//------------------------------// // One Final Effort // Story: And Hell Followed // by BaeroRemedy //------------------------------// “Hey Scoots.” Scootaloo looked up from her scooter, which she had been looking over to make sure it would survive whatever happened outside. Rainbow Dash was standing a few feet away, her once powerful blue wings tied to her sides. “Oh hey Rainbow Dash!” The filly beamed as she got to her three good hooves and hobbled up to the mare. Scootaloo gave her hero the best hug she could in her current state. “You’re gonna save the world again, right?” Cheerilee had told her and the other foals what was happening, what was going to happen. Rainbow Dash and her friends were going to fix everything with Elytra’s help and Cheerilee was going to keep them safe. There was also the thing about the Elements not making it, but that was ridiculous. They had survived everything else! Rainbow Dash had even come back to life last week! They always worked this stuff out and made it out okay, now would be no different. “Yeah…” Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck and looked away. “That’s what it looks like.” There was a certain air of dread that hung over the Wonderbolt, and everypony else that was in the main hall of the castle with them, during the little conversation. After everything had been explained, they had all been ushered to the foyer with the Elements. There were little talks like this happening all over the place, either planning or final parting messages. Twilight was the only one not mingling, as she was posted at one of the windows and staring out at the sky. “I’ll see you after this is all over, don’t worry!” Scootaloo smiled up at the older pegasus as her wings buzzed. That sentence made Dash’s mood falter even more as she finally sighed and hung her head. “You might not, squirt.” Rainbow sat down and sat a hoof on Scootaloo’s shoulder. “Listen, there’s a good chance we won't come back...but if we don’t, that means we saved Equestria. That means there will be an ‘after this is all over.’” Before, it had just been Cheerilee saying this stuff. Scootaloo liked her teacher a lot, but she had been a downer lately so her word wasn’t taken at face value. Hearing it straight from Rainbow Dash’s mouth, though? It suddenly became real. Too real. “Listen-” Dash continued with a sigh. “-I’m not good with...this kind of stuff. Goodbyes. Heartfelt stuff.” It really did seem like a struggle for the speedster, like she was fighting the urge to stop talking and clam up. “So I’m not going to do it.” She said with a nod and a determined glint in her eyes. “No, instead I want to tell you something. Something important.” “W-what is it?” Scootaloo was still coming to terms with the admission that this might really be the end for her idol. She wanted to cry, but she knew Rainbow Dash would never cry so neither could she. If the filly wanted to be the mare, she had to start with being brave. “The secret to being awesome.” Rainbow Dash leaned in and pulled Scootaloo close. “I don’t tell it to everypony, but I want to tell you.” Scootaloo leaned in too, eager to hear whatever wisdom Dash could pass on. “It’s not about the wings on your back, or how fast you can go. It’s about this-” She tapped the filly’s chest. “-and this.” Her hoof raised up tapped Scootaloo between the eyes. “You’ve just gotta know you’re awesome or you’ll be awesome someday. Even if you don’t feel like it sometimes, that's when you really have to believe it. You keep working and fighting and grinding to reach for that awesomeness.” “But I can’t even fly, I-” She was hushed with a hoof from Rainbow. “Doesn’t matter. You’re awesome.” Dash looked Scootaloo in the eyes. “Say it. Say ‘I’m awesome.’” “I-I’m awesome?” “With more feeling, Scoots. No more doubts!” Rainbow stood up and puffed out her chest. If her wings had been working, they would’ve been flared and she would be in the air. “I’m awesome!” “I’m awesome!” Scootaloo repeated, her chest puffing out as well and her little wings buzzing on her back. “I am awesome!” That earned her a bright grin from the mare standing over her and a pat on the back. “Don’t you forget it, either.” Rainbow Dash ruffled her mane one last time and turned around to walk away, only to be stopped by Scootaloo clinging to her back leg. Bravery had faltered, and it let the tears seep through. The filly couldn’t help it, not anymore. “I-I’m going to miss you, Rainbow Dash.” “Hey…” The mare sat down again and pulled Scootaloo into a tight and warm hug. “I’d miss me too.” ---- “Why is it pink?” Cheerilee studied the Heart held aloft in Elytra’s magical grasp. The others had always been the same shade of sickly green, but this one had clouds of pink swirling inside of it. She tapped it with a hoof, which seemed to disturb the pink substance inside. “Because there was no intermediary.” Elytra closed her eyes and let the pink mist flow from the orb and into her mouth. “This isn’t emotion taken and hidden away, this is love given freely. Pure and true.” The changeling shivered as the energy was absorbed into her body at a rapid pace. “I gave this to Pinkie Pie when Rainbow Dash was sick. I hoped that it might work, it didn’t but it was filled with...man, this stuff is good.” She kept indulging herself in the love from the Heart, her posture seeming to straighten as she kept drinking it all up. “Will it be enough to get you to the Everfree and back?” That was still Cheerilee’s main concern. She wanted everypony to make it out alive, even if she knew that wasn’t possible. Elytra was the only other one besides the foals and Cheerilee herself that stood the best chance, but that would take a lot of energy and effort. “Hey, I’ll be okay.” The changeling stopped absorbing the energy just long enough to shoot a smile at the mare beside her. “Don’t worry, last time I went into the Everfree it was nothing and without any unicorns on the surface it’ll be the same.” “Don’t jinx it, please.” Cheerilee closed her eyes and prayed to whoever was listening that they forgave Elytra for that transgression. “I just want to...talk when this is over, and I want you to be there for that talk...between us.” There was an awkwardness between the two now, one that Cheerilee still couldn’t shake. It was because of that kiss, one she still didn’t know if she meant or not. “You’re still torn up about that.” Elytra sighed and her horn flashed, reigniting the orb in her grasp and starting the stream up again. “You could just try saying what you feel now, y’know. It’s probably the best time to do it” “I don’t even know what I want to say.” Cheerilee mumbled. She looked around at all of the other ponies in the room. The families were hugging, friends were just chatting and sharing a moment while they could. There were a lot of concrete emotions in the air, and it felt like hers were ever shifting dunes. “I...I like you, Elytra. I think that’s all I know for certain.” “I think you spend too much time around schoolfoals, Cheerilee.” Elytra chuckled and bumped into the mare’s side. “Just like or like like?” The little rib drew a frustrated blush from the pony. “I don’t know.” Cheerilee spoke the truth. The maelstrom of uncertainty that raged within her was not something she could parse easily. “You’re the first changeling I’ve ever met, and I guess I didn’t know what to expect. You’re a good creature, and you would be a great pony if you were one...and-” Cheerilee took a deep breath. “-if we do make it through this, I want to spend a lot more time with you.” “I’d like that.” Elytra smiled and they both leaned on each other. “I’ll meet you right back here on the steps, deal?” “Deal.” “They’re done.” Twilight’s voice boomed throughout the room, quieting the crowd and drawing their attention. The alicorn turned around to face the last survivors of Ponyville. “Celestia and Luna are already down in the hole, Cadance isn’t far behind. We’re on the clock now.” The princess walked forward and looked around to the surrounding ponies. “We don’t have a lot of time with all three of them trying to break through, maybe an hour or two at most.” Her eyes drifted to her friends, two of them still clinging to their little sisters, and she nodded. “We can’t do anything until the Central Pool is cleared, though.” Every eye fell on Elytra. “I’ll get it done.” Elytra nodded to the alicorn, stone-faced and ready. A pair of saddlebags floated onto her back in a purple aura and then the flask of mana was set into one of the pouches. “You can count on me.” “We don’t know what’s out there.” Twilight started again with a sigh as she looked at Elytra and Cheerilee. “We know that the majority of the unicorns and the princesses went underground, but that’s not a guarantee that there won’t be some of them above ground still.” “I understand.” Cheerilee responded with a nod. She knew that if it came down to it, she would give everything to keep her foals safe. Just as she had done with Scootaloo when this all started. With not much more to do, everypony gave one last goodbye. More tears were shed, more hugs were given, and then they all were split off into three groups. Elytra by herself, Cheerilee and the foals with Spike, and then the Elements of Harmony. Discord was the only straggler. He was wringing his mismatched hands and looking at the Elements worriedly. It wasn’t until Fluttershy came over and gave him one last hug, and whispered something in his ear, that he finally started to act. “I hope it’s worth it, Twilight Sparkle.” It wasn’t a biting statement, there was no bitterness in it. He meant what he said, fully and truly. Discord raised his lion’s paw and snapped his fingers, opening a very unstable-looking portal to a black void. He didn’t say anything else as he slithered into it and the portal snapped shut behind him. “Me too, Discord…” Twilight sighed and looked to the front door of the castle. The alicorn shivered as her horn lit up and the door opened to the outside. “Good luck, to all of you. Please stay safe.” “Okay everypony.” Cheerilee drew the attention of her remaining class as she picked Pound Cake up off of the floor and sat the pegasus foal on her back. “We’re going to make our way to the schoolhouse. I need every one of you to stay as close to me as possible, alright? No going ahead.” There was a series of nods from each one of the little ponies. “If you see one of those things, tell me.” “Miss Cheerilee?” It wasn’t one of her students that spoke, it was Spike. The baby dragon had Princess Flurry Heart resting atop his head, one claw on her side to keep her stable. “Do you think you could take Flurry too? I could help if things get...bad. But not with her on my head.” In response, the alicorn foal hanging onto his spikes babbled down at him. “Of course, Spike.” Cheerilee trotted over and waited as the little dragon set the foal onto her back with Pound Cake. She hadn’t even thought of how useful an actual dragon might be if things got hairy out there, but she was glad that he did. Once that was done, she gathered her little herd near the door. “See you in a bit, Cheerilee.” With a small smile, Elytra lifted off and took to the evening sky in front of them. Leaving only her and the foals on the cusp of the outside. “Okay…” The mare started down the stairs, the rest right behind her with Scootaloo at her side. The pegasus was deftly maneuvering her scooter down the steps without jarring her bad leg too much, which would be impressive in any other circumstance. The outside felt so different to what she was used to. The warm colors on the horizon gradually bled into black as she looked farther away from the sun. It was like seeing a long friend from her school days, something she had missed so dearly and didn’t realize how deeply she needed to see. It was also cool, almost twenty degrees cooler if she had to guess. It felt like a completely different world. All of that wonder and joy came crashing down when her hoof first touched the ground. There was no more dirt,no more dead grass and no more Ponyville. The ground crunched beneath her hooves, just like glass. The once lively and quaint features of Ponyville had been reduced to nothing but a flat plane of reflective earth. The spiral pattern that the princesses flew in to destroy the town could even be seen in the glass, coming out right from the massive sinkhole in the middle of the small town. Every building and natural feature within the city limits had been flattened, leaving only Sweet Apple Acres in the distance and the schoolhouse on the small hill looking over the town. “Come on, everypony.” Cheerilee instructed her students as she sat off towards the schoolhouse in the distance. They were all right on her tail with Spike taking up the rear of the group. Every head was on a swivel and looking for any sign of danger, but they found none. The few times Cheerilee had been outside prior, there had always been some sort of noise. Usually it was the distant growls and howls of the monstrous unicorns, or their horns firing blasts of magic to dig the hole, but now it was just silent. Now not even the wind swept over the shimmering field that once was a town. The only sound was of their hooves and feet breaking the ground beneath them. The small group made their way across the ruined landscape at a decent clip. Cheerilee had to make sure not to break out into a gallop, as she knew the fillies, colt, and dragon behind her would likely not be able to keep up. “Mamamama.” The princess on Cheerilee’s back babbled out as she looked around. Flurry was looking for the twisted alicorn that was her mother, which only made the mare’s heart beat faster. “Flurry, please be quiet!” Spike pleaded to the foal as he turned his head around to look at the hole. “I know you know she’s here, but please!” That did nothing to abate the foal’s calling for her mother. Soon enough, the call was answered. A deep and guttural howl went up into the air from the pit in the middle of the glass field. A pink blur shot into the sky from the depths and hovered one-hundred feet above the ground. Cheerilee froze, but Cadance didn’t. Within seconds, the princess slammed into the ground in front of the herd. Her massive hooves, the usual golden vestments cracked and coated with dried blood, shattered the glass beneath them. She was only focused on one thing, the foal on Cheerilee’s back. The schoolmare’s brain was working a mile a minute. Cadance wouldn’t hurt her own foal, right? Even if this version of the alicorn of love was twisted and monstrous, there was still a part of her in there deep down. Surely, one part that had survived was her motherly instincts. That had to be the reason she reacted to Flurry both times. Cadance’s horn lit up. Cheerilee hated being wrong. Two balls of green energy slammed into the side of the massive beast, causing her to stagger. Elytra flew over the head of Cadance and let another shot go right in the back of the monster’s head. The changeling shouted something, but Cheerilee couldn’t hear it over the ear-shattering roar from the alicorn. Cadance turned and fired two beams of magic at the flying bug, luckily missing, and then took off after her. “Okay…” Cheerilee turned to the foals surrounding her. “Run. Now.” Elytra had bought them time, which hopefully would not come at too steep of a cost, they couldn’t waste it waiting. So off they ran in a sprint for the schoolhouse, with Cheerilee taking up the rear this time. Now at full speed, it was a quick five minutes to make it to the hill the schoolhouse was situated on. The outside was marred with whole sections of the walls missing and the red paint faded and chipped from so long in the sun. Cheerilee overtook her foals and slammed into the door, nearly splintering it as it swung open. The interior of her schoolhouse was as ruined as the exterior, desks destroyed and the floor was torn up. It looked like a temper tantrum had been thrown in here, or there was a fight. The strangest part was the hatch on the floor that led to the shelter being closed, which shouldn’t be possible. Trixie should’ve broken out by now. Once all of the foals and Spike had entered, Cheerilee shut the door and finally took a breath. She grabbed a chair and stuck it under the handle, just to make sure that nopony could get in so easily. It wasn’t perfect, but it would buy them time if the worst came to pass. “I really don’t want to go down there again…” She heard Scootaloo mutter as the filly’s eyes focused on the hatch. Cheerilee could sympathize, being trapped down there any more than they already had was not an appetizing thought. “I know, Scootaloo.” She patted the filly on the back and removed the two foals from her own and sat them on the ground. “Keep an eye out while I open the shelter, okay?” A nod from the pegasus was all Cheerilee needed to get to work. The mare wrapped a hoof around the handle of the latch and pulled...only for it not to give. She cocked her head to the side and furrowed her brow as she gave it another tug. It moved a bit, but kept itself closed. It felt like there was resistance on the other side, which was very odd. “Spike, come help me please.” The dragon was by her side in an instant with both of his claws on the hatch. They both pulled as hard as they could in time, swinging the hatch open and revealing the thing inside that had been pulling on it. “O-oh...hello Cheerilee…” Meriwether stammered out as she looked up at the duo standing over her. “Um...funny seeing you here.” Cheerilee reached down and dragged the elder mare out of the hole without a word. “Get in the shelter, children. Now.” That familiar frustration was bubbling up in her gut, one that had only been building since this morning. She resisted the urge to lay into the mare both verbally and with her hooves, at least until the foals were safe. “Um...Cheerilee?” Scootaloo, who was still by the window, called out. “The monsters are coming out of the hole! A lot of them!” Cheerilee turned her head for just a moment to look out of the window to confirm, and indeed Sctooaloo wasn’t wrong. Dozens of the turned unicorns were pouring out the pit and fanning out over the remains of Ponyville. “Get in the shelter. Spike, help her please.” She turned her glare back to the former mayor and glared daggers into the mare. Once Cheerilee heard the sound of hooves headed down and the click of hatch closing, she let loose. “What do you think you’re doing here?” “I was headed out of town and th-then the sun went down and the alicorns were coming! I panicked!” Meriwether stepped back, which only let Cheerilee advance on her more. “I-If more of those things are coming, you have to let me down there!” “There’s not enough room for all of the foals and both of us.” While that was the truth, there was also a small amount of sadistic joy in saying it aloud. If this was payback, then Cheerille understood why ponies said it was sweet. There was a certain irony in making the mayor run away again, one that she would enjoy. “So, have fun.” The teacher smiled and turned around with a bitter chuckle. Cheerilee was halfway to the hatch when the other mare leapt onto her back and forced her to the ground. “I’m not being left out here!” Meriwether screamed into her ear as the two began tumbling across the dusty floor. Cheerilee was just trying to get the politician off of her, while Meriwether was actively fighting. The light brown mare was biting anything she could get ahold of, including Cheerilee’s ears and legs. There was a wild fight in the mayor’s eyes, one that the mare had never witnessed before. A hoof hit Cheerilee in the side of the head, sending her vision swimming. That was enough to finally get her to go on the offensive. When she was finally on her back once more, she planted both of her rear hooves square in the other mare’s stomach with as much force as she could muster. The air left Meriwether’s lungs all at once as she sailed into the air and hit the floor with a heavy thud. Both mares let out a little groan, but Cheerille was the only one to get up. She could feel blood running down one of her ears and onto her face, and some of the stitches that Rarity had used on her leg from the fight with Trixie had popped open. “I’m not sorry.” Cheerilee mumbled out as she opened the hatch and entered. As she closed it behind her, she made sure to grab the rope that was hanging from the inside and hold it as tight as she could. Meriwether tried to pull it for several minutes, but Cheerilee held strong. Eventually the muffled sounds of magic tearing the door down broke the pleading of the mare on the other side. The growls of several unicorns and the screams of Meriwether filled the small space. ---- Twilight stood at the edge of the mana pool with the five of her friends, all of them focused on the opposite wall. Celestia and Luna were on the other side and tearing through the crystal barrier faster than any of them liked. The other unicorns had even stopped trying, and were instead spreading out to encircle the cave completely. “You know, I suppose now is the time to get something off of my chest.” Rarity spoke flatly. She was situated to the right of Twilight, at the very end of their little group so only her unscarred side was facing her friends. “Applejack, darling?” “Yeah Rarity?” Applejack, standing at the opposite end, craned her neck to see the unicorn. “If this is some mushy stuff, Ah don’t know if now is really the time.” Applejack was at least a little more animated than her fashionista counterpart and sounded very worried. “Well…” Rarity sighed. “I-I do not think I ever told you, so now is as good of a time as any.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Applejack...I really hate your mane.” That drew a snort from Rainbow and a giggle from Pinkie. “It’s just...you take such poor care of it! It’s as thin as straw and the same color! We both know you could do so much better with it, darling!” “Consarnit, Rares.” If Applejack still had her hat, it would’ve been tossed on the ground in frustration. “Here Ah thought you were about to say somethin’ nice and thoughtful and such and you just go and insult me?” Twilight couldn’t help the small smile that began to form on her lips as the two bickered in the background. It reminded her of simpler times, better times. Of course, she knew this was just a coping mechanism from the both of them. Just something to get their minds off of the wall of murderous monsters slowly closing in on all sides, but it was one even she could enjoy for a moment. “Ah work on a farm, y’all think Ah got any sorta time to do my mane up every mornin’? No.” Applejack continued with a huff. “Listen, if we...if we’re still here tomorrow, Ah’ll let’cha take me to a spa or something and gussy me up proper. Will that shut’cha up?” “Oh darling, yes!” Rarity replied with a beaming smile in the general direction of the farmer. “You have yourself a deal.” A silence spread over the group once more, an oppressive and deafening silence. It made Twilight gaze up at the massive spear that hung from the roof of the cavern and think over her plan some more, not that thinking on it was going to change anything. The Elements should let all of her friends channel more magic than they usually could considering that’s how the things worked. Their purpose was to allow them to harness the magic of the Tree of Harmony and channel it. Over time it had increased their natural ability to channel the Harmonic magic, which meant with the Elements on and standing in the mana pool they could use an immense amount of power. It would all go through her too. The Element of Magic was broken, but she was still the final link in the chain. It would all funnel into her and she would direct it to the spire, and it would burn them all out in the process. If her calculations were even remotely correct, it would be as if a bomb of pure concentrated magic was detonated in the chamber. “Ah s’pose Ah got somethin’ too.” Applejack shrugged and turned to Rainbow Dash beside her. “Ah was gonna save this for a bit later when this was closer to...the end, but Ah think you deserve it.” The farmer pulled out a small metal flask from the red band in her mane and held it out to Rainbow. “The last bit of Sweet Apple Cider, probably in all of Equestria now. Ah want’cha to have it, RD.” Without even a ‘thank you’, Rainbow Dash snatched the flask and popped it open. One would think from the look on the pegasus’ face that she had just smelled the ambrosia of the gods instead of a simple hard cider. Dash put the container to her lips and drank it all down in one satisfied gulp. “Celestia, I needed that…” Rainbow wiped her mouth and grinned sheepishly at her rival. “Uh...thanks AJ.” “You big glutton.” Applejack responded with a chuckle. “Ah’m gonna miss you, hope you know that, Dash.” That dampened the mood considerably. It shifted from that coping mechanism into something much more somber and real. “Ah’m gonna miss all of you.” Tears started to fall from each of the mares, the sad reality of their situation coming back into their minds. This was it, the end. They were going to go out together and that would be it. There would be no next adventure or crisis, there would be no more friendship problems or letters. There would just be nothing. “I-” Twilight tried to talk, but her words caught in her throat and threatened to never come out. She took a deep breath and collected herself as she brought a wing up to wipe her tears. “-I am so happy that I came to Ponyville all those years ago.” The princess let out a shaky breath and looked around to her friends. “I don’t think I tell you girls just how much this changed my life, and not just the sprouting wings part, I mean how much you each changed my life for the better. Without you...without you I don’t know where I’d be, but I’m glad I’m here with you now.” Twilight nodded as more tears fell to the ground. “There’s nopony else in the whole world I’d rather face the end with than you all.” They said nothing else, as there was nothing left to say. So they waited, they waited for Elytra to finish her job so they could save the world one last time. ---- Elytra slightly regretted angering Cadance. Even as she wove her way between the mangled and dead trees of the Everfree, the princess was still chasing her. The natural cover of the forest was making her a much harder target to hit, but it felt like those shots were getting closer and closer. While the changeling preferred to finesse her way through the trees, the alicorn was barrelling through them and causing a racket. The sounds of snapping trees and burning wood filled the entirety of the Everfree as yet another beam was let loose from the spear atop Cadance’s head. To say that Elytra was terrified was an understatement. Princess Cadance was the one pony that still inspired fear in the hearts of changelings everywhere. She had weaponized love against them, which would be like somepony poisoning grass or air for ponies. Getting tossed from Canterlot by a wave of the emotion still kept her awake some nights, and now the very pony that did it was bearing down on her with murderous intent. Another wave of white hot magic swept over the changeling’s head, cutting the trees in front of her in half as they all fell into burning heaps on the forest floor. Elytra dove under one just in time to avoid getting hit by the giant burning flyswatter. Elytra still had speed over the beast, and the missing leg only had only improved her top speed. The obstacles also kept Cadance at bay, but they both knew that the changeling was going to slip up long before the alicorn did. Just like the Element Bearers, she was on a timer. The castle was in sight now, just over the gorge where the Tree was located. Twilight had said the entrance was in the tallest tower, so she began to climb before she even got close. Elytra broke the deadened canopy and shot towards the tower, putting everything she had into getting there. The Heart she had taken from Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash was in the saddlebags Twilight had given her. The connection was still strong and it was still pumping power directly into her system, which was the only thing keeping her going at this point. She had gone through her supply of energy about twice now between the three blasts she had hit Cadance with and the tricky maneuvers she had been performing to stay alive. It had all taken its toll. The frantic changeling landed in the room at the top of the tower through one of the shattered windows. It was a circular room with an ancient and destroyed desk sitting against one of the walls. Bookcases lined the walls and were filled with old and dusty tomes, something somepony with a lot more time would appreciate. A statue of Princess Celestia sat in the middle of the room. At one time it was very angular and stylized, but now it was eroded by time and the elements. Its horn was broken about halfway down, but it was still there. Elytra didn’t even use her magic to pull the switch, she jumped up and pulled it with her hoof. She had expected the sound of slow grinding stone, but was instead met with a flash of blinding light as the statue and the floor beneath her disappeared. Elytra screamed as she tumbled down the seemingly endless shaft that was now below her. As the bug tumbled end over end, she saw Cadance above her. The deformed and monstrous body of the alicorn was too big for the shaft of stone, but that wasn’t stopping her. The stonework of the castle was being ripped apart by the beast as it tore down after its prey. Elytra finally oriented herself and fired a bolt of her acidic green magic at Cadance, hitting the alicorn square in the face. The roar of pain from the turned princess shook the tunnel around them both, and then she returned fire. Elytra tried to move out of the way, but the beam of light pierced one of her gossamer wings and made half of it disappear. She cried out in pain as the heat from the proximity left her chitin bubbling and popping as she now entered freefall. It was a challenge not to pass out from the mix of pain and exhaustion, but she somehow fought off the encroaching darkness. She had been in a few moments like this over her relatively short life, and knew it never ended well. It was another 30 seconds of falling before she finally saw the ground quickly approaching. The whole time she had been getting farther and farther from Cadance, as the act of plowing through sturdy stone had slowed the alicorn down considerably. Which was good, because it meant she had enough time to figure out what to do. Elytra’s one good wing began to buzz as it did its absolute best to slow down her descent. It succeeded in at least giving her an angle to take rather than impacting the ground head on. Three hooves hit the dirt, but couldn’t support her. The changeling tripped and skidded across the ground until she came to rest. When she lifted her head up, what she saw filled her with a mix of awe and dread. The Central Pool wasn’t just big, it was colossal. Elytra was situated on some sort of island in the middle of it all, surrounded on all sides by what had once been pure mana. Now it was a thick bubbling black liquid that roiled and sputtered like it was itching to get out. The sea of black slime went on for miles in every direction, it was so big that she couldn’t see any edge from her spot. Across from her on the other side of the small stone island in the ocean of poison, sat the statue of Celestia and the piece of stone it sat on. If there was a guess to be had, it teleported here and was meant to do the same to the pony who activated it. Elytra was no pony, so that explained why it just let her fall instead. The roar from the tunnel above reminded her that she didn’t have the time to stand and gawk. She had a job to do. The horn on her head lit up as she pulled the glass bottle from her bag. It was brought to her mouth where she took the cork in her teeth and pulled it out with a satisfying pop. Elytra limped to the edge of the pool, the vial still in her magical grasp. She closed her eyes and sent a request to whatever Queens still watched over her that this worked. The bottle turned over and the contents emptied into the Pool. The electric blue mana sparked and shot across the surface of the endless black sea in an instant. A scream seemed to emanate from the very Pool itself, shaking the cavern and causing some stones from above to fall into the rapidly changing mana. It worked. She had done it, she had helped save the country she had once sought to destroy. It was as if a weight was lifted from her very soul, something she had felt for far too long. A smile crossed her face, only to be immediately discarded by an earthshaking thud from behind. A roar and the sound of a horn charging up told her that Cadance had finally landed, and Elytra had nowhere to go. She couldn’t fly away, and there was no trickery that could save her now. “Alright…” Elytra mumbled and turned around to face the beast. Cadance was just standing up, her nostrils flared and eyes full of rage and hate. “Round two.” Her heart thundered in her chest as she looked up. Every ounce of energy she had left was focused in her horn, the blinding green light casting an eerie glow over the rapidly changing pool of blue mana around them. Elytra knew she had no shot at winning this, but she had to try. She made a promise to Cheerilee that they would meet back on the steps to the castle, and she was going to do everything she could to keep that promise. ---- The situation below the castle was growing more and more grim by the second. There was less than a foot of crystal between the two sisters and the six ponies inside of the cavern. Elytra should’ve cleansed the Central Pool by now, she was sure of it. That meant either the changeling was held up or worse. “W-we’ll know when...right?” Fluttershy pressed close against Twilight’s side and shook as she started at the monsters that now surrounded them. “Right?” She asked again, looking up at Twilight. “I-I think so.” She wasn’t even sure anymore. Injecting pure Harmonic mana into the Pool, and by extension the leylines, should be a shock to the system of every single unicorn and alicorn afflicted with the disease. It wouldn’t change them, but it should hurt. “Please hold, just a bit longer…” Twilight pleaded with the crystal separating them from the beasts. It ignored her pleas and cracked. A foul putrid stench flooded the cavern almost instantly, one of death and decay. The ponies scrunched their noses in disgust, and at least one of them audibly gagged as it washed over them. The hole wasn’t big enough for any of the beasts to get through, not yet. It wouldn’t take too long until one of them could squeeze through. Twilight closed her eyes and waited, knowing that there was every possibility in the world that the entire plan had failed and they were going to die here without saving anypony. Then they screamed. Not her, not her friends, but the mutated magic wielders that surrounded them. They roared out in pain and collapsed as something came over them, all of their horns surging with a bright blue light. “It worked! IT WORKED!” Twilight cried out in pure joy as she watched the two alicorns on the other side writhe on the ground. “We need to get in, now!” One by one, each of the Elements of Harmony stepped into the pool of mana before them. As soon as their hooves sank beneath the surface, they started to glow. Arcs of blue electricity lept between the ponies and the Elements they were wearing and connected them. Twilight Sparkle had felt this amount of power once before, when the other princesses had imparted their magic onto her for safekeeping when Tirek was running loose. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her mane begin to flow with an ethereal light, and she could feel her eyes start to be overcome with the pure energy. The same thing was happening to her friends. Their coats were lit up like lights at Hearth’s Warming and the Elements around their necks were sparking with a furious light the likes of which she had never seen. It was almost too much for Twilight to handle, she knew it wouldn’t take long for this to get the better of them. “F-focus!” Twilight shouted through clenched teeth at her friends. “Th-this is it!” She closed her eyes and focused on each of her friends, their friendship and just what it meant. Years of bonding, bickering, and saving the world. A lifetime of meaning packed into a few years, and a connection that was more than just an accident. It was fate. A line of rainbow energy came up from the pool and shot into each of the necklaces, then threaded them all together. Finally they all came together and plunged into Twilight’s chest. She tried to gasp, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything as her body seized up. All she could do was direct it. Twilight focused on that power that was threatening to split her in half and let it flow into her horn. The horn on her head was audibly crackling and threatening to break from the amount of energy she was putting into it, the strain was unlike anything she had ever felt. Using the Elements had always been a little taxing, but this was that feeling cranked up to two hundred percent. A rainbow beam shot from her horn and impacted the stalactite. Every crystal in the cavern was supercharged with the magic that poured from the six ponies as it surged through the vertical leyline that was the castle. It all started to shake with a deafening roar, several large chunks of the ceiling gave way and fell around them. Twilight couldn’t worry about that, she had to focus. She had to concentrate on her friends and what they meant to her...why she was doing this. Applejack, honest and stalwart. Rainbow Dash, loyal and brash. Pinkie Pie, always joking and bubbly. Fluttershy, kind and timid. Rarity, beautiful and generous. A million thoughts raced through her mind as the castle above them tore itself apart with the amount of energy being pumped into it. A million memories crossed her mind and filled her eyes with tears. A million feelings flooded her heart. One thing dominated her entire being, though. One thing she hoped that each one of her friends knew. Twilight Sparkle was sorry that this happened, and she wanted her friends to know just how much she loved them. Celestia, she hoped they knew. ---- “Sweet Celestia.” Cheerilee peeked out of the small crack of the bunker’s hatch, scanning the scenery before her. The view of flattened glass-like earth, leveled buildings, and the frozen sunset greeted her. Though the differences between the view from the hatch when they had entered and the scene she saw now were quite different. The schoolhouse that had once been around them was gone now, just the floor and less than a foot of the walls remained standing. Beyond that, the major difference was Twilight’s castle. The once horizon dominating structure had been reduced to rubble, maybe twenty feet of the trunk of the tree-like structure stood now. Cheerilee pulled herself out of the hole in the ground and looked around. Her heart ached as she looked at what had once been her home, now unrecognizable. Even the last part of Ponyville that had been left standing was now nothing more than a shadow of its former self. The crystal that had once made up the castle was littered across the landscape in chunks. They had once been purple but now they looked black and dead, like the magic had been sucked out of them. It looked like a warzone. One by one the foals that had been down in the bunker with her emerged, Scootaloo first and the rest following soon after. Some of them, mainly the sisters of the Element Bearers, Scootaloo, and Spike, wept as they looked at the ruins of Twilight’s castle. There was one saving grace to all of this, one beacon of hope in this now-wasteland of a village. Against the far wall of the schoolhouse, two unicorns were passed out. They didn’t look like monsters, their proportions were right and their muzzles were short and had no visible fangs. It worked. “They did it.” The words Cheerilee spoke did not lighten her heart or mood the way she had hoped. She knew what it had cost, as did the little ones with her. There were no smiles shared in the group, no cheers of triumph. The unicorns were turned back to normal, but Cheerilee couldn’t shake the feeling that Equestria wasn’t saved. Things were not going to be easy from here on out, there was no way that life could just go back to normal in a week’s time, or even a month. Getting back to what Equestria used to be would take a lifetime of effort. “Come on, let’s go see if we can help.” That was her primary concern now, helping the unicorns that were now changed back to normal. That would reunite a few of the foals with their families, it would be a start. She also had a promise to keep on the stairs of the castle. --- Deep below the ruined castle in the field of glass that had once been Ponyville, there was a room made of crystals. In the center of the room was a pit where bubbling bright blue mana had once been, now run dry from overuse. On one side lay two alicorns, one as white as a cloud on a summer’s day and the other pitch black. They were smaller than they had been hours ago, but they still weren’t normal. On the other side of the pool sat five pieces of jewelry, each made of gold with a vibrant gemstone in the center. All of them were different shapes and colors, and all of them were covered in ash that tarnished their beauty. One pony sat in the midst of it all, sobbing and looking at her hooves. Lavender hooves were coated in the same ash as the necklaces around her, the same ash that was slowly sinking into the pit that had once held Harmony reinforced mana. She couldn’t cry anymore, all of her tears had dried up. She could only look at her hooves and the ground below in abject despair. Her usually agile mind was thinking at a snail’s pace as she absorbed all of the information around her. Twilight Sparkle’s hooves were covered in the ashes of her friends and the blood of thousands, and nothing could ever wash any of it away. She had survived while they had given their lives. They were dead because of her. The Princess of Friendship sat in the ashes of her friends and of the world she destroyed so carelessly yet fought so hard to save, and she wept.