//------------------------------// // The End // Story: Forbidden Magic // by ChaosDragoon //------------------------------// The shadow ponies jumped onto the earth pony that was hopping around them. She somehow appeared behind them and as they looked at the object they jumped on. They saw her head lying on the ground as a countdown in her right eye reached zero and it exploded. The ponies shrieked as small parts of their shadow skin lifted up from their bodies and began to dissipate like paper rising from a fire. The earth pony giggled before she turned and screamed at more of the shadow ponies. When the shock wave hit them, they all changed to small white rabbits that hopped away. The other earth pony shot balls of magical energy at each shadow pony that got near to her. Each one exploding as bits of their shadow skin dissipating into the air. Feathers pierced into some of the shadow ponies before they disappeared and reappeared in the sky before they were slammed into the ground. Their bodies becoming shadows on the ground and slithering back under Death. His shadow continued to produce the ponies as each one rose up and ran towards the battle field. Eight of the shadow ponies where suddenly decapitated as the alicorn appeared, clutching a dagger in each of her hooves. The ponies splattered to the ground. The Pegasus that changed into a wolf changed again into a gorilla as she smashed and slammed each shadow pony around her. Harmony bucked one of the shadow ponies that got near him into the air as a Pegasus flew past it and sliced it in half with her wings. Each half fell to the ground and splattered. The porcupine bear swiped at each pony around it. Another ripple appeared as a nine foot crab came from it. One of its claws was about half the size of it while the other was pony size. Its body began to spin like a top as it legs stayed planted on the ground and when it suddenly stopped. Its arm with the larger claw extended like a bungee cord towards one of the shadow ponies. Its claw clamped down on the pony and its arm retracted before the crab slammed it to the ground. Ripples appeared on the ground, but nothing came out. When shadow ponies ran in the area where the ripples had appeared, parts of the ground opened like circular doors as pony size spiders jumped out of the ground. Their bodies where spider like but their heads where cat like with spider like fangs on each side of the cats mouth The spider cats dragged the ponies into the ground before shadows slithered from the ground towards Death. Blue mist slithered past each shadow pony as they froze solid before shattering to small pieces. The mist reformed into Purify as she took of her mask and breathed out white smoke towards more of the shadow ponies. They all froze and shattered before she placed her mask back on and changed back into mist. Life pierced the spear part of her halberd into the chest of a shadow pony before it splattered into black liquid and slithered back to Death. Death’s shadow continued to create the shadow ponies like a factory. When one was defeated, three more took its place, but he knew that this wouldn’t last. He needed to create something that could defeat them once and for all. His shadow suddenly extended even further and began to rise. It rose up to a massive monster. The creatures pitch black skin seemed to shine in the dusk sun light. It was two hundred and fifty feet long from its large round head to its arrow tipped tail with red spines going down its back. Black wings folded on each side of its body. Each leg had spines going down to its claws. The bottom half of its head opened as it roared. The sound of a leather object going down a stringed instrument echoed. It raised its right claw and was about to stomp onto Plentiful. The porcupine bear quickly grabbed Plentiful and threw her before the claw came down and crushed it. Plentiful flopped on the ground before she quickly got up and saw the massive claw lift up and raced to the crater. She looked down to see the porcupine bear lying in the middle of the hole, not moving. She slid down the side and quickly ran to its side. “Come on, stop playing and get up,” she begged. She nudged the porcupine bear’s arm, but it just fell to the ground lifeless. Tears swelled up in her eyes and she collapsed into the fur. She screamed into its fur as a massive ripple appeared behind the creature. Death watched as a massive beam of green energy blasted from the ripple and hit the massive shadow creature. The creature roared in pain as if fell to the ground. Steam coming from its skin as a massive creature came from the ripple. It was four stories high and three hundred feet tall. It was covered in yellow lizard scales with green spines going from its triangle shaped head with four cat like eyes on each side to its tail that’s tip was shaped like a ball with spikes around it. Each leg was connected to green hook like claws. On each side were spider legs folded close to its ribs. It walked out of the ripple like a komodo dragon. When it was fully out of the ripple it dipped its head down, then raised it and roared. The bottom of the creature’s mouth split in two, exposing the long rows of jagged arrow shaped teeth as the two corners of the top half had long saber teeth. The shadow creature stood up on its hind legs and roared before it fell to all fours and raced towards the creature who shot out green slim at it. The shadow creature extended its wings and flew into the air to avoid the slim. The slim hit a building and started to disintegrate the building. The shadow creature’s left hand started to morph into cannon with red lining as four smaller cannons were on top of it. The smaller cannons rapidly fired small spheres of white energy at the creature that used its spider legs to quickly avoid the spheres, while firing light green beams of energy at it. The shadow creature flew from side to side to avoid the attacks as the larger cannon shot a large sphere of energy at the creature as it jumped into the air and shot slim at it. The shadow creature moved when suddenly the bright green beam of energy pierced into it's right wing. It roared in pain as it fell to the ground. The shadow creature slammed into the ground as the other creature roared and advanced towards where the shadow creature had fallen. The shadow creature got back up as its cannon hand changed back into a claw as it shot out a beam of white energy. The creature used its spider legs again to jump over the beam as it passed under it and destroyed another building. The shadow creature’s right wing had been completely obliterated as black blood dripped from the last part of the wing that was still attached to its back. The creature shot out its red tentacle tongue, but the shadow creature side stepped the tongue as it latched onto a building. The creature retracted its tongue along with the building as it slammed into the back of the shadow creature’s head, knocking it to the ground. The creature’s tongue wrapped around the shadow creature’s head and flung it into the air before slamming it into the ground. It lifted it again and whipped its head around and let go. The shadow creature slammed into the ground and bounced up into the air and slammed into the ground like a stone skipping on the surface of the water for about three miles before stopping. The creature roared as it pushed its self into the air with its spider legs; it landed on top of the shadow creature as it started piercing its spider legs into the flesh of the shadow creature The shadow creature roared in pain before its claw quickly rose up and grabbed the creature’s neck and threw it to the side. The creature fell to the ground as the shadow creature stood up. It was met with the creatures tongue as It wrapped around the shadow creatures right shoulder and was flung towards the creature’s mouth. It clamped down with its rows of arrow teeth piercing into the shadow creature’s flesh. The creature tried to escape the lizard’s grasp as the spikes around it ball tipped tail started to blink. Suddenly the blinking lights quickly went up each spine towards the mouth before a green beam shot out of the shadow creatures back as it screamed and splattered into a massive wave of black liquid. The creature roared into the air before it walked into a ripple and disappeared. Death’s mouth hung open in shock. His shadow ponies had been destroyed and his creature was just destroyed. His mind raced trying to comprehend what had just happened. Suddenly arrows of light pierced into Death’s body and he screamed in pain. Life floated down as her horn glowed. He winced in pain as he looked up at Life; her face seemed to show sadness. “What are you sad about,” Death spat. “I truly wish you’d see the error of your ways and stop this madness,” Life said as she sighed. Death chuckled then laughed before he said, “Madness! I was made from madness! I am the harbinger of death! I am Death! I will never be stopped.” His body began to dissipate and rise up into the air like ashes. His body dissipated into ash as it flew into the air. Life shook her head as she turned to Purify who reformed herself from the mist. Harmony had Plentiful on his back. Her tears stained her fur under her eyes. “I think it’s time we went home,” Life said. The four changed into golden orbs and flew towards the castle in the Everfree forest. Four orbs appeared in the chamber where Luna and Celestia lay on a platform in the middle of four other platforms. Each orb flew to a platform floating around it. Sweetie Belle flopped onto the platform with a grain inscribed into it. Rainbow Dash fell onto the platform with what looked like a staff with wings and two snakes slithered around it. Big Mac fell on another with the six Elements inscribed in it. Twilight appeared as she stood on the platform with a sprouting tree on it, in the middle looked like a filly being cradled by the branches of the tree. “Thank you young ones for helping us save this world we love so much,” Life’s voice said. Twilight looked at the orb that was hover over her as Sweetie Belle stood up and an orb flew around her giggling and Plentiful said, “Yeah, it was fun to see Equestria again!” “We however, have one more thing we must do,” Harmony’s voice said as an orb floated above Big Mac. The four orbs suddenly spun around the two princesses as they glowed brighter and brighter. Rainbow Dash stood up and watched as the bright light shot into the sky and dissipated. Luna and Celestia stood up and shock their heads as Celestia looked up to the sky and said, “Thank you.” “What happened?” Twilight asked. “We exhausted all of our magic to summon the spirits of the Four Pillars of Hope, we became helpless. So, they gave us the rest of their magic to help us, however,” Celestia as she lowered her head. “To do so, they now can’t be summoned back,” Big Mac spoke up. Celestia looked up at him and nodded. “They now are able to ascend to the afterlife,” Luna said. --- Hours later, Celestia, Luna, Twilight, Big Mac, Rainbow Dash, and Sweetie Belle all where teleported into the castle. They saw all the ponies around them and a smile seemed to form on Celestia’s face. Discord sat against a wall, his griffin arm in a sling and bandages covering his body. “My fellow subject, these last few days have been harsh. We’ve lost friends, family, love ones, and we’ve also lost our friends to the north. The Crystal Empire has been wiped out. No pony there survived the attack. However, we should not let our grieving take over our lives. We can honor all the fallen by living for tomorrow. Those who died gave us a wonderful gift: the gift of seeing another day. The road ahead is long and harsh as we rebuild our kingdom, but I have faith that we will become stronger than before,” Celestia said. She looked at the four next to her before she added, “Equestria will continue to thrive!”