At once, the three Guardians leaped out from behind their hiding place, and jumped into the air, charging their attacks, eyes fixed firmly on their target. A coordinated surprise strike: a Nova Bolt from Twilight, an Arc Blade from Rainbow, and a Solar Ray from Fluttershy. This would be quick and clean - a swifter death by far than the beast deserved. But as Twilight floated mid air, hoof held backwards, building up a glow of purple, the Wizard span around to face them, staring right into Twilight's eyes. In seeming slow motion, the Wizard stretched out a skeletal, clawed hand.
At once, Twilight felt something cold and invisible seize her sharply around the middle, the feeble sparks of Void Light were wrenched from her hoof. The three Guardians were stuck, hovering ten feet off the ground, just like that worm had been. Twilight struggled, kicking at her bonds, but they did not give.
"Ack! Let go of me!" Rainbow Dash hissed from her right, squirming to break free. She reached for a throwing knife, but a flick of the Wizard's claw caused the bone in her leg to shatter like a twig.
"Rainbow!" cried Fluttershy, reaching for the other pegasus. "You monster!" she spat at the Wizard.
Slowly, the creature turned its horned head to Fluttershy. It opened its mouth and cackled, then shot its hand downwards, and Fluttershy sped towards the ground, colliding against it with the sickening sound of shattering bones and cracking flesh. Rainbow Dash erupted into a cacophony of hatred. Twilight knew Fluttershy was dead, and did not dare to look down, hoping against hope that her Ghost had the common sense not to try and resurrect her until the Wizard was safely at a distance.
Twilight instead focused a determined, and unflinching glare at the Wizard, who swept past her, towards Rainbow. A look of savage pleasure flickered across the devil’s face as it stared into Rainbow’s convulsing eyes - an icy blue against a rosey magenta. Rainbow's entire body was shaking with fury, teeth clenched and legs trembling. Twilight heard Rainbow’s shouts, her curses thrown defiantly into the Wizard’s face, but Twilight knew it was for nothing. She shut her eyes, and the same sound that had come from Fluttershy’s body came again a second later, and the shouts fell silent. When she opened them again, she was face to face with the demon.
She could see every last detail of the ancient visage, and it made her want to throw up all over it. Brown, flaked skin. Shining eyes like irregular tessellations. Rows and rows of rotting, needle-like teeth. Twilight tried one last time to conjure something - anything, but the oppressive heaviness in the air of the chamber and the dead, reeking stench of the Wizard’s breath sapped any Light she still had left in her. The Wizard raised its arm skyward, but instead of bringing it down towards to ground, it instead clenched its fists sharply, as if snatching something out of the air. Twilight felt the grips compress her body, and a sickening crunch echoed around the chamber as her rib cage was shattered.
She fell out of the air, and hit the ground with a thump, agony coursing through her body once again. She blinked blood out of her eyes, and saw just in front of her, cowering under a jagged rock, the floating forms of Rainbow’s and Fluttershy’s Ghosts. Twilight forced her head upwards, and saw the Wizard encircling her and her fallen friends, manic cackling shaking Twilight’s soul. She hastily turned back to the Ghosts, and pulled out her own.
“I need you three to stay put.” she wheezed, her teeth clenching at the pain of speech. “If I die, then don’t try to resurrect me. Go back to the Tower and - well. Just tell everypony what happened.” The three Ghosts nodded, and Twilight drew away from the rocks, turning again the face the Wizard, who was bearing down upon her, claws outstretched. The air in the chamber had become so heavy that Twilight struggled to stand, and not even a spark of Light would come when she tried to summon it. She was doomed.
The next moment, the Wizard was upon her, its putrid breath once again pouring all over her face. But suddenly it rose up again, away from her, and drifted off across the chamber. Twilight stared as it descended down over a mass of blue and red, that she knew to be the body of Rainbow Dash. She swallowed as she watched for a second the Wizard gently levitate the body into the air, but had to look away almost immediately. The sight of one of her best friends lying there, blooded and mangled, dislocated bones sticking out at nauseating angles like needles was enough to make her sick.
She took a deep breath, and looked back at Rainbow and the Wizard. With its other hand, the Wizard pointed to the ground, and something bright began to emerge from the rock. The jagged tip, followed by the widened base and shining purple surface of a Hive crystal rose up from the ground, one side hollowed out, the hole barely wide enough to admit a pony. Twilight’s stomach churned at the sight, she began to crawl towards Rainbow, towards the newly erected crystal, just as she had done for Spike. No. She couldn't let it happen. Not to Rainbow, who had just saved her life. Not to Rainbow, who was always there for her, who had shown her there was more to being a Guardian than reading and blind service. Not to Rainbow, who was a symbol of hope and joy to the children of the City, and to Twilight herself.
But exhaustion overcame her, and all she could do was watch, as the Wizard funneled Rainbow into the crystal, which swallowed her twisted form whole, before its mouth was sealed over with purple rock. Twilight merely sat, dazed, staring at the crystal. It couldn't be. Rainbow Dash, Lightless and gone forever. No. There had to be a way to free her. If she could just get her out of the crystal... A shadow eclipsed Twilight’s vision, and she looked up to see the face of the Wizard staring down at her, its mouth shining with a crooked, maniacal grin.
Before she could even react, the invisible hands had seized her once more. She tried to struggle, but the pain in her ribs was too much for her to even move once in the air. The Wizard pointed to the ground once again, and another crystal emerged from it, beaming a horrid, dark glare around the chamber. She began to float towards it, the exposed side of it a black hole waiting to swallow her as its twin had swallowed Rainbow. Twilight’s heart was thumping. Gone were thoughts of her friends and of the city. They were replaced by a primal, unfiltered, terror.
“No. No, no, no, no!” she shouted, writhing about, not caring about the rattling pain in her lungs or the throbbing ache in her head. “Let me go! Let me go!” She was screaming, and the entrance to the crystal was growing closer. She felt its cold surface press against her front legs, and she drew back, gasping for air. The Wizard turned her around mid air, so that she was facing it, and began to stuff her violently inside. Twilight screamed in pain and terror as her legs were twisted and bones shattered as she was forced ruthlessly into the dark and cold confines of the crystal, crammed into it so that she filled every inch of its insides. Her vision became blurry, and she felt the almost rock spreading over the gap in the crystal like ice. The Wizard was watching, smiling, as Twilight was being enveloped by Darkness.
But through it all, she could see something small and glowing hovering over a yellow mass on the other side of the chamber behind the Wizard. Twilight watched as the glow flickered, then died, but something bigger rose where it had fallen, and slowly edged its way towards the original crystal, the one containing the filly Rainbow had spoken to, right at the base of the spinning, singing Shrieker. Death became an afterthought as Twilight stared, transfixed as Fluttershy raised a jagged stone above her head, and brought it down on the crystal, shattering into a thousand pieces.
There came a horrible sound. The Shrieker’s song, like that of a lost voice, turned to shrieks of horror and pain: a woman being murdered. The arcane mass had stopped spinning. Its shell was shuddering, the eyeball within bulging wildly, shining cracks spreading from its iris all over, when at last - it burst. The Shrieker exploded in an eruption of purple, shooting its black casing all around the chamber, and at once Twilight felt something. It was the same feeling she had felt only once before: when she had stood at the shard of the Traveller, having reclaimed her Light after the Red Legion attack. It spread like a warmth through her body, starting in her chest and ending in the tip of her horn and in the base of her hooves. Her muscles clenched, her eyes grew bright, as the sensation of familiarity washed over her. Her Light was back!
The Wizard turned away from her, and flew over to Fluttershy. It screamed a garbled curse of rage, and threw her across the room, so that she collided against a rock with a sickening crunch. Twilight swallowed. Even with her Light, the Wizard was no small threat. She focused her mind, and burst a hole in the crystal, spilling herself out of it and onto the ground. Her body limbs had been completely contorted beyond use, save for her right forehoof, which she used to inch herself towards the Wizard, who turned, its glowing eyes locking onto hers. It swooped over towards her before she had time to react with Light, it had grabbed her by the throat and lifted her into the air, not with an invisible, arcane hand, but with its own, chitinous clutches. She was choking, and the Wizard was screaming in rage and hatred, its face pressed right against hers, mouth open wide, spraying the suffocating Twilight with spit. She bit and punched at its claws, but they only clung on tighter, and once again, her vision was becoming blurry.
Not like this! She told herself. I’ve come so far! It can't end like this!
Twilight wasn't even aware of deciding to do it. She pulled her right hoof back, and felt the sparks building there. A simple punch wouldn't be enough. She needed something more. At the base of her hoof, a tear in spacetime made possible only by mastery of the Void began to form. The Wizard was too preoccupied with hissing and spitting in her face to notice the ball of purple Light growing larger and larger. Only once it was the size of a hoofball did the Wizard notice, and its face turned swiftly from rage to terror, but by then it was too late.
“I heard you liked Void Light,” Twilight choked, before smashing her hoof into the Wizard’s face.
The Nova Bomb erupted against the Wizard, the cataclysmic detonation enveloping its entire body. An ungodly scream filled the entire chamber, but it faded soon away into silence, as it, along with the Wizard itself, decayed rapidly into nothingness. Twilight collapsed to the ground, as purple sparks of stardust fell all around her, breathing heavily, the pain of her injuries returning to her senses. From under the rock where they had been hiding, the Ghosts emerged. Spike flew to Twilight’s side, and eased her pain, repairing her flesh and healing her bones. Fluttershy limped over to her own Ghost, who had previously collapsed with the effort of bringing her back to life, and nuzzled him lovingly. Twilight, got to her hooves. The air seemed to lighten, and the glow of sunshine was coming in through the thick glass windows, brightening the entire chamber. She looked all around. At the cracked and dead husk of the giant Shrieker, at Fluttershy and her Ghost, and her eyes fell finally onto the purple crystal.
“Rainbow.” she uttered, before sprinting over to the crystal. Her Ghost was already there, picking at the side of the crystal, trying to break it open. There had to be a chance she was still alive. It had barely been two minutes since the Wizard had forced her into it.
“Please, please, please,” she whispered, as she focused her Light to dig away at the side of the crystal. A crack began to appear, and she wrenched it wide open, heart thumping in her newly repaired chest. She was met with an awful sight. Rainbow’s cracked body had been melded with a purple goo that oozed from the edges of the crystal’s insides, and that was spreading over her even now.
Panicking, she drew a blade and began to slice away at the goo, all the while Rainbow’s Ghost trying, and failing, to resurrect her. At last the fleshy grips on Rainbow were broken, and with a great effort, Twilight wrenched her free of the crystal. At once, her Ghost healed her, but still Rainbow did not stir. Her colours appeared pastel-like - washed out. Her once vibrant mane had become a grayscale.
“We have to get her back to the Tower.” Twilight said breathlessly to Fluttershy, who was watching, eyes wide. “I know she's still alive, I can just feel it.” She looked back to Rainbow. Was there still any Light left in her?
“Radio Zavala. Tell him what we’ve done. And let him know that I've got a few words for him when we get back.”