"YOU ARE GOING TO DESTROY IT."
Walls of black rose up around Starlight in a world of ash, drained batpony husks piled in mountain after mountain around her and the metal dragon Aegis's voice echoed in her ears. If she looked ahead, she would see Valey, older and injured after a fight. If she looked back, she would see Aegis with Glimmer's face, leering at her and looming high like a thunderhead. So she squeezed her eyes and flattened her ears, and instead saw a stone room where two ponies she didn't think she knew clung to each other as their world exploded and turned into ash, one object at a time.
"I know I am!" Starlight whimpered, huddling and making herself as tiny as possible. It just made the world bigger around her.
The Aegis-Glimmer hybrid coiled around her like a snake, more visible the harder she tried to close her eyes. "THE HARDER YOU CLING, THE MORE YOU LOSE."
"T-Then I lose everything either way," Starlight cried, pressing her face frantically into the ash-strewn ground and still failing to banish the vision of the monstrosity. "Why can't I protect my friends? Why do things happen to them in the first place!? If you're my friend, please help me!"
Glimmer's head rotated in a way Aegis's neck shouldn't have been able to support, her eyes hollow and empty. "YOUR FRIEND? WE ARE HERE TO STOP YOU, NO MATTER THE COST."
"So help me!"
"WE TRiED bUT YOU Did NOT LiSTeN YOu DID NoT LIsTEN yOu DID NOt LISTEn"
"yOUkEPTfIGHTING"
you didnt die
"Stop!" Starlight screamed, running as fast as she could. The world flew by around her, her speed superequine but Aegis just as fast. It never attacked, just glided, like a phantom that mired her hoofsteps with its shadow. "Help me! Leave me alo-!" She impacted something and fell on her rump. "Oomph!"
Chrysalis gave her a condescending expression. "What do you want?"
"I'll tell you what I want," the cold, metallic voice of Puddles the windigo interrupted, drawing Chrysalis and Aegis's ire. "Remember me, the disharmonic life form who can't exist around harmony? I'll ascend to a greater form of life and make friendly friends who give cute, cuddly hugs just to spite whoever created me in such an abysmal existence!" Her voice turned to a foalish squee, the mare standing half encased in ice and half happy and free. "And then Cute Valey and me will get married and live happily ever after! Yay!"
"GO AWAY." Aegis let loose a laser bigger than the sky itself, and half of the landscape was gone with no sound whatsoever, but Puddles was entirely unfazed. The windigo stuck out her tongue.
"What's happening!?" Starlight squealed, covering her ears against the deafening silence. "Please leave me alone!"
A soft, motherly voice chuckled behind her. "Isn't it obvious? This is all in your head."
Starlight whirled to see the Flame of Honesty, crackling orange amid the gray. "Please help me!"
"Well, of course it's a dream," Puddles drawled, wandering past and licking the flame, earning a hiss and some backlash. "Someone has to represent Starlight's conscience." She flung an ice-armored hoof straight at Glimmer-Aegis. "It doesn't matter how evil you were created to be, or if you're cursed to bring misfortune to everyone you meet. That drivel never stopped me from wanting to evolve."
She stepped closer, taking Starlight by the shoulders. "My life's goal was to ditch this fate my creator left me to wallow in. I made myself better, stronger, beautiful and cuddly and everything I ever imagined! And at the end, I wanted to meet my maker and laugh in their pathetic face... and then kill them, just because. Who left this lot in life to a cute little kid like you? You don't want to take it laying down. Ignore the loser who says to quit and take a dirt nap. Be like me and conquer your problems!"
"HRESSSHHHHHH!"
A gigantic metal claw tore Puddles into shreds of ash that blew away and dispersed like mist. "ENOUGH OF THAT."
The Flame of Honesty laughed again. "Oh, it's not a dream like this. Everything is in your head. Maple, Valey, Amber... You never crossed the mountains, Starlight Glimmer. You've been living in Sires Hollow all this time. Losing Sunburst? It was too much for you to take. Everything that's happened afterward has been all in your mind. That's why your friends want you to quit."
"What...!?" Starlight stepped back, which was unfortunately closer to Chrysalis. The monster hissed at Aegis and the flame and drew a protective wing around her.
"Glimmer isn't you from the future," the flame continued. "She's a psychologist who's trying to bring you back to your senses. Aegis is the computer she uses to enter your hallucination. When she tells you to give up on your friends? She's asking you to abandon your denial. Let the dream collapse, so you can truly wake up..."
For the last two words, the flame's voice crackled, and sounded like Jamjars' instead of a shimmer.
"So what?" Chrysalis hissed. "That sounds like a terrible reason to wake up."
The Glimmer monster cleared its throat and glared at her.
"If your life is that much of a waste, who cares what gives it meaning?" Chrysalis snarled, holding Starlight close. "You take what you can, when you can, because the alternative is having nothing! If her friends are figments of her imagination, that's better company than having no friends at all!"
Maple, Valey and Amber all poofed into existence, shouting encouragement... but they were posters in unusual poses, tacked up on the walls.
"That's your anger and resentment talking, Starlight." The flame shook its head. "But you cannot overcome unless you first let go of what you wish you had, but just don't. Imaginary friends don't provide as much comfort as real ones, and they can't protect you when the going gets hard. Wake up."
Starlight grimaced, looking around for the source of Jamjars' voice. That had to be...
A metal monstrosity burst out of the curtain of falling ash, with a triangular design and a tail generator like Aegis's, exactly the one she had seen in the fake Yanavan's dream. But the pony hatch on its back where a pilot could sit was open, and Jamjars was standing there victoriously, grinning ferociously as her robot slammed into Aegis and actually drove it back, locking weapons and forcing the dragon to defend itself.
"Don't give up!" Jamjars shouted. "What if all your friends are real, and this is just a trick? If you're in a dream right now, these two are your self-doubts speaking! You've always doubted yourself! But what you need to do is take my hoof and help me make these blueprints come to life! If we have a Pavise, we'll be able to stand against anyone who gets in the way and anyone who tries to ruin our ideal world. You won't ever have to fight again if you just get a little bit stronger and have a Pavise to do the fighting for you! Just try a little harder! You're almost there!"
"Starlight, wake up!"
It wasn't the Jamjars in the dream who said that. "I'm trying!" Starlight called back, lighting her horn. "All of you, leave... me... alone!"
For a single instant, she imagined she was Shinespark, soaring straight upwards. She kicked off the ground with a hard thump, and was immediately constrained, falling and hitting something else. "Ow!"
But now she could open her eyes, and the world slowly came into focus, illuminated solely by Jamjars' hornlight. The other filly was standing over her, and looked downright freaked out.
"Starlight!" Jamjars panted, shaking her. "Are you with me!?"
"Unnngh..." Starlight stirred. Her coat was clammy, her insides felt horrible, and such a sense of foreboding lingered around her that it was like the Glimmer-headed Aegis was still there, leering at her from the darkness. "I w-was dreaming..."
"You were crying and moaning in your sleep!" Jamjars exclaimed, looking like she had been hyperventilating seconds earlier. "I thought you were sick, or getting possessed!"
Starlight frantically checked herself, coat too sweaty to bristle. Had all the faces in her nightmare been thoughts that were already in her head? When push came to shove, did Jamjars really care about her? None of that mattered. Her body felt too bad for this to be an ordinary nightmare. Either she really was sick, or...
The first night she had spent in this dorm, she awakened in a splash of foreboding as well.
"Jamjars?" Starlight swallowed, hoping it wouldn't upset her stomach, and sat up. "Do you have any weapons?"
"Weapons?" Jamjars blinked. "Starlight, it was just a dream. You're fine. You're going to be alright. Now please stop freaking me out..."
"No." Starlight shook her head. "Can you keep a secret?"
"It's what I do best."
Starlight swallowed again. "Valey's cutie mark... when she detects things that are going to hurt her... I can sometimes do the same. I don't know how or why, but I've always been able to dodge her fruit-throwing tests and do well when she teaches me to fight. And I had a really bad feeling before Chrysalis showed up, and again before we found Gazelle in the archives and I had a panic attack. I don't think you were there for that. But I can."
Jamjars' face twisted in confusion, and then realization. "You know what? That's ridiculous, but coming from you, I almost believe it. That's... happening again?"
"Something is wrong." Starlight crept to the secret door, her balance steadier and her senses clearer now that she was acting instead of waiting. It really was a warning, wasn't it? "Follow me, use your camouflage and keep your head down. I'm better at fighting if anything happens."
Jamjars nodded silently and narrowed her wide eyes. Starlight pulled the door open.
The commons was deserted, but not quiet. Both hearths had gone out. Sounds were coming from the door to Doctor Lost's office, which was ajar.
Jamjars' ears flattened. "Stop making this creepy, Starlight."
"We shouldn't have left Gazelle to do what he wanted," Starlight replied, knowing this was the right way. She pushed the door open.
Inside Doctor Lost's office, a single candle danced for illumination. The door to the archives was also open.
"This had better not be because I was calling the cat sad and pathetic last night..." Jamjars whispered, going into camouflage. "Are you sure you've got weird senses and we're not just going to find everything is in order?"
"Shh."
The noises continued as they entered the archives. They were small, rhythmic, methodical crashes, like someone was pulling things off shelves and throwing them into a pile one by one.
They rounded a corner, and that was exactly what it was.
"It's you," Gazelle whispered, voice hoarse, a book in one paw and Gwendolyn's moon glass in another as he sat in an aisle atop a throne made from artifacts pulled from shelves. Every once in a while, his tail flicked, wrapping around some piece of junk and flinging it. It could have been a nervous tick, but it was probably to make noise and attract attention.
"Gazelle." Starlight stared at the sight. "What are you doing?"
"I found it," Gazelle whispered, showing her the pages of the book. She was far too far away to read them. "I found how to get my sister back."
Starlight's blood chilled. "How?"
"I found this journal," Gazelle wheezed. "From a mare called Seraphim. You wouldn't have heard of her. She was instated as the head of the Power Distribution Agency seven hundred and sixty-seven years ago. The same as my Meltdown..."
Starlight watched him. "And?"
"She left the continent. Historians have thought she was dead, but her records are here. She was living in the Plains of Harmony." Gazelle's eyes twitched. "She writes about Garsheeva. She says the sacrifices fuel Garsheeva's immortality. She says sphinxes can eat emotions. She says we can eat brands. She says we can use them for power, or control them. Garsheeva brought back your friend by moving her brand. But that isn't the power of a goddess. Seraphim says... says I can do that too..."
He started to laugh, first his shoulders shaking silently, and then a chuckle, and then a full-throated howl. Gazelle threw back his head and roared.
"Jamjars!" Starlight shot a glance backwards. "Go get Celestia, Valey, anyone! Get help now!"
Gazelle lowered his head and looked at her again, and his eyes burned like coals. "Seraphim knew. Meltdown must have known too. She said I was everything to her, but she didn't trust me... Hehehehahaa... You all knew! You all betrayed me! You all knew! Aaahahahaha!"
"No, we didn't betray you!" Starlight raised her voice. "Her body is gone! Her memories are gone! All you have is her cutie mark, and I was the one who gave it to you!"
Gazelle's voice returned to a croak. "You're right. You didn't. I won't hurt you. I d-don't hurt fillies..." He held out the shard with a black gleam. "But Lyn and I will be together again!"
He threw the shard in his maw and bit down with a splintering of glass.
Instantly, Gazelle pulsed with a faint aura, and his eyes grew brighter a second later. He lifted his paws and stared at them. "Lyn... Lyn..."
"Stop," Starlight warned. "You're not okay! Don't do anything else!"
"Like what?" Gazelle leaned forward, flinging another artifact into a shelf with his tail. His ears perked keenly. "Like this?"
There were voices at the entrance to the archives. Student voices.
"What's going on?" a concerned stallion called. "Was someone laughing in here?"
"It was that prince, wasn't it?" a mare added.
"Didn't sound like him. Sounded like a demon."
"You want to bet old Doctor Lost keeps a demon sealed in an artifact here? Wouldn't put it past him."
"Hey, do you think this is safe?"
When Starlight looked back, Gazelle had left his throne and was gone.
SMASH!
Starlight skidded around a corner and saw the students just in time to watch a large pile of debris crash down from above behind them, blocking their easy way out. It was a group of five. If she recognized any, it was too dark and tense to put faces to the names.
All five students whirled and screamed. Gazelle was already standing on the wreckage.
He spread his wings like a statue in a fell cathedral. "My sister is waiting for me," the prince warned, his eyes burning. "I need more power to transfer her as I please. I can already feel it working... Hahaha... It isn't enough."
His tail lifted something from the wreckage, and Starlight realized what it was he had just smashed: the pedestal containing the Eylista meteor.
Crunch. His tail snaked forward, and he crackled and pulsed again as another piece of moon glass met its end beneath his jagged teeth. Crunch. Another did the same. Crunch.
"What's happening!?" One of the stallions stepped in front of a mare, spreading his wings defensively. "Hey... let us through!"
"I need you," Gazelle replied, surrounded by mixed shards of broken glass and moon glass. His aura pulsed and didn't go out, faint crackles of black lightning occasionally crawling across his coat. "As sacrifices befitting a god."
The students backpedaled. One mare began to cry.
"Stay put," Gazelle warned. "I don't need your lives. Only..."
His throat convulsed. It looked like he was about to puke... but instead, he emitted a line of shadowy energy that flew in a sluggish laser laden with spikes. It was a tiny version, but it was still Garsheeva's breath attack. Even Gazelle looked mildly surprised as the projectile flew towards the students.
With a flash, a wall of crystal erupted between Gazelle and the students at the last second. It shattered instantly as the spike breath hit, but nullified it, the students behind staying mostly unscathed.
Gazelle frowned.
"Stop it," Starlight warned, stepping out into his path from the bookshelf where she was hiding.
"Move," Gazelle replied, tail swashing. "I need them."
Starlight narrowed her eyes. Her horn had been perfect after the harmonic flame and a week of rest, and already, it hurt from blocking one attack. But if defending students who couldn't protect themselves wasn't a worthwhile use of her power... there never would be anything that was.
"No." She stood her ground, horn lit and waiting.
"I don't fight fillies," Gazelle warned.
Starlight gritted her teeth, hoping Jamjars was fast. Giving up the artifice, her connection to the black sword, the knowledge from the flame, her Nightmare Modules... it was a choice she had made. She didn't remember her reasons, but she must have known this would happen.
Time to see if she really didn't need them to survive.
"I. Don't. Fight. Fillies," Gazelle repeated.
Starlight dropped into a crouch, the students watching in terror behind her. "Well, I'm about to make you."