“The fate of unborn millions will now depend… on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die!” –George Washington
"Brace yourselves!" Flim shouted, racing towards one of the riggings and quickly clamping his teeth around a large spool of rope. The Abundance rocked violently, Iron Will twisting the wheel with as his strength. It was only his quick action that kept the airship from doing a barrel roll and tossing all the ponies that were stationed on its deck into the air.
"What the hay is goin' on?" Applejack shouted, letting go of the three crusaders. When Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had surrendered their alicorn magic back to Faith, they had been delighted to find that the age magic the Queens had used also left them, leaving the two once more as fillies. Scootaloo, of course, was thrilled to see that she remained an abstract AND her cutie mark was still on her flank, but the chance to be her right age again had thrilled her.
Now, however, being pitched about on the deck of the Abundance... she kinda wished she still had her adult wings.
"Turbulence," Rainbow Dash said, flying up to one of the masts and helping Spitfire secure one of the solar sail's riggings. "You'll get use to it once you do a bit more flying!"
"Felt like a skyquake!" Applejack complained, shooing the crusaders to Big Macintosh who took them down below (though not without a few groans from the girls). "Think I'd rather stick to the land, thank ya!"
"That was no ordinary turbulence, Applejack," Celestia said, narrowing her eyes. For a moment her pupils and irises went white as she looked at Equestria from the sun's point of view, Luna joining her as the two bodies fought to drive back the chaos storm Doubt had unleashed overhead. "Hmmm... I am not surprised you did not realize what that was, Rainbow Dash. Except for one time you have always been at the center of a rainboom and not near it."
"That was a rainboom?" Twilight said in shock. "But... I've never felt-"
Luna pulled herself from her lunar gaze. "Faith and Doubt are performing feats that go beyond anything even my sister and I have tried. I dare say they do not realize that their battle is causing such actions."
Shining Armor's face was grim, one foreleg wrapped around Cadence. "Are you saying there is nothing we can do?"
"No, my little pony," Celestia said her tone soft even as her face remained grim and hard, like some ancient dragon awaken from her slumber to find thieves upon the threshold. "Even the tiniest of pebbles can start an avalanche. I have abandoned too many in my long life and I will never do that again. Even if all we can offer are our lives I for one will do so."
"How soon till we reach them?" Luna called out.
"It is hard to say," Trixie said, her steel wings held tight to her metallic sides. "They keep... changing direction."
"Changing direction?" Rainbow called out, hurrying back down to the deck just as Flam engaged the thrusters and sent the airship rocketing across the sky towards the source of the turbulance.
Trixie nodded. "It looks like Doubt has decided to take all of Equestria down with her."
~Appleloosa~
Faith landed in the middle of a dust storm, his eyes stinging as the tiny grains struck and left him half blind. He could sense the buffalo herd a few miles to his right, huddling together in fear. They had known peace and harmony for several months until, like a rope cut by a sudden slash, reality had crashed down upon them and their free will had been returned. They had been horrified by what had been taken from them and rage, sadness, and longing filled their hearts.
Now, however, they felt only fear.
Faith leapt towards them, his horn glowing as he sent out little orbs of magic into the storm, the balls caught in the wind and joining with the grains of sand as Faith landed before the herd, wings spread and eyes narrowed.
Doubt stood before him, cackling as she lifted up several buffalo and with a thought turned them to stone before sending them at Faith. The alicorn caught them, careful not to even chip a piece from them, before sending a wave a light their way that restored the creatures to normal.
"I am one of the Elements," Faith said coolly. "It was my power the rendered Discord stone. It is my power that can undo such magic."
Doubt slammed her fist down and the buffalo cried out in horror as the corpses of their long departed mothers and fathers rose from their graves, their dried out flesh clinging to their bones, which had been polished smooth by the shifting sands. "You are the master of faith... of goodness. If you are so powerful... bring these poor creatures to life once more." Doubt leaned in, stroking one of the zombies, before shoving it towards a sobbing calf.
"There are some things even faith can not do," Faith said, getting between the calf and the corpse. He rose up and his voice boomed out from all corners of the desert. "But these buffalo can have faith that these abominations are not the ones they love!" His horn glowed as the herd gasped as ghostly forms of their departed loved ones appeared in the sky, smiling down upon them. "Those they care about are waiting for them and they will be together again. These falsehoods you created are affronts to those they lost..." The tribe let out yells, their fear forgotten as they felt strength flood their hearts, "...and they will do what they must to defeat them."
Doubt watched on, lobbing lazy blasts of magic at Faith as her zombies and the herd attacked each other. "You fight so hard, Faith, but even you must see that your cause is worthless and doomed to fail." She spread her arms wide, the land shifted and open graves appearing, threatening to swallow the buffalo whole. "What is life but madness and chaos? We are but pain collectors hurtling towards oblivion! What you call stability I call the delusions of those unwilling to open their eyes and see that the only way to survive it to let yourself be free and-"
The spirit of chaos paused, a trickle of blood rolling down her forehead. She reached up to touch the wound, only to find her hand covered in little cuts as well.
Faith smirked, watching as the balls of magic he had sent out exploded, pressing the sand grains together and superheating them into flying bits of glass. The winds picked up these projectiles and sent them tearing through Doubt, the madmare stumbling back as she was slowly cut apart.
"That is the mistake you make, Doubt. You look at the world and see chaos. I look at chaos and see the order hidden within."
The spirit screamed spreading her wings as she forced the storm back.
"Come on, crazy lady... come and get me."
And with that, Faith performed another rainboom, rocketing away from Appleloosa with Doubt fast on his hooves.
~MC~MC~MC~
"So... here you are."
Rarity looked up, blinking her eyes as they tried to adjust to the sudden light that invaded her hiding spot. She had slipped away from the others once they had boarded the ship and found a small unused cabin to claim as her own. She hadn't even bothered to crawl onto the bed, feeling that it was too good for her, and instead had chosen to simply curl up in a corner.
Through her mind the last few months had played like a horror film. She saw herself taking control of ponies' minds. She watched as she gave the command to have prisoners tortured, figuring that if she was giving pain she was still being generous. She watched as her friends slowly drifted apart, becoming mockeries of themselves, and all the while she continued to justify herself.
It was worse than the battle with Discord. At least there she could blame the chaos god for her actions and look upon the horrible parody of herself and accept that it was the polar opposite of herself. But this... this was all her worst traits, amplified and magnified till they had overwhelmed her. She saw not a cruel parody of herself but her own dark desires and wished finally brought to the forefront. It frightened her and left her a sobbing wreck.
And now she had been found by the last being she wanted to see.
"Go away, Spike," Rarity whimpered, hiccupping slightly.
"No," the baby dragon said firmly. "We are getting ready to fight Doubt and we need all the help we can get." The baby dragon shut the door behind him, leaving Rarity in the cool darkness, save for Spike's glowing eyes. Those slits seemed to pierce her soul and it took all her strength not to scream in terror.
"I... I can't help you. Neither of us can." Rarity stroked her tail, lips trembling. "Generosity and I d-deserve each other. Just... just let us stay here and-"
The alicorn let out a yelp as a pair of large, strong hands grabbed her and forced her to her hooves. Her horn glowed, her magic flaring up purely on instinct, and the mare gasped at Spike's appearance. Rarity, still bonded to the abstract, stood as tall as Celestia once had and had the same regal beauty of the princess, even if it was marred by her tears. But Spike dwarfed her, forced to crouch in order to fit his bulk in the cabin. His snout had grown longer and was filled with razor sharp teeth and his chest had become broad and as solid of a diamond. His arms and legs rippled with muscles and his mighty tail thrashed in agitation as he looked at her in annoyance.
"Who are you?" Spike snapped, his deep baritone making Rarity tremble.
"Spikey-Wikey?" Rarity murmured.
"No, you aren't me. Who are you?"
"I don't-"
Spike shook her. "Who are you?"
"Rarity!" the mare cried out. "I am Rarity... Queen Rarity... Rarity the fool and Rarity the monster and-"
Spike's taloned-hand covered her mouth, forcing her to be silent. "You are the Spirit of Generosity and its beater. You are Generosity and Rarity. And yet," Spike leaned in close, smoke slinking out of his nostrils, "right now I have never met someone so greedy."
"What?" Rarity whimpered.
"I am a dragon and I think you are greedy," Spike said, ignoring her question. "Do you get that? I only have this body because I want it and my greed makes me get bigger. I can't help being greedy... I'm a dragon. It's my nature. But I've learned to control it. So explain to me how somepony who is suppose to be the most generous in the world could be so greedy."
"I... I made mistakes... I let myself go blind with my desires and I thought-"
"I'm not talking about your time as a Queen. I could care less about that. You were tricked by Doubt and in my book you are in the same boat as Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo." Rarity let out a wail as the memory of her sister's terrified face right before the Queens had pumped her full of magic flooded her vision. Spike shook her, forcing her out of the memory before in consumed him. "I am talking about right now, at this very moment, you are being selfish."
"I... I don't-"
"You made a mess. You made a horrible mistake and yes, you are going to have to eat some humble pie... and not the kind that Pinkie made 6 months back." Rarity choked back a laugh at that, remembering well that disaster. She sobered with Spike's next words. "But what are you doing right now? You are hiding and crying and throwing yourself a pity party." Rarity opened her mouth but the dragon steamrolled ahead. "You know what you should be doing? You should be throwing yourself in head first, working your hardest to make up for your mistakes! We are still in a war, a war you helped make even if Doubt tricked you... and we could use every horn and every bit of magic we could get.
"But instead of giving us the help you need, you sit in here and cry. That is being greedy, Rarity; that is being selfish." Spike stood up, his height and muscles condensing down until he was his small self again. "The Rarity I know and... care about... would not wallow. She would give everything she had to make things right."
~Canterlot~
Faith grunted in pain as Doubt kicked him through the roof of Canterlot Castle, sending him crashing into Celestia's throne room. The madmare landed and snapped her fingers, the stain glass windows coming to live. Glass versions of the bearers and Discord and Nightmare Moon all rushed Faith, striking his with their sharp limbs and drawing blood. The abstract fought back, shattering those he could, even as Doubt summoned two swords, one golden like the sun and the other a pale silver like the moon, and began to come at him, swinging away.
"Look at you Faith, wasted and gasping for air." Doubt's voice changed, mimicking his own cadence and pitch. "But you don't get to go yet. When Equestria is ashes... then you have my permission to die." Doubt lunged forward, the swords charged with magic as they drove into his wings, shattering the silver appendages and sending Faith to his knees. "I have been waiting a long time to say that."
"Bully... for you," Faith grunted, struggling to fear himself.
"You can't win, Faith. The natural order is chaos, not order. Every creature and every system falls to chaos... that is the way of the world. I proved that... I brought harmony to Equestria and it only bred the chaos that allowed me to claim my true power and have my ultimate revenge!" Doubt twisted the blades and Faith cried out in agony. “I gave them your precious harmony… and they happily sold it away for a moment of CHAOS!”
Faith’s horn exploded with magic, throwing Doubt off him. The spirit of chaos groaned, trying to get to her feet, only for Faith to pounce on her, slashing at her with his wings. “You don’t GET IT!” he roared. “None of you do… not my brothers and sisters, not my friends… none of you.” Faith whipped around and nearly slit Doubt’s throat. “What you created was not harmony, Doubt. It was stability… order. Something that is needed in the world but not to the degree my brothers and sisters brought forth.” Faith’s wings gleamed, droplets of blood rolling along their edges, before he lashed out again. “Perhaps a demonstration is need.
“Let us say my wings, cutting into your weak, soft flesh, represent order. You set up rules and laws to have stability but you can’t live solely on those. Life was meant to have some turns and twists… a joke with a surprise punchline, a gift given purely because you wanted to. Sometimes yes, you need chaos.”
Faith turned his head and sent a blast of magic at Celestia’s throne, lifting it up and bringing it towards him. The great stone chair hung in the air for a moment and he paused to give Doubt a cruel smile.
“This bloody throne will be representing chaos in our demonstration!”
He slammed the stone chair into Doubt again and again, crushing her limbs and bludgeoning her head till the tiles ran red with her blood. The entire time he did not stop watching, did not stop gazing at her features. Again and again he drove the stone into her body, cracking bodies and turning limbs into jelly.
Doubt, her wounds already healing, grabbing the throne and snapped it in half before wrappingher taloned hand around Faith’s throne and rocketing them out of the castle.
~The Everfree Forest~
Faith and Doubt landed in a heap just outside the crumbling walls of the Castle of the Alicorn Sisters. The abstract rolled his shoulders, trying to get his wings to work. Doubt had nearly ripped one of them out during their flight and it was twitching weird every time he tried-
The silver abstract screamed as Doubt sent a blast of lightning through him.
“And we come to it at last… the final moments of the great and arrogant Faith,” Doubt said, spitting a wad of blood out as she spoke. Her body was lined with scars and the left side of her face was slowly trying to regrow portions of her skull. “It ends as it began… with you all alone, facing a power you do not understand.”
“Understand?” Faith said, fighting the urge to close his eyes. Somewhere over Los Pegasus Doubt had gotten a hold of his horn and left several deep cracks in it. The headache left him seeing double and his balance was wonky as he focused his health magic on his wings and shattered rips, as well as the multitude of wounds Doubt had littered upon his chest during their battle in Canterlot. “It… it is you that doesn’t understand,” Faith said, his tongue feeling fat in his mouth. “You don’t understand what I want… and don’t understand how I function.
“I was ready to die after what Laughter did to me. I was ready to end it all. But then I remembered something, Doubt… I remembered something I had forgotten, something so utterly important that it dwarfs the search for my name.
“I remember what I have FAITH in.”
“And what is that?” Doubt said mockingly.
“Ponies,” Faith said as the Abundance came into view overhead, the alicorns and the bearers and the rebellion and the abstracts leapt down, standing behind Faith as he glared at Doubt. The madmare looked at them with wide eyes, surprised they were there, surprised they had come to face death with Faith. “I have lived over a thousand years… and in that time I saw quite a few things, but I always longed to see the impossible. I wanted to see something that should not be occur. It was a desire of mine, selfish perhaps, but something I wanted to see nonetheless.
“And then… and then I met six special ponies… who, despite all their differences and the unlikelihood of them EVER even knowing each other… somehow… someway… they became the best of friends.” Faith spared a glance behind him, a tear falling down his cheek and a smile on his face as he watched Rarity… the last of them… emerge from the crowd and stand with Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy. He turned back to Doubt and took a step forward, energy pouring off of him as he spoke. “And again and again, when their differences should have torn them apart… they found a way to make up and continue to be friends… and their bond became stronger. This… this capacity for love… it flew in the face of all the bitter thoughts I had come to known during my journey. I had seen so much anger and bitterness… and yet here they were. It wasn’t supposed to be like this… it was…
“Impossible.”
Faith threw back his head as Twilight and her friends’ horns glowed, the elements of harmony appearing before them. The golden pieces shifted before placing themselves on them. The girls, as one, took a step forward, standing with Faith, the elements flashing as they formed golden armor around him, each piece bearing one of their cutie marks.
“And that’s when I realized… they weren’t the exception. They were the rule. Despite everything that happens, the ponies of this land will always find the magic of friendship and love… again and again.” The rest of the group step forward, creating a great wall of solidarity. Princesses stood next to farmers and dragons and minotours locked arms together as they faced down Doubt. “This… is what I have faith in.”
“Good,” Doubt said, turning her head and snapping her fingers.
Twilight’s eyes widened as a sensation… a sensation of being pulled away… filled her. It was one she had felt in the Everfree, only a couple weeks ago… and now it was growing stronger.
“Then you can all die together,” Doubt said as a massive portal of pure magic formed behind her.
“What… what is that?” Fluttershy whispered.
It was Celestia who answered, fear coloring her words.
“That… is The Gate.”
“The Gate? The Gate to what?” Rainbow said, before crying out when Scootaloo, against her will, was dragged towards the swirling vortex. She moved to grab her, only to let out a yelp as she found herself being dragged forward as well. She glanced at Twilight, eyes wide as the alicorn of the stars became transparent for a moment.
“To world of the Abstracts,” Doubt laughed as the Faith, Honesty, Kindness, Rarity/Generosity, Trixie, Scootaloo, and the bearers fought against the pull. “I must thank you, Faith… the gate could only be opened when enough power had been gathered. The stupid little failsafe our kind created to prevent the ponies from invading… that kept you locked out… it would only come crashing down when there was a big enough presence of abstract power on this side… a sign of fellow abstracts, ready to go home.” She smiled in awe as the magic of the portal lashed out, disintegrating the Castle of the Alicorn Sisters with a single blast. “I needed you to gain power, Faith, or for me. It didn’t matter which of us. All that mattered was the power. It doesn’t matter now, though… the door has been opened…” Doubt fired several blasts of magic at the gateway and it trembled, the power fluctuating. “And now I’m going blow it to hell… and all of us with it... pony and abstract alike, destroyed in one-” she fired off a ball of energy, “-fell-“ another, “-swoop!”
Doubt cackled as she fired wave after wave of chaos magic into the gateway… which began to violently destroy the Everfree.
"This isn't revenge, Faith... this is genocide." Doubt rolled her shoulders and sent another blast out, the portal lashing out and taking down a grove of trees, reducing them to dust. "And you get a front row seat!"