Anonicorn: The Duel

>You think you’ve finally adapted to this life.
>Besides the nightly magical discharges into the ‘doomstar’, at least. Those are too reminiscent of another kind of nightly discharge from your prior life.
>That very unhappy past, however, is now far enough away to feel like an exceptionally bad dream.
>Here, though, today, you’re faced with uncomfortable reminders.
>You knew of honor duels from your time as a human, one of those things that had managed to make history sound cool to you.
>Now, though, you’re the subject of them.
>And your aunt Luna is doing her level best to flatten every suitor among Canterlot’s nobility.
>She stands, serenely, in the middle of the palace’s great hall. She has not moved from her spot in three hours. The last mare to get her to even shift a single hoof had surrendered seventeen duels ago.
>She holds before her a terrifying bardiche, a true weapon of war from the less civilized age she still identifies with.
>Its crescent-shaped blade is fitting, considering its wielder.
>She deftly handles it with an order of magnitude greater agility and precision than the masterwork rapiers most mares had come at her with.
>Faced with such a brute weapon, several potential challengers had backed down on the spot.
>You were glad for it, honestly. None of the mares interested you.
>The gold diggers were easy enough to spot; they came done up in so much jewelry and finery that modest stallions would pity them.
>Others seemed to come just for the competition itself, and you were an afterthought. You didn’t want to be a trophy to sit on a shelf.
>Your aunt doesn’t bother calling out new challenges after she finishes pummeling the last into the marble floor.
>Said floor is cracked in five places, from when suitors didn’t know when to quit. Two of these fractures still have mangled weapons embedded in them.
>The craftsmares charged with the palace upkeep must be hoping what you’re thinking; the day’s bouts are done.
>You remain unwed.
>You don’t care.
>But, from the back, a commotion. The crowd slowly parts for a small group to come through
>Six ponies, unadorned, emerge into the cleared circle in the middle of the great hall.
>You recognize the lead one easily enough. Your relationship with Princess Twilight had always been a troubled one, and you weren’t a happy pony when you found out about her elevated status
>Behind four others you didn’t know, however, was a pony you thought you’d never see again.
>That spotless white coat and purple mane could only be Rarity.
>Your heart jumps. It’s been almost a decade, but she’s finally returned. The one pony who understood you better the rest. The one pony you’d understood better than the rest.
>But as the other five stop at the edge of the circle, she continues onward alone, the bottoms of her flat, long saddlebags almost brushing the floor with every hoofbeat.
>Oh no.
>You want to call out to her, but her resolute stride stays your tongue.
>She reaches the center, and the flaps of her saddlebags open. From each emerges three swords and a dozen smaller objects. The swords take up a six-pointed star formation floating behind her back, the smaller objects – needles, you can see, now that they’re arranged – forming a disk between the blades.
>She turns to look at you.
>The ornate display of her weaponry tracks with her head, suspended behind it like a steel halo.
>”Anonymous. I have come to claim your heart.”
>Her sad smile melts your emotions.
>”Because you’ve always had mine.”
>Playwrights weep in the audience.
>”Thou shalt not claim our nephew without our grace,” Luna booms.
>Rarity turns back to Luna, the swords and needles once again following.
>The swords, as one, swing to point at Luna.
>For a dreadful moment, a burdened silence falls.
>It’s broken by the sound of six swords smashing into Luna’s weapon at once.
>Luna’s eyes widen, but she still remains planted where she stands.
>The six swords alternate striking her weapon and making slashes at her body.
>Most are feints.
>Luna doesn’t fall for a single one.
>Her bardiche becomes a blur, smacking away the true strikes while evading the blows meant for the weapon.
>The needles, however, were doing a wholly different kind of work.
>Two dozen threads are now strung out of Rarity’s saddlebags, each one with a flashing steel point at the end. The points fan out to the edges of the circle at even intervals, then slam into the marble floor to form anchor-points.
>The other ends of the threads find sewing needles, making two dozen thin tendrils around the arena that move like they’re alive.
>It wasn’t until the first several of these streaked towards Luna’s legs that the alicorn bothered to move.
>Each step she made was precise; dodging needles as casually as one might walk down a street.
>For all Rarity’s fondness of fanciful court life, she couldn’t even make a Princess dance.
>Rarity’s sweating with the effort, but she looks even more determined than her opponent.
>Luna, however, is starting to grimace.
>The bardiche finds enough time to swing low through a parry, cutting a thread.
>The severed needle un-knots itself, its now-loose thread fluttering down to the floor.
>In seven strikes, two more threads are cut.
>Rarity’s starting to hone in on Luna with the needles, now, though. Luna’s forced into a less graceful prancing motion to keep her legs disentangled.
>And it’s Rarity who’s yet to move, in this duel.
>With a roar of rage, Luna takes to wing.
>Her weapon flashes out towards Rarity, knocking aside every blade in its path.
>At the last second, a sword streaks towards it from the side.
>Its blade slides straight through the gap between the bardiche’s blade and its shaft, stopping the weapon cold.
>Luna rotates the bardiche around the sword, bringing its haft around in a descending arc.
>It makes contact square on Rarity’s snout, producing a sickening crack and an arc of blood.
>It feels like Luna had just stabbed you instead.
>Rarity teleports herself to the other side of the circle, but the bardiche – now extricated from the sword that had pinned it in mid-air – is already moving again. Its flat spin carries it towards Rarity, who cannot locate it.
>Of course not, Luna’s body is blocking her sight.
>The alicorn surges upwards with a single powerful beat of her wings just before her own weapon reaches her, and only then can Rarity locate it.
>Two blades try to intersect its path, but its horizontal spin reorients into a vertical one to avoid them.
>The strike looks true, and you squeeze your eyes shut, not wanting your last image of your foalhood friend being her skull split in twain.
>Instead, a loud clash of metal rings out.
>When you open your eyes, you see Luna’s bardiche stopped cold, its blade inches from Rarity’s face.
>Four of the cut-free sewing needles form a tiny star in the blade’s path.
>From either side of the circle, blades streak towards the stopped weapon, hoping to pin it again.
>Instead, Luna teleports the blade away.
>It reappears underneath Rarity, who rears back just in time to avoid being bisected.
>With the failure of this strike, Luna blinks the weapon back to her, now flying above the middle of the circle, halfway up to the great hall’s vaulted ceiling.
>She hadn’t needed to worry about the swords harrying her since she went on the offensive, but this moment’s hesitation gives Rarity an opening to resume her earlier attacks.
>Two swords slam into the bardiche swinging at once, one striking the top and the other the bottom of the weapon.
>Rarity pushes them in a telekinetic shove hard enough for it to fly away from Luna, leaving the alicorn exposed.
>”ENOUGH!” Luna shouts.
>A thundering boom echoes through the hall then, and a thick curtain of darkness slams from the ceiling to the floor, just as four blades streak through the space where Luna was last seen.
>All is quiet as tiny glints of steel – the sewing needles reflecting what little light is left – quickly execute a criss-crossing pattern through the darkness at knee-level above the floor.
>A flash of light precedes a small cluster of miniature stars, hanging in place to the left.
>One had found its target.
>Swords redirect themselves in mid-flight, only visible when the flats of their blade flashes reflections at just the right angles.
>More bursts of light. More clusters of stars that hang in the air even after the sound of the strikes fade.
>A zigzagging pattern traces its way through the darkness.
>With the number of stars growing, light is slowly returning to the circle. Ghosts of Luna and Rarity’s faces can be seen for brief moments as the combatants close.
>Luna’s expression is twisted in rage.
>Blood runs down Rarity’s white snout, but she’s grinning in defiance.
>The next sound is a cry of surprise. The next image lit is Luna’s astonished face.
>Dozens of explosions of sound and light appear around that image in seconds, the many stars now illuminating a stricken Luna.
>The threaded needles have found her wings, and pulled them to the floor.
>Your heart quails. Will your aunt die today?
>A dark chuckle from Rarity. “I’ve never stitched a dress on a live model before.”
>More threads close in, but Luna’s weapon is still free, and despite being harried by half a dozen blades, it still manages to cut threads.
>The darkness in that area is entirely dispelled though, and the alicorn’s situation is grim.
>Even with none of the threads anchored to the floor anymore, both her wings are now bound around her forelegs, immobilizing her.
>She rears back on her still-free hind legs as three blades streak through where her chest just was.
>Unable to use her forelegs or wings for balance, however, Luna falls onto her side.
>More threads find their mark, criss-crossing over her body and embedding themselves into the floor around her
>In seconds, a makeshift net has woven itself over her.
>Three swords stab themselves through the gap between the bardiches blade and its shaft, impaling themselves into the marble floor to pin it.
>Three more blades hover over Luna, ready to descend.
>The despair inside you feels like a heavy weight. Beneath it, a door in your soul opens, and that weight carries everything you feel out of reach.
>You haven’t felt this cold emptiness since before you’d first came to this world.
>A tremble shakes the building. Onlookers look around in a panic as bits of marble shake across the floor and stone dust rains from the ceiling.
>Even Rarity pauses, looking about for an unexpected new attack.
>A high-pitched whine sounds, growing closer. The onlookers’ panicked motions intensify
>Suddenly a huge shaft of blazing white light blasts through the great hall’s ceiling.
>The beam smashes into the floor between Rarity and Luna, throwing up glowing chunks of superheated stone in all directions.
>“The doomstar!” ponies shout, inciting even further panic.
>The beam refines itself into a massive spike of shimmering light, its point now suspended just above the large crater it blasted into the floor. Its shaft extends all the way back up through the hole in the roof, into the sky beyond.
>To onlookers outside, the sinister ball of magic that had floated over Canterlot for almost two decades now had refined itself into a long, thin spear, stabbing the royal palace.
“Rarity! Aunt Luna! Stop this!”
>The cruel grin on Rarity’s face vanishes. Luna ceases her struggle.
“Enough! Please, enough. Enough fighting for today.”
>You walk into the trashed circle, even as everyone else backs away.
“That’s enough. Let’s just… lets just talk, now. I think I’m ready to make my choice.”