Violet trotted carefully along the path to the cave that she had noted as her trial grounds, stopping with a lean against the mouth of the cave itself to collect her thoughts. Even as a streak of lightning flashed across the skyline, she remained calm. Her worries would only be self-inflicted, this much she could pride herself on. Entropy's words echoed in her mind, a sort of audible miasma of confusion tearing at her thoughts, but conclusively drawing them to the same reality. The Equestrian Nightmare was a reality that she once saught to bring about too, and had nearly succeeded, but at the same time she held no firsthoof recollection of it.
Only the visions of her unvisited past told her anything, and the image of herself in sheer black did her no comfort at all. She looked down at the ground, raising a hoof and momentarily admiring the flow of lavender that followed her motions.
"Come on Violet," she chided herself, "what would everypony think of you if you just broke down here?"
Firming her resolve, she set her horn aglow and continued along into the cave itself. Immediately she was met with the sight of dozens of pony ghosts scattered around, some terrified, others terrifying. She shuddered at the sight but shook her head to clear her worries. "Can you hear me?" She asked to any that might be able to affirm it.
One of the more frightened ghosts turned her head, nodding between sobs.
"What's happened here?" Violet asked.
The ghostly mare merely pointed Violet's way. A brief vision of her corrupted figure, followed by the masses that she had captured for her shadow revelation, flitted through her view and she stumbled back a step. "I-I'm sorry." She whispered. "I never wanted to go so far..."
The ghosts turned to her, one at a time. The first alone seemed to understand what she had said, and nodded as she pointed deeper into the cave.
"Can you speak?" The ghost shook her head. "Can you tell me anything about this place?"
Again the ghost of a mare pointed directly at Violet, but then disintegrated on the spot. Violet let out a brief cry, unwilling to accept that even the unrestful could be destroyed by...
By what? Was that her answer? It's meant to be her demise? Hardly reassuring.
Tentatively, she took a few steps further in, steadying herself yet again for what must have been coming. She could almost feel the eyes of the departed following her.
"Any of them seem familiar, Violet?" A voice called from an echo through the cave.
Violet froze in her steps. The voice was not a familiar one to her, but seemed to hold such a sinister grace to it that it simply commanded halt. That and despite unfamiliarity, something seemed right about it. Somehow, but she couldn't hope to explain it. "Who are you?" She asked, hoping to at least figure something out.
"Oh, you'll know soon enough." The voice reassurred her, "After all, you're responsible for everypony here."
"What?" Violet gasped, unable to believe what she had just heard.
"The Manehattan shadow run, are you not familiar with it?"
"So it has a name now." Violet remarked with a roll of her eyes. "How do you know these things?"
"Because like somepony you know, I am not necessarily limited to the threads of time. My name is Nightmare Moon, perhaps you have heard of -"
"You!" Violet screamed. "You were the one who made me the enemy of Manehattan before all this!"
Only an eerie laughter answered her. Violet scowled, but out of irritated habit, knocked a hoof against her forehead and snapped to focus. "Seriously." She said as much to herself as anypony else. "How's that for unfair?"
The ghostly mare from earlier appeared through the cave wall, gesturing for the unicorn to continue forward. Violet nodded and began her descent through the cave. An occasional red or yellow patch in the floor she avoided, prematurely aware of several otherwise unseen pitfalls concealed by an array of devices that evidently were not cut out for her talent in detection. Still more ghosts lingered as she hopped down a number of niches in a cliff face.
The descent continued, and Violet quickly found herself wondering how deep this cave in particular would go before she reached her goal. The walls had gotten significantly more mossy, grime mixing in with many of the more jutted surfaces. After a long moment, she caught sight of a curious ghost unlike the others she saw. She stood fully twice as tall as herself, a deathly pale alicorn with alarmingly soft eyes and a face that cried out in sadness even to a first look.
"You can hear me, Violet." The ghost stated simply. "It is good to see you again after all these years."
Violet took a step back, shocked. "Who are you?" She asked, surprised not only that an alicorn could ever be seen in the afterlife, much less recognize her.
"My name is Hollow Shadow, Violet." Violet's eyes widened in disbelief. "Some time ago, you would have recognized me as your mother."
"B-but that's impossible..." Violet shuddered. "My mother was a pegasus."
"No, Violet. I'm sorry to have to bring you this news but your identity lies elsewhere. Your father knew the truth, and while I am hesitant to admit it, he did well to hide the truth from you."
"What do you mean?"
"Look at you, Violet." Hollow said with a gentle stare. "You hold yourself back from what you're capable of, what you could be."
Violet's vision betrayed her. A crystalline image of a blue miasma revolving around her darkened, sinister figure sent a shudder coursing through her spine and a wave of terror over her face. She took a step back, shaking visibly now. "Why?" She asked, "What good would it do?"
"You see everything, Violet. A talent that no pony can possess and yet you do not use it for the greater good."
"I don't care." Violet said shakily, forcing her nerves to calm as she straightened her legs. "I'm not a monster. No pony's going to force me to be either. I know what happened, I'm not going to make the same mistake!"
"Then you really are lost, Violet. Only a shadow of your potential." Hollow whispered.
"I hate to disappoint you, mother." Violet said sternly, "But if I rise to your expectations then I betray the hopes and trust of all Equestria for a second time. Even if I didn't do anything myself, I learned my lesson. I may not be happy with everything the princesses do, but that is by no means cause to trample on their rule. So, unless you have something better to say about your own daughter I think I may just disown myself."
"So be it." Hollow said quietly. "You are forever defective even to your own dreams..."
The silhouette faded, and almost immediately Violet fell to the ground, ignoring the muck flocking at either side. To her surprise a small tap on her right side caught her attention, and she raised her head through tears to see the silent mare from the entrance staring into her eyes with a small smile. She tilted her head towards the continuum of the cave before walking slowly along.
After a brief struggle to her hooves, Violet followed. They walked along through the hallway which the ghostly mare deftly navigated for what seemed an eternity before they reached a small room with a shining white chest against the back wall. "What is this?" Violet asked the mare.
In response, the ghost raised a hoof to indicate the chest then to reach for Violet herself. Although confused, Violet took it as some manner of suggestion for her to open the chest itself. She approached the container tentatively, releasing the hold with a quick levitation spell and lifting it open to reveal a golden anklet sporting a red gemstone along its front. After a moment of inspection the white unicorn donned it, when a strange sound in the ghost's direction caught her attention. The ghost had solidified into a very much living earth pony, who continued to smile peacefully at her.
"Thank you." The mare said finally, her voice seeming to sound as a ghost itself, heard from every direction with such quiet that it seemed ethereal. "I wish I could have introduced myself to you sooner. My name is Hope. It is a pleasure to finally meet my successor. Violet Shadow, I believe?"
Violet nodded. "Yes, that's me... but why are you here?"
Hope indicated the anklet now on Violet's hoof. "Because you hold the very gift that I have been so fond of while I was still alive in this perpetual nightmare. The gift I gave my life to protect; the element of Hope. It stands as one of a set - are you familiar with the legends?"
Violet shook her head.
"Then perhaps you have heard of the mare called Entropy?"
"I know of her. Ringleading all of Equestria into chaos and destruction."
"Disorder." Hope corrected. "Entropy embodies the power of disorder. She has been bent on the annihilation of everything outside of her vision for centuries now, and I have been able to do nothing more than watch and wait for somepony to come and challenge her. Unfortunately, you only have one of the elements. The other five are still out there."
"Don't worry, Hope." Violet said reassuringly with a gentle smile. "I have some friends already on their way to the others. There is a legend in a parallel Equestria telling of the elements of Harmony. Six ponies to six elements, and it seems like this isn't all too different."
"You're from the mirror?" Hope asked, eyes flying wide. "Oh, thank the stars! No wonder this all seemed so new to you!"
"What's the matter?"
Hope outright tackled Violet with hooves wrapped around her neck, just short of strangling her in her embrace. "Thank you so much."
"For what?" Violet insisted, prying herself away a step. "What did I do?"
"Ever since Entropy took over the Nightmare, everything has gotten steadily worse and every connection we have had with the mirror has gone under. Now it's becoming clear why. They must have reappeared in the parallel!"
"Can you explain this in a bit simpler terms, please?"
"How did you get here?"
"There was a..." The thought registered with the unicorn at last. "A mirror. That's the gateway to and from, isn't it?"
"Entropy's signature is to leave through a bi-dimensional portal and out of existence, as it would seem. With the power of the elements, my friends and I manged to keep her here in this world, but you can guess how well that went over."
Violet nodded, not particularly dismissing that she had first seen hope as a long-dead ghost. "I think I understand. I hate to excuse myself, but I should probably be heading back to the castle. Will you be alright?"
Hope laughed. "You'll never reach the mouth of the cave if you head out without a helping hoof. There's a lot more than a few winding tunnels through here. Here, let me help."
"Course I got this." Gale muttered again and again as he flew off into the distance, headed for the pillar of light that Violet had singled out for him. "I got this in a wingbeat."
He kept up his monologue in order to relieve the boredom of a solo flight, aside from his sheer need for a diversion of thought from the defiled atmosphere of the Equestrian Nightmare. He noticed a slight change in the drift as he kept along, his flying coming more easily though he couldn't quite explain why.
"Gale Storm..." A voice called from above and to the side. "We've been waiting."
Gale stopped, rearing in mid-flight to face whomever had spoken. The mare he saw stood on a cloud in uniform that at first resembled that of the Wonderbolts, but which design featured darker colors; black against crimson detail. "And, you are?" He asked, watching as two others appeared beside her.
"You haven't heard of me?" The mare in the center inquired. Gale shook his head. "Eva Nightshade, captain of the Nighthawks."
"And you've been waiting for me why, exactly?"
"Because you're looking for something of ours."
Gale raised an eyebrow, not certain what she meant.
"Your element. Your highest raw virtue." Eva went on.
"Let me guess. I have to do something to earn it, right?" Eva laughed but nodded. "What?"
"You're familiar with the flight test of Cloudsdale, yes?"
Gale paused, not intimately familiar but certainly having heard of the less-than-friendly course of action performed in Cloudsdale's testing. Clearing the skies, flying through the obstacles and rings in course, falling for a few seconds into a recovery without any landing. Any further he didn't know too certain of. Himself being from Las Pegasus, he had never performed the tasks himself. "Somewhat," he said with a shrug, "What about it?"
All three of the Nighthawks indicated a course high overhead. "Your turn. But after your recovery you had better keep pace with my colleagues and I or you won't find what you're after."
Gale narrowed his eyes. "Bring it on." He said defiantly.
In response, Eva and the other two simply raised hooves to the course above.
Gale took only a few seconds to figure his course of action. The clouds were scattered in such a way as to create a painfully difficult path of choice but held enough circular patterning to allow a sort of back-and-forth maneuver to clear them. Ring flying was simple enough, even with the rough angles of a lot of them. Recovery, well... he could do it, he was sure.
In the blink of an eye he was off, tearing through cloud after cloud in a blinding spree of speed, though each burst through he felt a bit of static shock on his wings, growing slowly into a dulling pain. He had still managed to clear the clouds in under a minute, sailing through each of the rings after with little to no trouble at all. Once he reached the last one though, he folded his wings down and dropped, keeping an eye up to the Nighthawks quickly rising above him.
The instant he took back off, they were off into the skies as well. Now it was just a game of keeping up. Behind Eva flowed a dynamic twin ray of red, stretching out behind the tips of both wings. Both of her wingmares were not far behind, and Gale had some catching up to do with a rising start.
He didn't take long to level with the others, and they seemed to be going on a pretty straight path. Gale came prepared for a straight run. With his wings folding halfway down, he barreled to the side and spun relentlessly through the air, forcing himself forward with a small tornado-esque gale cresting just in front of him with a burst of speed. It wasn't until he wound up kicked in the face by one of Eva's wingmates that he regulated his pace again - and realized this was no simple game of catch.
They were out to stop him. Eva flew a reverse-angle down, flipping over and letting her forward weight plummet with a drastic increase in her velocity as she dove down, the others close behind. Gale barreled to the side of one as he passed, but outright flew into the other as she moved to intercept him. No simple game of catch at all.
Now once again in the last, he noticed the three take to a climb again, which he moved quickly to follow. He watched carefully for an opening to spring ahead, keeping in mind where he flew best. If at any point they took to a pure horizontal curve, he would have them done and overwith. They seemed intent on keeping dual-angles going though, so he kept at the rear of an arrowhead formation.
Slowly, as he flew along, the numbness in his wings faded out of his senses. Even when it had cracked between his feathers, he didn't care. He had his objective, he would not fail.
Eva took a turn to the left, the two behind her close behind and crossing behind her such to keep Gale from rushing ahead like he almost had with the initial dive. He chuckled as he went into a spin anyway, struggling to keep his eyes on the wingmares and shooting straight between them just after they crossed each other. He was playing their game alright, but they were playing his as well. He never lost at his own game.
Again Eva took off into a dive, and Gale grinned as he went down right beside her, pulling around her front as she angled for another climb and wincing as she crashed into his side painfully. She fell, the others went after her.
A small blue shimmer caught his eye down near the ground, probably something worth interest. Especially since at the same time the Nighthawks simply vanished from his view again, making him wonder if they had even been real for a moment. With another shrug, he flew down towards the source of the blue shimmer, surprised to see a white-maned, blue earth pony standing beside a white box with a broad smile on her face.
"Nice going." She congratulated. "I never thought I'd see the day when I was outmatched."
"Huh?" Gale asked, "What are you talking about?"
The other pony pointed a hoof his way. "Congrats, bud. You're the new carrier of my element."
"What do you mean? How'd you just appear out of -"
"My own grave?" The mare chuckled. "Well you helped. Entropy stationed a few of her tricks and ploys out to safeguard the elements of Order from being acquired again after she killed all my friends and myself. Looks like we've got some ponies to look up to after all."
"And you are...?"
"Confidence." The mare said with a wink. "At least that's what I've gone by for a while now. It's all that matters to me anymore, is my element. One that you," she added with a poke to Gale's chest, "seem to have mastered beyond a doubt."
"I don't get it," Gale said after a while. "What's going on anyway?"
"Depends. You want the long story or the short one?"
Gale moved over to the box and opened it. "I'll take the abridged version." He said as he took a look inside. There, right in the box was a silver anklet inlaid with a large sky blue gemstone.
"Entropy tries to destroy Equestria, winds up exiled to an infinite nothing. She creates the Equestrian Nightmare, winds up defeated again for a thousand years, comes back to kill the six who beat her the second time, left our strengths guarded so they wouldn't be used against her again, the end."
"Got it." Gale chuckled. "Except, not the end is it?"
"I never got your name..."
"Gale." The stallion said proudly. "Gale Storm, pleasure to meet you."
"Same here," Confidence laughed. "Come on, let's take a walk. I can probably only go so far, but at least some company will be better than an eternal nothing and no pony to keep in touch with at all."
Maple trotted up to the edge of the forest, several brief reminders of the Everfree Forest cascading through her mind. No pony coming out, needless to mention of the various creatures that would do anypony who so dared to venture in some pretty substantial harm. After a moment to swallow her fears, she took a step forward. She couldn't fail now, not when all her friends were already depending on her.
The woods themselves didn't frighten her so much, although every few steps some sound or other caught her attention and froze her still for several seconds. Looking around as she continued along she took further note of the details.
Each and every tree seemed to have been already long-dead, trunks well into decay and dried leaves scattered about. For the woodland pony, it was in no way a pleasant sight. Among some of the leaves were decayed maple leaves, which in itself nibbled at her thoughts. Entropy had mentioned the culmination of everypony's fears in Equestria. Could it be made in this case, specifically to drive her off?
One hoof in front of the next, she reminded herself. Secretly she took note that in all likelihood if something went wrong then she wouldn't even be here to remember it, thanks to Chrono's apparent talent in time travel. He would have stopped her, so since he hadn't, she found it safe to assume it would turn out alright.
Another step, and for a moment she looked back only to see she was no longer anywhere near the border. Her inner dialogue had kept her going beyond her awareness for a while, by all appearances. "No room for doubt now," she whispered, "just keep going forward."
Another sound from the side caught her attention, but it wasn't the sound of anything natural. It sounded like an electric hum, but that didn't make any sense either.
Of course, the sudden visual of sparks traversing every tree in sight didn't make sense to the mare, but that was when she decided to momentarily abandon the thought. She took a step back, bracing should something happen. It came as much less of a surprise then when the nearest trees began to fall straight in her direction.
The first she slid back from, but not quite quickly enough to avoid being trapped between several of the branches, needless to mention the several now-throbbing cuts along her coat from the fall. She squinted her eyes closed and dropped down, fearful in case another tree trunk should land atop her and silence her forever. The sound of a snapping branch overhead with a mind-dulling thud reassured her that at the very least, she had survived.
Nearly a minute passed before Maple dared to move again, picking at her way out of the fallen trees. Only the two had fallen, but every other tree in sight seemed poised to fall right on top of her.
For a mare who had always thought of herself as the strong, silent type, she began wondering how strong that really made her. "Stop, Maple," she said to herself a little sternly, "you have to have expected something. Least you're alive, right?"
And she would keep it that way so long as she could. Her pure caution had led her almost to her death though; she needed a new approach. Looking around, she noticed the two trees that had uprooted were the two closest to her in proximity. A well-laid trap to be sure, but not without its drawbacks. They might not fall over until she gets close enough to, which if she took off in a dead run, they would have a little difficulty reaching her.
So, with a plan of action decided, she rushed forward. Surely enough, the sounds of dozens of collapsing trees behind her marked the path she took, and the occasional scratch in the ear reminded her that she could not hesitate.
Then the trees started falling in front of her. Still in her direction, but two had fallen while she was already well behind, both angled to intercept each other at about the point where she would be at the time. Mixed with the trees from behind, she couldn't slow down.
Closing her eyes with a single leap, she tripped a hoof over the still-falling tree and landed roughly on her back just as a tree snapped to her left, causing a blunt strike on her right from it falling over. Out of pure reflex, she rolled to the left. The snapped trunk wasn't far behind either.
Two minutes passed whereupon she finally recovered her nerves, and she stood once again and briefly surveyed the situation. She must have fallen over the trunk of one tree and... her eyes widened; her reflexes were probably the one reason she was alive at this point. The tree trunk that had snapped would have been enough force to crush her chest beyond any hope of breathing. Not a good way to go.
Her breaths came slow, her alarm dimming to a wary caution again. She took a look back. Dozens of trees had fallen in a vain attempt to strike her down, but she had not only stood her ground; she had advanced through the lot of them. Further retrospect brought on the fact that standing her ground would definitely be a lethal mistake.
A rustling of leaves from above and to her left caught her attention again. With significantly much less fear than before, she glanced in its direction. No surprise when she only saw a few rotten leaves falling, but their momentum wasn't straight down either. As if something had swept them forward just before prying them from their branches.
Ready for anything, the young mare continued on. It wasn't until an outright earth-shaking rumble caught her attention when she realized that almost every tree that could have reached her at all now conspired against her. One right into the next, they uprooted and fell her way. Her eyes narrowed, and although it sent a chill down her spine, her heart seemed to have stopped beating for a moment.
She hopped back a step as one tree crashed down in front of her, but her recovery was nothing less than expertise as she jumped up onto the fallen trunk as another snapped behind her. Favoring the opportunity to keep moving she continued to climb the most recent fall, bounding from one wooden tree trunk to the next just as they collapsed against the last. After almost a dozen such leaps the remaining trees still falling never even landed in such a place to threaten her.
A curious white glow caught her attention just past the ironic clearing that had been made, just as a streak of lightning crashed into the tree just behind her and lit the stack ablaze. Between the sudden scare and the force of thunder, Maple didn't need any help getting away from the ensuing bonfire.
She landed hard against the base of a tree, and for a brief moment she felt her consciousness slipping from her...
Several pokes from the side finally gave the young mare reason to stir again, and she opened her eyes to see an unfamiliar green pegasus hovering over her, prodding her awake. "Thank heavens, you're alive!" She said with obvious cheer. "I was afraid you wouldn't make it!"
"Make what?" Maple asked, eyes darting around for any others who might have been nearby.
The pegasus pointed to the chest that the hurl of thunder had forced Maple over. "It's yours, I think you've definitely earned it."
"What is it?"
"You'll see sure enough. It's a long story, but I'm hoping you'll help it come out with a good ending."
Maple only raised an eyebrow.
"My name's Calm. Or at least it might as well be, for how often I've gone by the name. In that chest over there is the element of Order I created a long time ago. Took a lot out of me, but so long as I don't need it anymore I'm happy seeing it in good hooves."
Maple looked back through the forest, alarmed slightly that the trees were already on their way back to straightening. "Yours and five others, I guess?" She asked.
"Yeah..." Calm mentioned distantly, "How'd you know?"
"My friends and I noticed a set of six pillars throughout the landscape." Maple replied, "Seems to one of them that each of them were tailored to us."
After a few moments longer Maple opened the box. Inside was a golden anklet sporting a beautiful green gemstone along its front. She donned it hesitantly, feeling at once a little guilty for practical robbery. "You're sure you won't be needing this?" She asked again, glancing over to the pegasus.
"Of course not." Calm said cheerfully. "I may have been its creator but ever since this whole place went under, I haven't had it in me to hope for anything more than to pass it along."
Maple's face dropped a little, saddened. "What do you mean? You don't have purpose for yourself anymore?"
"After she killed us all, Entropy wanted to keep us confined where we wouldn't be able to do much of anything. So she trapped us all pretty close to our elements and forced our spirits into a sort of ghosthood. I can't even get too far without it hurting like... well sort of like how you look about now, no offense."
Maple looked down at herself curiously. Sure enough, she was quite a mess. Scratches and small cuts built up quickly after a while. Seeing herself so injured made her feel suddenly weak, and she dropped to the ground, shaking.
Again, a poke to her shoulder caused her to stir slightly. "Don't worry. I can help you out of here, but I'd like something in return."
"Anything," Maple promised.
"What's your name? It'd be a shame to see somepony come so far without due commendation."
Rayne was last to leave the castle, taking in a more deep perspective of her surroundings. Even if she kept telling herself there wasn't anything to see, it was still more than she would have liked to admit. Every possible negative landscape came into view; mountains blending into massive volcanoes, woodlands that openly defied her belief that there was nothing more frightening than Everfree, and even what would have been an open field in Equestria stood a barren desert. There was no beauty here, not even in its perpetually storm-lit sky. She wondered vainly for a moment if the Equestrian Nightmare's oceans held any semblance of peace.
With a shake of her head, she reminded herself that she didn't have time to explore either. Ahead of her rose a pillar of what she had seen as pure white, although Violet of course had noticed differently. This was hers, a marker probably created for her, but that didn't answer why any mastermind would lead her and her friends in the right direction.
Deciding to take to familiar territory first, Rayne took off for the skies, heading upwards for the cloud cover near to the pillar itself.
The air chilled as she ascended, causing shudders to run continually up the pegasus' spine. Still her wings did not waver, her aim true enough. In the distance she could see an odd spire of clouds, arranged with an inward spiral going upwards, all centered around another cloud that curiously enough, held a shimmering white chest atop it. "It's too simple." Rayne muttered, redirecting for the chest just as she noticed a flicker of red to her left. As she angled around to catch a better look, her eyes widened.
"Too simple, is it?" Entropy chuckled, wings snapping wide.
Rayne grunted, about to take off in the alicorn's direction when at the first flap of her wings she realized they would no longer carry her. Desperate and on poor momentum, she reached for the nearest cloud and clung to it for dear life. "Well then," she remarked as she pulled herself atop the cloud itself, panting, "I won't ask what the catch is."
But Entropy was already gone. Curious of her window of opportunity, Rayne made to extend her wings again, but they clung to her sides like no tomorrow. As she looked to them directly, she found out why; every feather tip had melded in with the side of her body. If she were to take flight, it would be on skeletal wings and enough of a numbing pain to render them helpless anyway.
She looked over to the spiral rotation of clouds, noting their shifting to a largely circular pattern. Several of the clouds were dark and threatened to shock the living daylights out of anypony daring enough to lay hoof on it, others outright sending jolts of lightning to other such clouds, which left her in a situation of how she'd ever reach that chest alive.
It wasn't hopeless, however. Several, perhaps a few over half of the clouds remained peacefully white, with no real chance of danger outside of an outward shock passing by. Taking more notice of the storm clouds, she frowned in the realization that they were arranged to shoot through at such a height above each white cloud as to pierce right through a pony of her height. "Alright..." she whispered, eyes narrowing, "Let's go."
She already had a course mapped out in her mind. She would have to reach the top of the spire in order to make a safe jump to the center, but beyond that was simple. Carefully timing her movements, she leapt from cloud to cloud, very often just above or under another streak of lightning. It wasn't until she had hopped five of the platforming clouds that she felt her balance sway a little. They were moving faster now. This changed everything quite suddenly.
She needed to take a moment to regain her bearings, having to juggle herself over a bolt of lightning that she had quickly memorized the timing of, but her ascent became almost direct. At the speeds she was already going, she couldn't afford to risk an angular jump anymore.
One, two, three more clouds jumped with a narrow miss of lightning on the fourth. And then a sudden change in direction caught the pegasus completely off guard, leaving her holding again for her life on the side of a small cloud perch. With the reversed movement, she felt static run along her wings as some of the darker clouds passed on either side, creating a rippling pain once they finally collected and sparked within the folds of her own wings. Even still she would not be distracted; nothing existed but these clouds and her target.
After she finally pulled herself up again, Rayne surveyed the clouds' movements again for only a brief moment before she took note of the simplicity of it all. She could wait for a second pass as she had, but higher up the number of safe clouds became impossibly small. It was a straight run from there if she didn't want to be fried alive.
With a rush of hope and more than one leap of faith, her ascent quickened until she vaulted just over the last cloud, catching on and holding to its inner side, but not bothering to pick herself up quite yet. She was safe where she was, and she needed to get her facts straight for her descent down onto the central cloud. Missing it would do her no good at all.
It was still quite a jump horizontally, not to mention the ground-breaking speed she would be attaining in the fall. She decided not to jump at all. To get as far out as she needed she'd have to kick off from the side as it were. Pulling herself halfway up with a deep, steadying breath, she forced herself away from the cloud with both hind hooves, disippating the cloud itself in the process as she turned to watch the central cloud and the ground below rise against her plummeting downward. Assuming the worst that she would pierce through the cloud itself, she reached for the chest as she came down.
The chest itself vanished, and Rayne felt an immense rush of wind down upon her as she realized the cloud itself was a well-laid trap for her. Without her wings and going at near sonic-rainboom speeds, she found herself face to face with the lake below, and what ultimately would be her death sentence.
She landed on what she could only recognize by the feel of a cloud, very suddenly felt on all sides save her back. She of course didn't want to see the end as it happened, so she had closed her eyes, but she no longer felt the wind opposing her descent. Only the cotton comfort of the cloud. Opening her eyes, she realized it was in fact, a cloud - but just beyond it was the rim of a valley, presumably over the lake. A sharp whistling from the side caught her attention, and she glanced over to see a yellow unicorn mare tossing her a wink.
"Nice landing!" She called out to Rayne. "Glad to see you could make it!"
Rayne narrowed her eyes slightly, pointing a hoof at the cloud she had miraculously landed on. "Did you...?"
The unicorn nodded with a smile. "Come on down, I've got something to show you."
Reluctantly, Rayne dropped off from the cloud and into the valley below, landing deftly and taking a trot to the other mare. "I hate to say, but I'm a little busy as it were." She confessed.
"Oh yeah? Anything exciting?" The unicorn asked, her gaze confident.
Rayne sighed, but decided it better to explain anyway. "Some friends and I are going after a mare by the name of-"
"Entropy." The unicorn finished for her. "Can't say I'm a fan after what she did to me and mine either. You're exactly where you need to be, don't worry."
"Then who are you?" Rayne asked, "I mean, how'd you get here?"
"Well one of those I can answer for certain, the other you'll have to live with only half an answer. Entropy created this entire place, but for all her efforts she couldn't hide the sparks of virtue that hold in everypony's hearts. My friends and I created some artifacts about two hundred years ago to that extent, but that's when Entropy decided to do away with us and our legacy. Lo and behold, you show up and outdo one of her favorite traps just like that."
"Okay... but who are you?" Rayne had to admit, she was confused more by the fact that it would merit a half-answer for a name than by the unicorn's explanation of things.
"Lost my name about when I lost my life, so I adopted my values and strengths as my name in its place."
"I need something to call you though." Rayne said quietly, not particularly wanting to argue about it.
"You can call me Focus. It's what I call myself anyway, so it'll work. Anyway, you coming or not? I've got something for you."
Rayne nodded, following behind a fair distance. Focus crested a hill before pointing a hoof at a familiar white chest. "There's the real one. Oh, and let me fix you up real quick..."
Her horn glowed, and one by one Rayne felt her feathers pull free of her sides, the sudden freedom causing an urge to flex her wings again, which she promptly stretched. Not once in her life had she appreciated her wings so much. With a nod of appreciation she moved over to the chest and opened it. Inside, a golden anklet featuring a bright blue opaque gemstone caught her eye immediately. After a moment of hesitation, she looked up to Focus herself. "But it's yours." She offered weakly.
Focus laughed. "I can't jump clouds when half of them are threatening my life and make two recoveries without my horn. You've got far more in this than I do, plus I owe you my life."
"I-I do?"
"You beat Entropy's challenge that grounded my element. I can live again because of its reawakening. It's most definitely yours."
"If you insist." Rayne reached for the anklet. A yellow telekinesis field moved it to her hoof and donned it in her place. Surprised, the pegasus looked over to Focus, who smiled in turn.
"Come on, let's take a hike," Focus offered, leading the way back to the castle. "So, tell me about yourself. I still don't even know your name!"
"Oh, right." Rayne managed a light giggle. "My name's Rayne."
"I'll bet anything it's sittin' at the bottom of this thing." Sledge muttered again and again as he climbed the outward surface of the volcano that Violet had designated as his target. He kept reassuring himself that it wasn't fear that was slowing him down. Caution was a necessary thing when face-to-face with an explosive demise, right?
Maybe not so much. The ground beneath him fell right away under his hoof, dropping him onto a ledge overlooking a massive riverbed of flowing magma, from which he immediately backed away from into the wall behind him. The heat was intense enough without his now-heavy breathing added to his passive reactions. He looked over the edge of the face of the ledge to find to his surprise, a hallway branching off near the bottom and ascending beyond his view.
A rumble left him standing back. All around him almost immediately, waves of flame rushed up from the cracks in the floor, threatening to burn right through the stallion and causing intensity in his muscles unlike anything he'd hoped to be put through. Stumbling, he fell to the ground gasping for breath.
And this was only the beginning. Taking care to keep both eyes on the floor, he made his way down, keeping away from any potential blasts of heat coming upwards either through the flames or the magma flow. Still he reached far enough that a direct jump would render him under the cover of the tunnel below, which as far as he knew seemed the only way forward, so to speak. Not much else gave him any sense of direction other than the notion of down.
He took a glance back, and suddenly came aware with a realization; he could go down. He could not climb back out though, at least not the way he came.
Abandoning thought of escape, he leapt down and crashed chest-first into the tunnel, the radiating heat of the stone surface leaving a small burn across his coat. Fortunately, Sledge Hammer was single-hoofedly the most sturdy pony he knew. And would most likely be forever the most sturdy pony he would ever meet.
Forcing himself into a gallop, he plowed through the tunnel only to come to a skidding halt at its mouth. By the hair of his legs, he had missed falling into the magma pit. There was no floor for him to reach, and both ways were pretty much a death trap now, with the sole exception of the double walls this way out.
Taking measure of them both, he sighed as he came to a resolution. Half a minute of reassuring himself later, he began ricocheting himself from one wall to the other and back again, fully aware of his dying upwards momentum.
Even then with a crude grunt, he slammed a forehoof into the wall, burying his leg into its grip. He had never been so sorry to have saved his own life before; the moment he kicked away from the wall again to finish his climb, he could see the scars already forming along his leg. He decided against paying attention to the massive throbbing going down his entire right side to match.
He crested the cliff face in enough time to avoid the eruption behind him, burning off a small bit of his tail and causing the bitterly fierce earth pony to cringe for the first time in weeks. Be it luck, skill or divine intervention, he had barely survived that.
"Hey, you down there!" A voice from above called down. A mare's, although...
Sledge looked up. Standing along another ledge high above him stood a dark brown unicorn mare, watching intently with keen interest. "There should be a lever down there somewhere, you think you can trigger it?"
Sledge looked around, for the first time noticing the number of contraptions built into the walls around him. For a volcano, this place was remarkably engineered. As much as he hated her, he had to give Entropy some props for imagination in this Nightmare of hers.
He flicked a hoof across a lever-like panel in the wall, jumping back slightly in alarm of the dozens of hoofholds that sported out from several surfaces along each and every wall he could see. "Okay, now what?" He asked, looking up.
The mare was nowhere to be seen. Only her voice echoed. "Keep to the right, and make sure you pause where there's a floor below!"
Sledge looked along the wall to his right, just as another burst of magma shot up in front of his view. No point in questioning why the floor below, anyway. As the magma settled back down he proceeded to jump up along the hoofholds in the wall, noting below a larger floor beneath one such hold. He paused to catch his breath at the hold above the floor. To his immense surprise, the magma flared up all around him again, but far enough away to grant him a little space to breathe.
Breathing. His lungs hurt just thinking the word. He had to continue forward; his friends, not to mention all of Equestria, were depending on him. Let alone this mare.
"Okay, there!" She called from an unseen point again. "To your left is a bridge. Cross it quickly, and don't look back whatever you do!"
Sledge did just that, not even bothering to care that just as he stepped onto the bridge the magma blew up on either side. He was still ascending though, but that didn't stop the volcano from threatening his life just from his endurace failing.
Another tunnel, surprisingly cooler. The mare stood a few dozen paces inside, watching the earth pony with even keener interest. She gave an approving and acknowledging nod to him. "I guess I have a bit to answer, don't I?" She said as much as asked.
"You could start with who you are." Sledge answered politely - for his already-gruff tone.
"Call me Courage. It's as much of a name as I'll ever have anymore." The mare said with a shrug, turning and walking down the hall.
"Not much of a name," Sledge remarked in tow, "How'd you survive in here?"
Courage laughed. "I didn't. No pony can outlast the heat of an active volcano trapped in an antimagic field and a caved-in roof."
Seemed absolute enough. "Then how are you here?"
"I had some help from my successor."
"Who would be...?"
Courage's horn lit a bright shade of red, and in the distance a small clicking sound alerted Sledge. "Yours truly. I've been waiting a while to see somepony daring enough to venture through this deathly mountain. Beyond here is a chest containing my element, that of Courage. It's one of six, but I'm pretty sure you won't be able to get them all by your lonesome."
"Don't worry about them." Sledge offered. "There were six coming. We should be pretty clear."
"There are six of you?" Courage raised an eyebrow, surprised. "Now that's interesting."
"What is?"
Courage sighed. "Here's probably not the best place to discuss it."
A silver anklet imbued with a massive green gemstone floated onto Sledge's hoof and bound to it. Courage smirked as her horn erupted into a massive red glow.
Suddenly the volcano vanished, replaced by the still-unpleasant - but nonlethal - scenery of the Equestrian Nightmare. "Alright, let me explain this to you." Courage began.
"Two hundred years ago, Entropy began her reformation of the Nightmare to suit her own desires. My friends and I came up to stop her, but we only half-succeeded. We managed to keep her bound to the Nightmare and unable to leave, but in the process she also managed to create in herself a sort of absolute power over the land, which she proceeded to mercilessly destroy each of us through. We were left to our own fates though, and with a little help I managed to communicate with everypony else that could make this work. We devised a plan to create the Elements of Order, the ultimate countermeasure to Entropy's rule that wasn't us directly. Then, we bound ourselves to them shortly before we each died in our own right."
"And, two hundred years later, we arrived and now you're alive again?"
"Half-alive," Courage corrected him, "We're still definitely bound, but we won't last long after the awakening. Probably not long enough even to regroup, but that's not important anymore. You and your friends seem to have some connection to the Elements, so it's not up to us anymore. I hate to ask, but can you help us?"
"You'd better believe it." Sledge said proudly. "That's why we came. Entropy's been driving Equestria into enough pain and suffering as it is. Can't expect a good pony to just sit back and do nothin', can you?"
Courage giggled and pointed a hoof Sledge's way. "See, that's the type of pony I can get behind! Why couldn't all my friends be more like you?"
Sledge shrugged. "Everypony's got their own preferences, I guess."
"True. Here, at least let me fix you up."
Again, a red glow about Courage's horn, and a massive feeling of relief through Sledge's entire frame, his every burn and injury visibly healing dramatically more quickly than he could have ever hoped. "Thanks." He offered weakly. "Name's Sledge, by the way."
"Fits you well. After slamming a hole in a volcanic wall, I'm convinced."
Chrono's movement into the valley took all of half a second as per anyone else's perception, his manipulation of time allowing himself a window of opportunity to move on ahead. Still he found himself climbing over hilltops to find at the source of his pillar a frighteningly familiar grey-coated, red-maned earth pony.
Deuce Wylde, arguably his best friend throughout his life, was waiting for him. Perhaps an illusion or shadow, but a further inspection led him to believe otherwise; his face was as calm and unreadable as he had ever known his friend's to be. "Deuce?" Chrono asked disbelievingly, releasing his hold of time as he did so.
Deuce's face hardly even moved as he noticed the unicorn's seemingly impossible appearance. "Chrono Spark, I believe?" He replied.
Same tone of voice, same face. Not a whole lot of mistaking him; this was the genuine article, as far as Chrono could tell. But what would he be doing in the Equestrian Nightmare unless he were explicitly sent by Luna?
"Yeah, that's me..." Chrono said hesitantly. "What are you doing here?"
Deuce lifted a hoof Chrono's way. "I could ask you the same. You were working with Entropy, why?"
Chrono's eyes lifted in alarm. He remembered the Manehattan incident? "Misunderstanding. I didn't know her goals at the time." He explained.
"Her goals have been evident since forever, how can you not know them?"
Chrono took a step back, curious as to how of all ponies', Deuce's memory could have been selective in this case. "What do you know?" He asked calmly, not getting offensive in the matter.
Deuce, however sprang to hold the unicorn down. Chrono made no move to stop him, only winced at the dulling thud of his back against the side of the hill. "You're not asking the questions," Deuce said in a reminding tone, "I am. What's your involvement with Entropy?"
"I'm trying to stop her." Chrono said simply, having nothing to hide.
"Right. Then why was it my best friend had to have you arrested only for you to escape custody?"
Chrono paused. Aero wasn't wrong to arrest him at the time, but at the same time he couldn't figure out for the life of him how this had scaled to a cross-world conflict. "I didn't escape. I was in a poor state of mind, the source of which I'm trying to prevent h-"
He was interrupted by a jab from the earth pony sending riveting jolts of pain through Chrono's chest. "Don't lie to me." He said threateningly.
"I'm not, Deuce. I have nothing to hide, and if you remembered the friendship we had before Entropy dragged me to the dawn of time then you'd believe me."
Deuce took a single step back, still looking quite unamused. "What are you on about?" He asked casually, his face still impossibly still.
Chrono slowly pulled himself back to his hooves. "You and Aero Slide, no matter how well you won't remember me, remain my best friends. The only reason you don't remember me is because I was forced through time to a point before we'd met, and what am I to do when no pony remembers who you are?"
"Likely story."
Chrono sighed. "No, it's not. Chronomancers are so few and far between that even to meet one is a pretty rare occurrence. Entropy being the exception since she makes herself known in every time frame she jumps into."
"So what's your side of all this?" Deuce asked, his visage finally giving way to a less hostile look.
"She's been after me for long enough that she's resorting to everything she can to make what's left of my life miserable. Evidently that includes one of my best friends' interrogation."
"Then explain this." Deuce said with a small measure of finality. "Princess Luna recalls perfectly that you had in another timespace gone to Manehattan under the orders of Entropy. What was that all about?"
"You and Aero were both with me. Entropy had convinced both princesses, Aero and myself of her supposed good will. You alone had your doubts, and it goes to show your insights are absolute. Now she's been trying to kill me ever since. I came here because a few friends of mine and I were on our way to report to princess Celestia about Discord being on the loose again, but a quick side-tracking landed us all here at the heart of this idiot nightmare."
Deuce nodded through several bits of Chrono's explanation, but still didn't seem fully convinced. "Then if you're a chronomancer like you say, why didn't you just go back to before the Manehattan mission and stand up to Entropy then?"
Chrono paused for a moment, but shook his head. "I never got the chance, even if it had come to mind. Entropy proceeded to the dawn of time and changed enough to significantly alter the would-be present, leaving me in a temporal vortex back to the dawn of creation."
"Then how are you even alive? You'd have died of old age centuries ago."
"I don't age. That and springing forward two thousand years left me at present while no pony remembers me. Yourself included, evidently."
Deuce nodded, glancing around him. "Fine. I guess your story checks out, but you probably ought to know that you're not going to have any luck finding Discord here. He's been running a riot in Equestria-actual for a few weeks now."
"Weeks?" Chrono asked, voice raised in alarm. "We haven't even been here a day!"
"Oh, that's not good." Deuce muttered, before he took off over the horizon at his fastest gallop.
Chrono blinked, his attention turning from his once-friend to the pillar at the base of the valley. "Weeks?" He asked. Talk about a flux of temporal mechanics...
The sound of a light landing behind him caught his attention. After turning for a moment he tilted his head in confusion. Standing on the hilltop was a curious blue pegasus mare, watching him with the highest interest he had ever seen in a gaze his way. "He must have been a good friend." She reasoned quietly, only barely heard. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."
"I do what I have to; doesn't matter how hard it hurts me in the end, as long as it pans out." Chrono answered with a shrug.
"And it doesn't stop you to see your history dragging at your heart like that?" She asked, her eyes almost glistening with wonder.
"What good would it do for me to slow down at all?"
"Pardon me for asking, but what position are you in to help others if you need help, yourself?"
Chrono's line of thought dropped right there. "I have my friends. I get help even when I don't want or think I need it. Every now and then I feel more like I need them to back down, but I'm proven wrong every time."
"Certainly trustworthy friends. Might I ask your name, sir?"
"Chrono Spark. Yours?"
The mare sighed, coming down to a seat and looking over the horizon. "I never really had one. Ages ago I identified by the name of Kera Nightwing, but it doesn't mean anything but a historic label anymore. Something I've long since gotten rid of."
Chrono began to climb the hill to sit across from the pegasus, his curiosity getting the better of him.
"It wasn't until I met a group of five friends that I decided to call myself by Faith instead. I felt like it was a standing reminder of what I believe most in. That no matter how awful things get here in the Nightmare, they will still get better. Seems like we have a few things in common, mister Spark."
"Please, call me Chrono."
"Chrono, then." Faith corrected herself. "So what's your story?"
"Pretty long. Overlaps itself in a few places."
Faith shrugged, "I'm not going anywhere."
Chrono sighed, but recounted his adventures throughout Equestria, taking several minutes in his explanations before factoring interruptions. Almost an hour later he reached to his latest encounter with Deuce, and he finished with a sudden realization that not once had Faith shown anything less than genuine absolute interest.
"She had everypony fooled, didn't she?" She asked at last.
"So it seems. I figure things aren't going to get better on their own though. I had to step in."
"You don't have much regard for your own safety, do you?"
Chrono shook his head. "If my life is the cost for everypony's well-being, then it's a cost I'm willing to pay."
"You're quite the outstanding stallion, Chrono." Faith congratulated him. "I wish I could have been more like you. Everything might have meant so much more."
"Then what's your tale?" Chrono asked, himself gaining some interest in this mare.
"The reason you're here I'm assuming. Two thousand years ago, Entropy was allegedly killed in Equestria proper, but her spirit forged a mirror that led into the recess of her mind and soul, which she formed into a parallel reality. She of course shaped it to her every whim and reckless desire, creating the Equestrian Nightmare out of it. Fortunately my friends and I managed to escape her notice long enough to get in her way, and we did just that. We were beaten pretty soundly though, even with our combined efforts and our very best at that. She banished us individually to what would inevitably kill us all, but we had enough time to create something to hold onto afterwards. Collectively, they were entitled the elements of Order, the last standing opposition to Entropy's perfect creation of disorder. Then, once we died, we waited for someone to come along and pick up where we left off. Looks like the wait's finally over."
Chrono blinked, realizing he had literally just met the creator of an element. "Then, where's yours now?" He inquired. Faith lifted a wing to reveal the silver anklet studded with a red gemstone.
"Here. It's yours now. Please take good care of it?"
Chrono nodded, extending his hoof to recieve the anklet, but his eyes widened when he found himself instead buried in a hug.
"Thank you so much." Faith sobbed. "If there's anything I can do to help, let me know."
Chrono slowly slipped the element onto his hoof, taking a brief moment to get back to his hooves again. "I appreciate the offer, I really do. But I think you deserve a bit of a rest as it is."
"Don't say that..." Faith said shakily. "You need all the help you can get, and it sounds like you know it."
"Even so, you said yourself it wouldn't do for somepony to offer help they aren't in a position to give."
Faith stomped a hoof, but glanced down at herself in slight alarm. "I... I guess you're right." She whispered. "Stay here a bit longer, could you? I won't be around long anyway."
"How come?"
"One of my friends, who had adopted the name Hope, bound all of our lives to our elements, but now that they're not really ours anymore, well it won't be long before I get to see what the afterlife is like. Not this eyesore of a land, I hope."
"What?" Chrono asked, wide-eyed. "You mean to say that my friends and I are responsible for you and yours dropping right out of existence?"
Faith giggled. "It's not that bad. A welcome relief, really. Can you imagine the heartbreak of watching this outpost of nightmares for two thousand years?"
Chrono silenced immediately, realizing the truth of the situation. He wouldn't have been too fond of it either, and however grudgingly, he accepted the truth. "I think I understand. Thank you."
"You can thank me when the element of Faith has done you some good. Then I'll be satisfied." Her appearance had already started to shift gradually into nothing. "Be careful, Chrono. I will be watching, but keep your friends close. You look like you'll need them every step of the way."
She finished fading into the air about her, and Chrono forced back his tears. He found himself questioning time and again how low Entropy had gotten. Looking down to his hoof, he nodded. "You have my word." He promised the pony who no doubt was already watching from beyond her grave.
Steadying his resolution, he turned back to the castle and set a pace back. His thoughts turned to his effective affiliation with princess Luna; he had been her agent for years that were now not remembered. He decided right then and there; when he returned to Equestria, he would set himself about going rogue. There was no need for his workings to be tied to anypony else anymore. His loyalties were unchanged, but no pony besides himself needed to take any falls for his actions and mistakes.
The castle loomed threateningly ahead of him. Everything hinged on this next few hours, he guessed. It would have to be worth it.
Entropy glanced out again through her window on the top tier of her castle, watching as one by one the pillars of light in the distance faded. Everything was going along perfectly, and she almost had it down to a routine without any repetition.
"Oh Entropy!" Discord's voice called from her doorway. "Everything's finished. Now if you don't mind I'll be taking what I'm due as per our deal."
Entropy turned to face the draconequus with an emotionless stare. "You don't catch on as fast as I thought you would have, Discord. The Nightmare is mine. You have no rights here."
"Don't play high and mighty with me, Entropy. You wouldn't have come half this far without my help."
"And I appreciate it, so I'll try and make this easy on you."
Discord raised an eyebrow in curiosity just in time for his entirety to be set ablaze in black flames.
"Equestria's better off without you. Don't come back."
A few crippled screams down the hallway preceeded the inevitable flutter of ashes to the floor. Entropy returned her gaze back to the window, staring on at her ultimate project.
"Was that really necessary?" A voice asked from her doorway.
Entropy turned to see none other than a greenish gold alicorn staring calmly at her, whiteless teal eyes watching her every shift in expression. With a slight decadence of darker green in her mane and tail, she had nearly the same magnificence and glory to her figure as Celestia, but this was somepony she could far more easily recognize.
Her twin sister, Harmony.
"What are you doing up here?" Entropy asked, tilting her head slightly.
"I can't say I'm much a fan of Discord, myself - but did you have to kill him?"
Entropy shook her head and looked back out through the window as a volcano erupted in the distance. "It was that or the alternative." She reasoned. "Besides, he's already met his match once already. Going any further wouldn't do him any good, it's time for him to go."
"How long do you plan to keep this going, Entropy?" Harmony asked, drawing closer. "Even you're bound to break at some point."
Entropy shot a glare at her sister. "I'm going to go until I meet the same fate as Discord. Only then will I have some faith that Equestria can be salvaged from its own idiocy."
Harmony sighed. "You remember your expedition to the dawn of time. You already died once, and you still don't think it's enough?"
"The work of a lone stallion doesn't compensate for Equestria's failure. Even the wielders of your elements have plenty to drive them apart. I know what I'm doing."
"Then why play the wicked mare of everypony's nightmares?"
Entropy's gaze shifted to the skies where she left Rayne. She gave a small chuckle. "Because that's who I am. I'm the worst of everypony. Unlike you, who I still can't find anything to work with."
"Work with!" Harmony glowered, "Entropy, we both know how hard you have it finding somepony's best traits. I'm not about to doubt your brilliance, but I still think you're taking this too far!"
"And what do you suggest?" Entropy fired back, growing frustrated with the conversation.
"Why can't you tell them what you're up to, give them a reason besides their own lives to do this?" Harmony suggested.
Entropy chuckled. "No, I'm surprised you haven't seen it already. They aren't doing all this for their own sake. They wouldn't have come if they thought of this as about them."
"You're saying you knew?"
"Of course I knew." A streak of lightning just outside her window gave her pause. "Not a one of them seems intent on gaining anything out of all this. Chrono isn't the only one I've been following."
Harmony sighed. "You're certain about this? I don't want anything bad to happen."
"You're not going to stop something terrible by avoiding risks. The way she's headed, Celestia is going to be faulted for Equestria's entire downfall and there's going to be no pony that will rise in her place. What we need is for not one pony to rule the entire land."
"You've explained this to me already, Entropy."
"Not in this detail." Entropy objected. "Celestia has plenty of noble intentions, but she's gone and done nothing ever since the banishment of Nightmare Moon. With that lax of a ruler, Equestria has been free to do as they so please for so long, and need I say it's landed everypony in a bit of a bind?"
Harmony dropped her head. She was beginning to catch on that her arguments were leading nowhere. "I understand, but still... why not just go to her about it?"
"I did. Of course it wound up being more about the night lasting forever than her taking a change in course, so that didn't go over too well. I have to step in myself, and that's exactly what I plan on doing."
"But nothing terrible's happened to merit this drastic an action!"
"You expect me to wait?" Entropy asked with a turn of her head, an utter calm in her face stilling her twin sister's every movement. "I think Equestria deserves better."
She turned to look out through the window. The sixth pillar finally faded into nothing. Each of the others had survived at least. No doubt now they would be regrouping at the entrance to her castle, certainly ready to brave the dangers throughout. "Harmony." She said simply with a turn of her head. "Leave. You don't need to be seeing any of this either."
Harmony took a single step back, clearly hesitant to leave her sister in such a state. Still with a nod, she vanished into thin air.
Entropy returned her gaze to the window. If even at the cost of everything she knew and held close about herself, her enmity with everypony that could have been so great a friend to her was the price she had already paid for the betterment of Equestria.
She knew what to do though. She wouldn't fail. If by some chance any of the six didn't make it, it was a simple matter of finding another that could fulfill the necessities.
Everything was already going perfectly. Silently she hoped it would continue to do so. She had to admit she needed a rest.
Even at first glance, the castle that Chrono returned to was not the same castle they had exited to reach their respective elements. Even peering inside the raised opening, the walls themselves seemed made of flame, smoke everywhere but oddly enough not directly pervasive to the hallway itself. To the unicorn stallion, it triggered an immediate recognition of the two forces at work together; Entropy's choice of decor, and Discord's uncanny physics at work. Not what he would ever dare call friendly.
"How could they have done this much so quickly?" Maple asked, taking a careful step inside. "It just doesn't make any sense, that type of thing's impossible!"
"Discord doesn't make any sense either," Violet reminded her, "And I wouldn't put it above Entropy to be able to do this either."
Chrono started forward, testing various distances from the walls only to find that each flame had a small field around it blocking motion into the flame itself, creating a rather solid-like wall. "No sense spinning our wheels," he remarked, "the Nightmare isn't going to undo itself."
Five of them moved on ahead quickly. Violet blinked in surprise by the chronomancer's tone, but followed only slightly behind.
The flaming walls gave way to a bricklike material, only dimly lit and carrying a sense of dread to it that Chrono couldn't quite place right away. He slowed quickly, just in time to fall short of the walls crashing together in front of him, with enough speed and force that he had no doubt whatsoever it would have crushed the life right out of him.
"Smashing welcome," Rayne said dryly, "not even going to say hello, just straight to business."
Gale nudged past Chrono and hopped back as again the walls flattened against each other, a small grin growing on his face. "Leave this to me." He volunteered, taking flight and darting ahead with a small tornado forming behind his spiraling thrust forward. The resulting central force brought the walls together without any viable trigger.
From the other side, Gale then stepped down on a slightly raised brick in the floor and watched with a chuckle as the walls proceeded to tear each other apart in a further collision leaving room enough for everypony else to squeeze through.
"Clever!" Sledge remarked, "How'd you know about that?"
Gale simply pointed a hoof at the raised brick. "I saw it, took a wild guess. I actually wasn't expecting it to be pacified without a triggering force though, so I guess the trail did the trick. Anyway let's keep going."
Slower now, but surely enough, the six of them continued down the hallway. Not long though, after a single flight of stairs they were met with a simple brick wall. "Really." Violet sighed. "She really didn't bother to get creative, did she?"
With a snort, Sledge crashed headlong into the wall, tearing a hole right through it and...
"Sledge?" Chrono asked, looking past as he saw his friend fall into the linear pit of the following hallway.
"I'm alright." Sledge called back up. "Only way forward, and I've definitely felt worse. Come on down."
One by one, they continued and fell into the hallway pit. It wasn't until Rayne took up the rear and landed that the walls on either side erupted in screeching metal tones, whereupon Violet immediately set off a light spell. The walls had sported hundreds of spikes on either side and, upon brief inspection, had begun to move towards each other.
Chrono didn't hesitate. His first lay of movement was to keep the hallway itself in temporal stasis, before stopping time itself at the same time, causing a layer of overglow to form around his horn. "Go!" He shouted, "I can only hold this for so long!"
With a sudden rush, the other five moved on to the proceeding hallway, each stopping at the edge of his stasis field. Needing a moment to breathe, he cut off the field and stop only to find the wall slamming down behind his friends, leaving him alone in a hallway full of death.
A voice, similar to Entropy's but not identifiable as genuinely hers, called out of thin air, echoing through the hallway. "There's a way through at the top of the end. If you act quickly, you can still make it."
Chrono glanced up at the voice's indication, seeing nothing more than a stone wall as the walls around him continued to proceed in his direction.
Considering the alternative was to drop unconscious from a sustained time forcing or otherwise to wait for a no doubt painfull death, he took off in a sprint for the wall. Some fancy hoofwork later, he had ricocheted off the collapsed wall and levitated a packet of air so tightly to serve as a temporary leaping platform. Having no time to question his capabilities in that regard, he bounded up along thin air and flipped over the spiked wall onto an evident floor behind. By this point, he stood panting from effort, vision blurring from such intense magical focus. "Who... who are you?" He asked, hoping whoever had so at least helped him up could hear him.
"In time, you will know." The voice answered. "Know that I am not your enemy, Chrono Spark. The wall ahead of you is illusory, you can proceed without any trouble."
Chrono took another look at the wall, testing the voiced theory with a hoof and almost losing his balance when he found it had gone right through. Still he stepped on after a momentary recovery, surprised by the blackened walls. "What reason do I have to trust you then?" He asked, moving along the winding path.
"Your dedication to the history of Equestria has left you in a state of further suffering than I would ever permit, had I been given any say in the matter. You deserve far better than to be here in the Equestrian Nightmare."
"You know me?"
"I know Entropy perhaps better than she does. She has followed you for long enough that I would call her interest obsessive at least."
Chrono stopped for a moment. "Then why would she try to kill me?"
"She wants you to succeed. Her determination rivals that of your friend, Twilight Sparkle. To that end, she has decided that among your trials will be her own ultimate demise, as a final test to see if you are capable."
"She's already died once though," Chrono reasoned, still not moving. "That doesn't count?"
"Not to her. She has determined that you are quick-thinking as a result, but she is unwilling to accept that your friendships are stable enough to meet this final test of hers."
Chrono silenced, beginning again to move along. In several places he noticed abnormal cracks in the floor, which he promptly avoided and was not incredibly surprised to find searing flames leaping up as he passed. Finally he reached a room, littered with pillars of varying heights and lit by a massive bonfire below. He stood for several seconds, looking over the architectural integrity of the pillars.
In no way was he pleased with what he found. Cracks everywhere, crumbling visibly going on along several tops. Carefully moving now, he jumped from one to the next, taking no time to regain balance as every last one gave way beneath him. Climbing along one, two, three, fully twenty pillars it was a small miracle he had even managed to get a hoof's grip on the ledge for the proceeding hallway.
"Here, let me help you." The voice from earlier said calmly as he felt himself levitate into the hallway.
Before him stood a fully-grown pale golden alicorn sporting massive teal eyes that almost perfectly matched Entropy's, save that they were much softer than that of Entropy's.
"Who...?" Chrono began to ask.
"Not now." The alicorn said quietly, a single tear forming in her eye. "I can explain everything when you've done what you have to."
Chrono winced slightly, but carried on nonetheless, now with an alicorn by his side. "You were the one who helped me out of the hallway?"
"That was me, yes."
"Why?"
"Because you need to succeed as well. Your faith in your friends is astounding, I must say. A true holder of the element of Faith."
"You know about those?"
The alicorn laughed lightly, pointing a booted hoof at Chrono's anklet. "How couldn't I? You're wearing it on your sleeve, so to speak."
Chrono rolled his eyes but continued on without skipping a single beat. "You're not being very open about this, are you?"
The alicorn tossed a hoof in Chrono's path, keeping him still momentarily. "Do you have any reason not to believe me, Chrono Spark?" She asked.
Chrono shook his head, weighing the facts briefly in his mind.
"I have only one reason to be hesitant to speak with regards to Entropy, but it is enough of one that I will not stray from my decision. I believe however, that I should refrain from going any further. Just know that in the name of all that is still good and right in Equestria, I wish you well."
Chrono glanced over to her, confused. She had vanished before he had even set eye contact.
Taking a moment to regain his calm, the unicorn continued along. The hallway was longer than he could ever hope to appreciate with his simple passing chuckle, and marred in a few places with smoldering black soot that upon further inspection was in fact, once living flesh, among other things. While confused, he continued on, unwilling to ask anypony who would likely not hear him.
He turned the corner to see Entropy staring through a window, hardly seeming to notice his arrival. "I was hoping you would arrive first." She said calmly, turning to look at him through her fearsome indigo eyes.
Chrono swallowed his fear immediately and stepped forward, meeting her eyes with his own. "What's with you, Entropy?" He asked with a slight glare. "I had just begun to hope you could turn out a better pony like you yourself told me!"
"I don't expect you to understand my intentions, Chrono." Entropy said, her calm stilling every bit of blood in the young unicorn. "Everything I've done has had the same purpose, despite the means of doing so. With your help, I've been able to realize every flaw in ponies throughout all time and come down to a single solution that involves you directly."
"You call this a solution?" Chrono screamed, holding a hoof at the window depicting the Nightmare beyond. "This is the farthest thing from justice!"
"This is what Equestria will be in four thousand years, without intervention." Entropy countered, her calm so absolute that it now rooted Chrono to the floor from his sheer break of nerves.
"What...?"
"Equestria stands on the threshold of its own demise, Chrono. I've been searching for an eternity to find ponies capable of keeping it in some state of security."
"And you accomplish this by killing everypony?"
Entropy's mane flared briefly, catching fire in many places. "Do not judge by the failures of others." She warned, "You know as well as I do that you have had your share of them as well."
Chrono took a step back, desperately trying to understand the alicorn ahead of him. "What do I have to do with al this then? Why me, and more to the point why wasn't this settled when you dragged me back to the dawn of time?"
"Because despite your performance in having me killed by my own devices, you then immediately lost faith in yourself and your friends alike. And by the look of things, you've done a fine job in reversing the loss. Now if only your new friends would bother to catch up."
"And then what?"
Entropy chuckled. "And then we see if you have it in you to do what's necessary."
Twenty minutes passed, and only Violet's gasp of relief at seeing Chrono again brought the stallion out of his near-daze. "You're alive!" She exclaimed, almost immediately halted by the sight of Entropy across the room. "What's she doing just standing there?"
"What I've wanted to all along," Entropy replied, "watching as the world finally takes a step to resolving its own idiocy."
"Huh?" Gale asked. "But you've gone all this way to kill us and -"
"I know what I've done!" Entropy shouted, her eyes flaring slightly as she glared at all six of them. "Do you think I had much of a choice? You have your purpose here, what's holding you back?"
Chrono held out a hoof to the side, keeping his friends from advancing any further. Everything made sense to him, with very few exceptions. "This isn't necessary, Entropy." He said, shakily but with a calm that even then sounded forced. "You can still make amends."
"You of all ponies know what has to be done. If you can't do it then you'll never leave; all the mirrors have disintegrated." Entropy countered. "This is the end of everything, my last effort at all of you."
Violet's mane bristled slightly, but Chrono stood his ground. "Are you insane, Chrono?"
"Don't tell me you've given up now..." Gale said with a roll of his eyes.
"No." Chrono said simply. "I think I just know what's really going on here."
"You've thought so before, and look how that turned out!" Violet objected.
"She has a point." Rayne added.
"I didn't take you for the sort of guy to give up so easily." Sledge noted with a raise of his eyebrow.
"I haven't given up. I've been taking the wrong angle."
Entropy raised an eyebrow, a genuinely interested gleam coming to her eye.
"What are you on about?" Maple inquired, tilting her head slightly.
Chrono stepped forward and turned to face his friends, putting himself between them and Entropy. "I know what Entropy's wanted ever since she and I first met. This whole time I've been treating her as either friend or foe, but in the long run she's neither."
"Says the pony who she killed how many times now?" Violet interjected.
"That was my own fault." Chrono countered. "Let me finish."
The other five slowly nodded.
"Violet, you know as well as anypony that princess Celestia has managed to overlook a number of things that are fairly important to Equestria. You're not the only one under that impression. And as it seems to me, all of you have some connection to virtues of your own that I'm guessing -" Chrono looked back to Entropy, who nodded her agreement with his unspoken thoughts, "-collectively make up for what the princesses are lacking in. The elements of Harmony do a fine job of keeping some threats from Equestria, but eventually they're going to pass along and then what?"
"I need your help." Entropy said after a long silence. "I may have been somewhat extreme in my approach, and I know I'll have to pay for it anyway, but I did everything for a reason. This world has parallelled Equestria for ages, and become the haven for the elements of Order, but because of the landscape and dangers no pony was ever willing to find them. You six on the other hand, practically rushed in. The only thing left to judge is whether you can each do what's necessary to be sure nothing happens further."
"And that is?" Rayne asked.
Entropy pointed a hoof to herself, her eyes narrowing. "To eliminate the source of the trouble."
"To what now?" Sledge asked, eyes wide.
"To kill her..." Maple said simply. "Test of willpower I would imagine. You've gone this far just to see yourself die?"
"A necessary evil." Entropy explained. "Equestria is better off without me causing nightmares for its fillies and colts."
"Normally by now you'd have put up some resistance aside from the structure." Chrono recalled. "You're really going to make it this easy?"
"I could have killed you long ago had I wanted to, Chrono." Entropy answered him. "I let you live."
"Rub it in, why don't ya?" Gale remarked.
"Well?" Entropy asked. "Do you have what it takes?"
Everypony had only barely managed to get out of the building before it collapsed behind them, Maple's tail even tearing from the wreckage and leaving her caughing through a long stretch of dust and debris.
"I don't understand..." Violet said in just over a whisper. "Why would she want us to kill her?"
A vaguely familiar pale golden alicorn appeared on the horizon, carrying on her back the broken body of Entropy. "Because she had to test your resolve." She said, tears gathering on each side of her face.
Chrono's eyes widened immediately as one question answered itself, but he needed to ask anyway. "How do you know Entropy?"
"By blood." The alicorn replied. "She's my twin sister."
"What?" Five voices rose in unison.
"But then... who are you?" Sledge asked.
"My name is Harmony. Some might consider me Entropy's better half, but after her sacrifice I'm beginning to wonder if that's really the case. I'm sorry you all had to go through so much and come so far through the troubles only to find that it isn't over though."
"What do you mean?" Violet inquired.
"Equestria will always need ponies who are able to brave whatever comes their way in order to secure betterment of society. The six of you, along with six others that I am sure you have all at least heard of, prove the highest possibilities for its safety."
"But what about you?" Maple wondered aloud.
Harmony let the body of her sister down to the ground as a tear fell over the corpse, vaporizing immediately upon contact. "I've done what I needed to. Harmony is still prevalent in Equestria through the use of the elements, so I am no longer needed. So I will remain here to watch through the mirror in case a need should ever arise for me to take action again."
"Why don't you come with us then?" Gale offered her, "It sounds like Equestria needs you more than you think."
"But so does Entropy." Harmony answered just over a whisper. "I sincerely hope none of you will ever have to witness the death of family, and above that that you never have to issue such a final judgement again. I can see so clearly now, how difficult it can be."
Rayne braved a step forward, touching a hoof to Harmony's side and gazing into her eyes as the alicorn turned a slightly startled look her way. "If you ever change your mind, you'll always have friends in us, alright?" She said with a small smile. "I know it can't be easy. I'm sorry we had to put you through this too. I don't know if you'll be able to forgive us, but..."
Her voice trailed off as she realized the look in Harmony's eyes betrayed forgiveness that seemed boundless in itself.
"You all deserve a rest." Harmony observed as her horn glowed gold for a moment. "Best wishes to you all."
Chrono blinked from the sudden brightness, but immediately found himself waking atop a hill in the middle of nowhere with only Canterlot in the distance as a point of navigation.
"Be careful..." He answered Harmony, "both of you."
Slowly, he began his trot back to Canterlot, back to the place he had bothered to accept as his home again. Ponyville would forever hold his fondest memories, so he had decided. But he would not burn through his emotions defending friendships that evidently were not necessarily meant to be.
As he continued his approach, his ears snapped up at a sudden crashing roar towards the grand city. He looked up to see an expanding ring of rainbow colors announcing the forming rainbow contrasting the nightfall's skyline. Evidently something had happened of some significance. It wasn't every day you saw a sonic rainboom that no doubt had Rainbow Dash to credit for it.
As he reached his cottage, he went for a pen and some paper first. His decision regarding affiliation with princess Luna was in fact, final. He was still going rogue, although at this point his reasons for doing so were not necessarily the same.
That, and he had a lot of documenting to do. So long as Twilight and her friends were as adept as they were, he had faith that he would have time to engage in writing the history of Equestria like he had before everything began.
Except now he had a whole new set of events to record.