Work Text:
“Where… am I?”
She looked around her with bated breath. The pastures before her were rotting beneath her feet, and a black sun dirtied the murky skies. She could feel her stomach churning every time she caught a glimpse of that darkened sun. It was as if she had stepped into a world that wasn’t hers, a place where she wasn’t meant to be.
She brushed her white mane as her mind raced to gather her memories. She had gathered everyone to find Cyan, who went missing without a trace. As she searched at the place where she saw her last, the world shifted around her. Like a drop of ink had that been dropped into a glass of water, darkness encroached her sight. When her eyes regained their vision, the world had transformed before her.
She looked around her. No one else was with her. Their usual noisy, rowdy bickering had been replaced by an eerie silence, without a single chirp of birds or breeze of wind. As if the world around her had died.
Suddenly, a change occurred before her eyes. Cracks formed in front of her, as if an invisible glass had broken before her. Fingers reached through the cracks, pushing against the air around it as the gap widened. The noise of glass cracking and splintering rang around her as the figure behind the gap revealed herself.
A figure similar to herself stepped out of the widened gap, and the cracks in the world slowly mended themselves. The murky white being stood in front of her, its visage a mirror of herself, though its eyes remained hidden beneath its mane. Her heart thumped as she stared down at the mysterious figure.
“To think you would welcome me right after I got out… Today must be my lucky day, hehe…” the figure muttered, its voice grating against her ears.
“...Who are you? And what is this place?” she asked.
“Who knows? Not like it matters. Besides…” The figure tilted its head, revealing a twisted sneer on its face. “...you know who I am very well, don’t you?”
“...”
The figure continued on, ignoring the silent response, “As for what this place is… Weren’t you the one who wanted to come here?”
“What do you mean by that?”
The figure sneered, “You wanted to find where that idiot is, didn't you?”
Her heart stirred for a moment. Without even hearing the name, she could already tell who it was talking about.
Seeing her surprise, the figure cackled, “Ha! Well, you’re in luck—you’re halfway there.”
“That place where you came from… Cyan’s there, isn’t she?”
“Yup. Who knows if she’s still Cyan, though?” the figure pondered by itself.
Her gaze instantly intensified against the figure, as if she wished to bore a hole straight through its skull. “...What did you do to her?” she hissed, her voice dripping with anger.
“It’s more like what she did to herself if you ask me,” the figure answered nonchalantly, unbothered by the intense gaze it received. “Well, it was all thanks to you, though. You sure did a number on that idiot’s ego.”
After seeing her pursed lips, the figure’s smile twisted even further. “Don’t worry, I don’t blame you. After winning a race myself, being named is definitely worth kicking that idiot away. We’re not so different, you and I.”
“As if,” she clicked her tongue.
“Of course we are! The thrill of victory! The recognition! The envious gaze from those losers! And earning my very own name! Just remembering it is enough to make me smile ear to ear, kahahaha!” The figure cackled maniacally. Its maddening laughter rang across the dead expanse.
The words spoken by the mysterious figure grated at her. There were parts she couldn’t help but agree with. Claiming victory for the first time really did feel amazing, and obtaining a name of her own was akin to obtaining a part of herself that she didn’t know she was missing. No matter how she saw it, she couldn’t say that she hated the victory she had obtained.
The figure continued, “Once I get out of this place, the entire world will know my name! Fame, glory, and everything in between! The story of my struggle from a nobody that crawled from this hellhole into an all-star will become the story of the century, don’t you think?”
“I see… You’re certainly a reflection of myself,” she muttered.
The figure appeared pleased by her agreement. “Finally, I know you’ll agree—”
“Similar on the outside, but ultimately a poor imitation,” she interrupted the figure to finish her sentence. Her cold gaze pierced deeply, carrying her resolve. No matter how sweet the victory and glory might’ve been, none of them was worth what she had lost that day.
“What?!” The figure growled, its features morphed slightly from its opposition’s sudden shift. “You think you’re better than me? After you pulled that stunt on that idiot?”
“I know. That’s why I’m here—to make things right. So show me the way to Cyan and get back into that hellhole you crawled out of,” she declared.
The figure scoffed at her ultimatum. “So that’s how it is. I want to get out, and you want to get in. You know there’s only one way to resolve this for us, right?”
“I know.”
As the tension between them threatened to explode, a race was imminent between them.
The figure sneered at her seemingly empty bravado. “And you think you can win? Some bottom feeder that could only win against the bottom of the barrel?”
She nodded her head against the figure’s provocation. “I will. Because at the end of the day, you’re just a cheap imitation of this bottom feeder.”
“...Haha.”
The figure chuckled, its voice trembling as it struggled to contain itself. Its mane shifted, revealing its hollow eye sockets. In place of its eyes, a void without any hint of light reflecting on it stared right at her.
“Alright. Let’s race, then. Winner takes all.”
With that declaration, their surroundings began to warp. A forest of white birch trees formed around them. Every time her eyes blinked, birch trees took over an empty space as if they had been there from the start, creating a barely traversable path for their race. The white rows of columns contrasted against the dead, dark world, akin to the maw of a beast ready to mangle anyone who dared to enter into pieces.
The figure’s voice rang through the forest, echoing without a determinable source, “A Mysterious Figure. Etch my name into your skull before I take everything that belongs to you.”
Without any shift in her expression, she lowered her body into a running position, ready to let herself loose. “Superstitional Realism. Feel free to scream my name once I drag you back down to where you came from,” she muttered.
Thunderclouds began to roll into the murky skies as thunder rumbled and growled. Superstitional Realism didn’t let it bother her as she focused her entire being on the race. No matter how far she must run or how thorny the path ahead of her might be, she will keep pushing forward.
‘I’m not leaving you behind this time, Cyan.’
Because it was a race that she couldn’t afford to lose.
‘So, let’s go home together.’
Crackle! Boom!
A flash of lightning burned brightly in the sky, and thunder followed along just a beat later.
Dash!
With that signal, Superstitional Realism launched off as a streak of white into the track. In this drab world, her will ignited as a beacon for the nameless left behind by the world.