//------------------------------// // Never Forget // Story: Love Will Set You Free // by Ospero //------------------------------// Note: This chapter gets quite a bit more graphic near the end. I've upped the rating to Teen to reflect that. The darkness was absolute. It was more than just the absence of light - the blackness seemed to devour brightness and hope, until all that was left was the dark. Twilight fought it as best she could, but she knew she wouldn't hold out against it much longer, and when she finally succumbed ... And in the end, after the other five have gone, when doubt denies magic, the elements will scatter, and darkness will reign. Doubt's words seemed to echo in the void. "Twilight?" The voice cut through the shadows like a single ray of pink light. Twilight raised her head, slowly, painfully, as if it was the hardest thing she'd ever done. "Pinkie? Is that you?" "I think so. But then, would I know if I wasn't Pinkie, just thinking I was her?" The voice hesitated. "I should stop thinking about that. It's giving me a headache." "Where are you?" Twilight looked around, but all she saw was the darkness. "I think it's called the Pit of Despair. The others are somewhere near, too." Pinkie's voice took on a sad tone. "I'm sorry, girls. I didn't fight it. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late." "You don't have to apologize," another voice broke in. "It caught us all unaware, except for Rarity and Twilight." "Rainbow Dash?" Twilight tried her best, but still the darkness held firm, though it seemed to have stopped its relentless assault for the moment. "Um ... girls, do you think we can do anything? Now that we're complete again, I mean." Fluttershy, Twilight thought, and suddenly the darkness seemed to lift ever so slightly. "Don't see why not. I mean, we can't attack Doubt directly, but there has to be something we can do," Applejack's voice drifted in. Twilight waited for the fifth voice, but nothing happened for a long while. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. "Rarity? Are you here?" A quiet sobbing was her only answer at first, then a whisper reached her ears. "This is all my fault. I caused it, and then I made the wrong decision. How am I supposed to live with that?" "That train of thought will get you nowhere, sugarcube," Applejack said gently. "You couldn't have known Spike was watching you, and even if you had known, would you change anything?" "No..." Rarity said hesitantly. "You told me how happy you were, Rarity. Even if you did make the wrong choice between love and friendship, nopony can blame you." Fluttershy might just be a disembodied voice at the moment, but Twilight could sense the kindness radiating from the pegasus even like that, and even though it wasn't directed at her. "Yeah. Besides, what stupid kind of false dichotomy is that, choosing between love and friendship?" For a split second, Twilight wondered whether that had really been Rainbow Dash speaking, and the silence that followed the question told her that the others were just as astonished as she was. Dash seemed to notice and sighed. "It was explained in Daring Do and the Tablets of Thought. They're cheap adventure novels, but I do learn something from them every now and then, okay? What I mean is, since when are love and friendship mutually exclusive?" "Yeah! Lots of my friends have lovers!" Twilight could practically see the frown on Pinkie's face, and she heard giggles drift in from the others, even Rarity. "Wait, that came out wrong." "You don't say, Pinkie," Rarity said, sounding a little more like herself. "So you aren't mad at me?" "You made a mistake, Rarity. We all do that from time to time." Twilight smiled. "Now we need to make certain that things take a turn for the better." "Any ideas on how to do that, Twi?" Applejack asked. "We're not exactly mobile at the moment, so what can we do?" "I don't know yet," Twilight said. "But I know we'll think of something. For now, focus on yourselves. Doubt can't get to us unless we completely surrender to him." The darkness suddenly seemed a lot less hostile. *** Scootaloo shook her head as she clambered to her hooves. Looking around, she saw nothing but the featureless grey plain stretching out, and the whirl of black in front of her. "Hello, little pegasus. Alone and frightened. Why don't you just surrender?" Doubt sounded almost bored, as if he didn't expect Scootaloo to put up much of a fight. "Alone, yeah, but frightened? Hay no!" Scootaloo tried her best to emulate Fluttershy's Stare. "Why don't you just surrender? I beat you once, I can do it again." "Aww. Isn't the little filly adorable?" Doubt's voice had risen by about an octave, in a horrid mockery of foal talk. "You inherited the Element of Courage from Fire Feathers, best flier of the Pegasus Nation. Look at you - you can't even fly!" Scootaloo shrank back. She knew all too well that her flying abilities were poor for her age, and having this black thing throw that in her face didn't do her willpower any good. "You see? One little remark about your wings, and you break down just like that. I can't for the life of me imagine why that element picked you." Doubt's eyes blazed green, and it leaned in until they were at eye level. "Chicken." The insult should have been laughable. Instead, it felt as though somepony had driven a stake through Scootaloo's heart. She bit down on her lip, tears coming to her eyes as she remembered all the occasions she had attempted flying and failed miserably, again and again. Then she realized something. No matter how often she had failed, she had always gotten up and tried again. Her inner fire had always driven her forward, sometimes to foolish things, but she had never given up, and by the six-striped mane of Rainbow Dash, she was not going to start now of all times. The diamond around her neck blazed with white light as she dug in her front hooves, staring unblinkingly into Doubt's eyes. "Nopony calls me chicken." She said it calmly, quietly, yet the menace beneath the surface would have made a dragon hesitate. "Oooh. You might be more interesting than I thought, after all." Doubt held her gaze. "But tell me, did your courage help you with the really bad things in your life? At all?" For a second, nothing seemed to happen, then Scootaloo heard the screams. She squeezed her eyes shut, failing to hold back her tears. Those screams haunted her worst nightmares, even now, three years after her mother had finally managed to contact the guards about the horrible things her husband - Scootaloo's sire, she wouldn't honour him with the word 'father' - did to her regularly. He had never laid a hoof on his daughter. Scootaloo was grateful for that, yet at the same time some small part of her believed that it might have been worth it if it meant the screams and the crying would stop, even for a second. She had cowered beneath her sheets, and when it was finally over, when he was gone, she had sworn to never again back down from anyone or anything. She might get hurt, but at least it would be because of something she did, not something she hadn't done. Her mother had a favourite saying, one that Scootaloo had never really understood. But now she finally got it. She smiled at Doubt and spread her wings. "The night is always darkest right before the dawn." The shadow exploded, and Scootaloo was falling again. *** Spike smashed into the ground, face first. Even the dust here tastes like nothing, he thought as he stood, spitting out the grey stuff. Looking around, he saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders scramble to their hooves and take in their surroundings as well. The next thing he knew, Apple Bloom had wrapped him in a tight hug. "You're okay. Thank Celestia you're okay." Spike tried to loosen her hooves just a bit, so he could breathe again, and she eventually got the hint and released him, blushing deeply. "Sorry. Don't know what came over me." He could hear Sweetie Belle giggle, while a strange retching sound came from Scootaloo's direction. "Eww. Are you done with that gooey stuff?" "I was just about to ask the same question." Doubt swirled into being ahead of them, accompanied by the golden disc - or rather, what was left of it, for the cracks had widened further. Spike's eyes went to Twilight, and he saw with relief that she was still holding out. Her hooves and horn had lost colour, but it hadn't spread any further. "Release them. Now." All heads turned to the rather unlikely source of the menacing growl. Sweetie Belle was staring at Doubt with a fire in her eyes that gave the lie to her small stature. "Before I do something very unkind to you." For a second, no one spoke. Then Doubt broke the silence with a burst of laughter that made chills run down Spike's spine. "Ever considered a career in comedy, my dear? What do you think you are doing, threatening a primordial evil?" Apple Bloom took a place at Sweetie Belle's side. "This isn't funny. We mean it." That only served to intensify the laughter. "Oh, this is too perfect. Look at you. The six of them," he gestured to the disc and its prisoners, "barely managed to defeat Envy and Discord, and they were older and more experienced, and had elements that were in harmony with one another. What do you have?" Scootaloo marched up next to Apple Bloom. "We are who we are, and we have the four elements we have. What else should we need?" "A plan, perhaps? An idea on how to defeat me? A general knowledge of what your elements can and cannot do would probably come in handy as well." The laughter stopped abruptly, and Doubt's eyes turned blue. "You can't win this, foals. Surrender now, and I promise you I'll make it painless." Spike joined the Crusaders' ranks. "Each one of us has already defeated you twice, Doubt. Why shouldn't we manage a third time?" The shape suddenly expanded horizontally, drawing a circle around the four. "You have absolutely no idea, you little fools. You bear elements that should have gone the way of their comrades five thousand years ago, and that were so desperate they chose children as their last resort." Doubt hissed, and its eyes took on a reddish tinge. "I will not warn you again, elements. Stand in my way at your own risk. I will take any and all steps necessary to get rid of the obstacles on my path out of this prison. Until now, I've held back because I found you amusing, but my supply of goodwill is exhausted. Surrender now, unless you want to find out about the true power of Doubt first-hand." Spike swallowed hard. This wasn't the overblown, theatrical evil of Nightmare Moon, nor did it have the cartoonish overtones of Discord. This was a force of pure evil bent on a single goal, and woe to anypony fool enough to stand in its way. He exchanged glances with the Crusaders, and they nodded in unison. It was them or no one. "We will not stand aside while your evil spreads across Equestria." Spike noticed that his voice was trembling slightly. "We are the line against you. It's your call. Give up now, and we will try to help you." "You have made your decision." Doubt sounded strangely excited. "I was so hoping you'd say that, you know. It'll be much more fun that way." Its eyes blazed in all colours at once, and the four element bearers screamed as the full force of Doubt's power bore down upon them. *** The house had crumbled, the apple tree was but a withered husk, and still Apple Bloom was screaming. The stage was in ruins, sparks and small flames were flying from the microphones and amplifiers, and still Sweetie Belle was writhing in pain. The racing arena was falling apart, clouds turning to raindrops, the scooters were smashed and broken, and still Scootaloo was sobbing. The cave was crumbling, the gemstones were cracking and turning black, and still Spike was roaring his pain to the shadows. "Don't act surprised now. I did warn you," Doubt hissed. "Get out of my way now, while you still can, or I'll turn really unfriendly." The four bearers looked at it, through tears of pain and shock, and shook their heads. "If you insist..." *** The pain as her wings were ripped apart was unbearable. The agony of having her vocal cords torn from her throat would have made her scream, if she could still have screamed. The hurt when her hooves were broken should have made her faint or go numb after a while. It did not. The burning when he was immersed in the icy water drove all thoughts from his mind except one. Make it stop. *** They woke from the visions screaming and gasping for air. Spike realized that the tortures had not actually taken place, though they had certainly felt real enough. Apple Bloom was sobbing, Sweetie Belle just looked stunned, and Scootaloo was whimpering. Spike himself was shaking like a leaf and feeling numb. "Now, did that finally convince you?" Doubt asked. "Yes, it did." All heads turned to Spike at that. The dragon had managed to stand up, his hands were clenched into fists, smoke was rising from his nostrils. "You have convinced me that no matter what it takes, you must be stopped." "Fine. If physical pain didn't suffice, perhaps pain of the heart will make you see the truth." *** A grounded pegasus, unable to fly, laughed at by everypony. Laughed off the stage every time she tried singing in public, becoming the laughingstock of Equestria. Cast out from the Apple family for daring to love a member of another species. Seeing Rarity happy in Fancy's embrace, aware that he could never make her this happy. *** Spike's head cleared again. The visions had seemed as real as the torture scenes, but they had been ten times as painful. Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were lying on the ground sobbing, and after a few seconds, Spike realized that he was doing the same. They never could tell which of them said it. Perhaps it was all four of them at once. "Please, no more. I surrender." Their necklaces dropped off one by one, the metal and stone vanishing as they hit the ground. Only the gemstones remained, robbed of all their light. The cracks in the disc widened even further, and the last traces of colour drained from Twilight's coat, only the tip of her tail still showing a trace of purple. Doubt laughed triumphantly. "Finally. The day of freedom is at hand." Spike's vision faded. The last thought before the blackness was like a needle through his mind. I'm sorry, everypony. We failed you.