Tirek had tilted over the edge, flailing. The next instant, he vanished. And it hadn't been over the side.
I heard a thump.
I looked up. Lord Tirek had landed three stories up on one of the palace walkways, completely dry. He glared down at the bridge from whence I'd been washed away. Oat-Boy, Lieutenant Sparks, and Sergeant Running Wolf had gathered below him, and Captain Riverdale was braking to land beside them.
I yelled, but it was too late. Lord Tirek inhaled their magic, and, before they could start to flee, he'd sapped their strength. One by one, they slumped where they stood.
Discord stood at Lord Tirek's side, but he twiddled his thumbs looking at the still dark cloudless sky as if Lord Tirek's magical culinary pursuits were a waste of his time. He waited for him to finish, never glancing down at us. The wyrm pointed and marched the centaur away toward the castle keep.
Failed.
I'd failed.
I rubbed my closed eyes.
I'd— No, I hadn't failed. I'd saved thousands of ponies—assuming the ones I sent running followed instructions and fled Canterlot like I had told them—and the pegasus cavalry. That was significant.
Though not really if Canterlot, then Equestria, fell.
I limped to my four companions who lay there groaning. My anger carried me that far. I'd led them in to this, this ruin. Suddenly, viscerally, it hurt. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Why?" asked Riverdale. "Your plan worked!" He strained and levered himself up, then helped up his fellows. "Our dumb luck somepony saved him."
I sighed and shook my head. Pony behavior! Tears started and kept rolling. On impulse, I hugged Riverdale, sopping as I was, and probably bleeding all over him. He let me cry myself out.
I pushed my wet mane out of my face. We stood looking at each other, once again blank flanks all. Nopony knew what to say. In the scuffle, Oat-Boy had lost his sunglasses. His eyes were an eerie, though nonetheless wonderful, pale pale crystal blue.
Suddenly the sun rose. Or rather, it jumped into the sky, but not all the way. We looked and I saw it wriggle the rest of the way up until it looked like 9 a.m.
I said, "Well, Princess Celestia is still alive."
Captain Riverdale stiffened. He said nothing.
To Oat-Boy, I said, "And you, young stallion. It's time we get you back to your stepmum. Let's hope she doesn't flay my hide from my bones."
"She won't."
As my eyes adjusted to the morning light, I saw his sunglasses and popped them on his face. We left the royal guard behind and retraced our steps to Alicorn Way. The sooner we fled Canterlot the better.
I might be fooling myself, but, after Tirek won, I expected to be high on his enemies list.
Once again I guided and leaned on the stallion as we made our way. As we approached the rubble of the smashed main gate, a startling thing occurred. The air shimmered ahead of us and Discord appeared. He stood there, rubbing his claws together in obvious anticipation.
The hair along my spine rose. Not goosebumps. Hackles.
To my charge, I hissed, "I'm sorry. Go to your right until you find a wall and hunker down."
"What?"
"Shhh! It's Discord."
For long moments, the wyrm stood lost in his own imagination as I listened to Oat-boy's horseshoes on the cobbles, then him sliding down against a wall. I'd been there when Discord had transformed Ponyville into a chaotic jumble of deformed and inverted buildings and warped ponies. I suspected that was his plan for Canterlot.
When I had last seen him, Princess Twilight and her friends had encased him in a prison of stone. I had found that prison laying on its side in the middle of a park in Ponyville. Not only had I found a statue that was him, I had found it to be fragile. I'd jumped on it, flexing its neck to the cracking point.
But I hadn't done the necessary thing. No, I'd told him that Princess Celestia had imprisoned him because she had plans for him.
I had bounced on his neck. I'd evilly said, "Crack!" into his ear.
I had warned him that when Princess Celestia paroled him, he had better behave.
I had told him what to do if he were ever to see me again.
I stalked toward him, the best I could. My heart beat in my throat. I had no choice but to lift my rear leg to my stomach to maintain my composure, which lent a clack cla'clop... clack cla'clop... cadence to my steps. My mane was soaked, but at least it stayed out of my eyes when I pushed my fringe aside. Blood dripped in red rivulets all over my body. Bruises peppered my hide, which was slashed on every surface. I looked more than badly beaten up. I looked almost cadaverous. I hoped that meant I looked scary.
Zombie-scary.
Once again, I faced death. Really, what could I do against him? One snap of a claw or his facile tail and I would cease to exist.
Regardless, I stepped forward, one hard measured step at a time.
He was so lost in his plans that I got within five pony-lengths where I waited. And waited. Frustrated, I said, "Hey, Discord? Remember me?"
He turned his head, mouth open, then looked down into my eyes. His were red in a field of yellow.
"I'm Flopsy Mopsy."
He blinked.
"Crack!" I reminded him and took a step.
He stepped back a step.
"I warned you what to do if you ever saw me again." I took another step and said sharply, "Crack!"
He stepped back a second time.
"I am retribution." I took another step.
His mouth made like a fish. I felt certain the next instant he would fall over laughing and I'd be teleported to my doom, but I took another step.
And another.
And then another until I was immediately in front of him. I had to look straight up to capture his red-eyed gaze with mine.
I reached up a hoof. I did not blink. I tapped his scaly hide. It made a muffled click as I opened my mouth to say... what I had told him to do... the next time he saw me. My voice sounded like the breathy exhalation of a haunted dark cave as I whispered:
"Run!"
I heard a definite "Eep!" He said, "Maybe Tirek needs my help." He snapped his chicken claw.
And vanished.
I guess it wasn't my cutie mark talent, but Bloody Tartarus, it had worked nonetheless! The adrenaline rush snapped and I collapsed over onto my side, giggling then laughing, despite the pain, laughing until I couldn't breathe.
Oat-Boy appeared at my side. The velvety frogs of his hooves felt along my neck to my face. "Are you okay?"
"More than okay, mate. I feel brilliant. I hurt like the dickens, too, but I'll take my victories where I can get them. Discord is gone. I frightened the horse apples out of him."
"Really? Thank Celestia."
I rolled upward so I was laying with my legs to the left side. That's still uncomfortable if you're on cobblestones, as I was. That afforded me a clear view of my flank.
My cutie mark was back. Significantly faded, but clearly visible, too. That meant that everything I'd deduced was rubbish. Under my breath, I hissed, "Shag me."
#
Discord didn't reappear in Canterlot. No great battle against the princesses ensued. Not that I saw or heard, anyway. At least I knew that Princess Twilight Sparkle had made it out of Canterlot.
All-knowing Twilight Sparkle. I hoped somepony had a plan.
I realized I didn't have the energy to make it back to Donut Joe's and Oat-Boy admonished me not to try. The dear boy was clearly worried, especially after I related precisely what I had done with Discord... both in Ponyville and just now.
We made it to Palisades Park and I limped to the redwood fence that guarded the precipice. I wanted to see the pool below the falls. I wanted to imagine it ran red with centaur blood. I wanted to know how I would have reacted.
I wanted to know how corrupted I'd become from exposure to Nightmare Moon's darkness. Or if I were still a pony.
I couldn't imagine it, sadly. I could hear the cascades crashing on the rocks, but the turbulent foam below the falls just looked white and peaceful as it spread out and faded into the lake that glinted in the morning sunlight. I didn't know if that was good or bad.
I had been sitting, gazing into nowhere for some time when a sonic boom assaulted my ears. I spotted a purple contrail circle Ponyville a hundred pony-lengths above the ground. "Something's happening."
I got up, searched, and found one of the tourist telescopes. Unlike in Manehatten, the telescopes here were free. I looked, but saw nothing. I knew very few pegasi had the speed to cause a magical contrail. I'd seen a few Wonderbolts in a show that could do that. Rainbow Dash was another.
Purple—I'd never seen that, but I suspected whose contrail it was.
Nothing happened for a great long while. I spent it grazing on the grass around me. Nopony was around and I didn't care that it made me look low-bred. I was born a peasant anyway, and I was hungry.
I heard another sonic boom. As I jumped up at the telescope, I saw another looping contrail. The telescope slipped from my hooves—another smear of blood—and struck the side of my head, but I got it aimed down at the Ponyville plain. Through a halo of phosphenes, I saw various streaks of purple, which matched the princess' mane and tail, and sparkling stars. I followed it to the endpoint.
"That's Tirek."
"Where?" Oat-boy asked. "In Ponyville?"
"Discord must have teleported him out of Canterlot. Princess Twilight Sparkle is facing off in front of him. Sweet Celestia!" A ball of fire appeared between Lord Tirek's horns and Princess Twilight disappeared. "She teleported away."
"That's good."
"I don't know. Tirek's turning toward Ponyville. Oh, no!"
I related what I saw. The ball of fire released a fiery bolt that shot into town. I thought of my parents' house, but that wasn't his aim at all. The bolt struck the Golden Oak Library. The tree disintegrated into flaming flinders of branch and bark and book thrown high into the sky. Dark smoke drifted over Ponyville.
I hoped Princess Twilight wasn't in there.
Less than a minute later, a tremendous battle ensued. She led him away from Ponyville and any pony that might get hurt, though Tirek did trample the school playground I'd once spent hours a day in. Despite Twilight resembling a mouse compared to Tirek's elephant, both demonstrated equal power, and with it they destroyed acre upon acre of farmland and orchard. At one point, hills of stone rose only to be blasted out of existence.
Princess Twilight was trying to kill Lord Tirek, of this I held no doubt. When she blasted him deep into the ground, I was sure she had succeeded. I felt vindicated. Maybe I wasn't corrupted after all.
But Tirek proved more resilient than anypony could have imagined. Far from crushed, he threw off the dirt he was buried beneath and the pair fought again.
Then they gave it their all. Titanic blasts shot between them, meeting in the middle with a blinding flash.
Having used the telescope to look, I jumped back and tumbled into the grass, blinded in one eye by a light brighter than the sun. Sound of the immense explosion reached us seconds later and the ground trembled.
Oat-Boy found me and held me. I found it a bit cheeky of him, but I kind of needed it. He knew. I knew it. So I said nothing. He was warm and I liked that.
I didn't look for a long time. There were no further explosions, but as my eyesight cleared, I noticed flashes of light. I poked my head through the fence. Clearly, without need of the telescope, I could see Tirek. He had grown so big that he stood taller than the trees of the Everfree Forest. For some reason, he used his enormous power to rase tens of trees at a time, sending trunks tumbling over canopies flying into the sky. He searched for something. I hoped that something was Twilight Sparkle, that she still lived. In the past, through her own efforts or through a proxy, she had always won out over evil.
Still, I could not escape the thought that the reason Lord Tirek had grown was that he had eaten alicorn magic and incorporated it into his being. Still, why would he hunt her if he had bested the princess?
That question answered itself.
A ball of rainbow magic—not unlike the magic I saw deployed by Twilight Sparkle and her friends to turn Discord into stone—appeared, rotating, flashing, and hovering over the forest and over Lord Tirek. The centaur blasted the rainbow sphere, but whilst his power could cut down groves of trees, it bounced off the sphere like water splashed against a rock.
I scrambled up onto the telescope again, and good thing, too. The sphere wasn't much bigger than ten pony-lengths. Beams the color of Twilight and her friends collimated into a complete rainbow and lashed down at Lord Tirek. Rainbow magic swirled around him, causing him to— So hard to describe other than to say he evaporated. He became incrementally smaller as the magical aura grew. Suddenly, the monster disappeared completely, leaving the magic he had stolen as a cloud-size pulsing aura in his place.
Lord Tirek was dead. Tears streamed down my cheeks and my throat constricted as the implication of what I'd seen seeped into my darkened soul...
The rainbow sphere burst into three parts and sailed into the sky. Like a comet, it streaked up and over Canterlot. Once again, I lost my stance on the telescope and tumbled back, gathering further bruises and getting the breath knocked out of me. Less than a minute later, a wave of rainbow light washed across the ground. My whole body tingled. When I looked at Oat-Boy, rainbow lightening crackled along his horn. Suddenly a pale blue aura ignited around his horn.
His magic was back. His cutie mark was back. Mine colored in. Flapping my wings lifted me to all fours.
Once again, Twilight Sparkle had carried the day.
"Time to go home, kiddo."
I didn't make it to Donut Joe's, though. It seemed I had been bleeding all along.