“No decorations or anything? It’s almost like you weren’t expecting this.”
Sky stood opposite the Chimera in a dimly lit area nestled within thick walls of fog. Beneath his hooves, Sky saw no solid objects, further convincing him that this was not a physical showdown: it was the manifestation of a battle of wills. Before him, his enemy smiled grimly.
“Our apologies,” it said in response. “We’ve simply been too busy trying to make room for all the new additions.”
Before, the remark would probably have caused his anger to boil over. But here, Sky simply let the comment pass. Deep within himself, he felt a curious sensation that filled his mind with positive thoughts of love and companionship. He saw the smiling faces of his friends and family, and his heart swelled with the thought of them. It was no longer merely his duty to protect them: it was his privilege to fight on behalf of such amazing ponies.
He almost laughed as the thoughts ran their course through his mind. Wouldn’t have thought I would have been saying that just a few weeks ago. But I couldn’t be happier that I’m saying it now.
“Too bad, then,” Sky replied. “This is an eviction notice.”
It was the Chimera’s turn to laugh. “Oho, you think you can defeat us now?” it said with one head as the other two continued to chuckle. “We seem to remember that same confidence in our last battle. How did that turn out again?”
“If you think you’re talking to the same pegasus you fought a week ago, you’re in for an unpleasant surprise,” Sky said, eyes leveling. “Things are much different now.”
“Indeed!” the Chimera agreed. It shook the mane around its foremost neck for a few seconds. “But if you think that you are the only one that has changed, then you are mistaken yourself.” All three heads turned in opposite directions simultaneously. As they looked around at the gray mists that surrounded him, Sky became aware of dozens and dozens of glowing red eyes that suddenly began to flare into existence all around him, staring anxiously at the solitary pegasus.
“We’ve been quite busy, as we are sure you’ve noticed by now,” the Chimera continued. “We now have many bodies and forms at our disposal.” It licked its lips hungrily. “And so many more still to go.”
Sky saw the multitude of crimson onlookers. Just a few hours ago, the sight would have paralyzed him with fear. But not now. Now, the terror the eyes once held for him was no more. Instead, he heard a string of voices, one at a time, speak to him.
First, he heard a familiar purple unicorn. “Your friends are with you.”
That voice was followed by the airy, hissing voice of a windigo. “Your friends are with you.”
After that, he heard the soothing, yet confident voice of his beloved princess of the night. “Your friends are with you.”
And, at last, the voice that made his heart jump and his insides turn to knots; the unicorn that had drawn him back to the land of the living. Her voice was so soft he could barely hear it, but he knew that he didn’t have to. Her words were powerful regardless of their volume.
“Your friends are with you.”
“And that’s unfortunate,” Sky said, turning his attention back to his foe. “You were better off when it was just you.”
“If you’re trying to say that we’re diluting ourselves with these…lesser beings…then you’d be right to say that they are nothing compared to our original selves,” the Chimera admitted thoughtfully. “But you are wrong to assume that our power is diminished because of that.”
Sky snorted in mild amusement. “It’s always about you, isn’t it? About how powerful you are, how much you’ve done, what your plans are. It’s almost laughable.”
He cast a smug, yet cold, look at the Chimera. “That wasn’t what I was saying at all.”
“We’re listening.”
“I’ve been told since our first meeting that I couldn’t do this alone,” he began. “That I had to have help in some form or another. And I struggled to accept that. I fought you on behalf of the land, and the ponies, that I loved. I fought because I wanted to protect them from you. And yet, each time I did, I was never able to completely defeat you. And the one time I faced you entirely on my own, I failed miserably.”
“What a memory that was. We think we shall cherish that one as much as we will relish crushing you here,” the monstrosity said, a disturbing look of satisfaction on all three of its faces.
“But then, something happened. You beat me, but I came back. I was drawn back. And when I did, I learned a very important lesson.”
The Chimera rolled its six eyes impatiently. “And that was?”
“All this time, I had fought with the understanding that my friends were the reason that I fought. But then they used their love for me to bring me back. And that made me realize: they aren’t only my purpose for fighting, but they are also the strength that I fight with.” His voice was steady, but as he spoke, his words seemed to take on a distinct power.
“Fancy words, but meaningless,” the Chimera ridiculed. “We don’t care what power you use to fight us. You can’t win.”
“Wrong!” Sky shouted as he stamped. The air shifted with a nervous energy as the tension increased. “I was never strong enough to beat you by myself; I admit that. But I’m not by myself anymore. My friends make me more than I could ever be on my own. They change me, grow me, make me better…stronger. And wherever I take those feelings of love and companionship, they are there with me!”
As he finished, his body began to emit a light that flowed in the increasing breeze. His bright blue eyes began to glow. And faintly beside him, ghostly apparitions of his friends appeared, smiling broadly as he summoned the strength of his friends to his aid.
“Do ya’ feel that?”
Twilight looked at Applejack. Of course she felt it. In the midst of their calling out to Sky in a frenzied panic, a sudden sense of love and warmth had washed over her. It was so inviting, yet so demanding…as though she was being drawn to a different place. Beside her, she heard Lily make a sound.
“It’s Sky. He’s facing the Chimera, and…he needs us. We need to believe in him,” she said.
“Sky’s our friend,” Rainbow Dash replied, hovering a few feet above the ground. “We’ve always believed in him.”
Twilight stepped forward, looking at the pulsing gray mass before them. “Then we should let him know.” As her friends stepped to her sides, she closed her eyes and focused her mind on the blue pony that had grown so much in the short time she had known him. She remembered the scared little pegasus he had been when they had first met at the Everfree Forest. And she remembered how she had seen him grow not just on that journey, but even up until now. And now, she believed that he could finish his task.
She smiled involuntarily as she spoke. “Your friends are with you.”
Far to the north, a lone windigo flew under the slowly brightening sky back to his home. Suddenly, his thoughts turned to the pony he had not seen on his mission. The one that had saved his home not but a few weeks ago. He looked back to the south, curious about the strange shift in his mind. Aside from the pegasus, he felt a certain…compulsion. As though he was needed. No…not his body: his faith in that defiant, yet entirely trustworthy, blue pegasus. Faith that he could accomplish what he had set out to do. He smiled as he understood the significance of what he was feeling.
“Your friends are with you.”
Deep in the royal palace of Canterlot, a silence fell upon Princess Luna. She unwittingly found herself turning to face to the east, where Celestia’s sun had begun to ascend, reddening the early morning sky. Once again, she found her mind drawn to Sky Streak. He had been on her mind for days on end, but this…this was new. A powerful summoning, like a call-to-arms of a sort. She stared towards Foalumbus, then closed her eyes and reached out to him.
Appearing in his mind, she saw a large open space enclosed by swirling, dark gray clouds. Peeking out from the clouds, countless red eyes looked on. And in the center of her vision, dark and hideous beyond words, was a monster that could only have been the Chimera.
Yet none of it distracted her from the urging she felt. She felt a gathering around her…an assembly of different ponies, uniting together under the express purpose of supporting their friend in this, his ultimate battle.
She withdrew from the dream and opened her eyes, speaking with confidence. “Your friends are with you.”
Lily cast a calming spell around the area, though, if the emotions she could feel emanating from those around her were any indication, it was entirely unnecessary. It was incredible: from all around her, she felt the combined thoughts of every pony directing their full faith and support for Sky in his battle with the Chimera. To her right, Twilight spoke, but her own mind was too busy to hear what was said. Instead, she merely took a deep breath and whispered to herself.
“Your friends are with you.”
“It was never about me!” Sky called out to the Chimera above the whirlwind of light that roared around him. To his right and left, each of the images of his friends had begun to contribute their own magical light to the storm, which only served to egg him on even further. “It’s about them! They’ve been the ones that believed that I could do this! It’s their power that fuels my ability to stand against you! It’s more powerful than any distance, stronger than time, greater and more potent than anything in this world!” A confidence raced through his mind, as all fears and doubts were cast aside. He felt the support of each and every one of his friends, and his body radiated with magical energy in response. “You think you’ve got power? I’ve got the magic of friendship—and that’s the deepest magic there is!”
Two of the Chimera’s heads cast doubtful glances at each other as the light swirled around them, but the lion’s head snarled defiantly. “And just what do you think the power of friendship is supposed to do to us?” it asked. “The Elements of Harmony mean nothing to us. Loyalty? Honesty? Kindness? We have no use for those things. Those are only capable of affecting something with a heart. And, we can assure you, we do not have a heart to affect.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” Sky acknowledged. “But that doesn’t matter.”
A new look of confusion fell upon the heads of the Chimera. “Every citizen within Equestria recognizes the power of the Elements of Harmony, because, in some measure, each one of them bears that same power within themselves. No one pony bears the full power of the Elements. Every pony holds that magic within their own hearts. They harbor it, cherish it, and cause it to grow and flourish throughout the land.”
He closed his eyes as he continued. “And the Elements may not work on you, but they do work on the ponies of Equestria. And you’ve rather graciously seen fit to bring hundreds of those ponies here among us.”
The Chimera’s eyes grew wide as it listened. “How did you put it?” Sky continued. “You told me that when you consumed a creature, they ‘became a part of you,’ right? Guess what? That means that now, because of all those ponies, you CAN be affected by the Elements of Harmony.”
Sky opened his eyes with a flash of pure white light as the wind stopped dead for just a moment. His words were soft, but in the sudden and complete silence, they resonated with power. “And together, there’s no magic you have that can stand up to all of us.”
A wind like a shockwave burst from Sky’s body, causing the Chimera to recoil as it rushed past. As the wave expanded, it pushed back the gray mist around him, a vast starless blackness that stretched as far as one could see. And suspended in that darkness were the floating bodies of hundreds of ponies, along with a few griffins, windigoes, and one enormous green dragon. And as the clouds rolled back, the crimson eyes flickered and went out like candles at a birthday party.
Sky’s voice rose above all other sounds as the whirlwind picked up again. “The strength of Equestria isn’t focused in one pony! It’s not about me, or Twilight Sparkle, or even Princess Celestia! It’s about all of us, and the strength we have between ourselves! And that’s why you will never conquer Equestria!”
The tornado around them was gradually growing brighter with each passing second as the light rising from Sky and the phantasms of his friends was whisked into its flow. And the Chimera stood perfectly still, spellbound by the scene. “It’s not because there are thousands of ponies in Equestria. It’s because the thousands of ponies across Equestria all understand one thing: they care for each other. We’re all different, but we share the same mindset. And that’s exactly what Harmony is: many different voices joining together into one song that’s larger than any single voice.
“And that song is friendship.”
The Chimera was trembling, but it managed one last stand. “Friendship? You really think that’s enough to defeat me? My hatred is more potent than anything you can imagine!”
Sky slowly rose into the air with his wings spread open. “Hatred is the exact opposite of love. They can’t exist together in the same place. It’s either one or the other.” His glowing white eyes looked around at all the floating bodies of Equestrians that surrounded him. “And since you still doubt the power of friendship,” he said, his voice suddenly commanding and powerful, “let us show it to you!”
As he finished speaking, the rainbow beam of the Elements of Harmony sprung from his back, launching high into the air, where it exploded like a firework. Instantaneously, every one of the floating ponies awakened, revealing the same shining white eyes that Sky had. The tornado seemed to become ablaze with white fire as the light from all the consumed ponies merged with the twister.
The Chimera quickly responded by unleashing its telltale black flames from its back. But within moments, they seemed to fade away, lost in the all-revealing light of the Equestrians. Sky slowly moved in on the monster, causing the tornado to tighten as he advanced. As the walls of the twister closed in, the hideous creature began to dissolve.
Sky looked on with those unearthly eyes. “I told you that anything that happened was your own fault,” he said softly. “This was your own doing.”
But the Chimera did not cry in anguish or scream in defiance. Instead, it merely smiled. And not a vindictive, revenge-filled sneer that Sky expected. No, the Chimera looked…satisfied. Appeased. It was as though it had wanted this outcome all along.
“Ah, Sky Streak, you’ve come so far,” it said in its haunting triple-voice. “I really had my doubts. But you pulled it out in the end.”
Not even the glow of his eyes could mask the surprise on his face. “Excuse me?”
“You win.” The admission from the Chimera almost caused him to drop from the air. “But don’t think that you’ve destroyed me,” it continued. “I may be vanquished, but never forget that I am a creature born from hatred. Wherever there is hatred, there is the seed for my return.”
The Chimera locked all of its eyes with him as its extremities continued to vanish. “And, as a reward for your victory, here’s some advice: there’s quite a source of hatred within Equestria. Yes, from your own precious ponies. And if you don’t confront it quickly, you may find yourself facing me again. Sooner than you’d like, I’d wager.”
“Wait,” Sky said quickly. “Tell me this: why did you keep switching between referring to yourself as ‘I’ and ‘we’?” He watched nervously as the light slowly ate away at the Chimera’s body.
The Chimera snorted as its rear legs and snake head disappeared. “Ah, you really don’t expect me to reveal everything, do you? There’s a perfectly good reason for that, but I’m afraid you’ll have to find that out on your own.” It sighed as its midsection, including its second head, was engulfed by the radiant twister. “It’s been a long time since I was last vanquished. I’d quite forgotten what it feels like. I suppose I was due for a reminder.” It looked at Sky Streak again. Only the lion head remained, but the cruelty and malice he had seen in each of its faces remained. “Well, good luck. As much as I’d like to come back and get my revenge, I really don’t want to have to face you again. You’ve just become too much to handle.”
And as the light erased the last bit of the Chimera’s body, it threw its head back in laughter, seemingly enjoying every bit of this otherwise-terrifying event. And as the tip of its nose dissolved, the light exploded into a blinding glare, brighter than anything Sky could have imagined.
“What’s going on in there?” Fluttershy asked, nervously observing the gray cloud a few meters in front of her.
“There’s no telling,” Rarity answered, “but I suspect that Sky is having one last battle against the Chimera.”
“Then he’s gonna win!” Spike exclaimed excitedly. “I just know it!”
“We certainly hope so,” Twilight said, “but the Chimera is strong. You remember how it just tossed us around before Sky got here.”
“Don’t remind me,” Rainbow said from above her, rolling her head from side to side. “I’m gonna be sore for a week!”
“He’ll win.” Every pony turned to where Lily stood, staring intently into the pulsating mass of gray mist before them. “I can feel it. He feels…peaceful. Confident.” She turned back to the rest of the group. “It’s like the feeling you get when you’re trying to solve a riddle, and then you figure out the answer. He knows how to win.”
“Wait, you can feel his emotions?” Pinkie asked, looking confused.
“Yeah, I found out back in the windigo colony. It might be some special magic that comes from being especially close to somepony or something like that, but when I’m close to him, I can feel him. And right now, he’s—”
Her words were cut off as the cloud suddenly surged with light before it burst asunder. A pillar of light split the sky and tore into the cloud cover above, causing it to roll back in all directions, revealing a sky bright with brilliant red hues in the coming of the dawn.
The seven mares and one young dragon had nearly jumped out of their skin when the cloud exploded. And now, as they watched from the cover of a large boulder (the one that had knocked Rainbow unconscious), they beheld a stunning sight: the pillar of light continued to pierce the sky, but as it rose like an inverted waterfall, smaller streams of light broke off and fell to the earth. And as each one reached the ground, they expanded and dimmed, revealing the bodies of hundreds of ponies.
They watched in silence for almost a full minute before the realization of what they were seeing washed over Twilight. “Are…are those—?”
“It sure looks like it,” Applejack mused. “I just can’t believe he managed to do it.”
“What? What did he do?” Pinkie asked.
“Those are ponies,” Twilight explained. “The ponies that were eaten by the Chimera.”
Rarity gasped. “You mean…he did it? He found a way to rescue them?”
They continued to watch in awe as a shower of lights rained down upon the ground all around them. As more and more ponies emerged, Twilight noticed that the huge tower of light was slowly shrinking, until it was little more than a long pipe. Until, finally, the last ribbon of light fell to the ground. Then, in perfect unison, the eight friends turned their attention to the place from which the light had first emerged. Standing there, looking utterly spent and barely able to stand, was the blue pegasus they had come to know and love.
“SKY!!” they shouted together, racing forward to embrace their hero.