Apple Bloom ran through the crowd, just as panicked as everypony around her. As soon as the Crystal Heart had truly left the Empire, waves upon waves of Riftspawn soared down from the sky and swarmed the city. What had been a safe haven for such a short and bittersweet time had now become a labyrinth of death and chaos. In their panic, ponies lost their way trying to escape the city, ultimately running straight into the monsters they were trying to flee from. Apple Bloom was no different. It didn't help that she had only been to the Crystal Empire once, and had no idea where she was going to begin with.
Right now, she was just trying to break free of the hordes of ponies who threatened to trample her in their own panic long before the eldritch abominations even reached her. Finally, she did find a hole in the stampede, and broke away into an empty alley. She ran as fast as she could...and quickly stopped. Towering over her was the dark wall of a building, like the ones on either side. A dead end. She turned around to run elsewhere, when a green bolt struck the exit behind her, spawning a glowing green wolf. She was trapped. She backed away from the monster until her rump was pressed against the wall, then shut her eyes tight, awaiting the inevitable...
Her death never came. She opened her eyes to see the wolf dissolve before her. Shining Armor stood at the entrance to the alley, his horn still glowing. Apple Bloom calmed down when she saw the prince, but the terror and fear refused to leave.
"Are you alright?" Shining asked. The filly could only barely muster a nod. "Good. Twily and your sister asked me to look out for you. Come on, we need to go."
"G-go where?" Apple Bloom asked. "Ah thought we weren't safe anymore!"
Shining averted his gaze in shame. "We may be able to close off the palace," he explained. "Everypony inside would be safe, but...we can't hold everypony." He turned back to her with a look of stern determination. "So if you want to live, we have to go now."
The prince held out a hoof to Apple Bloom. She took it, her whole body shaking with anxiety, and he helped her to her hooves. With a nod, Shining led the way back to the palace. Riftspawn assaulted them on all sides, but Shining was able to destroy all of them and erect shields to block their attacks. Eventually, the square where the Crystal Heart once rested came into view. Before the two could rush toward it, however, a massive green bolt struck the street, summoning a titan to block their path. Apple Bloom cowered behind Shining Armor, while the prince stared the monster down and raised a shield around them, bracing himself for the worst. The titan lifted its massive sword...
...and was suddenly split in two. As Shining dropped his shield in surprise, the behemoth dissolved away, revealing Daniel as its destroyer. He lowered his scythe and greeted the prince. "Need a hand there?"
"Daniel," Shining greeted him, relieved. Apple Bloom timidly popped out her head from behind her escort. "Can you show this filly inside? I need to go back and save everypony I can."
"Will do," Daniel obliged. Suddenly, something caught his eye. "Get down!"
The grim reaper ducked, and Shining put up his shield again, as a massive fireball soared over their heads and crashed right behind Daniel. As the fires began to die down, without completely disappearing, they revealed Silas, his limbs ablaze. His eyes were filled with so much blind rage that they too seemed to be on fire. As Daniel and Shining Armor prepared to fight the pyromancer, he slowly and deliberately stepped forward, his rage causing dark crystal spikes to rise around his feet.
"GIVE. ME. BACK. MY. SISTER!" he yelled, His burning body pulsing with flames. Daniel stood in Silas' way, readying himself for punishment. He knew how dangerous this kind of fury could be; he'd let himself be consumed by such rage twice already.
"I don't understand you. Any of you," Silas growled. "Why are you all trying so hard to keep Alice from me? I...I just want us to be happy!"
"Alice?" Daniel asked in confusion. Suddenly, it all clicked for him. "You think this pony's your sister, by some odd little miracle, don't you? News flash: your sister is long gone."
"LIES!" Silas roared. "She's standing right there! She may not remember me, but those memories...they're in there somewhere. I just need to help her remember. Buy you... You and all these ponies won't let her go. So I'm just going to burn anyone and anything that keeps her from me to ashes!" His fires flared with his rage. "And I'll burn your ashes to ashes! And I'll burn those ashes to ashes!"
He rushed at Daniel, his body disappearing into a great blaze. Daniel blocked the assault, but the force pushed him back as Silas tried to force his fist through the astral barrier. As the raging ball of fire approached the two terrified onlookers, Silas twisted his blow, propelling the two up into the air as the force of his attack was redirected upward. As the two soared high above the city, Daniel finally managed to break free of the power struggle, his own magic suspending him at that altitude. He lashed out at Silas, who nimbly dodged each swing from his massive scythe. He dodged above the grim reaper, and retaliated with a powerful burning punch, sending Daniel crashing down into one of the rooftops below. He rocketed down toward his victim, his body igniting as if it were re-entering the atmosphere, ready to finish off his adversary. Instead, as he entered the dust cloud, he was blindsided as a powerful slice tore into him and sent him hurtling away toward the palace. The dust settled, revealing that Daniel had donned his Nightmare armor.
"Fine. You wanna do this the hard way, we can do this the hard way!" Daniel growled, before speeding off after his adversary.
The two clashed in midair, darkness and fire battling for supremacy as they careened through the air toward the palace wall. Daniel reached the spire first, planting his feet on the crystal wall as he turned and raised an astral barrier. A second later, Silas crashed into the shield with full force, stopping in place while dissipating the astral mist on contact. In that split second, Daniel hooked Silas with a massive swing, pinning him to the wall, the proceeded to grind him all the way up the spire. Finally, they reached an open room at the top of the palace, where Twilight had found the Crystal Heart in the past. Without any more wall to grind Silas into, Daniel forcefully threw the pyromancer into the center of the room, cracking his skull on the hard crystal floor.
"You lost your chance at happiness long ago," Daniel stated. "I won't allow you to take happiness from anyone else just to satisfy yourself!"
As he heard those words, Silas' rage flared, his flames growing steadily hotter. As he got up, the air around the two heated up to the point where it distorted the room. He let out a long, loud roar, an explosion of his rage, as several large red crystal spikes shot out of the floor around him. As these spikes touched the air, they caught fire, spiking the temperature to levels rivaling lava. Instinctively, he channeled his rage into the crystal beneath his feet, shooting more flaming crystals out of the walls to skewer the Nightmare before him. Daniel dodged, and swung at the flaming spikes, effortlessly splitting them in two. As Silas lost his crystal defense, he once again attacked Daniel directly, throwing punch after flaming punch at the grim reaper while summoning flaming spires all the while. Daniel dodged all of this while brutally and continually rushing his foe, smashing the burning crystals into him when they got in the way. As the fight continued, the room just got hotter and hotter, and Silas got angrier and angrier. Eventually, his vision turned almost completely red, as his adversary simply refused to die. He blazed, building up his rage, before letting it all out in a massive roar. With this, the air in the room reached its temperature limit, and caught fire. The room exploded, throwing Daniel clear and sending him plummeting to the ground, where Shining Armor and Apple Bloom were still watching in disbelief.
He recovered just in time to dash out of the way as Silas came crashing down where he lay like a scorching meteor. With what clarity of mind he had, he summoned his pistols and fired repeatedly at the grim reaper, hoping the advantage of range would be enough to take the monster down. Daniel simply blocked the bullets with a shield of astral mist. He sent out a magic spike that caught Silas' arm, sending one of his pistols flying. He took this opportunity to take a big swing at his adversary, catching his other arm as he stepped back at sending his other pistol flying to the side. At this point, Silas' rage boiled over once more, and it consumed too much of his mind for him to do anything about his lost weapons. Pressed against a wall, he shot out a multitude of burning crystals around him, forcing Daniel back. The onslaught didn't stop there, as burning spires rose from the road beneath them, pushing the grim reaper back toward the palace plaza, while Silas moved slowly and deliberately toward him, waiting to let out the full force of his rage.
Eventually, a red crystal spire thrust right through Daniel's back, going straight through his Nightmare armor as his own rage was replaced with pain and surprise. This was the chance Silas had been waiting for, and Daniel suddenly noticed as he started to unleash his fury.
Well crap.
With another furious roar from Silas, the crystal spike burst into flames while still lodged in Daniel's torso. The pain burned through his body, shattering his concentration entirely as he roared in agony. Finally, as the flames died down, the Nightmare armor and powers faded off of the barely conscious Daniel. The spike retracted back into the ground, unceremoniously dropping his broken body onto the hard crystal road. As Silas approached the reaper, his right fist flared ablaze. He stood above his defeated enemy, the flames of rage still burning in his eyes, and prepared to thrust his blazing fist through Daniel's skull. As he was, Daniel was barely able to process what was happening, let alone dodge the attack. This was it for him...
A shot rang through the air.
Silas' rage, along with all of his other feelings, faded away as the bullet passed through him. Surprised, Daniel raised his head the few inches he could to see what had happened. One of Silas' guns had landed near Apple Bloom and, in fear and desperation, she had figured out how to pull the trigger. Even now she looked terrified, more than what she had just done than the monster she had shot.
White flames suddenly poured out of the bullet holes, as if they were purging Silas' very being.
"C'mon sleepyhead, wake up! You've been snoozing all day!"
"Mphh...? All right, Alice, I'm up. What do you want?"
"You promised to take me to the park today, remember?"
"...yeah, I did, didn't I? Come on, let's go."
"...you're leaving for the army tomorrow, aren't you?"
"You're still worried about that? The barracks are right here in town. I'm not going anywhere."
"Really?"
"Really. I'm not leaving you anytime soon."
"You're always gonna be here for me?"
"Always..."
Silas finally came to his senses, and turned to the filly he had been hounding this whole time. The sadism, the confusion, the rage, the sorrow, all of it had left his eyes, replaced with a final semblance of clarity and sanity. Still trembling, Apple Bloom lowered her gun, realizing as she looked into the pyromancer's eyes that he wouldn't hurt her anymore.
"I...I get it now," he told her. "You're not my sister. She's long gone...and until now, I could never accept that. I twisted myself, thought I'd feel better if the whole world could feel my pain, but...this isn't what she would have wanted." He turned fully to Apple Bloom, and looked her squarely in the eyes. "I...I'm truly sorry for what I did to you. And I thank you...for helping me to finally see the truth."
He stumbled forward as white embers flowed off his body, and looked up to the sky. "I'll see you soon, Alice..."
With that, he dissolved into a flurry of white embers, which floated away and lit the turbulent green sky like stars.
Apple Bloom stared blankly upon the chaos below from her room in the Crystal Palace. The doors behind were locked tight, ensuring that nopony would disturb her. This was starting to become the full extent of her new daily routine. After the battle, she was...different. She retreated deep within herself, haunted and confused by the trauma Silas had put her through. Even now, as she watched pony after pony fall to the Riftspawn, she felt nothing. She was incapable of feeling anything, at least not now...
"Got a lot on your mind?"
She jumped as Daniel somehow found a way into her room, and was leaning nonchalantly on the wall in the corner. As bad as his injury was, it appeared to have healed completely. He even got his clothes fixed. "H-how'd ya get in here!?" Apple Bloom inquired.
"Eh, I've been experimenting with my new powers," he answered, letting out small wisps of astral mist from his hand. "Just figured out how to use this stuff to teleport. That said...wanna tell me why I needed to teleport to get in here to begin with?"
"It's none of your business!"
"It's someone's, and since I'm the only one who can even get in here, it might as well be mine," he explained in a matter-of-fact manner. "Besides, I'm pretty sure I know what's bothering you."
Apple Bloom looked away, still struggling with her experiences. "What...what'd Ah do to him? Why'd he come after me?"
"I can only guess at most of this," Daniel began to explain, "but Silas did everything he did because he was traumatized by the loss of his sister. Knowing my father, he probably killed Alice with that outcome in mind. What he didn't expect was to have his new puppet come across someone, or somepony, who looked remarkably like Alice. He may have hurt you dearly because he thought you were his sister...but in doing so, he put you in a position to free him. That one shot was the best thing that could have happened to him. I doubt he could comprehend his "sister" intending to cause him harm, and as he tried to, he was forced to come to terms with the fact that his real sister was gone. Once he did that, he was free."
"So Ah...Ah killed 'im..." Apple Bloom concluded, tears welling up in her eyes.
"For once, that's nothing to feel bad about," Daniel replied. "He'd been suffering for so long, only able to cope by forcing others to suffer with him. Now he's finally at peace. So chin up. He's in a far better pace now."
Apple Bloom wiped away her tears, and though she could feel them welling up again, she cracked her first smile in the past three days. Seeing that his work was done, Daniel dissolved into astral mist and flowed through the crack under the door. Apple Bloom followed him to the door, and finally unlocked it, ready to face the world once more.