Confident and suddenly more lighthearted, Twilight Sparkle trotted around the slightly damp tunnel, looking out through small grates as she did so to keep her bearings. The faint, soft giggle of Fluttershy echoed faintly from behind, reassuring her that the one friend she worried most about in a fight wasn't anywhere near trouble at all. Safe as can be!
Fluttershy watched as a stray tauri that had wandered too close was carpeted in pink wings, giggling as it ran away in terror from her little friends. The monstrous beast managed to get about a dozen steps away before it sank to the ground, tendons cut and it's throat gashed in dozens of places. Wasn't nature fascinating?
Two of the little insects perched themselves on Fluttershy's ears like adorable sentinels as the rest returned to their wallside post.
---
Sombra huddled by the wall, desperately not trying to attract any further attention. The few cuts in his flank stung, but had struck nothing vital- but the butterflies seemed to home in on any sudden movement. Having one of the little pink horrors resting atop his nose at the moment didn't help matters much.
"WHY, MY LORD SOMBRA....IS THAT A BUTTERFLY ON YOUR NOSE? HOW CUTE."
Sombra groaned internally as he felt the attention of Jolfr's will focus on his prostrate form.
"Celestia's little ponies have managed to turn butterflies into better killers than your demons, Jolfr. Have a look through my eyes for yourself.", he returned.
The phantom presence rested itself behind his forehead, taking in the shredded remnants and the feral blue eyes still lighting the tunnel beyond. As Fluttershy's head twitched a bit from her hitchhiking friends, a third butterfly of stone glowered into the space as well from the golden torc around her throat, then vanished again as she settled her head back on her hooves.
"OH, FOR THE SAKE OF ME!" roared in Sombra's mental space, nearly causing him to disturb his passenger. A rosy wing rose in a perfect mix of harmlessness and dire menace.
"CELESTIA IS A DOLT, A FOALISH SPIRIT, A MANIPULATIVE FOUL-FILLY! SHE TURNED HER ELDEST SISTER INTO TRINKETS FOR A PACK OF MORTALS?"
Sombra's head ached, both from the internal roar-a-logue and the strain of holding his neck absolutely still...
"TRULY, SHE GAMBLES WITH FATE. E'EN BROKEN, ALEXANDRITE IS A DOUGHTY FORTRESS OF A SPIRIT INDEED, AND IN TOUCHING MINE SERVANTS, HER IRE MUST SURELY BE RAISED. THERE IS NAUGHT BUT WAR BETWEEN US WHEN WE GATHER SO CLOSE AS THIS."
"So, you're saying you've thrown me into the teeth of an angry god that makes Celestia or Luna look like feeble old mares?"
"NAY. WOULDST I BE TRUE IF I LEFT THEE IN SUCH PERILS? THOU SHALT RETREAT IN SAFE-KEEPING, AND WE SHALL STRIKE AGAIN ONCE THEIR MEASURE IS TRULY TAKEN- THE WORD IS GIVEN, THINE FORCES SHALL WITHDRAW BELOW. THE POWERS THESE PONIES PLAY WITH ARE MAD TO TEMPT SO, AND MIGHT WELL DO YOUR WORK FOR YOU...AND BESIDES, ELDEST SISTER HAS NOT THROWN HER FULLEST STRENGTH INTO THIS BATTLE. PART LIES YET SLEEPING, AND IF WE WOULDST HAVE YOUR ARMY WHOLE, BEST NOT TO BE NEAR WHEN IT DOES.
As the words faded, the glow of Twilight Sparkle's horn blazed like a fallen star from across the field- and doubled to a blinding radiance that burned like salt in Sombra's wounds.
"HMM. A MITE TOO LATE FOR THAT, I KEN. LORD SOMBRA, IF THOU DOST VALUE THINE SKIN? FLEE."
A crackling spark of lightning set Sombra's nose to twitching as it flicked the butterfly off it's perch. Flapping for dear life, Seeker powered his way up a ramp into the stadium tunnels as the rest of Fluttershy's swarm lifted off and gusted after the ahriman with deceptive speed. Dashing the opposite direction, the unicorn warlock looked for a safe way down into the depths and salvation...
---
As Sombra and his master had their fateful discussion, Twilight Sparkle's journey underground had ended. Through a small grate, she could see the feeble forms of Princess Cadence and Shining Armor, coated liberally in a thick prison of ebon growths. A single horn-bolt sent the side of the tunnel flying out into the darkness, and a moment's flight set her down by their sides.
Turning an eye coated with cataracts, Shining Armor managed to gurgle something that might have been "Twily...", rheumy strands of mucus dripping down to try to soothe the ancient unicorn's vision.
"He'd made them old. Older than Granny Smith!", thought Twilight as she studied their prison. Blasting it loose might kill the unfortunate pair, so something more subtle...her horn lit and touched the edge of the crystalline growths, seeking to melt them away like snow in summer. Atop Twilight's head, the starry gem crowning her diadem flashed and the Element poured it's own strength unasked into the spell, sending tendrils of while light seeping into the edges of Twilight's vision.
The melting became the sublimation of a blowtorch, swathes of black melting into thin streamers of gas before being consumed in the unrelenting light. and crawling away from even the touch of the glow from her horn as if it was a living creature.
A voice filled every space, every sense in the alicorn, brooking no other as it struck her dumb, deaf and blind to anything but the will that flowed from the Element of Magic, into her horn, and outwards across the two bodies before them.
"BASK IN MINE GLORY, THAT STRETCHES INTO INFINITY!"
The curse of un-natural years reversed itself, washing the sight of Sombra's victims clear, setting bones warped by age arrow-straight and spreading a glow that painted the colors of life upon Cadence and Shining Armor like the height of summer. The two lay under the almost uncomfortable glow, blinking fresh tears from the newborn binary sun that stood with wings spread wide.
"REPENT THINE IRREVERENCE! THE GATE TO PARADISE LIES BEFORE THEE! SALVATION OR DAMNATION LIES WITHIN THINE REACH!"
The voice that came from within the purple alicorn was nothing that flesh should ever have spoken- glorious and terrible, promising judgement without mercy, punishment for every sin no matter how trivial, a trial no mortal could stand before and fail to suffer divine wrath.
It drove the newly restored into unthinking terror. Princess Cadence leaped for the sky and fled, abandoning her husband. Shining Armor nearly broke a newly-reformed leg in his hurry to gallop as far from his sister as possible. Heedless of the danger, the stallion bounded nearly his own height to flee before slipping on a shattered seat, bouncing off a step to lay in a dazed heap in the rubble. Thankfully for him, the fit of terror passed more swiftly for his wife as she rose further and faster from the incandescent source, and she turned to spy her still flailing husband. Diving to land by his side, she lifted him clear of the splintered remnants and spoke quietly, tearfully to the suspended form until reason began to win against fear.
A glance revealed rank upon rank of Kindred illuminated by the star-on-earth, all of which were trying to slowly get as far from the blinding light without attracting the attention of it's source, clearly as fearful of it's glow as Cadence had been. Five ponies carelessly orbited their solar focus, their eyes filmed with the same unrelenting light that coated Twilight Sparkle's as the Elements cast colored lances of reflected glory to and fro across the shuddering crowd and the few merely mortal ponies that remained.
"I...AM ALEXANDRITE! TREMBLE BEFORE ME! WORSHIP MY GREATNESS!"
"Alexandrite?" "Who?" came out of the mouths of Cadence and Shining at once.
---
Outside the stadium, the fight had not been going so well. With the Heart's fading, the enemy's incredible resistance to attacks had returned, leaving Luna's blasts of magical might the only thing delivering lasting harm. The center and left flank had collapsed into a triple rank of spearponies surrounding the princess, many of which were down to merely sticks of wood as steel points snapped or bent against impenetrable hides. While the demonic forces had developed a healthy respect for Luna's power, they hurled stones and spikes of elemental magic, pinning the Royal Guard down under an unrelenting hail of missiles. The Princess was showing signs of strain, her previous furious exertions over hours of combat enough to even sap an alicorn- and anger alone was not enough to sustain such a trial. Greedily, she sucked half a dozen floating canteens of water dry as unicorn shieldponies sweated and forced themselves to repel yet another salvo of flames and lightning, then a rain of head-sized chunks of ice mixed with Kindred hurled boulders. Three battered but still sturdy buildings protected the Guard's flanks and rear, but no way to freedom could be found past the enemy who bottled them in from the fourth.
"Princess, the lines are beginning to fail!", uttered a pegasus in the gilded armor of a flight officer. A torn wing mutely explained his place with the infantry. "We have ten, maybe fifteen minutes before we start losing defenses...and..."
"MAJOR THUNDERHEAD, THINE ADVICE IS WELL GIVEN. FEAR NOT, FOR WE SHALL BE FREE OF YONDER BEASTS YET."
"Sister mine, this goes poorly...tell me your return is with haste!
Celestia's thoughts held a tinge of worry that no longer hid beneath royal aplomb. "Luna...the trains are clear, and you've done all you can. Get the Guard out- bring down half the city if you must to cover them, but...I cannot come.
Soaring above the Appleachian mountains, Princess Celestia's thoughts for her sister were briefly interrupted as a winged form thrice her size snapped it's beak to tear off the alicorn's wing. A concussive bolt from her horn dazed the roc in mid-snap, feathers drifting away from the dent it left in the giant bird's crown. Behind it, the trails of what must have been huge beasts broke their way up the steep slopes, seeking the eastern decline and the heavily populated lands beyond. Celestia too was wearying, having slain or laid out dozens of monstrous escapees...and still more had yet to be found before they found themselves a wealth of pony flesh to consume. They were already far too close to Hollow Shades, and then...
Save them for me, for I cannot., she thought in private, screening the news from her sister and the link they shared.
Please.
Swinging in on a wide circle, the roc returned to the attack.
---
Princess Luna gritted her teeth and lowered her horn to feed another arcane assault into the wall of demons holding her army hostage in it's redoubt, looking for some weakness that she could breach to bring about their escape. A hissing, crackling sound from behind disrupted the princesses' concentration as she turned to face whatever fiend was preparing to attack her force from behind...only to be dazzled by the results.
Above her, thin streamers of flame flew by the dozens towards the Kindred and blossomed into tiny balls of eye-searing light in a rainbow of colors, with blinding sparkles and flashes mixing the *POP* of explosives and the *WHREEEEEEE!* of rockets releasing a technicolor arsenal of glittering fireworks. As the shadows vanished into a merciless glare of burning propellents and flares, demons scattered from cover and ran or flew for darker spots, stumbling and screeching in their blackened speech.
A voice rang out from above as the weary army looked for the source of their support.
"THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE WOULD LIKE SOMEONE TO TAKE HER AWAY FROM ALL THIS."
The pointy-hatted unicorn gestured with a glowing arrow at the newly cleared street.
"EXIT, STAGE RIGHT!", as she turned to race for the ground floor- and found herself in Luna's magical grasp, sliding downwards through the air. With the haste of an express elevator, she settled to a spot before the alicorn.
"I THINK THINE NEWEST FANS WOULD BE MOST WILLING, MISTRESS LULAMOON."
With a cheer, the army moved double-time through the gap Trixie's stash of stage fireworks had opened, a few lingering rockets shrieking through the air to encourage their attackers to keep their heads down. Surrounded by her unicorn bodyguards, Luna galloped alongside them, Trixie barely a step behind her royal escort. Sending intermittent shockwaves of force to cloak their retreat as they toppled buildings behind them, the army vanished into the clouds of dust and debris.
Meanwhile, the Kindred hearkened to their master and began to retreat for whatever holes they could find...when a pillar of celestial radiance rose from the stadium .The voice of Alexandrite echoed faintly as it castigated the unworthy before it's sight, and the sensitive ears of imps caught every word. Panic! Coherence vanished as the beasts began to lope or flap through the streets in every direction- as long as it was nowhere near the source of the light and whatever terrors it held.