“Oh, so is this the part where I beg for mercy?” Adagio snarled, backed against the wall underneath his dangling cast. “Is this where the ‘villain’ gets his comeuppance, his swift karmic due?” He braced himself as Applejack and Rainbow Dash headed the advancing group, both itching to put him in a worse state than his brother. He felt this, and began to shiver in fear, yet his eyes were still aflame with rage. “It’s time I have center stage! It was my night to shine, and you all ruined it! Why am I the bad pony for this?!”
Applejack feigned a charge, smiling when he flinched away. She nodded back to Octavia and Allegretto, being tended to by Fluttershy and Pinkie, and her smile began to droop. “Ah ain’t never seen a good pony do somethin’ like that to ‘is own kin. Ah ain’t never seen nopony do anything like this, matter of fact.” Her gaze held a rage that rivaled his own, though she was much better suited to express it than him, and she advanced a few steps alone. “And ya ain’t gonna be doin’ it again!” she declared, bristling as he tried to not flinch.
Rainbow Dash stepped up beside Applejack, taking careful note of her still bandaged wing. “Leave some for me, AJ. I have a wing to pick with him, too.” Together they began to close the distance, taking their own time to make him suffer the anticipation. “Now, begging for mercy? Up to you. I would, though.”
Adagio again tried to not flinch, failing spectacularly, and his own false bravado began to crack. He was about to scream for help, despite how much the idea sickened him, when a small noise drew his gaze up to his bound group. Most everypony else was too focused on him to notice, but what he saw returned some of his courage, enough to allow him to sit back and beckon them. “Well, if we’re going to do this, best do it quick.” He flashed a warped smile that caught them off guard, then laughed at them as they paused. “It’s never good to have second thoughts, dears. So come on, what are you waiting for?”
“Colt’s got a mouth bigger than he should,” Applejack grumbled, quickening her pace without Rainbow in an attempt to still that infuriating mouth. She was so set in shutting him up she didn’t hear a rope snap, and if Rainbow hadn’t grabbed her and pulled her to a stop the executioner ax would have embedded itself clean in her skull. As it was, though, it only nicked her hat and a few strands of mane, yet the shock of it dropped her to the ground as her heart hammered, staring at the nearly upright ax.
Adagio cursed his bad luck, being forced to do the deed himself, and gripped the ax shaft with a dead glare directed at Rainbow. “I should’ve had the High Notes kill you when we had the chance!” he hissed, wrenching the weapon from the ground. Adagio wasn’t the most muscular pony, though, and he could only keep it aloft for another second before it crashed back to the ground. Huffing, he tried to swing the weighty thing, and only managed to scrap it a few inches before his fore hooves gave out and it clanged uselessly to the floor. “There’s a reason I keep those large imbeciles around,” he muttered, ignorant to the recovered and now advancing Rainbow and Applejack. When he finally noticed them, they were upon him, and so great was his ire he barely batted an eyelash. “This is supposed to be my finale, right? The swan song of the antagonist?”
Rainbow raised a hoof and grinned at him, her one good wing outstretched in excitement. “Probably,” she answered, waiting for some last act of cowardice before they exacted their revenge. Oddly, it saddened her when he didn’t back down, and her sorrow turned to fear when his eyes filled with hatred. “You’re not in a good spot to be so full of yourself,” she accused with little conviction, lowering her hoof warily, seeing Applejack do the same from the corner of her eye.
Adagio huffed, still staring them both down with enough black hatred to make the whole congregation feel uncomfortable. Even the audience outside, still waiting for some ending, squirmed and shifted as the mood went even further south than it had been. “I’ve never been in a good spot, you idiot. I’m just good at making the most out of it.” Before they could begin to comprehend what happened, Adagio ripped an inkwell from his costume pocket and splashed it across their faces. He took the opportunity and grabbed Applejack’s mane, holding her hostage as he backed away towards the exit. “It must be painful knowing you’ve come so close to winning and then having it taken from you,” he boasted as they all watched on, helpless. “Such is the wheel of fate. Having crushed me for so long, I am finally at the top of the arc! It’s all coming together! I’m finally going to win!” He snickered, trying to contain gales of laughter, finally not caring and letting loose a howl of mirth that chilled them all, including the audience. “Now, after I get out of here, if I get followed, I swear you’ll never see those musical misfits again. But as it is, I may let you have them back when I’m done.” He was blatantly lying, and they could all tell, but they were at an impasse, not wanting to risk either Applejack or Allegretto and Octavia. Stuck in a moral turmoil, he got close enough to the stage exit that he was nearly home free, another evil grin plastered to his face. “Now, send my poor family over here.” He waited for a moment, then yanked back on Applejack’s mane and fixed his gaze on Fluttershy and Pinkie. “Now, you stupid fillies!”
The two stared him down valiantly, and he didn’t notice until just then that he could only count nine ponies before him, his confidence suddenly gone and his grip slackened on Applejack. He stared at the empty space where they were, until scraping to his right moved his empty stare to watch them both hefting the ax. “Duck, filly!” Octavia screamed, and Adagio only watched incredulously as Applejack ripped free from his grasp and the blunt end of the ax zoomed towards him.
But, I had this all planned out, he thought, and black spots exploded across his vision as he spun and skidded across backstage into the wall, blood trickling down the side of his head. He lay unmoving, and they assumed the worst, but never made a move to go check on him. The ax clanked to the ground for the last time, and brother and sister stood shaking and gasping, their wounds reopening from the exertion. Their rescue team was on the verge of cheering, but this jubilation turned to fright as both ponies dropped to the ground, unconscious.
“Come on, Allegretto, you can do this,” Fluttershy urged, gently pushing her colt towards the stage. He stood stock still as a rock, Octavia already in the middle of playing a piece, and gave her an impatient glance as the crowd began to complain. “Please, Allegretto, you’ll do fine,” she urged again, putting a tiny bit more force behind her nudges.
Shaking and sweating in his new suit, his legs refused to respond as the crowd became more vocal, nearly demanding his appearance. “I… I don’t… I don’t think…” he stuttered, turning back to the crowd gathered behind him. “I… I’m not ready,” he finally got out, sweating even more than he was, his flute sitting alone by his music stand. “I… can’t play right now.”
Rarity huffed and trotted over to him, careful of the hem of her dress, and stared him dead in the eye. “Don’t say I made that suit for nothing, Allegretto! I spent a lot of time on these ensembles, and the Gala only comes once a year! Now, you have a lot of ponies out there waiting for you, and we all went through great pains to make sure it would be as perfect as could be. You have no excuse to not play tonight!”
Applejack chuckled as he was scolded, herding the three Crusaders behind her with their little instruments. “’Sides, ya promised the fillies you’d let ’em play with ya! And ya don’t wanna be lyin’ to them, colt.” She gave him a look of playful sternness, doing her best to keep the three from bolting out onto stage at that moment and disrupting Octavia’s stalling.
Allegretto gulped, his mouth still stiff from all the medical procedures he had to go through, and the final encounter with Adagio played in his head, his stomach churning from the memory and a new case of stage fright. He turned to Fluttershy, done up in her Gala-attire, and some of his anxiety went away. The gears in his head turned, and he actually smiled. “I’ll go, but on one condition.”
“Anything!” Fluttershy promised, all smiles and happy thoughts. Her smile quickly disappeared when he pushed her out on stage with him, and the sudden flood of lights and eyes made her stiffen. “Allegretto…”she whined, trying to press herself into him as the entire Gala gazed at them expectantly. Even with him to draw some strength from, she was wildly out of her element, and tried to get some sort of explanation out of him.
He watched the audience for a minute, still thinking about something, then looked into her eyes and smiled wholeheartedly. “Well, from what Twilight and I read, you’re suppose to do this sort of thing in front of a lot of ponies.” Before she could ask, he motioned for his sister to stop playing, and a hush fell over the crowd. He took a deep breath, and the spotlight fell on them, adding to his stress even more. “Fluttershy… We’ve been… spending time together, for about a year now… And I really do think I… like…” He stopped, an odd look coming over his face, then caught her expectant and innocent gaze and broke into another smile. “Well, no, not like. I don’t like you.” The audience gasped and their friends stood with their mouths open, Fluttershy’s eyes beginning to well up with tears. Before she had a chance to cry, though, he stopped her sniffles with a long and passionate kiss, the entire room thrown into a state of confusion. When he pulled back, he noticed her misty eyes and chuckled. “I don’t like you, Fluttershy. I love you. And I want to, possibly, spend the rest of my life with you. Fluttershy, please be my mare, and together we‘ll make beautiful music.”
She was at a loss for words, so great was her elation, and she could only nod slowly as the audience erupted into cheers and sounds of endearment, her friends cheering loudest of all, and she was rooted to the spot until Pinkie and Twilight came and dragged her backstage. Allegretto took his place next to his sister, finally enjoying the stage, and caught her laughing and shaking her head at him. “You’re a real piece of work, brother. Sappy as can be, through and through.” She winked at him, and together they played the night away, the good mood permeating every pony in attendance.
Adagio woke up to the sound of his door being opened, ponies he didn’t recognize filing in behind his nurse. He made to rise, but his head swam and the weight of his bandages kept him glued to the pillow, forced to lie watch them sideways. “My head hurts…“ he complained, voice groggy but innocent, and he actually managed to smile earnestly as two of them, a crimson colt and a gray filly, sidled up next to his bed. “Who are you?”
The colt smiled wistfully, watching Adagio with a bit of regret, then turned to the filly and chuckled. He turned back, and his wistfulness was replaced by warm familiarity. “Hello, Adagio. My name is Allegretto.” He nodded to the filly. “And that’s Octavia. It seems like you had quite a nasty accident.” He smile faltered at the end, a pained look shooting across their faces, and just like that it was gone.
Adagio moaned and nodded, watching his nurse check his vitals and wishing he could go back to sleep. “I don’t remember what happened. I really don’t remember much of anything except my name.” He shut one eye against the light and rolled his head back towards them, the same earnest smile on his face. “How do you know me?”
Octavia inhaled sharply, trying to not cry as a mix of emotion ran through her. “Well, Adagio, we’re your brother and sister. We came as soon as we found out. We’re all pretty close.” She cringed as she said it, the lie they had fabricated almost literally hurting her, but when she saw that smile on him, it made it slightly easier. “Mom and Dad aren’t around, but we’ve always had each other. We always will, Adagio.”
Adagio closed his eyes for a bit longer than a blink, and when he opened them again they could see a faint shimmer of friendliness behind the exhaustion. “Well, that’s good. I’m really lucky to have ponies like you, aren’t I?” he asked, oblivious to the awkwardness he had created.
Allegretto swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded, his smile faltering. “If you say so, Adagio. We really should catch up as soon as you start feeling better, okay?” He waited for a response, but he had already fallen back asleep, and the nurse motioned for them to leave and to let him rest. On the way down the hall to the exit, he sighed and nuzzled gently against Fluttershy, trying to comprehend the situation they were in. “It’s so ironic, isn’t it, Octavia? All the time he hid something bad he was doing from us, and now…”
Octavia looked back at him, holding the door open for them all to file through. The afternoon sun glanced off the glass door, bathing the reception room in a warm orange glow that was the polar opposite of how she felt. “Is this really the right thing to do?” she asked.
He walked past her, a sunset directly across from them, painting the sky pink, and he stared into it as he mulled over an answer, Fluttershy right next to him. He unconsciously put his hoof slightly on hers, and when she pressed her head into the crook of his neck he began to fill with hope, matching the light that bathed them all. “I don’t know, Octavia, but we have to take responsibility for this. We have to take care of him. We can’t run from the past again.” He smiled and let the warmth of the sun bathe over him, feeling the heat in every part of his body. “We just have to try our best. Hopefully, everything turns out for the best.”
For Allegretto, watching that sunset, with the brother he always wanted behind him, his friends all around him, and somepony he really cared for beside him, he felt a surge of joy and elation, even through everything: all the bad in the past, all the pain and trials, and to him…
Well, he couldn't wish for a more perfect moment.
Author's Note: Endings are really REALLY difficult, doubly so at 6 in the morning. I hope this is good enough, but if anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to them. I'm actually a little sad to see this go, really, and who knows? I may sneak our little lyrical pony into another work. But for now, this tale is told. Enjoy!