Luna cringed, awaiting the unnatural fires to consume her. But instead the balls of black flames had landed directly beside her, the spatter of the embers feeling cold on her skin. Opening her eyes and looking towards her attacker, her eyes widened.
“Luna, save yourself!” Celestia called out, half of her horn inserted into Discord’s leg. Discord cried out, nearly falling to his knees. His screams grew more wild when Celestia shoved her horn even deeper inside him. “Run if you have to! Just do it!”
Luna slowly rose up, legs wobbling as she attempted to steady herself. She opened her mouth to speak, only to cough and shed tears as a pain flared up in her chest. Her breaths were weak at best. Flecks of blood covered the ground where she had coughed, and she could taste iron on her tongue.
Wonderful. A punctured lung and broken ribs…
Luna bit her lip as pain surged through her body with every small movement she made. She channeled magic into her horn, and directed her attention to the saddlebags that she and her sister had brought.
“Celes…” Luna coughed hard, and a thin trail of blood dribbled down her chin. “...s-sister…” She wheezed. She lifted the bags up, pulling six colored gemstones from them. “W-we need… to use…” She coughed up more blood, and collapsed as her knees buckled beneath her weight. She cried out in pain as she her chest hit the ground.
Luna’s gaze fell upon her sister. Celestia, we have no more time. Please, if you care at all for this world’s future… help me use the Elements!
Luna felt her strength beginning to wane. Her vision was growing dim around the edges, and the taste of iron on her lips was becoming strong. If they didn’t finish Discord off soon, there was a good chance that Luna’s injuries would kill her before the draconequus had a chance to.
“That hurts,” Discord said weakly. His red eyes turned black, a fire colder than the deepest depths of the ocean burning within his pupils. “I hate pain!”
Discord ripped Celestia’s horn out of his leg and picked the unlucky princess up by her neck. Immediately the wound began to close, inky black tendrils patching up the damage Celestia had wrought. Discord’s grip turned into a vice, cutting off the air to Celestia’s begging lungs as her face became blue.
“Pain, loss, despair, jealousy, rage, and even hate! He promised to take all those things away from me. So that I’d finally be free. But you wouldn’t let him have his fun, would you?” Black tears fell from Discord’s eyes, his grip tightening further, nearly breaking Celestia’s trachea in two. “I… I just wanted a chance!”
Mercifully Celestia was allowed to draw breath again, once Discord had flung her across the room to come crashing at Luna’s side, her body bruised and beaten along the way. Celestia’s eyes fluttered, faint moans escaping from her lips. Her pupils had become unfocused, probably from a concussion she received during her fall.
“You never gave me that chance!” Discord screamed. He approached the two, holding in either hand a ball of fire engulfed in blackness. “Well, I’ll give you one that you never gave me! Start running! It’ll make it more fun for me!”
Luna’s eyes drifted from Discord to her battered sister. She gave the alabaster alicorn a gentle nuzzle, trying to rouse her from her unconscious state. “Celes...tia…?”
Celestia was unresponsive.
Luna, for the first time in a long while, felt her eyes begin to water. “Sister… please…” Luna whispered hoarsely. “Help me. I…” She sobbed softly. She hated this. Hated that the world had flung all this upon their shoulders. Hated that they had to be the ones who were destined to take down Discord, restore balance to the world, and accomplish feats that seemed impossible for a small army to accomplish, let alone two alicorns.
“I’m sorry…” Luna coughed, resting her head against Celestia’s. “I… I always… act strong, and try to be brave…” She glanced up to see Discord walking towards them, a dark aura surrounding him that seemed to flicker in and out of existence. He would be upon them shortly, and neither of the alicorns were in any shape to use magic, let alone stand up on their own. “The truth is, Celestia… you have always been that pillar for me.” She mustered a small smile as she looked upon Celestia’s face. “I have no regrets. You’re with me now. If… if we are to die here, at least I’ll have you, sister.”
She closed her eyes tightly and spread her wings protectively over Celestia as she felt the shadow of Discord cast over them. She let out a shaky breath, and whispered into Celestia’s ear. “I love you, Celestia. Th-thank you… for being my sister. For everything…”
She could feel the weight of Discord’s power pressing down upon them now, its presence literally crushing them.
“I won’t leave your side again,” Luna said, her eyes opening as she met Discord’s gaze. She pulled Celestia closer to her side, and gave the draconequus a weak glare, the faintest ghost of a defiant smile on her face. “It… it seems you’re losing yourself to that power… Discord…” She laughed a little, which quickly became a wet-sounding cough. She lifted a hoof to her mouth, and ignored the crimson staining her fetlocks. “Always… overdoing it. How typical of you, heheh…”
“The power lost itself to me. Took a wrong turn and never wanted to leave. I don’t mind. At least I have company now.” Discord halted before the duo, the flames sucking away the luster from Celestia’s coat. “And so will you upon your death. Sisters until the very end.” Discord’s grin widened, the black tears never stopping from being shed as his flames grew larger. “How touching.” Soon the black flames engulfed the pair in a torrent of flames, consuming them at once.
Only it didn’t.
The flames quickly died down when they came into contact with a golden force field surrounding the pair. Celestia’s horn glowed brighter, her eyes opening up fully and focusing on Discord.
“You never did learn when to shut it, did you?” Celestia said, a faint chuckle escaping her lips. She glanced at Luna, her warm, sunshiny smile still there, even before all this despair. “Thanks for the save, sis. Never thought he’d shut up, huh?”
“S-sister?” Luna began. “Y-you’re alright?” She noticed the force field covering them both, and offered a weak smile. “H-how? I…” She coughed and spit up a globule of dark red fluid. “I… am sorry for not being more…” she spit a bit more blood out of her mouth. “... help…”
“Well, if it wasn’t for you we’d both be scorch marks in the ground, so that’s help enough.” Celestia grunted, getting to her hooves while rubbing at her bruised neck. “Besides, there’s still the final part of the job to be finished. It’s time, sister.”
Luna watched as the gemstones she had held in her magic only moments ago were now floating before her, wrapped in a veil of golden light. She shared a look with Celestia, and nodded. “Agreed.” She rose onto her hooves slowly, and stood as tall as she could while Celestia got up as well. “Let us finish this, Celestia.”
“The only thing finished is you!” Discord bellowed. His voice was warped, much like the rest of him, his edges fuzzy and hidden in darkness. What could be seen was veiled in a blackness that distorted his appearance to something not of this world. He reached out with a clawed black hand and forcibly broke the forceshield in one strike, much of his arm becoming pulverised from the magical backlash. But there was still his other, which reached earnestly into the broken shield and swiped Luna in the blink of an eye. He held her before him like a child’s favorite toy, applying the squeeze to her already broken ribs. “You wanted this finished so badly? Well, here’s the finish!”
What little oxygen Luna had taken in before was reduced to nothing. She let out a choked scream as the sound of bones cracking filled her ears. Blood spattered her chest and the draconequus’ hand as she struggled feebly to free herself.
In her last moments of consciousness, Luna looked to Celestia. She tried to lift a hoof, hoping that by some miracle Celestia would be able to save her once more.
Then, darkness took her vision, and she left the world of reality and pain and drifted into unconsciousness.
“Finish us! Finish us now!” Discord begged, his voice no longer his own. His face was entirely black from his tears, which he never stopped shedding. He held Luna up like a prize. “Finish us off once and for all! You know you want to!”
“Release Luna this instant!” Celestia demanded. She cringed, the slight sway in focus nearly causing all the Elements of Harmony to collapse. Luna had controlled three of them, but with the full brunt of all six residing on Celestia’s shoulders, she could barely keep her attention at focus. “Do it or else a fate sevenfold worse than hers shall befall you!”
The thing that was once Discord laughed, though it was only a gesture to further amplify it’s own insane amusement of the situation. “I’ve already been through that fate, Celestia. Or had you forgotten? How you laughed at me. Me! Laughed and laughed while I cried and begged for mercy! Or did you forget that already?”
Celestia blinked, sweating pouring down her chin. “Wh… what are you talking about?”
“I didn’t think you’d actually try and hurt Discord. You always did have a soft spot for the buffoon, didn’t you?” Discord giggled, holding Luna like one would do for a lifeless doll. “But even that wasn’t enough when it came to her, now was it? My, oh my, what you wouldn’t do to save your precious baby sister.”
Celestia took a step forward. “I said release her at once!”
Discord’s spectral grin grew to a whole new level of psychotic. “I wonder…” He petted Luna’s chest, which just barely rose and fell. “If it came down to it, would you sacrifice yourself to save her?”
Tears were streaming down Celestia’s face now. The Elements were just barely staying afloat, her magic slowly diminishing by the second. It was only a matter of time before either she fell, or they did.
“N-no… please, please… not her.”
“I presume the use of the Elements of Harmony are a one-time thing? Well, in your current condition it would be. I’d lose Discord, but gain something almost as good.” Discord dropped Luna, but quickly trapped her beneath his foot. “I’d gain leverage against your heart. Perhaps even enough to twist you along my finger to do whatever I want.”
Celestia closed her eyes, but the tears still managed to escape. “Please… no. I’ll do whatever you want, just… no, please, no.”
Discord smiled, his the most genuine of grins that had ever graced the world. “Whatever I want? Oh Celestia, you make this too easy.”
He slid Luna over to Celestia. She cried. Discord laughed. He, too, laughed.
The darkness always had the last laugh.