As far as I could tell, we were as good as dead. Not right now, but in a matter of hours, sure as sunshine. As long as there is any, cause there might not be any sunshine anymore. Not that I was about to say it, mind, but that would be the honest thing to say. Which was why I was keeping my mouth shut.
“What the HADES happened, Twilight?” Rainbow yelled, knocking a diving changeling out of the way. The poor thing twirled around and landed into the crystal pavement. The glowing green shield that was meant to protect him on contact ended up covering the wrong end. It was rather nasty to look at.
The other one was aiming at me. I dodged out of the way, and he landed shield first, leaving a running crack in the crystal. He was back on his hooves in an instant, snarling right into my face.
One solid buck took care of that, sending him careening into the wall of a nearby house.
Twilight didn’t answer.
“Mind your language, Rainbow Dash!” Rarity admonished, punching the two changelings that landed next to her right into the glowing blue eyes, a single graceful motion. Their shrieking made it clear they won’t be a problem for a while.
“Who cares about language? This is worse than Nightmare Moon!” Rainbow countered, swooping down and knocking another changeling away.
“Precisely!” Rarity exclaimed. “A lady doesn’t want her friends to remember her swearing like a soldier in her final moments!”
“This is not my final moment! I’m going to be a Wonderbolt!” Rainbow declared, knocking yet another changeling out. “And Wonderbolts are soldiers! So I will swear a–”
She was about to say something else, but the blast of Pinkie’s cannon drowned it out, whatever it was, blowing a group of changelings away with a cloud of confetti.
I don’t see this sort of smile on Pinkie’s face often. I prefer not to think of the other times when I did. And confetti isn’t supposed to work like that. Maybe. Where’s Fluttershy? I know she’s okay, with this Element on my neck I can feel her heart beating, but I can’t see her. Right, she’s right behind me. Did she just scare off seven changelings that were about to jump me?…
After the Elements didn’t work, and when that giant dragon suddenly appeared out of nowhere and joined the battle, we retreated towards the castle. Or tried to. The swarm descending on us made it mighty difficult. We had to fight our way through, and I still wasn’t sure what the plan is now, or if there even is one, but it rightly resembled a panicked escape.
Let’s not mince words, it was. Nothing of the sort happened before.
Suddenly, everything stopped. It took me a second to notice we were now standing under a milky white shield bubble. Scanning around, I noticed Moondancer’s blazing horn and Mary standing next to her – damned ghostly dresses, but I guess they kept them safe, so I shouldn’t complain. All around us, changelings were bouncing against the newly erected shield like moths against a window.
That was when a squad of Royal Guard finally got to us, and the battle was joined in earnest, but for a time, we were safe. As safe as could be expected, at least.
“Where’s Spike?” was Twilight’s first question to Moondancer. “I left him with you two, where is Spike?!”
Moondancer gritted her teeth, straining to keep the magic running, so the answer came from Mary. “You can see him just fine from here,” she pointed at the horizon.
I knew that purple was familiar. Well, what do you know.
“What is he doing?!” Twilight blurted out, her eyes widening in realization. “…How is he doing it?! Who’s that standing on his head?! Where is the mass–”
“Later,” Mary cut her off. “Your brothers are buying you time. Everypony else is helping. Use the time well.”
“You still didn’t answer,” Rainbow insisted. “What the hay happened?”
“It’s a lesson,” Twilight replied in a shocked tone as she sunk to sit on the crystal street. “It’s another damned lesson. It’s got to be!”
When she’s started talking like that, it’s time for me to step in. “Now what did I tell you about treating everything as homework?”
Twilight ignored me. “Could she have planned this?…” she babbled on, “I can’t be sure, right? Maybe she didn’t? She can’t plan everything, that would be just impossible!”
I grabbed her shoulder and shook it a bit. “You’re not making sense, Twilight. Start by saying all the obvious things. They aren’t so obvious to us.”
That, at least, got her to look at me. “Princess Celestia,” she finally said after taking a deep breath. “I’m wondering if she can plan so far ahead, endanger so many ponies, just to arrange a teachable moment.”
“Not unless she’s into quantum suicide,” Mary tossed at Twilight over her shoulder, looking at the clash of the titans above.
“She can’t be, can she?” Twilight pleaded. “Or maybe she can. Or maybe she can’t. What am I thinking?!…” My hoof tingled, as every hair in her mane, still tangled after bed, started curling up simultaneously.
“Twilight,” came a soft voice from next to me. Fluttershy.
“What?”
“Twilight, why do you think Princess Celestia had anything to do with it?” Fluttershy asked.
I threw a glance at Moondancer, who was obviously not used to having her shields being employed as an anvil for smashing changelings. Which was what the Royal Guards outside were doing. Is that really the right time to ask that?…
No, wait. It is. If we’re going to get out of this mess, Twilight needs to be sane. Talking is how you get a pony sane, and Fluttershy is better at it than me. When she isn’t fretting about and hiding behind things, but we all have our faults.
“Because…” Twilight took a deep breath. “Because she does this. I was just a little filly, but eventually, I noticed. She is always so busy, she never had as much time for me as she wanted. So she would give me tasks. And it’s always like she knows in advance, how I will try to solve the problem, what I will do, what stumbles me, how I will fail. It’s like the one pony I’m always sure to confront is myself. I don’t know how she does this, but… She means well, I know she does, but… This…” Twilight looked up and stared at Fluttershy. “This was how I met you, girls. You can’t say that was a bad thing, can you?”
“Did you try to talk to her about it?” Fluttershy pressed on.
Twilight almost visibly shriveled. It took me a moment to realize it’s just the hairs that were standing on ends settling down. “I did. Sort of. You were there.”
I sighed. Oh boy. That scene at the wedding had to be the first time Twilight ever insisted her Princess was wrong. She did, and the Princess still turned it around and made it look like that was what she wanted all along. And then we stumble into this mess, and I’m sure Twilight blames herself. Not a mental image I wanted to have. Not a mental image Twilight deserves, either. If we ever get out alive, my next letter to Princess Celestia is sure to contain a few nasty words.
“I could never imagine a genius being so stupid,” Fluttershy said, barely above a whisper, and yet the ice in these words was enough to make me shiver.
Twilight folded her ears. She clearly didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect that. I heard that while I was out delivering pies and chasing Apple Bloom around, Fluttershy went to some kind of assertiveness seminar, run by a passing minotaur, of all people, and scared Pinkie and Rarity out of their coats. Apologies were involved. I kind of knew she can be downright terrifying, but this… It feels like I’m a little filly caught with my hoof in the cookie jar, and I’m not even the one Flutters is looking at!
“Who do you think Celestia is, that she would do such a thing? What kind of monster have you imagined?! Who do you think you are, Twilight?” Fluttershy pressed on. “Who are you, that ponies die, that empires fall, that monsters rampage and destroy, all just to teach you a lesson?!”
There was no reply. Just tears welling up in the corners of Twilight’s eyes.
“Princess Celestia is not here,” Fluttershy added.
Twilight jerked an ear.
“You had it right, at the wedding. She has been here, a thousand years ago. Right now, you are. Moondancer is here. Lyra is here, somewhere. The ponies that Princess Celestia knew nothing about. We are here. And I don’t think she knows all that much about us, either. Stop imagining her shadow behind every corner!”
This green glow of that dress of hers is hurting my eyes.
“She doesn’t know all that much about you, full stop!” Pinkie grinned, suddenly peeking out from behind Twilight. Trust Pinkie to break the tension, I’m pretty sure Twilight was about to break down and cry. “She just does this because you surprise her so much. When you’re older than Equestria, being surprised is hard! So wake up and surprise her! You can do it! Group hug!”
She wrapped around Twilight like only Pinkie can, and with that, even the scary Fluttershy was suddenly gone, and the nice, sweet one was back in her place, in the pile of smiling ponies, hidden somewhere between Rarity and Rainbow.
But before joining them, I threw a glance at Moondancer. “C’mon.”
“Don’t mind me, I’m not into hugs,” Moondancer grunted. That didn’t help her, because Pinkie grabbed at her and pulled her into the pile anyway.
The shield wobbled. “Damn it, Pinkie Pie!” Moondancer hissed, but shut up immediately once Twilight wrapped a foreleg around her. The human chose to politely turn away.
“Thanks, girls. I needed that,” Twilight breathed out.
We don’t really have the time to keep this tender moment going on longer than absolutely necessary. Let’s get back on track here. “So tell me, Twilight,” I said, once I felt the pause dragged on for long enough. “You did learn something, set up or no. What was it?”
“What did I learn?…” Twilight mumbled, crawling out of the pile. “It’s… It’s simple, really. I know what happened. I know what happened, and it’s all my fault.”
Everypony dispersed and were now standing huddled around Twilight. Rainbow, ever disdainful of the ground, hovered right above my head, listening attentively for once.
“We’ve been treating the Elements of Harmony as a weapon,” Twilight said. “Point and shoot, fix everything. We always thought they are, on some level. They aren’t. Moondancer is right, they’re a miracle engine. Together. Each fills a specific function, has power in its own right, but together, they break the laws of magic in the name of harmony. They directly transmute the power of friendship into energy. Into magic. As much magic as you need to restore harmony.”
“So why didn’t they work?!” Rainbow exclaimed. Sheesh, right into my ear.
“They did,” Twilight insisted. “That’s the problem! The default form is a dark magic neutralizer. That’s what they do if you don’t tell them what to do, they purify everything!”
“What about Discord?” Mary wondered. “That bit has always been weird.”
“With Discord, I knew it wouldn’t work on him,” Twilight explained. “I asked for a chaos magic neutralizer, and that’s what they did. I’m pretty sure that’s how they turned him to stone the first time, too. I don’t know what Discord really is, but no matter how twisted, he has never been a corrupted being.”
Moondancer gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. Rarity facehoofed. Mary sighed. Sounds like even the human got it. “I feel like I’m the only one who still didn’t understand,” I commented.
“You and me both,” Rainbow agreed.
“It’s technical,” Twilight said. “To put it short, there’s no counterspell for dark magic, it’s mathematically impossible. You can’t just cancel parts out and let the oscillation destabilize.”
“So you have to apply brute force!” Pinkie piped up. “My least favorite kind of force. It’s big, it’s mean, and nopony likes when it comes to party, it’s actually kind of sad.”
“Yes,” Twilight nodded, not even bothering to wonder why Pinkie understood her better than I did. “You need a broad-spectrum anti-phase wave of equivalent amplitude. And this was what the Elements gave us. But that’s magic, too, and Tirek isn’t a corrupted being, either. We tried to douse the fire with a cartload of black powder. It was my call, I did it. And I doomed everything.”
I kind of expected that would be it. I expected it and didn’t want to believe it.
“So how did their Highnesses deal with him originally?” Mary inquired. “Tirek has been beaten before, hasn’t he.”
“Not sure.” Twilight folded her ears and stared at her reflection in the crystal street. “I don’t understand how his ability works exactly, but it’s not really universal, not entirely. He has to adjust for what he wants to consume, he resonates. And the bigger he gets, the wider his range is, the more kinds of magic he can eat. We might have simply been too late. Right now, I don’t think any magic the Elements can throw at him will work, he will just absorb it.”
“So that’s it, then?” Rainbow asked. “Really? We’re gonna give up, just like that?”
“No,” Twilight shook her head, looking towards where the two giants were still wrestling and crushing the crystal beneath. “I have an idea. I’m sure I can freeze him for at least a few hours. Maybe days. He still can’t absorb dark magic.”
“That sounds even worse,” I said. “Weren’t you afraid of going Nightmare Twilight on us?”
“I was…” she sighed. “Well, yes, I am. Dark magic is ultimately a method of using free energy in a spell. Most of that is fast thaums from the Moon… Anyway, that’s not important. The important part is that doing it that way screws with your brain. It’s stupidly easy, it’s very efficient, but it directly disables your moral restraint and makes you think any ends justify all means. With dark magic, I can hurt Tirek myself. But if I try to push that much power through, I’m definitely getting affected.”
“And you want us to use the Elements on you after you do that, right?” I guessed. “Not gonna work, we can’t do that without you.”
“Not after,” she shook her head. “While I’m doing that. We’re just going to ask the Elements to stabilize me while I’m casting the spell. But there’s still a problem with that.”
“Eggheads and their egghead problems,” Rainbow grumbled.
“Well, it might not work, and then we’re going to have a Nightmare Rainbow. Plus Nightmare Pinkie, Nightmare Applejack, Nightmare Rarity and Nightmare Fluttershy. This connection,” Twilight said, wiggling her ears to adjust the crown on her head. “It works both ways.”
“I always wanted to try designing a dark sorceress costume,” Rarity tapped a hoof thoughtfully. “That’s just about the only excuse you get for a cape this season, and I’m sure I can totally pull off the cape look.”
“Yeah, Nightmare Rainbow sounds kinda awesome,” Rainbow agreed, pretending that the crystal street somewhere under Twilight’s hooves suddenly got a lot more interesting. “I’m down with that.”
“You never know until you try!” Pinkie grinned nervously. “I need to brush up on dark humor!”
“I think I’m about as Nightmare as I get already,” Fluttershy mumbled, folding her ears.
“Girls, you don’t know what you’re saying!” Twilight exclaimed. “Dark magic corruption is not some pretentious strain of equine flu, it’s a big deal!”
“We kinda know it’s a big deal,” I replied. “We’re just pretending it isn’t, because we don’t want you to worry about us, too.”
“Applejack!” Rarity frowned at me.
“Well, pardon me for being honest, we haven’t got all night!” I tossed back at her. “Do your thing, Twilight.”
Moondancer shook her head, and stared into the crystal pavement, the reflection of her blazing horn lighting us all up.
Twilight glanced at her questioningly. “Moondancer? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have an Element,” Moondancer replied, without looking up. “I don’t even have a dark magic clearance. I’m useless, aren’t I? I don’t have that… p-power of friendship, whatever it is.”
“You might not have an Element,” Twilight said, “but you’re still my friend. The only friend I can trust to disrupt the spell if anything goes wrong. If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t even have the courage to try. That’s power of friendship, too. Will you help?”
Moondancer took a deep breath. “Yes,” she replied, finally looking up with the weakest of smiles on her face.
Twilight looked around, and I did the same. Most of the changelings in the immediate vicinity were out of action, and even some of the Royal Guard, instead of frantically trying to keep them away, were standing at attention, anxiously looking at the skies. “Girls… Take your places,” Twilight said calmly. “Mary, can I count on you covering us?”
Instead of answering, Mary switched something on her death machine, and I heard a high pitched whine.
“Drop the shield.”
The shield dissolved, and that was the moment I heard that horrible sound again.
“O-o-o-o-o-o-ho-ho-ho-ho!”
Right above our heads, the ghostly shape of a huge bird full of stars was flapping its wings.