the crystal's power. She turned the crystal as it fired, peppering the snow with magic blasts.
Ahead, Twilight heard a message being shouted down the train from one train car to the next. "Brace! They cut the tracks!" the soldiers shouted to their neighboring cars. Twilight wanted to get off the train immediately, spreading her wings to flap to the sky before remembering that the body she was in had none.
Even though their train was headed for a sudden stop, the shards of crystals still shattered against the train cars, some finding their mark on a couple stallions as they fell off the train. Twilight kept firing, but she could barely hit anything. Between the thick storm and the fact that crystal ponies looked a lot like the glistening snow from afar, being able to aim in the vague direction of the enemy was all she could do.
The chair and crystal shook and swiveled the moment the train collided with the twisted tracks and thick snow. Twilight felt the cold against her face in every direction.
"Get up private," grumbled the sergeant. "Keep moving and keep your head low."
Twilight didn't have time to see where she was going, but she could hear the sounds of the crystal ponies whirling their slingshots. With the endless rain of crystal shards and the blinding storm getting worse, all she could do was follow the soldier in front of her, and even that was getting harder. She felt two shots bite her in the rear leg, lodging themselves and slowing her muscles down, but whenever she stumbled some pony behind her would push her forward to keep up.
"Get in the tunnel, hurry!" Twilight recognized the soldier's voice, Private Peterstone's, followed it until she slipped into a dark tunnel barely large enough for a single file march.
After a while, when the cold was warmed by the bodies of the soldiers, Twilight began to wonder where she was. The march was long and it gave her time to think. She laughed inwardly at herself, realizing how little she knew about the fight for the Crystal Empire before it disappeared. So many chances to read at the Crystal Empire's library, and still she knew nothing about the war itself.
"What's so funny Two Tail?" Peterstone asked.
"Nothing," she replied, trying to get used to her deeper voice. "Just thinking.... about how sorry the crystal ponies will be for messing with our tracks."
Peterstone gave a stunted laugh. "A war of liberation my ass. 'Reckon if the Shinies wanted their freedom from King Sombra, they wouldn't be fightin' us now would they?"
"Anyone tell you you're an idiot Pete?" Hardfield hollered from the back of the line.
"Hardfield, if we weren't stuck in this tunnel..." Peterstone began.
The argument died before it could even start. The cold began to blow in again from the tunnel's exit. As the soldiers filed out of the tunnel, the sergeants were planning their movement to the airfield. Away from the train tracks and on the other side of a mountain range, they'd have to take a long way around to rendezvous with the general, and even the shortest paths would take at least a day.
Sergeant Marsh and Peregrine agreed they needed to split up and take separate passes through the mountains. With the glaciers and snow being the perfect terrain for ambushes, grouping into one body would put the whole force in the sights of the crystal ponies. But the Shinies had smaller numbers, making it impossible to ambush two teams at the same time. With any luck, the sergeants hoped the crystal ponies would be so slow to react that neither of their teams would be ambushed.
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Twilight moved in the front with her teammates. They were supposed to scout out the pass ahead and make sure it was safe for crossing. Behind them, the third and forth company of the 1st Infantry marched, followed slowly by the 19th Engineers and their heavy equipment. Four 175 kg Crystal Cannons, sixteen 50 kg Crystal Guns, thirty spear ballistas, and two enchanted carriages, charmed to move themselves.
She wished she was with the heavy weaponry. Everyone save their crystal gunner, White Feather and his light 20 kg Crystal, was equipped with spears. Most were the heavy throwing spears, but that wasn't enough to comfort Twilight. The pass was narrow, and exposed to the icy ground above them.
Duck
Twilight tensed immediately at the Card Master's voice. She hadn't heard him for hours, and the lone word worried her. Beside her, Private Half-Lance passed by and looked saw the look on her face.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
Twilight turned to reply to him, to tell him that the cold was just digging in. She answered to razor sharp crystal in his face.
"Ambush!" she cried out, jumping into a large crack in the ice. The others did the same, pressing up against the walls of the pass to dodge the crystals fired at them. Private Peterstone raised his horn and shot up the warning signal, drawing the fire of crystal shards in the process.
"Move, I'll cover you!" Twilight told him. She pulled a spear from her back with her magic and launched it up at the first figure she saw. The pony wasn't very far away, and even with the thick snow the spear found its mark. The ambushers stepped back, taking cover from spears while the scouts ran ahead.
Twilight used her spears sparingly, taking shots when she was certain she hit, but even then the fight was brought to raw magic before long.
Hardfield was right behind her, aiming his last spear up at a crystal pony. "Don't get left behind Two Tail, hurry it up."
Twilight turned to run. She galloped faster than she ever though possible. Behind her, shouts from the Shinies echoed through the pass and it seemed as if every eye was aiming for her. The rest of her team was ahead, firing back to cover Hardfield and her as they ran. Private White Feather held them off the longest with the blasts of his crystal mounted on a fallen rock.
Once the squad had regrouped, they pressed along one side of the pass and kept moving. The sergeant turned back to White Feather. "Get that crystal up and move damn it!"
The moment he folded the crystal's platform up, the Shinies took the chance to launch their slingshots. Two holes opened up in White Feather's back, and he stumbled over. Hardfield was quick to react, and lifted the crystal up onto his back and fired as they moved though the pass. Twilight and Peregrine joined him, blasting magic up at ice and snow, occasionally hitting a crystal pony.
"These Shinies just don't give up!" Hardfield shouted over the deafening energy blasts from the crystal. The conical weapon was cracked and scratched, leaking more of its magic with each shot. The magic grew hotter on his back, and Twilight finally cursed herself for not seeing the opportunity sooner.
She picked up the crystal off of Hardfield and fired it from her back. "I can keep them off us, run up with the others."
With no time to argue, Peregrine and Hardfield galloped along the pass while the crystal ponies focused on Twilight. While they shot all they had at her and her crystal, she gripped it with telekinesis and began charging it with a beam of magic. Once the rest of her squad was at a safe distance, she flung the cracked crystal up in the air.
The moment it reached up to the Shinies, Twilight picked up the crystal shards scattered on the floor and shot them at the crystal as hard as telekinesis could throw. The crystal gun shattered, bursting with all its charged power, and all of Twilight's additional magic. She ran as fast as she could to stay ahead of the collapsing ice and snow.
Along with the bodies, chunks of permafrost and ice crumbled into the narrow pass, filling it with an impassable frozen wall. Twilight didn't stop to see if she had wiped out the Shinies or not. Either way, that explosion did what was needed to give her squad the time to escape.
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"The rest of the troops should be taking the other pass by now," Sergeant Peregrine told everyone once they lost the crystal ponies at a fork in the pass. "They're on this part of the mountains, so the rest of our boys should be safe. The Shinies don't have have enough fighters in this area to hold both ways."
"They should count themselves lucky," Peterstone said, wrapping a bandage around a cut a crystal gave him. "My brother's in the engineers. He's young, but even when we were kids, he really knew how to handle himself in a scrap."
"Too bad he's not here," continued Peregrine, "'cause we need to get ourselves through this passage before the Shinies figure out they missed us two miles back."
Smaller meant quicker, and the squad moved swiftly along the passage, stopping only when they heard crystal ponies running above them. Whenever that happened they'd duck into the cracks in the ice and wait them out.
A day late, but the airfield was in sight. The first signs were the pegasi flying in and out, either going to or returning from a raid on crystal pony encampments. The compound was built on a plateau, formed by a glacier that had cut the top of the mountain side. What remained of the glacier was a slope impossible to climb, even with the help of quality crystal climbing spikes.
Twilight had never heard of such an airfield near the Crystal Empire, let alone one made for wartime use.
"Whew!" Peterstone hollered, almost directly into Twilight's ears. "Never thought I'd be so happy to see a hunk of ice! How 'bout you Two Tail, ever seen a sight like that in Vanhoover?"
Twilight shook her head with complete honesty. She had never imagined such an airfield in her life. It was better in every way compared to what she'd seen at flight camps, Cloudsdale, and even the Wonderbolts Headquarters.
"Save your breath private, we're still a few miles off," Peregrine told him. "Alright ladies, let's pick up the pace and get a hot meal before sundown."
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It was a long time before Twilight's thoughts truly turned from the war. She believed the card would release her after the deaths of the soldiers she fought with, but after securing the territory south of the Crystal Empire and eliminating the resisting forces, the war raged on. Sometimes, she'd appreciate what she was shown by the card. Early flight maneuvers done by the pegasi fighters were the same ones the Wonderbolts would later use, and she even saw the first use of the spears the royal guards in Canterlot were equipped with.
Regardless, the war continued and Twilight received another assignment. The commanders called it Operation Shatter, a plan to sail up the coast from Manehattan and land on the King Sombra's largest crystal mines. Without the mines, the crystal ponies would be cut off from ammunition and raw materials, shortening how long they could defend their territories.
Another campaign against the Crystal Empire, and Twilight was certain the card wouldn't release her until it was over.
The boat rumbled as the cold waves splattered ice against its hull. She stepped out onto the deck to check how close the coast was and ran into a sick Peterstone hurling his lunch into the sea.
"I wanna be back on my farm," he moaned.
"I don't know how those navy guys do it," agreed Hardfield, trying to keep his balance while holding his gut. He looked at Twilight, who barely felt anything from the rough waters. "Bet there's a lot of boats where you're from, right Two Tail?"
Twilight simply nodded to them and walked over to Sergeant Peregrine. He turned to the soldier next to him. "Radio to the T.S.S. Fire, we're in sight of the shore." Specialist Bloomings nodded and galloped to the communication room.
"Private, you got good eyes, take a look at this." Peregrine gave Twilight a pair of binoculars and pointed his hoof to the faint outline of the shore. "Once we get out of this fog, you can be sure those hills are gonna light up like a Hearth's Warming celebration. I need to you watch out for the Shinies and tell our mortars what to fire at."
From the front of the deck one of the soldiers looked out at the shore for himself. "Holy crap, they haven't fired. Did we really catch the Shinies off guard?" The soldier turned back and grinned at his friend. "Hey Blue Hoof, I owe ya twenty."
A sea mine exploded one of the boats next to them, taking out the front half and drowning the ponies on board before the lifeboats could drop. Every pony reached for their spears and crystals, aiming for anything in the sea that didn't look like water. Then the magic blasts from the coast began to pepper the hull of the boats. One crystal operator lost his face before dropping down to the cold water.
"Damn it!" Peregrine shouted, ducking under incoming fire. "When did they get charged crystals? Private Two Tail, you better spot those defenses!"
The cold fog on the ocean cleared up, the boats picking up speed to reach the coast before every pony died. It became easy for Twilight to sea where the crystal ponies were. They had small forts and bunkers, firing energy blasts with the same crystal cannons the ponies were using. She spotted the forts first, then the bunkers, calling out their position from the nose of the boat and their range.
Only one mortar missed, the bunker already taken out by another ship. But that didn't stop the sea mines from getting close to the boats. Distracted by the enemy shots, the soldiers couldn't catch every mine, and the first one to hit Twilight's boat was the only mine that had to in order to sink them.
She wanted to move for the life boats, but the ship gave out under her hooves and she slipped to the side, tumbling over the railing and into the sea. She could drown herself, perhaps end the card's plan and make her way back to the Card Master and get more answers. But even with those thoughts she couldn't make herself swallow a mouthful of water. She didn't want to die, not even in a fake reality.
"I got you buddy, I got you." Twilight reached out immediately at Hardfield's voice, grabbing his hoof and pulling up onto a lifeboat. "You're gonna be okay, we'll make it."
She blacked out on the way to the shore. All she could remember was the faint sound of soldiers running off their little boats and dying instantly from a remaining crystal gun. Even though their dying breaths weren't enough to alert her, another pony's shouting seemed to do the trick.
"There will be two types of stallions on this beach: those who move and those who die." Sergeant Peregrine grabbed Twilight by her uniform and dragged her onto the beach. "Wake up, Private, I still need you for this war."
"Watch the hills!" Peterstone shouted, sending a spear through the neck of a crystal pony. More followed down the hill, rushing from an exploded fort with spears and slingshots on their saddles. Twilight got up quickly and found a bundle of seven throwing spears. She sent two into the chests of the enemies and galloped to catch up with her squad.
All around her, more soldiers were gathering, simply running forward at the Shinies because there was no where else to go. An armored carriage rolled off one of the boats, enchanted and self-propelling. It drew all the attention from the crystal ponies but Twilight and her team ran for it, taking cover behind its steel casing.
"Barricades up ahead," Sergeant Peregrine told the squad, "cover the engineers while they clear it."
Twilight didn't need to be told twice to start throwing spears. It didn't seem possible for the engineers to get through and plant the explosive barrels, they were running strait into enemy fire, but the barbed wire and metal gates finally gave way to three explosions after a fierce fight.
The carriages lead the charge, two dozen moving inland followed by hundreds of infantry taking cover behind them. The facility was miles from the coast, protected by trenches and tunnels dug out by the miners to create an impressive fortress. While the carriages could only wait two miles away from the mines and fire on the defenses with blasts of magic, the soldiers flooded into the trenches and tunnels and stormed the area.
Twilight took point for her squad, clearing secret rooms of Shinies with their own weapons. The crystal ponies defending the mine was better equipped than even the ponies themselves. Stored all over the trenches were crystal spears magically charged like the crystals on the armored carriages. But, despite their light weight, the spears carried as much capacity and stopping power as a 50 kg crystal gun.
The weapon was a little harder to handle for Twilight, but it beat having to carry multiple throwing spears. In no time, the soldiers made it through the trenches to march on a maze of roads and watchtowers. Above them were snipers and heavy crystals, picking off any pony who tried to take the road into the facility.
"I got this," Peterstone said, creeping out of the trench and taking cover behind a pile of sandbags. "It'll be like picking apples off the trees from my room."
Peterstone picked up one of the crystal spears from a dead Shiny and aimed it through the sandbags at a sniper watching their road. He took one shot, and then another. Nothing was returned.
"I think I got him," Peterstone whispered, smiling at his team. He checked back at the tower and congratulated himself. "Now that's good shootin', show 'em how-"
A returned shot of magic put a hole in one ear and out the other. Twilight flinched back into the trenches with Peterstone's blood and brains splattered on in her eyes, ears, and mouth.
"Shit!" cursed the sergeant. "We're pinned as it is, now we're down a good stallion too."
"Two Tail's a better shot with the Shinies' weapons than any of us," Hardfield said, encouraging Twilight as much as he was directing the responsibility. Regardless, she grabbed a crystal spear, and on the sergeant's orders, eliminated the three snipers watching their position.
"Move," commanded Peregrine, leaping out of the trench and galloping down the road to a gate. It was locked, of course, but with the sound of the carriages bombarding the facility, shooting out the chains and locks didn't bring any attention.
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"Place those explosives at the support structures," commanded the sergeant. "Once we get all the slaves out of the mine, we'll blow this mine 'till it caves back into solid ground."
Twilight carefully placed the explosive barrels by the wooden support beams. The thick structures were the only things keeping the mines stable, and if one went off prematurely the whole mine would go and take her squad with it. It was supposed to be the job of the engineers to set up the explosives, but her team was sent as the last minute fix after the engineer platoon assigned to their section of the crystal mines got hit by a strong defense. Only two of those engineers made it out of the fight alive, and they were busy setting up explosives on the other side of the mine.
She tried to imagine what it was like for the engineer platoon. Not much was left up to imagination. On the landing at the beach, Twilight passed by more than her fair share of ponies dropping from stray energy blasts. There was no where to hide or run; the only option was to charge ahead into enemy fire, or find space behind an armored carriage. She shuddered at the thought of the same massacre happening again as the lucky survivors met a labyrinth of defenses.
Twilight finished her last explosive barrel and quickly galloped to regroup with her squad. She stopped only to tie the detonating wire to each barrel on her way out, unwinding it from her saddlebag as she returned to the sergeant. The engineers were waiting there too, taking hold of the wires as the rest of the soldiers returned, having completed their part of the mine.
"We'll be back in Manehattan for a few days after this," Hardfield said to Twilight once the engineers had taken all the detonating wires. "Looking forward to seeing a couple nice mares my cousin's been wanting to introduce me to. They'll be swooning over the war stories in minutes. You could tag along too Two Tail, if you're not scared. Between us, those ladies are sure to have a good time."
Twilight gave a disapproving looking at Hardfield, but dropped the matter entirely and let the stallion entertain his fantasies. She didn't understand how he could be looking forward to frivolity in a battlefield like this. Had he learned to drown out the violence, or was his dreams just an anchor to a life without war?
"Grab the tools and let's get out of here," Peregrine told every pony as soon as the engineers were ready with the wires. "We got ninety seconds once these suckers start burning, so if you need to catch a breath, do it outside. Now move!"
Twilight bolted the moment the engineers lit the wires with their horns. Ninety seconds didn't feel like a long enough time to run away from a crystal mine packed with explosives, so she gave every step a hundred and ten percent of her effort. She was relieved to feel the cold wind blowing into the mine near the end, but at the same time she felt a burst of warm air rush out from behind her. Without thinking, Twilight leaped forward and dove out of the mine, burying herself into the cold snow as the ground beneath her shook like an earthquake.
Once the explosions stopped, and the shooting around the mines ceased, the pegasi started landing, picking up the dead and injured and dropping off more spears and food for the troops. Twilight stayed buried in the snow for a time, laughing with her squad in relief. They had survived another fight.
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The funny thing about war was what ponies thought of it. Equestria's years of relative peace had taken most of the memories of war from its citizens. Twilight thought she knew what war meant, that every pony would hate the fighting and hate the death. But on the battlefield, she didn't have those resentments.
War was violence, and it was peace. After a hard fight, when the snow settled the shooting stopped, Twilight could feel the silence in the air. Surrounded by death, all she could think about was being alive.
Being stationed at a captured base would have been considered the easy job. It was in the middle of nowhere, far from any theater of war. Everyday Twilight would follow her routine, go out and patrol the hills for any crystal ponies. Sometimes there were fights, but never more than just a few Shinies with slingshots.
It was peaceful, but Twilight felt dead inside. All the quiet just gave her more time to think about the dead. How many were named? How many weren't? One day, after ambushing a couple Shinies, Twilight realized she hadn't even been counting how may she had killed. She looked at the young crystal pony lying on the snow, and thought back to her first fight. She remembered blowing the pass to stop the ambush, but not much else was as detailed.
The young Shiny was on the ground, his leg twisted from a bad fall. His face was burned with magic, and a spear burst his throat. Twilight couldn't look away. She stared at his eyes, still sparkling as if they were full of life, but gazing with a dead emptiness. His eyes were like stars, twinkling endlessly in space, and Twilight couldn't look away.
"Come on, it's disgusting," Hardfield told her. "Let's head back to base, it's getting colder out here."
Twilight just sat and stared at his burnt face and the spear that went through his throat. She noticed the cracks in his crystal complexion, some around his eyes like the trails tears left behind. Other cracks just looked like they were going to split the crystal stallion in two.
"It was him or you, that's how it is out here," Hardfield urged.
He still sparkled, especially his eyes, but he wasn't a Shiny anymore. The crystal pony wasn't shiny at all. The snow had already began to settle on his body, and soon he'd have a frozen burial with his comrades. They'd be buried, hidden away from light, and then their sparkling eyes would finally stop.
It's about time.
The snow melted away into darkness, though the floor Twilight sat on still felt cold. She didn't rise to meet the Card Master this time, only looking up slowly at his figure.
One month, twelve days, and three hours. I'm sorry to say the fun's gone after so long. Of course, it was much longer for you, wasn't it?
"What do you want?" she asked the Card Master. She couldn't think of anything else. It was the only question she still had.
Tell me, how long was the war?
"Too long," answered Twilight.
Lucky for you, that card survived. A young stallion from Vanhoover, went to war against Sombra and the Crystal Empire, then came back a hero. All for naught, it turned out, when Sombra cursed the empire to vanish.
"He wasn't a hero."
And what does that make you? The cards have their rules, but you still had come control.
"I'm not a hero either."
Fair enough.
The two stood in silence for some time. Twilight touched the floor with her hooves, feeling the darkness. She had forgotten her struggle with the Card Master because of the war. Two years she spent in that card, by her count, and she thought she'd never leave.
Don't make the same mistakes the soldiers made. Talk about it.
"Talk? Is that what you expect me to do?" Twilight furrowed her eyebrows. "You know your cards, how can you expect me to just talk after all that happened?"
So, no talking. That's fine. Some soldiers return home and no pony understands what they've seen. Some can't say a word about it, while others just don't have the right ponies to say it too.
"So you're the right pony?" Twilight asked. The Card Master walked up to her, so close that her breath blew against his face.
I don't think I'm a pony at all.
The Card Master let his baggy robes slide off of him, showing his spectacular nature. Twilight gaped, remembering what Celestia had once said about the Card Master. A pony's shape, like a manikin, but made from playing cards. They each glowed and hummed with magic, swimming along what would be his skin like fish in a tank. Twilight tried to look at a single spot of his face, and then his body, but nothing remained completely still.
So, talk.
Twilight answered. "I thought when Sombra cursed the Crystal Empire, Celestia and Luna were the heroes trying to save the crystal ponies."
And now?
Twilight continued. "There was so much more to that than just a few battles. It was a war, plain and simple, and it had all the things you'd expect from a war. Of course, I didn't know what to expect anyways, so that doesn't matter."
I'm glad you decided to play, Princess. Truly, I am.
"Don't mistake my exhaustion for a truce, Card Master," replied Twilight. "Free me now, and my hate won't become actions."
I'm afraid there's another lifetime waiting for you. A poor orphan pony when the Earth Pony Empire was at it's height. A time before empires of unicorns and pegasi, but I'm sure you wouldn't know anything about that.
Twilight's face twisted with rage. Living a lifetime in a forgotten world away from her friends was not on her agenda. Her magic lashed out before the card could change the scenery. The smell of pine trees and the sound of river rapids flowed in and out of the dark fog as the Card Master struggled to regain his composure.
Twilight didn't give him the chance, and stunned him with another beam of magic.
Princess! You don't know what you're doing!
"You wanted to change me," she growled. "I don't know to what end, but congratulations, you succeeded on that front. I would've negotiated with you for peace, but now it seems all you care about is death and war."
Do not continue-
Twilight launched a volley of magic bolts at the Card Master, but this time he was prepared. His body melted into the darkness, each card flying off like a flock of birds to hide in the fog. She couldn't see them, but Twilight could hear the fluttering of the cards. The Card Master materialized behind her but she met him with a force field to surround him.
This is fruitless, Princess.
The Card Master waved his hoof, and the fog began to dissipate into a wild forest. Twilight collapsed the field on the Card Master, crushing him under the force of the shield, and sending the environment back into the dark. The Card Master went with it, breaking into individual cards and flooding down into the ground. Twilight raced after him, but the fog blackened the ground and made it solid.
You'll push them too far if you do this Princess. The game will not have the happy ending you want.
"A game?" Twilight gasped. "You shut me in a war, in a body that wasn't mine, for two years! And still, you still throw that word around like it doesn't matter?"
Time is a fickle thing, Princess. It's barely been a month in my fog, and even less for your friends.
"Is that what you want, to torment me like a toy or a pet, then throw me off when you're bored?" The more Twilight accused the Card Master, the more she realized her anger was distracting her from the fog. Already a creek rose up from the floor, and the darkness began being pierced by rays of sunlight.
Do not struggle. We will have our fun Princess, you'll see.
Twilight lashed out in a cry of rage, but her voice was already some pony else's. It was young and shrill, like a filly's, and everything around her seemed to get bigger.
Don't worry, you get to keep your body, though at the sacrifice of something else. This time you won't remember anything until the end. No pent up rage to distract you.
Those words barely left his lips before Twilight felt her memories fade away. First went the pages of the books she read, the information she had learned over the years. Then left the names of every pony she knew. Her friends stayed the longest, but before long she couldn't name the pink one or the rainbow one.
"You can't do this to me Card Master!" she shouted, only to forget who she was shouting at shortly after. Nonetheless, he responded.
I'm afraid that's not true at all.
Twilight refused to forget everything as she shrank back into childhood. She charged at the Card Master, not understanding what he was, but acting only on rage. But her legs couldn't carry her far enough, and she found herself face first in a very shallow creek.
"I have to remember something. I can't lose it all." Twilight scanned her mind for even one thing to think of, but every memory she had seemed to go away. "Think Twilight, think!"
It wasn't much, but it was the last shred of herself that she could hold onto. "Twilight, Twilight, Twilight," she repeated to herself. Over and over, even when the meaning of the name had left her, she continued to whisper it to herself as she stumbled through the forest.
"Twilight, Twilight, Twilight."
She ate what she could, whether it was acorns or apples, or just stringy grass off the dirt. Thrice the sun rose, and thrice the moon followed, until Twilight couldn't walk any longer. She followed the sound of the creek and collapsed beside it, curling up under the cover of loose foliage, whispering to herself.
"Twilight, Twilight, Twilight."