//------------------------------// // Chapter 11: Pain Reliever (Re-Edited) // Story: A Cartoonist in Equestria // by Autismo555 //------------------------------// “Okay. Does everypony understand the plan so far?” “Eeyup.” “I certainly do.” “Loud and clear, captain!” “Alright then. Let’s do this!” Rainbow Dash broke up the huddle with Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie Pie and led them into the field of chaos. Each of the four mares wore a determined look on their face, narrowed eyes as they simultaneously gazed at their common target: Twilight. As soon as they reached near the location where the enchanted lightning became more frequent, the four mares took that as their cue to break formation and scattered themselves through the maze of pouring bolts. Just like before, the mares quickly and cautiously navigated their way through the storm. Rainbow Dash used her supersonic trot, the closest she could come to in superspeed without her wings, to guide herself through the oncoming barrage. Applejack cantered head-on into the storm, lasso gripped in her teeth and steam snorting from her nostrils. Rarity galloped her way into the chaos, using her baby blue aura to snatch the jar of peppermint oil out from Harold’s hands. Pinkie Pie casually bounced her way around the lightning, giggling like a careless schoolgirl while the lightning failed to hit their bounding target. All four remaining mares met up at the eye of the storm where Twilight was centered in the slowly expanding aura. Twilight’s eyes still revealed the blinding white glow as her horn shot randomly into every direction outside of the meadow. Rainbow Dash placed herself in front of Twilight; Applejack and Rarity took to the sides; and Pinkie positioned herself and her Party Cannon behind Twilight. Their plan was fairly simple: First, Applejack and Pinkie Pie needed to restrain Twilight with the lasso and the party streamers. Once she was tied up, all nice and tight, Rainbow Dash needed to tackle the alicorn down to the ground and attempt to get through to her using her voice. If that didn’t work, then Rarity would have to drop the peppermint oil onto Twilight’s horn, thus nullifying the pain and putting an end to the chaotic magic once and for all. Simple enough, if only Twilight’s magic wouldn’t be such an obstacle. But that would put the four mares’ loyalty to the test. Now, it was time to see if Rainbow Dash’s planning paid off nicely. “LET’S PARTY!!” BOOM!! With two little words said, Pinkie Pie slammed her hooves on the smooth metal surface of her Party Cannon. Bunches of streamers and confetti were shot out to the alicorn like a gigantic speeding bullet. The shot, unfortunately, caught Twilight’s immediate attention as she looked behind her to the incoming streamers. As if the horn had a mid of its own, Twilight suddenly shot a magical beam at the streamers, causing them to shoot upwards into the sky and explode like a short firework display. “Oooooh. Pretty,” said Pinkie Pie, who became entranced with the colorful lights. “Pinkie Pie!! What are you nuts!?” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Get out of there before something happens to you!” But it was too late. Twilight’s horn lit up and shot another beam, this time, directly at the party pony. The beam struck Pinkie Pie in the chest, causing her body to flash. Immediately after she was struck, Pinkie’s mane grew a lighter shade of pink and instantly grew to cover her whole body from sight. Soon, Pinkie Pie was hidden deep beneath the fibers of her own mane, transmogrified into a sweet gigantic pile of cotton candy. Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Rarity all gasped in unison as they bore witness to another of their friends stricken by Twilight’s own magic. While Applejack and Rainbow Dash stared on in hopeless silence, Rarity took the magical effect the worst as she felt her corneas would burn from the horrid sight of Pinkie’s newly wrecked mane. In the unicorn’s point of view, Pinkie’s mane was like a living nightmare. “Pinkie Pie!? Are you alright!?” Rainbow Dash asked concerned. At first there was silence. Then, from underneath the thick layer of cotton candy, everypony could hear muffled giggling resound from deep inside the sweet confectionary. Everypony sighed a breath of relief, knowing their friend was unharmed by Twilight’s magic. “Hey! It’s dark in here, and everything looks pink to me! Ooh! Ooh! I’m seeing dark pink!” Pinkie Pie giggled, following with the gobbling of her own candy hair. Suddenly, Rarity began to scream dramatically. “Good heavens, Pinkie, darling! Just look at yourself! Your wonderfully styled mane. Your natural puffy tail. Your vibrant shade of pink! It’s all ruined now! All!! Ruined!!” Rarity began to wobble back and forth, the fragile jar still in the embrace of her magic aura. Using her magic, she also levitated a luxurious couch from nowhere underneath her and fainted belly-up on the rich, red cushion. To complete this drama scene, Rarity fainted with her hoof across her forehead. “Please, somepony! Take her out of my sight before I shall go blind!” the alabaster unicorn said hoarsely. “For the love of Celestia,” Rainbow Dash muttered under her breath before turning to the cowgirl. “AJ! You’re up!” “Eeyup.” Applejack took the lasso in her mouth and began to twirl it. A loop in the rope began to take shape, wide enough to fit a pony like Twilight inside and capture her in the tightest of all tight squeezes. Applejack threw the lasso around Twilight and pulled the loop around her waist in a firm, yet gentle hold. “Twilight! Twilight, it’s me! It’s Applejack!” the cowgirl pony shouted with her teeth gripped on the rope. “We’re here ta help ya, Twi! Try ta control yer magic!” But Twilight couldn’t hear Applejack’s pleas. Instead, she turned her gaze to long braid of fiber wrapped around her. Her horn lit up and struck the lasso with another beam, engulfing it in a glowing magenta light. The light traveled down to Applejack’s end, which the latter released as she whinnied “Whoa Nelly!” in surprise. With new life breathing into the fibers, the lasso undid its grip and lifted itself off of Twilight. The rope then used the loop to gaze at a shocked Applejack with evil, angry eyes. Though the rope lacked the quality of eyesight, it had Applejack locked dead in its sights like a snake staring down its prey before it could devour it. The cowgirl pony gulped in fear and slowly scooted away from the rope, only to have it slither towards her in the same pace. “Easy now, little feller. Ah’m Applejack, yer owner. Remember?” the cowgirl stammered, trying to reach out to the enchanted rope. “Ya remember that time when we saved Ponyville from gettin’ flattened by Mooriella and her stampedin’ kin? There was also that time when we hogtied Rainbow Dash while she was under Discord’s mumbo-jumbo? Ya remember all that, right?” The rope failed to comply its master. Instead, it kept slithering towards Applejack, ready to pounce her like a Timberwolf of the Everfree Forest. Applejack’s face was soaked in protruding sweat, as she knew the truth of the current matter. The serpent-like rope was about to rub out its first prey. “Aww, ponyfeathers,” Applejack murmured. Without a second’s hesitation, the cowgirl pony quickly turned tail and cantered away from her own predatorily rope. The lasso, however, lunged at Applejack like a cheetah and wrapped around her hind leg in a blink of an eye. The rope yanked back hard and Applejack was thrown hard on her back. The enchanted rope then quickly wrapped itself around the immobile cowgirl pony and began to squeeze her in a slow death grip like a boa constrictor. “Hey! Nopony tries to strangle my friends and gets away with it!” Rainbow Dash fumed, charging herself at the rope like a bull. The rope somehow sensed the aggressive approach of the cyan pegasus, like the whiskers on a cat. Using a free end that wasn’t squeezing the life out of Applejack, the rope wrapped itself around Rainbow Dash’s torso and threw her towards Rarity, where she was inevitably tackled. Rainbow Dash and Rarity were sent tumbling across the field until the force of friction finally held the two mares back. This also left Rainbow dash sprawled all over Rarity’s belly in a nearly awkward position. “Rainbow Dash. Could you be a polite young mare and please get off of me?” the alabaster unicorn said without a trace of emotion. “The grass stains will set in my fur, and I already had it treated in the spa just yesterday.” Though it was with great reluctance, Rainbow Dash ultimately complied with Rarity’s request. She rolled off of Rarity and onto the grass belly-up, while the latter daintily lifted herself up. The posh unicorn brushed the dust off of herself with her hooves, the jar of peppermint oil still held in her magical grasp. With a helping hoof, Rarity hoisted the wingless pegasus up from the ground. “Now then, Rainbow Dash, we must get this oil to Twilight quickly,” Rarity said, gazing at the porcelain jar with slightly squinting eyes. “Watching Twilight struggle with her migraine is making even my head ache badly. Let us be sure that this plan of yours can wor--.” ZAP! While Rarity was too preoccupied with conversing about the state of Rainbow Dash’s plan, Twilight’s horn shot another beam directly at her head. Rarity was caught off mid-sentence in a sudden blink of light. After the light dissipated, Rainbow Dash reeled back an inch with a gasp. There was no way in Tartarus that Rarity was going to like what the magic beam did to her. “Rainbow Dash!? What did she do to me!? What did Twilight do to me!?” “Uhhh...” Rainbow Dash wanted to speak, but she didn’t know how to put it lightly without throwing her friend into a panicking frenzy. Nothing like this has happened since the day Trixie Lullamoon came to Ponyville. “Quick! Somepony get me a mirror! Somepony get me a mirror!” Suddenly, a lightning bolt happened to strike near where Rarity stood, transforming a small patch of grass into a round puddle of reflective grass. Upon first glance, Rarity’s pupils shrunk at the horrid figure staring back at her: a unicorn mare who looked like Rarity whose mane was frizzled and colored an ugly shade of green. An ugly pale shade of green. An ugly seaweed pale shade of green. Rarity screamed bloody murder with enough high decibels to shatter the mirror. Rainbow Dash and the human spectating this plan both quickly covered their ears against the shrill screeching. In response to the screaming, Rarity turned and cantered around the field of chaos, tears leaking from her closed eyes as she miraculously avoided direct contact with the lightning bolts. If the unicorn’s panic wasn’t enough to put the plan in jeopardy, then maybe the jar of peppermint oil she kept hold in her aura being dragged where she ran around to would. Noticing this dilemma unfold, Rainbow Dash took off after Rarity, yapping at the hysteric unicorn like a dog chasing after its companion with a toy in her mouth. “Rarity! Get back here with that oil! That’s the only thing we need to stop Twilight’s magic!” “OH, MY HAIR! MY BEAUTIFULLY COIFFED HAIR! IT’S TOO GREEN! TOO GREE-HEE-HEE-HEEN!” As the unicorn and the former pegasus ran recklessly through the field of raining lightning bolts, Twilight’s head veered towards the two mares, her horn lit up once more, preparing to fire once more. The beam was shot and soon, both Rarity and Rainbow Dash suddenly found themselves floating above mid-air, encased in Twilight’s magenta aura. Rarity’s aura dissipated and the jar of peppermint oil fell on the ground, little drops of the fluid seeping from the top. The magic rendered the two mares immobile, save for the eyes and their mouths. “Gaaahhh... great! I can’t even move my own hooves!” Rainbow Dash grunted as she struggled in vain to move herself by an inch. “Oh, this is simply horrible! We’re trapped!” Rarity whined, piercing through Rainbow Dash’s ears. The latter wished the magic had stopped the unicorn from flapping her gums. “Not only has Twilight turned my beautiful mane into a hideous green mess, but now I can’t move! Oh! Oh no! I have an itch on my back! Somepony please scratch it for me!” “Uh, Rarity? Does it look like anypony’s gonna scratch your back for you?” Rainbow Dash deadpanned, motioning her eyes to her friends all affected by Twilight’s magic. “Ehh... no?” “Yeah. I didn’t think so either.” Suddenly, both Rainbow Dash and Rarity felt themselves being compressed in the aura. As it turned out, Twilight’s horn lit up brightly, allowing to aura to shrink, causing them to be squeezed like a couple of bugs crushed in a tightened fist. Like an orange squeezed in a closing vice clamp, the two trapped mares felt their life being slowly squeezed away into oblivion, a miserable ending to their lives for a miserably failed plan. Rainbow Dash gazed at her surroundings, her vision blackened by her fading consciousness. In her aura, she saw Rarity’s eyes close, her baby blue eyeshadow revealing the position of her beautiful azure eyes. She saw Applejack struggle with her own traitorous lasso, her orange face turning a deeper shade of blue with every passing minute. She saw the growing pile of cotton candy where Pinkie Pie once stood. Munches, gobbling and loud chewing resounded as the pink pony ate her way through her own mane. “Hey, everypony was right! My mane really is cotton candy! Hee hee hee hee hee!” Above all else, she saw Fluttershy, her true friend, lying on the ground as a lifeless stone statue. Her face was frozen with the same concerned look she wore when she saved Harold from Twilight’s own magic. A mute reminder of her previous failure to save her timid, yet kindest friend she ever knew. “I’m sorry, Fluttershy.” A tear dropped from Rainbow Dash’s eye. Everything went black. ================================================================== Harold watched on in speechless silence while Twilight’s magic did the other mares in. He didn’t criticize them for failing trying to help break Twilight from the effects of the “sense,” but all in all, they failed. Miserably. For a minute there, when he watched Rainbow Dash and the three mares try in vain to help the alicorn, Harold could see as clear as day what the latter saw inside all of the ponies he met. Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy. The mares. Inside the mares, he saw friendship. Friends. A word missing in Harold’s personal vocabulary. Sure, Harold knew the definition of “friends” very well: someone who came to trust and care for another. He never knew what it was like to have friends on Earth, since no one else wanted to be friends with a DeMatt. Although, there was only one friend he could account for on Earth, but that was a long time ago. One month to be exact. The only friend he had in the world gave her life to save him from being killed. But these ponies...these friends of Princess Twilight...something tugged Harold from the inside of his chest. The way they risked their lives to save their one friend, to help that one friend whether it meant costing their own existence to save her. For one time in his life, Harold began to understand what it meant to be a friend. To stick out for one another. But then... ...how did these ponies end up the next victim of Twilight’s magic? It was because he introduced himself to her. Looking back at the first sign of Twilight’s rogue magic going ballistic, Harold figured he was a threat. Not an intentional threat, though, just someone being dealt with many bad hands. Should these ponies perish because he had caused this incident to happen, his whole world would crash down on him like a ceiling of two-way glass. Harold fell to his knees and held his hands to the sides of his head. He stared off into the ground, conflicted about what to do now. On one hand, if he saved saved Twilight, he might get passing marks. Although, there was the possibility that he would be convicted of assaulting a member of the Equestrian Royal Family. On the other hand, he could sneak out from the storm, unscathed. But to do so would be like instigating these ponies to their death. Then again, he would turn into a frog trying to desert the chaos. Harold felt his back weigh down heavily from every possible scenario that he could think of, like an elephant fell on him from above and sat on his shoulders. ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRR! Harold jumped a inch off the ground as the giant elephant at the edge of the forest trumpeted through its elongated trunk. The elephant was originally four different trees, transmogrified by Twilight into four pillars of gray flesh until the body and the head sprouted like a potted plant. Harold twisted his pinkie in his ear to null out the soreness before he tried to remember where he left off. Oh, right. What was Harold supposed to do now? “Nothing! Just sit there and do nothing!” the Conflicting Voice commanded in Harold’s head. “They were gonna beat you to a pulp and turn you in to the dungeons anyway! Between you and me, they all deserve the shock therapy your friend is giving them!” Harold shook his head and gripped it once more on the sides, trying to drown out the voice in his head. The ponies didn’t deserve to be left behind to writhe in so much pain. He had to help them somehow! He needed to save them! Otherwise, if he would survive this ordeal but the Equestrian residents didn’t, he’d never live it down. “What’s not there to live down!? You know you couldn’t help them even if you wanted to, like those other times you turned down to help them!” yelled the Conflicting Voice, causing Harold to drop beads of cold sweat off of his forehead. “There’s nothing you can do now and you know it! You’re weak! Pathetic! Useless! You’ll never live up to even helping an old lady cross the street! Why do you even bother when everything is hopeless...” Harold shook his head as the Conflicting Voice pierced into his brain like prodding needles. His heartbeat’s volume amplified, drowning out the noise in his head but not the poison festering inside. Though he admitted he was weak, he definitely wasn’t pathetic! He wasn’t useless! He could help anyone if he wanted to! All he wanted was to do good like Lana did when she was alive! That’s when it hit him. When Lana was alive, Harold aspired to do good like his beloved sister did. Even though they were cast out for being the the children of Ahab and Devereaux DeMatt, Lana did everything in her power to secretly help those affected by her parents’ misanthropic actions. No matter if the good deeds turned out for the best or for the opposite, Lana would never back down from helping those in need. But where would he start? How can he help the ponies in such a tight spot? “Run.” Harold shot his head up with shock. He quickly looked around the field of chaos, searching for the source of the voice. A glint of gold shone in Harold’s eye and he looked down to his chest. There, dangling on the gold chain around his neck was his precious locket. It appeared to him like a message descended from the higher planes above. That’s when Harold realized it. It wasn’t just any spiritual message. It was a message in the form of her voice. “It...it can’t be,” Harold muttered to himself. “Is it...?” “Run to the two mares.” Harold shot his gaze to Rainbow Dash and the alabaster unicorn, both entrapped in Twilight’s crushing aura. Sitting underneath the two suffering mares was the peppermint oil jar, the yellow liquid spilt slightly from the top. With an audible gasp, Harold immediately knew what the heavenly voice implied him to do. The human teen gripped his locket, swallowing in a bout of nervousness. He quickly got up on his feet and dashed to the two mares, across the line of magical fire on his right. Unfortunately, Twilight’s attention was drawn to Harold in plain sight and her horn began to emit another beam. Surely, the beams would easily hit Harold since it did away the other ponies easily. “Break to the left.” Twilight’s horn glowed, then shot the beam at Harold. The human quickly sidestepped to the left as the beam struck the ground. The magic from the beam created a crater, filled with creamy marzipan. Harold wiped the sweat from his brow and sighed, relieved that her voice had saved him from becoming a puddle of delicious goop. “Roll on the ground! Quickly!” Harold’s gaze was shot quickly towards another one of Twilight’s incoming beams. Complying to the voice, Harold ducked down and rolled to his left as the beam hit Pinkie Pie’s continuously growing cotton candy mane. The hair color drastically changed from pink to yellow and quick muffled giggles were heard from within. “Hey look! First I had a cotton candy mane, now I have a lemon-flavored cotton candy mane! Hee hee hee hee hee!” The slobbering munching resounded once more. While Pinkie Pie became occupied with gobbling up her mane, Harold made a beeline for the jar underneath the mares floating in the levitating aura, that was Rainbow Dash and Rarity. As he did so, he was at first unaware of the scene with Applejack squeezed into oblivion by her own lasso. The rope perked up as it magically felt the human’s footsteps pass on by. An evil hiss echoed as the freed end of the rope shot its braided yarn to the ankle. With the magical lasso now a predatorily snake, the rope intended to make Harold its second victim in joining Applejack with a slow and breathless death. “Look out! Behind your leg!” Harold screeched his running to a halt and quickly looked behind him. There, he saw the enchanted rope prepared to strike his ankle like a king cobra. The rope struck, but Harold quickly lifted his foot just before the yarn could reach his ankle. Then with a powerful stomp, the rope screeched in pain before it fell lifelessly to the ground. The rope also loosened its death grip on Applejack as she laid flat on her back, wheezing and hacking for the sweet Equestrian air. After the rope was finished, Harold turned away and began running to the spot where Rarity and Rainbow Dash were levitated in Twilight’s aura. Underneath the two mares in plain sight was the jar of peppermint oil, waiting for somepony to use it on Twilight’s massive headache. Harold navigated through the storm of lightning bolts, whereas Twilight’s horn continued to shoot beams aimed directly at the boy. This was proven to be a challenge for the horn as the sweet voice directed Harold through the rain of unstable magic. With each whisper into his ear, the human dodged through the magical barrage, through every striking lightning, past each beam intended to turn him into a frog and around every obstacle created by the magic. “Go to the left.” Harold did what she told him to. He veered off to the left as the beam turned a little gray pebble into a growing pile of fancy colorful rocks. The growing mountain of red, yellow, green, blue, purple and magenta piled by about ten feet until it collapsed all over the diamond-patterned grass. “Over to the right.” Harold ran off to the right. Another beam nearly brushed against his cheek while it struck an unfortunate bluebird flying by the scene. The once pretty bluebird turned into a giant grotesque condor. The bird squawked an ungodly call before it changed course flew off into the desert looking for some carrion to eat. “Jump.” The human jumped like the voice said as yet another beam flew under him. He tumbled forward on the grass, a good foot apart from himself and the peppermint oil. Harold crawled over to the porcelain jar on his arms like a soldier in those movies he saw and grabbed it before he turned on his back and got up on his feet. This part was going to be tricky. Harold needed to somehow get past the shooting magic head-on without ever being hit. Luckily, he had her voice guiding him so curing Twilight of the “sense” would be less of a challenge. Swallowing his saliva with butterflies fluttering wildly in his stomach, Harold sprinted head-on into the storm. The peppermint oil’s scent wafted in the air as the yellow transparent fluid leaked on Harold’s hands. With every careful stride and narrow dodging, Harold felt his leg muscles weaken by the minute as he struggled to retain his breath from all the running he did. He swore he lost 5 pounds this past week. No, there wasn’t time to think about such trivial matters. What mattered was smearing some of this oil on Twilight’s head so this chaos would finally stop. And Harold did so as he steered away from the lightning and the beams like the voce told him so. Twilight’s horn, however, began to get clever as it lit up and shot a beam near Harold’s feet, causing him to fall backwards onto his rear and some of the oil to spill. As Harold climbed sorely on his feet, he was met with a bombardment of beams, the first one headed towards him... ...and with no means of escaping these beams. “Look out, Harold!” It was too late. The beam struck him in the chest. The jar of oil was sent flying, all of its contents spilling on the grass while the porcelain jar shattered into a million pieces on a nearby rock. Harold was shot backwards as he felt the full force of the beam push him away. His eyes squeezed shut as he waited for the magic’s effects to take hold. Whether it was transformation, transmutation or transmogrification, he would never know. What he did know was that he would be gone. Twilight would never get cured. The mares would suffer underneath the wrath of Twilight’s magic. Harold would never fulfill his promise to Lana. Now all of Equestria would be lost unless the heavens sent forth a miracle of sorts. And it did. Harold opened his eyes as he laid flat on his back. He looked at the sky, lit up with lightning bolts and magenta beams shooting across the sky. The grass was slightly ticklish on his arms as he tried to move them plus his hands, fingers and legs. Lucky for Harold, they did move. Reluctantly, the human sat himself up. Everything spun a little while he looked down on his body for any residual signs the he could’ve been affected greatly by Twilight’s magic. He checked his arms. They seemed to be intact. His legs, his clothing, even his face were all still intact. Still, there was one thing that kept troubling Harold: What did Twilight’s beam do to him? He scratched the bare area of his chest from a little itch that somehow... Harold’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh no.” Checking his shirt from the inside and groping around the legs and the pockets inside of his pants, Harold began to panic. His locket was gone!! The one treasure he held so dearly was missing!! He quickly got up and scoured through the grass, searching frantically everywhere for any glint of gold, any engraved image of a rose with a star above it, and chain that might lead him to finding it!! Without the locket, Harold felt the end of the world would occur at this moment. “No. No. No. No. NO!! NO!! NO!!” Harold thought, hastily searching the dirt. “Where is it!? Where’s my locket!? Dammit, where’s my locket gone!?” This his blue eye made contact with a golden shine. Harold turned to the beckoning glint and gasped. Floating in a spherical aura struck by Twilight’s magic, was his locket in an deconstructed view. Like watching all of the parts and components of a vehicle slowly rotating on the computer screen in an exploded view, Harold looked in absolute shock as he saw his precious trinket all separated in the orb of floating light. He saw everything floating in there. The two halves of the golden covers floating in a complete orbit; the gold chain used to hold it around his neck; even the tiny cylindrical hinge to help open the space within the locket. But in the middle of it all was a photograph, circled around by the parts of the deconstructed locket. It wasn’t just any other ordinary photograph. This was a special photograph, one taken by the head butler, Reginald by almost eight years ago. It solely served Harold as a constant reminder of all the good times he had with Lana up until her recent death last month. The day the picture was taken depicted one of those good times. The picture showed the image of a happy seven-year-old Harold held close in the lap of his twelve-year-old sister, Lana. Harold laughed in the photograph, something that he now couldn’t ever since that dreaded day came to pass. He was being tickled in the forehead by his sister’s affectionate kiss. Her left arm held him close to her while her right hand tussled his brownish-blonde hair. The two were like peas in a pod, both laughing away the world’s worries like the sun would finally rise above New York on the very next day. This photograph symbolized the deep bond Harold had with Lana, like she was the loving, caring mother he never had. It clearly showed how much devotion he felt towards her for all of the good she had given him in those early years. Now that devotion was callously split apart by Twilight’s unstable magic. Harold felt his chest well up with saddened discomfort. He fell to his knees and slammed his head on the ground, fists clenched in frustration. He couldn’t hear her voice begging him to go on any longer. The jar was broken and all the oil was spilt all over the diamond-patterned grass. What’s worse was, he didn’t know what to do anymore. There was, however, one thing he could possibly do now. Surrender. Accept the failure right now and give in to Twilight’s magic. Maybe then, he would receive the mercy of a quick death by a beam. Harold looked up to his floating locket, wanting to gaze at it one more time before he would be finished off quickly. Suddenly, something came to light. As he looked at the photograph of him and Lana together, Harold was suddenly met with an epiphany of some sort. When Lana was alive, she never gave up to help what was really important. The strong scent of peppermint burned in his nostrils. Harold checked his hands, all soaked and sticky with the residue of the oil. It all made sense to him. There was still one chance left for Harold to help the ponies out. If Lana didn’t give up to anything back then, he wouldn’t give up now. Getting up on his feet one last time, Harold launched himself into the bombardment and straight into Twilight’s magic aura. Her horn lit up once more to shoot one more beam at Harold, but that was more than enough time for him to pounce headfirst inside the aura. All too soon, the shocks from the white light inside coursed inside Harold’s nerves and increased his heartbeat by tenfold. But just as he gave in to the electrifying sensation, the unthinkable happened. Harold tackled the lavender alicorn. He hugged her torso in a strong and firm embrace as his fingers smeared the remedy onto her horn and her forehead. The peppermint oil’s effects immediately kicked in as Twilight’s empty white eyes grew back its signature violet eyes. A bright gleam of light flashed from her horn. Its illumination slowly engulfed the entire meadow and other outside areas as the light reversed the magic done in by Twilight’s horn. Then everything went white.