The darkness pressed in, pushing back Celestia’s light, limiting it to a flickering pool just three yards across. She worked her way gingerly across the rubble-and-ichor-strewn floor, trembling in the extreme cold, her eyes wide and searching.
“L-Luna? Twilight?”
She pushed on another few yards, ears flat, the hair along her spine raised, mane dim and limp.
“Re-Reaper?”
She picked her way around an oozing, blood-splattered chunk of the Sentinel, and saw a hazy, dark form splayed out in the dust.
“Reaper? Is that you?”
The shape stirred and sat up: “Probably. I seriously doubt anypony else would want the job. I don’t even want it anymore...”
Celestia took another step, bit her lip and forced her horn to brighten: “I’m having a hard time seeing anything, and I can’t seem to generate any more light than this!”
Reaper phased-in completely and rubbed the back of a hoof down his muzzle: “No surprise--this whole place is awash with the afterglow of dark magic and Death’s energy, and whatever in the Cosmos’ name that thing was throwing off!”
Celestia’s brow furrowed: “I’m not in any danger, am I?”
Reaper stood and straightened his cloak: “Not much, though you shouldn’t hang around any longer than you have to, just to be safe.”
“I just want to find everypony and get them out of here!”
Reaper nodded: “Well, I think Luna and Zecora got pushed back into the mirror alcove. Follow me.”
He walked across the cracked floor, horn glowing faintly as Celestia followed close behind. They stopped and looked down at two figures, one cradled back-to front against the other.
Celestia’s eyes shimmered with tears: “Are-are they alright? Zecora’s bleeding from everywhere!”
Reaper closed his eyes: “She’s alive, though you’re going to want to get her medical attention pretty quickly.”
“Of course!”
Celestia stepped closer and leaned down toward Luna, who was faintly shimmering: “How about--”
“Don’t touch her. Let me check first.”
Reaper leaned down and touched his horn to Luna’s shoulder. She appeared to ripple for a moment as a thin mist rose from her hide.
Reaper stood back up and nodded: “Yeah, her shield must have collapsed when everything exploded, and it ended up bonding to her. She’ll be fine in a minute or two, but she’s going to be pretty drained for a bit--she was pushing her dark magic to its limits.”
Celestia looked back over her shoulder: “Speaking of…”
Reaper turned to join her and took a step into the gloom: “Twilight. Right. I don’t sense her. We’re going to have to dig a bit, I suspect.”
Celestia furrowed her brow: “Wait--you don’t sense her? Does that mean she’s--”
“Dead? No, I’d know that. She may have been absorbed at the very end and spit back out in this miasma.”
Celestia gasped: “How horrible!”
Reaper approached the mutilated remains of the bulk of the Sentinel. It was still giving off faint, dark vapors, still twitching, smeared with ichor and blood, glittering horn fragments, and pale purple feathers.
“It’s weird--I can’t sense my sword either.”
“Could it have been destroyed?”
“Literally impossible.”
“Lost back into the Void?”
Reaper chewed his lip for a moment: “That’s not impossible, nor encouraging, since her damn wards are still up.”
Celestia’s eyebrows jumped: “Which means she’s still alive!”
Reaper paused and rolled his eyes: “How stupid of me! If her wards are up, of course she’s still alive, at least in some form, anyway.”
They froze as a weak, breathless gasp escaped from beneath the wreckage: “Alive…”
Celestia’s eyes went wide: “Oh, thank the moon and sun! Let me lift this off you!”
She reached out with a beam of golden magic--and immediately fell back a step, blinking and coughing.
Reaper grinned: “Yeah, you really shouldn’t touch this shit. Let me see what I can do…”
His horn glowed and the twisted, dark-gray bulk began to move, lifting and sliding slightly. Reaper bit his lip and groaned as the Sentinel’s body started to settle back toward the floor.
Suddenly a beam of bright-blue magic cut through the gloom, and moved the dripping carcass off to one side.
Reaper turned and nodded to Luna: “Thanks! I did gain some skill while in a true unicorn‘s body, but clearly not enough!”
Luna smiled weakly as she brightened her horn and looked down at Twilight’s battered, bleeding body: “She is in very poor shape.”
Celestia stepped up beside her sister, shaking her head, surveying the damage: “Oh, no! Twilight! Can you hear me? We’re going to get you to the Royal Surgeon as soon as possible. Hopefully we can reverse some of this damage, but…”
Twilight raised her head and opened her battered right eye: “Ze-Zecora?”
Luna tipped her head back toward the alcove: “She is alive, and will also need tending to.”
“Good. P-please shield her and step ba-back.”
Celestia furrowed her brow: “What?”
The inky, light-absorbing haze filling the chamber began to swirl and condense as thin tendrils snaked out from Twilight’s bleeding hip and eye socket and severed foreleg.
A new sacrifice circle formed above the Void as a nimbus pooled around its base and beneath Twilight. It lifted her slowly from the floor.
Celestia’s nostrils flared, and she shied backwards two steps: “Wh-what are you doing?”
“I-I can fix this…”
Reaper glanced up at the sacrifice circle, then down at the thin, black ribbons forming a web over the Sentinel, then back at Twilight: “Don’t do this…”
Twilight rose unsteadily on her hind legs, propped up by several tendrils. The containment device’s cover glowed violet and drifted through the now-clear air, settling atop the Void with a soft hiss.
Luna squinted at the glyphs inside the sacrifice circle: “These-these are different…”
Reaper stepped closer and peered at the ground where Twilight had been: “Where is my sword?”
The tendrils connecting Twilight to the Void to the Sentinel began to thicken and pulse. She smiled weakly as Death’s Token glided over to her at the end of a black ribbon: “S-sorry. I guess I n-need it one more time.”
Celestia’s horn went dark as fear filled her eyes: “I don’t--I don’t understand…”
Twilight nodded as the nimbuses beneath her and the Void swelled and merged: “It’s g-going to be okay. I-I can fix this.”
Reaper slowly backed away, his eyes darting from Zecora to Luna to Celestia. He turned slightly toward Luna: “Do you have enough power to teleport out of here? To take Zecora out of here?”
Luna took a deep, shuddering breath: “I fear not. But perhaps--”
Twilight’s eye went blank as glistening, oily threads began to shoot along the tendrils, converging on her leg and hip and face. A wave of power pulsed through the chamber.
Reaper put up a hoof and walked back, pushing Luna slightly: “Too late! Just shield Zecora and make for the entrance. Celestia! Get out of here!”
He stepped in between Twilight and the retreating ponies, generating a blue shield, eyes narrowing as the Void vanished entirely inside the nimbus. Celestia and Luna worked the broken door free and pulled Zecora inside the room beyond.
They turned back and watched as swirls of black and violet and gold formed around Twilight. Large pieces of the Sentinel began to rise off the floor, swathed in a golden glow.
Reaper shook his head and fell back another yard. His voice fell to a whisper: “Don’t do this…”
Twilight looked down from the nimbus and smiled: “It’s going to be fine.”
She gritted her teeth and pointed Reaper’s sword at the sacrifice circle. A series of runes glittered across her hide as more chunks of the Sentinel levitated, and the sacrifice circle settled over the Void, melting into it.
Twilight threw her head back and cried out power words as the Void coursed with energy, and the fragments of the Sentinel began to melt like snow in a furnace, emitting squealing, squelching noises.
Gold and violet light streamed from Twilight as she shuddered in agony and euphoria: “I-I understand! It’s-it’s…”
Her eye reformed as her wounded hip knit closed, and her severed leg materialized at the end of its bloody stump. The Void swelled again, its nimbus rising and billowing like a thunderhead.
Luna and Celestia watched with tears in their eyes as Twilight’s body was wreathed in black-and-crimson flames, healing her hide, rebuilding her wing, and reconstructing her horn, which glowed with a brilliant violet light. Her nostrils flared as the air was rent by a high, thin screech; the core of the Sentinel split like rotting fruit.
Twilight began to pant and spasm, dropping to all fours, drifting drunkenly to the floor, tail whipping, wings rising and stretching, tongue hanging out. A final wave of energy surged through the chamber, dissolving the last traces of the Sentinel as Twilight gasped ecstatically.
She staggered a few steps, rear legs splayed and wobbling, and emptied her bladder with a long, deep, luxurious moan. She shuddered, collapsed on the floor and rolled lazily to her side, eyes half-lidded, tongue lolling.
The black tendrils slowly withdrew into the Void, taking Reaper’s sword along with it. He watched it vanish from under a furrowed brow: “Are you done?”
Twilight took a long, ragged breath and rose unsteadily to her hooves: “Y-yes. That actually took almost as much effort as killing that thing had!”
“I’m sure.”
Reaper took a step back and turned to face the alicorns who were now staring aghast at the scene from beyond the chamber’s crumbling wall.
He gestured to Celestia and Luna: “Come on in, Princesses. I think it’s safe, now.”
Celestia shook her head stiffly, wings flared defensively, eyes frozen wide. Her stomach suddenly lurched, and she retched into her mouth. She turned hastily, tucked her wings and stumbled from the room, vomit now staining her snow-white breast.
Luna slowly entered the chamber, cautiously approaching Reaper from his left side. She stopped and gazed at Twilight with tears in her eyes: “Why, Twilight? Why would you do this? Do you know what you have done?"
Twilight furrowed her brow in confusion: “Done what? I fixed it. The Void is tamed, the creature is destroyed, Zecora is back. I don’t see the problem.”
Reaper glared balefully at the Void: “Can I please have my sword back, now?”
“Hmm? Ah…”
Twilight glanced casually over her shoulder and a tendril shot out of the nimbus bearing Death’s Token. It sat it on the floor before Reaper.
“Thank you.”
Twilight nodded and the tendril withdrew.
Luna shivered violently, eyes wide and shimmering: “I-I cannot remain here!”
She fled back through the sagging entryway, pausing only long enough to retrieve Zecora’s limp form off the floor before dashing from Grey Thorn’s lair, blinded by tears.
Twilight chewed her lip for a moment, then looked down at the wet spot on the floor, blushing: “He was right about the towel…”
She glanced at Reaper who was standing still, staring at the Void. She shook her head: “You don’t understand. None of you do. I’ll explain it to Celestia later when she’s had a chance to calm down a bit.”
“I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”
Twilight looked around the chamber absentmindedly: “Hmm. I guess I didn’t imagine the table being destroyed. Good to see the mirror made it through okay…”
“Planning on a trip, Princess?”
Twilight smiled: “Oh, I don’t need that anymore. It’ll just be nice to study it later, when I have some free time.”
“Free time?”
“Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I have to leave for a bit. I assume you’re going to go check on Zecora?”
Reaper nodded.
“Okay, well let Celestia know I’ll be by later. Everything will make sense then.”
Twilight took a step back toward the Void as the nimbus reached around her like a cloak. She and the Void disappeared in a violet flash.
Reaper sat down on the floor next to his sword, and stared coldly for several minutes at the spot where the Sentinel had died.