//------------------------------// // Intercession // Story: Unfinished // by redsquirrel456 //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle cried as Princess Celestia closed the book, replacing it on her shelf. The little scrape it made joining its brothers seemed terribly final and depressing, even though Twilight knew full well she would pull the book out again tomorrow when she asked for that story again. She settled back against her star-snowed pillow and pouted, looking up at the ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark stars she had carefully arranged into approximations of the actual night sky. “Princess, why do books have to end?” she asked, tearfully rubbing her eyes with her favorite purple blanket. Celestia smiled as she turned back to her little charge. “Dear one, the world is full of stories of every kind and more come every day. They never truly end. They blend, little Twilight, affecting each and every story that comes before and after, until they are all are merely the continuation of one truly grand epic.” She took Twilight’s sheets in her teeth and tucked her in with grace and poise that only a mother could possess. “But remember this: there will always be more stories to tell, and though all will be told, not all will be heard. But yours will.” “How do you know?” Twilight asked, her eyes big with fear and wonder. Celestia’s smile was like a warm glass of honeyed tea. She pointed out the window with her wing. “Let’s just say I have a... broader perspective on life than most." Another Twilight Sparkle, older and wiser and scarred by life, watched from the doorway. She breathed quietly even though she knew the memories couldn’t notice her; moments like these were sacred and cherished, treasured deep down inside the vaults of her heart. “Not many ponies were there for me back then,” she whispered, “but she always was. Every moment of every day.” “Watching,” Magic hissed in her ear. “Yes,” Twilight said with a smile. “Watching, waiting, and guiding.” She turned away, moving past Magic into an empty lecture hall. The teacher’s desk sat bare at the front, waiting for books and chalk and the rap of a stern ruler getting attention. The chalkboard was wiped clean, and the desks were polished and ready to be occupied by bustling students, save one. Twilight saw her younger self sitting at a desk in the very front, her eyes roaming over an old study book. She knew it well: Advanced Magical Theory, Tier 1. But in spite of the tome being an old, rote thing to her, she scrutinized every line she read. The door swung open and Celestia came inside. Even here, surrounded by the opulence and pomp of Canterlot’s top school, she took Twilight’s breath away as she seemed to glide into the room rather than just walk in, measuring every step so it was smooth and elegant. Princess Celestia looked down at her with a sublime smile. “My faithful student, why are you here? It is well into Saturday afternoon and classes are done with.” She paused. “For the whole weekend.” Twilight looked up, her expression flat. Celestia just smiled. “I miss my parents,” said the young student, dropping her chin onto her hooves. “Then go to them,” Celestia replied without hesitation, utterly unruffled by her bluntness. “You are no prisoner here, Twilight.” “Really?” Twilight scrunched up her nose. “I’ve been working nonstop for a week now. I’m about two days away from cracking the third algorithm in a spell that’s been eluding me for months. You’d really just let me drop everything to go see them?” “I would.” “And she did,” Twilight Sparkle whispered. The Other was silent. Twilight turned away and found herself in a large field. It stretched out about fifty hoof-lengths in every direction, carpeted with bright green grass that tickled her belly interspersed with flowers of every color. Bees buzzed between them mechanically, searching each one in turn. Beyond the field Twilight saw the ground abruptly give way to a blank, vast plain of darkness, stretching out to the very limits of the horizon. Twilight took an experimental step and found the grass of the field supple and comfortable to walk on, and she started to pace in ever-widening circles, closing her eyes and pretending the smell of fresh flowers wasn’t more than a scattered memory amid a sea of bubbling black. “You recall it all with such ease,” the Other whispered, sounding awed. Twilight allowed herself a little smile, trying not to appear smug as her lips curled up. “They were defining moments in my life,” she answered. “Not even the Nightmare can kill those. It was easy once I started to look. The Nightmare is me, right? I can’t destroy my own memories. Nopony can. We just choose to ignore them sometimes.” The Other was silent. Twilight smiled at her, turning away again to wander the field. She plucked out one of her most important memories, the one that punctuated just when she would become Twilight Sparkle, not just Celestia’s student. She looked up and Celestia stood in front of her, beaming with pride. “My faithful student,” she said, “I knew you could do it.” Twilight said nothing, letting the memory play out before her as Celestia radiated loving kindness. “I told you you needed to make some friends, nothing more. I saw the signs of Nightmare Moon’s return and knew it was you who had the magic inside to defeat her. But you could not unleash it until you let true friendship into your heart.” The image faded, and Twilight turned back to Magic. “She never wanted to hold me back. Isn’t it obvious? All the times she could have restricted me she tried to push me forward instead.” “Seeds for a trapped bird,” Magic replied. “We don’t need her to beat the Nightmare, whatever else she might have done for you.” “But we need her love,” Twilight replied, stepping up to Magic and pressing her forehead against Magic’s neck. She rubbed back and forth, letting her mane brush over the Other’s cheek. “I need to love her and she needs to love me, in spite of everything that’s happened.” Magic pushed her away. “What she did to us—” “—will just make us stronger in the end,” Twilight whispered. “What happened to you, Magic? Were you blinded? Is the Nightmare taking away everything of yours, too? Friends forgive, don’t they? Even at their worst, friends forgive. And I am friends with Celestia, whatever you or the Nightmare says.” She waved a hoof out at a spectral field of screens that rose up in front of them, all displaying moments from her life. “Look at her smile,” Twilight said, regarding one memory with particular fondness. It was the night of the Grand Galloping Gala, and Celestia smiled warmly at Twilight and her friends as they turned an abominable time into something special, purely by dint of each other’s company. Twilight grinned. “Look at how proud she is of how far we came even after freeing her sister. She never stopped caring for us, even if she never nurtured us the way you wanted her to.” She turned back and looked Magic in the eyes, and shivered at how keen the Element’s gaze was. Was that how she looked to others when she got stern with them? The idea terrified and strengthened her all at once. “Is that all this really is? Holding onto a thousand year grudge for destroying what you once had?” She squinted, and took a deep, fragile breath. “You didn’t want to go, did you? After Nightmare Moon?” “She rebuffed the advice that all of us gave her,” Magic spat. “You saw it in those visions! The Elements tugged and pulled at her heart and she ignored us, choosing her own wisdom while we pleaded with her to listen. The Elements could have helped Luna! Celestia could have used us to keep her sister from falling in the first place! But by the time Celestia realized it was too late Nightmare Moon was too powerful, and Celestia used us as weapons of war—something we were never meant to be.” Magic turned away and spat into the miry darkness beyond the pleasant little meadow. “You don’t know what it’s like, watching a dear old friend destroy everything you helped them build. After Discord, after the founding of Equestria, after everything we helped them do, they turned away from our teachings. When Celestia severed her friendship with her sister, she severed the bond she had with us as well. Willingly, I should add.” “Then you had no choice but to leave her,” Twilight murmured. “Just like she had no choice but to banish Luna. And her fear of repeating the same mistakes she made just led to this. But what about Morningtide?” “Isn’t it obvious?” Magic sneered, turning back to Twilight. “Just as she knew you were to be my vessel, she knew that Morningtide had the exact same power. The same capability to tear a hole in the veil she cast her sister behind. That time, the Nightmare almost got in when Celestia used me all over again to bring her sister back before her time. Now it has torn that veil open and is marching through every world unopposed. Morningtide had power that neither he nor Celestia ever truly understood. He had me.” The fathomless eyes snapped back up to Twilight’s, challenging, accusing. “He had you. When Celestia found you, she found everypony she ever saw that had my touch on them. She saw Morningtide and the Nightmare almost destroying him all over again.” Twilight stood back, feeling strangely light on her hooves in spite of the Nightmare’s clear presence. She felt as if she were more of a mare than she was before, more herself and more complete. The destruction of the Nightmare and its careful picking apart of her mind seemed to have consolidated everything she was more than destroyed it. The guilt and insecurity and fear had been stripped away, taken for fuel by the Nightmare and leaving nothing but the essential, fundamental Twilight in its wake. She had so little to work with, but that feeling brought a certain liberty of spirit that she puzzled over the revelations flying between her and her Element. “And she saw herself,” Twilight whispered. “And that just made her even more terrified the same mistakes would happen.” Magic sighed delicately. “I can feel your understanding and sympathy, Twilight. And so it is mine as well. But there is no way to repair a bridge burned so long ago. The Princesses panicked when they saw you were suffering the same fate Morningtide nearly did, and Luna before him. Celestia and Luna both knew that if you were taken by the Nightmare, the world would fall. But that is no excuse. They did something unforgivable.” “Unforgivable,” Twilight murmured, her unfocused eyes scanning the ground, “is just a matter of perspective. Forgiveness is something Celestia taught me too. Your lack of forgiveness is the Nightmare talking,” Twilight said, boldly coming forward to thrust her nose into her reflection’s face. “Not you, and not me. That’s all the hate and fear and disgust we felt, but that’s not here right now, is it? I can tell the Princesses did everything out of love: love for each other, for Equestria, even me. But ultimately this isn’t about whether or not you and I understand what she did or why. The Nightmare has been showing us only what it wants us to see. I understand that now. Do you?” She turned towards the infinite field of black that stretched overhead, gesturing towards it. “Dusk Shine’s the key to all of this. He lived in a world where his teacher hid nothing from him and helped him every step of the way.” “A dream that never existed,” Magic sighed, but Twilight slapped her hoof over Magic’s mouth. “But still every bit as important and beautiful as my Celestia,” she insisted. “It’s just like what you said. A story doesn’t have to be real to be important. It matters. It all does. I don’t care if you say Dusk isn’t real. I believe in him. I believe that he’s going to survive—and my friendship with Celestia will too. I understand now, I understand why every time I looked at him I felt something that told me that this was a pony I should know. His feelings, his thoughts, his experiences—I wanted all those to be mine, and they weren’t, and maybe they even can’t, but I’m sure as hay not going to stop aspiring to that dream. It’s the story I want to write of my life. I want to trust Celestia. It’s either her or the Nightmare.” Magic peered at Twilight with a new level of insight. Something passed between them in that moment, something Twilight had never really felt before, even when the Elements were activated against Discord himself. It was a feeling of wholeness and things clicking perfectly into place. Now, instead of simply existing together, she and Magic were one pony again. It wasn’t a bond that could stand up to the pounding of the Nightmare on Twilight’s mental door, but it was a start. A stepping stone to something greater. Twilight longed to establish the same link with the Princesses when she returned to the world. “What now?” Magic asked. Twilight took a single breath and looked at the edge of the field, at the line that separated her little island of calm from the roaring anger of the Nightmare. She lifted a hoof and stepped out into the mire. Her hoof sank just a touch, but something firm and springy pushed back and held her up. She kept walking until she stood on all fours in the darkness, and looked over her shoulder. “Now we find the Nightmare.” ------------- Dusk Shine hadn’t known true terror throughout the insanity his entire existence had become. He felt anger, desperation, and sadness of the highest orders, all of which reached into his heart and tore the strings asunder until he could barely make sense of it all. When the Princes died, he had felt a pain like no other. Watching his friends succumb to hopelessness had brought despair he never thought possible. Seeing the Nightmare annihilate his universe had brought a great numbing horror. But he had never felt the raw, animal fear of knowing that he was about to be killed, that something was hot on his heels, slavering and gnashing its teeth in keen readiness to devour him. Yet here he was charging up a mountainside towards a dead city, and a former friend was now that terrible monster that wanted to obliterate him. Now the terror came, nipping at his heels, raking his body with cold iron claws, tugging at his tail and mane as they flapped in the wind. His heart thundered in his chest. Cold sweat chilled his mane as his breath fogged in the cold, rotten air. His hooves pounded the stone, kicking up loose gravel as he threw everything he had into the act of running. His two remaining friends huffed and puffed as they ran for their lives next to him, each of them totally wrapped up in the act of survival. They didn’t even look at each other. The only thing that mattered was what was ahead: the next turn, the next rise, the next obstacle to avoid. Applejack—or the thing that used to be Applejack—hurtled after them, eating up the landscape as he drove needle-sharp tentacles into the ground and pulling its smoky bulk up the path. Solaris help them, it was getting closer every time he looked back. Dusk pushed himself bodily against the wall he found inside, the one that said his body had reached its limits and he could go no further. Everything from breathing to thinking to speaking was eaten up by the act of running, fueled by the wild animal horror of being hunted. Applejack gained on them. Dusk felt it in the way the terror seemed to creep up along his spine like an insidious spider, and saw it in the way the engulfing shadow grew larger every time he looked back. The next bend gave them the sight of Canterlot itself, though Dusk was too exhausted to notice anything save the gates themselves. The drawbridge was down, leading up to the wide open gateway, and past that Dusk saw the grey streets of the city. Dusk gathered up a breath in his burning lungs and let it out in a tearing shout. “We can’t fight him and we can’t run forever!” The words ripped through his throat as he turned to Rainbow. “We gotta slow him down!” A grin spread over Rainbow’s face as his eyes focused on the drawbridge. “Already on it! Just keep running.” Opening his wings, he leapt into the air like a cannonball as he arched overhead and turned towards the gate. Behind the pegasus a rainbow seared the sky, a white-hot blaze of color and life defying the slate-grey clouds. Dusk looked to Elusive, furrowing his brow, and got only a shrug in return as they charged for the gate. Rainbow reached the apex of his arch and began to come back down. Dusk only then saw he was aiming straight for them. “Is he crazy?!” he shouted, but the thought of being caught by Applejack, now only a few galloping strides behind them, kept him going. Rainbow streaked down like a polychromatic comet. They reached the drawbridge, hooves thundering over the wood. Dusk heard the whistle of Rainbow’s slipstream turn into a roar that filled his ears. Applejack reached the drawbridge and dug his claws into the decaying wood, slavering and snarling, the whiplash of his whirling tentacles cracking through the air as he prepared to make the final leap. His undulating body surged up like a wave to crash down on the two fleeing unicorns. Dusk saw a blaze of color and felt a torrent of air slap into him like a solid wall, lifting him off his hooves like an errant breeze lifted a leaf. The world suddenly went spinning all around him and then Dusk realized he was spinning and sailing through the air. Splinters and bits of rock bit into his hide as they chased him. He closed his eyes when he saw the ground getting closer, certain of the screeching pain of his cheek bouncing and skidding over the rough stone ground. Instead, something hard and blue thudded into his chest, bearing him aloft again as he was bundled up between... hooves. He looked up and saw Rainbow, his face set with determination, Elusive hanging off his neck with a bewildered expression. Behind them, the remnants of a rainbow-smeared mushroom cloud reached for the sky in its last gasp. The pegasus looked like he had shot straight out of one of a comic book, hurtling down the street and flaring his wings out to bring them to a halt amidst the scream of wind that almost burst into flame from the friction. Just before Dusk thought they were safe, Rainbow cried out and jerked, twisting around to throw Dusk away from him just before he hit the ground harder than even a pegasus should be able to. Elusive flew into a cart full of rotten fruit but Rainbow kept going, skidding and spinning end over end until he crashed through a shop window. Dusk sprang to his hooves and hurried to him, calling his name. “I’m here!” Rainbow answered, his voice tight with barely concealed pain. “I’m... ahhh! I’m in here! “Did that do it?” Elusive asked, brushing rotten avocado off his face and mane. “Did that stop him?” “Not even for a second,” Rainbow sputtered as Dusk sprang through the window, looking into the shop. Rainbow lay amidst a pile of glass fragments and general store goods. “My wings,” he moaned. Dusk’s eyes went to the feathered limbs and he gasped. Rainbow’s left wing was twisted at a horrible angle, jutting from Rainbow’s side like some gnarled tree limb. Many of the feathers had fallen—no, were falling—from both wings, snapping off and drifting away to rest amidst the ashes scattered between the aisles. Rainbow reached out for Dusk, who almost recoiled from the pitiful sight, and collapsed against him as he tried to flex his wings. The battered limbs twitched and jerked horribly as they tried to expand again, crackling and freezing up at the joints. Rainbow grimaced, burying his head into Dusk’s chest. “He—he got my wings with something right after I hit him and it hurts, ah hayseeds it hurts Dusk make it stop...” Rainbow groaned like a slow-falling tree as his wings seized up and became rigid in a grisly half-opened position. On both wings splotchy patches of black were already showing, and Dusk’s stomach turned as he looked closer. Oh sweet Solaris I can see it spreading he’s going to die oh no no please no— “G—Get me out of here,” Rainbow grumbled, shoving Dusk back outside. “It friggin’ hurts to walk, ahhh Applejack you bucking traitor I’m gonna rip your friggin’ head off!” Elusive, red in the face from a nasty burn hurried over to help but stopped at the sight of Rainbow’s ravaged wings. “Oh, Rainbow,” he whispered, but Rainbow shoved him out of the way. “Don’t start. Just... don’t either of you talk about it, okay? We gotta keep moving. AJ’s kinda ticked that I smashed him in the face with a Rainboom.” They heard a distant crash and the wail of something unearthly slobbering and slurping down the street. Without any hesitation, they picked the street that went most opposite to the noise and ran. Soon all they heard was the sound of their restless breathing and the clatter of their hooves over stone. The close walls echoed every sound back to them, bouncing it playfully between the arches and long, meandering streets before tossing it back as if to laugh at them for trying to bring life and noise into a city that held neither of those things anymore. None of them spoke as they passed through the sepulchral passages, watched from every angle by looming, empty-eyed windows and suspicious doors that swung steadily back and forth to an eerie, inaudible cadence, waving to them as they went by. Every so often a hollow wail came from somewhere behind them. It was a high-pitched warbling thing, hard on the ears and clearly painful if one was too close to the source. It was always accompanied by the sound of shattering stone, like the frustrated cry of an eldritch toddler throwing a tantrum. Dusk heard a familiar sound in the middle of those shrieking dirges. He heard it only once, but it was enough to chill him to the bone. Dusk, it said. Dusk Shine, come here. He shivered and kept running. They didn’t stop until they made it to the main thoroughfare that went up to the castle itself. The wide open plaza was eerily quiet, not a soul to be seen stirring the little piles of smoking ash that littered the ground. Dusk huddled up behind a decorative tree whose branches were bare of leaves. “Do you see him?” asked Rainbow. Dusk shook his head. “We lost him once we got to Donut Jane’s old place,” Elusive whispered, keeping an eye out behind them. “You don’t lose something like that. He’s out there,” Rainbow grumbled, then winced. “Guys, I don’t mean to rush or anything, but I... I can’t feel my wings anymore. This stuff is spreading.” “We’re almost there,” Dusk hissed over his shoulder. “Just a little further. A little—” A loud crack followed by a tremendous bang made them all jump. Dusk looked back and saw a large boulder next to the gate that hadn’t been there before, surrounded by a cloud of settling dust. Up above, a hole had been carved into the castle’s battlements. “It’s falling apart,” Dusk whispered. “The Nightmare’s corruption...” “It’s already ahead of us,” Elusive said, dropping onto his haunches. “It’s already here! That monster is probably just watching us even now, laughing at us fight each other!” Rainbow snatched Elusive by his mane and gave him a rough shake. “Get a grip, Lucy! We just gotta cross this plaza, then we’re inside and the Elements are ours. Then all this goes away, right? Right!” He strode into plain sight, going straight for the castle gates. “Now come on. If AJ’s here then he’s just waiting for us.” “How are we supposed to fight him?” Elusive asked them both. Rainbow cast his gaze over the plaza, staring at the piles of ash littering the landscape. Some of them still had clothes sitting amidst the burnt-out embers, and others... “This one has some equipment,” Rainbow said, scattering the ash surrounding a pile of gold-plated guard armor. Dusk watched passively, feeling his stomach turn. Elusive put a hoof over his mouth and retched. “Rainbow, how could you? That’s a—” “She doesn’t need it anymore, does she?!” Rainbow snapped, pulling a spear out from under the breastplate. “I don’t know what good this’ll do. Elusive, you take it,” he said, and Elusive reluctantly wrapped his magic around it. “I’d use it if I had my wings, and I’m better with my bare hooves anyway.” “My magic still doesn’t work,” Dusk said quietly. His words trailed off into an uneasy silence. “Well, come on,” said Rainbow. Dusk and Elusive slunk behind him, keeping their heads down. Every step they took made their legs feel heavier as the open space taunted them with their vulnerability. There was a  loud crack that rent the air the moment they reached the center of the open space. Rainbow shook his head as they all froze in their tracks. “I knew it.” The ground seemed to be opening up before them, cracking and splitting open into a huge, indefinable blackness—and it was only when the dark cracks became blotches, and the blotches joined together into a pool, that Dusk realized it wasn’t a hole. It was Applejack. He rose up out of the bubbling black pond, stretching out jointless limbs to heave himself onto dry ground. Rainbow ushered his friends back as the shapeless mass gathered more bulk. A protuberance oozed out from its center, stretching towards them as tentacles blindly groped the air around him. From the new bulge came a hissing noise that trailed off into a strangled whine that warbled wildly in pitch and tone, struggling with its own incoherence. Amidst the inane babbling, Dusk heard familiar sounds that chilled his blood and seized his attention. Applejack was talking to them. “D... Duuusk,” he moaned. “Rain... bow...” “Applejack?” Dusk asked, tripping over his own hooves as the terror slithered into his heart like the oozing tentacles that swam over the ground. “Dusk,” he answered, and Dusk felt his heart skip a beat as Applejack turned towards him and began to advance. “Duuusk.” “Get back!” Rainbow shouted. “Guys, run. I’ll hold him off!” “Not by yourself!” Elusive snapped, but his attention was drawn back to Applejack as he rose up, and the dark shadows flaring out from his sides coalesced into spikes, blades, and bludgeons. In spite of the fear Dusk froze on the spot, almost mesmerized by the hypnotic swaying of the creature as he prepared to drive every weapon he had straight down onto his skull. “Diiiiie Dusk diiiiiiie...” He heard Rainbow shout something, and then an explosive pain as Rainbow pulled him to the side. With a tremendous crash every one of Applejack’s weapon arms smashed the ground Dusk had just stood upon, tearing up the stone and bedrock. “DIIIIIIIE,” the monster moaned as it sent its arms flailing in every direction, trying to catch the scattering ponies. “Get to the doors! Go!” Rainbow shouted, picking up a piece of masonry and hurling it at Applejack. He took the blow and simply absorbed the stone into his mass without even slowing down, lashing out with his tendrils. Dusk felt the air rush over him as a near miss struck the stone beneath his hooves, ripping open cracks that raced after him and split the ground open, taking his sure footing away. His blood froze in his veins as he felt himself slip and then fall, cracking his head against the stone. His cheek tore open on a jagged outcrop, and there was blood on the stone as he pushed himself back up. The sound of Applejack’s slithering form was maddeningly close. He could almost feel the cold, clammy tentacles creeping up his leg, around his neck, and squeezing... “Take this, you ruffian!” Elusive shouted. Applejack screeched and withdrew from Dusk. A glowing spear sprouted from his back, scorching him with magical energy. Elusive’s magic turned to Dusk and wrapped around him, dragging him over the stone into Rainbow’s waiting hooves. “Come on!” the pegasus shouted in his ear. Dusk felt disconnected and disoriented, half-carried by Rainbow as they hoofed it to the door. “Hurry! He’s right behind you!” Dusk heard Applejack howling almost right next to his head. That got him moving and he charged up the steps along with Rainbow. Elusive looked over their shoulders, and his mouth dropped open, his hoof reaching out to them. Dusk suddenly felt very aware of what was happening. He watched it all unfold, achingly slow. Their eyes met, Elusive’s melancholy colliding with Dusk’s determination. Dusk saw deep into his friend’s gaze and in the wide, reflective pupils he saw Applejack bearing down on them, a gaping maw of gnashing teeth surrounded by a writhing wall of grasping arms and spiny limbs. He saw something thin and silver fly through the air, straight towards them. His horn sparked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a delicate spark of magic float down next to his head, not unlike a butterfly. Then the butterfly burst, exploding into energy that shot downward like a jackhammer. Before it even hit the floor lavender lines burst out in every direction from under Dusk’s hooves, drawing intricate and familiar patterns on the floor. Elusive bulled into Rainbow with his shoulder, making contact just as the world began to shift, twist, and pull in all the wrong directions, yanking them forward even as Elusive shoved them both sideways, and for a tiny, infinitesimal moment Dusk thought they’d just be able to make it. Then there echoed a terrible, ghastly noise not unlike that of scissors snapping shut, followed by a spray of something wet and warm on Dusk’s face, and the world stopped moving just as he opened his eyes. He looked up and saw a cracked, arched doorway soaring overhead, the stone ten thousand years old, spiderwebbed with cracks and ready to drop. Busts lined the hall, cracked and pitted. The carpet frayed and the air smelled stale. All around was ash. Dusk heard a noise and turned. Elusive stood in front of him, hooves still outstretched. The very same spear he’d attacked Applejack with now impaled him, sticking out of his flank at an awkward angle and going all the way down into his stomach. Dusk saw the tip poking grotesquely from Elusive’s belly as blood dribbled from the hole, along with the dark ichor of something much worse. Dusk felt cold. “Lucy?” he asked, licking dry lips. “Lucy...” Elusive shuddered and his eyes went back to his injury. “Oh,” he whispered. “Oh, Solaris preserve me. Oh my...” He grunted in a low tone and pitched forward, flopping to the ground as he pawed at the shaft sticking from his side, whimpering childishly. Rainbow grabbed his mane in his teeth, pulling him along the ground, pleading with him to get up, get up and move, please get up. “Lucy,” Dusk sputtered, frozen to the spot. He didn’t know why Applejack or the Nightmare hadn’t already fallen on them, or why his magic had chosen just that moment work, and he didn’t care. All that mattered was that long, thin shaft poking so strangely out of his friend’s body. Something like that wasn’t supposed to be there. It fascinated him, drew his eyes relentlessly to it, screamed beguiling wrongness in the way the darkness shrouding it twitched and writhed of its own accord. Dusk gawked, shook his head. He couldn’t understand why that thing was in his friend. Dark lines formed new gashes under Elusive’s alabaster fur, splitting open to let loose a flood of blood and black ooze. Dusk sank to his knees and babbled, “Lucy, why? Why, Lucy? Oh, Lucy, why’d you do it?” Elusive coughed and shoved Rainbow away from him. He winced, clenched his eyes shut, curled into a pathetic ball on the ground as he struggled to hold back an unearthly scream of agony. He lifted his head and smiled. “One last generous thing,” he said, and with visible effort he pointed a shaking hoof down the hall. “Go,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion and his own phlegm. “Go.” “No,” Rainbow said, shaking his head so hard his brittle wings rattled. “Not like this! Not like this!” “Go,” was all Elusive said, all he could say by the way his eyes pleaded and begged, knowing if he said too much he’d erupt into ungentlemanly wailing. “Please go, Rainbow. Please go.” Dusk’s vision warped and swirled. He remembered the flash of magic, the teleportation sigil coming so cleanly and quickly from his horn, his damnable broken horn—not quick enough. Dusk wasn’t quick enough and now Elusive was dying and the Nightmare was still out there and Applejack was going to kill them and it was all his fault and then the floor suddenly met his face and he pushed his head into the stone and screwed his eyes shut. Rainbow shouted something at him but he wouldn’t listen, Elusive said something about a plan, and for them to just go, then he felt a sharp pain on his mane, and hot breath on his neck. Rainbow was pulling him by his mane, he realized, and his legs wouldn’t cooperate to help him. They collapsed, and Rainbow kicked him and yelled and even spit on him once, but he just wouldn’t go. He turned back to Elusive and saw his friend smiling at him and somehow that just made him angry. No, Elusive didn’t get to be happy about this. Not when it was all Dusk’s fault and he hadn’t been able to save him or everypony else. “I wasn’t quick enough,” he said. Elusive nodded. “I know,” he answered. “I know, Dusk. Go. Oh, Dusk, I’m dying. Please go. I’ll slow him down, I promise.” Dusk went, though his legs still weren’t moving. Rainbow had him on his back, and through the grim frame of Rainbow’s broken wings he saw Elusive vanishing into the gloom of the castle hall, looking up at the arched stone doorway run through with massive faults and cracks. Dusk saw Elusive’s lips move and say something just as a horrible black thing rounded the corner and its shriek drowned him out. Then Rainbow shoved him through the next doorway and pushed it shut, and there was nothing more to be seen. “Keep moving,” Rainbow gasped, hauling Dusk’s dead weight along. “Keep moving. Keep moving!” Dusk didn’t move. He felt Rainbow’s hoof strike him in the gut, but there wasn’t much force behind it and all Dusk did was grunt and fall over anyway. “Keep moving!” Rainbow repeated, yanking him to his hooves. “Everypony's gone... just us. Last pony standing, huh? That’s how it’s gonna be? I’m frickin’ Loyalty,  you hear me? I’m not leaving you, Dusk, but I sure as sap ain’t gonna just let you fall over and die! Get moving!” “I killed him,” said Dusk. “I killed him, Rainbow. I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t fast enough and my magic didn’t save him. It didn’t save anypony.” “Not yet,” Rainbow snapped. “Not yet it didn’t. But we’re gonna save everypony now, right? We’re gonna save everypony, Dusk! You said so yourself!” A giant crash made them jump, followed by the enraged roar of something bestial and in pain. Elusive had pulled his trick, and now they had no time. “Now,” Rainbow said, dragging Dusk along. Canterlot was a tomb that happily ate up the noise of their hooves and ragged breathing as they drew closer to the center of the castle. Dusk’s mind reeled, sifting through the pieces of his eroding sanity. A terrible sense of anticipation pressed in from all around the further they went, an inevitability that only became more obvious with every corner they turned. It was a sense of doom. All the while a voice teased at the edges of Dusk’s mind, prowling a gleeful circle around the last remnants of his shattered psyche. It watched with grinning bared teeth while Dusk struggled to make sense of so much pain. It wheedled him, leered at him, knelt down and laughed right in his face as his limbs grew heavier and his emotions piled on burdens of guilt and remorse. All Dusk could do was limp onward, right into the horror’s embrace. Please, just let it all be over. Yes, the voice purred. It will all be over soon, Dusk. Come to us. We are reaching the climax now: the part where the heroes can never go back. You’re running straight into my grasp, Dusk, because you know you can’t do anything else. You are so close now, so close to bringing it all to an end. Your story will find resolution, and then you can rest forever. Come to me. Come and give me everything.