//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 - No One Can Hear You Scream 
// Story: The End of Time 
// by Leondude 
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Since that it was taking forever to reach Kronos' ship, wherever it was, everyone, with the exception of Pinkie Pie, who was now in charge of piloting the ship, decided to get some shut-eye. They also managed to sanitize the ship so they didn't have to worry about the smell of dismembered hooves and puddles of the mercenary's blood. That said, they are about to have a different reason for any potential nightmares. Good thing they have Luna on their side, right?





Starlight found herself in the School of Friendship, looking derelict, barren, and a bit more beige in colour than usual. This made her nervous, with her wondering where everyone is. Was there an attack on the school she was unaware of? All she could recall was waking up in her office with no memory of how she got there. While wandering about the abandoned corridors, she noticed there was an Earth pony with a dulled turquoise mane and coat staring out of one of the windows. She walked closer to the pony to get a better look at his cutie mark, hoping that it wasn't what she thought it was. And if it was, it could have just simply meant the pony was good at maths. The pony noticed Starlight walking towards him and slowly turned around with a blank expression on his face. He looked like Sandbar but there was something...off...about him. His eyes were glazed over, and he stared straight ahead as if Starlight wasn't even there.

"Hey, Sandbar," Starlight said in an awkward tone, clearly trying to hide the fact that she was freaking out on the inside.

"You look...different," Sandbar said in a monotone voice.

"D...Different?"

Sandbar pointed to her flank. "You changed your cutie mark."

Starlight then looked where Sandbar was pointing and noticed that her cutie mark was now an equal sign. This caused her to panic and run to the nearest toilet to hope that what she's thinking isn't happening. She looked in the mirror and, much to her horror, her mane had reverted back to when she was running her town. She backed away in terror, only for her to accidentally open one of the toilet stall doors. It wouldn't have been that bad if it weren't for the fact that it showed one of the students sitting on the toilet with the same blank expression and dulled colours as Sandbar. She then immediately ran back to her office and hid under the desk in a fetal position.

"Nononononono! This can't be happening!"

"What's happening?" a familiar nasally sounding voice said, but in a monotone that didn't sound that great or powerful at all, "Nothing out of the ordinary has happened in ages."

Starlight looked up and noticed Trixie looking down at her blankly. She wasn't wearing her magician's outfit and her cutie mark had been replaced with an equal sign.

"Trixie," Starlight whispered in horror "Wh...What happened to you?"

"What do you mean? Don't you remember? The princesses had retired and your teacher was doing a poor job of her royal duties."

Starlight's office then immediately began tearing itself apart before reassembling itself into a burning Ponyville occupied by armoured bipedal creatures wearing hoods.

"Her attempts at befriending those who think friendship is a lie ended in disaster. They were fuelled by passion. And in that passion, they slaughtered everypony without mercy."

Trixie them placed a hoof on Starlight's shoulder.

"Fortunately for us, you had the wisdom and the skill to bring these foul creatures to heel. But in order for another incident like this to never occur, you made everypony equal."

Starlight could only stare at the scenery in shock. Was what Trixie saying true? Was she really that willing to relapse if it meant protecting Equestria? Was removing everypony's ability to feel passionate emotions necessary for the good of Equestria?

"There's got to be another way! I mean, surely they can be reasoned with, right?"

"You make it sound like we haven't tried that."

The burning Ponyville then immediately shifted into the inside of Tartarus, which was void of any prisoners.

"While we could have tried imprisoning them in Tartarus, your princess insisted that they could be allies. Even if they were imprisoned, there wouldn't be enough room for all of them. And that's not even getting into the fact that Grogar, or Discord I should say, managed to free the likes of Tirek and Cozy Glow from their imprisonment."

While Starlight was incredibly frightened by what she had seen, she still refused to believe this was the future of Equestria. She then immediately felt a cold pit in the centre of her heart, something that Trixie sensed and smiled coldly at.

"You know what you would have to do, Starlight."

That pit eventually became filled with something warm, burning as a matter of fact. Images flashed in her head that magnified her fear and that burning feeling. Images of destruction perpetrated by the hooded marauders. While trying to shake the images out of her head, she ends up blasting half of Trixie's face with an unstable bit of magic, knocking Trixie off her hooves in the process. When she realized what she had done, she immediately ran to Trixie to apologize for what she did. But when Trixie got up, the part of her face that was blasted with magic had gone a darker blue and was more draconic in appearance. The eye that was part of the injured face was glowing green as well.

"Now that was just uncalled for," Trixie said in a mix between her voice and a deep but raspy one, making her sound borderline demonic.

Trixie's mouth then began to gruesomely morph into a dragon's mouth, with all of her bones cracking and wings bursting out of her back as well. Her forelegs grew longer and more muscular, with her hooves morphing into sharp claws and two bone claws protruding out of one of her forelegs. Her hindlegs grew shorter but still more muscular in appearance. Her abdomen and back area also grew longer. By the time she had finished transforming, Starlight recoiled in terror before recognizing who "Trixie" had transformed into.

"Remember me?" Sanies said with a sickening smile on his face.

Starlight got into an attack position and blasted Sanies with a mighty blast of magic, which he immediately blocked with his fire breath. Sanies then telekinetically grabbed Starlight and tossed her into a wall. Starlight tried to get up but Sanies pulled her down onto the floor before immediately dragging her towards himself. He quickly seized Starlight by the neck and looked at her in the eyes with a sadistic grin.

"Good to know the Elements haven't entirely removed my power. Now then, since you won't willingly surrender to old habits, it appears I will have to do this the hard way."

Sanies' eyes glowed brighter as he tried to enter Starlight's head by force, causing Tartarus to collapse around them into nothingness. That nothingness then got replaced with flashing images of Starlight's memories, with some of Sanies' memories thrown in as well. He smiled at how well his plan was going, up until he got hit with a magic blast to the back, causing him to drop Starlight and the flashing memories to eventually turn back into nothingness. Both Starlight and Sanies looked up to see who attacked Sanies, seeing it was none other than Princess Luna.

"Excellent," Sanies muttered to himself, "I knew this would get her attention."