Arc III - Chapter IX - Death
The first thing Stone Chisel looks at while getting out of the portal is not everyone around him, but the sky. Everything feels different now.
The sky is completely black. There is not even a single star on it... it hasn't got any dark blue tone from the night. It's pure darkness. Everything is so dark that he can barely see the ponies and others around them. He can't see the top of the Urushiol Forest's trees.
Everything feels so cold. The forest's soil feels like snow, burning through its cold and his fur gets spiky because of the ambiance. Everybody who was in that forest before looked at him. His parents get shocked by his presence. His father doesn't say anything and slowly moves his head to the right, while his mother slowly approaches him, getting her eyes filled with tears. Is it her guilt? Why is she crying?
Suddenly, little creatures approach the crew, murmuring. They are LaCrowley's pupils. "Calm down, be silent, please," says the mentor to all of them, standing next to Stone Chisel. "I'm thinking about what's going on."
"Why is everything so dark, Mr. LaCrowley?" asks one of the pupils. Stone Chisel turns his head to his right and finds out Stolen Bag hiding behind an old friend of his, Galloway the Griffon, who is standing in silence and only moves her neck when looking at him, saluting. "The sky didn't look so menacing five minutes ago..."
"Someone did it," replies Cheesecake. "We are trying to find out who."
The wizard stomps one of his hooves into the soil, making a loud sound. Everybody focuses on his straight face taking a breath. "I know what's going on, but I need to say something first." LaCrowley's rough, deep voice bounces through the ground and makes everybody silent. "This is not only for you, my pupils... but for everyone around that can listen to me." Cheesecake turns around and looks at him, shocked. "I'm about to tell you the truth: a menace we cannot describe has attacked Equestria and our beloved forest... and I hate to say this but..."
He looks at the sky, pure black, while the griffon approaches the wizard: "What will you say?" she whispers to him. He only swallows what he had in his mouth and takes a breath while closing his eyes.
"I'm... I don't want to say this but, we have to be realistic." He moves his neck, trying not to look at his childish pupils. Stone Chisel now looks at him, shocked. He feels it's the first time he sees LaCrowley like this. "This menace is a very powerful monster that may annihilate the world itself and... those... unexperienced users who may not easily resist the pain and destruction he causes, must keep fear inside... and fade away from this ground."
"W-What? What are you talking about?" Cheesecake whispers in shock and covers her mouth with a hoof while Grapefruit Slice and Twilight Sparkle now get nearer him.
"You're not telling your pupils to kill themselves." An angry Grapefruit Slice touches her nose with LaCrowley's mane, trying to swallow her anger. "Do you?"
"Tell me you did not say that, please," adds Princess Luna, not even blinking while looking at him.
The little ones get pale. "I'm trying not to be harsh with my own words," LaCrowley gasps. "I don't want you to die. I don't want anybody to die. Nobody wants that... but no matter what we do, blood will be spread on the ground, and somebody will die, and not only one. Lots... I don't want..." he looks at Grapefruit Slice. "I don't want them to be there to look at it when he arrives... I don't want them to feel the fire. They have to be spared from this indescribable suffering."
"He? What is coming?" asks one of the trembling pupils. "Is it coming for us?"
"A beast." LaCrowley answers. "The sky is dark, everything is cold because the beast is angry. He wants to destroy everything and won't stop until he sees everything plain white. He's blind. He's furious... and nobody can challenge him..." He shakes his head. "Not even me."
"And... a-and what can we do?" asks Stolen Bag, still standing there. "Or it's... just... it's... we have just to wait?"
"There's something we can do." LaCrowley replies. "We don't have much time, but I want to do something before..."
"What do you want to do right now?" surprisingly, the one who raises his voice is now Iron Pick who turns around. "This has to be some kind of nightmare. Everything falls, monsters rise again, I get kidnapped by a sect of weird creatures, and last but not least... he appears." The father points a hoof to his son. "I don't even know what to say but... the way you stabbed me when you left, son... I thought I would never see you again. I thought you erased me, I erased you, but well... here we are."
He only shakes his head. "You still think everything goes around you." Stone Chisel stands up to him. "Have you ever thought that I'm just another stallion instead of an extension of you? I'm not you. I'm not a part of you. I will never be you. You are just a selfish, broken stallion with a pathetic mindset that doesn't look around when he is in the mirror." The father wants to reply but gets interrupted when Poofy Lantern, the mother, gasps while cleaning her face with a hoof. He closes his mouth, surprised. "And why are you crying, mother? Did you miss me?"
She sighs. Iron Pick now looks at her. "Every day."
"I also missed you when I was in Klugetown. I wanted you to tell me tales of Gusty the Great like when I was a baby filly... but I've never heard anything. Anything from your mouth. When I came back and we did that stupid thing with Stolen Bag, you said something to me? What did you say?"
"I want you to apologize," suddenly interrupts LaCrowley. "That's what I wanted to do before what we need to do. I need you two, parents of Stone Chisel, to apologize to him."
"I don't deserve it," says Poofy Lantern. "I truly want to say sorry but... it's too late. I spent so many years pretending to be blind that I---"
"Is this necessary?" asks Stone Chisel to LaCrowley and then looks at everyone, observing in silence. Trustlight, the third one, who was hiding behind the couple, looks at Chisel for a second and turns around. He doesn't say anything. LaCrowley only replies:
"We need to tie loose ends with you." He blinks and that spark from his eyes comes back again. "It's the best I can do right now."
"Right now?" Iron Pick softens his tone. "Which loose ends are you talking about? Didn't you say something was coming for us? Why would you care for this when we need to do something quickly?"
"I care for him," replies LaCrowley approaching Stone Chisel. "I care for Stone Chisel in the way you never did. What you did to your son is horrifying, and I won't let him go off my hooves without a proper apology from those who conceived him and brought him to this world."
"I agree with my father," surprisingly says Stone Chisel, shaking his head while looking at LaCrowley. "We need to do something, don't we? Tenebris is about to kill all of us... we cannot waste time with this."
Iron Pick's face breaks into pieces and calms himself. Poofy Lantern only closes her eyes and lets a tear roll down one of her cheeks. "I just want to know... I always loved you."
Stone Chisel doesn't even react. "I can't say the same but... I always wished you well."
Iron Pick can't recover from what Stone said seconds ago. He said that they couldn't waste time with that senseless discussion... and he can't believe that actually hurt him a bit. He feels something inside is slowly breaking and leaking blood, is it the essence? His thoughts? "I always thought about you." He, with a serious face and the surprise of both wife and son, continues. "Since you left as a child, I always wondered where were you... all this time."
"For what?" asks Stone Chisel. "To look for me and put me on your business one more time? Repeating the same cycle?"
"Maybe," he replies, but this time being really serious and honest. He squints his eyes and shakes his head. "I don't know what to say."
"Sorry is the word," suddenly says Galloway, breaking the silence from everyone around. "It's not hard to say it, you know?"
"It's not necessary, Gal," interrupts Stone Chisel, raising a hoof to her. "I understood what he said. We don't need to do this now."
LaCrowley approaches him, this time getting nearer his left ear, and whispers: "You know this is the last time."
"It's enough for me," he replies and looks at his parents one more time. "As my father told you, we have to do what we need to do."
Iron Pick bites his lips and doesn't say anything after hearing that...
... Nobody says anything after hearing that. Nobody speaks, or says anything... everything is silent. Silence. Princess Celestia takes a step nearer LaCrowley and asks the question: "Where is this object you've been hiding?"
The pupils get surprised by that question. Cheesecake and Galloway look at each other while Light Eater, the bat pony who is standing behind the griffon, raises an eyebrow. "Which object do you mean?" asks Cheesecake. "Does she mean...? Mr LaCrowley?"
"Wait," interrupts LaCrowley, looking around. His little ones are scared, but nobody stops looking straight at him. They believe in him, do they? They actually believe he can stop this weird beast he talked about. He looks around... nobody can face the ram. It's too late, isn't it?
He finds out there is a baby dragon holding a baby filly. Not any filly, but a baby alicorn. She must be from the Kingdom. "What's going on?" Galloway approaches the wizard. "Which object is she talking about? From what I know, we are not hiding anything."
"I need to do something before I explain what's going on." LaCrowley looks at his pupil, the griffon, and a light blue smoke appears from inside the ground. The soil feels much colder and some of them look at how their legs are being covered by ice.
"Woah!" shouts Stolen Bag, about to pass out. "My legs! MY LEGS!"
"What are you doing?" suddenly shouts Twilight Sparkle looking at the smoke surrounding them. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
The first ones who get frozen quickly by the light blue smoke are all of the young pupils of the Urushiol Forest Community. Fillies, yaks, kirins get completely trapped in ice while Poofy Lantern, Iron Pick, Trustlight, and Stolen Bag are in process of suffering the same destiny, being almost covered in magical ice.
"NO!" shouts Galloway, while Stone Chisel looks at his now frozen parents in silence. Stolen Bag shouted for his life before being frozen to death by the smoke. He sees it. "STOP! NO! YOU CAN'T!"
The princesses and Galloway want LaCrowley to stop... but it's done. All of the pupils and the non-magical creatures, except for Spike, have been frozen by chaos magic. Celestia and Luna look at the light blue ice statues surrounding them everywhere they see, having little creatures trapped with shock inside them. A second of silence, a second of everyone looking at the wizard until somebody stomps his head against the ground.
Grapefruit Slice makes him fall and crash his head with her magic. "Do you realize what you have just done? You froze innocent pupils who didn't deserve to die! What in the hell are you doing?"
"My parents..." Stone Chisel whispers. "My parents. Trustlight, that partner of theirs. Stolen Bag too."
"We had no other choice!" shouts LaCrowley while having his head stuck to the ground because of Grapefruit Slice. "It hurts! It hurts, Grapefruit, but I had to! What would you do in my position? Spare their innocent lives quickly or sacrifice them to the ram?"
Celestia glows her horn against the wizard. "But you couldn't..."
"I ask the same question to you, princesses. Would you spare them from the suffering or take them to the genocide?" He shouts while Cheesecake cries. "To the horror itself? To the end? It's no time to save lives... it's time to fix the world. No matter who is frozen right now, if we don't look for the object, we are all dead and we can't fix this."
"WHICH OBJECT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" Cheesecake's scream deafens every pony around, and at the same time Flurry Heart starts crying. "WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN HIDING FROM US?"
Grapefruit Slice stops using her magic and LaCrowley rises up again, to be grabbed by the neck by Galloway the Griffon. "Tell me this is not true," she also says angrily. "You didn't do this. You didn't freeze them to death. You didn't hide anything. You are not this. You are not what I've just seen."
LaCrowley uses his magic to open Galloway's claws and releases himself from the griffon. "Galloway... It's not me. I didn't want to but we had no choice. I won't let them see Tenebris break the forest."
"But... b-but... I didn't choose!"
"Please." LaCrowley looks at Cheesecake, who is still frowning and looking at him with anger. "I know why you are angry and I cannot apologize for what I've done..." he takes a long breath. "Yes. I've been hiding all of you something under the place where I rest every night."
"And what is it?" asks Light Eater. "Explain."
"Further," adds an angry Cheesecake.
LaCrowley looks at Stone Chisel one more time before he starts again: "Firstly... Cheesecake, I need you to transport right here... the zebra which comes every week to sell incense for the house."
The angry pony moves her neck. "Why?"
"Do it."
"But why? Why the ze-?"
"Just do it, Cheesecake!" he shouts at her. Cheesecake, in silence, squints her eyes and clenches her teeth while opening a portal. A second later, a big old zebra with a white mohawk and a golden nose piercing gets through it. "Zebra."
She recognizes at LaCrowley and looks at everypony around, but shakes her head. "Why would you make a portal at this time of the day, already knowing I can't make peace and harmony stay?"
"Yes, you can," replies LaCrowley. "We need you to pray on the flower."
Twilight and her friends look at each other. Cheesecake, Galloway, and Light Eater observe him in silence. The zebra snorts. "I already did it before... a day ago."
"We need your help again."
"A flower?" Twilight Sparkle speaks aloud. "So I was right? The Crimson Flower?"
"The crimson what?" asks Galloway. "What's that?"
"It's no time to talk about that," suddenly interrupts LaCrowley. "Yes, I have the Crimson Flower of Zerbuhmahs, but we are on the verge of the end. We don't have much time."
"It's one of the twelve ancient objects of space and time from prehistorical Equestria," says Celestia, confronting the wizard. "All this time I thought it was taken care of by the ancient zebra tribes, but turns out you took it and hid it from them."
The pupils of LaCrowley get shocked after hearing this. Stone Chisel feels another lump in his throat while looking at all of the statues of ice. How could he? Did he really steal an ancient magical relic from a tribe? Why? "And paying a zebra to pray on it," adds Luna. "Stealing, hiding, bribing... It's immoral and illegal."
The zebra gets scared but doesn't care when she looks around... It's the end. LaCrowley doesn't say anything after hearing that. "No matter what you do, LaCrowley..." The zebra speaks again. "The flower dislikes you, and harshly. You are not able to use it with your magic, you will turn everything worse than tragic."
"That's why the Princesses are here. Their magic can control it."
Everyone looks at the princesses except for Stone Chisel, who is still observing the frozen statues of his parents and his partner Stolen Bag. "Using the Crimson Flower means irreversible consequences that cannot be modified, and nobody will ever be the same after being blinded by its bright."
The wizard only nods his head. "I already know." He looks at his shocked assistant. "Cheesecake, go to the room where I rest and break the wooden floor. You'll find a box in the ground. That's what we need right now." He turns around and looks at the princesses. "Celestia and Luna."
The Princess of the Sun spreads her wings in silence. "If it wasn't for the monster ram and his storm of anger right now, wizard of chaos, I'd have used the powers of the aforementioned flower to erase the roots of your illegal magic..." she shakes her head. "Everything... everything that has happened... was directly and indirectly caused by the use of chaos itself..." and finally squints her eyes at him. "And this means... you're also not innocent."
The silent princesses prepare to walk into the barely seen wooden house in the middle of the dark before telling Twilight Sparkle and her friends to stay. "Wait, princess... what if something happens inside the house?" asks Rainbow Dash.
"Everything can happen everywhere at this time," replies Luna. "Stay in case something happens outside." She looks at LaCrowley for a second and begins to walk along with her sister and the mysterious zebra, passing by several small blocks of ice. However, Cheesecake doesn't move from her place while approaching her mentor and master.
LaCrowley finds out: "You need to go with them."
"How long have you been hiding this flower from us?"
Galloway and Light Eater also approach their master in shock. He has been hiding secrets from them for a long, long time. He only shakes his head and closes his eyes. Grapefruit Slice, next to them, only looks at him with disgust. "I've been hiding it for a long time... even before the three of you were born."
Cheesecake gasps and Galloway turns around in silence. Light Eater is the only one who stays: "You told us you never kept secrets from us. Several times. I... I still can't believe you... did that. We trusted you... everything that came out of you... we believed it was the truth." He looks at the young pupils frozen in ice. "All of them believed that... you know? They loved you."
Cheesecake slowly flies to the house using her magic and Princess Celestia stops for a second after hearing Light Eater's words, only to keep moving. The bat pony, a pupil of LaCrowley, only shakes his head. "I spared them."
"In this way? Freezing them to death?" shouts Galloway, slowly turning her neck back. "Why didn't you send them to the chaos refugee you were into minutes ago?"
LaCrowley nods his head, looking at Grapefruit Slice. "Tenebris would have found them quickly. He has the ability to find those places easily with his powers."
"And you knew about this?" Light Eater turns around to look at Stone Chisel. "Did he ever tell you something?"
Chisel turns around to look at his angry partners, who he used to tag as friends. He is still shocked by seeing his parents trapped in a block of ice, but slowly takes a breath and accepts his fate: "I found out the same day you found it."
Galloway looks at Grapefruit Slice now. "And you are Grapefruit Slice, isn't it? The one who left when we arrived and grew--?"
- - - - - - - - -
The griffon wants to finish her sentence, but suddenly cold wind gusts begin to penetrate the skins of everyone. The black sky begins to show light through blinding lightning and the deafening sounds of a thunderstorm. The elements of Harmony begin to glow her horns while Spike holds a crying Flurry Heart in his hands: "What should I do?" he shouts to Twilight.
LaCrowley looks at the baby one more time. He didn't have the guts to freeze it along with the dragon that is holding her, but the thunderstorm is making him change his mind. He doesn't want to have the thought of freezing a baby alicorn to death driving his mind mad... but he has no other choice. He said it. He tries to focus his mind on what he is going to do with both of them, but the ground starts shaking uncontrollably and everybody starts to tremble. "HE IS COMING!" he shouts.
Galloway can't even fly naturally because of the earthquakes and tries to make a chaos magic shield while both Stone Chisel and Light Eater find out the frozen are falling to the ground and breaking into pieces. He looks at how his parents fall onto the ground. They are broken. Stolen Bag. Cozy Glow's father. The young pupils.
Cheesecake arrives at the house, throwing away all of the wood that it's falling over her because of the horrible earthquakes. The wind gusts just get worse and worse while lightning strikes over the trees, setting them on fire. Both princesses shield themselves with their own magic while Cheesecake is doing the exact same thing with its illegal power, also taking care of the zebra with it.
She doesn't have to do so much work, due to the wooden floor from the resting place of LaCrowley being violently thrown away to the skies by the wind and the earthquakes. She easily finds a hole hidden in the ground and clenches her teeth while trying to approach it. "NOT TODAY!"
She tries to make a bigger hole so she can see where is the object his master was referring to.
His master... his master hid secrets from her. She told him everything... everything and thought he was doing the same. She, Cheesecake. His principal assistant and helper.
Luckily, she gets to the hole in the ground, attached to the cold soil, and takes a look inside. There is a wooden box about to break into pieces because of the earthquake, and what calls her attention is that there is a dark red light coming from inside.
Is that the Crimson Flower of Zerbuhmahs? "I'VE... I'VE..." she shouts, trying to grab the object with her magic. "I'VE GOT..."
"Oh, no!" she hears from inside the broken house. Princess Celestia finds out that a small portion of the ground where Cheesecake is trying to touch the flower is slowly rising to the sky, turning into a tiny plateau. "Oh, no! Not the...! Sister!"
"Oh my..." Cheesecake feels how her body is fastly getting far from the ground while trying to hold the flower, also losing connection with the princesses and the zebra. She begins to look to her left and right trying not to observe how things are going below and looks at how several pieces of the ground are becoming rising platforms. The whole forest is almost on fire and the speed of the grounds rising is only worse. The cold soil. The fire.
Once the portions of the ground start rising and turn into plateaus, several holes are opened under them, which begin to expulse hot steam and rivers of lava.
The earthquakes turn things much worse, making almost everybody unable to make a single step. The first unfortunate victim falls to her death when the ground under her breaks in half, making her fall into another river of magma. Celestia and Luna are the only witnesses of the zebra's death, who begins to shout in a horrifying way while the hot orange liquid slowly absorbs her.
How can they pray on the flower if there's no prayer?
LaCrowley feels something happened near the house and finds out one of the platforms that is now rising to the dark sky has a shiny red light on its top.
No. It can't be the Flower. "CHEESECAKE!" he shouts, slowly shielding himself with an aura of black magic, and flies away. Unfortunately, another piece of ground rising to the sky hits him in time.
"SPIKE!" can be heard under him. Turns out he is not alone on the new plateau. Spike and the baby alicorn are with him... but there's no time to save lives. He said it.
It's time to fix the world. Spike looks at LaCrowley in silence while trying to look for the baby, but the wizard only leaves the plateau and looks at what's happening under it. Grapefruit Slice and Galloway are flying with their own magic from one side, while Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy holding Pinkie Pie are on the other.
Now he thinks about it. He realizes that clear magic users... can't confront Tenebris' magic. They are only useful for the Crimson Flower right now, and the Princesses are more than enough. He only needs them both. He doesn't need any other clear magic user. He doesn't need the baby dragon and the baby alicorn to suffer what will come for them.
Another wave of light blue smoke appears under LaCrowley's hooves, and Spike the dragon is the first one who finds out. His pupils shrank and he breaks his nails while trying to maintain his body on the plateau: "NOOOO!!!!" he shouts. His last.
He looks at how Flurry Heart gets successfully frozen in less than a second. Then his legs. His hands. His arms.
Him.
Flurry Heart. Spike.
Twilight Sparkle finds out her hooves are getting covered by ice. "NO!" she shouts, finding out. "YOU DIDN'T! NO!"
Fluttershy also finds out she is turning into an ice block and gets so scared that stops flying and falls to the ground. Pinkie Pie does the same.
Both of them look at how Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack have already turned into ice being melted by gigantic rivers of lava. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, already frozen, crash in the air and touch the lava together.
Twilight Sparkle, trying to do something with her last breath, expulses a magical beam from her horn. The last one. "You didn't do this!" she shouts, with her pale face covered by ice. "You didn't! You didn't..."
LaCrowley knows what he has done, but there's no way back. He looks at the purple beam that came out from Twilight Sparkle coming for him, but he uses his own magic to change its direction, back to where it came from. The beam lands on Twilight Sparkle inside an ice block, exploding and breaking her into pieces. Seconds later, frozen Spike falls from the plateau.
Flurry Heart's ice statue is the only object standing on the rising ground, but the wizard of chaos can't even look at it. It makes him sick. He only turns his head to look at the shiny red light under him. "CHEESECAKE!" he shouts, flying like a missile to her.
Grapefruit Slice and Galloway arrive at the top at the wrong time. Both of them look at the frozen baby on it. "No," Galloway gasps. "NO!" She scratches the ground with her claws. "He can't do this! He didn't do this! He is possessed! He is possessed! He has to!"
"Focus!" shouts Grapefruit Slice, looking at her. "What he did right here is unforgivable and horrendous... but we have to look for the others who may be still struggling... there's no time! There's no..." She looks at the frozen baby one more time with the griffon and vomits. She looks at the rivers of lava that have been expanding on all of the forests and thinks about something: "Where's... Where's Stone Chisel?"
"It's almost... It's almost done..." Light Eater tries to heal himself after exposing part of his body to pretty hot lava. Stone Chisel is under him, and both are surrounded by hot liquid and hellish warmth, making them feel they are melting without even touching it. "I... I told you I owed you one."
"It was not necessary, Light Eater," he shouts while gasping. "Why did you do it?"
"I told you I owed you one," he says, curing two of his burnt legs with his magic. He can't stop gasping due to the pain he still feels while healing his skin and meat. "Last time we saw each other... and talked to each other a long time ago... you saved me from being... smashed by a tree trunk... and I told you at that... time if you saved my life, I had to save yours..."
The lava is slowly approaching them. "Right now?" Stone Chisel asks, closing his eyes. "It's too late, Light. We are about to turn into..."
"Not if I can fly and get you out of here... just wait..." The wind gusts only get worse while the earthquakes slowly calm down but keep moving.
Stone Chisel looks at the new platforms surrounding them in what was the Urushiol Forest. All of the trees are on fire while several images and intrusive thoughts are beating up his brain uncontrollably.
The statues of his parents. Ice being broken. Lava. Darkness.
"I will have to kill you, Stone Chisel." His mentor Black Magic LaCrowley whispered those words near his ear, his sane ear... and has been stabbing his soul since the moment that came out of his mouth.
Does he need to die? Is this the moment? "Wait, Light... wait..." The shadow of a griffon covers them both and they are taken from the hot ground by a black magic aura. "Galloway..." whispers Stone Chisel.
"I've got you!" shouts Grapefruit Slice. "Hold on!"
"We have already lost the youngsters and the LaCrowley we knew... No shit I'm going to lose you two," shouts Galloway, healing Light Eater's skin completely. She also sees that Stone Chisel has an almost severed, infected ear. She quickly heals it and creates the upper part of it that was left but doesn't add the infamous earring Stone Chisel had. "LaCrowley's absolutely lost. I... I don't know what's going on. What happened to your ear?"
He shakes his head, looking at the rising plateaus still moving. "I don't even remember."
She rolls her eyes. "Hell no. Gosh, I haven't seen you for a long time, Chisel... I'm not going to lose you quickly."
Chisel only sighs. "Yeah. Good morning too, Gal."
She gets angrier. "I'm being serious! Don't be stupid!"
It's understandable. She had to get angry. He finds out they are slowly approaching somepony else.
"CHEESECAKE!" LaCrowley fastly lands on the rising platorm with the Flower. The wooden box that held the object doesn't even exist anymore, and his assistant is holding and protecting a big crimson flower with a white light on its inside, covering it with all of her hooves. "CHEESE-"
However, LaCrowley finds out that Cheesecake was not the only one on that plateau. She was protecting the flower from something else. Two small rams with dark blue fur are standing on the other side of the ground and don't say anything. They giggle at the Wizard of Chaos. "Hehehehehe!!!"
"Tenebris?" only dares to say LaCrowley, slowly stretching his boney back and loin. He moves nearer Cheesecake to protect her and the flower. The two little rams stop laughing when they hear that name, and get prepared to fight.
"Tenebris is the name of our ancestor... We are Mors and San---!" The wizard didn't even let them finish their sentence. He needed to get rid of them quickly. The little rams standing on the same plateau as the Crimson Flower is dangerous. He has to do something horrible that must hurt them, and may give him time for him and Cheesecake to fly away.
He knows what to do.
"RAAAAGHH!" LaCrowley gets surprised at how the little rams shout after skinning them alive with his own magic. He fastly takes their skin with dark blue fur off them in less than a second and throws them away from the plateau. Cheesecake only opens her mouth in shock.
At the same time, two other creatures touch the top of the plateau: Celestia and Luna. The Princess of the Moon glows her horn while looking at the wizard. "What you did was..."
"They will recover their skins in less than ten seconds with Tenebris' magic." LaCrowley interrupts. "Where's the zebra?"
The sisters look at each other. "The zebra... the zebra's dead."
Cheesecake and LaCrowley's pupils shrink. "What?" shouts LaCrowley. "How? How did...?"
"She fell into a river of lava."
"And you didn't save her?" shouts LaCrowley.
"It was too late!" shouts Princess Luna, confronting the wizard. "Her body was already burning and melting when we saw her. We couldn't do anything to stop it."
At that moment, the ground stopped rising and everything felt immobile. LaCrowley turns around and finds out there are two rams on the other side of the plateau again, but this time... they are bigger, and one of them has white fur instead of dark blue. Celestia and Luna get prepared to fight. Tenebris, the dark blue ram... speaks. "I will not let you talk this ti-"
SNAP! Both of the ram's necks are cracked and their heads turn back before getting thrown away by LaCrowley's magic. He looks at Cheesecake and the Princesses before giving one of his last orders: "Run." The princesses spread their wings and start flying, but once Cheesecake prepares to leave the plateau, LaCrowley grabs the Crimson Flower with his own magic. "I'm sorry, Cheesecake. I left you alone with a pretty hard task... let me take charge of it."
"LaCrow--!" she shouts but the wizard fastly flies away from the plateau holding the flower with his own magic. Cheesecake starts to follow him. "MR. LACROWLEY!"
He is shocked. The zebra's dead. What can he do?
Cheesecake is still following him until something crashes against her. It's a young, small female ram with white fur who crashes her against one of the walls of the platform where she was standing. Cheesecake tries to choke her using magic, but the young ram breaks one of her legs. "I, Risu, will take charge of you."
"LACROWLEY!" she shouts, but he can't hear her anymore.
He is shocked. The zebra's dead. What can he do? He is shocked. The zebra's dead. What can he do? He is shocked. The zebra's dead. What can he do?
He can't stop thinking about that. He needs time to think. Does he know another zebra? Does that zebra know the Prayer of Destiny he or she has to recite to activate the Flower's magic?
He doesn't have much time to think about it. No matter what he does, Tenebris is unstoppable... and looks like he is not the only one around. He resurrected his tribe. Brought them back. He needs to weaken him so he can think of a plan B... but how?
He stops flying and his hooves start shaking... he knows a way...
He knows how... "Stone Chisel," he whispers, before looking at Galloway and Grapefruit Slice flying in the air. Light Eater is flying with them and there is somepony else resting over Galloway's loin.
It's him. He holds the Flower under his skinny belly, fastly flies to them, and stops in front of Grapefruit Slice. However, once Galloway sees him, she grabs his head with one of her feet. "You have to be possessed! You froze a baby!"
"What?" say both Light Eater and Stone Chisel in shock.
LaCrowley releases himself one more time from Galloway's claws with his own magic. "I know. I didn't want to... but there's no time left. Tenebris has arrived..." he sighs. "... and I need Stone Chisel."
Goosebumps touch the skin of the earth pony burglar. "Only Stone Chisel?" asks Galloway. "Why? Aren't you looking at three of your other pupils here?"
"I need him now. We have a deal." He looks at Grapefruit Slice. "The two of us can save time for you. We know how to weaken Tenebris."
Celestia and Luna also appear behind the wizard. "Where are...? Where is Twilight Sparkle? Where is--?"
"We don't have time for that!" LaCrowley shouts, making the princesses boil in their own anger. "Tenebris may be here in a second! Come with me, Stone--!"
Another earthquake starts breaking the land, but this time it feels worse than the previous ones. A monstrous movement that doesn't let anybody move from their position. Grapefruit Slice is the first one that finds out there is something merging from the gigantic hot river under them. "LOOK OUT!" she shouts, looking at a gigantic hand of lava coming right to them. The Princesses and Grapefruit Slice fly away while LaCrowley does the same, holding the Flower and also Stone Chisel with his magic. However, he does not do the same with Light Eater and Galloway. He flies away and leaves them alone.
The griffon stays frozen and in shock looking at the enormous boiling hand of lava approaching her. "GALLOWAY!" shouts Light Eater, about to run, but the hand of lava moves faster than they thought and grabs them both in time. The Princesses and Grapefruit Slice are witnesses of it.
"NOOOOO!!" shouts Grapefruit Slice. Stone Chisel looks at everything from above while getting into another place with LaCrowley and the flower.
He caused this. He did it. It's his fault.
His eyes get watered.
The hand managed to grab Galloway's whole body, making her have a horrible death, being melted and destroyed on its inside. Light Eater, on the other side, could break free from the hand, with half of his whole body being completely burnt. He, almost unconscious, falls into the ground invaded by the river. Grapefruit Slice tries to save him with her magic but it's attacked in time by a flying Risu. The princesses try to do the same but they run away when they see two small rams trying to eat them.
Light Eater falls into the river of lava and he can't think anymore. "No! NO! Light Eater!" Stone Chisel shouts. "NO!"
LaCrowley looks below him as Stone Chisel lands on a plateau along with his old pupil and the Crimson Flower. He doesn't know what to say while shaking his head. He realizes what has just happened. "Galloway. Light Eater. I could have saved them," he says. "I didn't see them."
"They would have died for you," slowly replies the hurt stallion. He doesn't know what to do and only looks at the bright light coming from the flower. "How did you not see them both?"
"How didn't I..." whispers LaCrowley. "I didn't see them, I swear."
"They were with you... but, as you said," he frowns with anger. "We don't have time to save lives, didn't you say that?" He stands up. "And what are you going to do right now? It's time to die?"
The hand is slowly rising from the river and it is revealed that it comes from a big monster of lava. He shouts something that it's barely understandable, something that LaCrowley repeats: "I... am... Maior."
"A younger relative of Tenebris," whispers Stone Chisel. "I caused this... I created him."
"You didn't create anything," replies the wizard, shaking his head. "You didn't do anything wrong. You wanted to solve it."
"Everybody died because of me. I am a mistake."
"You are not... you did your best, didn't you."
Chisel only shakes his head. "The best thing I did since I set free that monster was... saving the baby... and you froze her? Did you really do it?"
LaCrowley bites his lips. "I don't want to remember that."
"And what are you waiting for? Aren't we here because you need to kill me? To save time? To weaken Tenebris?"
A shout heard from under the plateau interrupts the conversation. LaCrowley fastly looks below while holding the flower and gasps when he finds out. He levitates and moves Cheesecake using his own magic and puts her at the top. Her whole body is filled with stitches and fixes two of her broken hooves herself. "What happened?" asks the wizard.
"Thanks for helping me," she sarcastically answers. "One of the rams, named Risu, attacked me when we left the ground. She was about to kill me until she saw Grapefruit Slice."
LaCrowley looks at the battle again. Celestia and Luna are still fighting against Mors and Sanguis, while Grapefruit Slice is still attacking Risu on the ground. Maior, now turned into a big monster of lava, is trying to attack the princesses too. Tenebris and Rushkwa... haven't appeared yet. Where are they? "I need you to do one more favor, Cheesecake."
"The last one?" she asks. "After everything that has happened? I've heard Grapefruit Slice's shout, Galloway's suffering. I will never forget it." Her eyes start watering.
"I've heard it too," replies LaCrowley while looking at Stone Chisel. "I promise you it will be the last one. Bring Princess Celestia to me. We have to protect her."
"What about Luna?" she asks. The wizard shakes his head.
"She's the second one. If Celestia's alive... she's not so important..." he thinks about what he has just said.
"No," she says. "Luna has..."
"Bring her to me." LaCrowley interrupts. Stone Chisel is still looking at the battle. "Bring them both."
Cheesecake sighs and stands on the edge of the plateau. "You can do it too, you know?" She looks at the princesses fighting in the air and fastly wraps them both in a dark magic aura. Mors and Sanguis, their opponents, get confused for one second and begin to celebrate. They really think Tenebris has done it. Cheesecake fastly takes them to their destiny, landing quickly on the plateau. Luna trips over while trying to step on it but Celestia grabs her in time. "What?" asks the Princess of the Sun.
Both LaCrowley and Stone Chisel don't say anything. Cheesecake turns around to look at her master and mentor. "I'll go and help Grapefruit Slice." Then, she jumps and flies away with a chaos magic aura. LaCrowley looks at her, maybe for the last time, and touches the flower. The wizard looks at the princesses but discovers there is something being opened above them.
A window into reality. Tenebris and Rushkwa are observing them while standing on another side. A plain white existence. "We've been thinking and watching everything from another side." Celestia and Luna prepare to fight while LaCrowley hides the flower behind him.
"Fair battle, isn't it, princesses?" Rushkwa is the first one who touches the risen ground. "Maior's idea of turning into a giant of magma was not so bad after all."
"However... what I've been watching the most is something else." Tenebris now touches the ground, getting out from the window between realities. "Looks like Discord left some... ducklings." He looks at LaCrowley.
Rushkwa's hooves suddenly turn into tentacles that trap the Princesses' and LaCrowley's hooves, making them unable to move. A snake comes out of her mouth, which also covers both princesses' horns. Now they can't perform magic. Stone Chisel, sitting in a corner and watching Cheesecake and Grapefruit Slice fighting against Risu, doesn't get caught by it and both he and Rushkwa look at each other. "Shall I catch the useless one?"
Useless one. Tenebris laughs while Stone Chisel doesn't even frown. "Why not? He was my personal jester at one time. I want all of the pieces to match."
"You are a fucking idiot," is the only thing that Stone Chisel says while one of his hooves gets surrounded by the tentacles.
"I missed you too," Tenebris replies. "All this time I thought you were dead... and I missed treating you as a stump... but turns out..." he slowly changes his sight to LaCrowley's eyes. "You replaced me... and came across someone else after me."
"I've known him for years... even before I met you."
"And what about the red stone you are hiding from us? Since when did you know it? What is that?"
LaCrowley, Stone Chisel, and the princesses look at each other. "What is it? Don't you know your destiny has been already sealed? Your lives have been already finished? What is the sense of hiding things from us?"
"And why do you care so much about it? It's just a gem of value I love," says LaCrowley. "My mother gave it to me a long time ago. Why don't you kill us already?"
Tenebris squints his eyes and a deafening shout is heard. The lava monster which is now Maior begins to growl and successfully smashes a weakened Cheesecake, destroying her against the ground. Grapefruit Slice is nowhere to be seen. "You are right... Mors! Sanguis!"
The little rams appear instantly over Celestia's loin, with new skins. They only give LaCrowley a cruel look before turning their heads to Tenebris and Rushkwa. "What do you want to do?" he asks her soulmate.
"Mors, Sanguis... I want you to do me one favor while I... fulfill my desires." Rushkwa chuckles. "Take the red gem behind the old one there... and throw it to the lava."
Both rams nod their heads before asking for something else: "Can we take charge of the old one? He was the one who skinned us alive."
LaCrowley and Stone Chisel look at each other one last time, and he points with his head at Stone's trapped hoof. "I'll cut it and then you fall."
He meant it. He knows what he's talking about.
"Shut up!" shouts Mors while Sanguis grabs the Flower with his own magic. Stone Chisel looks behind him one last time and observes his mentor again. "Shut up."
"Three."
LaCrowley begins the counter.
Stone Chisel's heart begins to beat faster and faster. He unconsciously accepts the deal. He has to do it. There's no other chance.
Sanguis, holding the Flower, squints his eyes. "What did you say?"
Heart beating. The faster he's ever felt it. Stone Chisel's pupils shrink.
"Two."
The princesses turn around. Mors also looks at him. Tenebris and Rushkwa approach the old wizard.
Stone Chisel looks at what's below him. There are some rocks burning between the risen plateau and the river of lava.
Is it his destiny? It has to be. He is the main cause of all this.
What if he can solve it? Can he?
"One."
Tenebris shakes his head, chuckling. "Which foolish thing do you have under your nose, old pony?"
Stone Chisel squints his eyes, about to vomit.
"Zero."
SHREEP!
Stone Chisel's trapped leg gets cut in half and the burglar begins his own spectacle. He's in a freefall. He falls from the plateau. Nobody does anything. The rams look at each other. "Suicide? That was your plan all along?"
The rams begin to laugh out loud while Stone Chisel is falling to his own death. The air is breaking his bones, and the pain from his amputated leg is making him want to vomit. Everything feels hotter...
... and he thought Flash Sentry was an asshole for sacrificing himself for the princesses instead of saving his own life.
How stupid is Stone Chisel? Maybe Flash was right.
The rocks are near. It feels... the bones... crashing...
CRACK!The sound felt horrible. Sounded gross. LaCrowley sheds a small, almost visible tear while clenching his teeth. The rams can't stop laughing while Mors and Sanguis look at the burglar's body being burnt by the hot rocks and the river of lava. Almost all of his bones are broken and blood is coming from everywhere. His sight is lost.
He's dead.
Risu, who was attacking a nearly dead Grapefruit Slice on another plateau, looks at his body and laughs at him.
Maior, the lava monster, laughs at him.
Nothing changes... Mors and Sanguis grab the Flower with their magic and fly away together.
Tenebris and Rushkwa also laugh. That was the most pathetic thing they have ever seen... what a pathetic death... but then... something else happens.
Rushkwa's pupils shrink when he feels something itching on her inside. It's more than a feeling. It's a loss. Tenebris feels the exact same thing seconds later. They slowly turn their heads to look at each other.
LaCrowley was right. The books he read were right. He looks at it when he sees their faces.
The Involuntary Union was real all this time.
What is going on?
The snake that trapped the Princesses' horns magically fades away, and the strength of Rushkwa's tentacles is slowly getting loosened. Mors and Sanguis, not knowing what's happening, fly by the river of lava and let the flower go. It's falling.
It's time.
"No." Tenebris whispers while looking at her soulmate. He doesn't know what to say. That itch doesn't go away... and he doesn't know why. This... this means...
Tenebris said Rushkwa's father proved that thing was fake. The Involuntary one. Was Rushkwa's father wrong? All this time? "My father..."
"No."
She clenches her teeth with strength. "I... told you!"
The plateau suddenly breaks in half. Tenebris and Rushkwa stay on one side while the Princesses and LaCrowley are on the other one. The tentacles that were trapping them disappear and the wizard goes to the rescue.
The flower must not touch the lava. It must not be destroyed. He flies for it. It can't be outside of his hooves. The little bastards turn around and try to attack him, but he already knows what to do. He gets prepared for another horrifying thing to happen. He will skin them alive.
"Oh..." Pain is felt in his belly. He turns around and finds out a spear has gone through him. The red spear comes from one of the big rams' mouths. He's bleeding... Red. When was the last time he bled? "No." He tries to get the spear off him, the flower can't fall... but the power of the rams is stronger than him. He feels he is actually coming back. "NO!"
The princesses try to fly away before they are attacked by Rushkwa. However, Princess Luna tries to stab the female ram with her own horn, but she successfully bites her loin and traps the mare. Celestia doesn't look back and desperately flies for the falling flower. Tenebris turns one of his hooves into a dagger and stabs Luna on her neck.
No.
It's too late. The flower is about to touch the river. Mors and Sanguis turn around. The white light from inside the object gets much brighter. "The flower..." whispers LaCrowley while another spear breaks through his loin. "The flower..."
Time stops. Everything gets silent when the flower gets in touch with the river of lava. Particles stop moving. The ground platforms stop rising. Wind stops. Fire stops. Celestia blinks.
Tenebris clenches his teeth, realizing something has happened. The Crimson Flower turns white... it's the cause of a blinding, deafening explosion.
Huge waves of cold, white, and red fog cover every living creature near the Flower. The object is melting. The explosion suddenly gets worse... and nobody can't even see anything. Everything is turning white.
Celestia and LaCrowley feel how the fog is slowly eating their skins. Celestia closes her eyes until she doesn't feel anything else.
There's complete silence...
...but feels there's nothing around her.
Nothing.
"Luna?" she asks in a low tone. "Where are you?"