//------------------------------// // VI.VIII - The Sunstone // Story: The Broken Bond // by TheApexSovereign //------------------------------// “Wh-wh-why…?” Fluttershy quivered, pinned under Hydia’s kneecap—or rather Draggle’s, indicated by the dull shivering. “Why aren’t they m-m-moving? Girls? What’s happening?!” Her shrilled overhead as well as below, within her own rattling breast, and where Hydia’s dusted heart once beat.  She was everywhere. They were everywhere. Soon, everyone and everything will be nowhere.  Quiet. Finally.   They were so close. So damn cl—”Get off me!”  Reality flooded back, unpleasant as the act of murder: whimpers, snuffles, confused little coos and wriggling like a rat’s. Hydia suddenly wanted to crush the Upstart of Friendship, obese with all her silver platters; to simply press down and watch as her entrails blast gloriously from her mouth like a hose. But magenta streamed warmly, powerfully, through Hydia’s fingers before flashing white, snatching away the mass gripped within her cold fist.  And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to give chase. Never had. As reality goes, to do so would be pointless anyhow. She knew it. Starlight knew it.  Similar sensations of feeling tingled Hydia’s throat, slipped through her fingers. They were vague however, as if her paws were gloved and her throat took food after being scalded by tea.  What a delightfully mortal experience! How enchanting these past few weeks have been…  Like Twilight, who’d vanished by strength of will compounded by fear—an emotional cocktail only those with something to lose can truly experience, and not just remember doing so…  I could make it easier for them. She couldn’t cease their efforts completely in removing her magical fetters; to do so would render this ordeal a minor scuffle at best, and all Hydia truly had to her name was her dignity, and the illusion of all else.  Yes, thought Hydia, far, far in the back of her mind, beneath the crimson screen of rage towards these ponies. Yes, that’s it. That’s why we’re doing this. It has to be this way, and we have no choice but to accept it.  Such thinking was second nature. Automatic. It was maddening to think about, but alas, Starlight Glimmer stirred up the status quo by remembering them.  Soon… It would all be over so… so soon.  The one more deserving of wings addressed her friends by the raft where Rainbow had placed her (as if that would save her if Hydia really (could have) tried).  Starlight inhaled, but choked upon seeing the state of Destiny’s Generosity. “Rarity,” she gasped, “a-are you—?”  “I do not care.” The wretch sported one hell of a thousand-yard-stare.  “But your super pretty mane, it’s all slimy and gross!” Pinkie combed back her mangled purple locks, only for them to slap like soggy hay against her face.  “I truly hadn’t noticed,” she said, nonplussed. “Once more, I do not care. In fact, I find myself wholly, completely unconcerned with myself, in fact. Oh… I’d said that twice in the same sentence. How unsightly.” Her thoughts sounded doubly far from wherever she was looking—possibly the fact that she was very nearly “eaten”—until she started to giggle.  “Oh, Rarity.” Glimmer wrapped her in a hug, how sweet.  The tittering erupted into a cry, a scream. “What was that?!” She thrashed away from Starlight. “What’s the meaning of any of this!?” She flung her forelegs about the clearing. “What do they want, where did they come from!? Why—I mean, I thought that—I thought—I-I-I thought we were sincerely going to die!” And she fell on her rear, twisting her destroyed mane around her hooves, crying out, “We’re going to perish in this Celestia-forsaken pit of Tartarus, aren’t we!?”  Hydia didn’t need either of hers—hadn’t for centuries—to know almost none of them wanted to even speak. Any who were completely sane wouldn’t, thus why Rarity and Starlight were so talkative.  “We’re not.” One of Glimmer’s eyes were beginning to fog, and not just with tears. “We can’t—not trying to give a rousing speech here,” she chuckled, the only one to do so, “uh, but, um, I-I mean to say that we literally cannot die here… We can’t, I’m serious! Think about it: if that’s what they wanted, well, why wait?”  “Maybe they’re playing with us,” shrilled Fluttershy, “like a feline with cornered prey!”  “And just how do you—?!” Rarity choked, embraced by Kindness.  “We won’t ever let them touch you again,” she said.  The pitifully false mare broke down, sobbing into her friend’s shoulder—the side whose wing Draggle, and by proxy her family, had felt the need to puncture, leaving her feathers tattered and their owner grounded.  Whatever was left of Hydia by this point in time surmised it was to prevent Fluttershy from spoiling the illusion of peril, perpetuating the conflict needlessly. Everything else that followed today was an exciting mystery—even their broth would not reveal Equestria’s future.  Only a hint that Hydia and her idiot daughters would be no more.  “Starlight.” Twilight, heavy with mud, exhaustion, and a char-tipped horn, denied every instinct her body was screaming for her to heed—to drop down, to sleep, to stop thinking altogther. “Starlight,” she exhaled once more, “tell me… us… your hyp—… hypothe—… thingy. ‘Lease.” The weak little brat tilted right… tilted, and tilted, and finally she fell against the abrupt appearance of Honesty. “S’horry… Ay-J’h—...”  “Take it easy, now.” She stroked Twilight’s groaning head. “If them cretins so much as twitch funny, then…” She dared to glance behind her, but the flesh suits remained as statues and still managed to prickle her flesh. “We’ll protect’ ya, sure as sugar. I won’t let ‘em separate us again. I’ll lasso us together if that happens!” Each were too within themselves to take up her cry. “Uh, s-so, Starlight—?”  “Let’s just blast them already!” snarled Rainbow Dash, always feeling first and thinking never.  “We have the chance right now, so let’s Harmonize or whatever so we can go home!”  “Dash—” wheezed Twilight.  “It doesn’t work so easily, you know that. You know they work whenever they feel like it,” Starlight cut in, literally through Wonderbolt’s war-path with an outstretched hoof.  “Then what? What’re you saying?”  It was desperation shading her harshness, and Starlight must have known this, even though her ears wilted with a wince. “I’m just saying that it can’t be as simple as that. And I know, I know, this sounds absolutely insane, but take a look at where we are! Think about what we’ve been through and—”  “Starlight, hon.” Applejack propped the princess, feeble both of strength and smile, in a one-legged hug. Both donned tired, reassuring smiles. “We’ve come this far runnin’ on hope an’ faith alone. Ain’t nopony gonna start doubtin’ ya when we’re in no position to be doin’ so. An’ you’re right—this is plum crazy. But I think I speak for everypony when I say I’m desperate enough to give anything a try if means gettin’ us back to our kin.”  Starlight’s eyes, big and wet, regarded the reassurances of her undeserving friends. Undoubtedly she was mentally filing through the “kin” that awaited them in Ponyville—from the fillies to Spike and their animals—before even considering herself. “Right,” murmured Starlight, though she was right there in the witches’ ears, in their very own heads even. “So am I,” she said. “I’m desperate to give anything a try, too.”  Pinkie reared up beside her. “Me three!”  Rainbow Dash landed, slugging her in the shoulder. “We’re all with ya, Star-light!” She and Glimmer yelped as the pink one squeezed, lifted, and spun them around once. The others laughed, even Rarity with her running makeup. It was the perfect cover for Glimmer to rub her paling eyeball.  Ugh. These ponies. Get on with it. They still needed Twilight to notice it first. Dignity impeded Hydia’s itching tongue. But a pang of disgust speared the belly of her meat puppet. This was true madness—possessing the power to divide them into bloody cubes, but lack the genuine freedom to act upon it.  Hydia fondly thought to herself her last words, flavored in nostalgia, burning with desire: ‘Crush them into jelly. Use their spines as dental floss. Kill them. Kill them all.’ The way their hearts collectively raced painfully within each and every one of them… was delicious.  Their final month has been nothing if not entertaining.  “Starlight, what are you thinking? Please,” hastily added Twilight. “I don’t want to worry anypony, but I can’t bear the thought of our backs turned on these creatures. I feel like they could ambush us at any moment now.”  She hadn’t been alone in stealing glances back. The faces of the silent betrayed this truth, even if their antagonists hadn’t caught each and every one.  “Right,” said Starlight. “Sorry, I was trying to think of a way to word this without it sounding too… shall I say, unbelievable? I mean, there’s no way I can phrase this normally without sounding like a conspiracy theorist, so I’ll just come out and say it: my gut is telling me that something fishy’s going on here. That... whatever this is aside,” she stammered, gesturing across the clearing.  “How exactly so?” hissed Rarity, all wrapped up within Fluttershy.  “I mean, just look at this one! Like she’s basically a skeleton!” Draggle’s shell—from where they stood, sunlight streamed past her arms arched toward the heavens; coupled with her broken leg branching out as Kindness had left it, she was like a tree of Flutter Valley. “I’ll never forget the way I saw her contort just now, and move like some kind of a demon.” As she scratched her eye, and really got in there, Twilight added, “I’ve seen her do that to me, too. She also made your… your horn appear before me, and sh-she crushed it like an eggshell.”  Starlight winked hard with her right as Twilight pretended not to be concerned. “And I’ve seen them just appear out of thin air on more than one occasion!” she continued, pretending as her heart rate increased. “These things have fiddled with the Cutie Map before, and rendered Twilight and I’s magic null. And after everything we’ve done, they expect me to believe that our final confrontation is a slug in the mud? That their endgame was just to eat us?” Starlight regarded each of their pondering expressions. “And if you disagree with what I’m saying, then answer me this: why are they stopping now?” Not one of them argued.  Then Pinkie scoffed. “H-heh, geez! The more I think about it the more ridiculous this is, right girls? Right?”  “Because clearly their, uh, ‘bodies’ don’t need to eat,” said Rainbow.  Starlight added, “And they once told me that anything they do eat tastes like ash or something. Could be a lie, sure, but… why share this with me at all?”  “Pity points?” Hydia very nearly burst forth to smash the stupid flier into giblets.  “Even if that’s what they wa-anted—!” Twilight struggled to rise as she waved off Honesty. “Why… ow, ow, ow… why wait in hiding,” she grunted, “until the seven of us are finally together?” She stood tall on her feeble-legged lonesome. “That would have been more advantageous, if their goals were to end us or our special bond. Would it not? Even more so, it’d have been prudent if they’d attacked the other day when we were,” hesitating, Twilight glanced aside, “when we were divided.”  Starlight winced.   Rainbow compounded Hydia’s desire to splatter her upon remarking, “Maybe these guys are just really crummy villains.”  Laughter shot a hoof into the air. “You all!” She tapped her chin. “Raise some very good points. Especially you, Glimmy!”  “Shoot, give ‘er a little credit. We woulda still been runnin’ round like startled hens had ya not come along!”  The bitch flushed over praise heaped upon her for possessing one-and-a-half eyeballs and a working brain between them. How much longer must they suffer this tripe—?  “Starlight? Did they… hurt your eye?” Twilight craned forth, only for Starlight to cover it. “I noticed you kept rubbing it.”  “Oh, it’s nothing, really. Just…” She saw something deeper in Twilight’s exhaustion beyond physical tiredness. “It’s just been getting a little blurry. Think I might have something caught in it! No biggie at—” Twilight swung, pawing her hoof away. Starlight could have, but didn’t, put up a fight, “—all… eh-heh. Eh…”  She grimaced away, but Twilight pulled her shameful head back and looked her in the eyes.  In her mismatched eyes. They flooded on the spot. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I was just so scared that the thought of something happening to me—”  “Does it hurt?” exhaled the princess.  Starlight looked stricken for a beat, then snorted, thickly replying, “N-no. I… I don’t feel anything there.” She gestured around her face’s upper-right quadrant. “Numb.” Her milky pupil quivered. “I… I don’t care, though. Really. I still got a second eye.”  Her smile crumbled in the face of Twilight’s curdling facade. “I do,” she whispered, crossing her horn with the remains of Starlight’s. “But I know what you’re about to say, and this isn’t the time or place to debate over guilt.”  “Can’t be helped now, anyway.”  “Unfortunately not.” Twilight sniffled, melting back into the group of worrisome friends. “So, getting back on track, I figured you had something in mind for—” “i’M tIrEd Of WaItInG!” Reeka boomed, drawing shock and terror her body’s way, though it still lay prone on its elbows, hands cupped before her. “I wOUlD pLaY sOmE mOrE, bUt It’S rUiNEeD iF yOu sEe ThE pRoP’s StRiNgS. tHeRe’S nO pOiNt In EvEn TrYiNg AfTeR tHaT.”  This intrusion felt right, deep down, like it was necessary. It had to be this way, for everything that ever happened always had. And yet… And yet the sheer stupidity of Reeka’s childish nature always confounded Hydia. Must she be a pouting whelp about it and prolong the inevitable in the process?  That’s what was most annoying about this outburst.  “YoU cOmPlEtE aNd UtTeR—”  “Aw, ShE’s RiGhT Ma—ErR, HyDiA! hYdIa.” Draggle the Fool dropped her huge paws as if stones were tied to them, thumping the ground whilst maintaining her poised half-leg. “We’D lOoK rIdIcUlOuS iF wE kEpT iT gOiNg, dOn’ChA tHinK?”  ‘Ridiculous…’ Ridiculous?!  An age ago some petulant mare named Twilight, coincidentally, had thrown such language her way: “You ridiculous villains are not welcome in Ponyland!”  Why?  Why was she thinking about their past lives now, of all times?!  “i DiDn’T aSk YoU tO ThInK!” Hydia snapped.  Because Draggle—for once—was right. They would look ridiculous. They are ridiculous. Everything they’ve ever done and were was fucking ridiculous but finally—finally—an end was upon them and yet, and yet… “yOu PiSs Me OfF, tHe BoTh Of yOu. AlWaYs.”  Except not really. She didn’t need to drag them into this, but they were so pathetic that she had to. It was her fault for having to suffer with them all these years. For having them. For bringing them to this land in the first place and, most damning of all, being the right kind of awful in order to make them like this.  This loss in my chest… I hadn’t felt this way since... “YoU’rE,” Hydia groaned, “StArTiNg To MaKe Me—Me—HaVe ReGrEtS. tHaT’s A fIrSt, IsN’t It?”  Reeka dared to start, “It Is, HyDiA—!”  “ThAt WaS rHeToRiCaL, yOu DeNsE dUnDeRhEaD!”  “Starlight,” Fluttershy whispered, “what’s, um, what’s-uh-what’s going on?”  “Absolutely no idea.”  That bored tone of voice, coming from her of all ponies. “YoU dArE mOcK me—?”  “Where’re ya comin’ from, anyway?” Laughter climbed up Reeka’s head and jammed her face down her throat. “Helloooo in theeere?”  “Pinkie Pie, you get out of there this instant!” Rarity galloped forth, as if she could save her even if she tried.  As if Hydia could actually kill them if she tried, too. But no. They always get their happy ending. That’s how it worked for ponies. I hate you all. So, so much… Laughter’s poofy head popped out. “C’mon, Rarity! What’s she gonna do? Bite me?” she teased, playing with Reeka’s one and only tooth. It crunched, twirling around and around within her decayed skull.  “What a disturbing little sound!” the pony noted.  She hopped toward the one who thought to save her, beaming to little reassurance. Reeka snarled, “yOu’Re All So IrRiTaTiNg,” before disassembling and reforming just as instantly beside Hydia’s.  She blinked over in the eyes of the two startled ponies.   “LeT’s GeT tHiS oVeR wItH aLrEaDy,” she continued. “CoMe AlOnG, pOnIeS. dO yOuR tHiNg.”  The urge to kill tinted everything red, it felt like. But Draggle cut in, physically reappearing beside Hydia as well. “QuIt GaWkIn’ AnD eNd Us AlRrEaDy.” None moved a muscle, or even obeyed Draggle’s simple command. “HuRrY uP!”  How? How could this be the way it ended, with not solely a whimper, but a laugh first and foremost? A joke where they were the punchline?  They hadn’t even realized where to aim the damned rainbow yet. “YoU In-SiPiD oFfSpRiNg—”   “Alright, alright, what’re you playing at?” Loyalty took flight, guarding her pathetic friends. “This’s obviously some kinda trap. Right, Starlight?”  She shrunk under the proverbial spotlight. “I mean,” she stammered, “I guess you could say that. If I’m right, they could nullify even the Elements’ effect. So… repeating Dash’s question, what is it you’re trying to achieve here?”  Before her idiot offspring could inject more stupidity, Hydia snarled, “We’Ve No ReAsOn To EnTeRtAiN yOuR cUrIoSiTy.”  “Again, with the vague nonsense! That’s the one thing that’s been consistent with you three since we’ve met—”  “Starlight.” Twilight folded back the wing she nudged her with. Starlight had to turn fully to actually see her. “We don’t have to play with them anymore. Don’t you understand? ...Whatever their goals are, they know, deep down, that they can’t hurt us. They won’t beat us.”  She was absolutely right.  And Hydia hated it. “YoU sTiLL uNdErStAnD nOtHiNG! ThIs IsN’t So CuT aNd DrY, aNd YoU pOsSeS tHe GaLL tO aCt LiKe YoU kNoW aNyThInG—”  “Shut up.” Twilight Sparkle, who even now trembled where she stood.  Hydia physically recoiled. “You’re absolutely right. I have no idea what’s going on, and it’s that very unknown which terrifies me,” she squeaked. “But I understand friendship because of a life that’s been guided by your hand, apparently. But the funny thing is, is while that’s always been what scared me—the not knowing—throughout all the battles and tribulations we’d faced they’ve always ended with us on top, and the darkness you’ve thrown our way on the bottom. I never needed to be afraid, and I don’t have to be—ever again. All of that has been a stepping stone to this moment right here, right now, and everything that will follow! It’s strange to me, this fearlessness,” she admitted, exchanging worry, and then a smile, with Starlight, “but I’m finally starting to understand the faith Starlight has in us, in our friendship. So I might not understand you, Hydia, and I probably never will—!”  “SiLeNcE!”  “But don’t you dare presume to understand the things for which I live for!” she cried. “You lie, and you harm, you enjoy suffering and flaunt your prophetic knowledge as if it’s some kind of benefit. But I know who you are, now, and it’s thanks to Reeka—you’re little more than puppets who can see the strings.”  Hydia felt gutted. Naked.  Exposed and damnably small.  “You won’t win here,” said Twilight, “and the darkness which threatens us never will! Whether it’s a misunderstanding between friends or a fight, a raging centaur or three pieces of carrion squatting in a bog, acting as if they themselves matter: you. Won’t! Win!”  “InSoLeNt BuG!”  “EVER!” And Twilight erupted beyond Hydia’s invisible hand clasping her horn, shattering the compression smothering her magic, and wreathing the others in a pinkish aura.  “YoU dArE... pReSuMe To kNoW uS?!” Hydia clenched her fists, Twilight’s words echoing deep in her memory:  “My love…”  And nostalgia’s chains constricted her for the first time in over a thousand years. “My sweet, protective wife… you know better than to outright duke it out with these horses—ah, ponies. Our family, we’re aliens to this land! They have every right to be afraid of—”  Hydia opened her wretched mouth and bellowed with her mortal tongue, so booming was her cry that it disturbed the half-dead grass around them and the distant ponies.  “...Ah. I see. You got into a fight with that Firefly, because she called Rhonda and Doris names. ‘Draggle’ and ‘Reeka,’ tch. Childish. Just ignore them! Water off a duck’s back. Two tears in a bucket, fuck it. All that stuff! ”  Firefl—no, Rainbow Dash, that was her name now, snorted as she casually supported her ever-struggling friend with a shoulder. “You bad guys always start crying when we’re about to beatcha!”  “Well of course she would call us ‘apes.’ We’re different here, and if we want to settle and make it home, we have to—”  “HoW’rE yA dOiN’ tHiS, pRiNCeSs!?” Reeka cried, truly not understanding (because she chose not to for the sake of her sanity). “YoU sHoUld Be ScReAmIn’ RiGhT nOw! DoUbLeD oVeR iN pAiN, foRcIn’ YoUrSeLf LikE tHaT!”  “Sorry!” gasped Twilight, eyes like runny pilot lights. “I don’t really care about what happens to me now, because I know nothing with finality ever will!” She regarded those gathering at her side. “Girls,” she rasped, “girls, I understand what we gotta do here. One of you, please, go into my saddlebag. Hurry. I brought… just in case… a spell. Star… light’s… Forgot the wording.”  As if she’d lived with them all her life, was a part of Destiny’s safety net, Starlight clasped the saddlebag on the side she was on and just so happened to remove Starswirl’s once incomplete, now modified spell.  Hydia knew it would play a part today. And yet, it never stopped driving her insane—the way fate always worked in ponies’ favors.  Always.  Even when they tried to murder the country.  “You… you’re going to fire this like a spell, Twilight? Do you know what it’ll do?”  Even when they allowed Grogar to run the remnants aground with foul beasts. The Pillars, the first safety net, emerged from the darkness, bearing a torch of Harmony to the Chaos they unleashed.  “I know. I know. We keep having this discussion, but—listen! ...Listen up: we cannot lay a finger on these ponies. To do so would be to validate their fears. And this is such a kind, peaceful land, you know that. But…”  Hydia took a deep, mortal breath… and roared. The spell floated in the way. Twilight read, “‘From outside we’re together—’”  “...Don’t cry for me, Hilda. You have to be strong, and wise. So that I can pass on into heaven’r wherever, reassured that our little girls are in good hands.”  Her roared swayed the trees, and the bitches before her. Except for Twilight. “‘But deeper at our core! With hearts made one—’”  NO!  “I’m not disappointed in what happened today, Hilda. Not over that fight. Just worried, but not at all disappointed. Because...” I can't die yet! We don’t deserve this!  Her very soul rocked the earth between them, willing it to rise in a soil tsunami as Draggle and Reeka’s cried in protest, but they never, ever understood. “MoMmA,” they sang, “wHaT’rE yA DoIn’?!”  “Because you did it for them. So, thank you, my love. Thank you.”  “I HATE YOU!” screamed Hydia, somewhere far, far away, before her husband’s death bed.  “Thank you for trying to protect our family’s dignity.”  “I HATE ALL OF YOU!” A maw of earth and stone rushed forth to swallow, crush, and murder.  But Princess Twilight howled beastially against the desperate mashing of Hydia’s invisible hand, discharging the greatest blast of magic she’d ever mustered. The land she’d sent was gone. Smoking chunks pattered the area, Hydia and her brood, the magenta field singing as it rained upon them, reeking everything of scorched earth.  Through the dust and smoke, seven faces glared back. Even Twilight’s, despite Starlight and Rainbow hoisting her up, themselves without breaking their stares.  “Can’t say I’m a fan of you either,” quivered the otherwise dauntless princess. “For everything you’ve done, I can honestly say that you, without a doubt, are the first villains whom I’ve hated more so than felt ambivalent or fearful towards.”  And Hydia grinned a grin which touched the corners of her eyes—and ever so slightly, the upstart goddess’s head recoiled. “ThErE wiLL cOmE a DaY wHeRe YoUr HiGhNeSs Is HaUnTeD bY tHiS coNDeMnAtIoN.”  She might be blind to the future, but feelings were more powerful, more clear than anything tangible—the very same which stayed her hands and words, which lulled her to sleep for centuries, and disturbed them awake the day a pony named Starlight Glimmer approached.  The feeling was deep and regrettable; vengeful, and toxic. The feeling was heartbreak, and the magic had undoubtedly been the signature potency of the one glaring at her now.  “I believe you,” she said. “But we’ll weather it as we always have.” Her glowing eyes regarded the ponies on her left, those on her right, and finally, the wretched before her. “Together.”  Only Starlight donned knitted brows toward Hydia’s promise.  And even so…  “YoU’rE fInAlLy BeGiNnINg To LeArN, pRiNcEsS tWiLiGhtT.” Hydia gave a single wave. “FaReWeLL.”  The page of Starswirl’s journal obscured her stone-set grimace. “‘From outside we’re together, but deeper at our core. With hearts made one, there is magic forevermore!’”  The Elements remained as they’ve always been: simple catalysts for Destiny’s magic—their magic—seeped deep into the land itself. It was for recording the means of tapping into the magic they called “Harmony” which granted Twilight Sparkle wings and the title of princess.  Modifying it with “a little bit of empathy” allowed a forgotten, primal, more emotion-based magic to taint that purity with a healthy bit of Chaos.  That had nothing to do with the side effect occurring within the facets of Harmony’s current incarnations: upon uttering the incantation’s final word, the Magic-crowned princess ascended as if by the Elements’ will, like always, her glowing face a blank, almost baffled expression.  The others’ eyes flickered white at once, ascending from where they stood until forming a circle of six. A rainbow sprouted and split from Twilight’s horn at the apex, snaking downwards, toward the Elements latched around their necks, but piercing beneath them where their hearts raced like they were about to explode.  Starlight Glimmer remained grounded, face writ with dejection that she wasn’t truly a member of their special circle, and never will be. Her worry shone as one by one the ponies’ eyes ran with tears.  “What’s this all about?” Even Hydia didn’t understand. She didn’t care to, because it was finally time to go.  A prismatic light shot from each of the Elements’ hearts, joining in the center to create a starburst and, as a result, a visage of Twilight’s cutie mark.  “HeRe It CoMeS!” Reeka rubbed her hands together, smacking her lips within the Aether.  A six-tone blast barreled towards them, hit, carved a tunnel through the decayed woodland at their backs, but felt like a cool breeze of air against their skin.  “DyInG sUrE iS pLeAsAnT,” Draggle remarked.  Because these idiots, despite Glimmer’s notes, failed to understand that their bodies were not the vessels of their soul. Starlight looked over, galloped despite the burning sprain in her flank. She had clearly already acclimated to a one-eyed lifestyle, turning fully between them and her pathetic friends.  The rainbow seared icily through them. Reeka performed a yawning motion. Draggle scratched her side.  Starlight was baffled. Then her eyes fell upon the Sunstone, glowing innocently upon a flat-topped rock.  She was putting it together, but the speed at which she was doing so was unacceptably ridiculous.  “GeT ThE sUnStONe, YoU dOlT!” Hydia roared inside her head, so suddenly that she jumped a foot in the air before dashing, ducking under the blast despite it being higher than Celestia.  She hugged the massive thing to her breast, exhaling with relief and terror and confusion, the source of it all directed toward the witches and their, to her, strange behavior.  Her face went slack, eyes wide and shuddering with the colors of her friends streaming by. For a second, as that was all Starlight Glimmer ever needed, she held the Sunstone out before her, considering its weight and the strength of her emaciated form.  Then, she tucked it under a foreleg, and leapt off the pedestal.  Only her hoof grazed it.  But the force of the blast was enough to send her bulleting into the Witches of Flutter Valley.  Flutter Valley was gone. Her friends were gone. The witches were gone.  Just nothing, albeit an admittedly beautiful nothing. Between the bottomless turquoise, melting up into a midnight sky, and stars everywhere, Starlight had to wonder if she was somehow blasted into space.  With her luck, that was a very real possibility.  “Oh, thank me, you’re finally awake.” Starlight shrieked, despite the speaker sounding quite relieved; she was about to apologize and excuse herself for not expecting anyone here. “Hey, gals, she’s awake!” And the pony, it turned out to be, galloped off.  How in the…? Starlight whipped around, where it was very, very clear she wasn’t in space, or anywhere specific for that matter.  For she saw the tail-end of a mare her age with flowing white hair like Celestia’s trailing behind her.  She was galloping to a circle of human females in white dresses, their faces downcast. One wore a pot upon her head, another a horned helmet.