Pixel groaned as he was gently shaken awake. Cracking open an eye, he immediately regretted it, as the sun still hadn't moved from its stoic position in the sky. She squinted, moving a wing up to shield his eyes from the light, his mind moving further away from the comfortable familiarity of sleep. As his vision adjusted, he began to make out a pink mane amongst the glare, almost certainly belonging to Sunlight.
He shifted and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Yep," he said hoarsely. "Still not a morning pony." Sunlight sniggered and handed Pixel his glasses. Now that he could more clearly, looking around, he saw Sunlight and Pastel, along with two other earth ponies and the bat creature all gathered by the door, saddlebags in tow.
He lazily slid off of his seat and on to his hooves, grabbing his saddle bags and fastening them around his barrel, making sure he had everything. He walked over to the rest of the group, who had all gathered around the door. They stood in silence as the train slowed, the wheels screeched, and the train stopped, laying still on the tracks.
The train's doors opened with a happy little jingle, but the scene that lay before them warped the tune into something more unsettling. As the group stepped out into the smouldering landscape, Pixel stood fixed to the spot, unmoving and rigid. He took it all in. Everything, down to the torn banners and purple flames were just as they had been. Exactly the same as his dream.
The clouded red castle of friendship stood just on the horizon, home to the harbinger of all of this needless destruction, the one who would surely end it all, Princess Twilight herself.
Pixel stood, a single step away from a new chapter in his life. Looking towards the group of ponies in front of him and seeing them standing there in front of him, it gave him a spark of courage, a glimmer of hope that everything would turn out okay in the end.
So he summoned every ounce of willpower from his ears to the tip of his tail to help him step off the train and into the wasteland that was the decimated Ponyville. Every strand of his being, every single speck of magic in his soul was poured into this one seemingly simple task.
But he couldn't do it.
He slumped to his haunches and stared off into the distance, his mind going a mile a minute, racing faster than even the Wonderbolts, slowly crumbling his determination and resolve. The feeling was hard to describe, a mix of hopelessness and despair that just made you feel utterly defeated, unable to continue, a feeling that just made you want to curl up and cry.
And he would have, if it had not been for Sunlight. Stepping up to him, genuine worry in her eyes, she turned, and sat beside him. Not a word was shared between them, but PB could feel Sunlight's silent reassurance. It washed over him, making him feel marginally better than he had been before. The feeling didn't disappear completely, of course it didn't, but it was stopped in its tracks, and was slowly creeping back into the darkest corners of Pixel Bit's mind, temporarily forgotten.
Pixel steadied himself, focusing on his breathing. He looked over into Sunlight's eyes, and Sunlight stared back. Pixel quickly looked away. Steeling himself, he coughed, stood up, ruffled his wings and flittered off the train. He put on the bravest face he could muster and smiled back at Sunlight, still sitting within the relative safety of the train carriage. Despite the war raging in his brain, he managed to work up a small chuckle. "Coming?"
Pixel was starting to wish he'd taken the ride back home to Fillydelphia. First of all, it felt like he was reliving his nightmare in full. Second, with every single second that passed, he and the group inched closer and closer to their untimely demise, resulting in Equestria falling into ruin. Thirdly, and, to Pixel, most importantly, he hardly knew any of these ponies.
Now, Pixel wouldn't consider himself the social type by any means, and to be honest, he would rather just curl up with a good book for a few hours and get lost in the pages, meaning that he mostly tried to avoid any attention by hanging out by the back of the group, flying just above ground. Still, his close proximity to the group had allowed him to make out a few snippets of conversation.
"So," said Black Bass somewhat sceptically. "we just walk up onto this she-demon's front lawn, shoot her with some baby rainbow lasers, and make it home in time for the after party?"
Sunlight visibly cringed. Sighing, she said "They're called the Elements of Harmony, and, yeah, if things go as planned." Looking over to Bass to see his reaction, she was met once again with the mask of scepticism that had been plastered on his muzzle for the last five minutes now.
Bass raised an eyebrow, urging her to go on with a roll of his hoof. Sunlight looked him square in the face. "What." She asked. Pixel got a bad feeling down in his gut. Bass sighed. "Then where are they?" he said expectantly.
Sunlight stopped walking and the group stopped with her. She gritted her teeth nervously, as if she was afraid at how the others would react. "I…" She hesitated. "I don't…" She didn't finish, but that was all they needed.
"You don’t actually have them?!" Bass said, trembling on the edge of fury.
Sunlight stepped back, ready to fire a teleportation spell at a moment's notice. "I thought…" She reordered her thoughts. "They're supposed to appear when we go against Twilight!" Bass stepped forward again, prompting Sunlight to step back against the wall of a crumbling building.
"You thought? You THOUGHT!?!" Bass yelled. He raised a hoof. Sunlight yelped and fired her horn, appearing behind Pixel. Black Bass' hoof hit the wall where Sunlight's muzzle had been seconds before with a sickening crack, causing cracks to spider its surface as a result of his natural earth pony strength. "You thought that in this life or death situation, with the whole of Equestria hanging in the balance, that you would go in WITHOUT THE ONE THING THAT COULD SAVE US!?!"
Sunlight whimpered. Pixel hugged her with a wing and stepped back away from this madpony.
"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?!?!" He thundered. Pixel was fairly scared, but he put on a brave face nonetheless.
Continuing to step backwards, Sunlight in wing, he still managed to stammer out a weak response. "H-hey man, just leave her alone. She didn't do anything wrong."
Bass sputtered, almost laughing. "Nothing wrong? NOTHING WRONG!?! Look around you buddy! Look where you are!" Pixel glanced around at the decimated landscape of the ruined country town. Wrecks of buildings, eternally burning, purple tinged fires around every corner, businesses and homes in rubble, much beyond disrepair.
Pixel looked over to the rest of the group in a silent plea for help. The caped earth pony showed no signs of helping. In fact, she seemed to be rather enjoying herself and the chaos unfolding before them. The bat creature gave even less help, as it was presently crouched under an upturned cart, her red eyes piercing the gloom. Pastel however, heard PB's silent call and walked over to Bass slowly and cautiously, as if approaching a wild animal.
"Hey, hey, hey. Bass. Calm down, she doesn't deserve any of this!" She said, staying just out of bucking distance. "She's in just as deep in this weird friendship quest as you are!" Bass was still fuming, but Pastel stepped closer to him nonetheless. Pixel had to commend her bravery. But then again, it could have been sheer stupidity. Only time would tell.
Bass shot death glares at both Pastel and Sunlight, looking ready to take their heads off at any moment. Pastel visibly tensed, ready to either run or take the oncoming blow.
But to all of their surprise, Bass stormed off towards the castle by himself, cursing under his breath.
Everypony relaxed, leaving Pixel to take his wing off of the shocked Sunlight. She looked over, giving him a tentative nuzzle. "Thanks." She said. Sunlight coughed, sparked her horn once, and was back to her old, cheery self. "We should probably go check on him. We wouldn't want him to do anything brash, and who knows what he might do on his own."
Pixel nodded. "Yeah. We should all stay together. Whatever comes, we should face it as a team."
As Sunlight helped the bat thing out from the cart, Pixel looked up to the blood red castle of friendship laying on the horizon and sighed. He wasn't going to get out of this unscathed, was he?
Stupid unicorn. Stupid pegasus. Stupid elements and stupid princesses.
Bass walked through the burning Ponyville, the ever present heat really starting to get to him. By now, he was out of sight of the rest of the group and still advancing towards the edge of town.
Towards Twilight's castle.
If that stupid unicorn wasn't going to take this mission seriously, then somepony had to. Why shouldn't it be him? He weaved around a pile of rubble and into what looked like it had once been a marketplace. There were still one or two largely intact wooden stalls, but the rest were either in splinters or bathed in the same ever burning purple fire as the rest of the small country town. Torn banners still hung from some bent streetlights, and they danced with the dust on the eternal summer wind.
He walked slowly, taking care not to trip over any scattered remains. His ears swivelled, taking in all of the sounds around him, looking out for the sounds of the rest of the group catching up to him. He wouldn't stop them of course, but they better not be looking for a nice friendly conversation.
The sounds of the wind and the flapping banners almost gave the market a ghostly feel. He wasn't supposed to be here. Not in this marketplace and certainly not in this town. He was an outsider. But he still had a job to do. And in the name of Celestia he was going to do it.
He turned a corner around yet another ruined building and came face to face with his destination. The clouded and red castle of friendship, maybe 100 or so meters out in front of him, a straight path right to the front doorstep.
Black Bass grinned and continued his advance. The road was clear, and nothing was in his way. It was a one way street to a slow and painful death, but he was confident. He knew he could win this, and some prissy purple princess wasn't going to stop him. He had this. As he neared the door to his destiny, he smiled.
This was going to be fun.