//------------------------------// // Chapter 12: Encounters // Story: The final challenge // by Dianabel //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle slowly opened her eyes. Surprisingly, she didn´t feel any pain. In fact, her body didn´t weight at all, making her feel as light as a feather. However, that didn´t calm her at all. Quite the contrary, she got more nervous, fearing that the blow had damaged profoundly her nerves. As her vision was blurry, she couldn´t recognize the place in which she ended up. But from the colors, the place seemed familiar. Once her vision had cleared, she took a quick glance. It was the Castle of the Two Sisters! Meaning that she had been thrown miles away by Grogar! How could it be that she wasn´t feeling anything? Was she even injured? She looked at her hooves. Nope, not a scratch on her hooves. But there was something different, they were shiny. No, her entire body was shining! Twilight entered in panic. Only a spirit could shine like that. Did she die? Unfortunately, the answer was yes. She observed her injured and lifeless body. “No. No, no, no!” she muttered to herself panicked. Twilight looked around to see if there was somepony else. Outside the castle, there wasn´t a single creature that could see her and tell her that it was only her imagination. “HEEELP! Somepony! Anypony… Help.” She started crying. Death wasn´t something that used to terrorize Twilight. But right now, this was her ultimate nightmare. She wasn´t scared because she died. She was scared because she wouldn´t be able to defend Equestria and her friends. She, their supposed future leader, had been defeated once and for all, leaving her entire species at the hooves of an ancient powerful, merciless tyrant impossible to defeat. She couldn´t die yet, not until Grogar was out of the throne. After shedding some tears to the ground, she felt a slight gust of wind moving her mane. She saw some leaves with a fading rainbow-colored light floating in that wind. Twilight noticed that they were coming from inside the castle. Could there be somepony? The alicorn frowned in determination. After breathing slowly, she entered the castle. Her heart broke when she saw the Tree of Harmony, causing her to give a broken gasp. The tree had no colour, it was grey, as if it withered. It looked like the first time she and her friends watched it, but a bit worse. Her eyes filled with tears. Who knows how much time had the tree been like this? Maintaining harmony while struggling not to fade away. And with the windigoes and the villains spreading disharmony all around Equestria, it got worse. It was too much to hold on. And now, with Grogar having his bell, it might die completely. “That. That monster.” she said while crying quietly. After looking the picture with more detail, she saw a unicorn mare in the front of the Tree of Harmony. She gasped in surprise. She looked very transparent, very ghostly like. Could she be a spirit? However, Twilight was very estranged. She always imagined spirits with a bright and strong light coming from them. But this spirit was opposed to that. Her light was few, as if it was at the brink of turning off. What´s more, she was almost invisible. Twilight bit her lip. It looked like she needed help. So, slowly, hoofstep by hoofstep, Twilight approached the mysterious disappearing spirit. With each hoofstep she got closer, the more Twilight could see how the mare looked like. She had a coat as white as snow. Her bluish green and pink mane floated very weakly. The spirit seemed to be struggling to keep her horn ignited, since it flickered at times. “May I help you?” Twilight asked a bit shy. The spirit gasped when she heard Twilight´s voice. Slowly, and with all her strength, she turned around. Twilight gasped when she saw the spirit´s face. She was Gusty the Great! She was before Equestria´s most ancient hero. Celestia´s and Luna´s mother. What was she doing here? Why was she so weak? So many questions were running through her mind. Gusty was surprised to see Twilight Sparkle too. But her surprise was full of panic and shock. “Oh no..” Gusty said. She started shaking her head nervously. “No, no, this is not good. This is not good!” Twilight noticed that the winds Gusty produced got stronger and stronger, to the point of almost sending Twilight away, something she avoided by holding on to a crystal. The spirit started flickering and her light turned weaker. She yelped. Twilight observed that the exact same thing happened to the tree. She came to a realization. Meanwhile, Gusty panted. “Now it´s not the time to lose it.” Gusty told to herself. “Breathe. Breathe.” she repeated while inspiring and expiring. Her winds blew softer, almost like a breeze. Gusty saw Twilight gripping the crystals, realizing that she almost sent her away. “Oh dear, I´m so sorry! When I get very nervous, my winds get out of control. And now it´s not something I can afford. The only thing I get is turning myself weaker.” Twilight opened her eyes. She pointed at Gusty “You´re. You´re Gusty the Great!” she said while approaching her. Gusty smiled weakly. “Not so great anymore, but yeah.” she said with a sad and ironic tone of voice. “And you´re the Tree of Harmony?!” Gusty nodded softly. “So Grogar had a more personal reason to attack the tree…” Gusty closed her eyes. Twilight started tearing up. “This is all my fault!” she sobbed. “If I hadn´t been such a bad leader, you wouldn´t have gotten to this point. We could have restored you like we always do. But I died before I could fix everything! I am a failure.” She threw herself to the ground, sobbing her heart out. But Gusty didn´t see things the way Twilight did. “You are not dead yet.” she said. Twilight sniffed. “What?” “You are in between. If you were dead already, you would have gone directly to the realm of spirits.” Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Then, how is it that you´re here?” “Spirits have a choice to either live freely in the realm or go back to earth as a guardian. Obviously, I chose to protect this world. And I happened to be the Spirit of Harmony!” Twilight looked at Gusty in disbelief. “That means that I can either go back to earth or go into the spirits´ realm.” Gusty nodded her head. Twilight sighed. “If I´m honest with you, I´m not sure which one to choose. I want to save Equestria, but... It´s impossible! The only thing I get by coming back is getting killed again. Grogar has retrieved his bell. We don´t have a chance! He´s much more powerful than me and all Equestria´s most powerful creatures. But if I go to the realm, I´ll never rest in peace knowing that Equestria isn´t safe.” Gusty listened attentively to Twilight. Then, she knew what to say. “You´re right, Twilight. Grogar is much more powerful than you.” Twiight widened her eyes surprised. “But that doesn´t mean he can be defeated.” Gusty continued. “I did that once, you can too!” Gusty smiled weakly. “How did you do that?” Gusty smirked mischievously. “You know what´s the deal with that goat? He´s very intelligent and cunning, and has a better management of emotions than I have, that´s for sure. But he has a very fatal flaw: Pride.” Twilight raised her eyebrow. “Grogar thinks that nopony can surpass him when it comes to power and thinks that everypony is a fool. So, he lets his guard down and gets confident. And because of that, he cannot predict your strategy. For example, he never thought about the possibility of somepony stealing his bell, until me, of course.” Gusty explained cockily. Twilight chuckled. Then, her face filled with worry while thinking about what Gusty said. “Nonetheless, we´re still going to need magic. And the magic of our friendship can´t come out because you are very weak. We are connected to the elements. To you! And without you, we can´t do anything.” Gusty frowned. “Do not say that! I think that all of you depend on me too much. You should start trusting in your own abilities. The tree was destroyed when Sombra attacked Equestria, and yet you managed to defeat them without my help! Why is that?” “Because there wasn´t disharmony.” Gusty raised an eyebrow. “I mean yes there was but ponies weren´t against each other like they are right now. All of them were brainwashed! All that disharmony is making you disappear slowly… And if there´s no harmony, my friends and I can´t do anything.” “Twilight. Your power doesn´t come from me. It comes from you.” Gusty lifted Twilight´s chin gently. She smiled tenderly at the alicorn. “You are not connected to the elements. Each of you are the embodiment of the elements! You are the winds of harmony I spread throughout places that I never imagined. I protect you and you protect me. Even if I disappear, I would end up coming back because you never give up on your elements. It´s in your own nature not to.” Twilight started tearing up. She held Gusty´s hoof. “Listen and stick with what I´m about to say: Every creature has a magic inside. It´s just as powerful as yours. And all of you are as powerful as me.” Twilight smiled sweetly. She shed a tear. “I´m very scared, Gusty. I don´t know if I´ll be able to save everypony.” “It´s difficult, I know. I was scared every time I faced Grogar too. But think about this Twilight. You still have a chance to go back to life. To hug your friends and all your loved ones! Don´t you want that?” Gusty said hopeful. “I don´t know if my friends are alive. They might have been executed by Grogar by now.” “They might not be alive, but there´s also a chance that they are alive. So, why throw away that chance?” Twilight still was unsure. Gusty sighed. “Let me tell you a story. While I was fighting against Grogar, I met a special kid. He and I got very close. The poor creature didn´t have a loving family, so I promised him when I was done fighting Grogar, I would take him and raise him as my own son and give him two amazing sisters. However, Grogar hit his head very hard, leaving him motionless. Me and all my unicorns thought he was dead. But after I died, I discovered the truth. He was still alive!” “He was?” Gusty nodded. “And still is to this day.” Twilight couldn´t help but wonder who that mysterious kid was. “So, what I mean, is that sometimes things aren´t what they seem to be. There are always thousands of possibilities out there. Don´t lose hope.” Twilight looked behind. “Please, take this chance to get back to life. If I had been given this chance, I would have absolutely taken it. I was never there to see my daughters grow.” she started crying. “I couldn´t hug them, nor kiss them, nor tell them stories at night.” she sniffed. “What´s worse, they I didn´t have the chance to say goodbye.” she sobbed. “They must have felt so alone. They must have thought that I abandoned them. I hope they can forgive me.” Twilight looked back at Gusty. She saw herself in Gusty. She remembered what she told Spike before the villains attacked Equestria: that she was scared that she was going to outlive her friends forever. And the reason she was terrified of that thought was because she couldn´t bear the thought of never seeing her friends again. Right now, she was proven that she was not inmortal. She could die like everypony else. And with some luck, Celestia could have somewhat changed the spell so she could have a normal pony´s lifespan. Even though it seemed very idealist, there was a chance she did that. After all, like Gusty said, there are thousands of possibilities. What if Spike´s prediction about the spell was true? What if her friends were still alive? What if she could hug them, laugh with them, tell them how much they mean to her? She wanted to have those answers, and there was on only way to find that out. “You´re right. I can´t give up. I might not know the way right now but giving up is not the answer.” Gusty dried her tears. Even though her smile wasn´t very strong, she felt very proud. “That´s the spirit. Let´s waste no time, then” Gusty redirected her winds towards Twilight. The winds surrounded her in the form of a tornado that slowly covered her from hoof to head, levitating her from the ground. Twilight panicked, since Gusty was using lots of her energy. “Gusty! Be careful!” she exclaimed before the winds got to her head. In the brink of an eye, Twilight woke up giving out a huge gasp. She looked at her hooves. They weren´t shining anymore, and they were full of scratches. Her whole body hurt horribly, but at least she was alive. But she knew that her life came with a price. And that price was Gusty. “Oh no.” she muttered scared. Despite all the ache, she immediately tried to get in her four hooves. She moaned and fell to the ground when she laid her left front hoof. She didn´t realize that it was broken. Slowly, she got up again, standing in three legs. She opened her wings and tried to fly but fell to the ground again. She still didn´t have magic. She expired and got up one more time. Limping, she walked to the tree as fast as she could. She gasped when she saw Gusty lying to the ground with her eyes closed, panting hard. “Gusty!” Gusty opened her eyes and smiled when she saw Twilight. “It worked. It worked!” she exclaimed cheerfully. Twilight approached her as quickly as she could and surrounded her hooves around her immaterial body. “Why did you do that?” she asked. “I could have done it myself.” She shook her head. “You haven´t got any magic left. You couldn´t have gone back to your body on your own.” “But at the cost of yourself?” Suddenly, Gusty´s tail began to fade into leaves. Twilight gasped. “No no! You can´t disappear!” Twilight tried to light her horn, but it was pointless. Opposed to Twilight, Gusty was very calm. She was in a great inner peace. She kept smiling tenderly at her. “Twilight, remember that you don´t need me to defeat Grogar. I need you to defeat Grogar.” Slowly, her body turned into leaves. Twilight sobbed hard. “Please, don´t leave me alone.” Gusty put her hoof on Twilight´s cheek. “You are not alone. I will always be with you, even if I fade. And so will your friends.” Twilight took Gusty´s hoof. “Celestia and Luna love you so so much. They never thought for a moment that you abandoned them. Never. They miss you as much as you miss them.” Gusty shedded some tears of joy and relief from hearing those words. “Don´t forget about Dizzy. Tell him that I love him so much, ok?” she asked. “Wait, you´re talking about-” Twilight didn´t have time to ask, for Gusty had already disappeared. She put her front hoofs on the ground. She sobbed. “Yes. When I find him, I will. Thank you so much for bringing me back to life.” Suddenly, in some distance behind her, Luna appeared. She looked around while panting. When she turned around, she saw Twilight. She gasped. “Twilight?” she asked at the brink of tears. Twilight turned her head back. “Princess Luna!” she exclaimed surprised. “How did you-” Luna ran to her and hugged her tightly before Twilight could finish her question. Luna cried in a mixture of joy and sadness. “We thought you were dead.” Luna told her. “I did die. But the spirit of harmony brought me back to life.” “Huh?” Luna dried her tears. She gasped softly when she saw the tree. It wasn´t shining anymore. It was dead gray. Its crystal leaves slowly fell. “She sacrificed herself for me. That´s how much confidence she has on me.” “Maybe because she knows that you´ll bring her back to life as she did with yours. You have achieved many impossible things, Twilight. You reunited me and my sister.” her face saddened. “Until now.” “What? What do you mean by that?” Luna sighed. “Grogar has turned my sister into an evil version of herself.” “What?” Twilight asked horrified. “He was about to hit me with the Bewitching Bell, but she jumped in front of me. Oh, it was awful Twilight.” her voice started to shake. “He locked us in our cell, and she began to attack me in hopes to kill me. Fortunately, I remembered something that my sister told me: if somepony´s about to hit you cover yourself with a wing. They are as strong as steel. I did, and it ended up like this.” Luna showed her broken wing. “Wish I had known that…” Twilight muttered under her breath. “I was able to make Grogar believe I was dead. So, the guards left my body in the cold. Once they were gone, I took off a ring around my horn that prevented me from doing magic. Immediately after, I teleported myself here.” she started rubbing her horn. “It still hurts.” Twilight looked down. Luna grabbed her hoof. “Do you think that we will be able to bring her back? Tell me there´s a a way, I don´t want to banish her.” Twilight remembered Gusty´s words. She smiled in confidence. “We might not be able to do it, but there´s also a chance that we can do it. So, why throw that chance away?” Luna chuckled nostalgically. “Mother used to say that.” Twilight wrapped her wing around her. “In one way or another, we´ll get her back.” Luna hugged Twilight. The young alicorn was caught out of guard. “Thank you for always giving me hope, Twilight.” Twilight returned the hug. Despite not being her friends, Twilight felt safe and sound in that hug. It was telling her that everything was going to be fine. Nonetheless, she still had an uncertainty. “Of all places, why this one?” she asked curiously. “Hm?” Luna raised her eyebrow. “You could have gone to any other place far away from Canterlot and yet, you chose to come exactly where I was without knowing it. Couldn´t have been by chance.” Luna took a general glance of the castle. “I guess because I still consider this place home. Sometimes, at night, when I didn´t have to visit somepony´s dream, I would spend the entire night stargazing in the hall room. I know it sounds crazy, but this place brings me great memories. Not because of the Nightmare Moon part, but because building this castle brought us together for some time. You see, when my mom was fighting Grogar, he took Celestia and I as hostages. He put a darkness inside me.” “He created Nightmare Moon?” Luna tilted her head from side to side. “Partly. If I had had a better management of emotions, she would have never been born. Anyway, I was afraid of hurting my family, so I distanced myself from them. From the day mother disappeared, I started feeling very alone. But when we were presented the project of building this castle I felt like myself again. Celestia and I shared all the ideas that we had and played with the secret passages and doors. That of course, changed when we began to rule. I started feeling jealous of Celestia because she was sociable, always smiling and the perfect ruler. I couldn´t be like that because of what happened with Grogar. I didn´t want to hurt anypony. I was lucky that the night is my speciality. I could bring beauty and joy without having to approach to anypony. But… they didn´t appreciate my night. They were scared of it or preferred to sleep. That worsened all the pain that I carried to the point that I let the darkness consume me. And then, you know the rest.” “Wow. You never told us.” “I guess it´s because I didn´t want to remember him. I had to let it in the past if I wanted to go on.” “I see…” “Another reason I come here it´s because, ironically, I never feel alone. I feel like there´s a presence that accompanies me. Sounds scary, but for me it´s not. It´s a warm presence that makes you feel protected. Maybe it´s the tree, I don´t know.” Twilight smiled tenderly. Oh, if she only knew that it was her mother that accompanied her in those stargazing and calm nights. She spent some time staring at Luna. She had the same hopeful blue eyes as Gusty. Celestia inherited her coat color. So, seeing the two princesses together was like seeing Gusty. The alicorn realized that Twilight was staring at her. She blushed slightly. “Sorry, I shouldn´t have talked about this right now. I should have been trying to look for a solution.” she got up from the floor. “It´s ok. Sometimes you need to take some things off your chest.” Luna smiled in return. “Where do we go now?” Twilight looked at the horizon. She couldn´t almost see anything. Everything was foggy and covered with snow. What was coming ahead was not going to be easy, but she also knew that she had to do it. For Equestria. For the kingdoms around. For Gusty. “My friends are in Cantelot, am I right?” Twilight asked. “I´m not so sure. But I guess so. You´re not thinking about going there directly are you?” “No. I think we´re going to do some stops around the way. We´re going to need all the help we can get.” she said confidently. “Come on.” Twilight started walking, limping due to her broken leg. Luna caught up with her and provided her support with her good wing. They smiled at each other and looked at the forest awaiting for them. Twilight inspired and expired. “Let´s go.”