The soft early light of the sun was peeking over the horizon in the east by the time all of them got back to the block in front of Canterlot High. The ten Equestrian ponies. The eight human natives. The three sirens. Twenty-one total people, plus the two dogs padding around their feet.
“So.” Noble Blade gazed upon the tall pedestal on the lawn. His complexion was resolute but regretful. “Now is the time, Twilight. We have done what was required of us.”
“Yeah…” Twilight nodded and clutched her elbow with her other hand.
“It was truly marvelous of you to meet with us and help us,” Rarity said, turning to her counterpart. “I don’t know how we could have defeated the Noxxa without your special powers!”
“Eh. We’re just awesome like that,” the other Rainbow Dash nonchalantly said.
“It was awesome!” Pinkie agreed, throwing her hands up joyously. “You gave us a party and you saved us all in that helicopter and in the observatory!”
“It was nothing, really,” the other Fluttershy muttered gently, sparing a few glances at Noble Blade and Fluttershy, who was nearby him. “We were happy to help.”
“We’re happy that you did,” Applejack said reassuringly.
“Oh my gosh!” Adiago groaned, stuffing her hands inside her pockets. “Can we go now?”
“Calm down, Adiago,” the other Twilight placated, with a hand on her back. “This is a farewell. We don’t know if Twilight is ever going to be coming back here.” Her face turned surprisingly morose.
Twilight nodded at her other self, then gazed at Sunset Shimmer. “She’s got a point. I took so long before, and that was when there wasn’t an invasion about to happen.” Her expression was morose beyond her ability to portray. “And now I have to... leave you once again, Sunset.”
Sunset, after a brief moment of thought, came to her side and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Who said anything about leaving you?”
Twilight widened her eyes and leaned back. “You... you mean…?”
Sunset Shimmer nodded, and there was visible strain to keep tears behind her ducts. “I’m coming with you, Twilight.”
The human natives all gasped in amazement.
“B-but darling,” the other Rarity began, “what about us?”
“Equestria needs me,” she said resolutely. She gave a shy smile at Twilight. “And I need you, Twilight. I don’t know where I would be now if you hadn’t come along and restored me, all those years ago.”
“What made you change your mind?” Twilight asked, happily but shrewdly.
Sunset’s eyes flickered over to Freedom Fighter, and a guilty flash of remembrance overcame her before she looked back at Twilight. “I realized that ponies over there will suffer at the hands of the Noxxa unless we act now.”
Noble Blade gave a nod of approval at her words and smiled broadly.
“Do you really have to go now?” the other Pinkie Pie moaned. “I don’t want to leave you, Sunset! You’re our friend!”
“I know, Pinkie,” Sunset acknowledged, coming over to her. “But we all have to do things we don’t want to. This is one of those things that we all have to do... for the greater good.” She gently cupped her chin. “I’ll come back, Pinkie. And when I do, you can throw the biggest, best party ever for me.”
The other Pinkie Pie smiled waveringly and threw her arms around Sunset, making her stumble. “Promise me,” she whispered. “Promise me right now, Sunset.”
“I will,” she swore gently. “No matter what.”
After the hug was prolonged for three or four more seconds, it broke off, and Sunset Shimmer took a deep breath, turned around to face the stone portal, and exhaled once more. “I’m ready,” she said at last.
As the Ten Souls, the sirens, and Sunset walked to the portal, the human counterparts they left behind suddenly erupted.
“Goodbye!” the other Rarity declared, waving a handkerchief in the air. “Goodbye, Sunset, until we meet again!”
“Come back soon!” the other Rainbow Dash yelled, her raspy voice standing apart from the crowding of voices.
“Ya’d better return soon, ya hear?” the other Applejack requested, her distinctive voice standing out from the crowd as well.
Just before they were about to enter the portal, Twilight froze. “Wait!”
Everyone halted, and Adiago groaned once more and leaned against the stone block. “Twilight, what now?”
“Hold on, Adiago,” Twilight hurriedly told her, turning around. “I need to do this one thing!”
Twilight ran across the lawn to the group of girls and stopped in front of Flash Sentry. When she did, she awkwardly lifted a foot behind her. “Well, Flash. Um... I just wanted to ask you something before I left again…”
“Ask away,” Flash allowed her, stuffing his thumbs into his belt loops.
“Um…” Twilight fiddled with the ends of her tattered and ripped skirt. “Just in case I don’t return again…”
Flash froze in place and began to shake imperceptibly. “Is there something you need to admit?”
Twilight looked him in the eyes. “Come with me.”
Flash took a step backward. “What?”
“No, Flash, look,” she started, grabbing his hand. “I would really like it... if you could come along with me to Equestria.”
“B-but Twilight,” he protested. “This is where I belong.”
“I know, Flash,” she admitted. “But only for... a few days. A week or two. Just enough for us to, um... know each other more.”
Flash Sentry eyed the other girls out of the corner of his peripheral vision. They all varied in expression, but they all looked shocked.
Flash rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, Twilight... I would love to spend some more time with you as well, but-”
“I don’t know when I’ll return,” Twilight told him, directly and emotionlessly. “I don’t know what the future will hold in Equestria. I was just hoping if... you and I... could face it together.”
“Together…” Flash whispered.
Twilight laid a hand on his chest. “Please.”
What Twilight could not tell was that Freedom Fighter was looking over at them and clenching his fists in bridled anger. Twilight couldn’t possibly know of Freedom Fighter’s passing crush that had returned, momentarily, at the sight of Twilight talking so intimately with Flash Sentry.
“Twilight,” Flash murmured. “I would do anything for you. You know that.” He cupped her chin and tilted it so that she was looking into his own eyes. “And if I need to go to Equestria to help you…” He took his time to prepare the next words in his mind. When he was certain of his answer, he spoke again. “Then I’ll do it. You need all the help you can get.”
Twilight threw her arms around him in relief. “Thank you, Flash,” she whispered, clenching at his shirt. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that…”
Flash pried Twilight off of him and held her hand while displaying a smile, and there was a uniquely unifying feeling in his smile. It wasn’t confident or cocky; it was a warm, beautiful smile that made Twilight joyous to see. She had forgotten how he could do that, in between the times when she had visited the human world.
“Come on, Twilight,” he murmured, retaining that amazing smile. He began to make his way to the portal. “Let’s go turn into ponies.”
The comment made Twilight laugh, and Flash’s smile morphed into a smile of amusement.
Snap
The sound came out of nowhere, and Flash Sentry stiffened. Twilight pulled her hand out of his stiff hold and turned to see what was happening with him.
Some of the girls screamed and recoiled.
Flash Sentry stood still for a little more, then teetered forward and collapsed into Twilight’s arms with a groan. Protruding from his lower back was the shaft of a hideous black arrow.
Twilight’s mind shut down, just for a second. Her mouth hung open. That couldn’t happen. It couldn’t. Flash Sentry was definitely still alive, and he definitely wasn’t bleeding from the wound and soaking his shirt, and he definitely wasn’t gasping and heaving in Twilight’s arms. All of it Twilight tried to deny by the simple fact that it wasn’t possible.
And then a colossal guttural bellow of rage erupted from all around them, and from the bushes and behind trees sprouted dozens of four-armed black monsters, with black iron welded to their bodies and weapons in all of their appendages. Instead of slowly surrounding them, they all sprinted for their targets as fast as they could, slashing and hacking at thin air before they even got there.
“Everyone!” Noble Blade cried, shifting in front of Fluttershy and swiftly drawing his sword. “Run to the portal!”
Before they could close the distance to the edge of the pedestal, however, fifteen Noxxa barrelled out of the front doors of the school and surrounded the pedestal. Lifting heavy crossbows, the Noxxa facing them fired at them in a volley.
Arrows whizzed past everyone’s ears and shoulders and embedded into the ground fifteen meters past them. One arrow parted Pinkie Pie’s hair in half and sank into the soil behind her. Another ran along the surface of Noble Blade’s breastplate and deflected askew into the ground, and Noble, after pausing in shock, continued to run for the portal.
Firestorm had reached the portal first, drew both of his swords, and spun into the line surrounding the portal with a fiery blaze. However, after only cutting down five, the butt of a crossbow spun into his skull, slamming his head into the stone pedestal, and Firestorm slumped to the ground.
“Gather near me!” Noble ordered everyone with his commanding bellow. And every girl swiftly assembled behind him and the main cluster of Noxxa, who had assembled in one body as well and were staring Noble Blade down.
The sounds of Freedom Fighter firing blasts of yellow energy from his bow echoed around the lawn of the school. Explosions erupted from every bowshot.
Twilight began to drag Flash’s body to the portal in frenzied desperation. Blood streamed from his back and made a trail on the ground wherever he went.
Noble Blade, sword in one hand, turned to Twilight’s side, keeping Fluttershy near him, who was clinging to him like her life depended on it. “Twilight!” he panted. “Drop him near a tree! We’ll heal him after the battle is over!”
“No!” she refused, continuing to drag him along the lawn. The emerald grass was speckled by ruby-red blood. “I have to get him through!”
“Twilight!” Noble shouted, latching on to her arm. “Twilight, you will save his life by keeping him still! You take him through that portal now, and he’ll die!”
Twilight, on the verge of tears, stared at Noble Blade. Her face was dirty and smudged, a far cry from how she first came through. “I can’t just leave him!”
“Would you rather he die?” Noble demanded.
Twilight looked once more at the arrow in his back. It was planted firmly into his flesh like an enemy flag.
After she sniffled once more, she began to drag him to the Canterlot Wondercolt statue with an almighty groan. And Noble Blade turned his attention back to the group of human girls.
Near the pedestal, meanwhile, the three sirens were trying to sneak to the portal side of the pedestal.
“Now!” Aria hissed when the Noxxa on the portal side moved around to face the main action. “Come on, let’s go!”
“Wait!” Adiago stopped her with a grab of the arm. “What if-”
“Now’s the chance! Come on!” Aria insisted, her back to the main action.
Adiago’s eyes widened and she pointed behind Aria. “BEHIND YOU!”
Aria turned around in a split second, but that still wasn’t enough time to react. A smaller, more nimble Nox, with two long, thin swords, had appeared out of nowhere and leaped at her in a spiral.
Aria only had enough time to raise her arms as the blade came down upon her. The blade cut cleanly through her arm, into her shoulder, and halfway into her right lung. Her hand dropped to the ground. Aria screamed in agony, and the scream faded to a groan as she teetered over, blood flowing like a waterfall.
“NOOO!” Sonata bellowed, elbowing Adiago out of the way as the Nox left the sword in Aria’s body and jumped at Adiago with his other weapon. Instead of Adiago, however, his blade met Sonata. The spinning, whirling Nox slashed through Sonata’s throat like he was chopping a vegetable.
Adiago scooted out of the way as her two closest friends collapsed to the ground, spurting scarlet blood from their deep wounds and washing over their bright clothes in soaking torrents. “Aria!” Adiago screamed in agony, stretching out a hand. “SONATA!”
The Nox whirled around to jump at Adiago next, his remaining sword discolored to the hilt with deep red blood. Spreading his lips into an obscene grin and displaying his long white fangs, he lunged.
Pinkie Pie, who had appeared out of nowhere, launched at the Nox from the side, and both Pinkie and the Nox fell to the asphalt. Before the Nox could get up, Adiago had reached for the dropped sword, scrabbled for half a second before getting a hold on it, and reached over her head and impaled him through the back. The Nox turned into black dust in the space of five seconds.
“Pinkie!” Adiago choked, leaning on the sword. “Check on Aria and Son-”
Pinkie, however, was in tears before she finished. “Th-they’re d-d-dead, Adia!” she stuttered, shaking on her hands and knees.
Adiago couldn’t say anything to answer her. She could see that their chests weren’t rising anymore, and their entire upper bodies were soaked in bright scarlet blood. A sword was still stuck in the body of Aria.
“This can’t happen,” Adiago whispered, clutching herself around her midsection. Her hair fell around her face as she stared, dead to the world, at the soaked bodies of her friends. “This isn’t happening! This isn’t real!” She crawled slowly over and began to do CPR on the unmoving form of Aria, her hair bouncing up and down with each pump on her chest. “You’re okay, you’re okay, it’s all okay--”
“Adi!” Pinkie exclaimed all of a sudden, and Adiago turned in the direction Pinkie was pointing. She had only enough time to see the arrow fly, and only enough recognition left to feel it enter her breast.
There was pain, such a terrible pain, as the pinching pain spread throughout her entire body. The arrow had gone through the soft flesh of her breast and had pierced the ribcage underneath. Adiago, gasping in small shouts, laid back gently on the ground, and as the arrow jostled in her chest, more blinding pain shot throughout her body.
“NOOO!” Pinkie Pie yelled, crawling over to Adiago’s slumping body. Blood had splashed all over the front of Adiago’s shirt, getting Pinkie’s hands wet as she struggled with Adiago.
“Right in the tit!” came a horribly triumphant voice, and fifteen feet away, the Nox who held the crossbow quickly loaded another bolt. “This time, I’ll aim for yer head!”
But before he could, he blew into ashes in the middle of a yellow explosion, showering Pinkie and Adiago with black dust.
Freedom Fighter had spotted them. Sprinting for them with his bow at his side, he quickly kneeled and began to examine the wound in Adiago’s right breast.
Meanwhile, Noble Blade was at the center of a semicircle of black demons all trying to get past him and to the assembly of all the girls behind him. His blue sword flashed in elaborate twisting patterns in every direction, shearing off spearheads and sword tips, swiftly impaling and retracting every three seconds, lopping off heads whenever he could. His light blue skin was speckled from head to toe in black dust which stuck to his heavy sweat. The light trail from the sword weaved a shield of blue all around him which bisected anything caught in it.
“Get to the portal!” Noble shouted. “NOW!”
“But Pinkie Pie’s over there!” Starlight cried, pointing. Pinkie and Freedom Fighter were bent over the limp and failing body of Adiago Dazzle.
“Then pick her up and take her with you!” Noble insisted, raising his blazing blue sword to block an overhead axe stroke. He then pierced the Nox who had it in the face. “All that matters is to get out of here!”
“Oh, my gosh,” the other Rarity whispered, pointing shakingly at the bodies soaked in gore. “Are those the other Dazzlings?”
“What?” Noble exclaimed, craning his head past the attackers to the scarlet bodies. His stance loosened in shock. “No! No!”
“Come on!” the other Twilight screamed, igniting her hands in purple energy and raising them to her head. “I’ll help you buy them time, Noble Blade. Everyone else, go!”
“But-” Twilight started, glancing at Flash Sentry, who was on his stomach near the school sign.
“Go!” The other Twilight fired two streams of violet power into the horde of Noxxa clamoring to get past Noble Blade.
After another moment, the girls from Equestria all sprinted for the portal in a long line.
“Let me try something!” The other Rarity, behind Noble Blade with the rest of the human girls, ignited her palms, and a polyhedral shield of turquoise popped up on the sides of each girl running for the portal. At that precise moment, a volley of crossbow bolts from a line of marksmen hit the entire breadth of the line, but the blue shields merely chipped from the impacts.
“Thank Faust!” Noble cried out in relief, watching them go. “You just saved them, Rarity!”
The other Rarity squirmed in delight at the encouragement. “Ohoho, it’s nothing, darling!”
By then, the human versions of Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie had powered up as well, and had rushed into battle on both flanks of the line of girls. Between the pink explosions thrown from Pinkie Pie, the speed and force behind Rainbow Dash, and the brute force behind the roundhouses from Applejack, demon after demon fell to the ground and dared not to get up again.
“We’re almost there!” Starlight called out to Pinkie Pie. The distressed Pinkie raised her head at the noise, and Starlight motioned by circling her arm. “Come on, let’s break through these final guys around the portal, and then we can-”
A tremendous clang echoed from where the girls were, and the scream of Noble Blade rose and fell as he got thrown back into the back of a tree.
Fluttershy whipped around instantly, and her pink hair got stuck in her face. “Noble!”
The other Twilight turned around to look for Noble’s body. Noble Blade, at the base of a tree, was struggling to his feet by leaning on his sword, a heavy indentation in his chest armor. Noble Blade pointed at the other Twilight. “Eyes on the battle, Twilight! Now!”
Before the other Twilight could return attention to the Noxxa in front of her, the blue shields around the girls instantly dissipated.
“Come on, Rarity!” Rainbow Dash groaned, turning around to face the group of girls that had been behind Noble Blade. “What’s the de-”
And she stopped. Her mouth was hanging open in shock.
The other Rarity was frozen in place, trying not to collapse on top of the jagged blade erupting from her breastbone. The burly black Nox holding the blade behind her was gleefully narrowing his six eyes and grinning a sickening smile.
“Go,” she whispered. Blood soaked the front of her blue shirt.
“NO!” came the torn scream from Rainbow’s throat. Trying to lunge for her, she was restrained by Applejack and Starlight. Screams of anguish came from the throats of other girls, too many to count and too mixed to distinguish.
But the one scream most distinguished was Sunset Shimmer’s. She stood alone as the other girls passed by her, motionless and dead to the world.
The Nox behind the other Rarity jerked the blade out of her chest, and the other Rarity collapsed on her face. The Nox holding the tool of death licked the edge of the blade to taste her blood, then swirled it in his claws and came for the human Twilight.
The human Twilight had been stunned into inaction by the brutal murder of her friend. So when the Nox who had killed her came for her, she could only put up her hands to defend herself as the Nox backhanded her to the asphalt.
Sunset Shimmer, who was in the collection of girls running for the portal, stayed halted in place in horror.
The other Rainbow Dash let loose a scream of anger and sped around the assembly of enemies from every direction. A rainbow streaked out behind her, with groaning Noxxa lying down in her rage-induced wake. After just fifteen seconds of high-speed anger, however, a fallen Nox swiped at the back of her knee as she passed by, and the other Rainbow Dash stumbled with a yelp, holding the back of her leg tightly as she collapsed. Blood ran through the cracks in her fingers.
“Rainbow!” the other Applejack yelled in horror, dropping the Nox she was about to punt across the yard. “Ya okay?”
“Yeah!” the other Rainbow yelled in response, holding her leg tightly. Looking up from her bleeding leg, her face paled. A Nox with two maces in his four arms was walking her way briskly, like he was late for something important.
Sunset Shimmer looked like she was dead to the world as she just stood there, staring at the other Rainbow with unfeeling horror.
“Rainbow!” the other Twilight groaned, standing up from where she had been knocked over. “Get out of there!”
“Can’t do that right now!” the other Rainbow hissed, trying to back away on her butt.
“Here!” The other Twilight was about to stretch out her hand again, but the brutal Nox who had knocked her down smacked her in the face with the flat of his blade, and the other Twilight’s glasses shattered. She stumbled for a few steps, then fell down again and hit the back of her head on the asphalt. Her broken glasses clattered away.
The Nox with the two maces was now standing directly in front of the other Rainbow Dash, and his grin was obscene. The girl he was about to smash tried to stand up slowly, but he just put his foot on her chest and pushed, and she was kept there on her back as he raised both of his maces above his head.
And then he stiffened, and after a few twitches, disintegrated around the twin bars of flame protruding from his chest. The maces slammed to the ground.
Firestorm, bleeding from his skull and crouching, was baring his lips in a snarl at the pile of dust at his feet.
“Not. Her,” he breathed menacingly. “Never her!”
“He can’t hear you!” the other Pinkie Pie shouted to him, throwing sprinkles in a scatter. Explosions followed as they hit the ground.
“I know!” Firestorm angrily shouted back. He kneeled to her face level. “Can you walk?”
“No,” the other Rainbow Dash groaned sharply.
Firestorm cursed under his breath and looked around. The girls from Equestria were all still running for the now-unguarded portal. But the human girls were all under attack from the Noxxa, and the other Rarity was already dead, and the only thing keeping them all from dying was him and Noble Blade and Freedom Fighter, who was off to the side escorting Pinkie Pie to the portal.
Why? Why were the Noxxa attacking them? Weren’t the Equestrians what the Noxxa were after?
And it hit him like a bolt of lightning.
“Son of a whorse.” He stood up and flashed his swords at the girls near the portal, who were all staring at the desperate fight going on. “Go through! Now!”
“We can’t!” Twilight screamed at him, keeping her friends close together and with an indecisive look on her face. “They need our help!”
“They’re counting on that!” Firestorm began, then deflected a blow from a screaming axe-wielding Noxxa, then ran him through with his other sword. “They want you to stay and help so you can’t go through!”
“We can’t just leave them!” Twilight yelled, tears welling up in her eyes.
Starlight Glimmer laid a hand on her shoulder and gripped it like she was squeezing a fruit. “We have to.”
“No!” Twilight whirled to face a startled Starlight. “I can’t!”
“They’re giving their lives so we can go through!” Starlight insisted maniacally. “You stay, and they’ll die for nothing! Are you going to leave us so you can die here? We’re nothing without you, Twilight!”
“But if we stay and help, they don’t have to-” Twilight started.
“You’re wasting time!” Sunset Shimmer cried, pushing them all to the portal. She had appeared out of nowhere, and her demeanor had changed to a hopeless and destitute look as she ushered the two other girls to the portal, where all the other Elements of Harmony were. “Go, Twilight! Go!”
“Sunset-” Twilight started.
Sunset placed her hands on Twilight’s arm, and her eyes flashed white for just a second before they reverted back to normal. She shook her head, tears appearing at the corners of her eyes. “I know how you feel, Twilight! You feel so terrible!”
“What are you saying?” Twilight asked in shock over the noises of battle. Five Noxxa broke off from attacking the other Applejack and were racing for them with drawn weapons.
“I can buy you some time,” Sunset affirmed hurriedly, turning to the Noxxa. “Get through the portal, Twilight! I’ll be right behind you!”
“Come on! Let’s go!” Rarity screamed, near the pedestal with everyone else, clustered together in one large group.
Twilight’s face was creased in anguish and indecision. Tearing her head from the friends at the portal entrance to the Guardians of the Sun and the human girls holding off the Noxxa, she squeezed her eyes shut, leaking tears from the corners, and whispered, “Right behind me, Sunset! Promise me!”
And she ran for the portal with Starlight Glimmer in pursuit.
The girls began to push each other in a rush through the pedestal and disappear in a swirl of color as they traveled to that brief plane between dimensions. First was Fluttershy, and then Applejack, and then Rarity, Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash went through and disappeared, and then finally Starlight Glimmer, holding Spike the dog very close to her chest. None of them went through without looking back at the action going on and the blood that had been shed.
Which left the Guardians of the Sun and the human girls fighting off the Noxxa as best they could, along with the mortally wounded Adiago, Twilight, and Sunset Shimmer.
The latter was standing with her arms defiantly held out, staring at the five Noxxa rushing for her with naked blades.
“I was once the enemy of Equestria,” Sunset Shimmer whispered. “But my past is not today. Let me become transformed, one last time, for the good of my friends!”
As her plea ended and the five Noxxa lunged for her heart, a blast of white fire emanated from her center, incinerating the lunging Noxxa and melting the iron weapons they held, as well as the asphalt beneath her feet. A pillar of flame shot up from her crystal necklace, enveloping her in blinding light, and the pillar of fire reached up for the dawning sky above for hundreds of feet.
When the pillar stopped, Sunset Shimmer was in glorious white armor that hugged her figure and shone like the noonday sun. In her hands were flickering balls of fire, and from her back sprouted clear orange phoenix wings.
“Whoah!” Firestorm stared at her for a few seconds; everyone in the courtyard, human and monster, was staring at the transformation. Firestorm, after a moment of admiration, pointed at her with one of his flaming swords. “You look like you came out of a music video!”
Sunset Shimmer stretched forth her palms. Out shot twin tongues of fire that melted through any Noxxa she pointed at. The streams of deadly fire gouged long scars into the asphalt behind their enemies.
Soon, every last enemy Nox was blasted into a heat-hardened mound of dust, and the only ones left on the battlefield were the victors.
Everyone panted hard for a while before anyone did anything.
The first one to do something was Noble Blade. Sheathing his sword, he wordlessly went over to the school sign and picked up Flash Sentry in both his arms, taking care not to jostle the arrow in his lower back.
“Oh, Twi... light…” Flash murmured, squirming in his arms. “You’re a lot stronger... than you look.”
“I’m not Twilight,” Noble supplied.
“Oh.” Flash drooped, stretching out the wound in his back, and he let out a groan of pain. “In that case... kill me now.”
The rest of the girls were whooping, cheering, and high-fiving each other. The other Fluttershy, spotting Noble Blade at the portal entrance, jogged over to him and skidded to a halt in between him and the portal.
“Fluttershy?” Noble asked.
The other Fluttershy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I just wanted to say something, um, before you go. You were so... brave today.” She looked up at his face. “You led us to the map, and you protected us. I just wanted to say... thanks.”
Noble turned his head to look at the crumpled form of the other Rarity, and there was an alarming look of remorse in his eyes. “But if I had only stood up quicker and gotten back into battle... I could have saved Rarity.”
The other Fluttershy put a trembling hand on his armored shoulder. “No, Noble, y-you can’t go blaming yourself for R-Rarity’s... d-d-death!”
Flash Sentry groaned and twisted in Noble’s arms. Noble Blade quickly steadied him and kept the arrow steady in his back.
“I could have been faster, braver! I could-” He abruptly stopped as he remembered what he had been told before by Fluttershy. On their first date.
You’re good enough. That’s better than most other ponies.
And looking at the human version of Fluttershy, he saw in her eyes the same feeling, the same pleading, for him to stop thinking of ways to belittle himself.
“You know what?” he said, cupping a hand under her chin. “You’re right. I did my best, and things happened that I couldn’t anticipate.”
Fluttershy hugged him then, and though his armor was thick, he still felt her delicateness and her light touch. It reminded him uncomfortably of his Fluttershy, but he also didn’t feel uncomfortable while she hugged him.
“Can you, um... keep in touch?” she whispered, still hugging him.
Noble Blade felt squished, and he tried to stay as still as he could. “I’ll try,” he promised, without knowing how in the world he could communicate with a teenager through dimensions.
Twilight, passing by him, tapped him on the back. “It’s time to go.”
“I know,” Noble said reluctantly, turning to the portal. Firestorm and Freedom Fighter had come to either side of him; Firestorm with his twin swords out, and Freedom Fighter with Adiago Dazzle in his arms, bandaged across her breast. Noble gave both of them a look of determination before setting a resolute step forward.
“Now!” came a hoarse voice from far away, and Noble turned suddenly. “Second volley!”
Row after row of windows in the school slid upward, and out poked the tips of sinister iron crossbows. In one collective twang, they all fired at once.
Everyone ducked or lunged backward, but most of them were too late.
Noble Blade, laden down with armor, couldn’t move in time to protect the civilian in his arms. Flash Sentry spurted even more blood as his limp body jolted with each arrow hit. With arrows now in his leg, both lungs, collarbone, shoulder, and his eye, he fell out of Noble Blade’s astounded arms and landed hard on the grass. Noble’s armor deflected most of the arrow tips, but one found its way into his side, doubling him onto his knees.
In the one second that followed, Noble Blade, sent into shock, reeled backward. He had failed to preserve Flash’s life. What would Twilight say?
Screams and cries sounded like alarms from all around him, and Noble, with blinding pain, raised his head up and looked around. Twilight and Sunset were huddled together near the portal, staring in horror at the five other girls. The five other girls were all crying and clutching at the arrows stemming from their bodies.
Noble Blade’s mind was on complete shutdown. Normally in the heat of battle, his systems were on overdrive, but now, seeing the anguished girls clutching at their bodies around the arrows in them, he couldn’t think of anything he could do.
He saw the groaning Applejack with a long bolt sticking out of her collarbone, her bloodstained hat off at her side. He saw the already-expired Rarity get riddled with three more crossbow bolts all over her back. Pinkie was doubled over with an arrow shaft-deep in her abdomen, kneeling in a growing puddle of maroon liquid. And the other Twilight, her broken glasses only inches away, was bent at a strange angle to accommodate the shafts sticking out of her legs and chest and face; for over half a dozen were embedded in her, with one bloody arrow piercing straight through her head and into the ground behind it.
“No!” Firestorm cried in loss, and he tried to lunge for the now-lifeless form of Rainbow Dash far away, but only kneeled in despair instead. His swords clattered to the ground near the portal, and he croaked out a dry sob before the tears began. He hugged himself in the chest and clenched his teeth as the tears streamed down and into his lips. “Oh, Faust!... No! NO!”
Noble’s breath caught in his throat. He wildly turned to the side to see if Freedom Fighter was unharmed. Freedom Fighter had avoided the arrow barrage, but Adiago had fallen out of his grip and had landed face down, snapping the arrow in her body and tearing the hole in her chest wider. Freedom Fighter was desperately trying to revive her, but it was looking helpless.
And then he heard a whimper from in front of him, unnoticed until now. Noble looked down at his feet and he almost fainted.
Fluttershy, with three arrows shaft-deep in her leg and waist and lung, was crawling to his feet, trailing blood and shaking with tears of pain and fear. “Help,” she whispered, and coughed hard in her throat and dropped to her stomach.
Noble, instantly in motion, grabbed her under the shoulders and gently lifted her up to stand, but before she could stand up straighter, she cried out in pain and doubled up again.
“No,” he whispered, and his heart was in his throat. The world was collapsing around him, his vision was in flames, his chest burned in anguish and despair, his waist cut into his senses with excruciating pain. “No, Fluttershy! Come on!” He began to drag her, his mind finally on frenzied overdrive.
But before he could, he heard from her, “Don’t... bother…”
“No!” he refused, trying to lead her limp body, but she just lifted a hand to his cheek, stopping him in his tracks and making him look into her aquamarine eyes. They were wide and wet, but they were, strangely... calm.
“Noble…” she began, and smiled. “Are you... happy?”
“What?” he breathed, supporting her head with a trembling armored hand. “Fluttershy, don’t you dare start talking like this! You’ll get through this! I’ll take you through-”
“Will you be... happy?”
“Fluttershy!”
“With her?”
Noble gulped something down, and ignored the pain that was slicing through his waist. “I…” He pulled her tighter, closing his eyes, and dripped tears onto Fluttershy’s face. “I’m watching you die… I don’t... "
Fluttershy weakly put her hand behind his head and lifted herself up. “Be happy,” she whispered in pain. “And remember her.”
And she weakly pressed her lips to his cheek.
Noble Blade couldn’t move, couldn’t say, or do anything. His mind had reverted to that helpless feeling, that inevitable dread. Noble Blade held her head back as her head limply fell from his cheek and drooped on her body.
“No,” he whispered, shaking her gently. “No!” He pressed his head against her collar and trembled, his voice breaking apart with each cry. “No! No! No!” And then his tears overflowed and fell like rain. “NO!”
He couldn’t say how long he stayed here, holding the dead human Fluttershy in his arms, as the only noises that he registered were his own sobbing and the screams and mourning of the dead from Sunset, Twilight, and Firestorm. He felt split in half, his lungs burning up from the inside. The arrow in his side was lending recognition to the outside world, but for the most part, Noble Blade felt as though the outside world didn’t exist. All that he could register, apart from pain, was the tremendous loss he felt in his soul.
Noble Blade felt untethered to reality. It was a horrifying conclusion that he eventually made, but he knew that Fluttershy was dead in his arms and that the last thing she had done was kiss him on the cheek.
“That should be enough!” came the terrible, booming voice from the school windows, only several meters away. “They’ve wallowed in their misery long enough! Now send ‘em to the hell they sent our brothers to!”
More crossbow tips clattered against the windowsills as they prepared to fire again. It was that sound which finally drew Noble Blade out from his reverie and made him turn his head to the school.
And honestly, at this point, he really didn’t mind just staying there and letting the arrows take him away. He felt hollowed out, empty, dead to the senses he was given to perceive the world and anything of worth in it. Rarity was dead. Flash Sentry was dead. Rainbow Dash was dead, and Firestorm was still motionless and broken on the ground. But most of all, Fluttershy was dead.
What else could he do? He couldn’t move out of the way. He had already failed. The least he could do was look at the arrows that would fire, and then, peacefully, enter the next life.
The tremendous sound of twanging strings reverberated everywhere at once.
And then a bright light erupted in front of him, making him reel back and drop the dead Fluttershy. The source of light was a thunderous wall of flame that erupted between the oncoming arrow barrage and the five survivors. Every arrow impacted the flaming wall and instantly incinerated.
Sunset Shimmer, still with translucent phoenix wings, was holding the flame wall up with all the strength she could muster, with her eyes closed and her teeth clenched. “GO!” she roared.
“But-” Twilight sobbed, kneeling by her side.
Sunset pushed Twilight backward so forcefully Twilight fell on her butt near the translucent portal on the pedestal.
“No!” came the struggled noise from Firestorm, but he was silenced by a blow from Freedom Fighter, and the two men, one being dragged by the other, came to the portal. With a step from the leading man, both fell through and disappeared into the swirling depths.
Noble Blade slowly stood up, and the arrow lodged in his side made him give a shout of pain. He limped over to the portal without any kind of feeling in his arms or legs, and he spoke not a word in his indescribable grief. Grabbing Twilight by the shoulder, he leaned against the portal edge and looked behind him.
Twilight, streaming tears from her eyes, was reaching for Sunset Shimmer with an outstretched hand, and Sunset, holding up the wall of flame with one hand, was reaching for Twilight as well. A space of twelve inches separated them; an eternity neither of them could now breach.
Sunset Shimmer then flared with light brighter than the noonday sun, and a shriek emanated from the faint outline. Sunset still had her hand outstretched imploringly towards Twilight, but now her eyes were shut and her teeth were gritted.
Then Noble Blade stepped through the portal, feeling like he had passed through a curtain of warm water, and pulled Twilight with him just as a colossal explosion came from Sunset’s outline and turned the world white.
Twilight and Noble Blade both screamed as they swirled through the vision of colored lights.
He was being compressed this time, and his limbs bent backward and shrunk. His fingers were shrinking back into his hands, and his hands back into hooves. Every motion hurt him, and the arrow lodged in his side did not alleviate anything.
As they reached the apex of the portal, their screams reached a crescendo, and the lights against the insides of Noble Blade’s eyelids brightened to a blinding quality.
And then, nothing.
His stomach hit the ground, and Twilight fell to the side unceremoniously.
The lights and sounds were gone, and all that could be heard was the soft wind and the gasps of the girls that had made it through. Wherever they were, they were no longer in Twilight’s castle--or indoors at all, for that matter. The weak rays of light from dawn were appearing in the east, and they gave a faint light to his surroundings.
The mirror portal had been carried out of the castle, out of Ponyville, and had been deposited in a field several miles out from the town, which Noble could see the faint outline of if he took a glance to the south on his left. Clustered around the mirror portal were angular tents and canvas coverings. Barrels of weapons and spoked shields were outside the tents, and blackened campfires lay in pits in the earth. Everything in the camp was empty and grey and deserted.
“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!” came a soft and sweet voice, so different from the dark camp of death that it made him jolt, and something soft and small rushed to his side and began to press ever so gently on his back. “Noble! Are you okay?”
Noble Blade looked up and behind him. Fluttershy, now the pony that she normally was, was examining the arrow wound in his side with a searching, worried gaze.
It took some time for Noble to realize that this particular Fluttershy had not died, and that the Fluttershy that had perished in his arms was the one native to the human world. When that happened, a peculiar feeling of relief overcame him, and the pain in his side did not hurt as much.
“You got shot! Oh, no! Is there something I can do?” Fluttershy asked above him.
Noble got up on all fours, turned weakly around, and collapsed into Fluttershy’s arms.
“What-” Fluttershy started in surprise, and then realized that Noble Blade was leaking fresh tears into her shoulder. She widened her eyes and held him around the back of his head. “N-Noble? Are you-”
“You’re alive,” Noble choked out. Noble Blade began to kiss her in the crook of her shoulder like he didn’t have much time left to live. “Oh, thank the Goddess!” he whispered between kisses. “You’re alive! You’re alive!” He clutched her tighter like she was being torn out of his grip as he spoke.
And then a feeling of regret overcame him as he realized that even though his Fluttershy had not perished, another version of her had. And he felt like a weight had dropped into his stomach from the relief he had felt, if only temporary. How could he be relieved, if another version of her had died instead of his own?
“What... are you talking about?” she asked as calmly as she could.
Noble Blade finally lifted his head up from her shoulder and looked her in her precious, sparklingly gemlike eyes. “You... died,” he choked, and he almost released more tears. “I held you in my arms... and you kissed me on the cheek…”
Fluttershy drew him in closer and hugged him all the tighter, breathing haphazardly and irregularly, which Noble could feel even through his armor. She was on the verge of spilling over as well.
Noble Blade looked past her shoulder. Firestorm and Rainbow Dash were enjoying a similar reunion, complete with tears and whispers of relief and joy.
And neither he nor his beloved moved for a long time.
Then there came a banging from behind him, and the rising cries of Twilight Sparkle came higher and higher.
“No! No! No! NO! NOOO!”
Applejack ran past Noble and Fluttershy, which made both of them break their embrace and turn to her.
Twilight was on her hind legs, in front of the horseshoe mirror, and was tapping on the hard surface of the mirror.
“Sunset! Sunset! Sunset, please! Come through! You can make it! Sun-” Twilight slumped on her rump and pressed her hoof against the mirror forlornly. “Sunset…” She heaved her chest up and down and began to whisper. “It still works,” she wheezed. “You can come through! I know it!”
“ ‘Twi,” Applejack said emotionlessly, putting an arm around her shoulder. “ ‘Twi, Ah think…”
“No!” Twilight exclaimed, shoving her arm off. “No, she can still get through! I know she can!” She began to pound once more on the dead portal. “Sunset! Suuunseeet! Come with me!”
“ ‘Twi!” Applejack roared, clutching her around the shoulders. Twilight heaved forward and lunged for the portal, but Applejack held her firm. “ ‘Twi! Agh! The portal’s closed!”
“It can’t be closed! It’s always open now!” Twilight lunged once more for the portal.
“What if it’s closed from the other... side?!” Applejack shouted desperately at the end of the sentence.
“It can’t be!” Twilight shouted back in desperation. “How could it be closed? The only way for the portal to be closed is if-” Twilight froze in Applejack’s strong arms.
“No,” she whispered once more, her eyes wide and feral. “No, it can’t be destroyed!” Twilight finally broke free from the grip of Applejack and rushed for the portal and collided against it. “SUNSET!” Twilight shouldered herself against the portal. “SUNSET!” She punched the portal in a futile effort, then again, and again, and a spidering crack appeared. Drawing her hoof back furiously, Twilight punched the portal one more time in an attempt to breach it.
The glass of the mirror shattered on impact and fell in shards to the dirt beneath.
Twilight’s face stretched up and down into an expression of utter disbelief and shock. She remained like that for some time. Then she began to cry as the dams behind her eyes broke, and slumped to the ground and put her hooves above her head in sorrow.
As Twilight wept, she rested her head against the largest shard of glass. Drawing her head up, she looked into the jagged mirror shard. It was only big enough for her one eye to appear, but Twilight fixed it with a stare hard enough that it could shatter even that. Her one purple eye blinked.
Two other sets of hooves rested upon Twilight’s shoulders, and Twilight twisted her head around. Freedom Fighter was there, delicately resting his right hoof upon her back, and to his left was Starlight Glimmer as well, both there for her in her time of trial.
“She’s d-d... she’s…” Twilight couldn’t finish the sentence and dissolved into more tears several moments after she struggled to finish.
The entire group simply stayed there for an indeterminable amount of time under the rising sun, as both reunions finished and mourning ascended to the skies above. Joy was mingled with grief. Love was tinged with sorrow. And as the ties of friendship strengthened amongst the ten of them, they came to the realization that many other ties of friendship had been severed by a cruel Black Blade--never to be reattached or healed.
The dawn had come, but it was cold, cold, cold.