Spike could only look on as Luna’s eyes slowly parted and revealed them as two glowing white orbs. The glow soon subsided but the princess only stared straight ahead, her face a blank mask.

“You could see it?” Solaire asked. The human stood to Spike’s left just in front of the tower’s lone window, his large form casting an even larger shadow over the dragon.

Luna cast her gaze at Spike before focusing it on Solaire. “They were caught off guard. I suspect many are dead.”

“W-what do you mean?” Spike stammered at Solaire. He whipped his gaze back towards the princess but she was nowhere in sight. Where Luna stood just a second before was empty space and the empty room that was behind her.

Without a word Solaire started towards her desk at the far side of the room. Spike watched with quiet anger as the human picked up the silver and blue shield that Luna had made for him and fitted it to his arm.

Spike stomped forward and stared daggers straight into Solaire’s back. “Why didn’t she take us with her?”

Solaire still stood facing away from the dragon. “I am without a weapon and I am without my armor. Taking us as we are now would only increase her burden, not detract from it.”

“So what are we gonna do? Just sit here?” His eyes were wide as he stepped closer to the human.

“Of course not,” Solaire said, finally turning around. He dropped into a squat and met Spike’s gaze as well as he could. “We are going to Celestia’s tower where my sword and armor are currently being held. Shall we go? Time is of the essence.”

“The other tower, huh?” Spike began in a low tone. He scoffed and jabbed a thumb towards the window and the white fog beyond. “And how on earth do you plan on getting there?”

Solaire said nothing as he brought forth his other hand and revealed a bundle of crumpled white cloth sitting in the center of his palm. With a casual flourish he popped the odd thing off his hand and nimbly caught it between his thumb and forefinger. He held it at arm’s length, the cloth dangling in the air between them.

“Your unicorns are not the only ones who can teleport,” said the knight. “Though I am quite limited to where I can go.”

Spike eyed the talisman. “You mean that weird fire on the balcony. That’s the only place you can take us?”

The world was a sickening blur of hazes and shapes, of unidentifiable colors and unearthly sounds. Rainbow Dash screamed nothingness at the aether, her body twisting and contorting within the void.

Her eyes felt swollen and engorged. Her brain felt like it had been processed through a cheese grater and her body felt a million miles away. Rainbow tried to open her eyes only for a wave of nausea to wash over her.

Rainbow felt in the ground the familiar vibrations of hooves approaching and soon there came a male’s voice, clean and articulate.

“Yeah,” Twilight replied. She sounded dry and hoarse. “Is there a healer here? It’s my friend.”

Rainbow could feel her stomach doing cartwheels. As another set of hooves drew close, the male spoke again.

“An attack.” Twilight let out a weak cough. “Listen, you’re going to need more healers here. Go to the hospitals. Grab anypony you can who can help.”

At this Rainbow slowly squeezed open her eyes. It took every ounce of effort to not throw up.

“A lot of ponies are hurt back there,” Twilight said, facing the stranger. “Guards mostly. There could be more.”

Twilight Sparkle sat in the grass next to her, a forlorn look upon her face. Her coat was covered in soot and ash. Standing closeby was a white-coated stallion, a gold helmet on his head and plated armor around his barrel. He looked between the two ponies and at once pointed a wing when he noticed that Rainbow had opened her eyes. Twilight turned and quickly placed a hoof upon her leg.

“Like garbage,” Rainbow replied. Her voice was weak and the words hurt her throat coming out.

Before her friend could reply, another pony appeared behind Twilight, a light pink unicorn mare wearing a simple white cloak. The newcomer stepped around Twilight and knelt beside Rainbow’s head.

The unicorn met her gaze. “My name’s Peppermint and I’m with the Canterlot Royal Guard. How’re you feeling?” Her eyes were focused and searching.

“I’m okay. Really.” Twilight was already rising to her hooves. “Just make sure she gets treated.”

The pegasus stallion standing closeby looked ready to speak but Twilight glanced at him briefly with a silencing eye.

Rainbow looked on as Twilight’s horn took on a magenta glow and from thin air appeared a yellow notepad and a small quill. Twilight frowned as the quill went to work, the small feather working at a furious speed as it scratched something into the paper.

Rainbow would have continued watching had Peppermint not drawn her attention with a light touch on her withers. She looked up into the mare’s face.

“Rainbow Dash,” she replied. She’d have made a quip at ‘kiddo’ had she not felt like she had just been hurled like a ragdoll through a thunderstorm.

For the first time Rainbow allowed herself to survey her surroundings. She lifted her head off the ground and caught sight of the large building closeby. It bore architecture that Rainbow had come to associate with Canterlot: tall, round windows and no sharp angles whatsoever. The whole thing was circled by perfectly kept hedges and the building’s off-white color combatted with the night sky.

“Mmhmm. I’d wager we’re about two miles from the palace. That’s quite a ways to teleport without a beacon.”

Peppermint glanced up at Twilight Sparkle for a brief second. “In any case, you and your friend should consider yourselves lucky that a pounding headache is the worst you’ve got. Trust me, I’ve seen it all in this city.”

Rainbow Dash hummed in response as she slowly lay her head back on the ground. In front of her she saw Twilight tear out a single sheet from her notepad. The unicorn scanned the sheet, gave a small a nod, and Rainbow watched as the sheet turned to ash in front of her eyes.

For just a moment the ash hung suspended in the air before shooting across the grounds and fading off into the distance.

Rainbow’s gaze lingered where the ash had disappeared. A pit in her stomach, she turned away from the dome of white fog that had descended on Canterlot Palace.

All was quiet in Celestia’s tower. For the past minute Solaire worked his armor in hastened silence. The fine suit that Rarity had made for him lay in a crumpled heap upon the floor. He had already slipped into his protective underclothes and all that was left was to fasten the chainmail to his body.

He had just attached the leggings when Spike’s eyes grew to the size of saucers and the dragon belched out a jet of green flame. The flame dissipated instantly but in its place there appeared to have burned into existence a small sheet of yellow paper that Spike quickly snatched out of the air.

Solaire continued to put on armor as he watched the dragon quickly scan the note. Only a few seconds had passed before Spike balled the paper with a clawed hand and let his arms drop to his side. Spike stared at nothing, his expression unreadable.

Solaire pulled his arms through sleeves of interlinked iron. “Is something the matter?”

“No, it’s…” Spike breathed out through pursed lips. “It’s from Twilight.”

Solaire pulled the cloth tabard over his torso. On instinct he smoothed his hand across the center of his chest, across the image of the sun painted into the cloth’s fabric.

“Is that what you will do then?” Solaire asked as he reached for the chair where he had left his gear. He grasped from the dwindling pile of armor a pair of thick iron bracelets and cinched them to his wrists.

“She wants you safe,” Solaire continued. “That is simply her duty as your friend.”

Solaire paused for a moment before pulling his belts tight around his waist. From one of them hung his sword. A familiar weight.

“She’s always looked out for me,” Spike said. “She’s always done that.”

“I know what she’s going to do. She’s gonna go back there–just like you are–because you both can help. And I’m sick and tired of this feeling. Luna didn’t say it and you’re not gonna say it, but I get it. I’m just a kid. What can I even do?”

“She’s always looked out for me,” Spike repeated. “Who’s gonna be looking out for her?”

Solaire said nothing as he reached for his helmet and tucked it under his arm. He approached Spike and dropped to a knee. The dragon looked incredibly small.

“It takes a lot of strength to admit one’s weakness. Strange how that works is it not?” Solaire gave a small chuckle before letting his face fall into a mask of neutrality. He looked the dragon up and down. “Spike, you are not helpless. I had meant to ask you earlier and so I am asking you now. I will need your help navigating the palace. I am not comfortably familiar with its halls and I fear getting lost.”

“I do not,” Solaire said. “And before that, we will still need to traverse the fog between here and the palace proper. It is a short distance but I believe we can manage. After all, you are a dragon. What’s a little cold to someone with fire in his belly?”

“I am asking for your help,” Solaire stated. “But only if you’ll give it, of course. You may see things. Terrible things. I cannot shield you from them.”

Twilight looked on as the pegasus guards disappeared into the night sky. Plans had been laid and word had been sent. The next time she’d be standing in this courtyard a whole cadre of medical ponies would be ready and waiting to render aid.

Treatment areas had been designated and the school faculty has already been alerted. In the span of a few minutes the sleepy school courtyard had become a bustle of activity. Twilight turned and caught one final glimpse of two unicorn guards, each in charge of a brilliant bright line on the ground that linked together forming a massive circle in the center of the school’s lawn. She could already feel the spell’s latent magic pulsing through the air.

Twilight had chosen the location specifically. She had spent so many days reading here that the spot was burned into her memory like an old photograph in the back of her mind. She walked a few paces around the circle’s glowing perimeter. It was a simple spell that would serve as the beacon for her teleportations as well as a visual aid to the guards to quickly vacate anyone within its borders.

It would be less than ideal if a gala guest re-entered reality in a space already occupied by another pony.

For a second the pegasus winced as if she had been struck. “Then at least take some of these ponies with you! They offered to go, so let them go!”

“My job is to get ponies out of the palace, not bring more in. Besides, it’ll only complicate the spell. They know this.”

Rainbow stared back at her with furrowed brows, her eyes scanning across Twilight’s face as if searching for an answer.

“You shouldn’t be doing this alone,” said the pegasus. Fire burned in Rainbow’s eyes but the exhaustion was evident in the way she stood.

“I’m doing this, Rainbow, because this is the least I could do for the damage I’ve caused.” Twilight sparked her horn, already visualizing her re-entry point three miles away. She beat back the thoughts of screams and fire. “Ponies are dead because of this. Because of…”

“Rainbow, it doesn’t take a genius to trace all of this back to me.” She struggled to keep her lips from trembling. “I have to go back.”

Grossly Incandescent

Chapter 8 - I Start With This One

She was by no means a stranger to stressful situations. It seemed to herself that much of her childhood was simply a series of anxiety-inducing trials and plights that would leave her feeling like the ends of an old frayed rope. And ever since Twilight had entered her life, these events had only increased in frequency and intensity to the point where having more adrenaline than blood in her veins was almost a norm.

She knew that if she took even a second to process what had happened, she’d end up like those ponies hiding in the throne room, hollow-eyed and open-mouthed, escaping inward to shield themselves from the terror.

Fluttershy instead focused on the stallion’s face below hers; on his pinprick pupils; on his rapid breaths; on the way his limbs trembled like the wings of a dying bird. The stallion lay on his side and she sat by his head, their bodies forming a straight line on the tile. They were so close that the bends of her forelegs encircled both sides of his face and the tip of his horn brushed gently against the center of her chest.

She chose to ignore the charred flesh that covered almost every surface of his body.

She chose to ignore his lack of coat. The faint orange ember that continued to smolder beneath his skin.

And she chose to ignore that on either side of her at least a half-dozen other ponies lay in similar states. They screamed for their mothers, of the unnatural fire eating at their bodies. They screamed for help and for death and for anyone to take them any place but here.

It was like from a nightmare, their howling forms writhing out from the inferno. They emerged from the fire aflame themselves–proud guards, once the might of Canterlot–reduced to screaming withering husks encased in boiling metal.

The armor was pulled from their flesh and the worst of the flames beaten from their forms, but still some remnant of insidious fire burned beneath their skin and it took every ounce of effort to corral the wounded into the connecting hall just outside the throne room and get them to remain still.

“My name is Fluttershy,” she said to the guard. “Is it alright if I ask for yours?”

The guard worked his mouth, his whole body tensing as if struggling to get the words out.

“It’s alright,” Fluttershy said after a moment. “You’ll tell me one day. When you’re better, won’t you?”

Fluttershy gave a sidelong glance to the blue-coated unicorn sitting a few paces from her. His eyes were screwed shut in concentration and several beads of sweat dotted his forehead. He sat in front of four other victims, their charred bodies all swathed in a blue glow. Their chests moved in unison with each wavering pulse of the unicorn’s horn.

“Yes,” Fluttershy replied. She noticed the stallion’s cutie mark; it was a white cross over a silver shield. “Labored though. And um, I think he breathed in some of the heat or fire, and...”

He grimaced as a line of sweat trailed down the side of his face. “I see. I loathe to say it but I can take on two, maybe three more at max. Are you medically trained perchance?”

In that moment a loud burst and a flash of purple emanated from the throne room. Encased in a lavender sphere and floating above the heads of the gala guests was Twilight Sparkle, already descending into the mass of ponies of below. She caught sight of Fluttershy just as her head dipped below the crowd and it took only a few seconds more for the unicorn to shrug her way out into the open and into the foyer where the wounded had been lain.

“Is this all of them?” Twilight gasped out. The unicorn looked ragged and haggard. “Nine?”

“So far,” said the doctor. “Have you come to help? They need care immediately.”

Twilight spent a moment glancing at each of the victims in turn and simultaneously there appeared translucent purple spheres around each of their burnt forms.

“I’m taking them to Celestia’s school,” said Twilight. “There’s a disaster center there with hospital staff waiting.”

“Very well,” he said, “but I fear these four are in a very precarious situation. If they go without my magic for even a moment their airways will swell shut and they risk death. Do you have the strength to take me with them?”

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Twilight said, and promptly turned towards Fluttershy. “I’ll be back for everypony else. Are… is everyone okay?”

“Rainbow Dash is already at the school,” Twilight continued, her horn growing brighter. “Okay, I’ll be back! And stay safe!”

Fluttershy let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She looked down at her hooves, down at the spot between her forelegs where the guard named Swift-something had just been. She trembled and shook. She had lied to him for his sake, a rationing out of an empty promise that she couldn’t justify would come true.

She missed home, she realized. She missed her animals and she missed her bed and she longed for the days where nothing happened and she didn’t have to cry.

She’d dealt with death before, Fluttershy. It was simply a small, private part of the life she’d chosen to live at the edge of the Everfree. They’d come to her, or more often than not, she’d find them–a small animal who had escaped the carnivorous jaws of death only for the teeth to lacerate and mangle on the way out. She would tend to them and care for them but as the hours dragged on, she could see it then; in the jagged breaths and the widened gaze, that for all of her skill and expertise the most she could hope to render to these poor creatures was comfort.

“You ladies don’t give yourself enough credit,” said the unicorn stallion in front of them. His coat was a pure white and he wore the golden armor of the Royal Guard.

Out of sight, the three ponies were huddled close together behind a small sliver of wall. Out of their little group Rarity had taken the rear guard, which left her jammed in the corner between brick and Applejack’s rump. In the middle was Applejack, half-crouched and fully poised. And in front stood the guard, green eyes as sharp as steel peeking out from just beneath his helmet. He inched forward, ever closer to where their wall terminated into the massive doorway that was the western portal into the great hall.

“Halcyon,” he stated. “My name’s Halcyon. I was at the training field the other day? During the duel?”

He groaned. “Nevermind. You’re Applejack and she’s Rarity and I think you’re both really great for helping out with this.”

“No choice really.” Applejack sidled along on the wall just behind him. “There ain’t no livin’ with myself knowin’ what’s goin’ on in there and I just sat on my hooves.”

Halcyon chuckled. “Good for us though, they say a lack of self-preservation is the foundation of bravery–”

Their hallway was one of two connecting corridors on the ground floor that led to the great hall. Behind them thirty paces and around the corner was the small waiting area where they had last seen Fluttershy, and beyond that was the throne room where the rest of the gala guests remained.

Only a minute before, Halcyon had dispatched a group of two other guards down the other connecting corridor on the other side of the palace where the two teams were then to make visual contact with each other from across the great hall.

Across the great hall, Rarity thought, where the wall-shaking tremors and shivering clangs of battle rang out.

Halcyon’s head finally poked out from behind the wall and into the doorway. He stood there for a long moment, ears straight up and eyes transfixed.

“Celestia and Luna,” he murmured. “They are fighting with the monsters.”

Rarity watched as Applejack slowly lowered her hoof to the floor. The earth pony stepped to Halcyon’s side, wrapping a foreleg around the guard’s neck as she leaned forward to peek around the doorway as well. They remained like that for a long moment, transfixed on what lay around the corner.

To Rarity, the only sounds to be heard was the methodical clash of metal against metal. A particularly strong explosion sent vibrations through the floor and up her legs.

Celestia and Luna; the two red monsters; they circled each other like wolves in the night. It was a standstill, Rarity realized, a temporary cessation of combat so that both parties may regroup and catch their breaths.

Not that the monsters appeared fatigued however. The one in spiked armor paced back and forth, not once taking his gaze off of the princesses, while the one in the back simply stood in place almost a statue in her stillness.

Celestia and Luna had adapted a similar formation–Luna in the front with Celestia several paces behind her. Both their horns were alight, their spells obvious to anyone with eyes.

Around the combatants and almost dominating the entirety of the hall stood a massive blue barrier, its surface like that of ice. Inside, Rarity could see plain-as-day several scattered golden domes that met with the floor. They were about the size of a pony.

She recalled the heat as she ran, the screams that seemed to chase her down the hall.

“I see their plan,” Halcyon whispered. “They aim to keep the monsters contained while–”

“–protecting those still trapped inside,” Rarity finished. She turned to the lieutenant. “We need to act. Princess Celestia would not be protecting them if they were already dead.”

“I think I see your fellows there.” Applejack pointed directly across the great hall where two stallions in gold helmets could just be seen peeking out from the eastern doorway.

The spiked one lunged at Luna, the barbed sword in his grip ripping through the air in a vicious horizontal arc. Just as it was certain the blow would connect, there materialized a massive steel axe encased in shimmering blue magic. It intercepted the sword and sent it recoiling to the side. The axe’s edge drowned in intricate glowing runes only for Rarity to lose sight of them as the axe was brought down in a colossal slam that sent up chunks of shattered tile.

The spiked one had dashed out of the way and surged at the princess once more. As the monster angled his next strike, Luna’s horn gave off a brilliant pulse, dissipating the axe lodged in the floor in an explosion of blue fragments only for another weapon to reappear by her side that same instant–a shining blue claymore already in mid-cleave, severing the air that the spiked one’s head had occupied just moments before.

And she could only watch as this continued, the magnificent finesse in which Luna rotated through an armory, the titanic strength she willed into each strike.

Rarity realized her fear then. Not of the princess but of her opponent; the spiked red monster that moved like Solaire but simply was not. A monstrosity that matched Luna blow for blow. The embodiment of a grotesque nightmare she had not yet dreamed of. He moved with such a fluid brutality, an erratic yearning to hurt, a simple longing to kill, that Rarity knew. Rarity knew he would. He would eventually land a blow on Luna and that would be it.

His head turning on a quick swivel, Halcyon broke their little formation and took a few steps into the great hall proper. He looked left and then right before glancing back towards the two girls.

“Not counting the ones inside the barrier, I see six downed friendlies on our side of the hall. We’ll run the hall’s perimeter first and work our way back from there. Are you two ready?”

As expected a full team of medical ponies were waiting in the courtyard at Celestia’s school and it was only seconds before that she was helping load the wounded onto stretchers and watched them carried into school itself.

Twilight started her descent into the mass of gala guests below, and her hooves had just touched tile when a mare stuck her face uncomfortably close.

“I’ll be getting everypony out!” Twilight yelled. She steadied herself and took a deep breath. “Everyone just take like ten steps back and listen. I can take only about twenty of you at a time. I estimate there’s about two hundred ponies in this room so it will take multiple trips!”

She scanned the crowd, fighting back the persistent headache pounding behind her eyes. Twilight soon caught sight of a small colt pressed between the legs of his parents.

“I understand there’s children here so I’ll be taking them and their families first,” she announced to the room. “So if you have a child with you please gather around me so that we may go!”

The sea of ponies became abuzz with murmurs and movement as the crowds shifted around those stepping forward. One by one emerged the frightened families until soon she was flanked on all sides by those she had called forth. Horn alight, Twilight rotated in place, catching glances of relieved mothers and worried fathers, of red-eyed colts and trembling fillies.

And then she saw Pinkie Pie standing just a couple paces away, her friend’s expression a blank mask. Soon after, Twilight caught sight of the little saffron-coated filly glued to Pinkie’s side.

And in the next instant Twilight and everyone around her found themselves standing not on tile but on crisp grass. The night air hit her like cold water. Stars shone down on them from above and soon they were awash with a different kind of noise as guards in gold ushered the crowd out of the brilliant white circle that had been drawn on the ground not five minutes before.

Twilight found Pinkie waiting at the circle’s edge, absentmindedly patting the head of the filly still at her side. The little thing couldn’t have been older than Sweetie Belle.

Twilight looked her friend over. “You too.” Pinkie seemed deflated. Worn out.

“I haven’t gotten her name yet,” Pinkie explained as if reading Twilight’s mind. “Isn’t that right, chickadee?”

Pinkie smiled down at the filly but the little thing only pressed herself deeper into Pinkie’s leg. The filly wore a forlorn expression and stared at nothing, her giant eyes glassy and lifeless.

When Pinkie looked back at Twilight, it was with a fragile smile that verged on breaking.

“I found her standing by the door to the garden,” Pinkie began in a quiet tone. “She was just staring out into the fog and…”

Pinkie stared back at her, a concerned expression on her face. Her mouth opened slightly.

“And you’re giving it your all and that's so you, you know? But–” Pinkie licked her lips. “–your all is all that you have and if you give it all away there will be nothing of you left. So please, don’t blame yourself, Twilight. Everything will be okay. I promise.”

Inside her mind, Celestia reeled. Eleven barriers for eight lives. Three of her guards had succumbed, their injuries much too critical for the wait she had put them through. And all she could do was shield them as she felt their lives slip away one ragged breath at a time. Despite their deaths and despite the drain on her energy, she kept the barriers up; her opponents did not need to know of the ones they had killed.

She and her sister would stalemate at this rate as handicapped as they were. Celestia could feel on the hairs of her coat the energy that Luna dedicated to the giant dome containing their fight, and Celestia herself had defaulted to protecting the remaining of her guard unfortunate enough to have fallen in the battle’s vicinity. They themselves could both protect their charges and fend off the intruders, but time was limited and their opponents showed no signs of stopping.

Across the dome Adria stood stock-still, her pulsing red form an unnatural hole punched through reality.

Celestia frowned at the human. She would have pinned them to the ceiling if she could only wrap her magic around them. She’d have teleported them into an indeterminate patch of sky if only they had understandable mass to teleport, and she’d have already buried them beneath two tons of palace rubble if there weren’t roughly three hundred guests still inside.

If her opponent would not act then Celestia was more than happy to oblige. As secretive as her ponies had been, she had seen them enter the great hall; two from the east and three from the west. The rescue teams had sprinted between columns until they had reached the far side of the room, and now, as Celestia looked past Adria’s shoulder, she could just see their forms start gathering up the wounded who had fallen outside of their barriers.

The human had pulled off her hood some time ago, revealing her eyes as two unseeing black pits. From her belt hung an elaborately-guarded rapier she had yet to draw, and held in front of her, its base planted in the ground was her staff–a long branch of twisting black wood.

It was only as close as they were now that Celestia realized that her mouth moved out of sync with her words. Despite herself, a chill crept down the princess’s back.

“You’ve gone to such lengths to shield them from us that you have yet to launch even a single strike.”

“Lives? They are nothing but charcoal in your spell.” Adria gestured to the nearest golden barrier with a casual flick of a hand. “See this one there? In the throes of death. And there, that one has not breathed for a while yet.”

Outside of Luna’s dome, the rescue teams continued their efforts. Most of the wounded were carried in magic stretchers, but Celestia could just make out an earth pony hoisting one of the injured on her back.

Celestia poured the extra bit of effort into turning her barriers completely opaque, thus blocking her wounded guards from the invader’s sight.

“You think hiding them from me will change their fate? You are prisoner to your own sensibilities, horse. You have sacrificed everything and protected nothing. Your kind lays dead, and for what? Watch me, and you shall see what your actions have earned you.”

In one quick flourish Adria drew her rapier from its scabbard. She held it out in front of her in a horizontal fist, its wire-thin blade parallel with the ground. And Celestia watched as Adria raised her staff by its neck and joined her two weapons overhead. Crossguard met wood and in a slow deliberate motion Adria ran her staff across the rapier’s edge from handle to tip.

A glassy chime hummed from the rapier and filled the hall as jagged blue crystals sprouted from its blade. The crystals jutted out at harsh angles and the air itself seemed to sing with energy as Adria brought the weapon down to her side with a quick snap of her arm.

Celestia couldn’t afford to look. Could not even afford her sister’s battle a momentary glance. Not with the the threat that stood before her, no.

“Let me ease some of your burdens,” Adria began as she started toward one of the golden barriers. Her steps echoed even through the metallic clang of battle. She stopped at the barrier’s edge, her crystalline rapier a silent promise to the murder to come. “An animal need not be shackled by duties above its station.”

Celestia had deliberated for as long as she dared, waited for a signal that might never come. Twilight had escaped hadn’t she? And Twilight was no fool. If she had teleported to the school then she surely would have created a teleportation beacon there as well. Ponies would be there waiting to receive the wounded and her efforts to preserve the lives of her guards would not have been in vain.

She redoubled her efforts, sending out a dozen more invisible probes in search of Twilight’s magic.

Adria brought the rapier high above her head, its barbed edge angled straight at the dome below her. Straight at the pony concealed inside.

A bead of sweat trailed into Celestia’s brow. She could sense Twilight’s magic from across the city as easily as spotting a splash of black paint on a white wall, but she needed more. What she was needed a beacon. She needed a guide. She needed a guarantee of safety that, if it was even there, was buried beneath layers and layers of Twilight’s magic.

So many lives were in her hooves but they were not hers to cast so recklessly into the unknown.

As one part of her mind pushed through the interference, another part registered that she was out of time.

Celestia watched as it happened, the downward arc that was Adria’s rapier. She could sense the raw energy that poured off its blade, off the massive crystals that had sprouted there. She could see the wicked smile that had formed on Adria’s lips. And in Celestia’s mind, a thousand-and-one decisions raged. She had less than a second to choose.

It took even less time to fire off her spell. In a crack of energy her eleven barriers disappeared in a blinding flash and a terrible sound rang out as the crystalline rapier sank deep into the floor.

Celestia could almost see the confusion in Adria’s posture as the human looked at the empty tile beneath her. Slowly, Adria raised her gaze at the princess. And then came a clarity, evident in her opponent’s straightening stance. In that moment Celestia knew she should have expected it. Things had gone her way long enough.

Celestia felt only painstaking helplessness as Adria turned and looked over her shoulder straight at the rescue team beyond Luna’s barrier, at the three ponies exposed in plain sight. Celestia saw them, Rarity and Applejack and Lieutenant Halcyon, the six of her injured guard, all of them completely unaware of the danger coming their way. Adria raised her staff with such speed, such finality, Celestia knew she would not be able to stop her.

A poor decision meant death. A calculated decision meant death. Inaction meant death. There was only the right decision and the ever-shrinking amount of time to make it.

She felt it in the air, the damnable convergence of energy focused at the tip of Adria’s staff. She saw the crystals forming there, and through Luna’s barrier she saw Halcyon freeze mid-step, his eyes wide and wild.

Luna’s barrier would not hold. There needed to be another. Just enough to divert the projectile.

Applejack was sure that Rarity had screamed something just before her entire world became dust and smoke. Her vision swam. Sounds were muted. She took one step, and then another. After the third, something buckled and there came the unmistakable feeling of lying on one’s side. Soon after came the silent acknowledgment that she had slipped.

And in that moment, Applejack became acutely aware of the pulsing pressure radiating from the side of her head.

We were rescuing ponies because they were hurt and they would surely die just like I’m dying right now and oh sweet Celestia I’m-

Her friend sounded tinny and distant but she could recognize her voice anywhere.

“Don’t say it,” Applejack groaned. “I can stand. Just… Rarity, you’re puttin’ all your weight on me.”

As Rarity pulled away, Applejack forced her eyes open only for her friend’s worried face to obscure her vision. Over Rarity’s shoulder she could spy Halcyon leaning against the castle wall, his breathing heavy.

“Us? You are asking us?” There was an edge to Rarity’s voice but her eyes continued to scan. Eventually her gaze settled, not quite meeting Applejack’s eyes.

“We have to go,” added Halcyon, his horn bathed in green light. In front of him six ponies on solid slabs of green light were lifted off the ground.

The guards they had set out to rescue lay in various states of catastrophe, their forms horrifyingly still. One of them bled, and for a brief moment the world was quiet enough that Applejack could hear the soft pitter-patter of his blood dripping from his armor and onto the floor.

“They okay?” Applejack asked. Her mouth tasted like copper and her tongue felt like sludge. The words came like dripping molasses.

“She took a hard hit,” said Halcyon. “You might have to have to help her walk.”

Halcyon was already moving. “Help her. I can manage them the rest of the way. We have to go.”

She said nothing else. As Rarity stepped to her side and slipped her head into the crook beneath Applejack’s foreleg, it was only then that Applejack realized that they were back in the western connecting corridor that led back to the throne room.

The bob of purple mane that was Rarity didn’t answer. Applejack couldn’t see her face, couldn’t know what she was thinking. Rarity counted something and she stood them both to their hooves. They took a few cautious steps forward.

They continued on. Applejack noticed the streaks of red that ran through Rarity’s mane.

Applejack then focused on the wetness she could feel dripping down the side of her face.

“A blue light,” Rarity explained. “That’s all I saw of it. I was certain that it was going to hit us.”

“It veered at the last second, the spell.” Rarity lowered her tone. “I’m not certain if it was he that... I shan’t dwell on it. But he had put up a shield. Halcyon, that is. Or perhaps it was the princess, it all happened so fast. In any case the spell changed course. Are you starting to remember, Applejack?”

“Forgive me for asking,” said Rarity. She took on a more hopeful tone. “Or can you?”

“Ah.” The unicorn sniffed. “The spell veered and struck the pillar in front of us. You were ahead of us both and so close to the explosion, that… well, when the dust started clearing, I was certain I was going to have to dig you out from the rubble.”

Applejack shut her eye. There simply was no ignoring the steady stream of blood dripping from her brow.

They ran through the halls of Canterlot Palace, Solaire’s heavy footfalls echoing through the silent halls. For the last ten minutes they had navigated the freezing fog outside and had managed to smash through the first window they came across. If they had to wander through it for even a few moments longer, Solaire suspected he would have ended up with his fingers blued to the point of death. It would not have been first time that had happened, but Solaire had a suspicion he would be needing his digits very soon. Even now, some remnants of frost clung to Solaire’s armor.

“Like monsters?” Spike continued. The dragon had proved to be especially resistant to the fog’s effects.

“In a sense, yes - they are monsters,” Solaire said. “But they are like me as well.”

“Undead.” Solaire flexed his fingers as they ran, squeezing away the tingling numbness that had come with the cold. “Undead who have chosen to walk the path of self-preservation.”

“They survive by killing others and taking that which does not belong to them. They and their ilk haunt only the darkest and most desolate places of my world and now they have come here.”

“No. Not through the fire, no. I believe my coming here was a fluke, Spike. A mistake. I cast an unformed miracle in the throes of death at the exact moment your Twilight Sparkle created something akin to a bonfire.”

“Yes. They bear a certain significance in my world. Among other things, those with the knowledge may use the bonfires to traverse great distances. What Twilight had created was a doorway to which my miracle was the key. And when I stepped through, I suspect the door remained open behind me.”

“As for the how they followed me,” Solaire continued, “I can’t explain. Not fully, in any case.”

“Maybe just start with what you do? It’s not like I’m writing a thesis paper or anything. Just a mutual sharing of information. Maybe it’ll help.”

“They used an old magic. Very old. Ancient. Older than me to be sure, and perhaps older than the gods themselves.”

“Those with such an art are called darkwraiths. They are terrifying foes for they fear nothing. Not even their own demise. They may as well be unstoppable. You stand your ground and die. Or you hide. You cannot even run for the fog always presages their arrival.”

Spike’s face scrunched up. “They’re from an old movie,” he said. “Basically like killer robots from the future. Twilight wouldn’t let me watch it, but… yeah. The bad robot would get all sorts of messed up. Shot with magic. Blown up. Frozen. But it would keep coming back. And it would keep trying to kill them.”

The dragon grew quiet. “They eventually had to melt the bad robot in like a literal vat of lava to win. But… the good robot died, too. To save the others.”

“Spike, you must understand something. The way they have come here - invading this world - it is not their real bodies. It’s a spirit, or manifestation. A phantom. You may defeat one in physical combat but it will always come back. Sometimes minutes later.”

They continued through the palace. Solaire thought he could hear things just ahead, the quiet murmurings of a restless crowd bouncing through the silent halls.

They came to a hall with tall ornate windows to their left. Beyond the glass and frost all they could see was the blanket of white mist.

“The fog,” Solaire said. “Darkwraiths always come with the fog. That’s how we win. They will stop when the fog lifts.”

On some unspoken cue, Celestia and her sister took to the air. They hovered a great distance above the intruders. A few more meters upward and they would have bumped into the great hall’s ceiling. At once, Celestia thought of the birds that would occasionally fly in and get trapped within the labyrinthine confines of the palace. Frightened and confused, The birds would flit from place to place until someone would open a nearby window and let the poor things out.

The two princesses had been looking down at the two red forms below but now turned toward each other. Their chests heaved liked bellows. Beads of sweat dotted their brow. Celestia for the first time saw the furious gash that tore across the base of her sister’s neck. It dripped dark red lines down her shoulder and leg and Celestia watched as a fat drop pooled at the tip of her sister’s hoof before falling down far to the floor.

“That one fights dirty, the little wretch. Quick, too. He knows how to use that armor as well.” She once more looked down at the intruders. “These are no novices, sister. If I hadn’t whetted my tongue in that duel against Solaire, I suspect I’d have suffered more than just this scratch.”

Luna sagged in the air a little, and Celestia noticed the small scratches that covered her sister’s body.

As if sensing Celestia’s gaze, Luna straightened and gave Celestia a small smile.

“I do not think she is happy about our small victory,” Celestia began. “They had us at a disadvantage with our wounded littering the field. And now that they’ve been stolen away from them…”

“I cannot say. Perhaps only measuring our strength. ‘Feeling us out’, as they are apt to say these days. But that matters not. Senseless violence is not why they have come, sister. You were away when they materialized on the walkway. She spoke of Solaire. She asked if we were sheltering him.”

“I have gathered as much,” Luna said. “I was with him and Spike and when they came. Solaire sensed them somehow, or perhaps recognized the freezing fog. It is a harbinger of their arrival no doubt.”

Luna did not need to say more. When Celestia had Luna’s tower constructed, it was built as a mirror of her own. But in the months following her sister’s return, Luna started with the modifications. At first the changes were slow and small. She’d change the flooring here, a window there. She would rearrange the furniture, or perhaps have a whole new set of tables and chairs the following day. Since Celestia never saw ponies coming in or out of her sister’s courtyard, she could only assume that Luna was doing the work herself.

At the time Celestia thought of fillies and colts becoming grown, how they took their bedrooms from a place where they merely slept and changed it into reflections of themselves, an outward display of their developing lifestyles and personalities.

Then in a manner entirely befitting her sister, Luna completely removed any trace of the stairs and erected ancient barrier-spells that would keep anyone unwanted out.

Or, Celestia supposed, anyone inside trapped within. For individuals incapable of flight, the only way out of Luna’s tower was a quick step out of the top-story window. It would be a fall that would surely kill Solaire, but not that death was a deterrent to such as he. After all, hadn’t he fallen out of her own tower not days prior?

“We need to destroy them now,” Luna said. Her wings flapped a powerful, uneven beat.

Celestia once more eyed the jagged cut on Luna’s neck. Calling Kirk’s weapon as merely a sword would not call to mind the razor-sharp barbs that jutted from its every surface. It was a thing more apt to tearing away chunks of flesh than severing with clean blows.

Far below, the two ghosts stood a little ways from each other as they looked up at the two airborne princesses.

“We will separate them.” Celestia began. “You will divide the room in two. From top to bottom. Wall to wall. We will then dive the greater of the threats.”

Celestia nodded. “She can break our barriers but the knight cannot. We will have to be quick.”

Adria’s rapier was still wreathed in those blue crystals, and Celestia thought of how the weapon so easily shattered her shield-magic and cracked open the floor. She thought of the projectile that Adria had launched from her staff when they first appeared, that crystalline lance that shot over the heads of her subjects and almost split Captain Rook in half from chest to tailbone.

The rhythm of her own heartbeat pulsed in Celestia’s ears. This Adria had mastery over a magic that her sister had birthed, and later, a magic that Celestia herself would strangle in its infancy. And for the first time in a long time, Celestia felt a different kind of fear.

Fear, Celestia had discovered long ago, came in many different flavors. Fear for her subjects came the most easily and frequent. She tasted this one on an almost daily basis; from the moment she woke, to the moment she would lay the sun down to sleep, a thousand thoughts would come and go on what could go wrong, what she could have done differently, and how much better off her ponies would be if only she were stronger.

She feared for them as a mother would fear for her child, and it was a taste she had grown accustomed to for it reminded her that her heart had not yet turned to stone in the cold passage of time, and that she could still care for those whose lives passed her by like seasons, everlasting in their impermanence.

The fear she tasted now was sour. It weighed heavy in her throat and sat like a stone within her stomach.

Celestia feared for herself, she realized. She feared for her life and the thought that those two phantoms who had invaded her palace and home were very much capable of ending it.

She shot her sister a quick glance. No words needed to be spoken, for they had already been said long ago. Said in those quiet moments millennia ago by a crackling campfire under the moonlit sky. Their soldiers huddled in tents all around them as just over the hills the vast hordes of their enemies conspired in lost tongues and guttural languages on how best to snuff out their and their peoples’ lives. How many memories existed of those battlefields, of their victories and defeats, of the people who lived, loved, and died under their command?

Too numerous to count, she thought. Celestia focused her gaze on the figures below.

Celestia reached for it then, that brilliant strand of pure sunlight that existed in this realm but also in all others. It had lay dormant for a thousand years, but at the faintest hint of her touch it shivered and swelled and jumped. With a snarl she grasped it with her magic and with a mighty pull, yanked the spear back into reality. It emerged as if appearing from thin air. The haft came first, a brilliant rod of silver and gold that reflected no light for it was light. Anyone else would have turned away from that blinding radiance—even Luna had cast her gaze aside—but Celestia looked on, her eyes not pink but emitting a harsh golden glow. Her horn appeared as if on fire. The columns lining the great hall put off shadows of pure black.

Inch by inch the shining haft emerged from the aether until with a final metallic ring came the blade of Arkaliir. The spear’s edge measured more than a foot. The weapon itself glowed with latent energy and the air around it shimmered in a haze of heat. Once more she held the spear that had ended wars within her magic.

Celestia listened for that song, the hum that precluded death. It would take less than a second for her to reach the floor, less than a second to kill her enemy.

She let out a slow exhale - the remnant of a long-forgotten breath - and meteored downward.

Arkaliir led her charge, its edge a falling star in the middle of the great hall. Below, Adria moved with an uncanny speed as she conjured five crystalline spheres that floated in an arc above her head. Celestia could sense Luna behind her and saw her magic form a transparent blue wall between the two phantoms.

A golden barrier materialized without a thought. Old instincts returning. The spheres struck the barrier in quick succession. One, two, three. Each shattered. Four. The barrier cracking. The fifth broke through and headed straight for her.

The tip of Adria’s staff pulsed blue, and Celestia thought of Captain Rook. His dead form, the soul spear that shredded him to pieces.

The soul spear exploded from the phantom’s staff in a flash of blinding blue light. Celestia almost had to look away. There would be no dodging this.

With every ounce of magical might she could afford, Celestia hurled Arkaliir downward. The two projectiles met and for just a moment, Celestia stopped in awe at the spectacular forces that had clashed in front of her. But Arkaliir never failed. It shattered the crystalline mass in a deafening pulse and continued to bullet towards its intended target.

Arkaliir cratered the tile in a flare of dust and debris. Adria had avoided the spear, but just barely. When faced against such power and speed, she had to have known that a straight-forward assault was likely what would have come next. But as Adria looked from the spear embedded in the floor, and then skyward and saw only Luna, Celestia allowed herself a small smile.

There would be no keys for the glowing gold shackles she placed around the phantom’s ankles and wrists. Its chains led into the floor itself. The shackles themselves were heavier than boulders. Celestia knew that such magic required precision and a certain proximity to ensure success. Within hoof’s reach, if one wanted to be sure.

Horn still hot from the teleportation, Celestia cast another spell. And before Adria could turn Celestia rammed the spell into the center of Adria’s back. It was a simple spell, really. The shaping of her magic into a specific form and then hardened as to be unbreakable. The form she chose a blade, now piercing her opponent’s heart. Black smoke seeped from the site.

Celestia stepped just a bit to the side. Luna impacted the floor an instant later in a thunderous crash of pulverized tile. She skidded along the floor, her hooves leaving trenches as she came to an eventual stop a few meters away. She almost didn’t hear the rush of displaced air from the weapon’s swing amidst the cacophonous roar from her sister’s landing. Celestia regarded her sister and then the massive claymore that hovered by Luna’s side.

They both turned toward the decapitated form that was Adria. Still bound in shackles, the phantom had grown slack. Her head had bounced soundlessly to the floor just a few steps away, and before either of the sisters could speak, Adria’s corpse evaporated into a black mist, and then into nothingness altogether.

Celestia’s throat bobbed up and down. She did not miss the notch of flesh missing from the top of her sister’s ear. She recalled what just transpired and could almost see the events happen in her mind. Celestia had dodged the last crystalline sphere during their dive though Luna was directly behind her. It must have sought her sister next. Luna then destroyed the sphere, but not completely. The projectile must have shattered and taken a piece of her sister with it.

Then realization struck them both at the same time. They looked beyond Luna’s barrier to the other side of the great hall. The barrier fell, but no one stood on the other side. No sign of Kirk. No sign of the other phantom. All they saw was the eastern doorway, open and unattended.

Why didn’t they think of this? Why did they think that they would both stand and fight?

The stone of fear returned to Celestia’s stomach. Or perhaps it had been there all along.

The two princesses followed the screams where they were led away from the great hall and down one of the service corridors reserved for palace staff. Despite everything, Celestia found a small part of herself grateful that Kirk hadn’t stumbled upon the throne room where the rest of the Gala guests were hiding. One turn and he very well may have had at his mercy hundreds of unarmed and very frightened ponies.

Celestia thought of the fire magic he used and the brutal efficiency at which he wielded it. She thought of how quickly he had dispatched her guard, and for what purpose? These weren’t beings that valued life, least of all Kirk. Had they made the right decision, dispatching the sorceress first? Kirk had already proven himself capable of killing innocent ponies. And with such indiscriminate destruction, as well. Perhaps this was something they had planned all along - to take as many lives as possible - their true objective of finding Solaire a simple ruse. Celestia shook her head.

Celestia saw it at the same moment. The door to the eastern kitchen had been smashed off its hinges and lay in shattered pieces inside the doorway. She could see the remnants of a makeshift barricade - a metal shelf and a steel table - had been pushed aside and lay like scattered toys inside the room. Whoever had hidden here had deemed it prudent to extinguish all the lights leading to their hiding spot.

Celestia visualized it then and warped herself inside. She reappeared within the kitchen aglow and wings spread, floating high in the center of the room. She spared not a thought for the carnage within. The fresh blood pooling across the floor. The five ponies bashed apart, their faces slack and eyes glassy and unseeing. She spared not a thought for the food still on the cold burners, the trays of small plates awaiting their final garnishes before they were to be taken to the Gala. She saw only Kirk, and the tiny pony he held suspended in front of him with an iron, strangulating grip.

Celestia knew this pony. She knew all of the ponies who worked in the palace. Now Kirk was using Autumn Run as a shield and hostage as he slowly turned to face the arrivals. Celestia sensed Luna standing just to her right by the door.

The red gauntlet only tightened. Celestia suspected if he squeezed any harder, Autumn Run’s throat would be crushed within his fist. Her legs shook like leaves and her breaths came in pained rapid wheezes. Autumn turned her head slowly, shakily, as far as she could towards the princess. And Celestia saw the begging in her eyes. The begging to save her life. The begging for just one more day with her family. One more hour. A second.

Twilight had made quick work of rescuing the palace guests. All in all, it had taken seven round-trips to teleport them all to Celestia’s school. Each trip had left her more drained than the last to the point that her latest teleport back to the throne room had been fueled on nothing but the faintest dregs of her magic.

She would have to manage one more. Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy were still inside.

On her previous rotation Twilight had seen Fluttershy standing watch just outside the throne room. Now,Twilight saw her pacing side to side just in front of the doors. The pegasus looked up, let out a sharp breath when she saw Twilight, and started towards her at a hurried pace.

“Twilight! Oh, Twilight!” Fluttershy glanced about eyes wide as if unsure where to place her gaze.

Fluttershy grabbed it and began pulling her towards the door. “Please, oh I’m so sorry, Twilight. Please hurry.”

Twilight only nodded and fell in step behind her friend. They crossed the throne room doors and entered the foyer where guests were usually made to wait when seeking audience with the princesses. It was in this room previously where they had placed the wounded, now afresh with eleven more of the wounded guard. Three guardsponies seemingly uninjured stood vigil over their comrades and were busy administering whatever first-aid they could.

Twilight recognized Halcyon, who offered a nod in greeting. Twilight nodded back.

They rescued these ponies who were trapped in the great hall,” Fluttershy began. “Rarity and Applejack went with them, a-and Applejack…”

The pegasus didn’t have to point - she cast her worried eyes over Twilight’s shoulder and to the far side of the room.

There she saw Rarity and Applejack sitting on the chairs lined up against the wall. Rarity had turned her chair to face Applejack’s, horn aglow as a needle and thread danced across Applejack’s forehead. Applejack herself sat facing the rest of the room, posture loose as if she were asleep. Twilight knew this wasn’t case as the two ponies carried on with a subdued conversation she couldn’t quite hear.

Fresh blood dribbled down from the gash above Applejack’s brow. Rarity tutted, tore off and rolled a piece of her dress, and pressed the bundled cloth firmly against the wound. The red soaked through in a manner of seconds. She pulled it away and started once more on the suturing.

“…looking very good,” they heard Rarity say. “It should only be a few more moments before I am through.”

“You’re pretty good this,” Applejack said. She sounded as if her mouth couldn’t quite hold onto the words. “Never had to have stitches before. Are they supposed to hurt?”

Rarity pulled away and Applejack cracked open an eye. It flitted towards the newcomers.

Fluttershy only pursed her lips as she looked between her friends. Her gaze settled on Twilight.

Rarity had stopped her work and greeted Twilight with a small nod, but underneath her gaze, the worry was apparent. They had seen the fighting hadn’t they? Twilight could only speculate as to how Applejack got hurt.

Twilight strained her ears and heard nothing whereas before there had been the thunderous sounds of battle. Had the princesses won? If they had, why weren’t they here?

“It’s good to see you, darling,” Rarity said in a somber tone. She looked Twilight up and down, the question unspoken between them known to them both. They were both unicorns. Rarity had to know she had pushed herself to the limits. Unasked was the question on whether she could manage another teleport, a question she didn’t mind not answering.

Twilight wordlessly fell into the seat beside Rarity, and there she remained, staring down at the floor. Fluttershy sat down next to her, looking out towards the wounded guards with her lips wrinkled in thought. Rarity gave a silent nod of approval before turning once more to Applejack to finish the work.

They sat in silence as Rarity continued. There wasn’t much left to do Twilight could see, and soon Rarity tore the excess stitching with her magic and began wrapping the entirety of Applejack’s forehead in a long length of torn dress. She finished the bandage off in a neat little bow.

“There!” Rarity announced. “I suspect with care and attention, and just the right amount of magic, it won’t even scar.”

“Thank you kindly,” said Applejack “Truly. I’d always known you were a good pony not afraid to get her hooves dirty when it came down to it.”

“Not just me.” Applejack pointed a hoof out towards the center of the room. “Them, too. Maybe it changed nothing. Maybe they were gonna get saved with or without us. But we don’t know that. And I wouldn’t change a darn thing.”

Applejack settled once more in her chair and shut her eyes. “You too, Twilight. And you too, Fluttershy. I ain’t got the right to say this but I am mighty proud to call myself your friends.”

Rarity patted the earth pony on her shoulder as she turned and whispered to the others, “I think she’s still a bit dazed.”

“But in any case, Twilight. How are you feeling? Really. You teleported all those ponies to where again? Celestia’s school? That must be at least two miles from here! Darling, you must be so exhausted I can hardly even imagine.”

“Take all the time you need. You know what you can manage better than the rest of us.” Rarity paused, her lips a thin line. “But time is of the essence. We absolutely must get everypony out of here, Twilight. I’m sure you are already aware of that fact, pardon my prattling, but I really can’t stress it enough.”

Fluttershy stirred in her seat. “But please don’t push yourself, Twilight. You’ve already done so much.”

“Thanks girls,” Twilight said, looking to each of them in turn. “But I think I can do it now. I’ve had some time to rest. Catch my breath. I… yeah. Let’s join the others and I’ll get us all out of here. Can you stand, Applejack?”

“Reckon I’ll have to,” she replied. A smirk appeared. “Unless you’re offerin’ to carry me.”

“Y’know that we’re gonna have to come back for my hat,” Applejack groaned as she stepped out of the seat. Rarity stood closeby offering a guiding hoof.

“I’m sure the princesses are taking good care of it,” said Twilight. “C’mon.”

A feeling of the first splash of cold water from a shower. The breath sucked from her lips. The stomach-churning weightlessness that precedes the fall.

She materialized into existence amongst the wounded, her form a black and red shadow that existed without light. No one moved. A second passed, and then two. The three unwounded guardsponies sat amongst their comrades and friends, their spears propped against the far wall. Halcyon was so close to the phantom he could have brushed her legs with his hooves.

Time seemed to slow as Twilight became acutely aware of the sorrow that crossed Halcyon’s face. His eyes met hers. His mouth closed, and he shut his eyes. When he next opened them, he was looking up at the phantom, brows furrowed in anger and horn alight.

Her rapier ripped through his magic and into his neck. Halcyon was dead before he hit the floor.

For those five seconds in that kitchen, the world felt wrong to Celestia. She felt sick. She felt like fleeing, but she could not have turned away even if she wanted to. Her gaze was transfixed on the scene before her, on the sight of Kirk pulling the color of Autumn Run straight out of her eyes and mouth.

He drew the essence into his helmet as he encased the pony in his barbed forearms. They watched as Autumn’s coat turned from a gold to gray. They watched as the pony stilled within his grasp. And they watched as Kirk drained the last of Autumn Run’s soul from her body and into his helmet. That’s all it could have been. Her soul.

He discarded her like refuse to the floor, and without missing a beat, Kirk went for his sword and shield.

The spear burst forth from the aether and lanced the phantom Kirk straight in his chest. The momentum threw him off his feet and slammed him hard into the wall, impaling him. Celestia gave a smile of satisfaction as the spear’s cross guard kept the rest of the weapon from piercing through. Kirk gripped the handle protruding from his chest, but Celestia pushed him ever harder against the wall. She moved towards him, unblinking, unthinking, as she charged the spear with her magic - a technique she developed during the war against the dragons, one she had created to destroy them from the inside out.

Behind Kirk, the stone wall shuddered and cracked from the huge explosion of energy released from the spear. Already she could see the molten slag leaking from the cracks. The spear’s edge was the focal point for the energy’s release, but Celestia suspected it hurt him all the same. The phantom went limp, head lowering and arms sagging down to his sides.

“Answer me!” Celestia screamed. How long had it been since she used the Royal Canterlot Voice?

She found herself shaking. How many ponies had died tonight? How many at this one’s hands? Celestia stepped closer, side-stepping the spear and moved her face close to his. A part of her wanted to see him suffer. The part that was there before Equestria and before Discord and even before the wars. She had forgotten it was there.

“I don’t need your word,” she whispered. “I want it. I want to hear you say that you will never return.”

The Knight of Thorns stirred and the helmet raised to face her. He edged his head closer as if in defiance.

Celestia gave a massive push against the spear and pulverized Kirk’s armor and chest. His now-concaved chest leaked black smoke in great gouts.

She gripped Arkaliir and pulled backwards, bringing its victim along with it. Kirk made not a sound as he was hoisted upward from his impaled chest and made to almost touch the ceiling. It was at this moment that Celestia looked at him closely. His arms and legs hanging limp, his gaze never leaving hers, his fists-

His right hand slowly opened and there, in the center of his palm, floated a small sphere of flame. The flame seemed to turn purple right before her eyes.

Celestia snarled, charging her magic once more into the spear. Arkaliir’s edge began to burn.

Like a bear trap, Kirk’s hand snapped shut around the purple sphere and in an instant a noxious purple gas erupted from his helmet. It poured downward, showering Celestia and blanketing the room in fumes.

Arkaliir’s edge exploded a second later, and with no stone wall to absorb that energy, went straight into the body of Kirk. He evaporated in a blinding flash, leaving nothing behind but trails of smoke, but the damage was done.

Celestia fell to her knees, her lungs seizing with pain. She took a deep breath only for deep red agony to swell in her chest. A copper taste of blood rose in her throat.

She felt as if she had inhaled fire and was now drowning in her own liquefying insides. Her vision blurred.

Luna was at her side, looking down at her at her with worry and horn alight. She could feel her sister’s magic washing over her. The pain continued. It hurt to breathe. It would be easier not to.

Celestia felt suddenly warm. Luna’s magic, no doubt. Attempting to burn away the poison.

It wouldn’t work, she wanted to tell her. This wasn’t your average home-grown Equestrian poison, no. This was poison from over there. A poison perfected in a world long dead where corpses walked and monsters cannibalized and traded in souls.

Celestia felt cold now. And soon, she would feel numb. The thoughts were coming slower. Soon, there would be nothing at all.

She looked at her sister, watched the expressions dance across her beautiful face. Her vision was darkening now. What she wouldn’t give for another moment with them all.

Twilight didn’t register the piteous cry she let out as she watched Adria slaughter the other two guards. One was going for his spear. The other hadn’t even rose. They both died without a sound, her red blade puncturing their hearts. Now they lay amongst their wounded comrades, eyes dumb to the world.

Rarity had fallen to her haunches, eyes wide and mouth agape as fresh tears spilled down her face.

She let out a shaky breath. This was it, then. She and her friends were going to die tonight. She would never see Princess Celestia again. Or her family. Or Spike. There would be no more afternoon teas, or falling asleep to a good book.

Twilight thought of the private, personal things she had shelved away for later. The things that would now never happen. She would never find love. Never find the pony of her dreams. Never have foals.

Memories of the basement rushed to her mind. Her experiments. The pain she endured.

“No way,” she heard Applejack whisper. “You ain’t gettin’ to them. Not to ANY OF US!”

Adria stopped, her head tilting in curiosity. She looked to each of them in turn before once more settling on Applejack. She didn’t speak as she reached for her staff and pointed it straight at her friend.

Twilight reached inward, deeper than she had ever reached before. Her research and experiments had only scratched the surface but she knew she could go deeper. She always knew.

Her cutie mark began to burn. She had always suspected that cutie marks were manifestations of something greater than simple talent. Her research only proved that fact. She reached deeper still. If she looked, she was sure that she would see her cutie mark glowing.

Twilight may have burned away all her magic, but her entire magical strength was only a cup of water compared to the entire reservoir that was her soul.

And from her horn burst a bright beam of purple energy that struck Adria square in the chest.

And then the unicorn rose. She stepped in front of Applejack, never taking her eyes off the phantom. She went through the calculations in her mind at a breakneck speed. Twelve of the wounded, her three friends, and the three guards who had fallen, eighteen in all. She encased them all in a purple sphere. Sending ponies away was vastly different than taking ponies with her.

In the foyer outside the throne room of Canterlot Palace, Twilight Sparkle stood alone with the black phantom from Lordran. They faced each other, neither moving a muscle.

It took all of Twilight’s strength to remain on her hooves. Not even in her experiments had she drawn so deeply from the reservoir. She felt as if on fire, every cell in body crying out in protest.

“I guess I’m selfish,” Twilight said. “I need to know what you did with the princesses.”

“You mean the white and the blue one. Why, they killed me. Took off my head. As for what Kirk has done to them, I don’t know. He was still here when I returned to my body.” Adria stepped closer. “What is your name?”

Twilight took a step back. She was consciously aware that if she were to give any more ground, she would be backed into the wall.

“My name is Twilight Sparkle. You and your friend killed a lot of ponies today. Don’t think that you will ever, ever get away with it.” There was no plan here. She was blind in unknown rapids.

“Oh.” Another step. “How you abhor me. Do you think I wanted this? And to think my life used to be so simple. I was a student, then. Unearthing the secrets surrounding the soul. The best in my year in fact. It’s burning you, isn’t it? The magic.”

“You don’t know what I need to do.” Another step. “I didn’t chase after that softbrain to slaughter innocents. And now he hides, letting all of your folk die for his ignorance. Tell me, Twilight Sparkle, do you think me cruel for wanting to save my world?”

In an instant everything turned black as if someone had blown out the candle of the world. Twilight fell backward into the dark, thankful she could still see the faint outline of red that was Adria.

The phantom whirled about, just as perplexed by the darkness as her. Twilight scrabbled backwards along the tile and reached with her hooves until she eventually touched wood and plush cushions.

Though she couldn’t even see her nose in front of her eyes, she knew they were still in the foyer at the very least.

Twilight watched as Adria muttered a curse and sparked her staff. A gold ball of light floated from its tip though it hardly illuminated the room. It was as if the darkness was stifling the light.

Adria continued to whirl about as the ball floated higher and higher. And there, Twilight saw them.

The ceiling was a monstrous maw of bladed weaponry - swords and spears, axes and lances - each a tooth in the mouth of a kraken. It was with painstaking slowness that Twilight watched as a faint blue glue enveloped the spiral of blades, and all started to turn inwards toward the phantom.

Adria chose this moment to look up. All at once the weapons descended upon the phantom. With an impossible speed she thrust her staff high into the air and an immense wall of pressure surged from its tip. Twilight saw the air distort as the energy exploded outward, knocking away the projectiles and sending them shattering into blue shards toward every corner of the room.

Twilight let out a yelp when an axe exploded near her head. She had barely recovered when she caught sight of Princess Luna stepping through the darkness as if it were a curtain on a stage. With a powerful flap of her wings she surged toward the phantom, a dozen weapons materializing at her sides mid-flight.

Twilight could feel her heart beating in her chest. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong and she didn’t know what. She had seen Luna fight with Solaire before, but this was different. Luna threw herself against her opponent, her assault a never-ending flurry of sword swings and knife edges and axe chops and hammer blows. Gone was the grace and fluidity she had seen that day. Something had changed. Changed into something bestial and barbaric.

Twilight saw the wounds that covered the princess, from the tiny scratches to the large cut on her neck to the notch of flesh missing from her ear. She saw the lines of red dripping from her wounds, the speckles of blood that flew from her whirling form and onto the walls and floor. Most of all she saw the anger in Luna’s face.

Despite everything, the phantom Adria held her ground. The two beings stalked around each other before dashing in once more to trade blows. As far as Twilight could tell, neither could gain advantage over the other but for how long would that last? Luna’s chest heaved like bellows and her wounds kept reopening from the constant movement. It was with a grimace that Twilight noticed that the princess was leaving bloody hoofprints wherever she stepped.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about Princess Celestia. Luna needs your help NOW.

As Twilight rose to her hooves, she realized what Luna’s strategy was; to keep the phantom from using her magic by staying as close to her opponent as possible. In line with this, Adria herself never seemed to press forward against Luna and looked satisfied with letting the battle come to her. They clashed again in a shower of sparks.

How had they killed her before? Adria said they had beheaded her, hadn’t she? It had to have been a quick, concentrated attack. Perhaps they had immobilized her and employed a hint of subterfuge as well. When Twilight took another step, Luna looked her straight in the eye.

Luna continued to press the attack but now she seemed to be keeping her distance just a little more than before. What Twilight couldn’t know was if Luna was slowing from exhaustion or to give her an opportunity to turn things in their favor.

Her heart hammered in her chest. This wasn’t part of her lessons. She didn’t have decades upon decades of battle experience to draw upon. There were too many unknowns. Too many factors at play of which she knew too little about. Twilight took another step forward. In her state she didn’t even know if she could conjure another spell.

At Twilight’s entry, the battle slowed to a stop and Luna came to Twilight’s side. The princess held her head low and her chest moved up and down in rapid breaths. It was apparent that Luna couldn’t go for much longer. Perhaps Adria could sense it as well for the phantom glanced between them both before reaching for her staff. She leveled the gnarled piece of wood at the space between them.

But then they all heard it. The rhythm came softly at first, and then louder and louder as the seconds dragged on. Twilight recognized the sound - the rapid footfalls of a human. The steps became more pronounced. Heavier. And then came the unmistakable rattle of chain mail.

Twilight turned towards the voice. It was only a glance, an almost imperceptible swivel of her head, but it was enough. The phantom’s staff gave off the smallest of pulses, and the only light in the room - the gold light Adria had summoned earlier - blinked from existence.

The darkness was engulfing, all-encompassing. There were bright flashes where Adria had been. Luna’s shouted out a warning she couldn’t quite hear. And Twilight threw up a barrier around herself in a complete panic.

Her eyes which had trouble adjusting to the already dim light from before were completely useless now. What dominated her vision were the five blue orbs floating in a half-arc an indeterminate distance away. They appeared almost crystalline.

Twilight screamed as the first shattered against her barrier. A crack appeared. Then the second and third. Her barrier began crumbling to pieces to the floor. The other two were fast approaching. Ahead, Twilight could just make out Adria’s form. No time to form another shield.

Twilight sparked her horn and teleported. She unwittingly threw herself forward a short distance in the direction she was looking. It was all she could manage.

Twilight was too surprised to cry out when rough hands grasped her by the mane and slammed her chin to the floor.

Twilight was still dazed when she was hauled off the floor by her mane and wrapped in cord-like arms. As she opened her eyes she became acutely aware of the red dagger’s edge inches from her face. An arm snaked its way around her neck and squeezed. Twilight kicked her hooves in front of her but the vice wrapped around her neck only tightened.

The darkness that blanketed the room began forming shadows on the floors and walls. The shadows drifted like inkblots on the floor toward Luna, her horn alight. She absorbed them through her hooves and soon the room was returned to the state it had been before. Luna took a cautious step toward them but the dagger was jabbed ever closer to Twilight’s face.

Solaire stood in the western passage, garbed in his full armor and sword at the ready. On his left arm was strapped a midnight blue shield with Luna’s mark emblazoned across its front. And by his feet stood Spike, eyes wide and breathing heavy as the little dragon stared in Twilight’s direction.

Adria spoke into her ear. “I don’t need to say what will happen to you if I see your horn glow, do I?”

“So you’ve shown!” Adria began. “Enough of these creatures have died for you, Solaire! Give the Lord Soul to me and I will leave! No one else has to die.”

She knew of his morals. His infinite devotion to his mission. Solaire, who had died countless deaths to see it through. She knew what he was going to say before he even said it.

“No!” Spike screamed. And he continued to scream as he began pummeling his legs.

And Twilight saw the dagger drop from the hand in front of her face. Heard the phantom blade clatter to the floor. The open palm was all she could see.

Spike sat next to her, running his hand in a dead, rhythmic motion over her coat. It kept flashing through his head - the red ghost choking Twilight, and then taking her color. She had pulled it through her mouth and eyes and dropped her to the floor. He didn’t see what happened next. Luna and Solaire must have blasted the ghost into oblivion. Frankly, he didn’t care.

“Twilight?” he patted her just below the neck. Gray wasn’t a good color for her. “Twilight?”

Luna sat on the floor opposite of him. He saw the haunted look in her eyes. She avoided his gaze as she looked down at Twilight’s bo-

He found Luna looking at Twilight’s flank, the gray patch of coat where her cutie mark used to be. One of his earliest memories was helping Twilight comb through books about cutie marks. He remembered her fascination with where they came from, and where they went when ponies-

How had this happened. Things were fine. Things were okay. They were going to go to the gala and then go home.

Solaire stood just behind him. He could see his shadow over them both, silent and unmoving. Spike gave Twilight one last look. She had died with her eyes closed. He didn’t need to close them. Spike looked out towards the chairs.

Luna looked up at the knight. Spike continued to study the chairs. He pushed the tears away. He never really noticed that these chairs had a pattern on them. Tiny yellow suns on a royal blue backdrop.

“She took her soul,” he continued. “She’s empty, but it’s still her.”

The shadow moved, and Spike felt Solaire kneel by his side. His shadow no longer fell over his friend.

Unique pyromancy crafted by Eingyi, considered a heretic even at the Great Swamp. Create intense poison mist.

Why was Eingyi driven from the Great Swamp? One only need cast this pyromancy, a perverse diversion from the art of fire, to find out.

Grossly Incandescent

by Crack Javelin

Chapter Eight - I Start With This One