I streaked after the fleeing Harpy, my wings leaving a slight contrail in the wake of my passing. I could tell he was still feeling the effects of our attack, his flight erratic and he would drop in altitude on occasion. Despite his difficulty staying aloft, though, his destination was clear.
He was headed for Canterlot High.
I gave a fresh thrust to my wings, giving me a bit of an added boost and then tucked them in close, streamlining my shape to cut down on wind resistance. I knew from study and experience that magic played just a big a role in Pegasi flight as their wings did.
I saw Acerak slow, almost stop in the air, looking like he was turning to look behind him. I saw the look of surprise as I closed in quickly, horn lighting with magic fueled by rage and pain.
“You can't just give up, can you?” he hissed as he charged me as well. However, his attack was slower than the others, and I dodged it easily before sending another gout of flame into him.
“I don’t like to leave a job unfinished,” I said, pulling up a shield to block off his next attack. “If you don’t make it to the curb, did you really take the garbage out?”
He righted himself in the air and made a grasping motion, his talons curling in and I felt a tug in my mind.
I shoved my awareness out into him, filling him with every piece of pain I had ever felt. He started to scream, but he didn’t stop trying to rip my magic away again.
Don’t like it, do you? I thought. It isn’t quite the same when the agony is in your mind.
I severed the link when I felt his concentration falter and cast a spell that I had only heard of in passing, one that had once stymied an Alicorn bookworm. Acerak looked around as the transparent cube formed around him, hovering in mid-air. Our momentum had carried us over the football field of CHS, and I drifted over to the containment spell.
“I wonder if you’ll survive this,” I mused as I kicked the cube, causing it to start tumbling down towards the ground. I watched as he was thrown around inside, but as he neared the ground, the spell shattered and he managed to spread his wings and land safely.
I swooped down and tried to roast him again, but he easily batted the flame away.
“I can feel the portal, Seer,” he purred, his burns starting to heal over. “This close, I can draw on it all I want.”
The ruby in my hand started to pulse, and I recognized it as my own rapid heartbeat. I raised it to my choker and it melded with my element again, and I set my feet. The pain from the gash in my side seemed to fade.
“That just means I get to kick you around a bit more,” I said, gathering my magic, tip of my horn beginning to light.
I was flying as fast as I could as I followed the owl, who kept stopping from time to time to land on a branch and look around. I had already figured out what he was looking for.
Sunset’s blood. She had been hurt in the fight and was flying quickly without binding the wound. If she wasn’t careful she could pass out from the blood loss, and if that happened while she was airborne….
I took off quickly, the owl barely able to keep up. The general direction of the blood trail was heading towards the school.
And the portal.
Hold on, Sunny, I thought as a tear slipped free.
I panted as we stared at each other. I had blasted him with magic constantly and the only remaining sign of our fight was the scorched landscape.
The groundskeepers are going to hate me in the morning, I thought grimly. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, and my magic pulsed in time with it. I should have started feeling tired, but I felt like I could go on without stopping. My vision, however, was starting to blur.
“Seems you are tiring, Seer,” Acerak chuckled, brushing some ash from his shoulder. “Your aim is getting a bit spotty.”
I pushed more mana into my horn, but instead of firing, I sent it through the jewel, causing it to start singing out its resonance again, a memory sparking in my mind. This close to the portal, it fed off the emanating magic just as easily as Acerak did.
I started to sing a loud note, and I heard harmonizing as three ghostly figures began to form between myself and the Harpy. I kept my note going as they resolved into the same shapes the Siren’s had attacked us with at the Battle of the Bands. I continued pouring mana into the illusion spell until they were solid, singing the same angry attack that had defeated the Rainbooms while I had stood back in the wings.
Acerak put his hands to his head, trying to block the Song from his mind, to concentrate, but his physical form started to waver, his edges becoming blurred.
I charged him, using my magic to wrap the spectral being in ghostly chains. “You won’t get away that easy,” I said, gritting my teeth and trying to keep a grip on him.
Pain flooded through my mind. I saw the angry look on Acerak’s face before I realized what had happened. His taloned hand had become lodged in my abdomen, and I felt my concentration falter slightly.
“Why won’t you just die?” he snarled, twisting his claws.
“You…first,” I gasped, grabbing his shoulders tightly. I shoved him back toward the portal, the gateway powering up and suddenly forcing the Harpy to maintain his physical form. He ripped his talons from my stomach and scrabbled against the marble of the statue, trying to fight back. His human guise was failing, his avian nature showing through again. He tried to peck at me with his beak, but the portal was starting to pull him in. I shoved an arm up under his chin to keep his head back.
My glowing wings beat a steady pulse, giving me the leverage to hold the violently thrashing Harpy in place as I reached up and pulled the ruby Adagio had handed me free from my Element. It glowed and pulsed with power, it’s angry red glow even brighter this close to the Harpy that had drawn her blood. I had an idea now, a glimmer of how it worked, and reached out and tapped it against the stone of the statue, and it started to sing like a crystal, the note filled with overtones. The illusory Sirens faded and the gem began to grow louder.
Acerak saw it and panic filled his eyes.
I love you, Twilight, I thought, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes as I shoved power through my horn and into the gem, watching as it’s angry glow increased to blinding radiance. I shoved it into Acerak’s chest and smiled grimly as it passed through his body. He stiffened, eyes going wide. Then the gem and my hand reached through him, coming out his back and touched the portal…
And then it exploded, and white light filled my vision.
I love you, Twilight, the voice vibrated through the bond, stronger than it had ever been. Something in the voice made me push myself even faster, the spire of the school coming into my vision
I reached the school just in time to see Sunset shove her hand into Acerak. I was thrilled to see her win, but a violent explosion blinded me for a moment and the shock wave buffeted myself and my owl guide. After the flash faded, a cracked marble podium was all that was left of the Wondercolt statue and the portal. I landed before the portal, my wings folding behind me and I raced to it…
And rebounded off. It was closed, and when I regained my bearings I saw that there were cracks in what appeared to be plain glass. I saw the form I had taken, its dark beauty now balanced with the good as opposed to the evil. Tears were streaking down my face.
I reached out and touched the portal, my hands feeling only cold glass, not the warmth of the magic gateway.
“No,” I sobbed. “Sunny, no,” I collapsed before the place we had met, the Midnight Sparkle form fading, leaving just my ponied up form.
Leaving just a broken me, mourning the loss of half of myself.
The grief continued to build, and I screamed out in rage and pain.
“NO!”
Glass shattered all around me, the windows of the school falling in crystal tears all around.
White light and swirling mist surrounded me. I felt no pain from my midsection. Where am I? Is this the afterlife?
“Not quite,” a voice said.
I turned and realized suddenly that I was in my Alicorn form. Before me in the mist-strewn landscape was a wizened old unicorn, a long beard trailing from his chin.
“Star Swirl?” I asked in shock.
“Yes,” he said sheepishly. “And I’m afraid I have to apologize to you, Seer.”
“Please,” I said, raising a hoof. “Don’t call me that.”
“Alright,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “What is your name, by the way?”
“Sunset,” I said. “And if you don’t mind my asking, where exactly are we?”
He smiled and lit his horn, the mist slowly clearing away to reveal a towering pair of doors, seemingly hewn from granite, their rough forms covered with Equestrian script and the same runes that had covered the book.
“I give you the Grey Gates,” he said. His horn stayed lit, and he brought the gem out before my eyes. “I must admit, I never thought about the whole using this like a magic grenade, but hey, when in Roam.”
“I kinda did that on the fly,” I admitted. Then memory flooded me. “Where’s Acerak?”
“All around us,” the wizard said. “Inside the portal, he has no physical form, his essence bound into the matrix of the planes.”
“Then how did he get out?”
“I suspect that he somehow hooked onto you when you passed through in the recent past,” he said, eyeing me critically. “Have you been through the portal while in the grip of physical or psychic pain? Perhaps when possessing someone? OH! Or when being possessed?”
I blinked. “Last fall,” I said. “My mother had passed, and I returned to Equestria for the memorial.”
“Oh dear,” he said. “Returned? Oh, that’s not good at all.”
“Why?” I said as he started to pace. “Why isn’t that good?”
“Well, magic tries to keep a balance, you see,” he said, his pacing slowing. “If you were on the other side of the portal than your origin, a small thread would keep the portal open and it would allow a slight magic seepage.”
“We kind of gathered that much for ourselves,” I said.
“Oh?” he said, honestly looking surprised to see me there still. “Oh, yes, right. Right!” he said. “Then the only thing left to do is to seal the Gate and return you home.”
“How do I do that?” I asked.
Star Swirl gestured at the monolithic gates. “Shut them, and put the gem in the center. That should take care of things.”
I powered up my horn, and the gates slowly swung shut. They were heavy, ponderous, and when they finally slammed shut, the feeling reverberated through my being. I stepped up and took the gem, covered still in my and Adagio’s drying blood, and pressed it into the socket. I loud click sounded, and a glowing red line spread out, fusing the two sides of the Gate closed.
Then the entire area started to shake and I heard a voice screaming, a voice I recognized.
“Twilight,” I whispered.
The scream grew in pitch, and Star Swirl looked confused.
“The Royal Voice,” He breathed. “But from the other side of the portal? That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Twilight tends not to sometimes,” I said offhandedly as I fought to hold my footing. Then I saw cracks start to form in the Gate. “What?”
The Gate shattered and began to crumble to the ground. I looked at the wizard with concern.
His face held no worry. “It’s just the edifice,” he said calmly as the scream died away. “The seal is still in place.” he pointed with his horn, and I saw that the gem was still hovering in place, spectral doors to either side of it.
“And now, my little pony,” he said. “It's time for you to go home and me to finally get some rest. Give my regards to my pupils. Oh, and one last thing.”
“Yes?”
“Did anyone ever figure out if penguins liked living on icebergs?”
White light filled my vision again before I could answer. I found myself stretched out on a cold surface, and a voice filled my ears.
“Sunset?”
“Twilight,” I said, pushing myself up before freezing.
I still had hooves, and as my eyes focused, I realized I was standing on a crystal floor. A scroll rolled away from me as I stood.
I looked around, seeing the Princess and Starlight standing there, the pieces of the apparatus strewn about. I whirled to the mirror and reached out to it.
And it was sealed.
“The book,” I said, whirling around. “Where’s the book?”
Twilight levitated it over to me, a frown on her face.
“Just what is going on?”
I ignored her while I scribbled out a message in the book hurriedly. “I’ll tell you in a moment, but first,” I followed the quill as it danced over the page. “I have to let someone know it’s ok.”
I entered the apartment slowly, not even bothering to turn on the lights. I could hear Spike snoring in the bedroom, but tears covered my vision. I saw my glasses sitting on the table, but I didn’t want to see the empty apartment. I collapsed on the couch, tears still streaking down my face. I had long since sobbed my voice out, but that didn’t stop my tear ducts from doing their job. The fact that the pillow I grabbed as I sat still smelled of Sunset didn’t help.
That’s when I realized a soft glow and a thumping sound was coming from the bookcase.
And the spine of the book glowing held a two-toned sunburst.