“Almost there, Gilda. Just take this next turn… There! Third building on the left!”
Gilda dropped Applejack on her cue, still unsure of why the pony led her here. To her, it looked no more special than anywhere else in Manehattan, but the salesmare knew it all too well; she only hoped her plan would pull through.
They had gained some distance on the thestrals, although Gilda didn’t want to hold her breath. With Applejack’s added weight, this strange, new breed of guards should have caught up to them long ago. Perhaps that lead thestral just wanted to drag this out for some twisted reason. The thought alone made the griffon growl. She didn’t appreciate the thestral’s overconfidence, much less being toyed with because of it. Applejack had better be able to deliver on this mystery plan of hers.
At first glance, the building appeared no different than the others that lined the street; it was just another two-story, brick structure. It wasn’t until Gilda drew closer that she realized that there weren’t any windows. Unless there was an exit in the back, the only way in and out was the single door Applejack was currently holding open for her. Gilda stole a glance behind her and saw the team of thestrals rounding the corner. It didn’t look like she had any options.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she panted as she entered the building. She found herself in a small room, almost a hallway, with another closed door at the end. All that was in there was a rack of goggles along the right wall and a faint scent she had almost forgotten during her time in Manehattan. Was that… soil?
“Not to worry, Gilda; it will all make sense soon,” Applejack assured the griffon as she closed the door behind her. Her eyes flicked to the rack on the wall. “Grab one of those goggles and hide nearby in the next room. Once I give the signal, get ready to make our escape.”
As she spoke, Gilda reached for one of the goggles and experimentally tried them on. “Wait, what? What’s going on here?” she protested. She removed them from her eyes and tried again as if the last time was a mistake. “I can’t see anything out of these! How am I supposed to see your signal?”
“If you can’t see through them now, then that means they’re working,” Applejack explained, pushing the griffon further to the door. “Trust me and put them on, for your own sake. You’ll know when you see the signal.”
Gilda offered a little more protest, but nevertheless, she entered the dark room next door, resting her goggles just over her brow. Applejack had just plucked another pair for herself, testing it against the fluorescent light above when she heard their pursuers land just outside.
Without another moment to waste, she hurried to the second door, throwing it open and hurrying inside. As she closed it, she had just enough time to see the thestrals open up the door on the other side of the entry hall.
The world was plunged into total darkness. She couldn’t see so much as an inch in front of her, let alone her hoof as she waved it. Past the door inside, she could hear the thestrals chattering up a plan. They would be coming in soon. She had to find a place to hide.
She carefully turned around and took a shaky step forward. Traversing in darkness this thick was usually enough to make anypony anxious, but this room had a special aroma that calmed the salesmare’s nerves. The smell of nature, of agriculture. A scent so foreign in cities such as Manehattan and Baltimare, and yet she couldn’t help but feel more at home with it. How many moons had she spent in this very building helping her father work just to be close to this inviting scent? Enough that she had once bragged she could navigate it blindfolded, Applejack recalled. She supposed now was as good as ever to make good on her bargain. If her hunch was correct, the place she was looking for was just a few more paces to the right.
It wasn’t long after she had settled in that the door to the entryway swung open, and the light within chased away the shadows, exposing some of the trees inside. Nestling the goggles over her brow, Applejack held her breath and bode her time for the right moment.
The first knight entered, the thestral without her helmet. Perhaps swaggered in would have been a better choice of words. The thestral held herself as though she owned the building, with an air about her that sharply contrasted the uniformity of the four knights that filed in after her.
“Tch, hiding in the dark?” the lead thestral sneered. “Ha! Somepony hasn’t been doing their homework. It’s going to take a little more effort than that to hide from us, but whatever; we’ll play your game. I’m feeling lucky. Knights, fan out and find them. Raven, hold the door. We wouldn’t want them to slip out and ruin the fun.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Four of them spread out, slinking into the darkness while the fifth remained as ordered. Applejack couldn’t see any of them. As a cold sweat washed over her, she silently crept back until she was pressed against the wall, careful to avoid the switchbox to her left. She didn’t know where Gilda had hidden herself. Perhaps it would have done her conscious better to explain the plan before luring the griffon here. For now, all she could do was hope that the griffon was safe, and that she had followed her instructions.
She counted the seconds as they passed by, and once she was satisfied, she cleared her throat.
“I hope you all know… you’re going to fail,” she called out to the darkness. Though there wasn’t a sound, she suddenly felt the weight of five pairs of eyes on her.
“You’ve got guts, filly; I’ll give you that,” a voice called back jeeringly. “But it seems to me that you’re the one who lost tonight.”
Applejack drew in a shaky breath and pulled the goggles over her eyes. It was just as dark with them as it was without. “Even if you were to best me tonight somehow, my friends will carry on, and they will see their mission through.”
The thestral laughed sharply, “You friends, huh? You mean that quivering unicorn and that giant oaf that follows her? I’ve met them before. Other than the big guy, I wasn’t impressed. They just got lucky.” Her voice sounded so much closer than before. Applejack could hear leaves rustling somewhere ahead of her. “They’ll be snuffed out before the moon’s over, and everything will go back to the way it was before.”
“You’re wrong about them,” Applejack countered, opening the switchbox next to her. “Their friendship burns brighter than any star in the sky, and their resolve is stronger because of it.” They were getting closer; she could hear it. All she had to do was lure them a little bit more. “You are right about one thing, though. Everything will go back to the way it was before, but it will be thanks to my friends. They’ll defeat Nightmare Moon, and the sun will shine again, as brightly as their friendship.”
Her hoof reached for the single, heavy switch inside, and she allowed herself to smirk. “Words won’t do that morning justice, though. Allow me to give you a demonstration.”
She pulled the switch, and the room flooded with white light.
“Gah, my eyes!”
“What did she just do?!”
It took Applejack’s eyes a moment to adjust to the blinding, artificial sunlight, even with the protective goggles. Her eyes stung from the sudden change, but she couldn’t imagine what the thestrals were going through. Four of them had stopped before her, all covering their eyes. It occurred to her just how narrow of an escape she had made; had she waited any longer, they would have been right on top of her.
The leader held an armored hoof over her eyes and glared at the salesmare through squinting eyes. With a growl, she took a shaking step forward. “Why, you obnoxious little…”
Before she could finish, a figure swooped down from above and crashed into the thestral.
“Not so tough now, are you, bats?” Gilda sneered as she pinned her down. The thestral glanced up to retort, only to hiss and look away from the lights above the griffon’s head. Satisfied with the reaction, Gilda leaped off of her with a beat of her wings and looked to Applejack as she hovered in the air. “Color me surprised, Jack; that was actually pretty devious. I didn’t think you had it in ya.”
The mare rubbed the back of her neck with an embarrassed chuckle. “Yes, well… Let us return to the apartments, shall we? We will have more than enough time to recover our friends’ tools now.”
It wasn’t a long run back to the front door, but Applejack savored every second of it. When the sun set for the final time and eternal darkness fell upon their kingdom, this lighthouse became her favorite place to escape, to remember. This was how the world was meant to be. The fresh scent of agriculture, the brilliant colors of the trees and their fruits, the warmth that washed down like mist from the lights above… This was the sensation of home.
There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that what she had said earlier was true, either. Twilight and Solaire were going to prevail, and all of the kingdom of Equestria would be able to remember what life was once like before Nightmare took over.
Standing just before the exit, one thestral remained. Like the others, she was dazed by the artificial sunlight, but Applejack could tell she had already recovered slightly. Gilda passed by overhead with ease, throwing open the door to the entryway as she reached it, but as Applejack tried to race past the knight, she reached out and grabbed the salesmare by the hem of her dress.
“Gotcha!”
“Gilda!”
The griffon whipped around and, upon seeing the struggling mare, reached back to help her. She grabbed both of Applejack’s forelegs and pulled, and the knight on the other side pulled harder on the dress. There was a heavy rip of fabric, and Gilda and Applejack stumbled through the door.
Applejack pulled off her goggles and kicked the door shut, pausing as she stared at her exposed hindleg in shock. The dress had torn from the hem all the way to her hips like a tacky high slit. Her face twitched, and words finally came to her mouth. “My dress!”
“You can worry about your dress later,” Gilda snapped, pulling the mare up to her hooves. “We need to go back to the apartments, remember?”
Applejack nodded numbly, following her out to the cold Manehattan streets. Being pulled from the warmth of the lighthouse back into the curse of eternal night was jarring, and she found a part of her longing to go back inside. Gilda glanced down both ways of the street, hesitating before turning back to Applejack.
“Don’t suppose you remember how to get back?” she asked meekly.
Before Applejack could answer, a low rumble filled the air. The pair glanced up, expecting to see clouds, but the Mare in the Moon stared urgently back down upon them with the backdrop of a starlit sky. They shifted their focus to the horizon and saw it; a cloud of dust billowing up near the abandoned industrial district.
Something colder than the night gripped their hearts.
Applejack stepped past the griffon. “I do. Let us make haste. I fear there isn’t much time.”
Solaire could only stagger back and watch as a thunderous wall of rubble churned before him. Emerging beneath it was a monster of nightmares and legends, the likes of which he had never seen in all his travels. It was a Nemesis of Lords, and rightfully so, for who else might have the strength and courage enough to challenge a dragon?
Long after the last stone fell, Solaire could still hear that terrible churning, and he realized that it came from the beast’s gullet. Its scales were indistinguishable from the rubble that surrounded it; only its head caught the faintest of a metallic glint under the moonlight.
Its forelegs reached behind its head, both hulking masses of armor and muscle the size of trees, and to Solaire’s horror, it began to peel away a layer of scales from its face. No, it wasn’t scale, but a black helmet the size of a cottage. It tumbled through the air down to the streets below, and as it crashed far off to Solaire’s side, it rang like a church bell, tolling for his demise.
Solaire could feel his body shaking, and he loathed himself for it. A Warrior of Sunlight would never show fear before the enemy, no matter how imposing. Even now, powerless and defenseless as he was, he could not allow his faith to waver. For if he were to fail now, the beast would surely hunt Twilight next.
Just before him, a metal rod protruded from the pile of rubble. He reached out with both hands, and with a swift wrench, he pried out a long pipe, its end twisted and broken to a sharp edge. It was far longer than his sword, and he would be foolish to wield it as though it was. Nevertheless, he would fight with it. He would fight with it as though Twilight’s life depended on it.
The dragon lowered its head down to Solaire, as though to size up the Warrior. Its lips peeled back to show a sinister grin of teeth the size of longswords, and in its eyes, Solaire caught a glimmer of excitement.
He gave it a snarl, taking a stance with his humbling weapon. “Have at thee, foul beast.”
The dragon reared its head back into the night sky and barked a challenge, reaching out to the Warrior with a claw.
Solaire rolled to the side, stooping low to a crouch as the dragon grabbed at the space he had been. Taking his window, he leapt forward, driving the broken pipe forward as a spear, only for it to stop abruptly against the dragon’s hide. The beast made a sound that could have been mistaken for a chuckle, and Solaire quickly withdrew. How could he have been so naïve, thinking that merely a pipe could pierce its stone-like scales?
Holding the pipe with one hand, he quickly reached for his talisman tethered to his belt. All Astorans knew the story of the Everlasting Dragons’ demise. The legend was told in every church, the testament of Lord Gwyn’s power. Static crackled around the talisman enclosed in his fist.
The dragon surged forward once more, this time reaching out with both claws. Solaire leapt back, and its fists closed before him with a booming clap. He pulled his hand back and held it behind his head, and he could feel the lightning come to life.
The street was bathed in yellow light, and the dragon paused, transfixed by the glowing spear in his hand. Solaire stared it down as its gaze focused on his fist. Slowly, the dragon raised a curious claw and reached out for him. It didn’t reach far before the Warrior hurled his miracle.
A thunderclap rolled throughout the silent streets, followed by the pained howl of the dragon. It reared back, cradling its wounded claw. A nauseating smoke curled around its talons, and as it held its claw to the moonlight, the dragon began to scowl.
In the center of its palm, one of its scales was charred and cracked. It gave the wound a testing prod with a talon, and the scale broke away, leaving behind a tender and weak spot of pink flesh. It glared down at the Shiny Golem. He was already making more painful light in his fist. The dragon was going to stop him.
Solaire had another spear ready when the dragon fell down on all four of its legs. The ground seemed to drop from beneath his feet at the impact, but not before he noticed the green light that sparked in the dragon’s mouth. Armed with lightning and lead in each hand, he sprinted for the dragon’s gaping maw as it lowered its head to meet him. Green flames licked along the edges of its mouth, hinting at the ruin to come. He would only have so small of a window.
The dragon’s head was just before him now. There was a blinding light, and Solaire spun to the right as a torrent of green fire erupted from its gullet. The chainmail over his body seared against his skin under the smothering heat, but he could not afford to lose focus now. Using his momentum, he curled his lightning bolt towards the dragon’s exposed muzzle like a stake. Solaire barely caught a glimpse of the beast’s large, reptilian eye, which seemed to stare back at him with a fearful surprise.
The lightning struck its mark with a deafening thunderclap. As close as he was, Solaire could feel the resulting shockwave shake his body. The dragon’s body shuddered, its head recoiling away from the impact, and Solaire found his new target, a patch of exposed, singed skin where the scales were torn away. He leapt forward with the lead pipe in both hands, wielding it as a pike.
And the dragon’s head disappeared.
Solaire’s weapon struck the vacant cobblestone. He blinked. Had his eyes deceived him? There was a heavy rumble to his side. The dragon held its smoking head high in the air as its body whipped around, and Solaire only noticed too late as its tail swept wide across the street towards him.
If he was not paying attention, he wouldn’t have known what struck him first; the tail, the street, or the wall he found himself crushed against. There was a mind-numbing pain that swallowed him whole. If he could only catch his breath, he might have been able to make sense of the tumbling world around him. But his lungs remained empty, no matter how hard he tried to gasp, no matter how wide he opened his mouth.
Gravity tugged at his body, dragging him back into the street where he collapsed on his hands and knees. Sparkles of golden light trickled off of his body, falling against the pavement before gently fluttering back into the air. An all too familiar cold blanketed his body and sapped away at the heat from his wounds. No… Was this the end of his journey?
Finally, a hoarse wheeze sucked in an inkling of air into his body. His unfocused eyes scanned across the sidewalk. His talisman… Where was his talisman?
There. Just a few inches before him, but they might as well have been miles. In his ringing ears, he could hear a distant rumbling, stones churning, the heavy footfalls of a beast approaching. He reached out with a hand and nearly collapsed.
Please, not like this, he thought, for he had not the breath to speak aloud. Lords have mercy upon me. This quest is too important.
He outstretched his hand once more. His fingers danced across the coarse fabric of his talisman. The heavy footsteps stopped. Solaire looked up to find the mighty dragon scowling down upon him, its head eclipsing the moon. It reached for his body one final time with an open claw, and Solaire found that he could fight no more.
“I’m sorry, Twilight,” he wheezed solemnly. “I fear I have failed you.”
Twilight didn’t know where she was running. All these streets and buildings looked the same to her. She knew she couldn’t stop, though. Stopping would only invite trouble. Gilda thought the guards would be sweeping northward through the streets. Galahad thought they were all in the sewers. She didn’t know who was right. Maybe they both were, but she couldn’t afford to wait and find out.
Princess Nightmare Moon had never felt so close. She might have still been hundreds of miles away, sitting on her throne in Everfree Castle, but her presence loomed over this city. It had been three weeks now since she started her journey with Solaire. He had boasted that she had grown so much since then, but right now Twilight still felt like that same, frightened filly, running away from the all-encompassing Dark.
She wasn’t alone, though, and Twilight found some solace in the fact. The number of friends she had made had grown exponentially since meeting him, and she was lucky to have them with her now.
But as she thought of it, a creeping unease swelled inside. She strained her ears, but between the beats of her hooves and Gertrude’s wings, she couldn't hear anypony else.
Twilight slid to a halt over the cobblestone, eyes wide with panic. Gertrude paused in the air just ahead of her.
“What are you doing, Twilight?” the griffon panted. “We can’t stay here.”
Twilight shook her head. “Where are the others? Where’s Solaire?”
Gertrude hesitated, finding that she couldn’t meet the unicorn’s eyes. “Galahad stayed behind to buy us some time,” she said bleakly. ”I thought Solaire was behind us, but… he must have stayed behind, too.”
“What?!” Her fears were confirmed. What was he thinking? “No, I’m going back for him,” she said, leaving no room for debate. “I can’t— We can’t do this without him.”
“Twilight, wait.” Gertrude dropped down and gently held the unicorn’s forelegs in her claws. “I know this is hard, believe me. I want nothing more than to go back, too. But sometimes we need to make sacrifices if we want to win.” She glanced past the mare, and her grip slackened, just enough for Twilight to pull away.
“You’re wrong,” Twilight said with a shaky voice, backing away from Gertrude. “We’ll never win anything if we sacrifice our friends. The only way we’re going to get through this is if we stay together.”
Twilight Sparkle turned to gallop back down the street, only making a few paces before coming to another sliding stop. The stallion charging towards them did the same. Like the stallion in the sewers, his armor was black as pitch. He wore no helmet, but Twilight wished he did. Without it, she could see his wide eyes staring at her in the moonlight. She could see the face of the pony she had been running from for over three years now.
Shining Armor stared at the young unicorn before him. Her eyes mirrored the same pained and fearful look as his. Out here in the moonlight, with no more dust to obscure her image, there wasn’t a doubt left in his mind as to who she was. It was the mare he had hoped to forget over the last three years.
Brother and sister stood paralyzed in the Manehattan streets beneath the light of the Mare in the Moon. As though by familial bonds, the same question pulsed through the shared blood in their veins. What cruel hand of fate led the other here this night?
Gertrude stared at the newcomer uncomfortably. Why was there only one? And why was he just standing there? Was he just waiting for them to make the first move or simply stalling for backup? Regardless, Twilight looked troubled, to put it lightly. If she really was adamant in going back to get Galahad and Solaire, she wasn’t going to abandon her. The mare was right, to a degree. If Gertrude was the only one left to fight, there wouldn’t have been much of one.
Keeping the stallion in her eyes, she slowly crept to Twilight’s side. “It’s only one of him,” she pointed out with a whisper. “We can take him if we have to, but we can’t stay out here. Come on.”
As the griffon reached out for his sister, Shining Armor felt a spell sling from his horn. The purple bolt scorched a trail down the street, only to ricochet off a ward and back towards him before it could reach his target. He summoned his own, blocking the bolt and redirecting it to the cobblestone, where it carved a shallow trail before dissipating.
Twilight moved her protective counterspell away from the griffon; a purple kite shield, eerily similar to his. There was no escaping the facts. She was the mare Archer ran into back in Meadow Grove. What was he supposed to do?
Armor braved a step forward, and Twilight took a timid step back.
“Twily…”
“Don’t.”
He winced, not so much at the bitter sternness in his sister’s voice, but the fearful tremor that lied beneath it. Twilight shook her head, keeping her eyes on him.
“Don’t you dare call me that,” she spat, taking another step back. “You don’t have the right.”
“Please, just… just let me talk,” Armor pleaded cautiously, frightened that saying the wrong words would cause his sister to fly away like a startled bird. “I… I just want to talk.”
The griffon moved closer to his sister again, casting him a strange look. “Hey, Twilight? What’s going on here?” she asked. “Who is this?”
Shining Armor shot her a glare. “You stay away from her,” he growled at the griffon. “I don’t want you dragging her into any more of a mess than she’s already in.”
“Or what?” Twilight challenged, putting herself before her friend. She couldn’t let him take her, too. “Are you going to arrest me too, just like my mom and dad?”
He hesitated. “They were my parents, too, Twilight. I didn’t want to do it.”
“But you did.” Her words burned like venom. “You took them away from me. You abandoned me!” Hot streaks burned a trail from the corners of her eyes. The world around her brother began to blur with water. “And I didn’t even know about it until I came back from the market! The family we were staying with told me everything, and then they turned me away so that I wouldn’t attract any more problems to them. Nopony would take me in. I was alone for three years because of you!”
“But you were safe!” Armor cried out. “The Princess didn’t know about you! The guards didn’t know about you! And if they ever did, they would have used you against me like Mom and Dad. I lost everything trying to protect everypony, so I put all I had left into saving one.” He could feel his legs shaking as he stood. It felt as though somepony had placed the full weight of the moon against his back.
“You weren’t supposed to get wrapped up in all of this, Twily,” he finally said, defeated. “You were supposed to stay safe.”
Far behind him, the dragon unleashed a roar, filling the air and the tense silence between them. Twilight’s mind was consumed in a whirlwind of emotions she couldn't decipher. A part of her screamed to run; it’s what she always thought she would do. But her legs wouldn’t budge, and something was boiling deeper within, an emotion that surprised her. She found that she couldn’t take her eyes off of him, the stallion she once remembered so fondly, the hero she once looked up to… the villain that betrayed her family’s trust.
Twilight took in a shaky breath. Was it fear or this newer emotion taking over her? “Well, here I am,” she said slowly, almost to challenge. “What are you going to do now?”
He didn’t answer at first. How could he? Of all the situations he was prepared for this night, of all the ponies he would have anticipated to find, never in a thousand years would he have expected to see his sister again. There had to be a way to let her escape again. There had to be a way to keep her from the same punishment as their parents.
“The… The Princess probably doesn’t know who you are,” he reasoned, trying desperately to convince himself of his own lie. Was he chosen for this very reason? “Even if she does, I’m sure she only cares about the Giant. Just tell me where he is, and… and you can go. I’ll tell the guards you’re the wrong unicorn.”
“Where would I go?” she demanded. “Canterlot is gone, Shining. Ever since you took Mom and Dad away, I’ve been familyless, homeless, and friendless! Solaire changed all of that. He’s been more of a brother to me in these last three weeks than you have been these last three years. I’m not letting you take him away from me, too!”
Two orbs of purple light sparked to life on either side of her. They didn’t look like their father’s candlelight spell. A chill coursed up Armor’s spine as he remembered his briefing from what now felt like a lifetime ago. His sister had come across combat tomes from the Solar Archives, and she likely taught herself without any sort of formal guidance.
As he eyed Twilight’s spells hovering ominously next to her, they seemed to twitch and flicker. Even the griffon accompanying her noticed it, and she took a few steps away from the mare with cautious eyes. Whatever spell Twilight had summoned, she didn’t know how to control it.
“Hey, we don’t need to fight,” Shining Armor said in a disarming tone. “Look, just… just calm down, Twily.”
Something behind her eyes snapped, and Twilight’s face twisted with a snarl. Before Shining Armor could begin to wonder what he had said wrong, Twilight shouted it out like a battle cry.
“I told you not to call me that!”
And the two hexes next to her launched down the street in jagged paths.
