Frosty

by Exhelah

Part 4 - Devastation

Princess Twilight Sparkle was sitting in the throne room of her castle, perusing over something. She had her head placed atop her resting hoof, supported by the armrest of the throne. She had assumed this position since that morning, and had not stirred since.

The festival was progressing nicely: Almost all of the decorations had already been set up, and the food preparation was on schedule. But something was… Missing. She couldn't put her hoof on it, but there was something missing, right in front of her yet she couldn't remember what it was.

“Argh!” she yelled, stamping her free hoof against the other armrest in anger. What was missing!? There had to be something!

As she fumed, Twilight didn't notice as Spike entered the room. The dragon had been skulking near the door, for he knew that interrupting Twilight while she was in a thought process would result with him getting a telling-off to end all telling-offs.

Twilight eventually did notice the dragon, and decided to take a break from her troubles to address her assistant. She shifted her position to one of more prominence before turning her attention to Spike.

"Hello Spike!” she said, mimicking a tone of cheeriness, though she felt no such emotion.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Applejack would like to see you… She said it’s extremely urgent.”

Twilight was taken aback. Had something indeed gone wrong? Was her gut feeling actually doing her good?

“Send her in,” Twilight responded, and immediately the dragon slipped out through the large double doors opposite her throne.

Applejack entered the room, and immediately Twilight knew that something was wrong. Not the feeling she had been experiencing before, however – this one was different. Applejack's posture was wrong, her head was drooping, and she kept her eyes glued to an invisible blemish in the floor.

“Applejack… What’s wrong?” Twilight suddenly asked, knowing that Applejack was in extreme distress. But rather than responding with words, Applejack suddenly burst into tears and galloped to her, burying herself in Twilight's comforting grasp.

Twilight, on the other hand, was completely taken aback by this sudden outpouring of emotion. She returned the gesture, wrapping her forelegs around her friend, but for what reasons she was completely oblivous. Applejack sobbed and sobbed, not able to calm down enough to voice an answer. Twilight could do nothing but hold her, rocking back and forth, trying to calm her down.

It took several minutes, but eventually Applejack’s sobs receded into hiccups, and Twilight relinquished her. Applejack plopped right back onto her haunches, her eyes lowered to the ground.

“What’s wrong?” Twilight again asked, trying to be less questioning this time around.

“Ah… ah…” Applejack stammered. She attempted to compose herself, then she went on, “Ah’ve been so mean to… To…”

“To who? Who have you been mean to?”

“...A- Apple… B- B- Bloom…”

Twilight had heard about Apple Bloom’s run-in with Diamond Tiara, and she thought that Apple Bloom deserved her punishment. Could something else have happened?

“What do you mean? I think she deserved no apples for-“

“No, it’s not that at all!" Applejack finally stopped hiccuping, though tears were still silently falling from her eyes. “Evah since this whole festival thing started, Ah’ve been so mean to her! Ah’ve nevah let her help us, Ah’ve left her breakfast cold, and Ah’ve done nothin’ but be plain mean to her! What kind of sister am I!?”

The last sentence was less of a question, and more of a demand. She sounded as if she was accusing Twilight of her troubles, as if the newly-assigned princess of friendship had somehow interfered in the relationship between two siblings. But rather than responding to anger with anger, Twilight responded in a calm, comforting tone.

“It’s okay. The festival gets to all of us. Something’s been troubling me all day... Just go and apologize to her! She’ll forgive you – I promise.”

Applejack was about to respond, but at that precise moment, the entire room changed. It seemed to grow darker not only inside, but outside. It was as if a shadow had been cast over the sun. Twilight sprang from her throne, readying her horn in case all of Tartarus fell upon them.

And then she collapsed to the ground.

Twilight cried out as she experienced something she had never thought possible: Every feeling, every thought, everything that made her Princess Twilight Sparkle, was shut out to be replaced with fear. It was as if her soul was being bombarded with heat-seeking fear missiles, with only a simple wooden plank to use as defense against them.

Her entire being was put through misery, and the only thoughts and emotions that could surface were her most terrible memories and her most negative feelings. She recalled long ago when she had seemingly failed her entrance exam to Celestia’s Academy of Magic, thinking that the princess had showed up to throw her in a dungeon. She remembered Discord when he had revoked her of her traits that made her the Element of Magic, causing her to almost abandon her friends and her town.

She recalled vividly her frustration when nopony believed Chrysalis was Cadence's doppelgänger, and her grief as Celestia was wounded. She remembered the Crystal Empire, when King Sombra was trying to kill Spike and enslave the Crystal Ponies. And most of all, she remembered Tirek as he imprisioned her friends, and how Discord betrayed them to join him, while being decieved himself.

Along with these memories came every negative thought and emotion she had ever experienced. Every inkling of a bad feeling was suddenly overpowering her mind, and she may as well have been thrown into the fires of Tartarus itself, it was so terrible. Simply dying would have been a more merciful fate.

It seemed to last for hours on end, and Twilight was sure that if it went on, she was going to be destroyed. She could say nothing, do nothing, and feel nothing but fear, grief, and pain. But suddenly, just as it had begun, it stopped. All at once, she was brought back to the present, gravely weakened both physically and mentally. She felt like she had fought 10 Tireks at once, along with hundereds of every past enemy she had ever defeated.

Twilight still layed there even after the terrible feelings had passed, making sure that all of her was really there. She did a quick once-over of her brain and body: She still had her thoughts, her memories, her skills, her education. Her limbs were all intact, her wings still existed, and everything seemed in place.

But the universe would not let her rest. Before she had time to completely gather herself, the room was suddenly filled with an overpowering, dazzling light. It was so bright that Twilight expected the sun to drop into the room and incinerate her. But this light disappated less than a second later.

"What now?" Twilight groaned, shielding her eyes from the overpowering light. When it finally cleared, she gasped.

Princess Celestia was standing in the middle of the room, panting hard, and shaking just as violently as Twilight.

“Princess!” Twilight exclaimed, trying to compose herself enough to be respectful.

“Please, Twilight, there’s no need for that. Especially now.”

Celestia’s words confused Twilight. "What do you mean?”

“You weren’t the only one to experience what has just happened. That... Thing - it was global. For a moment every living thing, plant or animal, experienced what you have just gone through.”

Twilight was taken aback. So it hadn’t just been her!

“…Why?”

“I sincerely hope that I don’t know,” Celestia replied, her tone growing dark and mysterious. She turned to look behind her, and Twilight realized that Applejack was laying on the floor in a crumpled heap, completely unconscious.

"Applejack!" Twilight shrieked the name of her friend, immediately springing up and galloping across the room to where she lay. But Celestia extended a hoof and stopped her.

“She'll be fine. Compose yourself, Twilight - We need to fly.”

Twilight did not enjoy the next few minutes.

She had tried to take flight immediately thereafter, but the instant she began to spread her wings, she was met with a stabbing pain in her right wing joint. Maybe she had sprained it when she fell?

"No, Twilight. Your body is in shock and is refusing to let you work hard. You can fight it!" Celestia cheered her on. But Twilight was having a very difficult time.

"Come... on!" Twilight screamed, trying to spread her wings again, then collapsing to the ground and grunting in pain.

"Oh in the name of all that is good!" Celestia exclaimed, then she proceeded to slam Twilight on the back, hard."

"Ouch!" she screamed yet again, and to her utter surprise, she zoomed into the air, trying to avoid her attacker.

"Good! Well, I'm glad that worked," Celestia said in an ecstatic tone, smiling at her success.

"How did you do that?" Twilight wondered aloud.

"Oh, I know lots of sneaky tricks. School served me well back in the day..." Celestia trailed off, evidently falling into a flashback.

"I didn't know you went to school!" Twilight burst out, landing on the ground again. "What was it like? What other ponies went there? Were you popular?"

Celestia stemmed the flow of questions with a wave of her hoof, "I'm not going to explain it now - there are more present needs. Follow me."

And with that, the princesses flew through an open window, which shut tight upon their speedy departure.

The moment they exited the castle, Twilight suddenly felt sick. All over the dark town of Ponyville, the bodies of all its inhabitants were strewn about, collapsed in various locations and poses. If she didn't already know better, Twilight would have thought them dead.

The cause of this was impossible to explain to herself. How could so much fear just... Be there? And disappear just like that? It wasn't good. It wasn't right.

"Twilight," Celestia spoke up, as if Twilight had given her a script. "You must be wondering what caused all of this to happen. To tell the truth, I'm not entirely sure either."

"What!?" Twilight had expected Celestia to have at least some idea of what could possibly have performed such an atrocity.

"Well, that's not completely true," Celestia retracted her previous statement. "If what I suspect is true, we are in a very bad situation, not just for Equestria, but for all the creatures of the world. But it just isn't possible..."

"What isn't possible?" Twilight inquired as Celestia realized the trap she had sprung on herself.

Celestia didn't reply, but instead turned her head back forwards. Twilight dropped the subject immediately, knowing that Celestia wouldn't be too happy with her if she tried to bring it up again.

They flew for a long while, trying to avert their eyes from the unconscious ponies below them. With nothing else of interest to look at, this was an incredibly difficult feat.

Then, suddenly, Celestia said, "We're close. Drop to the ground."

Twilight obeyed her mentor without a second thought, fluttering to the ground softly. Instantly she cast a spell to make her skin cold-resistant, for although she was fine while in the air, the snow was a bit too cold for her liking.

"I believe the source is... In that direction," Celestia gestured with a hoof, right towards a large, dark mass.

"The Everfree Forest!?" Twilight yelped, momentarily relapsing into her silly fear of the place that her friends had so helpfully drilled into her head.

Celestia merely gave Twilight a blank expression, as if she knew the exact thought process that had just sprung through her head. The latter turned towards the forest, and together they began to gallop through the deep snow, leaving a trail of princess-sized hoofprints in their wake.

The landscape as they galloped seemed to change. As they drew nearer to the forest, the sky seemed to darken, a misty haze settling in the area. The Everfree Forest usually did this, but this time, the air seemed a bit... Thicker than usual. Before long, Celestia and Twilight found themselves observing a clearing in the trees.

"This is it. Keep your gaurd up," Celestia warned. Twilight, a bit shaken, readied her mind to defend herself.

"What happens now?" Twilight asked in an almost pleading voice.

Celestia didn't reply, but instead started into the clearing, her face set like stone. Twilight expected the worst.

And the worst is what came.

"Twilight!" Celestia shrieked, staring at a point just behind her. Twilight turned, then immediately dove to the side as she saw it. Standing in the air, just a few feet off the ground... Was Apple Bloom.

Except that is most definitely was not the Apple Bloom they knew. For one thing, Earth Ponies didn't simply stand in the air. Heck, not even a Unicorn could do it so perfectly, and let's not even mention the Pegasi. It appeared she was standing on something, yet she was obviously floating in the middle of nowhere.

But her lack of attention to gravity was not the only thing wrong: Her posture was different; her fur and mane seemed... Darker; She was not the happy, bouncing, concerned filly constantly searching for her cutie mark. No, something was terribly wrong.

"A-A-Apple... Bloom!?" Twilight stammered, trying to make sense of this. A billion questions were streaming through her head, but she (with difficulty) constrained herself to silence.

"Please, Twilight. Let me handle this," Celestia extended her foreleg between Twilight and Apple Bloom, forcing her back a bit. "Just stay quiet and don't use any spells. Promise me."

At her last sentence, she turned her head to Twilight and gave her a sharp look. Twilight backpedaled a bit, for Celestia's glare was that she had never seen before, save for her ferocity shown towards Queen Chrysalis when she had attempted to take over Equestria two years before.

"I promise!" Twilight stammered without hesitation, and Celestia seemed satisfied. She turned back to Apple Bloom's floating body and took a step toward it. The words that came from her mouth were uttered in a forgotten tongue, though for reasons she could not fathom, Twilight understood every word of it.

"Thy presence on this land is forbidden. Get thee hence, entity of darkness," Celestia spoke in a hoarse voice, her throat undulating with the vernacular of Old Equus.

Apple Bloom's eyes opened, and instantly Twilight had to suppress a scream: Her eyes were gone to be replaced with pure black. It appeared to her as if staring into them for too long would cause you to fall into an endless void of night.

"Celestia, thou recognizest me so readily! I am flattered," emitted a deep, hoarse voice from the mouth of Apple Bloom. In the air she, no, it pretended to lounge, resting Apple Bloom's hoof against her head as if posing for a vain painting.

"Do not think I hast forgiven thee," Celestia responded angrily. "Thy transgressions are too great."

"Oh Celestia," it replied, lowering itself to the ground and standing on top of the snow like it wasn't there. "You just never learn! Forgiveness is not that which we desirest most. That same desire... Is for the souls of those born into light, those who live life in complete ignorance of the gravity of their situation. Those souls... Those spirits... They are that which shall be consumed by the forces of darkness!

Apple Bloom's pitch-dark eyes flared and Celestia cried out. She had been thrown back into the snow as if she had been run over by Princess Cadence's bullet train.

"No!" Twilight yelled, her anger immediately flaring up as she watched her mentor, her teacher, her friend tossed away like a neglected piece of burnt bread. But like Celestia, she was thrown back by a powerful force, the difference being the source: Princess Celestia's horn was glowing with the spell of binding, placing a barrier between the now-started battle and Princess Twilight.

"Stay back, my faithful student!" Celestia called over Apple Bloom's hideous laughter. She then turned to the filly, her nostrils flaring and her face contorted with emotions Twilight could not comprehend, "I've got this one."

"I have become stronger since our last encounter," Apple Bloom chuckled to herself, a maniacal grin spreading over her face. "Thou wilst be surprised at the skills I have acquired over the centuries."

"Thy strength is no match for that of the one called forth by the light!" Celestia galloped towards Apple Bloom at full speed, her horn literally crackling with magical energy. Then, without warning, she disappeared.

An agonizing moment of silence passed, Twilight and Apple Bloom both staring in confusion at the spot where Princess Celestia had just been. Teleportation usually involves a popping sound and momentary sphere of magic to transport the matter, but Celestia had just... Disappeared.

Then all of the powers of heaven were unleashed at the same moment. Celestia dropped from the sky, her eyes and horn lit so brightly that Twilight thought, literally this time, that the sun had dropped down from the sky and was crashing into the ground.

Apple Bloom instantly moved, dodging a beam that occupied the very same space mere milliseconds after the motion. In this manner she dodged all of the thousands of beams raining down from what Twilight realized actually was the sun. Celestia, the princess of the sun had brought the actual thing down with her to aid her in the fight.

As it was, a giant fireball crashed into the ground, exploding upon impact and causing the ground to shake. Twilight ordinarily would have been incinerated on the spot, but Celestia's protection barrier turned into a bubble that surrounded her and protected her from the catastrophic effects of Celestia's attack. Apple Bloom, however, got the full impact of it, and Twilight watched half in horror, and half in awe as the little body was crushed flat.

The smoke cleared and the fireball faded, returning to its place in the sky. Though it had been day, the sky had been covered with a kind of dark mist, blocking out the sun and making it seem as if it was the middle of the night. Celestia's glorious figure was hovering in the air, the glow of light fading from around her. She landed softly on the ground next to Apple Bloom, who despite being crushed by a giant fireball didn't seem to have a scratch on her body.

"Is she... Dead!?" Twilight almost yelped the last word, leaping down into the newly-formed crater Celestia had created.

"Don't, Twilight! The fact that her body still exists means it didn't work!" Celestia warned, but not soon enough. For at that moment, Apple Bloom's body convulsed, shooting up into the air once more. Her pitch-dark eyes opened wide, and her mouth gaped, dripping with the blood of her mangled innards.

"Enough with these silly games!" she let loose a deafening roar, so torrential in volume that it caused every particle in the area to vibrate with its intensity. Twilight and Celestia were flung back by the will of the demon, slamming into a far tree with a loud thump. With one painful gasp, they both slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Light. Haze. Confused screams. The feeling of pure terror had returned once more, immediately rousing Twilight and Celestia from their slumber.

"Aaargh!" Twilight screamed, pressing her hooves to her temples so hard that she may as well have been attempting to compress them together. The pain was even worse when compared to the first time - Who knew that the worst thing one had ever experienced, could suddenly be amplified even further and thrown back with twice the torque? Not Princess Twilight Sparkle.

"BEGONE!" Celestia shouted, and immediately the ringing feeling left Twilight. The entire scene was decimated beyond repair, the force of Celestia's last attack having uprooted trees, melted snow, and killed various critters around the area. Now fully able to appreciate their surroundings, the princesses mourned for the souls of the animals that were killed.

But such was the nature of an Alicorn Princess. All life, no matter how insignificant, was precious. Even the lives of those who seek to destroy other lives had potential. A princess needed to have the capacity to understand that potential.

"As you can tell," Princess Celestia grunted as she gave Twilight a hoof. "I have pinpointed the source of the disturbance and quenched it."

"T-thanks," Twilight replied, her eyes glowing with her admiration for the elder princess.

"We must get moving. Apple Bloom- no, the demonic spirit that now inhabits her body, plans to wage a one-pony war against Equestria. And it has a good chance of winning that war if we don't act quickly."

"Right!" Twilight shouted, flapping her wings experimentally a few times then, after determining that they still worked properly, followed Princess Celestia into the air.

When they got to Ponyville, things were no better off than before. In fact, they were at least sixteen times worse. The slew of destruction that had set about the small town was so great that the only thing even remotely resembling a building was Twilight's Palace. It was fully intact, mostly due to the hundreds of protective spells and enchantments laid about it.

"By the name of all that is good..." Twilight cursed. Not even in her imagination could she have visualized so much devastation in one place.

"Twilight," Celestia began with a choked voice, but she didn't need to complete the sentence. Twilight was already sobbing.

"My...friends..." she choked, staring with disbelief at what she knew had been Sugarcube Corner, only to see the bloodstained wooden frame lying in shambles on the ground. Anyone who was in that building was certainly dead. Without looking, she knew that Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and maybe even Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash... were all dead. There was no way anypony could have survived this.

They landed in the smoking remnants of town square, Celestia having to literally catch Twilight as she was so overcome by grief that she would have faceplanted into the dirt had she set down unassisted. She was heaving up more tears than anypony could possibly hope to bear, her chest rising and falling violently with her wretches.

Celestia could do nothing but silently mourn with her. Through her several thousand years of life she had learned to cope with these tragedies, as everypony she had ever bonded with slipped away, one by one, with age. She was way beyond tears when it came to death.

To Twilight, what passed seemed like an eternity. Eternity, filled with the senses of loss, despair, and most of all grief. The world was over, and there was no point to moving forward...

"Twilight..." Celestia murmured, rocking the sobbing princess as if she were a filly. "They aren't coming back - I want you to face that fact. The spirit did this to them, and we're going to stop it. I need your full power on my side if we hope to win the battle ahead of us."

Twilight could voice no reply. Her tears had ceased their flow, yet her body continued to convulse with the heaves that came with sobbing. She couldn't think; She couldn't breathe; She couldn't do anything but mourn the loss of two of her closest friends, never to speak to them again.

The spirit.

That one thought lingered through all of the emotional chaos ensuing in Twilight's mind. The spirit, inhabiting Apple Bloom's mangled body like a puppet, had no right to do such things. It was stepping way too far out of line, and Twilight had the last straw pulled with the death of Pinkie Pie and Rarity.

"I..." she mumbled, shaking now not from grief but from rage. All of the emotions of this moment suddenly turned violent, as she pictured in her mind the spirit being torn to shreds by Twilight herself.

"For murdering my friends in cold blood... For destroying Ponyville, the place held most dear in my heart..." Twilight shrugged off Princess Celestia's grip. The latter was now staring wide-eyed at her.

"For possessing Apple Bloom's body like a puppetmaster pulling his strings..." Her rage boiled so much at this sentence that the ground began to shake. Twilight's horn sparkled with a black aura, triggered by the vicious rage now dominating her being to the very core.

"I WILL MAKE YOU BURN!"

- Starswirl the Bearded