"What?" Twilight asked, hoping she had heard Church wrong.
"I know you heard me, just do it." Church grunted against the pain of Discord yelling in his head. Glaring at the other girls out of pain, he nodded firmly at them. "Hurry, I'm not sure how long I can keep in in there."
"Right." The other five girls nodded, sprinting over to their respective Element holders.
"Twilight." Church said when he saw Twilight staring blankly at him. "You need to do it."
"I don't... I..." Twilight shook her head, slowly backing away from him. "I can't."
"You can, Twilight. I know you can." Church said, voice beginning to strain further. "You're the most understanding, strongest and smartest friend I've ever had. You know you need to do this, so stop wasting time and just get it over with."
"But... I can't trap one of my friends forever..." Twilight said sadly.
"You wouldn't be trapping him, Twilight. You would have been doing him a favor." Celestia piped, walking next to Church. "He is doing this not only for you, or for me-"
"I think it's obvious I'm not doing it for you." Church muttered.
"But also for himself." Celestia sighed at his remark. "Think of what you will be giving him, Twilight. You know after everything he has been through, everything he has done, that he deserves his rest."
"And I have to put my friends before myself." Twilight nodded glumly as she walked up to Church. "Okay, I'll do it."
"Thank you." Church nodded as Twilight closed her eyes and focused her magic on Church. Church glanced over to Celestia and raised a curious brow. "You knew about my plan, right? Because I sort of felt you weren't fighting back as much as you could have been."
"Yes, I did." Celestia said quietly, watching her student do what she did best.
"Tell me, were you one hundred percent sure that I was doing it to ruin his plans?"
"It was about fifty-fifty." Celestia replied honestly, not hiding a small smile.
"God, you're unbelievable." Church grunted.
"I thought I was wrong about your plans halfway through. I didn't expect you to hit that hard."
"I needed to make it convincing." Church chuckled, making it clear as he could that he enjoyed doing it greatly.
"I suppose you did." Celestia nodded, furrowing her brows in the slightest of ways.
"Okay, I think I got it." Twilight said quietly when she began to feel her tiara buzzing with magic. She then raised her head and opened her eyes to stare at Church. Not wanting to look at Church, feeling as if she did now she would never be able to do what she was about to do, she turned to the girls and cleared her throat. "Are you girls ready?"
"Yes, dear." Rarity said quietly when she felt the same magical buzz come out of her amulet.
"Ah think so." Applejack nodded promptly.
"Yes." Fluttershy said, eyeing Church seriously.
"Got it." Rainbow Dash nodded, zipping behind Twilight.
"Thanks for the Element, Texy!" Pinkie giggled, hopping towards the others that were gathering behind the Element of Magic.
Once the girls had lined up behind Twilight, she nodded at them. The five girls' amulets and Twilight's tiara soon began to glow and they all lifted off the ground, each one giving off a different different aura. The five amulets then sent a beam of light to the tiara on Twilight's head and it began crackling with energy. Twilight looked to Church as her eyes began to glow a strong white. Church gave her a reassuring smile and nodded at her, showing absolutely no ill-feelings or regrets for asking her to do this.
"I'll miss you." Twilight sobbed, before closing her eyes and kissing Church on the cheek. The contact surrounded Church in a thick rainbow and Twilight backed away sadly.
"I know." Church nodded when he became enveloped in the magic. Suddenly, the magic dissipated within an instant and Church glanced around, fearing that the spell had failed. He then glanced at his hooves and saw that they were slowly turning to hard stone. "Guess it'll be a minute or two until it's done..."
"Do you believe you can hold Discord in for that long?" Luna asked quietly, finally speaking out.
"I hope so, otherwise this would have been all for nothing." Church sighed.
"It wouldn't have been for nothing." Grif said quietly. "I mean, you are dying, which is what we all wanted, right?"
"I guess so." Church laughed roughly, looking at each of the Reds, wondering what he could say to them. "Reds. It was... interesting."
"It was a hell of a ride, Blue." Sarge nodded, Simmons and Grif standing behind him.
"To say the least." Church added weakly, shaking his head as he locked eyes with Tucker. "Tucker, I just want you to know that I hate you. I always have, I always will."
"Fuck you too." Tucker said sarcastically, sharing a quick smirk with Church. "I'll try and convince the Princess to put you off in the corner somewhere that way nobody will bother you and nobody will have to see your ugly mug."
"I expected less of you. Thanks." Church nodded.
"Church, don't go!" Caboose said quickly, jumping onto Church to hug him. "I do not want you to be pooped on."
"Caboose, I have to. If I don't, this guy will continue hurting others, even if he doesn't hurt them directly."
"I want to come with you!"
"What about Pinkie?" Church asked quietly. "She wants you to stay more than you want to go."
"But... you're my best friend." Caboose sniffled quietly.
"That's why I need you to stay." Church grunted as the stone froze his open wings. "Do you remember what you asked me to do for you when you died?"
"I died?" Caboose asked sadly as he jumped off of Church, then blinked after a few seconds of thinking. "Oh, right. No, I don't."
"I need you to return the favor you asked of me. I need you to look after her." Church said as he locked gazes with Twilight, then to Tex. "Both of them. Think you can do that for me?"
"I..." Caboose trailed off, then looked at the two mares, then back to Church and nodded.
"Thanks, buddy." Church smiled at him, then cringed as he felt the harmonious spell reach the base of his neck. With a sigh, he looked at the girls. "Girls. It's been fun. Just going to say this, if I ever said anything that offended you, I apologize. And... tell whoever knew the fragments something simple explaining how they can never come back, alright? Try to keep death out of it, though. I've already died a good amount of times, I don't think I need to go through that again nine times..."
Tex walked ahead of the other mares and went face to face with Church. She then leaned forward and gave him a peck on the lips as a tear rolled down her cheek. Church's eyes flickered as something clicked into place in his mind.
"What is it?" Tex asked, seeing a small smile spread across his cheeks.
"I figured it out." Church said with an extremely weakened laugh, finding it hard to speak now that his voice pipes were slowly being frozen. "I figured out why the Director made copies of him and Allison. I figured out why I was having so much trouble getting over you. It's not because he made me to figure out how to get you out of his head. He wanted to keep you, because he, I, loved you. I mean, yeah, we knew that all along, but he loved you enough that he wanted our love to last forever, not just as long as he lived. Me forgetting you wasn't the right thing to do. That was me trying to run away from my problems. But those weren't the three little words I was supposed to say. God, it really was obvious. So obvious that I was doing it all along, just not the way I was supposed to."
"What were they?" Tex asked quickly as Church's head began to turn a cold gray.
"I'll remember you." Church said as he became completely encased in stone, soft smile on his face.
The room became nothing but silence, staring at the frozen AI that looked as if it was finally at peace and the black mare that stood in front of him, head hanging, legs trembling. Caboose lifted his head and walked up to her and tapped her in the shoulder with his head. Tex glanced up to see Caboose looking at her. His blank expression made her chuckle under her breath, so she nodded at him and the pair made their way to the others.
"So." Tex said quietly as she walked next to Twilight.
"So." Twilight nodded.
"What do we do now?"
"I... don't know." Twilight said as she closed her eyes. "I guess we should clean this place up."
"Leave that to me." Celestia said comfortingly. "You need some rest. All of you."
"Does that mean we have to go home now?"
"No. This is your home now, should you choose to stay." Celestia smiled sadly. "I hope you do stay, though. You all seem to be nonviolent towards my little ponies, but you still could use a little help in the friendship department."
"Well?" Sarge asked, looking at Simmons and Grif.
"Y'know, we've probably seen more action with these ponies than we did in the army." Simmons said quietly.
"Depends on what you mean by action." Tucker smiled, but nobody even batted an eye at his joke.
"Yeah, but at least here I've gotten hit in the balls significantly less than usual." Grif said with a strange chuckle. He then glanced at Fluttershy and smiled. "That is, if you don't mind me crashing at your place."
"I guess you can..." Fluttershy nodded dimly.
"Hey, uh, Fluttershy?" Tex coughed, walking up to her. "Listen, I think I was a little off with Grif. I don't think he's just living with you to take advantage of you. He seems to actually be a nice guy."
"Wait, what are you talking about?" Grif asked.
"A while ago I told her that the only reason you were nice to her was because she was letting you crash at her place and eat all her food."
"You are a bitch." Grif shook his head.
"I know. Sorry about that." Tex smirked impishly, then looked at Fluttershy.
"He can stay." Fluttershy smiled weakly, then looked at Twilight. "What about Tex? are you going to let her stay?"
"Of course I am." Twilight said instantly. "She has the choice to stay or to leave. I won't force her to do anything."
"Thanks." Tex nodded, then looked at the Princesses. "Put him somewhere, nice, okay?"
"Certainly." Celestia nodded, horn beginning to glow a soft gold. "I hope you all follow Church's example and get some well deserved rest. You all need it."
The mares and stallions then found themselves standing in front of the Ponyville Library, which seemed to have either been untouched by Discord's magic, or fixed by Celestia when she teleported them back.
"Well..." Applejack said quietly, rubbing the back of her neck. "Ah suppose ah should get back t' the farm and make sure everypony is okay."
"Yeah, see you guys later." Rainbow Dash said and the others nodded with her.
"We'll see each other when we see each other." Tex nodded and the others began walking home. Turning to walk inside and make sure Spike was okay, she saw that Twilight was still standing outside. "You coming?"
"Yeah." Twilight said quietly. She then looked at Canterlot tearfully and smiled at it, then turned around, walked inside and closed the door behind her.
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Memory.
Memory is something many people take for granted these days, me especially. People think that memory is just something humans, ponies and thousands of other creatures use to store information. I guess that's sort of true, but what nobody realizes is just how much of a gift memory is. Sure, some people think that all remembering does is dig up old wounds and bring nothing but pain, but they don't understand is that pain is what makes you human. Only through pain can we understand what friendship and love really means to us. If everything was all good and well, we would never learn to appreciate what we have. Take the others for example. Even though they made my life a living hell, I can look back and smile at the stupid shit they've put me through and learn from it. Mourning over loss, thinking about all the things you'll never share, the time you'll never spend together. Those aren't what is important. What is important is that you remember the time you shared and cherish those memories forever.
Me?
My only regret is that I took so long to remember.