//------------------------------// // How it Ends // Story: Friendship Was Magic // by Deceius //------------------------------// AN: This is a "What If" fic that covers what might have happened if Chrysalis and the changelings won in the end of season two. A flash of green, a loud crash and an endless fall. With luck, I won't even have to feel the landing. As consciousness flees from my body, memories and pictures scroll through my mind in a last ditch effort to tell me it wasn't all in vain. How had she done it? Why had the elements failed? Were we, the bearers, responsible for letting Chrysalis win? Was there ever any hope in the first place? I had done everything I needed and more. So had the ponies around me. The guard had been nearly overwhelmed the minute the attack started. They put up a valiant defense but the numbers were never in their favor. It didn't matter now, all that mattered was the fact that I had let down everyone. My friends. My family. My princess. Everyone I knew was doomed to a miserable existence because I wasn't strong enough. How had it come to this? They had done everything right. The elements together, the ponies behind them. Her friends, she hadn't seen what had become of them. She hoped they hadn't seen her fall. She hoped nobody had seen her or her friends fail. The thought itself was damning. She, along with the princesses and her friends had never considered it. What if the ponies had failed? The ground. Rest, for the first time in what seems like so long, is finally at hand. I'd like to think that my efforts made a difference but as I fall to my death I can't think of anyone saying, "At least Twilight Sparkle and her friends tried." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Luna had just awoken when the noise hit her ears. A burst of magic, the smash of glass. The air whistled around her as she launched from her sanctuary from the day to the palace. The cool night was just in it's infancy and there was nopony in sight. There. A pony falling from the ballroom windows. Not just any pony. It was Twilight, her body broken and bloody, cut from the fall and what looked like a fierce fight. Luna quickly placed herself underneath and caught the pony deftly. "What has happened little one," she voiced the question out loud but one look at Twilight told Luna she was never going to receive an answer. It was then that she saw them, the changeling hoard, coming for her and to make sure Twilight hadn't survived. She whisked the first few away with her magic but soon realised the futility of her attacks. Each time a changeling fell, another five were there to replace it. Hoard had been the appropriate word she quickly decided and made a fast retreat. "The roads and streets she had once roamed seemed so sinister this night," Luna voiced the thought aloud, cringing as her voice carried to the changelings still searching for her. Her precious cargo still atop her back, she exploded out of cover, bowling over the first ranks of changelings who had been about to jump her. A jump and two wing beats later and she was clear of the throng, once again running from the hissing and panting horde. A dark and desolate house was her saving grace. As she ducked inside the changelings following continued down the road in search of her and Twilight. Luna glanced at Twilight to make sure she was okay. Her heart stopped dead in the middle of its beat and a fist of ice ensnared her lungs. When she had caught Twilight she had only quickly glanced over her before facing the changelings. This wasn't something a pony could walk away from. Luna hoped that it had been quick but she knew better. The changelings were ruthless monsters, it was never quick and painless. Luna's thought went to Twilight's friends. Were they alright? She doubted it, staring at the abused body of her champion. But yet....all she needed was one. A steely determination took over her. Luna remembered what Celestia told her, before the changelings, before Discord, before Nightmare Moon. Luna knew what needed to be done and she was apparently the only pony left in town. Quickly, Luna stole away into a night of her own design, knowing where the shadows would be at all times was a great asset to her at times like these. After hours of working her way through the back alleys and secluded forgotten streets of Canterlot, she exited the city. With a final look at the overrun town, she adjusted the body on her back and started the long journey before her. Elements can be broken. Elements can be remade. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rainbow Dash watched Twilight fly bodily through the beautiful stained glass window. Cold dead fingers drag down her spine as fear makes itself known in the pony's mind. Her friend had needed help and there was nothing she could do. The others lay scattered around the hall. Like leaves in a thunderstorm they had fallen alone. Cut off from each other as the changeling horde came at them. Applejack, atop a mound of bodies that would have made the trees she bucked look small. Rarity, with a ring of space around her so that none of the creatures would ever touch her again. Fluttershy, as quiet and still as ever, was beside Angel. Pinkie, her cannon empty and changelings covered in various party favors and candies, propped up against a column. Rainbow closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable; the end to come as the changeling queen laughs at her victory. A final step and a content sigh. Rainbow opens her eyes to glare at the changeling queen one last time. "You were so close my dear," crones Chrysalis. "I was worried that once the pesky unicorn got the Elements of Harmony but who would've thought that the love I leached from Shining Armor would prove even more powerful. Odd, who really would have thought that love is more powerful than friendship" "You're nothing. You think you've won? You don't stand a chance cos' I'm still here and I will NEVER stop hunting you," Rainbow Dash spits out, fire in her words. "The Elements of Harmony are more than what you think they are." Rainbow Dash gives a dry chuckle and a wheeze. "Look around you fool, your friends are gone, your princess is mine, and you aren't long in this world," the changleling said, raising up on her back hooves. Rainbow Dash watched the hooves come down. Slowly inching towards her. Her mind told her battered body to move, to knock them away, anything but there was nothing she could do. Even Equestria's fastest flier wasn't fast or strong enough to stop inevitability. As the hooves connected with her forehead, a last thought came to her. This isn't the end.