“You’re not going to disappear on me, are you?” Sweetie Belle asked. Inside the hospital room, Sweetie Belle and Rarity were tightly hugging each other. Pinkie had dragged Spike off to the far end of the room, where they talked with Applejack and Apple Bloom, who had woken up when the other Crusaders burst into the room.
Rarity ran her hoof through Sweetie Belle’s mane. “Of course not,” she whispered. “I love you too much to leave you alone.” The sisters remained silent other than that, simply holding the other as if they would never let go.
On the other bed, Scootaloo perched on the bedside, staring openly at Rainbow Dash’s broken wing. “Why did you do it, Dash?” she eventually asked.
“Wouldn’t you have done the same?” Dash shot back. Scootaloo looked away. Dash sighed, leaning against the large pile of pillows.
“I don’t really regret what happened,” she said, staring out the open window. “Flying is important to me, but my friends are far more important. If I have to get hurt for them, that’s fine.”
“But,” Scootaloo spoke up, her voice breaking as she tried to fight the sorrow she felt looking at the broken body of her hero. “But you’re Rainbow Dash, known across Equestria for her Sonic Rainboom and for being the most awesome pegasus in Equestria. If you can’t fly-“
“I’m still the most awesome pegasus in Equestria, squirt.” Dash interrupted. “And don’t you forget it.” Empty words and an empty boast. It was uncertain which of them needed those words more. They both knew it, just as they knew there was nothing else they could do about it. Both of them remained silent until Dash started to sing under her breath.
And I gave up my heaven to help her.
But my heart is in turmoil right now.
I lie here and tell myself I did the right thing,
Yet my heart continues to ache somehow
Did my choice have some meaning?
Or did I throw it all away in my strife?
I will believe that I made the right choice,
That I traded my wing for a life.
And I just couldn’t bear to see her
Lying helpless there, unable to stand
If I saw her there being threatened,
If I had the choice, I’d make it again.
Twilight and Celestia stepped out into the Ponyville streets, the doors closing quietly behind them. The sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows throughout the town. The streets were clear and empty, as most ponies had already gone home in preparation for the oncoming night. Twilight’s horn glowed as she prepared to cast the seeking spell, but the spell fizzled and died as she saw the expression on Celestia’s face.
“Is something wrong, Princess?” she asked.
“Just thinking about what I saw. Your friends truly have great relationships with their sisters. I…” Celestia’s voice faded as her gaze skipped around the empty street.
“I understand.” Twilight’s horn burst back to life as she re-cast the spell. The energy source was coming from… that way. “He’s moved.” The pair took off, seeking their final confrontation with the unknown creature.
I will fight against the tears that are coming.
Even if they see through my lies.
I’ve lost my wing with my ambition.
But I will live so long as I am alive.
Fingers digging into rock. Rock digging into fingers. John gripped the sheer side of the cliff, pulling himself up as fast as he could. Stopping at an outcropping, he took a moment to catch his breath. Turning his palm upwards, he stared at it. The rocks had torn his flesh apart, causing blood to flow freely. Even as he watched, the wounds healed and vanished. The blood remained, staining his skin and the ground below.
Not imagining, he thought frantically. Heal. Healing. Everything had changed when he woke up. It couldn’t have been long since he’d passed out, but all his wounds had recovered. He had fled the cave as soon as he woke up, leaving everything behind. He had made his attempt to fight against the creatures, and failed. Now he did the only thing he could think of.
He ran.
And I just couldn’t bear to see her
Lying helpless there, unable to stand
If I saw her there being threatened,
If I had the choice, I’d make it again.
He didn’t know what awaited him in the future, but hopefully it wouldn’t be as bad as what he had seen here. But no matter how much he ran, he couldn’t outrun the voices. They had changed shortly after he awoke. No longer was it quiet, barely heard whispering in the back of his head. It was clear, crisp, and just wouldn’t shut up.
Really, not that it hasn’t been interesting watching you work, but I certainly have problems with your methods. I know you can’t hear me, but I think I’m going to tell you anyway. You’ve certainly been causing the ponies plenty of pain, but it’s just all been physical. There’s no fun in that! No style.
Trying to push the voice to the back of his mind, John continued to climb up the cliff side. When he fled the forest, this canyon suddenly appeared in his path. Left without any choices, he had slid to the bottom before climbing up the other side. John tried to distract his thoughts with memories of when he had fled the forest, but the voice just continued to ramble.
You’ve been spreading chaos wonderfully, but really, you’ve gone a bit far. Even I think that, and that means something. It means a tuna salmon casserole hay sandwich, but that’s something. Hmm… Actually, that could be kinda good. I wonder how Celestia would like it if her crown was replaced with a casserole sandwich?
The unheard voice often went on annoying tangents, like it didn’t have anything to say but continued to talk to hear the sound of its own… voice.
It would have been so much better if you had just gone to the ponies in the first place. You were supposed to infiltrate the town, maybe even the castle, but you just had to go and overreact, didn’t you? This wasn’t what I had intended for you to do when I dropped you there.
John froze, the rock crumbling slightly under his grip. You… dropped me here? he asked the voice. It was the first time he had acknowledged the voice since he woke up. A presence he hadn’t noticed in the back of his head seemed to stop moving, coiled in on itself like a serpent. The voice responded after a few seconds, seeming to scream into a non-existent ear
AND HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO HEAR ME?
Twilight and Celestia stopped, looking down at the canyon before them. It stood out like a cut into the ground, seeming to split the very stone. Celestia glanced down at the unicorn beside her.
“You are sure?” she queried.
“Yes, Your Highness,” Twilight answered without hesitation. “The creature is definitely in Ghastly Gorge.”
If you had been able to hear me from the start, I would have been able to avoid this entire mess. The voice continued to rant into John’s thoughts. He had given up on learning anything useful from it and just focused his entire being on the climb.
I’d gotten some good chaos energy from this disaster you’ve created, but I had to burn nearly all of it away in order to save Pinkie Pie. FROM YOU! Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused me? Why would you even want the ponies dead? They’re no fun like that. If you could have heard me then, I wouldn’t have had to waste so much energy protecting them. Actually, why can you hear me? I didn’t have enough energy to reach you before, so-
The voice and the presence seemed to vanish from the back of John’s mind. At that moment, he reached his arm up and grabbed the lip of the cliff. Hauling himself up, he finally managed to make it to the top. Freedom was only a little ways away.
“Princess! There!” Twilight pointed as they ran along the bottom of the canyon.
“I see him.” There, silhouetted against the sky at the top of Ghastly Gorge, the creature stood tall. His back was to them at first, but he turned at the sound of their voices.
No, not again. The creatures had caught up. Was there really no escaping them? The purple one and a new white one. There they were. Hopelessness and despair ran through his body as he collapsed to his knees. He had no tricks, no defences. Was this how it ended? After everything that had happened, was it all going to end here?
As John gripped the ground, paralyzing despair wracking his body, he felt the presence in his head return. Something was wrong. The presence was… flustered? No, wait, this wasn’t the other presence at all! It was a completely different one! But, somehow, it still felt familiar. He could feel passionate anger coming from the presence, wrapped in pure malevolence. Somehow, it reminded him of something… He inhaled sharply as he realized why it felt so familiar. It was the same emotions that had suddenly appeared when he had first witnessed the brightly-coloured creatures. This presence had been with him from the beginning!
Ooh~? A cool female voice spoke into his ear, its succulent tones promising both the finest rewards and the worst tortures imaginable. You finally realized I was here? Cocky arrogance filled the voice, giving the impression that it was deigning to speak to him. John’s left arm twitched once before it started to rise against his will. He tried to grab it with his right arm, but that arm refused to obey his commands as well. His body was a puppet no longer under his control, and he could do nothing but watch. The female voice spoke up again, practically dripping with cruel condescension. I suppose that means I don’t have to be subtle any longer.
And I just couldn’t bear to see her
Lying helpless there, unable to stand
If I saw her there being threatened,
If I had the choice, I’d make it again.
Celestia and Twilight screeched to a halt at the bottom of the ravine, staring up at the creature above them. It stood on the edge of the cliff, staring down at the both of them. Something seemed different about it. Whereas before it had stood stooped, as if bowed by the weight of life, it now stood proud and tall, spitting at the wrath of the ponies below it and challenging them to do their worst. The sun outlined it, casting both of the ponies in its elongated shadow.
“What’s it planning…?” Twilight wondered aloud. The creature seemed different than before, like all the evil she had sensed in it before had suddenly bubbled to the surface. No emotion showed in its eyes, not pain, not fear, not even anger. It showed none of the emotions it had shown when she had met it several times before. Somehow, she found that even more disquieting than anything else.
Celestia, apparently picking up on much the same emotions, threw one of her wings protectively over her student. “Stay close to me, Twilight,” she said, not looking away from the creature above them. “We don’t know what it’s planning.”
“Right, Princess,” Twilight agreed, stepping slightly behind Celestia. If the creature suddenly attacked, she didn’t want her teacher to have to worry about protecting her. Both pony’s horns started to glow, as they prepared for anything the creature might throw at them.
To their mutual surprise, the creature began to shake. A mad grin spread on its face an instant before it threw its head back and started to laugh. Its hand pressed against its face as it howled with laughter, its crazed laughter seeming to echo hauntingly throughout the entire canyon. Instead of fading away, the laughter only seemed to gain in strength the more it echoed, until it sounded like the canyon itself was laughing mockingly at them.
Twilight shivered, stepping closer to her teacher’s comforting presence until she was pressed right up against Celestia’s flank. Unless she was imagining things, the shadows all around them had started to writhe, like they were dancing excitedly to the horrible laughter. “Princess…” she said warningly.
Celestia paid her no attention, her eyes only for the being standing on the cliff above them. “Who are you?” she shouted up at it. “Why have you caused my student and my subjects so much pain and misery?”
The creature’s laughter abruptly cut off, and a silence almost as terrifying as the laughter itself suddenly filled the canyon. Its upraised arm fell limply at its side as it looked down at Celestia far below it. It opened its mouth and, much to Twilight’s astonishment, it started to talk. “’Why’, you ask? Isn’t it obvious? My goal, from the very beginning, was to draw you out here, Celestia.”
And I just couldn’t bear to see her
Lying helpless there, unable to stand
If I saw her there being threatened,
If I had the choice, I’d make it again.
Celestia raised an eyebrow, apparently unimpressed. “Somehow, I figured as much. So what’s Discord planning?”
The creature chuckled, reaching into its pockets and pulling out one of those horrible fruits that Twilight had learned to avoid. “Discord? I can’t say I know. Not like it matters.” It grinned, lighting the match on the fruit before tossing it down towards Celestia. “Whatever plan he had, I’m certain it’s now in ruins. He couldn’t predict me.”
Celestia quickly erected a barrier between herself and the fruit, the golden barrier easily deflecting the incoming blast. The explosion threw up a great cloud of dust, covering the entire area in darkness. Blind to what was going on outside the glowing protective bubble, Twilight and Celestia stood back to back, prepared for whatever was to come.
For an instant, nothing happened. The first warning Celestia had of the creature’s attack was when she felt something strike the top of her protective shield, slipping through it as if it wasn’t even there. Looking up to see what it was, she was caught off guard as the creature landed in front of her, having used the cover of the dust cloud to leap off the cliff. She heard its legs give a sickening snap when it landed, but if it noticed at all, it certainly didn’t show it.
Recovering instantly from its landing, the creature reached out and grabbed at her still-glowing horn. As the dexterous digits wrapped around her horn, she could feel as the flow of magic was abruptly and completely shut off. The glowing golden shield faded with her magic, the darkness strengthening its hold within the canyon. The creature’s other arm wrapped around her neck, suddenly pulling at her and throwing her to the ground.
“Princess!” Twilight cried, rushing the creature standing over her beloved mentor. The brave – if reckless – charge came to a crushing end as the creature’s boot came up, slamming into her face and knocking her to the ground.
If I had the choice, I’d make it again.
“Twilight!” Celestia shouted, trying to escape the creature’s hold. In response, the creature pressed its knee against her neck, pinning her against the canyon floor. No matter how she struggled, she was unable to escape the awkward position so long as her magic was sealed.
“Now then,” the creature said, reaching down for a large stone beside Celestia. “I think this is a good look for you, Celestia,” it sneered, its mouth twisting cruelly. “Lying in the dirt at my hooves. Or feet, I suppose.” Lifting the large stone above its head, it tightly gripped her horn in its magic-suppressing hand. “Either way, your time has passed!” Without hesitation, it brought the stone down as hard as it could down on its own hand.
Celestia let out a whimper as she felt the stone struck with her horn, the force of the blow causing her horn to fracture before it snapped off at the base. “What have you done?” she gasped, horrified at the sight of her own horn lying in the dust before her.
“I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you,” the creature said as it lifted her head, forcing her to stare deep into its crystalline blue eyes. Its slit pupils mercilessly stared into her own, their pitch black darkness seeming to gleefully devour every little piece of her suffering and agony. “In fact,” it said with a cruel smile, “you won’t be worrying about anything else, ever again.”
If I had the choice, I’d make it again.
Twilight groaned as she struggled to her hooves, needing to blink a few times until she stopped seeing double. “Princess Celestia…?” she asked unsteadily, looking over at where her teacher lay. As she glanced over, she saw the creature fall to the ground beside Celestia, apparently unconscious. Twilight’s focus, however, was consumed with worry for her teacher. “Princess Celestia!” Twilight shouted, spiriting towards the downed monarch.
A great spasm wracked through Celestia’s body, and her spine arched as she through her head back. Her voice barely above a groan, she shouted out a warning. “Twi-Twilight!” she groaned. “Stay back!”
Twilight skidded to a halt, torn between obeying orders and helping her teacher. As it turned out, it didn’t matter. Celestia suddenly slumped forward, collapsing on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Not looking at Twilight, Celestia slowly stood up. She moved awkwardly, as if she wasn’t familiar with her own body.
“Princess… Celestia…?” Twilight asked uncertainly, taking a hesitant step forward. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Why Twilight,” Celestia said, whipping around to look Twilight dead in the eyes. Twilight gasped and recoiled away at what she saw, stumbling several steps back until her flank bumped against the cliffside. It looked like Celestia, but it was… different. Where once a proud tower of shimmering white ivory had sat perched upon her brow, instead sat a spiralling tower of the darkest ebony. But it was her eyes that told the whole story. Crystalline blue with cat-like pupils, they were a pair of eyes that Twilight knew she would never forget. She had thought she had managed to destroy the owner of those eyes, but even that didn’t stop her from seeing them in her nightmares from time to time. Celestia’s lips pulled back in a smile, revealing a pair of fangs that had never been there before.
“I’ve never felt better,” Nightmare Moon crooned.
If I had the choice, I’d make it again.