Chapter 47: Pins and Needles

Dusk is running away from the alabaster unicorn/monster/demon-mare that is chasing him with intense fury in her eyes. He is genuinely scared for his life, as Rarity keeps on unleashing barrage, after barrage of needles at him. (All dodged) He is frightened of the thin, but wickedly sharp needles that she is levitating, but he is truly fearful of the power of the gemstones she possesses. They have been tapered, into a horrifically long spike. He knew her reaction was going to be bad, but not this bad.

He looks behind him, and could see another group of needles being shot at him, and so he quickly dodges to the left, narrowly avoiding said needles. He scans the area, for any sign of Fluttershy, and Twilight, but curses when he couldn’t see them anywhere. It seems that he has run in a different direction to his friends.

He runs through the relatively empty town, continuously dodging every single little needle thrown at him. He is hopelessly running away hoping that she will exhaust, before he does. He sees something up ahead, which is a small relief to see…

‘The town centre, this is good to see. If I can get out of the commercial area, then maybe I can lose her in the maze of the residential area.’

As he looks behind, to see how close she had gotten, he gasps in panic. She has gotten uncomfortably close, and she launches another volley of needles at the stallion. He tries to dodge in time, but fails, as he feels every single needle pierce through his skin. He lets out a loud cry of pain, as he feels the sewing needles enter his right hindleg.

“Gotcha.” Rarity says evilly.

He sees one of the sharpened gemstone fly right past his face, and causes a rather sizable chip into one of the nearby concrete walls. He looks at Rarity with horror, as she readies another volley of needles directed at him.

‘This wasn’t meant to turn out this way, this was meant to something that she could be angry about now, but something to forgive and forget after a few minutes…’

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He sprints towards the residential area of the town, while skillfully avoiding every lob of needles that is thrown at him. He could feel himself starting to feel the effects of his panic, low stamina, and the attack on his leg.  Dusk is starting to feel quite exhausted as he reached the district of houses, and he knew that he needs to rest soon, or else his legs would give out. He uses the Dusk Royal Voice as he ran…

“TWILIGHT, FLUTTERSHY, YOU NEED TO STOP RARITY, SHE’S IN THE RESIDENTUAL DISTR- AGGHHH, BUCKING CRAP!”

He felt the pain of another barrage of needles hitting his right hindleg again. He could see small streams of blood, trickling down his wounds, where he has been hit. He could see Rarity slow getting closer to Dusk, who started to feel a light paralyzing effect on his affected hindleg.  He sees her face for the first time during the fight.

She is a twisted shadow of her normal self. Her normally beautified and painstakingly maintained mane and tail are a mess (For her standards). There were many loose stands of her mane sticking out, and it has messily over curled at the ends of the purple mane. She has also somehow dulled in colour, her coat has become a shade of grey. None of those things scared Dusk though, what scared him are her eyes. When he looks into her eyes, there seemed to be an unexplainable empty void deep inside. This scares him immensely.

His head shakes, as he regains control of his actions. He realizes how close the possessed Rarity had gotten to him. He dodges the next hail of needles, and runs towards the housing area, before realizing something as he ran.

‘These needles aren’t meant to kill me, but are only meant to slow me down, so she could get an easier shot with those impalers…’

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Point of View: Fluttershy

Both Fluttershy, and Twilight were running in the direction that they saw Dusk and Rarity running. They thought that the two both heard something from the centre of town and were going to investigate, when they hear…

“TWILIGHT, FLUTTERSHY, YOU NEED TO STOP RARITY, SHE’S IN THE RESIDENTUAL DISTR- AGGHHH, BUCKING CRAP!”

They cast worried glances at each other, as they flew/ran towards the housing area of Ponyville. They could tell that Dusk is hurt, so they start looking for both him and Rarity, to try and figure out what is going on.

They both run towards the houses…

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Point of View: Dusk (A few minutes later)

“Rarity… you don’t need to do this, I was lying about everything before…”

Dusk has been hit a few too many times from her needles, and he couldn’t move properly. Two of his legs felt numb, and he is reduced to nothing more than a slow limp. He sees her menacingly walk towards his immobilized form, with an evil smile on her face. He starts to stress out, because he still hasn’t regained full control of his legs. He looks at his wings, and realizes that they are his only way of escape.

‘This is going to hurt…’

He begins to beat is wings in the attempt to fly, and he tries to ignore the pain, and stiffness in his left wing. He focuses on flying away from the possessed mare, who is still advancing on him. He his left wing wanting to give out, from the stresses of flying, but he wouldn’t stop. He sees that she is readying one of the gemstones for an attack…

He feels himself go airborne, just as the gemstone goes flying towards his old position. His left wing felt like it is continuously being hit by a sledge hammer. The more he flew, the more his vision starts to fade away, since it took all of the energy and willpower to stay in the air. Dark black spots slowly fill his line of sight, as he flies. He needs to land.

He sees a safe area above him, which is high enough for him to be a safe distance away from any of her attacks. It is the roof of a two story house. He uses his last bit of energy to fly up to the roof, and his vision is blackening at a worrying rate. He could feel himself about to faint, after flying with his badly damaged wing for little over 30 seconds. He throws himself onto the rooftop, narrowly avoiding the next hail of needles.

He faints as he lands…

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Dusk awakes on the rooftop, a few minutes later, feeling like utter crap. His left wing feels like it’s burning, and his right hindleg, and left foreleg, stung, because of the multiple needle wounds. Luckily for him, he could move those limbs again. He is sitting in the middle of the roof, and it was mostly flat, and it protected him from all of Rarity’s attacks on him. Since he is in a safe area, he decided that it would be the best time to remove the needles, which were lodged into his body.

As he pulls the first needle out of his foreleg with his teeth, he receives a massive jolt of pain, which he feels across his whole body. He suppresses a yell of pain, as he pulls the first needle out of his skin. He begins to start pulling out the next needle, when he sees just how many needles have hit him.

‘Holy Luna in Canterlot, I have gotten twelve needles stuck in my foreleg.’

He suppresses many more yells of pain, as he quickly pulls out the next six needles which were stuck inside. As he pulls the seventh needle out, he hears some laughter from ground level. The next thing he notices, were about 300 needles being levitated above the roof, and they were now forming a straight line across the roof. He realizes what is about to happen.

‘Oh, buck my life, she’s going to sweep the roof with those needles, which will hit me…’

He panics as he sees this, as he couldn’t fly away from the trap. He looks around at the side of the roof without the needles, trying to find if there is anything on the ground which will help him. He finds absolutely nothing. He swears to himself.

He steps back a few metres, and runs towards the edge of the roof, while the needles starts to fly in his general direction. He jumps off the roof…

Next Chapter: Chapter 48: Fear Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 5 Minutes