//------------------------------// // We fear what we become.. // Story: My Little Pony: Friendship is Eternal // by AlphaToothless95 //------------------------------// As Twilight lights up her horn, she comes to realize that she can only see herself and nothing more, everything else was pitch black. She looks around and decides to just pick a direction to walk in until she finds a way out. It’s more than a little frustrating that she can’t even see if she’s moving or not and unsettling that as she walks, she feels like she’s being watched or followed. Eventually she’s tired of it and turns around to see two.. paths. One white and one purple.. light and dark. “Hmmm.. am I.. am I supposed to choose one of these paths?” She asks, stumbling over her own words a bit and both the paths glow and she assumes that means yes. She almost immediately goes down the light path but.. she feels something hold her back. She looks at the pattern that both the paths are glowing and she looks more closely at them, trying to understand. “I don’t understand.. light or dark should be an easy answer.. so why am I hesitating?” She asks herself and she looks between the paths and then it hits her. Maybe.. Maybe she’s supposed to make her own path. As Rainbow Dash walked down the light path, she was becoming increasingly worried about her friends, especially Twilight. She knew they could handle themselves if it came to it but Twilight had already been tortured by their worst enemies and whatever else she went through had clearly created some issues. Which raised the question: Why was Twilight at the mirror when it went off? Was she sleep walking? Did the commotion wake her up and she responded first? Or, and Rainbow highly doubted this theory, did Twilight have something to do with what happened to the portal? Rainbow Dash quickly hit herself on the side of the head for that thought. “No way Twilight would WILLINGLY bring back the Sirens. No. Way. She’s too.. she’s Twilight for Celestia's sake. After what she’d been through, she’d never bring back some of our worst enemies unless..” Rainbow says and then an idea formed in her head about the reasoning behind her friend’s actions. “She was trying to.. reform them?” She says hesitantly. “But if she wanted that, why not just-“ Rainbow starts to say but before she can she hears something behind her and instantly turns around, immediately getting choked by.. As Applejack gets grabbed by her throat, she looks at her attacker and sees.. herself and is absolutely stunned. Here she is getting choked by herself.. but different. This other Applejack had glowing orange eyes, the right side of her face was badly scarred, she had a eyepatch over her right eye, she had black and red clothes and her hair was really messy. She was also way more muscular than her smaller counterpart and she looked older. “You’re such a damn idiot for choosing the light path. That’s only gonna lead to ya losing everything, your family, your friends, your home, this battle! ..And everything you love.” This evil Applejack says in a deeper, gruffer voice. She then makes a fist and what Applejack could only assume was a orange magical Ursa claw forms around her fist. “Win or lose.. I’m willing to fight for what I love regardless!” Applejack yells before wrapping her legs around her evil counterpart and using a smooth maneuver to flip her over herself and slam her down, causing her to tumble away and they both slowly get up and the evil Applejack chuckles coldly before glaring at her, her eyes glowing more. “Just by looking at me.. I’m surprised you can’t tell you’ll live to regret thinking like that..” she says before charging at Applejack, ducking under a punch, picking her up, and slamming her down straight through the path. As Rarity was slammed through the light path by her evil counterpart who had introduced herself as “Nightmare Rarity” before attacking her, she realized she was now underwater and when she opened her eyes, she saw that she was underneath a frozen lake.. and she was starting to rise out of it. She looks confused and is suddenly launched out of the lake and into the now visible sky above the frozen remains.. of Ponyville. “No..” Rarity says quietly in shock before she suddenly starts falling down to the ground below her, screaming and waving her arms and legs around frantically. She makes a shield around herself to lessen then damage of the fall and it works but she does end up tumbling painfully through Ponyville until she’s right outside her own boutique. When she tries to get up to look at it, she’s horrified to see the state of it. It’s completely frozen with ice spikes going through the roof and through the window, she can see that the inside wasn’t any better. She sees something buried in the snow and can just barely make out the color and shape of.. Sweetie Belle’s body. She instantly rushes over and digs her out. “Sweetie Belle?! Sweetie! Can you hear me?!” She asks frantically but gets no response.. Sweetie Belle isn’t moving, she isn’t breathing.. her heart isn’t beating.. and Rarity is filled with so much dread, guilt, and sadness. She starts crying over Sweetie Belle’s body, wishing that she had been there to protect her. “Rarity..” She hears her say and quickly opens her eyes to see Sweetie Belle looking up at her.. but her heart still wasn’t beating. “Y-You.. could’ve.. saved us.. why weren’t you here?” She asks with a weak voice and Rarity struggles to answer but then just lowers her head, shaking it slowly. “I.. I wanted to be but.. but I-“ Rarity tries to say until another voice speaks from behind her. “But you weren’t..” the voice says and she turns to see Spike who’s mostly buried in snow, only his face and one of his shoulders being visible. Another voice speaks after he does. “And now everything and everyone you knew and loved is dead and gone.” The voice says and Rarity looks to see Applejack stuck between ice spikes.. some even going into her body. She slowly takes all this in before remembering what happened with the portal.. and realizing.. ..This is just a test. As Fluttershy comes to that realization, finally after she’d spent like five minutes running for her life, she stands up, gently putting down the body of “Angel bunny” and walks away from the illusions of her fallen friends and she can practically hear “Flutterbat” appear behind her and her voice echoes as she speaks. “Now do you understand what you could prevent if you chose the dark side?” She asks as she walks closer to Fluttershy and puts a hand on her shoulder. “You can stop what’s coming.. with my skills, brutality and the ability to bend nature to your will? You would be unstoppable.. but it’s your choice.” She says before sighing and continuing. “You could continue to be weak and afraid and allow this destruction and death to happen..” She says while gesturing to all the destruction around them both and Fluttershy continues for her. “Or I could be like you..” Fluttershy says before slowly turning around to face her evil counterpart and to Flutterbat's surprise, she has a very stern glare on her face. “And be the one who CAUSES IT!” Fluttershy yells, adding emphasis to her last two words with a harsh push that sends her evil counterpart sliding back. As Pinkie walks towards her evil counterpart “Pinkamena” as she recovers, she can’t help but feel a bit amused at how fast all of this had unfolded and the fact that Pinkamena thought she could trick her since they’re practically the same pony. In that case, she should’ve known she had Pinkie sense. Pinkie quickly tries to have the glare return to her face as Pinkamena recovers. “You showed me what you can do!” Pinkie yells, putting on her best “angry voice”. Pinkamena growls, takes out her knife and tries to stab Pinkie with it but she catches her wrist and pulls her closer to her. “And by showing off, you taught me that all of this was done by you! ..Me? ..Us? It doesn’t matter!” She yells as she flips Pinkamena over her, causing her to tumble away before she gets up, her legs glowing blue and she jumps at Pinkie, going at an incredibly fast speed but Pinkie just barely manages to dodge the incoming stab and she grabs her by her hair and uses the recoil to slingshot her to the mayor’s office, sending her through the wall. Pinkie smirks and giggles uncontrollably when she sees Pinkamena's legs sticking out of the wall and kicking to get free. Pinkamena yells as the building glows blue and pink with little streaks of yellow energy and she turns into a giant version of herself and Pinkie goes wide-eyed at the huge display of raw magical power and starts worrying. “Oh no..” Twilight dodges the downward strike from the giant shadow version of Twivine, the actual Twivine watching the fight through Twilight’s eyes, not knowing who to root for or if she should step in. Twilight dodges more attacks from the shadow but eventually gets blasted to the ground and she quickly gets up and holds up one of the shadow’s fists with all her strength to keep from being crushed. “You want to save your friends?! Save your home?! You cannot even save yourself!” “Twivine” yells to her while increasing the force being used to crush Twilight and her legs almost give out as she struggles more and more. “Face facts Twilight Sparkle, it’s over, you’ve already lost.. Celestia made a mistake picking you as the new Princess of Equestria.” The shadow says and Twilight starts to consider that maybe.. maybe she’s right. If she can’t even handle this, how is she supposed to handle a full-scale war if it comes to it.. how was she supposed to handle Midnight? But then she remembers that.. she’s not alone. Throughout the years, she’s had her friends by her side through thick and thin and even though they aren’t by her side right now.. she still carried the magic of their friendship and love within her.. and she refused to let them down. “You’re wrong! I haven’t lost! My friends and I haven’t lost and we won’t lose! Not without a fight! It doesn’t matter what Midnight or anyone else throws at us! We’ll always stick together!” Twilight yells as her eyes slightly glow and she slowly stands up, the fist becoming easier to lift with every second that passed and every ounce of power she felt. “Because Friendship isn’t just magic..” Twilight says as her body starts glowing brighter and brighter, specifically the area in the middle of her chest where there was now a shape that resembled her element. And at the same time, unknowingly to her, she and all her friends yell the same thing at the same time. “Friendship! Is!! ETERNAL!!” Finally the glowing becomes too much and it clears the illusion until they all open their eyes and see giant shadow statues of themselves holding giant glowing representations of their elements between their hands and they all hear the voice from earlier speak to them. “Then the power is yours to keep.. and the path ahead will determine which path you are truly destined to walk.” The voice says and they all nod and walk down the paths leading to their elements and slowly but hesitantly walk into them, being absorbed into the magic that’s making them up.. before a multicolored beam of magic blasts them back into Equestria, the magic spreading across the entire world and gifting new magical abilities to both current or potential heroes.. and villains alike.