That did not just happen… Everything I saw just now… Just seconds before the mirror became filled with static and shattered before me. And then… My horn! It came back! And it… Yes! It still worked! But… No. I can’t just stay here! That had to be an illusion… James… He... He can’t be gone!
I needed to get out of there. And the others… Just what happened to drive James to such madness?! I did not even feel like I was seeing the same person anymore! The voice carried a twisted malice in it and the eyes… No… That could never be James. He could never end up like that! I know James well. He is too gentle and reserved. But at the end… Just before the mirror shattered, I saw the real James once again. Just before he…
No… I could not allow myself to think like that. Everything we just saw had to be some sort of trick! Discord was just pulling a sick prank on us all! But still… I had to find the others!
I did not have to search long. I heard the clopping of hooves that were not my own. And when I rounded the next corner, I found the source of the sound. Rarity. And like me, her horn was back on her head where it belonged. “Huh?! Rarity?! Wait, what’s wrong? You… Did you see it too?”
She looked pale. Like she was in a panic. “I can’t stay here… Need to find the way out… Can’t let him…”
Good thing I had my horn back. I snatched her up in a levitation spell and gave her a good shake. “Rarity, relax! I saw it too!”
She seemed to quiet down after that. But her face… It was matted with tears. And there was something else. She looked like she had been wetted down by that downpour we just had, but she seemed to have dried herself out enough. Even so, I noticed something that seemed off. “Wait… What’s wrong with your coat and mane? It almost looks the way it did when I found you fawning over that ro… No… Rarity, you didn’t!”
Right when I said that, she started crying with such a shameful look in her eyes. “I tried to resist, Twilight! I swear I did! But he forced it upon me! One touch and I found myself turning gray once more! I pleaded with him to remove the corruption before it could consume me, but he grinned at the prospect of what it would do to James! Oh, Twilight… What have I done?!”
Discord… He could corrupt us with just one touch this whole time?! He was planning on forcing us to lose all along?! But wait… “Hold on… James didn’t actually see you like that, did he?”
Rarity was not even trying to speak. She looked at me with those big azure eyes filled with horror and guilt. No… What did she do? “He… I… I attacked him when he tried to… Twilight, I hurt him! I cast him aside for a boulder! I loved him and I threw him away!”
I had to catch her. She collapsed against me while sobbing harder than I had ever seen her weep before. “I can’t bear to lose him, Twilight… I can’t…”
“We won’t, Rarity.” I refused to believe what I saw until I laid my eyes upon the aftermath. I was drenched in the rain that fell as that battle raged on. I felt the tremors of fiery explosions. But until I saw it… No, I would not dare think that James could do such a thing!
“We’ll discuss this later. Pinkie Pie is gonna be absolutely furious when she finds out one of us broke a Pinkie Promise. But right now, we need to find the other girls and get out of the labyrinth… Wait. Is somepony there?” It sounded like somepony was just on the other side of the hedge next to us.
I heard a voice I could recognize anywhere. All thanks to that country accent. “Twi? Is that you?! Hang on, I’m gonna barge through!” I heard her let out a bit of a growl before Applejack suddenly burst right through the maze’s wall and fell flat on her belly before standing up and brushing herself off. “Sorry ‘bout that… Anyway… Did you girls see all that too? Ya don’t think… Uh… Twi? Rarity? What’s with that look?”
Her right eye… It was swollen shut and as dark as a plum. The same eye that James struck when… Rarity spoke first while pointing at her. “Applejack… Your eye. Isn’t that where…”
Our friend let out a long sigh while angling her hat down to partially hide her face. “Yeah… James really walloped me one… Can’t say I didn’t have it comin’ though…”
Wait… No, not her too! “Applejack… You didn’t break the promise too, did you?!”
She did not say anything at first. She kept glancing around as if she could not bring herself to speak the truth. Finally, I saw tears spill from her eyelids while her voice began to break. “I told ‘im I always hated him, Twilight! I didn’t say one true thing when he found me! I wish I could take it all back!”
I felt a cold chill fill me. I had actually witnessed James hit Applejack in the face while I was watching what was on that…mirror. And if Applejack was showing an injury she suffered from James, then that meant…everything else I saw… No… Please, no… This was not happening…
“Girls! There you are!” I think I nearly screamed when I heard that! Pinkie Pie just popped up out of nowhere! “I had to backtrack a few pages to find you! Are you OK?! Did you all see that too?! It was like something outta one of my nightmares! Especially the ones with Rainbow Dash and cupcakes!”
Applejack and Rarity instantly cringed when Pinkie Pie came closer. And it was Rarity who spoke first. “We did… And…”
It was Applejack who confessed. “We… We couldn’t keep the promise, Pinkie! We tried, we really did! But Discord got to us! All he did was touch me and… You know the rest… I know yer gonna have my hide, but…”
I was expecting Pinkie Pie to be just as furious as that time we went searching for Applejack after she refused to come home after that rodeo competition in Canterlot a couple years back. But instead… She bowed her head as her mane and tail looked like they could ‘deflate’ at any second. “It’s all right… I… I broke the promise too…”
Impossible… Even Pinkie Pie, the one who INVENTED the Pinkie Promise, was not able to keep it as long as Discord had anything to say about it… “I was so angry and hateful again… I even told him I hated him! What kind of friend am I if I tell a friend that I hate them?!”
“Let’s worry about that later! Right now we need to find Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash and then get out of the maze. I can only pray that James will be able to forgive us when this is all over…” I had to try to keep everypony focused. For all we knew, our friend out there was dying and we needed to get to him right away. “Pinkie, did you happen to see either of them on your way here?”
She suddenly perked up as if she suddenly had an idea. “No… But I have something that’ll take us to them!” She reached into her mane or something and pulled out a…sheet of paper?
“Uh… Pinkie… What in the heavens is that?” Rarity seemed especially baffled while she looked at it over Pinkie’s shoulder. I too was starting to get a creepy vibe from it.
I really was not expecting Pinkie’s reply. Although I was not entirely surprised by it either. “It’s the script! We’ll just follow what happens next and we’ll find our friends!”
“How did ya even… Ya know what? Forget it. If it helps us get ta our friends faster, I’m all for it.” I was entirely onboard with Applejack’s suggestion. While I was tempted to investigate where she got that ‘script’ and find out why she called it that, I knew better than to question Pinkie Pie by then. Especially in a situation as dire as that.
“OK, stay close! Let’s see… We all head this way… Then make a right at the next corner… I think we’re gonna find Fluttershy first!” We did not question anything Pinkie Pie did or said. And sure enough, after a few turns, we saw her. Staggering down the path ahead of us was Fluttershy.
“Fluttershy! Darling, are you well?!” Rarity was the first to hurry to our friend’s side and we were close behind her. At first, it was like she did not even notice us. But when she started to turn to face us, I saw her side. Her wings had been returned to her as well. But her face… That look… Eyes filled with tears and an utterly broken gaze. “D… Darling? Fluttershy, what is…”
Rarity did not even get the chance to finish whatever she was going to say. Fluttershy burst into tears, collapsing into her friend’s arms while wailing uncontrollably. It was the hardest thing to listen to I had heard in a long time. And that is saying something because I heard the sound of flesh being torn and ripped combined with the sound of mad laughter not even twenty minutes ago. But I did manage to make out bits of words between sobs. Something like ‘I made him hurt himself’ and ‘I kicked him’ and ‘In the head’… No… For Fluttershy to do that to James… It is no wonder he finally broke…
I was not sure of what to do or say. I have seen Fluttershy distraught and upset, but this… What could I say? She betrayed her boyfriend and even hurt him! And from the sound of it, she made him hurt himself for her! I remember her being cruel and unpleasant when she was corrupted a couple of years ago, but for James… I cannot believe she would exploit his love for her like this… Discord, how could you? To go this far for your twisted entertainment…
“Shhh… We are all to blame, Fluttershy… We too failed to protect him like we promised…” Rarity knows Fluttershy better than either of us. Except maybe for Pinkie Pie. She seemed to be successfully calming her down. “Now, let’s go find Rainbow Dash and then we… Hm?!”
Right then… I heard an agonized scream from somewhere in the distance. That voice… “Rainbow Dash? She’s screaming?”
“That…sounded more like…a wail…” Fluttershy added while choking on tears. And it sounded like it came from…
“Hang on… Is she… Rainbow’s already outside the maze?! Everypony, get close! I’m getting us outta here!” I called for them to get close to me while I started to focus to cast a spell. If I could just remember how the area right outside the maze’s entrance looked. “Focus… I think… There! Now… What…the…”
It worked. My teleportation spell got us back outside the maze and dropped us all off right by the entrance. But the area… Just… I had seen what had become of the place while watching it unfold on that mirror, but…
The sky was dark and cloudy. The landscape… Muddy and broken. Huge chunks of the ground had been ripped up. The landscape that still floated in the sky… Twisted and nightmarish. But bit by bit, I saw some of them slowly reverting to how they used to look before plummeting from the sky and into the ground with a crash. With his death, his influence seemed to be fading away. Discord’s twisted chaotic influence… I still remember. Princess Celestia warned me that the Element of Humanity releases negative energies when in its black ‘corrupt’ state. All this… It must have merged with Discord’s influence to twist everything his magic touched into something out of the most evil of minds… I can still remember the moment I first saw the mirror suddenly close in on James’ helmet… The moment I saw those two polished ravens glaring right at me with those glowing crimson eyes. I panicked… I pleaded, pounding on the mirror hoping that James would hear me and know I was still there. But he never did…
“This is…just messed up… I didn’t wanna believe this was all real…” Applejack muttered quietly while we all could do nothing more than behold the horrid aftermath of that sick excuse of a game… How in the world did the princesses not notice this? What stopped them from intervening? Canterlot Castle is not very far... Was it Discord's doing?
It did not take long for one of us to remind the rest of us why we were out there. A moment later, I noticed Fluttershy look straight ahead before suddenly letting out a shriek. “Nooo!!!”
She ran on ahead. We all stayed behind her and… Oh my god… Just… This was not happening… This… Please, no… Let this be a bad dream!
I stopped dead in my tracks. My vision instantly began to blur with tears. Rainbow Dash was ahead of us, her body hunched over James’ armored torso with her face buried in her arms. And James… Completely motionless, lying in a pool of his own blood. A trail of that blood led further ahead and… No… I could not even bring myself to look directly at it. Whatever was left of Discord, I never want to know. But what truly caught my attention was his hand. It had fallen in the center of a circle…of our cutie marks drawn out in his blood.
The instant I saw that, I could not contain myself. I burst into sobs as the tears flowed. He… I cannot believe what we did to him… And in the end, he was still thinking of only us… We all drew near, tears falling from each of us. Fluttershy said nothing, completely silent. She was in shock. It was Rarity who broke the silence, her voice breaking while she held a hoof to her eyes. “How… How did it come to this…”
Applejack could not even speak. I saw her grit her teeth before she pulled her hat’s brim down to cover her face while she bowed her head. I reached out and tenderly touched James’ cheek… He was…cool… I will never forget that feeling… Never in my life… My friend… Our friend was… What had we done…
Pinkie Pie stepped forward, her mane having been partially deflated. She was struggling to hang on. To hold on to at least a little of her optimism. “Rainbow… Is he… Did he really…”
Our friend finally and painfully slowly lifted her head and turned to face us. Her eyes looked puffy and swollen, her cheeks stained with tears. And that look in her eyes… The brash and confident mare I had known since the first day I came to Ponyville was nowhere to be seen in there. She was broken. Scarred. What she said next was barely a whisper and was a struggle for her. “I…couldn’t do anything…”
I could not believe what I was seeing. I knew the pain of having a friendship nearly fall apart. But the pain of losing a friend forever…through your own failure… There are no words to describe that pain! I found him in the labyrinth. He insisted that we split up to find the Elements of Harmony to cover more ground… If only I had guessed that they were being hid inside Discord’s own body. I should have stayed with him regardless! If I had been there for him, this would never have happened! If only I had stayed with him, maybe… Maybe he would still be with us…
Fluttershy was the next to speak while we all could do nothing but reel with the horror of what had become of our friend. I could hear it in her voice. She was struggling to keep herself composed enough to speak. “We promised you… Ourselves… We promised we wouldn’t let this happen again… And now look at you… I’m so sorry… I wish it was you who kicked me…”
I could not even bear to look at him… I turned away. But when I did… His helmet. It was nearby. And still embedded into it, the Element of Humanity. An Element… Just like ours. White as snow, twin doves were nestled in it. I felt a glimmer of resolve fill me. I was not going to give up on him now. Not yet. Not until we could be certain he was gone. “No… Not like this.”
Applejack was the first to look at my way, lifting her hat just enough for me to see her face. “Huh? Whaddya mean, Twi…?”
I had to remind them of what we had been through before. “This wouldn’t be the first time I nearly lost a friend. I’m not giving up on him. I refuse to believe he’s gone… We need to get him to a hospital right away. We’re the ones responsible for this happening to him, so it’s our responsibility to make sure he survives this.”
My friends started to look at me, eyes filled with tears, but with glimmers of hope in them as well. Rainbow Dash was the first to comment. “Yeah… We did screw up, didn’t we…?”
“That doesn’t mean we have to fail in at least trying to fix things. I know where the hospital in Canterlot is. I can get us all there.” I then looked down at James again. His face was still. Eyes almost completely closed. I could only hope that… Please, do not let it be too late. “I don’t want to say goodbye… Not after only one year…”
Pinkie Pie finally managed to crack a faint smile while her mane and tail regained their original poofy form. “Me neither… James is our friend and…I’ll never feel right until he forgives us.”
All of my friends managed to give me faint tearful smiles. Fluttershy, more than anypony, had a look of sheer desperation in her eyes. We had to try… But still, we could not just leave the Element of Humanity behind. The others could wait, but we had to at least bring that one along. “All right. Rarity, could you retrieve his helmet?”
“Gladly.” She used her levitation spell to bring it over to the rest of us. “Now then, let’s be on our…”
She froze the instant it happened. We all saw it. When the helmet drew near, it tilted forward and… The Element fell out.
It felt like time had started to slow. We did not breathe or speak. We could only watch in silent shock. And the instant it hit the ground… That sound… I will never forget it. The Element of Humanity shattered right in front of us.
So many white shards littered the ground. And when the wind kicked up… Like delicately sculpted piles of dust, the fragments disintegrated while the tiny particles were carried away. As that happened, the helmet faded away as well. Becoming translucent until it was no longer there. And along with the helmet and the shards, the hope I had in my heart faded too. The Element of Humanity… Gone.
Why… The Element of Humanity, like the Elements of Harmony, is supposed to always be bound to the object it was set into. It could never be removed, let alone shattered! So why… No… Just… There is only one possible… But I could not accept it!
My friends… They were giving me the same horrified stare I was giving them. They all knew what this meant too. But nopony could bring themselves to speak it. Eventually though, Applejack was the first to talk. “Twi… Am I the only one here who thinks that meant what I think it did?”
My eyes turned towards James. He looked so…pale. I could not even tell if he was breathing… Panic filled my heart. We had to go right away! “We need to go! Everypony stay close to me!”
I focused as hard as I could. I had never transported so many of us with the teleportation spell before. And James’ added mass made it exceptionally challenging. But a moment later, I opened my eyes as a great deal of mental pressure left my head. We were inside the lobby of Canterlot Royal Hospital.
Pinkie Pie was the first to rush to the receptionist’s desk the instant we became completely aware of where we were. “Emergency! Friend’s in trouble! Help him, please!”
The receptionist, a young unicorn mare, looked up with a bit of a startled gaze after being caught by surprise. “Huh?! There’s no need to shout, miss! Now, what is the pro… Oh my goodness!”
It only took one look at James’ unconscious form and bloodstained armor for the receptionist to know what was wrong. She immediately pressed a button on her desk before speaking into an intercom. “We have patient in critical condition at the front desk. Extra large.”
I was a little puzzled why she would mention a size, but I soon found out why. A moment later, a pair of nurses turned around the corner from the nearest hallway with a gurney that seemed to be just big enough to hold his entire body. With a levitation spell, they carefully placed his body on it before carting him off to the emergency room.
I should have been feeling much better by then. All of us should have. But the Element of Humanity… It shattered… Vanished. Why would it do that? Its bearer was still there. And all my friends knew it. We all looked at each other. The same looks of terror in our eyes.
We did not even say anything. We just ran down the hall where the nurses had gone. And we soon came to it. A pair of swinging doors with a backlit red sign above it reading ER. Outside it were a few cushioned seats, possibly for family and loved ones of patients to wait for a surgeon to emerge with news of the patient’s fate. And that is where we stayed.
Pinkie Pie was constantly pacing back and forth, looking like she was on the verge of panic. Rarity was constantly comforting Fluttershy, who just could not stop crying. I wish there was something I could do… Anything at all. Applejack was constantly by Rainbow Dash’s side while…
Rainbow… I have never seen her in such a pathetic state before. She was holding a paper bag to her mouth while constantly breathing hard into it. She was hyperventilating. I kept hearing her mutter the same words over and over every few seconds. “He’s gonna be fine… He’s gonna be fine…”
She will never admit it to anyone who is not part of her circle of dearest friends, but I know Rainbow Dash has loved James for a while now. I mean…really loved him. I can only imagine what she must have witnessed once she was by his side after she got her wings back…
My chest hurts so much… I have never been this terrified in my life. I even feel sick… Like I could vomit at any time. Pinkie seems to be suffering the exact same way, groaning in discomfort. “It hurts… Why does it hurt so much?!”
“It means yer scared, Pinkie. And believe me, so am I…” Applejack replied while fanning Rainbow Dash with her hat in her mouth. Rainbow almost seemed oblivious to us all, her eyes occasionally glancing at the doors behind me.
“Me too… He’s… I’m gonna lose him…” Fluttershy squeaked out before burying her face in Rarity’s shoulder once more. Her crying was constant. It was not enjoyable to hear, but it would be fruitless to ask her to even try to stop.
Fortunately, Rarity was constantly caressing Fluttershy’s shoulder. “Shhh… Don’t say that, dear. He’ll survive… He has to. He loves us too dearly to die now. He knows we don’t want to lose him…”
“No… He doesn’t know that.” We all looked at Pinkie Pie. That look of absolute anguish in her eyes. She was in terrible emotional pain. “He doesn’t know we’re still his friends. And if he dies before we can tell him…”
I did not have much hope left. She was right. James has to survive… He should not be allowed to die not knowing that we still care for him as his friends. Still, I had to say something. “He won’t die, Pinkie. He can’t die… Not now… He has too many friends waiting for him at home. He’ll be leaving so much behind if he…”
I paused when I heard a sound behind me. The doors to the ER had opened, revealing a unicorn stallion clad in a surgeon’s light blue attire. He took one long look at us while we looked back. His expression was forlorn, as if he had some bad news. “Are all of you friends of the human man who was just brought in?”
Something was wrong… It had not even been ten minutes since James had been admitted to the ER. It was far too soon for them to have stabilized his injuries. We had all ceased what we were doing and looked on in unease. Finally, it was Rarity who approached the doctor as she walked past me. “We are, doctor. And James… What is the diagnosis? Is it bad? How long must he remain hospitalized?”
The doctor seemed to hesitate. He stepped closer and whispered something into Rarity’s ear. For some reason, she did not react at all. The doctor then bowed his head in silence before turning and going past the doors again.
“Well… What’s the doc have ta say about ‘im, Rarity?” Applejack asked while we all drew near. Only Rainbow Dash remained seated in her chair.
Rarity did not budge. She did not even speak. What did the doctor tell her? Fluttershy then asked with fear lingering in her voice. “Is he… A coma?”
After a moment more of no response from her, I finally decided to speak. “Rarity… Please… Tell us the truth. What is wrong with James? What did the doctors find?”
It was then that Rarity started to turn to face us. But when she did… Those eyes… The tears were just…cascading down her cheeks. Her gaze… It was filled with horror and remorse. Utterly broken. She did not speak. But her eyes said it all. And it was more than we could bear.
Pinkie Pie began to twitch as she grit her teeth. She took a few steps forward as the tears built at her eyelids. “No… Rarity, he was lying! Tell us he was lying!”
Rarity had no words to say. She averted her eyes for just a moment before collapsing to the floor. She wailed. Screamed without words before burying her face in her arms. And soon…we all joined her. Pinkie’s mane and tail instantly deflated to that long and hanging style I had seen only once during the first birthday party for her we threw in Ponyville. She struggled to hold it in, but she too collapsed in tears, weeping like I had never seen before. And before long, she grabbed the paper bag Rainbow Dash had been using and…into it… It was so disgusting, but I could hardly care. I could not hold it in either. This was not happening… He could not be gone… He just can’t…!
Fluttershy… She only looked on in silence before… She fell. Hit the floor on her side with a thud as tears oozed from her nearly closed eyes… Fainted. It was too much for her mind to endure. And I… I struggled to remain standing. I could not believe it… I could not accept it! One of the dearest friends I have ever known… I loved him… He… No… Please, this has to be a nightmare! Somepony wake me up! Please, don’t let this be the end!
I found support in Applejack’s embrace. But she too… She was crying harder than I had ever seen before. She and James were never terribly close, but… They were still friends. And she was mourning all the same. But…that sound… Chuckling?
I turned to face the faint sound’s source and… Rainbow Dash. Her head was bowed while she chuckled lightly. But soon…she lifted her head, loud and wild laughter escaping her throat. Her eyes… It was one of the most horrifying expressions I had ever seen. It was as if she had gone mad. But tears were still flowing constantly. Just when I was worried that we were going to have to call security, she fell right out of her chair and onto the floor. And from then on… All I heard from her was quiet sobs. She… We were all suffering… And it was all our fault… Our friend… James was…no more.
I do not how much time passed. It was just…a symphony of sorrow. Everything was a blur for a while, but I found myself back in the lobby with all my friends. Well…all but one. I could not… I cannot accept it… He can’t be gone… He just can’t be!
Eventually… I am not sure when, but… Eventually, our crying ran its course. Fluttershy slowly awoke while Rarity caressed her face with a wet rag one of the nurses provided for her. She did not speak though. She was still in shock. None of us did. Although finally, Applejack asked the most important and dreaded question possible. “How’re we gonna tell everypony…”
“Tell them what… That we’re the ones who’re responsible for him being dead?” Rainbow Dash bitterly retorted as she held her head in her hooves. I could still see the tears flowing from her eyes. With the exception of Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, she was the only one who was still crying. I… I just felt numb. I wanted to cry. I wanted to express my pain, but… Nothing came. But she was right… Discord may have set things into motion… But the ones most responsible… The blame is entirely ours…
“What can we tell them… Sweetie Belle would be heartbroken. And… Oh no… What of little Scootaloo?” Rarity gasped as a new fear appeared in her eyes. Oh no… Scootaloo. In just a week or so, it will have been a full year since he adopted her as her big brother. James is… No… He was the only family she had ever known… But… We cannot hide the truth from her forever. What were we going to do? What could we do?
Even so, there was one thing we had to do first. My heart was still heavy, but we had a duty to fulfill. “First… We should return to the princesses… We need to tell them what has happened…”
“We shouldn’t… Princess Luna and Nightmare Moon will hate us…” Pinkie Pie said with a truly guilty stare while she looked at the floor. Of course… James and Princess Luna… And Nightmare Moon… They both shared a special bond with him… And James is entirely the reason why Nightmare Moon is with us now as a friend. But we cannot hide the truth. Sooner or later, they would notice the horrifying state of the area outside the labyrinth. It would be better if we told them before they could discover it. And Discord’s mangled corpse…
I looked at my friends. I did not want to even move, but we had a job to finish. “I don’t want to tell them either… But they’ll see what happened anyway at some point. We need to tell them… I’m going. Are you coming?”
It was Fluttershy who replied first. She weakly nodded her head before staggering to her feet. “I’ll go…”
One by one, my friends joined me and we began the long and slow walk back to the palace. None of us even said a thing. The gloomy cloudy weather did not help the mood either. The stone streets were still wet and lined with puddles. I cannot remember the last time I saw it rain in Canterlot while I was visiting…
I paid no attention to anything except for the path ahead of me. The guards did not hinder us at all once we arrived at the castle. I dumbly followed the rugs and the polished floors entirely from memory without even looking at my surroundings until we stood before the great doors that stood before the throne room. I took one look back at my friends. They were still in pain, but they glumly nodded together. It was time to relay the news to our rulers.
I gently pushed the doors open. Standing at the far end of the room before the throne were the three majestic rulers of our kingdom. Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Nightmare Moon. They were gazing at us with rather worrisome expressions. As we entered, Princess Celestia spoke in a puzzled tone. “Welcome back, all of you. Are you well? You look…horrible.”
Nightmare Moon then joined in. “And what has become of the Elements of Harmony? I do not see them.”
It was then Princess Luna’s turn to speak. “And what of Discord? We have been observing Ponyville for some time and it seems that his chaotic influence is slowly fading. The Elements of Harmony have not yet been used. You did not happen to convince him to surrender, did you?”
Which of us was going to be the one to speak the truth? I did not even have the heart to say it myself. And the princesses… They could tell something had gone very wrong. Eventually though, it was Rarity who took a step forward. “Your highness… Discord… He… He is no more.”
Princess Celestia cocked her head to one side with a perplexed expression. I can understand why. I doubt she ever even imagined Discord could be killed. Even her sisters seemed equally baffled. “I beg your pardon? What do you mean? How can he be no more?”
Applejack then stepped forward while using her hat to hide her black eye. “Well... Uh… James tricked ‘im… Somethin’ about some ‘Ultimate Game’. He somehow got Discord ta remove his own immortality. And… He’s dead, yer highness… Discord’s dead…”
That look of shock on their faces. Those words were probably the one thing they never dreamed they would hear. Princess Luna spoke first. “You cannot be serious… Discord… The Spirit of Chaos… He has finally been slain?!”
Nightmare Moon was less sympathetic in her choice of words. But I was not surprised either. “I suppose it was only a matter of time before that fool bit off more than he could chew. With all said and done, Equestria will be better off without him.”
Princess Celestia was slow in her response. She almost seemed like she was in a mild state of shock. Eventually, she did finally speak a reply. “I see… So… Discord has finally met his end… I would never have wished that upon him, but… Perhaps it is for the best. His reign of chaos has ended for good.” However she then cast a very worried gaze towards us. “But still… You said James killed him? That… It truly does not sound like him to wield fatal force. I will have to speak to him over this. He must likely be haunted by such actions…”
Rainbow Dash let out a long sigh as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “I don’t think that’s possible anymore…”
“Not possi… What are you saying?” Nightmare Moon spoke up with a tone that contained a hint of alarm. “Wait… Where is he? Why is he not with you?”
There was no turning back. I knew then that we could not hide it any longer. So I took it upon myself to speak it. But…it was so hard to actually say it. I could feel tears once again filling my eyes, ready to spill forth. “Your majesties… James is… We… The truth is…” Finally, I nearly collapsed as I fell to my knees. “We failed!!!”
Princess Celestia was quick to approach me, though Princess Luna and Nightmare Moon remained by the throne. “Be calm, Twilight. I can see that something is on each of your minds. Tell us what happened. It will be all right.”
If only she knew… Even so, I tried to tell her all that happened. “We all promised ourselves… We promised that we wouldn’t let Discord get to us a second time. Not just for each other, but for James too. And…”
Pinkie Pie then spoke for me while she too tried to hold back her tears. Her voice sounded like it could break at any time. “We… We couldn’t keep it… He got to us and just touched us and…”
“Go on…” Princess Celestia said softly, although I could see a faint look of horror starting to fill her eyes. I think she was starting to understand what I was trying to say.
It was so hard to bring myself to explain everything. But I had to. They needed to know. “Rainbow Dash and I… I don’t think Discord reached us. But…” I glanced at my four friends. Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity. They all cringed in guilt. “The rest of us… Discord corrupted them directly. With just a touch, I was told… And James… He found them in the labyrinth…”
My gaze looked past Princess Celestia. Nightmare Moon… She was there with us when we made that promise… I remember seeing something in her eyes while she stood by the throne. Something I had not seen since the first time I saw her within Ponyville’s town hall three years ago. A slowly building wrath. She stayed where she was though and did not make a sound. And so I continued. “It broke him… We were the most important people in his life and… James fled the labyrinth and challenged Discord to some sort of ‘Ultimate Game’. Before it started, Discord conjured up some sort of mirror that showed us what was happening… I thought we were watching some sort of illusion. Like a movie film. But… Just look out the window!”
“The window?!” Princess Luna then rushed to the nearest stained glass window at the northern end of the room. The glass’s clarity must have been very clear because she soon called for her sisters. “By the stars… Sisters! You must see this!”
Both Nightmare Moon and Princess Celestia hurried to Princess Luna’s side while we stayed where we were. I heard Nightmare Moon mutter quietly, “This… That cannot be Discord’s work…”
“Scorched trees… Lingering ice spires… My god, he actually used them… All I heard were distant booms and only felt faint tremors, but I thought it was only thunderclaps from the weather we were experiencing…” Princess Celestia said in horrified whispers. What did Discord do? I am sure they must have at least occasionally looked out the window at some point. What did he do to prevent them from noticing that something was wrong?
“He deceived Discord into locking away all but his most basic magic. Even his own immortality…” I could feel the tears building again… Those horrific scenes… I had never seen so much red in my life… “He went mad! Started taking pleasure in tormenting Discord! And all that magic he used… Fire, ice, lightning… And even something else… It looked like a small sun!”
That last line caused Princess Celestia to look at me with a glance of fright. “Plasma?! He dared to use plasma magic?! We had not even begun training him to utilize it! He must have been entirely out of his mind! It could have destroyed him!”
“But he WAS out of his mind… He was constantly smiling… Laughing… I thought he was going to destroy us all until he launched it into the horizon at just the last second… I saw it in his eyes when he did. So much pain. Even in madness, he was still holding us close to his heart…” I honestly thought I was going to die the moment that glowing orb of yellow energy stopped growing… I could even feel the heat from inside the labyrinth.
Once more, Princess Celestia stood before me while Princess Luna and Nightmare Moon watched from nearby. “Well… It is a miracle he did not destroy himself in the process. He had not yet mastered either of the elemental magical energies within his gauntlets. But what of James? What happened in the end?”
My friends looked on in silence. They were dreading what I was about to say. I was too. And it hurt to recall it. “He… He allowed Discord to land a mortal wound… But it was just to humiliate him further! And when he finally plunged his sword through his face… I couldn’t watch! I had to look away! But I could still hear it! Over and over, laughing the entire time!”
Those looks of absolute horror on her and Princess Luna’s faces. I could not believe the things I was saying myself. It felt…so alien to me to even be describing such things. “He killed Discord…but right after that he… He regained himself… He was broken. Empty… Discord’s magic wore off when he died, since my friends were back to normal when I found them. I got us out of the labyrinth, but… James…” I burst into tears once more while hanging my head low. “The moment we got out of the labyrinth… We were already too late… He’s dead! He’s dead and it’s all our fault!!!”
I could hear my friends struggling to hold back their own tears. But aside from that, the chamber was deathly silent. I soon looked up at my mentor, her face frozen in a look of absolute shock. Princess Luna as well looked on from nearby, equally horrified as if she could not comprehend what she had just heard. Nightmare Moon though… Her expression remained eerily stone faced. Finally, Princess Celestia spoke in a tone that I had never heard her use before. “Twilight… You cannot be serious. He was with us not even three hours ago and… Are you absolutely certain?”
“The Element of Humanity fell out of his helmet when we tried to take it with us… It shattered…and the helmet vanished… We got him to the hospital, but… When the doctor came out of the ER after James had been admitted…” I spoke in dread before turning to Rarity. She knew what the doctor told her.
My friend nodded towards me in tears and managed to squeak out a raspy response, her voice weakened from all the crying she had done. “I was told… He was dead on arrival… We were too late from the start…”
There was another moment of silence. But seconds later, I heard the clopping of hooves rapidly drawing closer. When I looked to my right, I saw Princess Luna drawing near just a second before she reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders. Her expression was panicked. Her eyes filled with desperation. “Twilight… Tell me this is some jest. You cannot be serious in what you are saying! He’s not truly gone! Tell me he still lives!”
Princess Luna… She had been close to James since the day they both met. I saw them when they first spoke. The moment when she nearly accidentally blew him down the stairs of the library’s loft by using the Royal Canterlot Voice. How overjoyed she was when he praised her for weaving the night. And now… I could not even imagine what was going through her mind. He was likely the first friend she had made…since she was purified by the Elements of Harmony three years ago. I… I could not tell her the truth…but I could not bring myself to lie to her. I looked at her in silence before looking away, unable to even look directly at her.
She soon let go of me. Her beautiful teal eyes began to quiver while she backed away. Princess Celestia looked on, not a word coming from her. “This can’t be… He’s not… Discord would never…” And then…the tears came. The Princess of the Night yelled at the ceiling in what I could only say was a fusion of rage and agony. “How could you, Discord?! How could you?!”
I cannot even describe how painful it was to see somepony as strong as one of Equestria’s princesses brought to her knees in sorrow. James… He must have meant so much to her. And now he was gone forever…and all because of us. I felt so sick with myself… Like I wanted to just disappear…
“You failed him…?” I felt a new chill in my blood as my eyes glanced towards Nightmare Moon. Her head was bowed, tears just then starting to spill over her closed eyelids. Her voice… It was monotonous. But I felt something in the air. It was heavy. I felt myself back away slowly, as did the rest of my friends. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna too watched her in silence.
“I witnessed you vow to keep him safe… That man… A hero of Equestria… You cast aside your vows… Allowed him to die… You are all…” Suddenly, her eyes opened while she bared her teeth. They were filled with a familiar white glow, her horn suddenly engulfed with electrical magical energies while her mane and tail billowed fiercely! And then…she leapt through the air on spread wings directly for us. “TREASON!!!”
I honestly thought that was the end for us. But instead, I heard a clash of sorts. When I looked again, I saw Princess Celestia and Princess Luna standing between us and Nightmare Moon, their horns aglow while they projected a barrier to hold her off. Princess Celestia glanced at us over her shoulder and called out. “Go! Barricade the doors!”
There was nothing either of us could say. We all fled. Slammed the doors behind us before piling as much furniture as we could find in front of it. But even then, I could still hear a battle raging behind it. The muffled wrathful roars of Nightmare Moon combined with the sounds of bursts of magic exploding upon contact. My heart was pounding… Not just with the horror of knowing what we had lost, but knowing that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna’s lives were likely in danger just on the other side of that door.
My friends and I watched the pile of clutter constantly. We did not leave. Although I soon heard Fluttershy whisper in horror. “She… She tried to kill us…”
“Can you really blame her…?” Pinkie Pie replied weakly. I almost did not even recognize her voice at first. It sounded so…lifeless.
The noise on the other side of the door raged for maybe a good five minutes. I kept hearing Nightmare Moon roaring words such as ‘They must pay’ and ‘Traitors’ and so forth. But finally, the noise finally stopped. My heart nearly stopped with it. Were they even still alive? Nightmare Moon is powerful, but surely Princess Celestia… All right, using the word ‘princess’ in their title is repetitive. Surely Celestia and Luna combined were able to overwhelm her.
Soon, we heard it. The door creaking as someone tried to open it from the other side followed closely by the muffled sound of Celestia’s voice. She sounded tired. Almost like she was gasping for breath. “Hello? Are you still out there?”
“We are, your highness! Is it safe now?!” I replied right away, praying that Luna was safe as well.
“Good… You can unblock the door now. The danger has passed.” Rarity and I immediately began using the levitation spell to remove the piled furniture and set them aside. But when we opened the door… I felt a powerful sting in my spine. Celestia… Her coat singed, a trickle of blood from her mouth, her golden jewelry dented and scraped… What happened in there?
“Yer highness…?! Are ya all right?!” Applejack asked while we all drew near.
Celestia let out a long sigh, but then cringed as she limped forward. It seemed that she had bruised or twisted an ankle in the scuffle. “Yes… I’ll be fine… And my sisters will be as well.”
We immediately looked past her. I gasped in fright. The throne room was… A broken window here, a chunk of the wall blasted off there, a torn and burned banner hanging nearby… It was a mess. And… Nightmare Moon was collapsed upon the floor. I saw…blood… She was bleeding. But Luna was standing near her. Her injuries seemed to be similar to Celestia’s, but she seemed to be all right. Well, about as all right as a heartbroken mare could be… She lowered her horn to Nightmare Moon’s head and seemed to cast a spell on her. “Sleep now, sister… We will speak soon…”
Pinkie Pie tried to approach the two princesses of the night, but Princess Celestia spread one wing to block her. “No… Nightmare Moon… She needs to be left alone for now… There are no words to describe how fractured her soul is now…”
She then looked at us. She knew what we wanted to ask and began to speak softly. “You cannot comprehend what your friend meant to my sister. Days rarely went by without her speaking his name at least once. He was far more than a friend to her. He was…her world. And I am doubtful she will ever recover from this…”
“And we’re the ones who destroyed that world…” Rainbow Dash spoke with a choked sob. I knew Nightmare Moon and James were close, but… It hurts to even think of that.
“No, Rainbow Dash… This is not your doing, nor is it James’ doing.” Princess Luna was approaching us. Her cheeks were still stained with tears, but she was maintaining her composure enough to speak. “This is all Discord’s doing… I knew his insatiable lust for chaos and entertainment would lead to his undoing someday. But this… He was a mad fool. A cunning fool, but a fool all the same.” I know what she said was true. Discord… If he had only stayed in his stone prison… Maybe… No, I know for sure James would still be with us… But still… If that is true, why do I still feel like I am partly to blame…?
“But…what now…?” Fluttershy said with a whisper. I am amazed she was even talking at all. Her eyes looked…empty.
Celestia and Luna looked at each other. But it was then I saw something I did not expect. A lone tear trickled down Celestia’s cheek when she looked back at us. “Your friend was my sister’s very first friend since her return to the throne. Your friend assisted you in ending Nightmare Moon’s eternal night once again. Your friend did the impossible and gave us Nightmare Moon as a sister and friend… There is only one thing we can do for him now.”
Luna then spoke while clearly attempting to at least try to show a tiny smile. “We will prepare a hero’s farewell.” She then turned to Pinkie Pie, who also looked back with a bit of a look of surprise. “Miss Pie, you likely know of all of the friends he made during his time in Equestria. Please come with me. We need to send invitations to alert them to their friend’s passing.”
“Uh huh… I’ll help…” Pinkie Pie then followed Luna down the hall. I… How many friends did James make over the last year…
“Come… You must all be exhausted. You may all stay here in the palace for the night.” Celestia was right… I really was not in the mood to go anywhere. But I had to at least send word to Spike to make certain he would know I would not be home this night. And to let him know to make sure Mitta was to watch Rarity’s home for the evening and to make certain Fluttershy’s animal companions would have to look after themselves until tomorrow. And… Scootaloo… What is she going to do when she finds out that her adoptive brother… He was the only family she has ever known… Sweet Celestia, what are we going to tell her?!
My head hurts… I cannot keep writing. It is late now anyway… Just… Please. Let this all be a nightmare. Let me wake up and find James still alive and well. Let us meet up for lunch at the café and share some tea at my place… Please… Please, let me wake up…