//------------------------------// // Are You Coming to the Tree? // Story: Shadow Grave // by Composer99 //------------------------------// “Keep your shields up!” Shining Armor shouted, straining as the spells holding the door of the castle shut flickered under the impact of yet another enormous boom! The messenger pegasus zipped around the corner to the entrance. “Sir,” he said breathlessly, “the balcony teams report they’re finally all out of ammunition!” “Get everypony inside the castle, and have unicorns seal all the windows and doors so nothing gets in except through this door.” “Sir, yes sir!” The pegasus headed back around the corner. There was another earthshaking boom, and patches of magic flickered momentarily. One flickered out completely. "Get that spell back up! Hurry!" Shining Armor shouted. Boom! The doors rocked on their hinges and the spells flickered again. “Come on, come on, get inside!” a unicorn shouted to the small group of pegasi still hovering over the balcony. The Cutie Mark Crusaders watched anxiously as Big Mac and a Royal Guard earth pony stood just outside the doorway into the castle. Well-timed bucks fended off skeletal pegasi trying to reach the door. The Royal Guard pegasi flittered down as a wave of flying skeletons approached. They landed and galloped for the door. Big Mac was the last to head for the door. He stumbled as two skeletal pegasi swooped down and grabbed at his rear legs, trying to pull him out and up. The Royal Guard ponies grabbed his front legs, trying to pull him in. “Not my brother!” Apple Bloom cried. She charged, leaped over one of the Royal Guard ponies holding on to Big Mac, swiveled on her front hooves, and delivered a ringing buck to one of the skeletal pegasi. It released Big Mac, flying back through the air and flipping over the balcony railing. With a heave, Big Mac was pulled bodily into the doorway as Apple Bloom jumped around the other ponies to rejoin her friends. The other skeleton that had grabbed him snapped its head on the door and let go, tumbling out onto the balcony. "You were awesome!" Scootaloo said to Apple Bloom. The royal guard unicorns present focused, and their horns glowed. A thick field of magic snapped into existence, blocking off the doorway. Almost immediately, skeletons were at the door, banging on the magical field and trying to break it apart. Big Mac looked at Apple Bloom while he stood. “Thanks,” he said with a smile. She smiled back, her eyes watering. The moment passed as the castle trembled. Boom! “We better get downstairs,” Big Mac said. The Cutie Map room was abuzz with activity. Injured ponies were lying on hastily-assembled camp beds. On one end of the room, unicorns were hurriedly experimenting with a golden sigil etched on the floor. They would zap a pillow placed within the sigil, examine the results, then wipe out part of the sigil with magic before etching a modified form and doing it again. Mayor Mare and Amethyst Star were looking through papers they’d stacked on the Cutie Map. “The unicorns from Celestia’s School are doing their best, but they don’t think they’ll have a teleportation circle ready anytime soon,” Amethyst Star was saying. “It’s still too experimental.” The castle trembled. There was a tinkling as the dangled gems hanging from the Golden Oak roots clattered together overhead. “We’ve run out of other options,” Mayor Mare responded. “I just hope we can find a way to get everypony out of here before-” She was interrupted by a bright flash, and the room became all the more crowded with the appearance of seven ponies, a baby dragon, and a draconequus. There was a pause, then a chorus of whispers erupted. “Princess Twilight!” Mayor Mare gasped, bowing. “Where’s Princess Celestia?” Twilight asked. “I don’t know! But Shining Armor is at the front gate, trying to keep it shut.” Boom! The castle trembled again. “And what’s that?!” Twilight asked. “Never mind, no time. Front gate!” She bolted off as fast as her wings could carry her. “Follow that Princess!” Discord called. He hefted Starlight in his paw, then charged out the door, followed by everypony else who had just a moment ago been dumping their saddlebags on the floor. “Uhh… what was that about?” Amethyst Star asked. Boom! Twilight and her party tore through the corridors. “Big Mac Apple Bloom I’m okay glad you’re okay gotta go!” Applejack shouted as she careened past them. It didn’t take long for them to reach the front gates. Boom! “Twily!” Shining Armor shouted, surprised, before grinning from ear to ear. “I’m so glad you’re still safe,” Twilight said. “What’s going on? Where are the other Princesses?” Boom! “There’s a giant stone monster outside, trying to smash its way in,” explained Shining. “We’ve been able to keep it out – for now. Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Cadance – they’re all at the Tree of Harmony. I think Shadow Grave went there, too.” Boom! “Then we don’t have a moment to lose!” Twilight stammered. “Just hold on a little longer, big brother,” she said, laying a reassuring hoof on Shining Armor’s flank. Then she turned away, rushing back to the others who had come with her. “Discord, get us to the Tree of Harmony!” she shouted. They gathered together and vanished in a burst of white light. “I sure hope we can hold on a little longer,” Shining Armor said. Boom! “I know not how this mare became so capable at magic as to challenge three alicorns!” Luna bellowed in frustration. She fired a bolt of magic at Shadow Grave, who deflected it with a pulse of her own magic. The princesses, Sunset Shimmer, the Wonderbolts, and Royal Guards had been hemmed into the grotto containing the Tree of Harmony: they had long ago been forced to cede the skies and the top of the canyon to Shadow Grave’s skeletons. Now, the Wonderbolts and guards had formed up at the grotto’s entrance, fending off wave after wave of skeletal ponies, while the princesses and Sunset kept out any flying skeletons. Anypony too injured to continue fighting had been taken to the back of the cave, where two unicorns were doing their best to patch them up. “She’s not challenging us,” Celestia remarked. “She has yet to take any aggressive action herself: all she has done is keep her own minions going, and block any spells targeting her specifically.” “It’s just like back at the castle,” Sunset said. “She’ll let her minions wear us and the guards down until she can strike a decisive blow.” Celestia surveyed the cave. They now had only two ponies in reserve to cover for any newly-injured ones. "I fear that is so." A well-placed buck caught Spitfire upside the head, and she sailed into the cave wall, shouting in pain as she collided. She stood, but was favouring a leg, and one of her wings hung crookedly. She limped over to Princess Celestia. “Sorry, Your Highness,” she said, before limping to the back of the cave. Luna barked at the reserve ponies to get to the entrance. As they did so, Shadow Grave stepped closer, and her horn pulsed with yellow magic. A wave of yellow energy blasted into the cave, knocking back the ponies guarding the entrance, sweeping them off their feet and halfway into the grotto. “No!” shouted Cadance. She stepped forward, responding with a wave of light blue magic erupting from her horn. It sent the skeletons that were charging into the cave flying out, in pieces. They began to reform as soon as they hit the ground. Shadow Grave growled, and fired a bolt of yellow energy at Cadance. “Cadance!” Luna shouted. It was too late. The bolt struck, and Cadance was immobilised in a block of yellow magic. More skeletons had already rushed into the cave, and they charged everypony they could: grabbing limbs and knocking ponies over. “Get off!” Sunset Shimmer shouted, pinned by no fewer than five skeletons. Distracted by the grappling skeletons, Celestia was caught off guard when Shadow Grave struck her with magic, immobilising her as she had Cadance. “’Tia!” shouted Luna. She fired at Celestia, shattering the magic prison. “Enough!” yelled Shadow Grave. Another pulse of yellow magic burst from her horn, bowling Luna and Celestia over. Skeletons swarmed them before they could react. Shadow Grave stepped into the grotto and encased them in magic. Shadow Grave looked at Celestia for an instant. Then she turned and face the Tree of Harmony. “Here rests the only power capable of defeating me,” she said, almost reverently. “Once I have destroyed this Tree, then Equestria shall be mine.” There was a flash of white light behind her, and a voice shouted, “Not so fast!” “What?” Shadow Grave turned. The grotto’s entrance had been empty a moment ago: now there stood – “This ends here, Shadow Grave!” Princess Twilight Sparkle declared. “Does it, now?” Shadow Grave snarled, her horn glowing yellow. Outside the grotto, skeletal ponies advanced, intent on pinning down the Princess and her companions as they had the Tree’s other defenders. There was a soft pulse of pale violet light behind her. Shadow Grave started, and turned. The star shape at the centre of the Tree of Harmony had begun to glow, in a shade of purple matching Twilight Sparkle’s coat. A wind began to whip through the grotto. Shadow Grave turned back to face the entrance. Twilight Sparkle’s eyes blazed white, and she was hovering in the air: while her wings were outstretched, they were not flapping or otherwise keeping her aloft. All at once, her mane and tail grew, and became shot through with colours. Bands of darker purple formed along her wingtips, and star shapes formed on the tips of her hooves with a twinkle of light. Raspberry light erupted from Twilight’s horn, and the skeletons in the grotto were sent flying. They collided into the skeletons outside the cave, who were themselves thrown back by the force of the spell. Cracks began to form in the magical blocks encasing the other Princesses and Sunset Shimmer. “H-how -?” Shadow Grave stammered. “All those years ago, you underestimated the magic of friendship and of Harmony,” Twilight said. “You chose a path of solitude: of cold, fear, and death. So it was that you were undone when Princess Celestia and Princess Luna wielded the Elements of Harmony against you. “You fooled yourself into thinking otherwise, but nothing’s changed since then. You crafted defences against Discord assuming he would seek you out on his own: but because he had friends, we were able to circumvent them, together. Any single pony trying to breach your lair might have been devoured, or gone mad. But we went in together, as friends, and that allowed us to overcome the obstacles set in our path.” Twilight produced the necklace. “As friends, working together, we found this.” “It can’t be!” said Shadow Grave angrily. She fired a beam of light at Twilight Sparkle, but it struck a shimmering shield of magic, and dissipated harmlessly. “I am the Princess of Friendship today because ponies chose to befriend me, and chose to remain friends with me, and chose to stick with me through it all – and I, in turn, chose the same for all of them. And it is the strength of our friendship that unleashes the magic of Harmony tonight: magic enough to do what no single pony’s spells could.” Twilight turned her horn to the necklace, and a ray of rainbow light shot from it. The necklace dissolved in its light. A cloud of inky blackness spread from the destroyed pendant, and flew towards Shadow Grave: her body absorbed the cloud as it touched her. The Tree’s branches pulsed with a rainbow of colour, and Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash began to hover, their bodies transforming under the effect of the Tree’s magic. Their eyes all flashed white, like Twilight’s, and a cone of rainbow magic burst from their formation. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” shrieked Shadow Grave as the magic fell upon her. The cave filled with a blinding light.