Red.
This was all that Twilight could see through the windows or the cracks in the walls. The clouds and the atmosphere were of an orange-crimson, with the only exception being the slightly darker hue of that same color illuminating the landscape as far as the eye could see. She couldn’t see the state of the sun nor moon through her small hole in the wall. But she could guess the sun grew brighter and hotter by the minute.
Dashing at the very top of the spiral staircase leading to the bed chambers, she was stopped by a finely decorated pair of heavy double doors—its design befitting for Royalty. Golden metallic arches resembling shapes similar to that of ponytails; painted carved wood, with figurines of pony heads and rearing stallions.
The door handles were welded shut via magic, preventing any conventional entry from the outside. Or rather it should be said that the handles were melted shut, as the physical appearance did not resemble a handle at all but rather an amalgamated mass of molten metal that had stuck like wet clay.
Twilight groaned in agonizing frustration, the burning coals in her lungs painfully stabbing her with each inhale of hot air she took. Breathing was a challenge, and coughing was so painful she would be physically incapable of moving for a short while in doing so.
Taking a breather to recover her stamina, Twilight knew of another way in. But knowing how physically and mentally draining what she was about to do was going to be, she allowed herself to breathe and rest for a few precious moments.
In this brief respite, her mind ruminated. Thinking back onto the encounter with Nightmare Moon, her body quaked and her eyes stung with tears, stomach-churning nauseously against her—much to her dismay as she was threatened with losing her stomach’s contents amidst the already mind-numbing panic attack that she was experiencing at that particular moment.
She thought back onto the Elements of Harmony. How they were nothing more but shattered fragments of stone, sitting at the bottom of ruined castle miles away. How they briefly powered up for a moment, giving Twilight an elated premonition of hope. Hope that she would succeed against Nightmare Moon.
Only for them to pathetically stop and to be effortlessly destroyed.
It plagued Twilight's mind without end. How could this be the best line of defense that Celestia had? They didn't seem to do anything! In her pragmatic mind, Twilight had every chance to succeed. the math was just right there, and it was literally staring them both in the face at one point.
And yet, here she stood. About to Confront the mare who is tearing the world apart now.
Twilight rocked back and forth, huddled against a wall. She felt the urge to cry again but fought against it. A gravelly voice mumbled aloud to herself.
"It wasn’t my fault! I tried to do everything! I had no other choice! I had no other choice!"
It was difficult to assuage oneself with reassuring words if one struggles to believe in them. Even if she did so, did that really justify what had happened? Was all of this just a byproduct of her actions? Was this the ultimate consequence of her failure? To see all that was normal and right being reduced to ashes?
Twilight chose not to delve into that particular mental rabbit hole, to preserve long-term mental sanity if nothing else.
But she couldn’t rest for long. Twilight glanced at the door handles tentatively. Seeing no other alternative, she mentally steeled herself for what was about to happen next. She knew what she was doing was going to be exerting at the very least
As for the not-so-successful outcomes that could happen, Twilight again chose not to delve into those thoughts.
Closing her eyes, she felt a pressure in her head growing tighter and heavier, as she preempted a simple teleportation spell. It took a bit of effort to power through the painful throbbing, but she felt the spell nearing its completion.
And with a flash, everything went white.
A narrow beam of arcane energy bulleted past an airborne Nightmare Moon, narrowly avoiding her as she tucked in her right wing to roll away to the side.
She unfurled again and banked around above the open roof of the Castle—blasted open by a volley of explosive projectiles from Twilight.
The new alicorn was still blasting anti-air fire onto the Nightmare above her, rapid-firing projectiles that packed far more destructive potential than Nightmare Moon had anticipated. The latter had no opening for an attack, and could only continue to dodge her foe's projectiles.
One stray shot had missed, effortlessly piercing through a thick trunk of an everfree tree just behind her, leaving a unicorn-sized hole on both sides where it had struck.
It would take a lot of magical protection to shield one from a blast like that and emerge unharmed, too much so to do it consistently throughout the fight.
Nightmare Moon immediately accessed after the initial shock of her foe's transformation that it would be a struggle to continue shielding against her attacks.
So she instead changed her tactics to ‘booming and zooming’ physical attacks instead; strike hard and fast in a dive, then retreat and evade in a steep climb upward.
Batter her stamina and resolve down to the point where she collapses of exertion. It was working to some extent. She would attack with such temerity that Twilight barely had enough time to raise a magical shield in defense.
The latter was smart enough to anticipate her opponent's dives to defend against it, but she couldn't spend her energy like this forever. As for Nightmare Moon, she could only continue to chip away the outer defenses of Twilight's magic.
It was starting to take a toll on Twilight though.
Even with such power flowing through her still, Nightmare anticipated that her opponent was a novice at pacing herself in combat. It would only be a matter of time until she collapsed. She had already dove down numerous times, the blasts of Twilight’s horn narrowly missing her target with each dive.
Yet Twilight was getting more accurate with each pass, despite the relentless tackles she took against the shield. She avoided some of the initial dives, but both opponents found it being more and more difficult to evade each other after each dive. Nightmare Moon especially had to switch her tactics soon.
The latter knew that she had the advantage in this battle, and she vowed to maintain it. As long as she remained airborne and off the ground from where Twilight was, she could evade her attacks with relative ease and perhaps tire her out.
Then she could go for the final strike. And she was going to ensure she wouldn’t get back up.
This one pony had already proved to be quite a nuisance to her plans since she had returned to Equestria, and now she was fighting her in a pitched altercation as an Alicorn. And was still holding her own.
This achieved nothing but wasted time for her, and she needed to end this fight sooner rather than later. In her mind, this dance had gone on long enough.
First the elements, then the alicorn, then she could deal with Celestia. She could draw this fight out slowly to secure her win if she had to, but she didn’t want to.
She had already wasted enough time destroying the elements, and she did not want to waste anymore fighting against another Alicorn.
Nightmare Moon circled above twilight erratically, occasionally banking and pitching to avoid incoming arcane projectiles. In her initial attacks, Twilight had shown blind rage in her strikes and spells—accentuating raw power at the expense of her stamina and brevity of performing said spells.
But as time passed and when Twilight learned out that her opponent wasn't going to throw away her altitude advantage, she composed herself.
The projectiles were launched at a more steady pace, and she was finally starting to get into the groove of channeling combat magic for the first time in her life.
Her attacks were now limited to nothing but ranged magical arrows, but they were far less demanding of her constitution in comparison to her previous attacks.
She opted instead to fight a battle of wills and attrition, rather than a metaphysical brawl. In this brief change of strategy, Twilight threw the idea of a peaceful solution out the window entirely.
There would be no negotiated peace.
And even if she wanted to, how could she? The elements were destroyed. Celestia wasn't here. and Twilight wasn't herself. In her wrath, she thought of no other solution but to fight.
Fight, fight, fight, her mind ruminates and repeats. She showed you no quarter, so give none in return!
Nightmare Moon banked upward, leading with a series of barrel rolls as her wings collapsed to the sides. Her form would’ve looked majestically sanguine with the moon overshadowing the figure behind it—if it weren’t for the fact they were trying to incapacitate each other so viciously.
Nightmare Moon approached the zenith of her ascension, unfurling and levitating her in place as the moon shone down its darkened limelight and glazed the weary trees of the Everfree. There, both adversaries took a small moment of respite.
Twilight was sweating and panting, her knees buckling as she struggled to maintain the weight of a sudden power surge that encompassed her horn. Nightmare Moon however was cool and collected, merely staring down upon her opponent like she was about to squish an ant.
They weren’t too far away from each other, and Twilight could make out her face. A sneer formed on Nightmare's features, her acrid slitted eyes piercing through Twilight’s soul.
They looked so mocking. Condescending.
And oh, how Twilight loathed them.
The horn flared once more, threatening to send Twilight collapsing to the ground. The temptation for retribution against Nightmare Moon was taking hold of her; nearsightedness clouded her judgment and perception. She felt her abdomen quake with anticipation and power, the muscles in her legs burning as they stood stiff and upright. her stomach violently churned against her will.
Every ounce of mental and physical focus was poured onto the new spell that Twilight was conjuring. Rage blinded her, in every sense of the word. But yet, it soothed her. It made her driven to continue. like a presence was silently encouraging her to keep going.
Nightmare Moon grimaced with sealed lips as she could see the Alicorn powering up yet another spell. She assumed she would’ve been spent by now.
Doesn't matter. Just wait for an opening.
Nightmare Moon stayed floating in the air, her mind readying to dodge whatever attack she has planned.
Twilight on the other hoof was still over-encumbered with righteous rage, fabricated out of a pretense of dispensing justice. By this point of her spell, an orb of sickly violet light began to manifest at her horn.
Draining her stamina more and more with each passing second, it grew and festered with the same belligerent determination that the wielder possessed. Arcs of arcane lightning crackled and snapped all along the surface of the glowing orb, overcharged with such energy to the brink of a serious magical overburn.
Groaning, stutter-stepping from side to side, sweating profusely along her brow as she closed her eyes to concentrate; Twilight was on the verge of collapse.
Nightmare Moon, however, looked downward with caution. She could attack now, but… If she was right, a spell-like that of Twilight’s would be slow enough to get out of the way, but just how powerful of a blast would it wield upon impact? That remained to be seen, and she still hadn’t even released the spell yet.
By this point, it was already bigger than her. Should Nightmare attack now, there would be no telling whether or not the collateral damage of the spell would be enough to seriously damage her.
If Nightmare was going to attack, it would be after Twilight made her move first.
And with a shriek and a stomp of a hoof, the latter’s horn finally released a ball of pure magical devastation; gliding at its target with a very slow speed. The final discharge projected a proportionally small shockwave upon release, causing twilight to recoil backward a few steps.
Just as Nightmare predicted, the spell projectile was moving far too slow to pose a significant threat. Flying away from an oversized tree that stood near the castle where she suspected the spell would land, Nightmare floated upward effortlessly. Her eyes on Twilight, she readied herself for one more diving attack. Before doing so, she gave one more glance down on the incoming spell.
there came a bright, intolerable light.
For a moment Nightmare Moon saw nothing but blinding white as if the sun had momentarily exploded in front of her with its atomized-helium induced glory; the shockwave that traveled was enough to stagger Twilight back for a few more steps.
The spell never landed on its target; it was remotely detonated. And it was more than enough to send Nightmare Moon flailing a great distance like a ragdoll. Far, far away from the castle and into the derelict plains surrounding it did she land without grace, causing a crater to rupture the ground.
Twilight was left an over-encumbered mess, each breath she took pierced the bottom of her lungs with searing daggers. She dared not to move her appendages, each of them struggling to maintain her weight. She found herself in a physically strange predicament. It was as if her legs refused to move, not once responding to Twilight’s commands from her brain and opting instead to stay still.
There, nausea that wracked her stomach finally overcame Twilight's psyche, and she promptly hurled most of the contents onto the floor. It took a few moments afterward, but the sensation thankfully passed just as quickly as it came. There, she felt her mind focusing on the task at hoof.
There was a chance to finally end this now. Twilight just needed to press her advantage that she had just now achieved while she still could. With a swift flourish of her wings, she gave a few mighty flaps to take to the sky.
Only to have her fall flat on her face.
Alicorn or not, she could not learn years of flying experience just on ascension day alone.
Frustration; Twilight tried to charge her horn to teleport outside.
Pain; a throbbing, but manageable headache encompasses Twilight as she channels for a teleportation spell.
Concentration; she is nearly charged...
Just a few more seconds, just a few more seconds.
The horn glows brightly.
"Twilight?"
"Where are you?!"
"Twilight!"
Shouting voices; they suddenly grab hold of the folds of Twilight’s splintered mind, reverberating from a staircase to her left. the spell instantly dissipated as her focus shatters.
In the heat of the moment, clarity finally cleared a channel through the grime and plague of emotions that clouded her mind. Twilight still felt something tugging in her chest as she turned to look.
"Twilight, answer us!"
She could see the shadows. They were so close. Her companions.
The ones that got her this far.
A moment came, and she felt the dark magic loosen its hold of her. Her eyes stung with newfound tears.
She never saw Nightmare Moon diving in at full speed.
Until collision.
The air around twilight tingled and vibrated around as she popped back into existence and landed painfully on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. The sudden stench of Ozone immediately took her attention away as she struggled to breathe, her stomach also heaving dryly at the same time. For several agonizing seconds, she suffocated under her own bile. Her eyes stung, streaming tears without relent.
A sudden, violent wretch of the throat, and soon the contents began to flow from within. Vomit, bile, saliva, and other unwanted unpleasantries. The stains on the rugs would never be truly washed away. upon completion, she collapsed on her side.
Gaaaasp!
Coughing. Wheezing. Choking. Spitting a little while coughing.
Breathing. A mundane, yet wonderful sensation she had taken for granted until now.
Oxygen finally started to flow into her systems after the teleport, which was messy, to say the least. She finally looked up and took heed of her surroundings, she noticed that she was sitting right beneath the footboard slat of an oversized bed fit for multiple Alicorns. The sheets were draped off to the sides and were untidy. The pillows were missing.
Performing the spell felt nauseating. It was more draining than it should for such a simple teleport, and it physically almost killed her with the way she landed it so poorly. Luckily, she was still alive and breathing, albeit without consequences.
These magical mishaps weren't just afflicting Twilight alone; all of the magic in Equestria seemed to be malfunctioning—for lack of a better term—for everypony. Earth Ponies felt extraordinarily weak in the muscles, a good number of them unable to stand up on their legs anymore. To some, they were essentially crippled. Pegasi found it much harder to fly, not counting the atrocious weather they were already experiencing. And why couldn’t the weather be changed? Because they couldn't anymore. They tried, but something inhibited them from doing so. And as such, natural disasters that happened to be occurring right now were unstoppable. And finally, unicorns were somehow unable to perform even the simplest of spells. All of it left them absolutely exhausted when they were finally done, some even having perished for performing such complex spells at this time if not succumbing to worse fates. Fates such as permanent paralyzation, molecular disintegration, fusing into materials for them to perish.
Tartarus on earth.
Twilight needed to find a way to fix this... if there was a way.
Each of Twilight’s friends stood in morbid paralysis as they watched Twilight (at least what looked like Twilight) being slammed into a wall so hard that it collapsed, causing her to fly through onto the other side limply.
None of them dared to move or speak.
Nightmare Moon was panting without brevity as she regained her breath. As she stood on all fours towards the unicorn-sized hole, she expected no more resistance after a brutal attack like that.
Stepping forward towards the hole and peering down on the other side, she expected to see a body lying limp onto the ground incapacitated.
Instead what she found was nothing but trees and broken stone onto the ground.
And then the hoof came.
Faster than Nightmare’s eyes could even register, a very pissed off Twilight suddenly punched Nightmare under the chin with the speed equivalent to that of a magical arrow, and with the force of a charging minotaur.
Flying backward without control, she was unable to cushion the very rough landing that sent her tumbling toward the wall.
Twilight floated through the hole with her wings clumsily, her right forehoof throbbing as she dared not to put any weight on it. Struggling to walk on three hooves, her eyes locked onto the collapsed pile of rubble that half-buried Nightmare Moon.
It was there that she felt another unfamiliar sensation. Hatred; It stained her thoughts like a thick cloak, and coursed her heart with adrenaline and energy. Her mind could think of nothing but of all the ways to hurt this Alicorn.
Although she had a splitting headache and probably a few broken bones, dark energy began manifesting from her horn, her eyes still that same hue of dark crimson and amethyst. She would not allow her to get the upper hand on anypony ever again!
One more spell. One more spell, and she will be no more!
"Twilight!"
Again, she paused. Her heart hammering, limbs locked, and head woozy, she felt that same wave of cooling clarity clash against the tendrils of pain licking her body.
A tilt of the head and she found them. Her friends.
In a brief moment, she could see.
They looked so horrified.
"Girls?" she spoke, shocked by the sudden amplification of her voice.
"Wha- Twilight? Is that you?" Rainbow Squeaked in absolute shock.
"What… what are you doing here?!" she yelled at them, unable to process why they would risk their lives in the presence of such almighty beings.
"We were looking for you!"
"Me?"
"We heard you cry out, and then you were just gone!" she emphasized with an expanding motion from her hooves, as if something poofed out of thin air. "We saw a buncha light flying around, a buncha sparks, and we thought that you-"
"Well, Look at that,"
Shivers of the spines were felt for everyone as a cold, and malicious growl of a voice suddenly spoke out from the puff of smoke. Nightmare Moon was still standing, blood gushing freely from her head and between her eyes from where her horn was, which was now cracked at the base but still intact. Yet somehow, she was still standing. And Twilight saw why.
Her eyes. They too were dark in magic. Nightmare Moon was playing her final move.
"These ponies seem to really care about you," she sneered at the five, speaking the latter word as if it held all of her troubles and vices that she wished to exterminate. The five in question stood back in fear (apart from Rainbow Dash, who seemed to be standing in front of the group trying to shield them.)
"And you seem to really, really care about them,"
Nightmare’s gaze locked onto Twilight’s, a crazed hunger for violence apparent in her eyes.
Twilight, despite her scowl, felt her soul shaken.
"DON'T YOU!?"
Nightmare Moon Launched.
Time really did seem to slow down for what was the third time that night for Twilight. It was almost too slow as if she had all the time in the world to react.
Her adversary had completely ignored her, vowing instead to dive towards the other five ponies. Twilight couldn’t even look at their reactions.
Morbid paralyzation would’ve taken hold of her if she didn’t have this window of time. But what could she do? In the midst of her clarity from her friends, she found them being threatened with their very lives.
To toss her life away in favor of destroying Equestria was one thing. Going after them, however...
Twilight felt wrath reinvigorate her once more. Her horn had been glowing throughout the whole sequence of time being dilated.
Only now did she release it.
She didn’t see what had happened next, only that the spell was discharged at Nightmare Moon with all the power she could muster.
Celestia had been observing the show of sparks, beams of light, and the occasional explosion that had been rapidly discharged from the old Castle of the Two Sisters. It was an entrancing light show, one that evoked fear for Celestia. Up until recently, the amount of magic that was being fired at the dashing, minuscule figure of Nightmare Moon she could see through her telescope surmised one solid theory in her mind; this was not ordinary magic.
The only possible explanation for these events was that a fight of some kind was taking place, but she had no way of knowing who was the aggressor and who was winning. Or whether or not this was the Element's doing or their own.
Anxiety-inducing as it is for Celestia to sit back idly twiddling her hooves, she knew it would be in the best interests of everypony in Equestria to move in as the peacemaker to this altercation only when it was done. She can't risk another confrontation with Nightmare Moon to end badly by her hooves, there was not a lot of room for maneuver around that. But it had still been excruciatingly difficult to sit back and watch, and only continued to be so as time progressed.
This was the best chance that she will have gotten, the culmination of all one-thousand years of planning leading to this frozen moment in time. Idly staring in the distance, lights and fractal wisps of hard arcane energy being fired away without a care in the world, amidst a forever hostile forest.
But she was still hopeful. She was confident in her pupil and felt she made the best possible choice in picking someone to activate the elements. And she was also confident that she would make a well-suited group of friends for herself, and not just for this mission but for long-term coping as well.
Apropos, she felt exceedingly apprehensive as the battle continued. Celestia could feel it in her magic; the world seemed to be collectively holding its breath as the possessed-being of Luna was still being projected as Nightmare-Moon. With such a foreign yet overpowering figure accessing the magic of the celestial bodies to her realm, disharmony will be apparent in her world for only so long. Especially with one being who had no chemistry nor real commitment to stay in the warmth of the sun, when all that they had was the tainted limelight that learned to loathe and hate.
And with yet each passing minute, more magic was being exchanged. Its colors were faint and hard to spot at such a long distance away, but she could see what appeared to be a picturesque meteor shower occurring right upon the ground, slamming balls of light and magic into various trees, if not at the old castle itself.
Celestia stepped back from the balcony in her tower, pacing back and forth in her room. She felt… invaded, for lack of a better term. Physically, she could feel her limbs were shaking. No amount of magic would cease their shaking, and she did try to. It would only last for a few minutes in time before it came back again.
Mentally, however, she felt indecisively oblivious to the perilous situation that was developing within the castle—and she despised that aspect more than Tartarus itself. And pacing back and forth in the bedroom was not making her feel reassured in the slightest. Pacing quickly back towards the telescope again, she brought her view back towards the everfree.
Looking around the forest, she couldn’t see much but trees and open skies. Her view being obscured by the zoom of her instrument, she did a doubletake, relying on both the scope and the naked eye. After bearing her view onto the now even more devastated castle of the two sisters, she couldn’t see any light or fire—no energy of any kind.
In fact, it was eerily still.
... It stopped?
Celestia was puzzled, yet somewhat at ease for a brief moment. No further destruction was being made, yet nothing else happened either. A cool breeze wisped through her coat and mane, chilling her just a little. She didn’t see what happened to warrant such a sudden silence.
She looked up towards the stars. The moon was still the same as it had been for the night, a welcoming sight compared to seeing her sister on the surface for millennia.
It was very quiet. The sky remained unchanged.
Yet the silence was not meant to be as a flash of violet light had erupted within the castle.
It was bright—as if the sun itself had momentarily flashed down from the heavens to deliver a righteous smite. Bright enough for Celestia to raise a hoof to prevent herself from being blinded. Under her hoof, she could see a narrow, but long beam of energy piercing everything in its path. It effortlessly shot through the castle and many of the trees in the Everfree. The beam was bright enough that Celestia couldn't see its hue of color, only its luminosity.
Torrents of wind galed violently past the origin point of whatever spell that was cast. She watched with rigid horror the decrypt castle in the distance being sliced apart. A minuscule mist tinted with that of dark wine billowed outward in every point that had made contact, discharged energy with snippets of electrical crackles that caused small flames around some of the trees.
Celestia felt everything in her body simply cease for a time. She pondered if what she saw was truly real or not, or if she was simply having another nightmare. But her world remained the same. She heard no sound of the spell from where she stood.
In fact, it was quiet and tranquil; Sanguine, even. And all in the worst possible ways.
The moon then turned dark.
When Twilight accessed that she was indeed not dead from her teleportation and that she was inside Celestia’s room, she stood with shaky resolve on her three good hooves. The dim room hinted no presence of her former mentor anywhere, no alicorn anywhere in sight.
But she was here. Residue from magical fire stained all around the walls and ceilings, some of the poor books in her bookshelves taking the brunt of the damage. Being an innate bookworm, it pained Twilight greatly to see this blatant disregard for literature from Celestia of all ponies.
But she couldn’t dwell on that now, she had to find her. If she wasn’t in the room, where was she? Peering through the wide ogee arch leading towards the balcony, still, no Celestia to be found.
She couldn’t ascertain where else to look, so opted to limp towards the balcony. Upon making it outside, she froze.
Wildfires were burning all along the soft and bumpy hills, much of it originating from the Everfree forest as it still continues to singe in the colossal inferno. The sky was overwhelmed with carbon monoxide as the air continuously got warmer and warmer. Ponyville down below looked desolate and empty, yet relatively unscathed. Although given the state of the wildfire in the Everfree Forest continuing its spread, who knew how long that would last?
Cloudsdale was evaporating. Over time, the wondrous city in the clouds had been steadily losing water vapor and its clouds as the air heated up. The signature rainbow falls had long since dried up. The city was being vaporized.
Clouds obscured the sky and the sun everywhere, no hint of any celestial bodies in sight apart from the telltale orange glow of an overactive sun. The air was dim as if it was a late winter evening, only lit by the roaring inferno that raged out of control.
She stared into it all. And she found herself lost. And it seemed to stare back at her, the distant fires. No resignation of extinguishment threatened them. It only festered and grew.
It was not light, it was a dim shadow of the destruction that had overtaken the land. It was not warmth, it was uncomforting and unforgiving as it consumed everything in its wake. It was as if a being of damnation had struck the land without compromise.
An Apocalypse, now.
And staring in the distance now was just Twilight, her thoughts, and a potential eternity of waiting in relative sufferance where she could do nothing but sit in silence, listening to the air searing around her. And she was tired of it all, the hot air. Her lungs still hadn’t fully recovered from her mad sprint into Canterlot from the Everfree.
In fact, she was content on just sitting here and waiting for Celestia to come back. In some twisted way, Twilight assumed that she would indeed come back here for one reason or another. Whether to finally confront her or to escape into her only abode, it was uncertain.
There was a particular streak of fire she was watching from the Everfree that had taken her attention for some time, as Twilight caught her breath. With nothing else to do but waiting, she stared at it in morbid fascination.
... A fickle yet overpowering conundrum, fire. It seemed to be the source of all things great and terrible. From the dawn of ponykind and since time immemorial, the first thing they learned was the knowledge of fire. And soon followed the knowledge of everything;
The acknowledgement of knowledge itself.
And now, sitting here, it appears that the same fire that helped Ponykind from its humble beginnings would prove to be Ponykind’s enemy. Perhaps even it’s undoing as it billowed back and forth from the Everfree forest… repeatedly.
Almost... methodically.
Twilight squinted her eyes and peered at the inferno in the distance, as it began to move on its own. Like it had a sense of cardinal direction, opting for the path of the most potential destruction.
Then it breathed.
The inferno was rising and falling as if it was in the notion of breathing. Up and down, rising and falling. It looked impossibly mesmerizing, and Twilight had no idea as to how this was possible.
Then it lurched.
A fiery twister manifested from the blaze as it spiraled into the air, rising and rising. Higher and higher. It soon disappeared behind the overcast cloud cover, where it continued to billow with ferocity even as it went up higher.
Twilight couldn’t fathom what she was witnessing. It looked like a fire tornado, but there was no fathomable way for such a thing to exist. Surreally enough, it seemed to be thinning out as it continued to spin.
Until it landed.
Whirlwinds of ignited oxygen impacted the balcony in front of twilight, narrowly missing her as she jumped backward. Forgetting that she had a nearly broken hoof, she landed painfully so on it and collapsed.
Lying on her side now, she could see in the distance as the fire twister in the everfree finally thinned out of existence, manifesting instead onto the balcony as it grew in size in perpetual motion. Faster and faster, the whirlwind spun as embers glided and drifted aimlessly.
It suddenly slowed down. The twister was dimming and shrinking, as the size of it greatly diminished from a twister to an ethereal wisp of fire. Beyond the charcoal-tinted ash and smoke, she could see somepony standing in where the whirlwind was just manifested.
And an ashen alicorn emerged, its fiery mane and tail sagging with the weight of molten magma. Her hooves encased with shin guards of golden metal, her shaffron shielding the crown and cheeks of her head.
Twilight struggled to stand up once more, slowly this time to avoid pain. Tears flowed freely, as her leg pierced her nerves with sharp pain.
When finally standing, she couldn’t fathom what she was seeing… this wasn’t Celestia. She had her cutie mark, her physique perhaps, but this was somepony else entirely. It was as if a physical manifestation of the sun itself had landed in front of the Unicorn for punishment, its form overpowering and beyond imposing.
Celestia (if one could call her that) finally opened her eyes. Golden orbs of light replaced where her pupils should be, staring down upon the unicorn with an aggressive lean.
Twilight could only cower.