Spinning about, she took off with a mighty flap of her wings—diving straight for it. No arrows. No aerial maneuvers. She simply went right for the column itself. Moments later she struck it…but the instant she did so she exploded into mist as if she had been nothing but a cloud of vapor in a humanoid form before then. Yet rather than move around it or condense, the mist kept going and seeped into every crack, crevasse, and fissure within the column.
A rumbling peeled through the chamber for a brief moment, rapidly growing in volume. Dust and pebbles began to rain down from the ceiling as the column vibrated and shook, developing a few more cracks…
Suddenly, with a thunderous noise, the column completely shattered on all three floors; sending the roar of collapsing stone throughout the entire ruin. As it broke apart into nothingness, it revealed a shocked and gaping Rainbow Dash behind it, staring in alarm and horror. She quickly ran to the next and behind it, but the mist moved just as fast—seeping out of the still-crumbling remains of the column and quickly sinking into the next. This time, it only took seconds to shatter it.
As Dash fled again the dark mist came out once more. It nearly sank into the next one when a pair of lightning bolts, one small and the other large, once again snaked out of the heavens for it. It struck the darkness and, for a moment, it began to solidify into a human form. But it was only long enough for it to wave its taloned hand behind it. In response, the arrows snapped around to the sources of the two lightning bolts, namely Twilight and Rarity on two different floors, and unleashed an even stronger hailstorm. This time, both were forced to flee as the strength of the firepower battered, smashed, and tore apart their protection into fragments and powder. The two women on the other side cried out as the arrows slashed at their backs and limbs, but Moon herself turned back into mist and increased her speed even more. Dash hardly had time to run behind another column before she was already sinking into it…
A mere second later it erupted again, and the Disciple was left wheeling around and gaping in shock at her speed. For a moment she saw the mist erupt from the shattering column, watching it condense before her eyes into the near-demonic-looking figure of Nightmare Moon glaring at her with violence and wrath, before her taloned hand went down.
Blood streaked against the floor as Dash’s body was turned into a rag doll, slapping it across the room and into another column hard enough to crack it. When she fell to the ground blood was still dripping in large, visible droplets from the major wound across her chest.
Nightmare Moon dropped to the ground, planting her feet and snapping her body around. She heard footsteps running, but didn’t search for Fluttershy this time. Her serpentine eyes flickered around instead.
Seconds later, she saw Applejack leap out from a side column with her sword at the ready. Not giving her a moment to do anything, Moon’s beam shot out of her horn. The Warrior quickly raised her sword, meaning to try and block it, but the laser sliced the massive blade in half and managed to cut a two-inch deep gouge into one of her shoulders at the same time. Crying out in agony, Applejack dropped the severed hilt and grasped for her wound, and Moon smirked before waving her fingers at her. A wave of darkness promptly smashed her in the stomach hard enough to knock her wind out before flinging her aside.
She snapped her head up a moment later—just in time to see Rarity having run to the edge of the bannister on the upper walkway. She had been readying her rapier, but on seeing Moon staring right at her she gasped and backed off. Too late. Moon’s beam lashed out again and cut upward through the walkway in a flash. It didn’t merely make a single incision this time, however. Instead, after two rapid sweeps, the hall gave an echo and a rumble before a large, twenty-foot wide section of the walkway broke free and collapsed to the floor. The Magician screamed as the ground fell out beneath her, and she desperately reached out and clutched for the edge before she could fall all together along with it. As for the section of floor, it sank all the way to the ground before smashing into and through it, pounding a hole through the second floor all the way to the first.
Moon ignored the struggling Magician and looked around again. Her serpentine eyes rested on a steepled hat coming out from another section of the banister, this time aiming a wand at her. Twilight reacted on being spotted but only paused in her chanting momentary. Moon countered by waving her hand at her as well. A tendril of darkness, like a snake, seeped out from her palm and shot straight into her open mouth. Seconds later, Twilight’s eyes bulged and she gagged; suddenly clutching for her neck. Blood began to ooze out of her lips. Nightmare Moon smirked before turning her hand around and twisting upward. In response, her entire body was yanked off of the ground by what was in her neck, before it was twisted around and roughly slammed back down against the ground again.
Following that, smiling now, she simply stared forward for a few moments. Abruptly, as if on instinct, she shot her hand up and over her head while grasping. On perfect cue, her talons clutched around the shirt and vest of Pinkie just as she had been trying to leap over her. The Rogue’s eyes widened, surprised at suddenly being caught, but got even more stunned a moment later when she was yanked down and around to stare in Nightmare Moon’s grinning, toothy face.
“Bounced back from my last attack, did you? Let’s see how well you bounce with a shattered spine.”
Aiming her hand at the nearest stone column, her hand gathered darkness while it was still clutching the woman. Pinkie gulped for a moment on seeing it gather, quickly muttering a prayer, before the mist in her hand went off. Pinkie was ejected from her as fast as one of her own arrows, before she was smashed right into the column as hard as Moon had smashed the members of the summit eight years ago. The marble let out a thunderous crack as her body was smashed so much into it it was horribly twisted and and left half-embedded in the rock.
“Pinkie!”
Moon smiled a bit wider as soon as she heard the Healer’s voice from nearby. In an instant, she dissolved into mist again and swept around, shooting over around one of the already broken columns and right into the face of a panicked-looking Fluttershy. In an instant, her body reformed; grinning widely at the woman. She gasped and staggered back, but Moon snapped out and seized her by the robe. She held her other hand up to her as black flames burst on it.
“No one here to save you now, which means you’re no longer available to save them.”
“Heh…as…if…”
Hearing the voice just from her side, Moon’s face became surprised again before turning in that direction—just as barbs from a pair of metal claws jammed themselves into her eyes.
This move actually stung, and she let out a cry of sudden pain and staggered back, clutching and rubbing for her eyes painfully. She wasn’t even able to see Dash, still bleeding out of her chest, looking pale, and barely able to stand nevertheless forcing a weak, trembling grin at her.
“Like…that little scratch…c-c-could…s-s-stop…me…”
Fluttershy, freed from Nightmare Moon’s grip, quickly ran up to her. She caught Dash just in time to keep her from collapsing; quickly holding her staff over her and beginning to concentrate. Moon shook her head two more times before her teeth grit and fully exposed themselves—her patience clearly gone. She looked up to both of them violently as her horn began to light up.
But instead of firing, she gave a start as the ground beneath her suddenly surged to one side, nearly tossing her in one direction. She stabilized herself soon enough but looked down and saw it had heaved. Looking up again, she saw Rarity, desperately clinging to the edge of the broken landing, had nevertheless freed one hand to aim and cast a small earth spell on her. Doubly angry at having been frustrated by such a minor move, she raised her hand to hit her with the black flame instead.
Yet moments later, her vision was blocked again and her body jarred by another bomb striking her alongside her head. She nearly staggered before a second hit her in the head again, and a third after it that finally did make her take two steps away. Eyes stinging with smoke, she nevertheless opened them and spun her head about.
“Impossible…!”
However, there she stood. Pinkie was not only not embedded in the stone column anymore, but grinning and waving at her without a scratch. Moon actually glanced back to the column, unable to believe what she was seeing wasn’t a trick, and then back at her.
“No human could have just shrugged that off! Anima Viri or no-”
Cut off again, this time by a solid piece of marble column being driven forward and into the back of her head hard enough to smash it. The individual in question was Applejack, running up behind her as soon as her back was turned. The hammer was in one arm, but she had hefted a good sized piece of rock and cracked it on the back of her head as hard as she could. It actually made her head bow a little, causing her to wheel around just in time for the Warrior to seize the handle of her hammer with both hands and smash it into her head one way and the other again. The slight gyrations of her skull were accompanied by her hissing in ever-growing fury…
She raised her hand to strike her down, but Applejack didn’t try to keep fighting. She quickly backpedaled instead. Pinkie quickly hopped away as well. She noticed this and gave a start, spinning to Fluttershy and Dash. The latter was still being healed, but she moved back as fast as she could too.
Finally, Rarity, swallowing a bit, swung her legs forward and let go. She dropped from the upper floor but managed to land on the second, although she nearly lost her balance for the hole nearby. Before she could fall, however, she waved her arms and gave a shout.
“Now, Twilight!”
Moon’s eyes enlarged even more. She snapped her head back up to the upper level, but only saw a flash of purple light. At the same time, another flash went off in front of her. She spun her head down to it.
Not ten feet away, panting, bruised, sore, and sweating, Twilight was crouched on the ground with her wand extended, a sigil being finished, and speaking out the last of the arcane words for her most powerful spell. She executed it a moment later, quickly setting her lavender aura ablaze, gathering it down to the tip of her wand, and sending off a magical missile right at Nightmare Moon.
Dissolving to mist wouldn’t help her. She could only bring her wings around herself as it connected and ignited.
A deafening boom resounded through the ruins of the castle; loud and strong enough to shatter another column to the point of crumbling. The piece that had embedded in the floor earlier groaned once before it sank through the rest of the way while more fragments rained down from the ceiling. Twilight herself cried out in pain, both from the casting as well as proximity, as she was shoved back along the floor by the boom. Rarity was thrown on the “good” side of the hole, and the others were blown back and away in the wake of the light.
When the echoing finally died down, the entire hall was still filled with smoke. The six, each one of them blown off their feet, coughed and hacked from where they were and began to rise up again. Knowing how Sunset had withstood a similar strike, they stiffly and rigidly got back to their feet as best as they could. Fluttershy quickly moved behind Dash as she raised her dented claws. Rarity furiously brushed the dirt off her white scarf and red coat before aiming her rapier. Pinkie bounced back up to her feet, looking a bit enthused at the whole experience. Applejack hefted her hammer and dug her foot in. Finally, Twilight forced herself up, in spite of trembling, and aimed her wand at the center of the smoke.
It continued to clear until a dark shape became distinct. It gained form until it suddenly split and parted, revealing itself to be Nightmare Moon’s collapsed black wings.
When they unfurled, they revealed her cold, stern, and slightly frowning visage. As they folded behind her, Twilight watched as three feathers, slightly bent and tattered, slowly fluttered to the ground. Her body had shifted four steps backward.
Aside from that, there wasn’t a mark on her body.
The color drained from the group’s faces. Even knowing Nightmare Moon’s power, they had assumed that would have at least left a mark. Their resolve began to waver.
As for Moon, she gave them all a cruel smile.
“Pitiful. That bit of light and smoke was your best, eh? Congratulations, then. I’m officially bored with this little tousle.”
She disintegrated into black smoke again. This time, however, in the span of an instant, she enlarged and fanned out about her, becoming a sprawling and ominous cloud. The group stiffened in genuine fear and looked about nervously at what this meant.
Moments later, the smoke condensed again into more distinct shadows before it drew away all together. The group nearly gave a gasp. An entire troupe of soldiers dressed in armor of Equestrian guards formed in the wake. Eighteen of them in all. However, only one look quickly confirmed they weren’t human. Their hair that they could see was a pale blue, like the glow surrounding a moon, while their skin itself was the same pale silvery look of moonlight itself. Their eyes from beneath their helmets gleamed yellow just like the Nighttouched.
With one movement, each one of them turned so that three were facing each woman. They grinned malevolently at them.
“Ok…what the hell are these?!” Dash yelled.
“She…she…” Twilight began to stammer, “she must have mastered shadow duplication so strongly she can actually split herself into-”
Twilight got no further. A moment later, every last one of these new shadow clones took off with a speed equivalent to Rainbow Dash, and each one of them, in rapid succession, smashed their fist into the stomachs of their respective targets one after another. The sound of the blows alone sent echoes rocketing through the chamber, and each one curled around the strike of their respective attacker—their faces morphed into looks of agony and shock.
They didn’t have a chance to collapse. In moments, two of figures went around and grasped the arms of their respective target harshly; yanking them up to their feet. The third went in behind and wrapped their arms around their necks in a choke hold, holding them up while grinning darkly. As each one was pulled up, only Dash and Applejack had the strength to begin to struggle against them. Yet when everyone heard the air above them begin to rumble and saw it start to darken, they all knew what was coming and somehow found the power to try and fight.
They couldn’t move in time. Seconds later, black lightning bolts shot from the sky and struck them all at once. Despite holding onto them, the “shadow men” were unaffected and only continued to grin maliciously as the power caused them to seize, writhe, and give painfully aborted cries of misery in echoing unison.
The lightning cut off after a moment but the sky continued to rumble and ready itself for a second strike. However, such seemed unnecessary. The six had all gone limp in the grasp of their respective captors. They weren’t even giving moans.
The grins of their captors vanished as they looked over them momentarily, seeing them simply lying there in their grip. At that, they all evaporated into black mist again; and at once the six slumped to the floor and collapsed. The mist itself quickly swept around and gathered in their midst. After reforming into a solid object, once again it broke as Nightmare Moon’s wings swept wide and she was left standing before them once again.
She glanced over them, one after another, checking for signs of life. And sure enough, after a moment, she did hear some stiff, strained noise. Her serpentine eyes flickered and she saw the Caster of the group weakly opening her eyes and feebly trying to raise her wand.
She didn’t even bother using any of her powers. She simply walked up to the woman, raised a foot, and brought it down. Easily, she put it over the wand and forced both it and Twilight’s arm back to the cracked floor before pushed inward. With a snap, the wand was broken in four pieces.
Twilight’s eyes cracked open wider as Moon reached down and grasped her by the neck. She was gentle for a moment, before she suddenly tightened her grip and dug all four talons in enough to draw blood. Twilight’s eyes widened, for the grip was almost choking.
Moments later, both Twilight and Moon erupted from the ground as she took off into the air again, back to the foyer of the third floor. For a moment, both of them sailed up into the moonlit sky, Twilight gagging and gaping fearfully, before her captor came back down and slammed her roughly against the ground again.
She serpentine eyes narrowed hungrily as her wicked smile returned.
“You miserable little fool. You actually thought you and your cohorts could defeat me? At no point during your meaningless, inconsequential little struggle did you even draw a single bead of my sweat, let alone a drop of my blood!”
With a yank, she effortlessly leaned back and hauled Twilight into the air, holding her over her own head and grinning maliciously at her. The Caster was powerless to do anything but clutch for her neck and look down.
“I am a god! I am death incarnate! And you? You are barely an infant! After seeing all that I had done to this world you had the audacity to think your little spells and incantations were going to put an end to that?”
Twilight couldn’t answer, barely able to gag or breathe. Nightmare Moon didn’t seem to expect one, however. Instead, as she kept grinning the base of her helmet’s horn began to light up again, quickly shifting upward and to the tip. She looked deeply into the woman’s eyes, ready to relish her final look of helplessness and fear.
The light nearly reached the tip when a noise shattered the air: a gunshot.
Nightmare Moon didn’t have time to fully register her surprise. Instead, her body instantly turned into mist as a bullet pierced it. However, in doing so, her intangible hand let Twilight slip right through it. She fell to the floor and her legs almost gave way underneath her, but she caught herself before they could. Immediately, she forced her hand up, stiffened, and began to draw symbols with two fingers…
Nightmare Moon reformed and nearly spotted this, when a blaze shot behind her head and struck it. It was not Dash or projectile, but rather Dash herself, on her feet again, hurling Applejack with her hammer in hand at the upper floor and the dark being as hard as she could. As soon as she reached her, she swung out with all her might and struck her helmet at the tip of the horn; managing to knock it down and askew. The lunar laser tipped down and cut through the floor instead, but more importantly the edge of the helmet was knocked over her own eyes. Applejack herself ricocheted from the blow, sailing back down to the lower floor.
As Twilight continued to gesture, Moon quickly snapped her hand out in rage, and the arrows flew up in her wake once again. She twisted her head around as she pushed her helmet up, and they responded by orientating themselves in all directions. She clearly intended to bombard the area until there was nothing left.
Yet as soon as she pushed her helmet up, a spark of light went out below her vision. She glanced down and spotted Rarity casting another spell that set off a series of bright fireballs. None of them were aimed at her, however. Rather, she soon learned they were meant to get her attention, and as soon as they did Rarity dropped so that Fluttershy could step forward into the path where they were, look right into Nightmare Moon’s eyes, and stare as hard as she could into them.
The being actually hesitated; her face twitching and stiffening. Around her, the arrows suddenly shook from their previously stiff positions, and then abruptly faltered and fell out of the sky. It lasted but a moment, however. Scowling, she tore her gaze away from the Healer and brandished her talons. She spun around meaning to simply slice through Twilight’s neck…
Yet on wheeling around and lashing out with her metal claws, all she got through was a mess of pink, poofy hair; several clumps of which fell to the ground. Moments later, its owner popped up in her view frowning.
“Hey! You know how long it takes to style it just right?”
Giving a cry of rage, she reached out and seized the Rogue by the skull in a crushing grip and swung her behind her and out of her way. She raised her other hand to drive it forward at the woman standing behind her.
Yet the moment she had brushed Pinkie aside and was face-to-face with Twilight once again, the Caster drove her two fingers forward and tagged her in the middle of her forehead.
A heartbeat of silence passed as Nightmare Moon’s vicious, cruel, and psychotic appearance drained like water poured out on the ground. Her cruel, sharp teeth twisted into a look of absolute horror.
“No…”
Twilight’s purple aura cascaded out of her hand like electricity and traced the emblem of the binding seal in midair around her forehead. Moon’s serpentine pupils shrank as the light began to fill her eyes, but that wasn’t all. The air around her began to charge. Black lightning started to shoot out again, but this time from her body. The ground at her feet started to quake and a whistling noise like a kettle starting to boil sounded around her.
Twilight slowly withdrew her hand, realizing this was going to be much bigger than before and starting to form a look of dread. A moment later, she turned and quickly ran by Moon and toward Pinkie, who had been released but was still crouched on the floor with a dazzled look. She pulled her to her feet and pulled her as she started to run for the stairs. The noise kept building behind her. Bolts of blackness lashed out and dug into the stone and masonry above her, and a dark shadow began to ooze forth from Moon’s body. As her eyes became consumed by the purple light, her face twisted into a look of anguish and misery. Her hand raised to the sky, showing off the six symbols on it. They were burning now. Smoldering and smoking, fountaining out of it like they were on fire.
Her voice began to cry out loud right before she erupted.
An explosion of blackness that rapidly gave way to one of silvery moonlight issued forth in a towering pillar from Moon’s body. It quickly doubled in size…tripled in size…quadrupeled…before swelling into a blazing, towering pillar that raised into the sky like a pale inferno. Not in eight years had anyone ever seen the like as the light washed over and consumed the Castle of the Two Sisters in its glow. For a hundred miles in all directions the light radiated, shooting up ever higher until it scraped the heavens. Gleaming like the moon itself had crashed into the world. The remains of the soldiers, their vehicles, and their weapons about the castle were swept away. The surrounding forests bent and nearly broke under the gale that rocketed upward with a monstrous roar.
And throughout the whole of Greater Everfree, no matter where and no matter the size, every last Light Eater suddenly seized and gave an unearthly squeal. Their moondrop faces, for a brief second, twisted into a facsimile of the same agony that Nightmare Moon’s own expression had been in. Craning their heads to the sky, they screeched one more time, and then evaporated.
Like they had never been anything more than a bad dream.
The Nighttouched, on the other hand, all froze where they stood. They remained that way for several fateful seconds, but they neither vanished nor changed. Those who were close enough to see the pillar, however, stood there a moment longer before they all turned their heads to it.
It was dying down by now, but was still by far the brightest light for miles. Still a beacon that they could all see as one.
Several seconds later, the first of hundreds of thousands of creatures began to move in that direction.
In spite of the raw power and dazzling, otherworldly sight that had been unleashed, the interior of the Castle of the Two Sisters was spared. A good thing for the six. The blinding moonlight and the roar and eruption had been so strong that they had seen nothing of what had happened. They were too busy shielding themselves in the wake of it.
However, it was gone now. Applejack was on the ground; hunched over her hammer. Dash was nearby, having dug her own feet into the ground. Rarity was clutching the remains of a column base along with Fluttershy. Pinkie and Twilight were in a disheveled pile at the bottom of one of the staircases; having been blasted the rest of the way.
Slowly, Twilight moaned and opened her eyes. She blinked a few times and gazed around, first taking stock of the others. Sore and dirty as they were, and still injured in some cases, they began to stir and look up and around as well. The first thing they noticed was that it was much dimmer in the castle. It looked like true ruins now, with long shadows and darkness cast over everything. Looking to the sky they saw why.
The moon was now a normal moon, and three quarters of one at that. The sea of stars was gone and many of the normal stars were blocked by the glow from it.
Twilight’s jaw loosened at the implication. The others quickly realized the same.
“The moon…” Fluttershy quietly spoke up.
“It’s…it’s normal now…” Applejack muttered.
“You…you don’t suppose…?” Rarity began to say.
A clinking from nearby snapped them all to attention, especially hearing it come from the upper parapet of the third floor. Sweating and tense, they all snapped to it and readied themselves.
Black tendrils of smoke were wisping into the air. In the dim light, they could see it wasn’t truly smoke but rather the remains of Nightmare Moon’s armor, falling off one piece at a time and disintegrating into thin air as it did.
Her hand was sprawled over the bannister and Twilight caught a glimpse of it. The black coloring was fading off of it like water on a burner, leaving a pale yet natural flesh tone behind. Twilight briefly caught a glimpse of the six symbols. They weren’t pronounced now. The specific runes had faded.
Nevertheless, she noticed they were still glowing; albeit much more softly. Flickering a bit, in fact—like flames or embers…
She pushed that aside as she looked to where the woman’s hair was splayed out. Her helmet was already breaking into pieces and falling away while her wings degenerated into black ash. It was a much darker blue now, but it covered her face.
Twilight swallowed, wincing a little from the sensation, and rubbed her neck before she called up to her.
“I knew all along, no matter how hard we trained, how long we practiced, or how much we put into our teamwork, that we’d never be able to beat you. Even a hundred of us couldn’t have stopped you. But fighting Sunset Shimmer taught me a good lesson: you couldn’t have all that power and not think it didn’t put you ‘above’ everyone else.”
She gestured behind her to the others.
“All we were trying to do was make it look like we were trying our best to defeat you. So long as you believed that, I knew you’d never just finish us. You’d insist on venting your power over us once we were struck down…over me. Then we needed to just keep you busy for as long as it took to put the Binding Seal on you.”
The form continued to lay there, the armor down to only a quarter of its previous self. The hand, still sizzling and pulsating slowly contorted and pushed down, planting itself on the stone and beginning to push up. A stiff, weak grunting came from the woman.
“It’s all over, ‘Nightmare Moon’. Your power is gone. Your night is over. You’re just as mortal as the rest of the human race now. You’re going to face the governments of Greater Everfree and you’re going to answer for everything you’ve done and all the people you’ve murdered.”
The woman on the balcony took in a few deep breaths to steady herself, then pushed up from the ground. Her unmarked hand shot out and grasped the edge of the bannister remains, and she slowly yanked herself to her feet. Her hair was still wild and splayed over her face, but as she stood up the six noticed her clothing looked purely civilian.
“You…” she began to mutter with strained breaths, “you…you fools… Do you have…any idea…what you’ve just done…?”
Twilight’s bold look turned to some puzzlement. The others looked likewise confused.
Dash snorted. “Uh, yeah. We just kicked the butt of a crazy woman.”
“Oh, oh!” Pinkie cheered, waving her hand. “We just saved all of Greater Everfree from the Light Eaters and Nighttouched and brought peace to the world…and now we’re gonna go to Las Pegasus?”
A hiss of irritation and frustration came from her as she tried to push up higher.
“You just doomed this entire world and every last living thing on it…”
The six only looked more puzzled. After a moment Rarity glanced at Applejack. “Did one of your ‘whacks’ hit soundly, dear? I think she seems a little muddled.”
Twilight, however, looked a bit more concerned. “What are you talking about?”
Her head began to lift up. “Now it’s too late… I was the only thing left to hold it back…” Her voice was growing weaker; more nervous…more frightened. “Was…was Starswirl right all along? Was it always inevitable…?”
“Starswirl?” Fluttershy echoed. “Twilight, isn’t that the name of your…Anima Viri?”
Moon went rigid on hearing that; a chill freezing her in place.
“Wh…what?” Her voice was suddenly a tense whisper. Her face looked up, but in the darkness they could only make out a hint of her jawline. Her teeth were normal again. Her lips were no longer in a scowl. Instead, her jaw hung loose.
“Who…who are you?”
Twilight began to grow more uncomfortable on hearing this. “What do you mean you were the only thing left to hold ‘it’ back? Hold what back?”
“What else? It’s coming now. It may take a week, or a month, or a year, but nothing can stop the Angra-”
Twilight was just starting to tense up, realizing what Moon was about to say, when in the silence of the ruins, a wet ripping sound cut her off.
Moon silenced herself in a gasp. Her back suddenly arched in a spasm. Her mouth fully exposed, but it was left open in an expression of surprise. It silently hung there, soft gagging coming out of her lips.
Then, to everyone’s horror, she spilled forward over the bannister to reveal a hand burying a bronze, 18-inch dagger in her back.
Fluttershy cringed and yelped. Pinkie gasped. Rarity cupped her hands to her mouth. The others stood shocked and horrified.
Yet not nearly as much as a moment later when the hand yanked the gleaming knife out and stepped forward over Moon’s body.
Her clothing was torn, bloody, and burnt in several places. Her hair was a wild mess of dirt and twigs as well as her own blood. Gashes and cuts were along her cheeks and forehead, and she looked barely able to limp forward. Yet her eyes still blazed with a fire of determination that was practically inhuman. Matched only by the pure hate and desperation she had twisted on her face.
Sunset Shimmer.
In an instant, she reached out and seized Moon’s bleeding back and hunched over her, positioning her upper body right over her outstretched hand. The six symbols continued to burn and blaze even without their rune emblems.
Twilight’s face went white.
“Don’t!”
Sunset hefted the dagger.
“I’m…going…to be…”
Gnashing her teeth, she drove it down into Moon’s hand.
“A GOD!”
The whistling sound broke out again, this time with a crackling and fizzling as white light erupted from the sigil. The symbols began to shudder so violently that they started to smoke and smolder on Moon’s hand once again. Yet the one nearest the tip, for all its quivering and vibrating, slowly was drawn into the embedded dagger like a pipette drawing fluid.
As it came, the crackling sound went louder. Suddenly, one of the symbols erupted off of Moon’s hand like it had been launched like a firework. A white, blazing, whistling beam of light shot into the sky and arched over the heavens. As the symbol drew closer to the knife, another one popped off and went in a different direction. Then the other three, one after another. The last of the five finally burst as the sixth symbol finally slid into the dagger. Instantly, it sank through the rest of the shaft, down the handle, and into Sunset’s hand.
A second later, it appeared like a blazing, burning, red-hot coal along with the other five, almost bursting into flame on her palm and belching out black smoke.
As the ground began to shake and crackle around Sunset, Twilight could only exhale two words.
“Oh no…”