I will open the Brightstream. Bring in talent, Sages and Seers, Conduits and Wardens. To study, to learn.
To delve.
Fifty-Seven
CANTERLOT WAS OVERRUN. Refugees trickling in, choosing to seek safety in the sanctity of the mountain, residents fleeing further north, the Guard closing avenues and rerouting travellers—all contributed to the chaos. Every attempt at instigating order only added another layer to it, another system by which confusion could take hold.
The streets were gridlocked, so, in a panic, many took to clambering over homes, running through the Undercity tunnels, getting lost and causing only a greater pile-up of bodies. The roads leading up the mountain, train tracks and carriage alike, were crammed with the surging crowd, pushing back and forth.
Twilight fell into the teleporting room in the Agency, her friends in tow. Cadence hadn’t wanted to abandon the Empire, but she had helped, contributing an alicorn’s might to the teleportations, bringing Pinkie and Daerev back with them. They found the Crusaders, watching through the windows with wide eyes. Somehow, they’d located the Ponyville contingent, halfway up the mountain—Sweetie Belle reporting that fact with the utmost confidence.
Applejack and Fluttershy were both just now awakening, apparently recovering from injuries dealt them by Discord, of all things. From here, Twilight could see the Storm, advancing in the distance. It had been barely twenty-four hours, and was just beginning to sweep over the edges of Ponyville, the Everfree forest visible as a darker green patch spreading its influence in all directions.
They couldn’t provide the same emotional succour a proper Warden or Conduit could, but Trixie was more than a Sage, and she’d learnt from Cadence. The channels were carved into her mind, she lacked only the implements to express them. And so she drew Applejack into her, spoke to her, mind-to-mind, and tapped into her from there, provided energy the same way Cadence had given energy to her. It left her distraught and vacant, spent for a time. They tucked her into bed upstairs, begrudging her no time or resource.
It was more than sentimental. It was a statement. Here, and no further.
Applejack drew from the mountain strength, a resolve, resolute stubbornness graven in rock, added to the surety of home imbued in the apples taken from her orchard, delivered by the wagonload up the mountain. To Fluttershy went the lion’s share, but each of them partook, and felt the apple’s juice invigorate, revitalise.
Twilight could feel the Element of Magic calling to her, beckoning, with an intensity that almost hurt. From here, it was a simple matter to call it to her, reaching out across the blanket of magic that saturated the land and part time and distance between her and it. It settled onto her head comfortably, as light as a feather and as heavy as the mountain. It was no great effort to follow suit for her friends.
And all the while Typhus advanced. Ponyville consumed, the Everfree nigh entirely under his shadow. The Moon, hanging low in the sky, seemed dwarfed, the barest sliver of its edge visible above the Stormwall.
“Alright,” Twilight said, turning to the assembled line of the Elements of Harmony. “You girls ready?”
“Hmph,” Rainbow replied. She was smiling, an energetic, defiant grin. “Chump won’t know what’s hit Him.”
“Good to go,” Applejack said, favouring one side. Her leg was hurt, but she’d waved off Fluttershy’s fussing.
“Ready,” Fluttershy said. Her injuries didn’t seem to bother her at all; instead a nascent flame was lit underneath her, an eagerness that left no room for trepidation.
“Of course,” Rarity said. She wouldn’t forgive herself the oversight for a long time to come, but in the here and now, with the opportunity to rectify it in front of her, she stood tall.
“Yes,” Pinkie said simply. Her, Twilight was most concerned about. She’d seemed dejected beyond anything Twilight could compare to, when they’d found her with Cadence. Applejack had helped with that, somewhat, and yet she was still fragile, stood just a little apart from the others, held herself just a little too carefully.
Twilight didn’t quite dare take them directly into the Storm. Instead, moving to the base of the mountain, she threw up a shield spell to ward off the stirring wind, and they cantered forward, making straight for the heart of the Everfree, with the turbulent waters of the Lethe flowing beside them.
This was Twilight’s last gamble. There was no possibility of reaching the Well in the north; if, somehow, she was entirely wrong it would take them weeks to locate it, and Equestria would be lost.
If she was right, though? If Celestia had moved the Well, moved Equestria while holding the full might of Harmony, such that the Crystal Empire of the far north had once been somewhere further south? If the Everfree wasn’t an aberration, but a perfectly normal phenomenon. If the Lethe wasn’t a strange entity, or dangerous trap, but something more fundamental?
Magic flowed down. Twilight thought she might just know a pool, in the deep dark depths of the land.
The Everfree spread itself out before them, and the Element bearers charged forward into the still-growing undergrowth with the moon shining steady overhead.
***
Rainbow hovered, a few feet ahead of the others. The Forest, and Twilight, protected them from the Storm, for now, but the Stormwall, that huge grey barrier, loomed overhead. They would need to go through it.
She swallowed. Her bravado was easy to slip back towards, but she couldn’t lie to herself anymore. This wasn’t the sort of challenge that could be tackled with grit and determination alone. Together, they had done more than Rainbow could have ever dreamed of; alone each of them had little to offer.
So what was her role, here? What could she do to lighten the burden on her friends, to provide aid. The Forest, dappled in the moonlight, swayed about her, branches and trunks creeping forward, vines wrapping themselves skyward, the grass growing, stretching, to tickle at her hooves . . .
She could scout. She didn’t even have to abandon them to do so, either, requiring only that she sacrifice some of her future self’s time . . . it took her just moments to make that resolution, and feel the sky split open.
She took off, ignoring the sudden cries of her friends. Her double would be with them in seconds, and ease their gallop back into the sustainable canter that kept them safe from the Forest’s changing form.
Relying on instinct and reflex, Rainbow hurtled herself forward through the trees. Twilight’s protection fell behind, leaving her somewhat exposed. With every flap, the winds grew stronger, threatening to hurl her into wood or rock or earth. Rain began to penetrate the canopy, covering the light of the moon.
She ignored it, following the river forward. The Forest’s growth was more rampant, here, but with nowhere to go it manifested by growing in, gathering density and bunching itself together into a nearly impenetrable thicket of sharpened brush and tree. Rainbow began spending herself, gathering lightning to her wings and sending it, burning, to explode against the plant life barring their way.
Slowed, now, she cut a way forward. And as the rain and wind intensified, bits of ice joining in now, she began to hear whispers. Unintelligible, but conveying a terrible inevitability, a sense of implacable doom. It whispered of slow anguish, a millennium in the dark, trapped and bound; of the exuberance of spreading her wings and seeing the world from above. Her Element began to shine, dim.
“Stupid . . . Forest,” Rainbow panted, smashing her way through yet more, leaves sticking to her face and coat, twigs digging into her skin and leaving small scrapes down her body. “Gonna . . . break you!”
It whispered of hate, of a deep wound, a tearing of its psyche. Of lonely misery and an ancient search for something missing.
Rainbow hurled herself into a tree, splintering the wood and sending the upper side of the trunk to topple back. The wind aided her, helped press herself into the Forest with growing urgency, using wings and hooves and teeth to smash and tear and trample a path. She tossed her mane, eyes roaming skyward, and felt a bubbly mirth growing in her chest. She snarled, and let the wind cool her skin, carry the rain-mingled sweat away.
Where were they? She was doing all this work for them when she could be high, high above, soaring through the sky with the wind underneath her wings. She hated this, this menial labour, bleeding and battered, fighting the Forest only for it grow in behind her as she moved.
She stilled, glanced backwards. Sure enough, the damage she had wrought was already closing over, the scab of the Forest’s unnatural verdant vigour trapping her in.
She screamed. Hurled herself skyward, tearing through the canopy to let the Storm wash over her. It was purifying, distilling, seeping into her through every pore. It whispered to her of hate and despair and despite.
But the Element was glowing.
Slowly, Rainbow began to laugh. The Stormwall was mere feet before her, lightning now lashing down to sear her eyes and flash-fry her body, debris hurtling towards her to bludgeon her from the sky, ice sleet turning its edge upon her flesh. This wasn’t pure, wasn’t her.
She opened herself to rage. “You think it’ll be that easy? Huh?”
She could feel Him, crawling inside of her. She shuddered, but she let the emotion run through her, let it find expression through her voice and her magic. She screamed defiance, darting about, unable to back down, unable to stop.
The Stormwall passed over her. The assault upon her intensified, and she felt herself begin to fail, to give in, each strike she failed to surpass driving more and more of the fight from her. The Element on her chest was afire, bright under the blue-white of the Storm and the argent moon.
She hung on, minutes passing with no respite, until it was everything she could do to simply remain airborne, to grit her teeth and hold onto her mind.
Until she broke through, and suddenly Rainbow found a moment’s peace. Not silence, not stillness, but the terrible surge, the awful looming doom—that had passed. In here, behind the fury and inexorable death, there was a calmer chaos, a swirling world of indifference. The eye of the Storm, just a few hundred feet past its frontier. His whispers had no power over her.
With terrible foreknowledge, Rainbow turned about face, and dove back into that whirling maelstrom, fleeing back to her friends.
***
Rarity was expecting the duplicate Rainbow the second the original left. But it had been minutes of shared worry with Twilight, a fair amount of Applejack’s grumbling, Pinkie’s stoic silence, and Rainbow still had not materialised.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Rarity said.
“Yeah,” Twilight said. She was keeping pace, but Rarity noted the way her eyes were fixed on some distant point, the way she never watched her hooves for the snarls of the Forest.
“It’s just a darn silly thing to do,” Applejack said.
“Nopony’s arguing with you,” Pinkie replied.
“Hmph.”
Rarity bit her lip. Rainbow’s intentions, as always, were surely both honourable and self-serving—it was the absence of her duplicate that worried her. It implied, as much as she strained to ignore it, that there was no future Rainbow to Jump back.
“She’s perfectly fine. She’s been through worse than this,” Rarity said, quietly.
The Forest seemed to be barring their way. The deeper they went, the more the foliage bent down, pressed by wind and rain, to obscure the path, the more roots rose from the ground, and branches spread themselves in great tangles. The Lethe ran free, waters racing south, a convenient and deadly shortcut.
Rarity glanced down at her chest, where the Element of Generosity lay inert. She should be able to do something! Surely there was some task for her, some fragment of this peril that was hers to overcome? She wanted a way to express her frustration, her mounting despair. It flickered across her fur and whispered in her ears.
She knew better than to expect that, of course. Life was not so neatly laid out. She reached towards Twilight, thought better of it, and dropped her head down to watch the ground.
Pinkie had taken the burden of forging the path ahead, trusting to her earth pony hardiness and natural enhancements while Applejack languished towards the back, her gait slowly succumbing to the limp she still bore. Rarity didn’t understand why Applejack had so staunchly refused Fluttershy’s healing—some nonsense about it being unnecessary, no doubt, and to save her strength.
All of them had given so much, of late. Too much, by anypony’s standard. Twilight had lost more than anypony, overcome more still. The brief account Rarity heard of Applejack and Fluttershy’s trials in Appleloosa and beyond had turned her stomach. And Pinkie—what bothered her was still hidden, but it was plain as day to see it writ across her form. Even Rainbow had spent herself to the brink, undertaking those legendary Jumps into the unknown.
What had Rarity given? Time, and energy, no doubt, lending her intellect and presence wholeheartedly. But there was no great sacrifice in her past, no moment of immense loss.
She swallowed. This was a stupid idea, all right, about as dumb as Rainbow’s foolhardy notion, rushing ahead without consulting the others. The Element on her chest grew warm.
They had been forced to slow down; even Twilight preferring to conserve strength rather than bludgeon a path wide enough for the five of them. The Forest fought their efforts at every step. Rarity lit her horn, adding her own pale light to Twilight’s efforts to illuminate the area around them.
The noise of it was growing louder, to deafening levels. She could See, through the leaves, the green and brown, the violence inflicted on the Forest—the ground torn up and flung high into the air, the savage explosions, blue-white force lancing into the highest trees, blasting their trunks apart. She swallowed.
She had to do something.
She could See no farther than the Stormwall. But where her talents weren’t applicable, she nonetheless had strength. She could feel power coursing through her, responding to her Element, to her desire to give aid. She was sick and tired of sitting back, of waiting, she’d spend two years waiting!
“Stay calm,” Twilight said. “Our thoughts aren’t our own.”
And Rarity came to a crashing halt.
The influence was clear, now that her attention had been brought to it. She pulled her attention away, put up what mental barriers she could, and felt the Element lying against her chest dim, its warmth fading.
Rarity made a decision.
Her fortitude was not hers, not truly. She owed so much to those around her—more than just the four friends she had in the here and now, yes—a debt of encouragement, of investment and patronage. Time spent on her that could not be reclaimed. Energy, in a very real sense.
It was hers to return.
Rarity reached out through her Element, felt it spark to life against her breast once again. She felt towards the Storm, its texture rough, effervescent, a tumbling, spinning, mixing energy. She was stable, she was secure, she was a guarantee.
She touched her friends. Exhaled over their shoulders, made clucking noises over the state of their spirit. They were tired, worn, Pinkie especially—taken through the wringer.
In this, Rarity could help. She took some of their burdens for her own, felt the her back sag and her knees tremble.
She could bear this small part for them. How they had managed for so long with the full load, Rarity had no idea. But as the weight settled onto her shoulders, and she saw Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie straighten, saw their stride lengthen and their smiles brighten, she felt awed.
Element of Generosity afire, she fell into step, and, gritting her teeth, matched them step for step.
***
Pinkie was fuming. The end-of-the-world around her wasn’t the cause, the Storm holding little to sway her from her introspection. No, she had sunk deeper than that.
Twice, she’d stepped in only to be stymied by those around her. Twice, she had imposed herself on the world to find the world uncaring, pushing back, forcing its horrific version of events upon her. Hornwall had refused her, had forced itself into her despite her protests, despite everything she could do to get away. In a sense, Pinkie was still there, looping herself over and over in a never-ending shiver of Pinkie Sense, implicitly informing her of all the paths that ended in death. Boundless had refused her, had done everything in his power to prevent her efforts, going so far as to turn her companions against her.
And she couldn’t do anything.
That perhaps cut at her the most. Pinkie was unused to impotence, to being ignored. She had always enjoyed her abilities, from far before any of her friends had awoken to theirs. Pinkie Sense had been more than a random danger sense, it had been a mark of her importance, of her place in the world around her. It marked her out and gave her opinion weight.
Twice, that had been struck down. Twice, she had been attacked at the core of her being—and both times with murder.
It made her reticent, quiet. She hadn’t felt a shiver run over her shoulder or a tug on her tail since the Veil fell, and she knew exactly why. She didn’t want to be proven irrelevant a third time.
She felt Twilight’s eyes on her, felt Rarity’s concern and Fluttershy’s gentle support. She felt the aura Rarity had provided, felt it bolster her steps. But she kept her head down, held the whispers at bay, and prayed they wouldn’t question her.
But she couldn’t escape herself. Pinkie ran circles in her own mind, spinning between two impossibilities. Useless, powerless to help her friends, they would fail without her help. It squirmed in her ears, tied itself into knots in her throat, and she whimpered.
Ahead, the Stormwall loomed.
Pinkie had a sense for mood—always had, really, and entirely separate from her more magical talents. No, this related more to her parties, to her ability to cheer up those most in need of cheering up. It was her comedic timing, her nose for despondency, her infectious laughter.
Laughter. Pinkie didn’t much feel like laughing right now.
She shook her head on its side, like a dog trying to get water out of its ear. Twilight was right, something was interfering with her thoughts. She felt fuzzy, almost immaterial.
But what could she do? No Pinkie Sense could change what would happen. The most she had managed was to witness evil dozens of times more, have her heart broken dozens of times more. What use was that, when she could not change it?
“Steady!” Twilight called. “It’s here!”
And Rainbow burst forth, a tiny blue cannonball, careening towards them. She blurred, stopped abruptly. Before unfurling into her proud figure, highlighted in lightning and argence, her ruby blazing against her chest.
Pinkie felt lighter already, her ears clearing, and The Element of Laughter sizzling.
A groundswell of support urged her forwards. She opened her mouth, let loose a battle cry as first Twilight plunged into the Stormwall’s fury, Pinkie following close on her heels. She cried out her pain, her anguish at the repeated misery she had subjected herself to. She cried for all the lives she couldn’t save, all the despair she could do nothing to reverse. It was not hers to fix the world.
But the whispering had stopped, replaced with the flickering warmth of Rainbow’s smile. The vanguard of wind smashing itself into them had fallen away, crashing and scattering against Rarity’s ardour. The maelstrom of the Storm engulfed them and Pinkie cried out her guilt and her exuberance.
Lavender light shielded them from the lightning, from the whirling trees and desperate struggle of the Everfree to remain rooted. Pinkie could make out nothing through the constant strobing light, detonations bright enough to blind, could smell ozone and sweat and dirt and torn plants. Her whole body jittered, vibrating in time with the cacophony around her. She couldn’t feel anything—no signals from the future, no messages crossing the borders of the Storm.
And she began to laugh. Low, lingering in her throat, but building, growing and looping on itself.
No, she could not save them all. But here, standing amongst friends, finally cut off from the link that anchored her to her future, she could just about start to believe that she could save somepony. Not enough, never enough, but some.
She had engineered this future, had she not? Recognised the crystal shard that brought Twilight, Rainbow, and Rarity back from the north, devoted dozens of signals to decoding the path that lead them back to each other.
It had worked. Pinkie laughed, full-throated, and knew it reached her friends. Her Element pulsed in time with her breath, a colourful sparkling glow that pushed the empty chaos around her further away.
She ran, hard, and she laughed, and she felt some of the weight lift from her shoulders.
***
Fluttershy watched the Forest’s struggles with horror.
She could not see through the Storm, but she could feel—connected in some small way to the ambient energies around her, she could trace the already-turbulent magical flows thrown into disarray.
The rapid growth hadn’t been healthy. She had sensed a desperation to it, a drive to spread and claim and grow outwards. Not just running away, but also an anchoring, taking root in the most literal sense . . . she could see why, now.
The Everfree had always been regarded as a place of malevolence. Its strange resistance to the magical order of the rest of the world, its seeming nigh-sentient attempts to rebuff visitation—the general strangeness and inhospitality that put most ponies off; this all contributed to its classification as a danger, and subsequent sequestration from the wider Equestria.
Fluttershy had spent years in the wilderness. She understood forests, understood the patterns of animals and plant-life that made up a natural landscape. The Everfree had never fit those models, it did not conform to her expectations.
But that was no reason to ignore it.
She could not think of it as any other forest; had not for a long time. She had too many experiences here, had spent too much time contending with the Forest itself to think of it as anything less than a complete entity unto itself. But were she to consider it in that light, and view its rampant spread, she would have thought it terrified.
That made sense, approaching the Stormwall. But now that she was inside it, galloping beside Pinkie, she found herself doubting it. O-or, at least, doubting the shape of it, the whole of it. Twilight’s defences were holding, buffered as they were by Rarity and Rainbow, but even outside that, the damage done to the Forest by the passing Storm wasn’t irrecoverable. Cataclysmic, yes, a swathe of devastation; with the landscape seared and grated, but . . .
She had seen huge forest fires. The aftermath was a blighted scene, trunks scorched white, felled branches, the soil blackened and everything, everywhere, absolutely still. It reeked of charcoal and death. And yet life sprung from those scenes, within days there were buds of green dotting the corpse of the old forest. It was natural, part of its life-cycle.
That was what Fluttershy was reminded of, leaping over debris and trying not to flinch as trees dashed themselves against Twilight’s shield. The ground they covered—already seared by the Storm—was destroyed totally, but the word that sprung into her mind was tilled.
They sprung out the other side of the Stormwall and into abrupt peace. Typhus still reigned overhead, rain and wind and ice beat down upon them, but the all-encompassing rage of the Storm had stilled. And, looking around, Fluttershy knew that the Forest would survive Him.
So why the terror. Taking deep breaths, she reached out, feeling the Element of Kindness spark against her skin as she exercised her power. It was more than kindness, though; she wanted to understand. To be there, for life, if only as a witness. It was important in a way she couldn’t put into words, and something that she, uniquely, could accomplish.
Too many times her involvement had taken the form of an intervention. Too many times she had entered situations only to impose herself upon them. That approach told her nothing, taught her only about herself.
The magic around her was more than swelling, more than desperate. It was directed, guided by an arcane intelligence—it flowed outwards, but, Fluttershy intuiting the answer in a slow, dawning instant, it flowed upwards as well.
Overflowing.
The Element of Kindness burst alight. She seemed struck like a tourist, over-awed, the contrast between the death and destruction she saw and the abundant well of life she felt all the more marvellous for its incongruity.
And in turn the Forest saw her. New shoots of growth drank in the rain, pushed bugs skywards. Great cracks resounded through the clearing, ringing out over the racing Lethe and the ever-present Storm, old wood splitting apart to dissolve into the ground, new life springing from its ashes. They saw her and made her a part of their design.
All the way along the bank of the Lethe, the Forest stayed its hand. Thick vines slinking across their route slowed, trees leaned away, new foliage already spreading above them formed a natural arch.
Fluttershy smiled, nodded her head.
“It’s for us,” Twilight said, beginning to lead them down the makeshift path. The wet earth solidified, holes filling in and patches of water sinking below the surface.
“No,” Fluttershy said. She felt a part of something huge, connected through the Forest and through her friends, to a design she could only watch unfold. “I think it’s for me.”
***
Applejack shook herself. The sacrifices of her friends were not lost on her, nor the tremendous burden they had shouldered getting this far. She would not be the weak link, she would not let them down.
She forced herself to a steady trot. The pain lancing through her was a constant spike of agony, peaking with every stride. It became rhythmic; a tempo for her to match herself against. Step, pain. Step, pain. Step, pain. Rarity’s bulwark gave her strength; Pinkie’s laugh kept her focused.
She could keep up. She had so far, after all, managing through the worst of the Forest’s resistance to their incursion, the vile growth targeting them specifically—this, only she could feel, how it sought them out and acted to bar their way—and even the Stormwall. In the relative calmness Typhus’ interior, she had only the last stretch, the final sprint to her goal.
And Fluttershy needed her strength, her focus. There was no time to waste on frivolous waste. She’d learnt that lesson all too well, spending herself all too thin before the storms. She’d watched Fluttershy give of herself, again and again, until there was barely anything left. She would not impose that on her friend. She would not.
So she bore the pain, the deep, almost subconscious knowledge of the damage her steps were doing. Her joints inflamed, swelling, her movements growing steadily more stiff. She hung towards the back of the ground, where her gait was less likely to draw attention, and huffed, intermittently accelerating in bursts to draw even with Fluttershy, then falling back as the pain briefly overwhelmed her.
Beside her, the Lethe grew deep. Its roiling waters, frothing in tiny crescendos, had only sped up, as if sensing the descent fast approaching. Somewhere in the gloom ahead, the Castle loomed.
And then, like the trap snapping shut, she descended. Twilight, leading the group, ground herself to a halt, with Rarity and Rainbow fast on her heels. Applejack clamped her mouth shut rather than voice her protests, and only slightly collided with Fluttershy, momentum carrying her up her friends back before depositing her on the ground. She hissed despite herself, despite Rarity’s comforting glow and Fluttershy’s lasting warmth.
Celestia rolled her shoulders, her smile more teeth than Applejack could recall. Her eyes burned, a bright conflagration.
“And what,” she hissed, lowering her head like a snake, “do you think you’re doing.”
Twilight stepped forward. “We’re going to stop you,” she said. “We’re going to stop all of this.”
Around them echoed Discord’s mad laughter. Applejack flinched, though nothing materialised, and Fluttershy spread a wing over her.
“Stop me? How do you propose to do that?” Celestia said, stalking forward, one leg in front of the other, the way Applejack had seen Opalescence prowl towards a cotton mouse.
Twilight swallowed. The Element of Magic resting on her brow sparked. Rain ran down her face, wind tore at her fur.
Applejack wanted to step in, wanted to stand before the Princess and be the one to say no. She wanted that with a fire that she had thought dulled by the years, a fire that said these are my people and this is my home. She was the Warden, damn it, it fell to her to defend! She glanced at her shoulder and winced, the injury now a deep purple, mottled colour reaching down her limb. She couldn’t.
Her Element grew warm.
She hadn’t wanted Fluttershy to worry—hadn’t wanted to see her throw herself into healing the way she once had. She had seen the cost of that, the pain Fluttershy had taken each time she consumed another’s injuries. But wasn’t that just as selfish as any other demand, just as foolish as her stubborn insistence on holding onto her burdens?
She thought she’d moved past this!
Applejack had once thought Honesty as simple as telling the truth. If only. Were she honest with herself, she wouldn’t have been so helpless here. She could have stepped in—repaid that debt!
Not debt. No transaction was needed, no obligation. Merely the shared assurance, the mutual interest—the trust.
Her Element grew warmer, steam rising from its surface. Applejack leaned forward, shaking it loose from her skin.
“Fluttershy,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I-”
“Applejack,” she was at her side in a moment, as if waiting for this. “Don’t worry so much.”
“I can’t,” Applejack said. “I- Ah need you.”
Fluttershy exhaled, a long, drawn-out thing. “There it is, then,” she said.
And Applejack remembered, the frantic rush through the desert, the desperation in her friend as they tore through the Forest, all those days ago. The Dream, repeated and handed down, a prophecy and legacy, now subverted.
And Applejack closed her eyes, ashamed. Her reticence was born of stubborn pride and honest care in equal measure, neither had any place here because they both abused trust. Fluttershy’s magic filled with with warmth, matching and surpassing the Element on her sternum.
Celestia’s magic reached forward and swatted Twilight to the side. Rainbow flashed, moving faster than eye could track, catching Twilight and taking her safely to the ground. Rarity stepped forward, barring Celestia’s path.
Her friends, more than willing, in the end, to fill her shoes for her. Applejack felt the lump in her throat, felt the need to be on her hooves, and accepted both, artifacts of her own problems. What she needed was to be better. Sometimes, that meant being helped. She blinked, letting tears mingle with the rain. Celestia smashed Rarity into the ground.
Her Element caught light.
Fluttershy’s magic falling away, her friend collapsing to the dirt by her side, face screwed in pain, mouth forming a little ‘o’, Applejack strode forward. Under her gaze Rarity straightened out, the earth surrounding her reforming to mould itself to her body. She stepped over Rarity, eyes boring forward and hooves digging into the dirt.
She was the Warden, and no Princess would further budge her.
***
Twilight gathered herself to her hooves just in time to watch Applejack absorb the first of Celestia’s hits. Impossibly, her friend remained standing, knees locked and hooves digging into the soil, but Twilight could see how much the blow had rocked her.
The Princess gathered magic for another. This was nothing to her, the most minuscule amount of effort, and it was all Applejack could do to resist.
“Easy, Twi,” Rainbow said. “Let’s be careful, okay?”
Twilight nodded. “Together, I think we can,” she coughed, spitting a gob of saliva to the side, “beat her.”
Rainbow nodded slowly, and patted her on the back. “Together,” she echoed.
All five Elements her friends wore were shining, not terribly bright as they had when they had freed Luna, or petrified Discord, but a muted, steady glow. Twilight could make a few guesses as to why—and she could most definitely feel their influence supporting her as she teleported herself and Rainbow back into formation.
Celestia had been Turned—something Twilight hadn’t been sure was even possible.
“Girls!” She called, gathering herself and concentrating—on her Element, and on theirs, and on the near-visible bonds between them. With this much magic, saturating every possible aspect of the area they were in to the extent that Twilight was surprised her fur wasn’t standing on end, it was shockingly easy. She felt the familiar chain-reaction begin to build, the spell reinforced by itself in a regressive loop, bouncing around between them, slowly growing to a high-pitched crescendo.
Celestia didn’t wait for them. Stepping forward, she ducked her head and slashed her horn across their group. Twilight’s hooves had just barely left the ground, picked up by the spell, when the Princess’ counterstrike hit, a savage telekinetic strike lashing across them.
Twilight didn’t have to react. The Elements handled that for her, a shimmering barrier springing into existence for just the brief moment of impact, absorbing the blow without so much as a tremor, and disappearing. Twilight grinned, exultant, rejoicing in the familiar magic coursing through her. She was a tiny conduit, a focal point, and it carried her away.
The rainbow lance sprung out and took Celestia square in the chest, wrapping around her and purging all traces of corruption from her. Twilight sang out, mentally, as it worked, the rush ringing from the tip of her horn to the backs of her hooves.
Slowly, she was lowered to the ground, the incandescent light of the Elements of Harmony fading.
Celestia stood before them, head lowered. Twilight approached, her step light.
“Princess! Are you oka-”
Celestia snapped her horn upright, magic striking Twilight from above and crumpling her into the ground.