//------------------------------// // Chapter 34: Unleashed // Story: To Serve In Hell // by CoffeeMinion //------------------------------// Rarity and Cheese both turned their attention toward Starlight, who was screaming and recoiling from the portal, seeming almost to hide behind the weak, impassive Tirek. Then the portal’s surface churned like a pool of water that suddenly had a bucketload of stones dropped into it. The Guardian’s barely-equine form came shooting through, trailing a visual cacophony of multi-color-patterned energy. Rarity gasped, both from the shock of seeing it cross the veil, and at its myriad unsettling details that she could finally see as more than just a silhouette. It had a heavy, leathern, yellow hide, and it propelled itself on wings that were thestral-like, but much more ragged, fleshy, and tattered. The sinews flowing down its limbs were gnarled and fearsome, and its claws were long and sickle-like. “Rainbow Dash, what have you done?!” it bellowed, flying straight toward Dash. But Starlight recovered quickly, turning her shackled hoof to point at the Guardian—who had landed next to the prone figure of Dash, and seemed to be conjuring a strange pattern of energy over her claws and Dash’s barrel, to the apparent horror of Redheart. “Come on, come on,” Starlight said, alternately striking and adjusting the shackle with her free hoof. “Damn it Blueblood, I told you the feeder process would take a while!” Cheese’s whole face slid into a tremendous grimace. Rarity followed his gaze to a spot on the ground, and saw the keys—her keys, the Mistress’ keys—lying there. “Rainbow Dash… has summoned Nightmare Moon,” Rarity said slowly. Cheese’s eyebrows climbed. “Starliiiiiiight! Looks like we’re gonna get to phase three—” A lengthy and spectacular stream of many-colored, strangely-patterned energy blazed across the space between the Guardian and Starlight, via Tirek. The Guardian shrieked in otherworldly tones that shook the whole room, and fell onto its back, convulsing in apparent agony. The sound rattled Rarity’s teeth and threatened her eardrums, at least at first—but in time the tones of the Guardian’s shrieking became gradually less soul-shattering, less omnipresent, and more like that of a pony. An oversized and freakish pony whose screams were deep and ragged, but a pony nevertheless. Soon it was nothing more than a great and twisted pony who lay unconscious and half-sprawled upon Rainbow Dash. “Did it work?!” Cheese shouted over the din, galloping toward Starlight. “Hey! Are we good to call phase two done, or do you need more? Because it kinda looks like we’re about to get to phase three pretty darn quick!” Amid the room’s dead and dying, an ill wind stirred… “Oh yes… I feel his Power,” Starlight said, laughing at the sight of kaleidoscopic lightning dancing over her coat. “We were right all along, Cheese: the Guardian was the embodiment of Discord’s power! All but what was left in the head…” She flexed her shackled foreleg, creating a small globe of bright white sunlight rimmed with more of the strange, unpredictable patterns and hues. Then she laughed at it. “Yes Cheese, bring on Nightmare Moon. I can stop her. I can rule! I—” Without warning, Cheese lurched toward Starlight. She gave a pained but choking vocalization. Then huge arcs of power began flowing off her body as she stumbled back from him, rolling her eyes, and raising her hooves to paw instinctively at her throat. A knife hilt protruded from it. “What did you do?!” Blueblood hollered at him. “Cheese, that was never part of the arrangement! Now who’s gonna wield Discord’s power against the Nightmare—me?! I’m a lover, not a fighter!” “I’ll answer your question via the dielectric method,” Cheese said, dashing back over to Rarity. “Lady Rarity, do you remember the mugger that we dealt with that one time in the alley?” The would-be mugger’s fear-filled death throes sprang to mind all too readily. She nodded. “What choice did I tell you to make as he lay there bleeding out? And why did I tell you to make it?” Rarity shivered. “P… Pull the knife out,” she whispered. “Because there was… no saving him…” “Bingo!” Cheese vaulted back across the distance between himself and Starlight, gripped the knife, and— Rarity looked away, unable to watch it happen. While doing so, she noticed that a stronger wind had kicked-up in the room. “Say, big guy, can you eat fast? We’re expecting company.” Rarity glanced back up at Cheese. She found that he’d removed the shackles from both Starlight and Tirek, and was now switching the two ends. Tirek raised an eyebrow. “Take a look around,” Cheese shouted—and Rarity obliged, noticing that Blueblood had retreated from the scene and was in the midst of rounding-up a few of his surviving minions. “In the end, it doesn’t matter who’s running the show these days; not Starlight, not Nightmare Moon, not anypony!” Next to him, Tirek turned his opened jaws toward Starlight, and a thick stream of many-colored energy flowed up into his mouth. “Our sun is gone! Ponies only know lives of suffering! This world is dead! Don't you think it's past time to quit dancing around that fact?!” “But… your wife,” Rarity said, her pulse pounding. “Even if she is… gone… surely she would’ve disapproved of such madness! Think of all the lives you might snuff out by pitting the Nightmare against such powers as the Guardian had held?” “I didn’t do this!” Cheese shouted. Rarity could see veins standing out from his neck, and the light of madness in his eyes. “I didn’t kill it! I didn’t take the world’s light away! I didn’t take your family away, or mine, or…she did! I can’t stand to live this way anymore! To see other ponies living like this! We all know it’s broken beyond repair, so why doesn’t somepony just go and finish the job!” The wind whipped around them, faster and faster. “Governor Blueblood!” It was Sassy’s voice. Rarity’s heart leapt as she saw Sassy staggering toward Blueblood. “Order your stallions to gather the Elements and help us save who we can,” Sassy commanded. “We must flee before Nightmare Moon arrives. She'll kill everypony here!” “Speak for yourself, little miss traitor-pants,” Blueblood said. “I don’t know about you, but I plan to end up looking like I'm trying to stop all this nonsense.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Unless you’ve had a very sudden, very sexy change of heart?” There was a bestial roar from next to the portal, drawing everypony’s eyes. Tirek, still drinking deep from Starlight's fading power, was growing. He snarled like an animal while new musculature rippled over his frame. His stature swelled manifold, and his teeth and fingernails grew into menacing, scythe-like fangs and claws. Soon he grew large enough to find himself pushing into the space where his cage had been deposited, so he gripped it, hurled it aside— Only for it to land upon Limestone’s unconscious figure, crushing her. Fresh sobs wracked Rarity. But not far away, she heard Cheese cackle like a maniac. And still the wind whipped harder all around them. “Nightmare Moon’s not all we have to worry about!” Sassy shouted, gripping Blueblood’s shoulders. “Order your stallions to help us, or my last deed on this earth will be to cave your skull in!” Blueblood bit his lip and regarded Tirek and Cheese. “Alright guys, change of plans! You two, go and gather up the Elements! Fat guy and short guy—yeah, you heard me!—go get the helllloooooo nurse and her colorful friend. Everypony else, give us some cover from the literal monsters over there!” Rarity froze. Or, perhaps at that moment she realized that she had been frozen for some time—just like she’d been when Ponyville fell… and just like she’d been when faced with the choice to pull a knife out of a mugger’s throat. A feeling of impotent terror overtook her gut as she glanced over at Redheart, who was trying to disentangle Dash from the Guardian. Things began to move in slow-motion for Rarity’s adrenaline-saturated mind, creating the illusion of dilated time. She watched as Redheart bristled at two of Blueblood’s stallions who had trotted over to her. Rarity wanted to rush forward and assist, but couldn’t; her mind was dull and icy, and her hooves seemed unwiling to follow her commands. She wanted desperately to do something, but held motionless until a gasp from Sassy drew her eyes. “We’re too late!” Sassy shouted, pointing towards the portal. “Everypony, GO!” Rarity turned her gaze and followed where Sassy was pointing, only to see a second portal forming next to the one leading to Tartarus. The new one manifested as a twisted, warping haze floating in midair. And from it, moments later, there emerged a night-swathed form that seemed to suck the vault’s already dim light into black—a large, powerful, terror-inspiring figure with eyes of blazing power, and razor-sharp, bared teeth: Nightmare Moon. Before her, still devouring a tide of energy from the ever-diminishing remains of Starlight, hunched the crimson, hulking, now impossibly muscular figure of Tirek, whose body had grown perilously close to room-height. “What is this treachery?” intoned the Nightmare. “Overseer Saddles? Seneschal Rarity?! What in the name of all that—” Tirek glanced up from his repast with glowing yellow eyes, then howled and leapt at Nightmare Moon claws-first. The dark Mistress gave an earsplitting scream as the pair slammed into the room’s side wall hard enough to shake the structure and send stones showering down from the ceiling above them. “Rarity! Dammit Rarity, move!” A slap across Rarity’s muzzle drew her attention to Sassy, who was trying to pull her towards the door. Several liveried stallions ran past them, alternately carrying or dragging ponies whom her overwhelmed senses refused to identify. But Cheese moved to block Blueblood and his stallions from rushing to exit the room. He easily parried several panicked sword thrusts before cutting two of Blueblood’s minions down with his already blood-stained knife. Then he advanced slowly, driving everypony away from the exit. “Oh, no, you can’t leave yet; you’ll miss the best part!” He raised the knife, as if to throw it. “You ever hear the joke about the balloon that goes pop?” Before anypony could answer, Tirek’s cage came hurtling across the room and landed on Cheese, driving him to the floor. “I have,” Limestone said, limping towards the group. One of her eyes was swollen almost shut, and she was covered with numerous small abrasions and cuts, but she bore a look of absolute determination on her muzzle. “When you told it to our family, it kinda fell flat.” The floor shook again amid the loud, stone-crushing conflict taking place mere paces away. Rarity turned dull eyes on the spectacle of Nightmare Moon dodging through the confined space near the portals, trying to evade the immense, pony-sized fists of Tirek, who had to squat to prevent his horns from scraping the ceiling while he moved about the room. The Nightmare fired a potent-looking blast of darkling energy, but Tirek merely opened his jaws, sucked it up, then laughed at her. “Get out of here,” Limestone said to the others as she watched the cage begin to rise from the floor. “That cage is lighter than it looks. You go; I’ll hold him here.” “Filthy,” Rarity uttered, half in a daze, as Sassy heaved her into motion. “D… Do you have Filthy?” Sassy looked ahead to Blueblood and company, who were making a quick exit around the now-rocking cage. “I don’t know! Blueblood, did you get the Elements?” “We’ve got two out of three—er, four out of six,” Blueblood shouted from the doorway. “And that ain’t bad!” Something heavy pushed against Rarity’s side. After recovering her footing, she turned and saw that Redheart had stumbled in her struggle to carry… the Guardian to the door. Redheart met Rarity’s gaze with something like a nervous grin. “Rarity, you won’t believe who the Guardian—” The cage lifted shakily into the air. “Hey, Limey, I know you’ve got a crush on me, but I’m taken… so here’s the dowry… back!” He grunted, then hurled the cage at Limestone. She tried to dodge it, but was clipped on her hind legs, and she ended up being knocked through the remains of a display case. Just then, Tirek grasped one of Nightmare Moon’s hind legs and swung her through a pillar and into the cage, obliterating it with a loud crash. “Hey!” Cheese shouted at Tirek, who completely ignored him and pounced at Nightmare Moon again. “I was using that!” Limestone rose to her hooves, seemingly ignoring the glass shards and blood that bespeckled her hide. She pointed a hoof at Cheese. “Let’s end this.” “You want to end it, sister?” He flipped the bloodied knife in his hoof. “Or are you gonna help your friends escape? Not that it’ll matter once the big guy’s done with ’em,” he said, gesturing to the ever-growing Tirek. Rarity was dragged around Cheese’s back side by Sassy. But Limestone made no effort to follow them, instead turning her gaze back towards Cheese. “I’m right where I want to be. I’m doing what I want to do. And right now, I’m gonna make you pay for what you did to Pinkie, you miserable son of a bitch!” She launched herself at Cheese with a look of death in her eyes. “Fly, my shadows!” keened the Nightmare from behind them. Rarity’s gait faltered mere hoofsteps from the door as Limestone tackled Cheese across her path, separating her from Sassy. Then Rarity glanced back with horror at the darkly crackling forms bursting from Nightmare Moon’s sides. No, not again… Her blood turned to ice. She expected to see them carve a bloody swath through Tirek, followed by the survivors, and ultimately herself. She did not expect to see Tirek thrust powerful, tree-trunk-width arms toward them, grasp them by their throats, then pull their sparking, yet somehow still night-dark, figures toward his waiting jaws. He bit down on each in turn, tearing great gouges in the shadowy essence comprising their necks, and sending twin effusions of dark energy gushing down over his teeth and claws. Nightmare Moon fell to her knees, screaming incoherently and clutching at her head. Rarity froze amid the panic that eclipsed her senses. Time seemed to stretch itself out into infinity, while all ambient noise was drowned out by the sound of her own frenzied heartbeat. She could see everything, if only in a daze. The Nightmare thrashed about on the ground. The shadowforms flailed in Tirek’s grasp as he drained the very essence from them. Limestone landed a blow of rock-shattering force on Cheese’s face. The dust falling from the ceiling seemed almost to be suspended in the air. Even a large chunk of masonry that was descending from the ceiling did so with a casual, even lethargic slowness. But then, everything happened at once. There was a flash of movement from Cheese, and Limestone ceased her pummeling. She reached a forehoof to clumsily paw at the knife hilt that protruded from her chest… Tirek drank deep of the shadow-forms’ energy, and roared, and grew. His frame bulked-up amid a rush of darkling shadows to the point where the room could only just contain it. Stones ground to dust beneath his immense hooves, and the whole floor trembled from his growing mass. He cast the drained shadows aside, leaving them to dwindle into nothingness—and reached for Nightmare Moon herself, who was now powerless to stop him from grasping her whole barrel tightly in one of his huge claws. He raised the Nightmare high, and smashed her down onto the ground with a force that shook the room again. Then he dragged her toward the portal to Tartarus, and shoved her partway through it, letting her head and neck rest upon the cracked brimstone. Tirek laughed, raised his other fist high, then smashed not only the Hellshard, but the stone floor underneath it. And the hell-portal winked out in an instant… with Nightmare Moon’s head still on the other side. Rarity averted her eyes from the grisly aftermath. In looking down, though, she spotted an all-too familiar figure lying amid a cluster of shattered display cases. “F—Filthy?!” Rarity’s jaw hung slack as she surveyed the awful lacerations on his barrel, and the large piece of collapsed stone lying across his back legs. It looked like he’d fallen through several of the display cases, and then had part of the ceiling cave in on him. His bloodshot eyes fluttered open, meeting with hers. “R… Rarity,” he choked, blood trickling from his mouth. He reached up toward her with something in his outstretched forehoof. It was a stone orb—no, an Element of Harmony. Filthy’s eyes took on a glassy sheen as he raised the Element higher again. “Please, my love—” He coughed blood onto the ground, and his strength gave out, dropping both the orb and his head to the cold stone floor. And with another long exhale, Filthy Rich’s barrel ceased to move. His pleading eyes remained locked on her, death having made him a monument to his own last request. Rarity found herself not only unable to move, but also deadlocked by the complete inability of her mind to continue processing what she beheld. She’d already been gripped with frozen shock mere moments before; now she found herself unable to manifest any more tears, nor indeed any more feeling than she’d already expressed. It was as if a piece of her died as Filthy Rich did, and she left it behind with his body as she felt herself being pulled again, this time much more forcefully, by two of Blueblood’s stallions. They crossed the threshold of the vault, then the landing, and were beginning down the lengthy spiral staircase, before Rarity’s mind caught back up with her. She’d borne witness to the cruel and unnecessary passing of the one stallion who’d brought her comfort in this night-beshadowed world... and the full shock of it hit her, along with the gravity of his dying wish. She gasped, and lit her horn, reaching out desperately, hoping to pluck the Element from the debris that it had fallen in. All at once, she could feel it with her magic. She tried to lift it, and found it was far heavier than she expected. Yet Rarity managed to levitate it out from the vault just before the door swung closed, and brought it down toward herself. “What the—that’s the fifth Element!” Sassy shouted from lower on the stairs. Rarity glanced down, seeing strain on Sassy’s face, and realized that Sassy was supporting both Rainbow Dash and the four other Elements in her magic. “I… I can help somepony,” Rarity said, her mind at last seemingly able to set its frozenness aside and sync-up with the events unfolding around her. Still, her sense of numbness remained. “Help Redheart!” Sassy called. Rarity shrugged off the stallions who’d been supporting her, and cantered down the stone steps, seeking Redheart. Soon she caught up with her. Despite possessing earth pony strength, Redheart seemed to be struggling under the Guardian’s considerable weight. “Do you need a hoof?” Rarity asked. “Wouldn’t say no,” Redheart grunted. Rarity shuffled under the Guardian’s other foreleg, taking care to avoid its long, low-hanging claws, even though that brought her into contact with the creature’s patchy coat of yellow fur and thin, dirtied, but distinctly pink vestige of a mane. She strained to be of much help carrying the Guardian, but together she and Redheart did make faster progress down the stairs. A massive tremor wracked the building, causing Rarity and Redheart both to stumble. Small bits of dust shook loose from the stonework around them. “We aren’t gonna make it, are we?” Redheart asked quietly. “Tirek’s getting too big for the tower to hold him… the whole damn place is gonna come down, isn’t it?” Rarity’s eyes flicked to the Element that she held in her magic. “Everypony,” she shouted. Heads turned towards her. “Everypony, Doctor Redheart has just made an excellent point… Tirek continues to grow, and we’re not moving fast enough to escape the tower. If we could use the Elements to stop him, there may yet be a chance!” “But we’re missing one!” shouted Sassy from below. The cold dose of reality made Rarity’s stomach sink. “Yes, but… Cheese told me that the sixth was hidden, that it needed some kind of spark to activate it… or perhaps, I wonder… to make it appear?” “Wait a minute,” Redheart said. “What kind of spark?” “I’ve no idea… do you know?” “Sounds like something I read about recently,” Sassy shouted, interrupting them. “Like the Elements are dormant unless exposed to some kind of unique and powerful magic that helps bind them together.” Rarity saw her glance over the edge briefly, down toward where Blueblood led a pair of stallions who were carrying the unconscious figure of Twilight. “I figured that Twilight would be the pony with the knowledge and power to make that happen, though!” “There must be something else that we can use in her stead,” Rarity said. “We mustn’t let them fail us as they failed Celestia, when their power surely could’ve kept the world from ending up as this… this… light-forsaken anomaly!” Redheart’s mouth worked open in a look of sudden realization. “Zecora’s journal! Rarity… that’s it! She wrote about the world being wrong somehow… about ‘The Rainbow that will never be!’ And Rainbow Dash, she…” Redheart choked up and wailed: “Oh Celestia! Rainbow Dash, you stupid, beautiful idiot, you must’ve come so close—” Once again, a tremor reverberated through the stairs, this time accompanied by much, much louder sounds of crushing rock and metal under tension. Redheart misstepped and lost her balance. Rarity grunted and stumbled, trying to keep both herself and the Guardian upright while Redheart recovered. “Do you mean to say that Rainbow Dash knows how to activate them?” “She wouldn’t know how,” Redheart choked through tears. “But the spark… I think… it might be a Sonic Rainboom!” “That’s just a legend!” Sassy shouted from below, glancing briefly at her burden before shaking her head. “Besides, with all the blood she’s lost, I don’t think she’ll be doing any normal aerial maneuvers anytime soon, much less impossible ones! And that’s if she even lives!” “Maybe, but I think the spell that Fl—” Suddenly, Rarity’s whole world bucked and thundered amid a torrent of shattering stone. Her magic blinked out from her sheer surprise at its suddenness and magnitude, and she took what little cover she could by pressing against the tower’s wall. Then she heard Sassy scream, and Rarity peered over the edge just in time to see four of the Elements falling into space. Despite her uncertainty about where the Element that Filthy had given her was, Rarity hastily re-lit her horn and reached with desperation for the four that she could see. She caught them, but they pulled heavily enough in her magical grasp that she ended up skidding right up to the stair’s edge before stopping. Rarity caught sight of the fifth Element tumbling down the stairs, and shouted: “Sassy! Catch it!” Sassy turned her head, lit her horn, and caught it. But then she staggered backwards a few steps, straining to keep her hooves planted. “Rarity?!” she shouted, her voice thick with trepidation. “Rarity, what’s it doing?!” “What do you mean?” “I mean…” Sassy’s teeth clenched with concentration. “I’m not catching it… I’m holding it back! It’s like it’s trying to get closer to me!” A humongous roar reached them from above, but Rarity focused her attention on the four orbs in her grasp. Buried deep beneath the feeling of heaviness in her magic, Rarity could detect a faint pull coming from each of them, as if they were not merely succumbing to gravity, but trying to bring her closer. There was a rending sound like an explosion from above, and the rumbling unsteadiness in the stone stairs grew harder to ignore. Dust rained down seemingly from everywhere. “Look, Elements or no Elements, the tower’s collapsing!” Sassy shouted. “Can anypony teleport us out of here?!” “I can’t,” Rarity said. “Blueblood?” “I think Discord might be able to, but he’s too busy freakin’ out right now!” “All right then, everypony cluster together! Unicorns, combine our magic—form a protective shield!” “That’s your plan?!” Redheart shouted. “Best I can do on short notice! Now, MOVE!” Rarity heard Blueblood grumble as he and his stallions turned and made their way back up the shaking and unsteady stairs. Rarity and Redheart descended to where Sassy was waiting with Dash. All of the survivors soon met, and the conscious unicorns put their horns together. Sassy started the spell despite still keeping the Element at bay, Blueblood and one of his unicorn minions joined it, then Rarity poured everything she had into it. Soon a glowing, scintillating sphere formed up around them. In a heartbeat, the shaking grew so intense that the lot of them fell from their hooves, landing in a tangle of conscious and unconscious ponies alike. The magical sphere held fast around them, though, and moved with them as they began to roll— The stone stairs shattered underneath the sphere. Ponies screamed. They plummeted down to the next level in the spiral, which the sphere bounced off with a heavy and almost metallic clang. All the while, Rarity knocked about the sphere’s insides, being flung into other ponies, rolling with them, being hit by tumbling bodies and chaotically flying stone Elements alike, and losing track of which way was up as the sphere continued rolling. The sphere dropped sharply again, tumbling down through huge sheets of collapsing stone. Hollering and curses echoed all around the sphere, and something hit the side of Rarity’s head, lighting up her consciousness with pain. And just when she thought that the sphere might be slowing, it bucked violently again, further agitating the great mass of equine flesh. Rarity caught only a fleeting glimpse of their surroundings as she continued tumbling, but it struck her that they seemed to be somewhere approaching ground level— The sphere finally slammed to a halt, and everypony jostled into each other. Blueblood’s head hit the ground, hard. His hornglow faded in an instant. Both Rarity and Sassy followed suit, allowing the sphere to dissipate. But without it holding them in, the group all spilled out onto the ground in a great, groaning heap. Something else knocked against Rarity’s horn. She let her eyes flutter open and saw one of the stone orbs floating—she blinked, confirming it was floating—a short distance above her muzzle. It glowed in a faint but visible hue of white energy. She reached her hoof up to touch it, and it dissipated in a burst of light. Rarity inhaled sharply. A new feeling of vitality flooded her barrel, and she blinked out the grogginess and disorientation of her ordeal. She sat up and looked around at the others. Nopony seemed unduly worse for wear, though Twilight, Blueblood, and several of his minions all seemed to be out cold. Then she turned and felt her jaw go slack as she regarded the huge section of collapsed tower that they’d recently been in. The stairs and walls and ramparts and ceiling just a few dozen paces away had all caved in and lay in great, scattered mounds of stone. Dust and smoke hung heavy in the air. Sassy and Redheart sat up as well, each appearing much more bright-eyed than Rarity would’ve expected. “Was that—” Sassy started. “—an Element?” Redheart finished. Rarity studied the twin expressions of wide-eyed awe on their faces. Bruised and battered though they were, they both seemed remarkably alert. “I didn’t think they’d activate without the Rainboom,” Redheart said, furrowing her brow. “Perhaps they haven’t,” Rarity said. “Perhaps… they’re merely awakening. Whatever they might do… I have to think would be grander than merely reviving us?” “That makes sense,” Sassy said, touching a hoof to her chest and frowning. “I don’t understand why one would choose me, though. I think it’s… Honesty?” “I think that I’ve got Loyalty…” Redheart winced. “Agh, it feels weird, though! It’s like it doesn’t… like I shouldn’t…” “What, dear?” Rarity asked. Redheart shook her head, then bent down and started trying to disentangle the other survivors from Rainbow Dash. “I… I don’t know how to put it into words. It’s like… this feeling that I shouldn’t have it. Like it’s supposed to be—” “Somepony else’s,” Sassy said, pressing her hoof even more strongly into her chest. “I feel it too, but I don’t know what it means. What about you, Rarity?” Rarity closed her eyes, relaxed her breathing, and let herself concentrate on a new and comforting feeling of warmth that seemed to radiate from within her. It was peace, Harmony— “Generosity,” Rarity whispered, before meeting their eyes again. “I can’t say how I know, nor why it would choose me, but it is surely Generosity. Though, I’m sorry… I believe it feels… fine?” There was a stirring from within the pile of ponies next to them. The Guardian pushed up on her foreclaws, raising a face with twisted features toward Rarity, who recoiled on instinct at seeing its great wound-like maw so close to her own. But then the Guardian made a small choking sound and hid her face behind heavy, scabby, razor-clawed forelegs. Rarity felt it was incredibly out-of-place to behold such a creature experiencing fear, rather than causing it. “Don’t look at me!” howled the Guardian. Though still deep and distorted, her voice was much more equine than before. “There wasn’t time earlier,” Redheart said, touching Rarity’s shoulder. “But I was trying to tell you that the Guardian… is Fluttershy.” Rarity’s jaw fell, and she raised a hoof to cover her open mouth. The twisted resemblance was clear now that she knew to look for it. The Guardian—Fluttershy—still had yellow hair, and a pink mane and tail. Clusters of pink hair hung from her haunches, showing where her cutie mark must be. And her limbs were still quite long, though they’d been bulked-up with thick muscle as well. Fluttershy wrapped her great, tattered wings around herself. “Please, don’t look at me… I didn’t want you to have to see me like this. I just couldn’t let Rainbow Dash do what she did without trying to save her! Oh, Rarity… what that centaur did is awful. I can’t feel Discord anymore! And now this Element of Kindness… did he… is he… oh, goodness—” Rainbow Dash coughed. Rarity immediately tore her eyes away from Fluttershy. Yet Redheart moved quicker, shoving aside a couple of Blueblood’s minions who had fallen upon Dash. Once she was clear, Redheart began running her hooves over what remained of Dash’s bloodied armor, looking for its clasps. Rarity watched Redheart remove the armor’s chestpiece, then hoof the bloody fabric below it aside, seeking a knife-wound that was no longer there. In its place was a mass of furless scar tissue; the skin was whole, but puckered in appearance. “H… Hey there,” Redheart said, running a hoof through Dash’s mane and barely stifling a sob. “Rainbow! Rainbow, can you hear me?” “Uuuughh,” Dash groaned. “What happened?” Fluttershy’s face twisted into misshapen smile. “Rainbow Dash! Oh, thank Celestia, the spell worked! Chaos magic’s not the best at healing…” She lunged toward Dash, who recoiled at the sight of a monster closing in on her. “Gaaah! Redheart! Rarity! What is that thing?!” “Not what,” Rarity said, “but whom. It’s Fluttershy, dear.” Fluttershy turned turned away from Dash, hunching her shoulders. Dash simply gaped. “It…” Dash wetted her lips. “No.” Fluttershy nodded, covering her face with her claws. Dash studied the figure with barely contained horror. “Shy… what happened to you? “Discord.” Fluttershy said the word softly, but with finality. “Nightmare Moon tried to destroy him when she returned, but I don’t think that’s even possible. She sent most of his essence to Tartarus, though. He was lost, confused…” She took a long breath. “Insane with anger. And still very, very powerful.” “What did he do to you?!” Dash flared her bat wings and made to hop up into the air, but was stopped by Redheart, who gave her a plaintive look. “It wasn’t like that,” Fluttershy continued. “I saw that he was hurt, and I tried to reach out to him. He was a soul without a mind, or body, and I… we… made a deal.” Dash swallowed. “What kind of deal?” “He let me put ponies into stasis sometimes, and thought it was funny to make Nightmare Moon let me send back as many ponies as she would send in. But after we joined, he changed… me, sometimes. And I never could stop him from ‘redecorating’ Tartarus.” “Oh, Shy…” Dash’s eyes welled with tears, and Redheart hugged her. Fluttershy gestured at the pair. “It looks like we’ve both made sacrifices to survive… and maybe found somepony we didn’t expect along the way.” Before Dash could respond, a gargantuan, near-deafening roar sounded from the nearby ruins of the tower. All present and conscious turned and gaped at the titanic figure drawing himself up slowly to a height that stretched well above the castle walls. Then he struck with unstoppable force, muscling his way through what remained of the adjoining wall that had recently supported the tower. Where his red and black claws swept, it left only shattered masonry in its wake. Below, Rarity could see dark, cracked hooves as wide as castle doors stomping down, shaking the earth around them. And above, Rarity saw black static crackling all around his eyes and jaws, accompanied by ever-changing patterns of writhing shadows dancing across his hide. “Tirek has consumed the powers of Twilight, Starlight, Discord… and Nightmare Moon,” Rarity said, near-breathless from the weight of each name pressing down on her. “Ohmigosh…” Dash said. “What are we gonna do—we can’t fight that, it’ll squash us like bugs!” Rarity and Redheart met eyes, and Redheart nodded. “Darling,” Rarity said, “we all were talking just now about… a spark. A rainbow of immense power. Something that might fully activate the Elements?” “A Sonic Rainboom,” Redheart added, touching a hoof to Dash’s cheek. “I know you can do it.” But Dash recoiled, and her eyes went wide. “You’re crazy! Yeah, I might’ve felt something like that when I was fighting Wind Rider, but this…” She turned a grimace toward Tirek. “There’s no way I can stop something like that by flying fast! It’s impossible!” “Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy shouted, raising a clawed appendage to point at her. “Did you think it was impossible that you’d see Scootaloo again? Or me? If there was ever a time to try the impossible, this is it! Scootaloo would believe in you, Nurse Redheart surely believes in you, and I do too. Please!” “It’s ‘Doctor,’” Redheart interjected. “Otherwise, yeah absolutely.” “But I…” Dash turned a plaintive expression at Rarity. “I mean, what’s even the plan? I do the Rainboom, and then… what?” Rarity glanced down, spotting one remaining Element lying in the tangle of Blueblood and his minions: Laughter. “The Elements are awakening,” she said. “But we have no hope to wield them unless we can bring forth the sixth. If the Rainboom might give us the spark needed to do so, then perhaps the Elements themselves will show us what to do afterward?” “That sounds plausible,” Sassy said, nodding. “At least, based on what I read…” Dash bit her lip again and glanced back at Redheart. Then she slowly turned her gaze toward Fluttershy, and took a few steps toward her. The two embraced. “Ohmigosh, Fluttershy! Take it easy, you’re gonna break something!” “I’m sorry… I just can’t tell you how good it feels to be with you again.” Tirek roared once more, and the ground thundered with his hoofsteps as he set off from the wrecked section of the castle, heading toward the vestiges of Everfree still situated between it and Canterlot Mountain. “Wait a minute,” Redheart croaked. Where did Scootaloo get teleported to?” Rarity gasped with horror. “To Filthy’s compound, up in—” “Canterlot,” Dash said quietly. “Ohmigosh, that’s even worse. It’s not just Scootaloo—imagine what Tirek could do to a whole city full of ponies!” She took a few sharp breaths, and shook her head, likely trying to psych herself up for the task at hoof. “All right… I guess I’d better make this work, then. One Sonic Rainboom… comin’ right up…” And with that, Rainbow Dash squatted low, unfurled her wings, and shot up into the sky. Something bumped against Rarity’s hoof. She looked down to see the remaining Element had rolled free from Blueblood and the others, and was now caught between her hooves and a few larger stones. She lit her horn, lifting it up and examining it, trying to confirm that it, too, was pulling somewhere. “What are you doing?” Sassy asked, by Rarity’s side. Rarity raised her head, trying to follow the direction that the Element seemed to be pulling: toward the great mass of ruins from the tower. Her heart skipped a beat. “Sassy, please see to any guards who might think to come investigate what’s happened here,” Rarity said, deep uncertainty in her tone. “I’d better triage Twilight and the others,” Redheart said. “Excellent. Now Fluttershy dear… would you be so good as to lend me your physical strength—” Sassy gripped her shoulder and spun her around. “What’s going on, Rarity?! I’m tired of being kept in the dark!” Rarity glanced back toward the ruins. “I’m confirming a particularly awful suspicion.”