//------------------------------//
// Chapter Five: Endgame 
// Story: Ponies Protecting Ponies 
// by Venates 
//------------------------------//

	"ONE! TWO! THREE!"
The Ponyville library's secret basement filled with a variety of piercing magical auras, all aimed directly at the glowing barrier that surrounded the nation's princess. This continued on for half a minute before the unicorns' commanding officer gave the ceasefire.
Disappointment and frustration led to a guttural mumble from the director's mouth. "Not even a dent..."
Carrot Top giggled, and Bon Bon pegged her in the side. "Ouch! What? He said—"
Bon Bon chided, "Really, Top, now is not the time."
Director Rad Dent approached the only two earth ponies in the basement; the rest of the room was filled to its brim with unicorns lining the walls and staircase, and pairings of unicorns with pegasi hovering in the air above them. "Well, I'm plum out of ideas," Dent grumbled to Ponyville's two representatives.
"Seriously?" asked Bon Bon. "Not once in your entire career have you ever dealt with something like this?"
Dent shook his head. "Not once in my entire career has a thousand-year-old evil decided they had something worth ensnaring this bad." He looked back towards his unconscious princess. "Are we even sure she's..."
"She has to be," said Carrot Top, stomping a hoof. "There's no sense erecting a magic snare around her if she weren't alive."
"You raise a fair point," Dent said. "Though I don't understand why she wouldn't have just... you know..." Dent scratched the back of his head. "Finished the job."
"Maybe she wanted to come back to gloat later," suggested Bon Bon. "Maybe she didn't have the stomach. Maybe she wanted a TEA PARTY WITH CRUMPETS AFTER CONQUERING THE EARTH!"
"Bon Bon!" hissed Carrot Top.
"Sorry," Bon Bon snapped, "I just don't see the point in asking any of these questions right now! All we really need to focus on is getting her out of there!"
Dent nodded. "Agreed. Men?" Every unicorn in the room once again focused their horns on the violet field in front of them.
"Hang on," said Carrot Top while putting a hoof on Dent's chest. He looked down at it but otherwise offered little to acknowledge the contact. "We've already established that a bunch of unicorns shooting at it isn't going to do much."
"Your point being?" asked Dent.
"My point being," Carrot began with a gentle prod on the director's ribcage, "is that we might be more successful if the counter-spells were all more focused on one spot in particular." She gave the ribcage a harder prod. "Heck, if you could just disable the defense rather than also be focusing on breaching the surface, we might actually be able to take out the first layer and not spend all of our energy trying to do both at the same time."
Dent closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. He sounded calm, yet exhausted when he spoke. "Even if we do shut down the defense layer, the shield layer underneath will be untouched. And that's the one we need to breach to break the spell."
"The defense layer takes some magical trickery, but the shield layer is just brute force," Carrot Top stated. She withdrew her hoof from Dent's chest and took a few steps towards the unconscious alicorn. "Besides, assuming one of your spells were to breach it, the force of doing so would probably be so strong that it would shoot straight through Princess Celestia."
Several of the unicorns shifted uncomfortably.
Dent sighed. "You've got me there, Top. But I can tell that you're building to something."
"It's easy," Carrot Top said. She walked over and slapped Bon Bon on the back. "Have your unicorns focus on the defense layer in one isolated spot, and leave the brute force to some earth ponies with genuine muscle."
"Excuse me?" asked Bon Bon.
Dent coughed and struggled to collect his words. "I-I've got a few agents outside who would be more than capable of—"
Carrot Top shook her head. "Rad, every second we spend arguing is a second closer to Nightmare Moon achieving her goals, and this library is already clogged full of unicorns trying to get down here to help. Bon Bon and I are the only ones here, and we've had just as much strength training as any of your agents."
Dent shook his head as well. "Yes, but Carrot—"
Bon Bon spoke up. "No, Dent, she's right. This is all we've got."
The director looked between them and then back to Carrot Top. "Are you sure you—"
"Did you see the library's front door, or the wall in front of the basement here?" Carrot Top asked, swinging a hoof towards the basement's entrance.
"Err, no, but—"
"That's because of this gal," said Carrot Top with another slap on Bon Bon's back. "This one. Right here."
"Look, it's not that I don't think you're capable," Dent said, pulling at his collar, "it's just that... well... it's risky. If my men can't hold the defense layer back, or there's some kind of unknown THIRD layer..."
"We know what we're getting into, Dent," Carrot assured him. She looked at Bon Bon, who nodded. "And any pony you would put in our stead would be just as great a loss."
Dent swallowed. "You don't know that, Carrot."
"Dent."
The director spun and stared at the mare who spoke. This cream-colored, blue-and-pink maned... replacement. Despite her inexperience with authority, Bon Bon's stern gaze told him that she would not budge on the matter, not to him nor the face of death itself, and that she had complete trust in both herself and the old friend standing at her side. Dent blinked a few times and turned away from the two mares, a familiar furrow back on his brow. "Alright, men, you heard them!" he barked. "Gather 'round to the front if you can, and concentrate on deactivating the defense layer at bucking level! On my mark!"
Carrot Top and Bon Bon planted their front hooves and pointed their backsides directly at the purple dome.
"Are you ready, Bon?"
"See you on the other side, Carrot."





"Get that thing going, Doc! We don't have all day!"
"I'm trying, Miss Heartstrings! These are very delicate components!"
Derpy had Lyra hoisted up and airborne near a tower window, with one eye on Nightmare Moon, who was seconds away from incinerating Twilight Sparkle and her friends, and her other eye on the two ponies still on the ground. Lyra didn't have the luxury of being able to see two places at once, and was instead constantly switching her view between the two situations. Meanwhile, on the ground, Doctor Hooves was struggling to get the parts of a unique, specially-made device put together with Lyra breathing down his back from three stories up, and Amethyst was busily refining six of the roughest gemstones she had ever seen in her entire life with only the narrowest window of time to work in.
All-in-all, it was not the most relaxing of situations.
"Lyra!" the doctor called, his hooves practically running independently, "How capable are you of teleporting six hoof-sized objects?"
"Ordinarily not a problem!" Lyra called back, "But if I just start chucking things in there, they might figure out that something's up!"
"What's Twilight doing?" Amethyst asked.
"Starting a speech about the Elements of Harmony!" Lyra answered. "Sheesh, she is seriously obsessed with those things!"
"I have an idea!" said Hooves. "Can you do a swapping spell instead?"
"Not that much more difficult!" Lyra cried back down. "It's basically just two teleportation spells at the same time!"
"Right! Float something around them!" Hooves ordered. "Something — I don't know — Element-y!"
Lyra shifted uncomfortably in Derpy's forelegs before starting an angry retort. "You don't think—?"
"Just trust him, Lyra," Derpy whispered in Lyra's ear.
"Not often, but today's different!" Hooves yelled back up, oblivious to the Derpy's words.
Lyra was hesitant, but after a sincere look from Derpy, she took the remains of the five stone orbs Nightmare Moon once held in her mane — orbs that were now pebbles at the alicorn's hooves — and levitated the bits and pieces around five of the ponies facing the alicorn; it was her hope that keeping the focus off of Twilight would buy their VIP some time. Despite the abnormal behavior from traditionally inanimate rocks, the attention of those in the tower remained on each other, and Lyra and Derpy both remained unnoticed.
"I'm using each pony's internal magic to change the color of my aura!" Lyra called. "It's draining, but it should keep any suspicions off of us!"
"Neat!" Hooves went back to his device and switched to speaking with Amethyst. "Miss Star, how are the gems coming?"
"You're lucky this is my forte, Hooves," said Amethyst through grit teeth over a purple gem. She gave the stone one last precise but powerful incision. "Okay, that's all of them!"
"Guys!" yelled Lyra, "Nightmare just looked this way! I think she knows we're here!"
"Here!" Amethyst shoved the shining gems towards Hooves. "All six! Now what?"
"Uh, wait, Star," Lyra called out. "Did you just say there are six of those things?"
"Yeah, why?"
Lyra gasped. "I thought there was only five! I ran out of Element rocks!"
"Here!" Doctor Hooves ran to a pile of half-finished, broken, and malformed statues, pulled a small orb from the rubble, and hurled it upwards. "There are some leftovers from when the sculptors first made the Elements of Harmony display!"
Lyra caught the orb with her magic without issue, but her features looked strained. "Yeah, but the others are all crushed, and—!" Derpy, unable to pat Lyra's back, tried gingerly bouncing her for consolation. "You know what, fine, whatever, it's going in there. Guess you're getting one after all, Sparkle!"
"Okay, Amethyst," Hooves said, returning to the unicorn at eye level. "Now cut them into the shapes of all of their cutie marks!"
"What?!" Amethyst almost screamed. "Why?!"
"It'd be fun!" said Hooves with a grin.
"WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR—"
"ARGUING! JUST GET IT OVER WITH, STAR!" She was trying her best, but there was nothing Derpy could do to calm the angry, ranting Lyra. The green unicorn continued, "I AM DOING LIKE FIVE SPELLS AT ONCE WITHOUT MY HOOVES EVEN ON LEVEL GROUND, AND YOU ARE DOWN THERE COMPLAINING ABOUT DOING YOUR OLD JOB!" Derpy tried shifting Lyra into a more comfortable hold, but the unicorn seemed dead-set on saying her piece. "NOW CUT THOSE BLASTED GEMS SO WE CAN GET THIS NIGHT OVER WITH ALREADY! YOU DID HARDER STUFF FOR BITS ON THE STREET!"
Amethyst grumbled, sat down, and pulled Hooves' orange gem closer to her.
"Okay," Hooves began, "Now, Applejack's cutie mark is three apples..."
"I am NOT doing three apples!" yelled Amethyst.
"Of course not!" Hooves smiled. "We want the centers of the gems intact!"





"MARK!"
Once again, dozens of multicolor beams shot from every available horn in the library basement and drilled into the pale, violet dome at its center. The magical shield surrounding Princess Celestia crackled and sparked with a great fury, but the bright streaks of energy attempting to breach its exterior stayed steady. Slowly, a small hole widened on the dome's lavender surface, revealing a more solid-looking layer underneath.
"READY?"
Bon Bon and Carrot Top bent their knees, waiting for Rad Dent's signal.
"BUCK ONE!" the stallion commanded.
Like lightening, the two mares struck the sturdy, violet shield. It showed no damage.
"BUCK TWO!"
A second lightning strike. No visible impairment.
"BUCK THREE!"
Third strike. A hollow banging sound reverberated in the room, same as the first two kicks.
"Bon Bon..."
"This was your idea, Top! Keep at it!"
"BUCK FOUR!"
Fourth strike. No results. A stallion on the basement stairs lost his footing for a moment.
"Bon..." Carrot Top's kicks were staying strong, but her voice sounded weak.
"Don't stop!" commanded Bon Bon. She could feel the pain of it too; every kick against the magic snare's surface felt like she instantly sprinted a one-hundred meter dash. Her body ached. No matter the pain, though, they couldn't give up. If there was any night appropriate for them to throw in the towel, it was not this night.
"BUCK FIVE!"
BOOM.
Nothing.
"Bon...!"
"BUCK SIX!"
BOOM-CRCHNK.
A small crack appeared on the solid layer's surface. A few cheers echoed in the hall.
"Celebrate when it's over, boys!" Dent yelled. "BUCK SEVEN!"
BOOM-CRCHNKCHK.
"Bon Bon... I... I can't..." Every breath Carrot Top drew was strained.
"Top, if we stop and the defense layer closes again, we'll have to start all over! If any of us survive the concussion from the closure, that is!"
"BUCK EIGHT!"
BOOM-CRKKKK.
One of the stallions at the shield's edge collapsed. Another standing next to him motioned to break the fall, but he kept position and maintained his fire.
"Bon..." They were so close. If only Bon Bon could think of something, anything, to keep her struggling partner fighting...
"BUCK NINE!"
BOOM-CRCH.
A pegasus briefly lost his grip on his unicorn passenger and struggled to keep them both in the air.
"Bon... Bon..."
"CARROT, I CUDDLED WITH DIRECTOR DENT THE NIGHT YOU NAMED ME THE NEW PONYVILLE HANDLER!"
"WHAT?!"
"BUCK TEN!"
BOOM-CRCHNKCRKNCHRKNKKKKKKKKKKK!
The sound of glass shattering rampaged throughout the library's basement. Several exhausted unicorns and pegasi collapsed wherever was immediately convenient. The force of the breach caused Carrot Top to completely lose balance, but Bon Bon landed square after her final buck. She rushed to the side of her princess.
"Princess Celestia!" cried Bon Bon. She took the matriarch's head in her hooves and cradled it gently. The alicorn stirred, and her eyes fluttered. Bon Bon turned back to the top of the staircase. "Water!" she demanded. A stallion near the entrance perked up and disappeared. A moment later he reappeared with a bowl full of water and used his magic to float it down to Bon Bon and the princess. When the stallion's strength failed, Director Dent caught it in his own magic and brought it to Bon Bon himself. It was placed next to Princess Celestia's head, who struggled with her first few sips. Once the bowl was empty, she rolled herself out of Bon Bon's hooves and onto her stomach. Even in a crouched position, she towered above her subjects. Celestia raised a hoof to her head and stayed that way in a dead silent basement for a full minute. When it became clear that not one of her subjects dared to speak, Celestia looked back at the cream-colored mare in front of her.
"You're Bon Bon," the deity said in an unnaturally soothing voice. "Ponyville's new handler."
"Y-yes, ma'am," Bon Bon said with a bow.
"Carrot Top chose wisely." The white alicorn stood to her hooves and noticed the yellow mare in question just a few paces away. Bon Bon saw her princess nod to the earth pony, who bowed in reply. Every pony who was both conscious and able to get to their hooves bowed. Princess Celestia turned her attention back down to Bon Bon. Her angelic voice became stern. "Where is my sister?"
"Our agents last saw her heading into the Everfree," said Bon Bon, struggling to make eye contact with the regal alicorn.
Princess Celestia did not thank her subjects. She did not return their bows. She didn't so much as pat them on the back. There was no time for it. Like a rocket, she jettisoned out of the library and over the forest to the south, vanishing into the night.
For what felt like an age, no pony in the library spoke. It was Carrot Top who broke the silence.
"Bon Bon..."
"Before you say anything," Bon Bon began, "no, I did not cuddle with Director Dent. At any point."
"Although a part of me is flattered that the notion elicited such a response," Dent said, approaching the two mares with a smirk.
Carrot Top glared at him. Then she spun and glared at Bon Bon. This lasted several seconds with nothing said, and then the yellow mare adopted a sleepy grin. "Yeah. I chose wisely." With that, Carrot Top promptly passed out.
Dent and Bon Bon looked at one another, but before either could say anything, a small voice came from the top of the stairs.
"Hey!" the dragon assistant said, rubbing one of his eyes. "You guys aren't supposed to be here past closing time!"





"Now you want me to... WHAT?!"
"Necklaces!" Hooves chimed.
"WHY?!" screamed Amethyst. Doctor Hooves either didn't or chose not to hear her.
"Derpy, I'm sending some schematics to your data stick!" the doctor called up to his pegasus friend. "Help Lyra place the six ponies in these exact positions, relative height and all!"
"You got it, Doctor!"
After some mumbled words between the pegasus and her unicorn passenger, Amethyst heard Lyra say, "He wants me to what?! How many spells does he think I can do at once?!"
Amethyst grumbled her sympathy. Quick as she could, she fitted five newly cut gems into a hoofful of necklaces Hooves found among the ancient art room's artifacts.
"Except for Twilight's!" Hooves said excitedly. "That one goes into the tiara!"
"Why," Amethyst snarled, "is there a tiara?"
Hooves smiled. "Because she's a princess!"
Amethyst growled, but was too far past arguing at this point. "Doc, don't take this the wrong way, but I hope when all of this is over, you and I never work together again."
Hooves' selective hearing again missed Amethyst's statement. "Lyra!" he called, "Are Twilight and her friends in position?"
"According to Derpy!" Lyra called back. "I sure as heck can't see her datastick!"
"Do you see these necklaces?" Hooves asked her. "And the tiara?"
"Wh— Yeah, why?"
"Teleport the rocks you're floating out of the room, and teleport these artifacts onto the ponies!"
"DOC, YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR POND SCUM FLAPPIN'—"
"LYRA!" groaned Derpy, wings struggling to maintain their altitude, "PLEASE! NOT NOW!"
"FINE!"
"Amethyst!" yelled Hooves, returning his attention to the unicorn at ground level, "Think cleansing thoughts and fire straight into the device!"
"It's ready?" asked Amethyst.
"FIRE NOW!"
Without further hesitation, Amethyst's horn lit up, and a scorching beam of light shot directly into the circular opening on the strange contraption's side. It rattled and hummed, but ultimately did very little and settled back to a resting state.
Amethyst's heart quickened its pace. "Did... Did it work?"
"These ponies love your jewelry, Doc." said Lyra sarcastically, unaware of the events taking place below her.
Doctor Hooves looked flabbergasted. "I don't... You..." The stallion fiddled with his machine. He then looked to Amethyst. "We need a stronger force," he said bluntly.
"That... Doc, I can't make a stronger magic than that!" yelled Amethyst, eyes wide with fear.
"Aaaany time now!" called Lyra.
"Doctor."
A fifth voice joined the four ponies. Amethyst and Hooves looked towards it, and both dropped their jaws. Derpy almost dropped her passenger.
"Whoa!" Lyra's legs flailed. "Doo, what gives?!"
Princess Celestia approached the tan stallion slowly. "My sister is up there, as is my faithful student," she told him. "Is your machine ready?"
"As you requested," Hooves stated with a bow. He backed away respectfully with his nose still inches from the stone floor.
Equestria's white alicorn lit her horn in a gentle, yet fierce golden glow, and fired with the force of the sun itself directly into the device's magical receptacle. Expecting to see wreckage, Amethyst was instead surprised to witness the machine shoot skyward, miraculously all in one piece, spinning and droning as it went.
"What's happening?" Lyra asked.
"Move, Derpy!"
The airborne device spun in midair, and pointed its tip directly through the tower window at Twilight and company. It gave a forceful blast, expelling what looked otherwise like a simple faint white light, and in doing so singed the tail of a diving pegasus.
"Gah!"
The powerful beam collided with the six little ponies in the ancient tower, though it did not harm a single one of them. Imbued with its power and using the gemstones on their bodies, the six ponies buzzed with an unusual might as the force to come charged itself within them. Then, without any further warning, six more beams of light, each bent into a different spectrum, shot from the newly made jewelry and into the air above. Here they collided and, trajectory altered, barreled into the one pony not involved in the spectacle.
"NOOOOOO!"
A whirlwind of color completely enveloped Nightmare Moon, and her struggles against it proved futile.
"NOOOOOO!"
With the blast of a volcanic eruption, a multicolor shockwave emanated from the decrepit tower, and with it a faint, black smoke dissolved into the night sky. Inside the tower, seven ponies laid unconscious in an otherwise unaltered room.
Lyra panted as she steadied herself on level ground. "That..." she breathed, "was probably... the coolest thing... ever..." She turned to the friends behind her. "Hey, guys, did you see— ...Is that Princess Celestia?"





As many things tend to warrant in a town like Ponyville, a huge celebration was held to commemorate the return of not just one, but two of the kingdom's princesses.
"Catch up, Doo!" Lyra called in a dead sprint. "We don't want to be late to see Luna and Princess Celestia!"
"But we've already met them!" Derpy cried back with a smile, gently floating after her.
"Doesn't matter!" Lyra wore a grin to match.
As a royal chariot pulled into the town carrying both a white and a blue alicorn, Doctor Hooves was the first to greet them. Princess Celestia looked to him and his grinning face, and gave him a soft nod. He looked to his right at Bon Bon, who gave him the same gesture. He reared and flailed his front two hooves with delight. On the other side of the chariot, a small purple dragon ran up and hugged his unicorn friend.
"I knew you could do it, Twilight!" he told her.
She gave him a warm nuzzle. "Thanks, Spike. Everything go okay here while I was gone?"
"I had some really weird dreams," he admitted. "Oh! And did you know that the library has a basement?"
Quietly observing from afar, Amethyst was approached by Carrot Top. "I have to say, you Canterlot transfers turned out to be a huge asset here," Carrot told her.
Amethyst chuckled. "I'm glad you think so, but we were really just doing our job."
"You did more than that," Carrot stated. "I've been with the company long enough to know that something of this magnitude is probably going to earn you more medals than you can wear."
In another part of the congregation, Derpy and Lyra were having their own conversation.
"Well, Doo," Lyra began, "it's been real."
"What?" asked Derpy, confused. "You're leaving?"
"Star and I only came here for Sparkle's protection," Lyra reminded her. "With this Summer Sun thing over, our VIP will be heading back to Canterlot by the day's end."
"Oh..." Derpy sighed. "Well, for whatever it's worth... I'm glad I got the chance to meet you."
Lyra gave the pegasus a sidelong glance. "It's... mutual, Doo. And I apologize if anything I said might have offended you."
"Apology accepted," said Derpy with a smile. "But are you sure you can't stay just a little while longer?"
"Not even a little," Lyra answered. "Besides, I'm not built for a farm town. I'm itching to get back to the city, what with its towers, its culture, its—" Cheering coming from half of the ponies present interrupted her. "What? What happened? Why are we cheering?"
Doctor Hooves came running towards the both of them. "Guess what?!" he asked with glee, "Princess Celestia said that Twilight can stay here! Isn't that exciting?!"
Derpy looked to Lyra with a smug grin. It was in moments like this Lyra wished she had the expressive capability of her hand-to-hand combat instructor's arms, as she felt an extreme need to fold a pair of her own.
"Peachy."