//------------------------------//
// History Repeats 
// Story: History Repeats 
// by SaddlesoapOpera 
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HISTORY REPEATS


By Saddlesoap Opera



CHAPTER SEVEN: History Repeats


Apple Bloom galloped through the darkness, her tiny hoofbeats ringing on Canterlot’s smooth stone streets. Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy ran at her sides and behind her; with her short legs and their Smooze-induced debility, they kept the same pace.

Once the snarls and growls of the Smoozed lesser Dragons chasing them faded into the distance and were lost, the group turned a few more corners and then stopped to catch their breath at the crossing of two broad avenues.

Apple Bloom shook her head to get her loose, sweaty mane out of her eyes. “Is… is it much… farther?” she said between gasps for breath.

Rarity leaned heavily against a nearby building. Her Smooze-splattered hide left purple-black smears on the white stone. “Just a few more blocks,” she replied. “Soon you’ll be safe and sound on that dirigible.”

Pinkie stood knock-kneed with her head low. Her eyes lost focus, and a twinge of agony pinched her features. She hissed in a breath.

Rarity and Fluttershy both staggered at the same moment. A soft moan escaped Fluttershy’s lips.

“H-Hay…!” Pinkie said, wrenching her head back up and struggling to raise the corners of her mouth. “That’s kind of a funny word, isn’t it? Dirigible. Duh… RIDGE… ible! Duh… rih… JIBBLE! DURR-jeerwibble!” She let out a laugh like pottery rolling down stone stairs. Her knees trembled.

Apple Bloom frowned. “Are you awright, Pinkie Pie?” She looked down, unnerved by the mare’s wide and wild blue stare, and then glanced at the other two Smooze-covered Ponies. “Uh, I guess it hurts pretty bad, huh?”

Pinkie shook her head. “Only when I-” A tremor shook her. The Smooze sizzled around the edges of her Cutie Marks. She swallowed, and her violently cheery expression wilted somewhat. “...Yeah. It hurts pretty bad.” 

As Pinkie’s resolve faltered, Rarity tightened her lips and narrowed her eyes. She breathed slowly and deeply through her nose. Fluttershy whimpered again and hid her grimace of pain behind her slimy mane.

But the lapse was brief; Pinkie’s smile returned with a vengeance, and the other two mares relaxed a little.

“Don’t worry, though!” Pinkie chirped, bright as ever despite the strain at the edges of her tone. “Applejack and the Megan are gonna fix everything! And then we’ll clean up all this icky goo, and I’ll be able to sleep without screaming myself awake!” She smiled even wider, until her cheeks squeezed up against her eyes. “I can’t wait!”

Apple Bloom suppressed a shudder. “Y-Yeah… me neither.”

There wasn’t time for the little foal to let her disquiet get any deeper, however; Dragon roars pierced the night air in the streets behind them.

“We should go,” Fluttershy said.

Nopony objected.

Constructed as part of the jubilee celebrating 750 years of peace between Cloudsdale and Canterlot, the Sky Spire was one of the tallest points in the mountain capital. And now, as its soaring needle-tip stretched up into darkness above the approaching Ponies, the altitude made the thirty-yard-long dirigible moored at its peak look like a tiny, silver-violet bead.

Apple Bloom trotted up to the building’s sagging, pried-open doors with caution. She flinched when one of her hooves crunched a shard of broken stained-glass.

“There’s no time to lose,” Rarity said, nodding toward the metal spiral staircase hugging the interior of the tower. “We’re lucky they haven’t taken off already.”

A wet, congested roar echoed in the distance, followed by a chorus of others.

“Hurry!” Fluttershy said in a strained whisper, as though worried the distant Dragons would hear them. “Don’t worry about us!”

Pinkie Pie nodded in agreement, her Smooze-sodden mane flopping in all directions.

Apple Bloom looked over her shoulder at the trio of mares. “But… aren’t ya comin’ with me?”

The three shared awkward glances, and then Rarity stepped closer and crouched down to meet Apple Bloom’s gaze.

“No. We can’t. Not with this dreadful stuff all over us. The Ponies up there are trying to escape from it. You’re going to have to go on your own from here.”

Apple Bloom’s stance widened, and so did her eyes. Her lower lip quivered.

“Rarity…” she swallowed hard and hung her head, staring at her scattered reflection in the pieces of coloured glass. “I… I’m scared.”

Rarity reached out a Smooze-covered hoof by reflex, but then drew back. 

“I know, Apple Bloom. I know. But it will all be over soon. Just get up there and sit tight, and soon everything will be back to normal.”

Apple Bloom looked up with shining eyes. “...You Pinkie Promise?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Rarity saw Pinkie miming a routine with her front legs, ending with a poke in the eye and an encouraging nod and smile. She sighed.

“No, darling. I Big Sister Promise.”

Apple Bloom took a deep breath, and then gave a firm nod. She turned to look at each of her comrades in turn, and then trotted across the debris-strewn tiled floor and started climbing the stairs.

Once Apple Bloom was up and out of easy view, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy shared a sigh of relief. The roars and growls were getting louder, now.

“Well. That’s that, then,” said Rarity. Sweat glistened on her hide everywhere the Smooze didn’t.

“Yup!” said Pinkie as a shiver passed through her and the Smooze sizzled around her Cutie Marks.

“Do you think we managed… to lose the Dragons?” Fluttershy asked, her knees wobbling.

“No,” Rarity said with a resigned sigh. “I’m afraid not.”

She nodded at the street leading to the tower, where the moonlight was casting long, distorted Dragon-shadows ahead of the approaching pack.


•   •   •   •   •


Rainbow Dash groaned in relief when the mountain’s foothills drew near; she’d been flying at top speed for longer than she ever had outside of the Wonderbolts Academy, and then she hadn’t been carrying a passenger.

“Looks like we’re just about there,” she said as she came down in a wide arc and alighted on the winding stone path leading up to the boiling Smooze volcano. Thick rivers of the bubbling, eye-studded slime poured down the weathered rock, but the path up to the caldera was still relatively clear. “So… what now?”

Lightning Dust stretched out her neck and legs with a groan, and then gingerly moved her wings one after another. Her bandaged wound was still stubbornly oozing blood; she winced.

“Now, you go back to Cloudsdale.” She turned to trot up the path.

“Wh-What? What are you talking about?” Dash trotted after her comrade. “Whatever you’ve got planned, you’re gonna need my help to pull it off!”

Dust stopped, but didn’t turn to face Dash. “No, Dash. I won’t.”

Rainbow Dash assembled and assessed the situation in her head with the speed of somepony accustomed to making split-second decisions, and then made one then and there.

She flapped twice, leaping over her wounded friend and landing in front of her.

“Dust,” she said firmly, “why are you here? Why did we come here? Tell me!”

The Pegasus looked away; her scarred flank twitched.

“Just go,” she muttered. “I have to do this.”

Dash hazarded a glance over her shoulder at the fury of the tainted volcano. She shuddered. “Why? Because you caught one little hit from a Dragon?” 

Dust muttered again, but the roar and rumble of the Smooze flows swallowed the sounds.

“What?”

Dust gritted her teeth, and finally met Dash’s eyes. “Because ALL of this is my fault!”

She stomped forward, driving her onetime wingpony back a few paces.

“All this slime, all these scared and homeless and crippled Ponies - it’s all because of me! That Ram couldn’t have done this without me!” Dust’s eyes locked on Dash’s, wide and watery with pain. “H-How can I… go on… with that hanging over me?” She stepped back, fixing her stance and shifting her wings.

Dash narrowed her eyes. “Don’t even think about it, Dust!” she warned. “Don’t you DARE!”

“Get away from me!” Dust warned back. “I’ve got nothing to lose!” She spread her wings, wincing at a twinge from her wound, and took to the air.

“Dust! STOP!”

With two working wings, Dash easily closed the distance and lunged for her wounded comrade.


•   •   •   •   •


Twilight Sparkle tumbled through the night air in an out-of-control spiral, and smashed into a tower wall with enough force to crack the white marble. She fell to the flagstones in a heap, coughing and groaning.

All around her, Canterlot displayed the marks of the invasion and pitched battle, with rubble and small fires and broken windows and oozing threads of Smooze tainting the ancient majesty of the place.

Nearby, Princess Celestia crawled out from under the piled debris of a shattered statue of herself and shook out her wings and mane. Dust and ash covered her golden battle barding.

Princess Luna peered out from behind a low wall, her eyes pale-green pools of worry in the dark-magic-ravaged blackness of her body.

“Sister…!” she called out; a ragged cough stopped her from saying more.

“S-Stay back, Luna!” Celestia panted. “You’re in no condition to fight!”

“Listen to your elder, Night Mare,” Grogar rumbled as he trotted into view. The skeletal Ram’s ghastly form was still pristine - not a blackened bone out of place. “After all, your weakness was what made all this possible in the first place!”

Luna cringed in shame. Dollops of toxic magic glistened on her hide like crude oil.

“Don’t listen to him!” Twilight shouted as she shakily got to her hooves. “He’s manipulating you! Just like Discord did to us when he tried to take over!”

Grogar let out a dry, rattling chuckle. “Ahh, yes. Discord. Precious little good his freedom did him, hmm? Now he’s entombed in my Smooze - just like everything else.”

“You… aren’t going... to win,” Celestia said between panting breaths. She rose up to her full height, and her radiance shone through the dust like sunshine between clouds. “I’ve defended this land for more than a dozen centuries, and there are no allies I’d rather stand with than my Sister and my most faithful student. Your reign of terror ends today, Grogar. We-”

The Ram surged forward on a wave of colourless magic, and his bony, horned head struck the alabaster Alicorn squarely on her armoured peytral. The impact made the deep peal of a cathedral bell, echoing off the soaring spires around them. 

Celestia let out her breath in a tortured wheeze and fell to her knees, gritting her teeth against the ache of her emptied lungs. The plating had endured the blow, a large dent now marring its surface. 

Grogar huffed out a dry chuckle and then turned to face Twilight.

“She does go on, doesn’t she?” he said with a wry tilt of his skull. 

Twilight scowled. “She’s right. Monsters like you have risen up again and again, and we’ve beaten them every time. We’ll beat you now, even if…” She gulped. “Even if we have to do it with our bare hooves and horns.”

Grogar’s pinpoint-eyes rolled in his empty sockets. “Spare me your empty boasts. Without the use of your Alicorn magic, you’re nothing but particularly tough little Ponies. You’re helpless. Pathetic. With my Smooze gathering all around you, this is no fight. It’s a slow execution. You’d do well to stop struggling, and start begging for your lives.”

Grogar idly scuffed a flagstone with a bare coffin-bone. His eye-lights shone.

“It won’t help, of course. But I do like a little song with my dance…”

He began stepping toward Twilight at a slow, portentous pace. The moon cast his jagged shadow across the young Alicorn. 

Twilight’s ears drooped and her knees began to tremble, but she stood firm.

“No? Not one little plea? Hmph.” 

Just then, the clatter of Spike’s claws on the cobblestones rang in the air as the little Dragon scampered to catch up while the running battle was paused. Grogar’s eyes flashed.

“Well, now... maybe I can find another way to loosen your tongue…”

Grogar’s horns blazed iridescent black, and he whipped around to face Spike just as he ran into a patch of moonlight. 

A spray of hateful energy ignited the air, an echoing cry froze it, and a few charred scales floated to the ground like autumn leaves.

Twilight’s eyes widened. Her pupils shrank. And she screamed.


•   •   •   •   •


Applejack’s eight gleaming hooves parted the Smooze like soap dripped into an oil slick, propelling her with a doubled gait that had quickly become second nature. Megan held on with her knees squeezing the empowered Earth Pony’s sides and her hands gripping her flowing, golden mane.

The two of them streaked through the Smoozed plains like a comet through the night sky, putting leagues behind them in the time it once would have taken Applejack to cover a mile or two. It seemed effortless to gallop that fast - as easy as breathing.

When Megan let out an uncertain sigh, Applejack’s ears twitched and she craned her neck a little to catch the Human in the edge of her sight.

“You awright? Ya want me ta slow down a bit?”

Megan looked away, watching the moonlit terrain streak past.

“No, it’s okay. I thought I’d be rusty, but riding feels great. It’s like… like I never left.” Her eyes shone. Her fingers squeezed Applejack’s mane tighter.

“C’mon,” Applejack pressed. “What is it?”

Megan took a breath and let out another sigh. “It’s just… why did I forget? Ponyland was so beautiful. I had so many amazing friends. I saw things no one else ever has. And yet, after what happened, all I could think about was the worst of it. The Smooze, the monsters… everything dark and ugly. I even thought you’d all abandoned me, when I was the one who couldn’t bear to come back after what happened.”

Applejack slowed her impossible gallop to a canter, and then a trot, and then to a full stop. She stood in an island of slightly faded grass in the sea of Smooze.

“Sometimes,” she said, “when somethin’ really bad happens, it’s all ya can think about. It feels like a big black cloud hangin’ over you, shooin’ everypony else away. It feels like...”

Megan swallowed down the lump in her throat. “...Like nothing good can ever happen again.”

Applejack nodded. “Yeah.”

“So, what do you do?” Megan asked.

“Ya keep on trottin’. Nopony ever got out from under a cloud by sittin’ beneath it. Ya press on as much as ya can, an’ sometimes yer friends give ya a push. If they’re the best kind, no matter how stubborn you get, they don’t give up until ya get back in the sunshine.”

Applejack paused, and then her gleaming eyes met Megan’s.

“Are ya feelin’ like ya could use a push?”

Megan leaned forward and hugged Applejack’s neck. Her body was warm as a summer morning. “Not anymore.”

Applejack smiled and then turned back to face ahead. She took off trotting again, and soon the bland horror of the blighted landscape streaked into a blur once more.

The pair said nothing for a time, and soon enough the outcropping in the Smooze turned from larger trees to small ones, and then to still and silent towns, and then to jagged, rocky spires. 

The land angled upward, and Applejack left the Smooze behind. All around, decrepit buildings were held together with webs of grey-green resin, and tumorous pods and hives added space to the old Pony-made construction. Applejack’s hooves clacked now and then on puddles of bone-hard, dried-out slime as she trotted forward at a cautious pace.

“Welp,” said Applejack, “this looks like the place.”

Megan wrinkled her nose. “Uhgh. Smells like cockroaches and compost.”

Applejack nodded. “Mmhm. Changelings. Flutter Ponies smelled different?”

Megan nodded, frowning. “Like honey. Like a new baby’s feet.”

Just then the air thinned, drawn into countless lungs, and a low, droning chitter shook the anemic breeze. Applejack stopped in her tracks.

Megan dismounted, and stood with one hand resting on Applejack’s side.

“Careful now,” the empowered Earth Pony muttered. “They’ll prolly try ta mess with us somehow. Maybe make ‘emselves look like Ponies we know, ta throw us off-”

“Megan, Megan, Megan. How you’ve grown. Come to finish what you started?”

A large hive at the top of a nearby hill split open wetly, and the gauntly elegant Queen of the Changelings slid into view with the visceral shiver of a maggot hatching. She rose to her full height, and the breeze played faint tones through the bore-holes riddling her legs and her wings. She fixed her rot-coloured gaze on the two interlopers to her domain, and offered a fang-toothed smile.

Applejack fixed her eight-legged stance and scowled, but Megan took a step forward. Through all the ghastly, insectile distortion - through centuries of darkness and corruption - subtle cues stood out to Megan’s eyes. The tiny crown. The gnarled horn, like braided antennae. The insect wings. The regal demeanour. And those wounds in her legs…! It couldn’t be… could it?

“Oh my God…” Megan put a hand over her mouth as her eyes widened. “... Queen Rose Dust?”


•   •   •   •   •


Apple Bloom had started out silently counting steps to keep her mind off her worry, but that task had soon grown discouraging. So she’d taken to counting the windows she climbed past… until that also lost its charm.

Her little legs burned from exertion, the metal stairs had chipped her hooves in several places, and her tangled, sweaty mane was draped over her face. She knew the only relief would come when she got to the balloon - a single break could mean the difference between rescue and being stranded with Dragons and the noxious slime they spread.

“Just… keep… g-goin’...”  she panted, her rocking, upward canter knocking the words out of her lungs. “N-No time... ta rest! Just like… like Zap-Apple season! Ehh… Bee… S-See… Dee...”

Her eyes happened to stray from the neverending parade of spiral steps to the cavernous atrium of the tower - and the tiny specks moving on the ground floor below. 

Her sister’s friends were now inside the tower, bracing against the damaged doors. Something hit the other side, and they all jerked from the strain of holding it at bay.

The Dragons had arrived.

Bloom recoiled and crashed back against the wall, gasping for breath. “Oh, horseapples!” she yelped. Her voice echoed off the far wall of the hollow tower.

Somewhere above her, a shudder passed through the pale stones of the building, and a deep rumble set them to humming. The sound of magic-powered turbines spinning up.

Apple Bloom froze in panic, her pupils small as pinpricks.

“No!”

She tensed all over, even squeezing her eyes tightly shut, and then took off up the stairs at a full gallop, letting the wall scrape her side to keep her on course.

“No! W-Wa-aaaiiit!” she wailed as she ran. “Oh Celestia, don’t leave! Don’t leave without me! Please!”

The stairs went on and on, spiralling to infinity like a nightmare. But the danger below was very real, indeed.

Apple Bloom ran blindly, her loose mane and her stinging tears leaving her sightless even with her eyes open. The air grew cooler, and the noise of the dirigible’s engines grew louder. The stairs thrummed under her hooves.

The foal cried out in wordless denial, howling as loudly as her aching lungs could manage. She charged with the first stirrings of Earth Pony strength, her tiny hooves denting the metal beneath them with every pounding impact. She galloped because her life depended on it. She galloped because her sister and her friends were risking everything to keep her safe. She threw herself up the spiral stairs as quickly as she could, ignoring the searing pain in her muscles and the fire in her lungs and the sting of what just might be a cracked hoof. Every stab of pain reminded her of Pinkie’s strained grimace and Rarity’s shaking voice and Fluttershy’s anguished squeaks. If they could endure, she would too.

And then the tower was gone in a heartbeat, replaced by night sky and buffeting winds and the roar of spinning magical turbines. Apple Bloom raced out of the open doors on the roof at full speed, too fast to correct her course or stop herself. The dirigible was there, still moored to the tower by an anchor and a thick metal cable… but the boarding ramp wasn’t.

Apple Bloom had barely registered reaching her destination when her hooves scrabbled for purchase on nothing, and she found herself tumbling into the gap of empty air between her ordeal and her salvation.

The majestic, Smooze-speckled sprawl of Canterlot whirled around Apple Bloom as she fell; the foal inhaled to scream, but the breath left her lungs early as a flare of bronze-coloured magic brought her to a jarring midair halt. She dangled there, held in a glowing aura a dozen yards below the edge of the tower, and then slowly began to rise.

“For Celestia’s sake,” a stallion sternly chided as Apple Bloom floated up and into the dirigible’s open door, “why did you pull in the ramp? Surely you heard her coming…”

Apple Bloom’s shaking hooves came to rest on the polished floor of the Indefatigable’s enclosed gondola, and the magic faded out. She looked up into the monocle-focused gaze of a smartly-dressed white Unicorn with a carefully-coiffed blue moustache.

“There, now,” the Unicorn said with a gentle smile. “Don’t fret. All’s well. Your timing was impeccable - we were just about to embark!” He took a step closer and bent to examine Bloom a little closer. “I say, you seem a bit… shaken. Would you like some soda water, perhaps? Or maybe a-”

Apple Bloom hiccuped, pursed her lips, and then unevenly scampered between the stallion’s legs and onward past him. She thrust her head into a nearby crewmare’s mop bucket and retched.

“...Ah,” said the stallion. “Yes. Well. I’ll… I’ll just check in on you later then, shall I?”

When Apple Bloom had finished coughing up her panic, she turned and found herself face to face with a Pony her size.

“Um… hi,” said Silver Spoon. She shifted her weight awkwardly, and adjusted her spectacles with a front hoof.

Bloom wiped her lips with a fetlock and then cleared her throat. “Hi.”

“I guess we both made it onto the blimp, huh? Mother and Father actually had tickets. Well, for the real debut, I mean. It wasn’t supposed to launch today. Or from here. Mother says it was an emergency docking. Is anypony else with you? Did your parents-”

Apple Bloom looked down at the deck. “It’s just me.”

“Oh.”

The two of them shared a silence as comfortable as a dentist’s waiting room.

“H-Hay,” Spoon finally said, “I never really got the chance to thank you. For getting us rescued.”

Bloom shrugged. “Wasn’t me. Twilight picked all of us up.”

“Yes, but she wasn’t out looking for me. Or... or for Diamond.” She paused, and a shadow passed over her expression. “Your sister’s friends with Princess Twilight, right? And they all fight monsters and break curses and everything?” Spoon sighed. “My family’s not like that. They just talk a lot. About lineages and estates and heraldry and sires and dams and stuff. You know?”

Bloom sighed. “Not really, no.”

“Ah. Well, thank you. And… I’m sorry. About how Diamond w-was. I think deep down she was always jealous of you three. Because you have each other. And she just... had me. And now she’s… sh-she’s...” Spoon sat down heavily, her lower lip trembling; tears speckled the lenses of her spectacles. “I’m sorry!”

Apple Bloom limped closer and sat down in front of Spoon. She reached out a hoof to tilt the whimpering foal’s chin upward.

“She’s gonna be awright, Silver. Honest. Her an’ my brother an’ my Granny. Everypony. My sister’s gonna fix it, you’ll see! She’ll be back to hasslin’ blank-flanks before ya know it!”

Spoon swallowed hard. “Really…?”

Bloom nodded. “You betcha! Cause this time, Applejack’s got The Megan with her!”

Silver Spoon’s eyes widened, and then she burst into a peal of tear-streaked laughter.

Apple Bloom frowned. “Hay!”

“O-Okay, okay! I believe you!” Spoon managed to say between gasps for breath. “You don’t have to go overboard and make up something silly!”

Bloom’s frown deepened, but soon bent into a smirk. “Awright, then. Never mind.”

Spoon slowly got control of herself, and then glanced around.

“So, when do we-”

The entire blimp lurched, and the slackening mooring cable played the deepest of harpsichord notes. The enchanted turbines whined louder, and the Indefatigable took off.

Apple Bloom limped over to peer out one of the wide windows; she caught sight of flashes and glows not far from the royal palace.


•   •   •   •   •


Lightning Dust cried out as the impact pinched her wounded wing between her back and the rough stone beneath her. Exhaustion and agony made her head spin. She ignored it all.

“GET OFF ME!”

She surged up against Rainbow Dash, shoving her comrade off her and pressing the momentum to reverse their pose. Dash resisted, so Dust cuffed her on the jaw with a front hoof.

Dash’s head whipped with the blow, but she quickly jerked back to stare Dust down. A thread of blood shone on her lower lip.

“Y-You kick like a colt,” she panted, and then took a swing of her own.

The two Pegasi wrestled and rolled and kicked and shoved, covering every patch of ground not flooded with Smooze. They came to a wider patch of rock further up the volcano’s slope, and broke to stand nose to nose.

“What’s… the point?” Dust wheezed. “What are you even doing? You should be helping everypony deal with the mess I made.”

Dash scowled. “You didn’t do this. You said some Ram did it!”

“He couldn’t have done it without me! He could have found the other junk himself, but in the end he also needed s-somepony like me. A failure. A buck-up. A… a traitor.” Dust’s wings lowered. Her tense stance sagged. Her eyes shone. “I betrayed all of Equestria when I made the mistake of working for that monster. Even though I r-regret it, there’s only one way to pay back a debt that big…” Dust turned her gaze to the hellish glow of from the caldera and took a few steps until she stood at the edge of a Smooze-river.

Dash frowned. “You really think that will help anything? Throwing your life away? That’s just… just STUPID!” She stomped a hoof. 

Dust flinched at the sharp sound. She turned back to Dash. “What do you know? You’re a big hero! You don’t know what it’s like, having the end of the world be your f-fault!” Tears slid down her cheeks.

“Yes. I do.” 

Dash had lowered her head, her wings and her voice. Her words barely escaped the background roar of the endless eruption as she spoke on.

“When Discord escaped, we tried to face him right away. And…” Dash cringed against the memory. “…and we lost. We totally failed.” 

Dust titled her head. “But… that’s not what happened. You won - you beat him!” She spread her wings for emphasis, wincing at the pain from her wound.

“Yeah... in the end. But not that first time. He made this huge hedge-maze. Split us up. Took my wings.” She shuddered. “We’d agreed to stay in there until we found the Elements. Like, some kinda game. A bet. Well, as soon as I ran into Discord, he messed with my head without even trying. And I left. Just like that. It seemed like I had to - like Cloudsdale was in danger, and they all needed me! But really… I’d sold out my friends to get my wings back.”

Dash heaved a sigh, and squinted against tears of her own.

“If Twilight hadn’t figured out how to snap us out of it, the whole world woulda belonged to Discord. Because of me.”

Dust’s brows knitted. “I didn’t know.”

Dash nodded. “Almost nopony knows. Just the six of us and Spike.”

Dust looked away, staring into the lazily floating eyeballs in the grim river at her side. “So… how do you live with it?”

Dash took a step closer to Dust. “I remind myself that no matter how awesome I am, nopony’s perfect. And sometimes a sneaky jerk will get the best of me. That’s not my fault - it’s theirs.” She gave a small chuckle. “Plus, I’ve got some really great friends to help me clean up my mistakes.”

Dust sighed. “I don’t.”

Dash moved in closer still. “You’ve got at least one, Lightning.” She sat down, and reached out to pull Dust into a hug. After a brief pause, Dust hugged back.

“I b-bucked up, Rainbow…” Dust whimpered. She buried her face in Dash’s shoulder.

Dash leaned her head against Dust’s. “I know… it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. I’m in charge of the Element of Loyalty, and I officially declare you not-a-traitor. So there!”

Dust sobbed out a laugh, and hugged Dash tighter. She moved to embrace her with her wings as well. A drop of blood squeezed out of her bandaged wound, tracked down the shaft of a feather, and fell into the flowing Smooze. 

Somewhere in the distance, a deep rumble set the air to humming.


•   •   •   •   •


Spike grunted in surprise as Twilight scooped him off the cobbles and squeezed him close, sobbing and wailing.

“OOF! Twilight, lemme go! What’re you doing?”

Twilight paid no attention to her assistant’s squirming. “SPIKE!” she cried. “No, please! Oh Celestia, please no… no no no… you can’t. You can’t be dead… no!”

Spike’s features twisted in confusion. “Whuh? Of course not! I’m fine! C’mon, let go! That freaky skeleton is right there! Stop foaling around!”

Twilight stared right through Spike, her tear-flooded eyes wide and unfocused. A wisp of green-black magic slipped out as she squeezed her eyes tightly shut and sobbed.

“It’s all my fault… I couldn’t… I couldn’t s-save you… oh, Spike… Spike… it’s all my fault...”

Grogar drew closer at a leisurely pace, his skull swaying back and forth to turn the approach into a tuneless dance.

Spike finally wrestled his way out of Twilight’s grief-stricken hold, and tumbled to the ground. She continued to cradle nothing at all, rocking back and forth and moaning.

“TWILIGHT!” Spike grabbed the Alicorn’s face in both paws and shook her head. “Snap out of it! Please! You’re creeping me out!”

Twilight didn’t even look at him.

“Awww, is something wrong, young Dragon?” Grogar crooned as he halted before the two of them and sat down. “Having some trouble with your little Pony?”

Spike released Twilight and turned to face the Ram. He balled up his fists and held them up menacingly, puffing up his tiny chest as best he could. “What did you do to her?”

Grogar gave a dry chuckle. “Don’t you recognize Black Magic by now? You helped retrieve the Heart, did you not? So you must have gotten past my dear student’s traps...”

Spike’s eyes widened in recognition. “You put her in her worst nightmare?”

Somehow, without a speck of flesh on his head, Grogar grinned. 

“Oh, yes. But I’m no upstart Unicorn king, wyrmling. This isn’t some little trance you can shake them out of. I come from the place where nightmares are BORN.”

Spike scowled, but then tilted his head in confusion. “Wait… them?”

As if in answer, an anguished cry echoed off the nearby buildings.

“LUUUNNNAAAA!”

Spike leaned to look past Grogar, and caught sight of Celestia’s shuddering white form hunched over her blackened sister - who was feebly hoofing at the flagstones in an effort to escape.

“You see,” Grogar said, “considering I can only kill them once, I needed something slower. Something I could really enjoy. So, they’re going to lose the ones they love. And every few minutes, it will happen again. And then again. And again. And again.”

On cue, Twilight paused, stared in horror at the blank space before her, and screamed.

“Don’t worry though - I’m sure I’ll get bored of this particular torment eventually. I probably won’t leave them this way for more than a century or two.”

Spike’s jaw dropped; his nose wrinkled in disgust.

“You… you MONSTER!”

The baby Dragon took in a deep, lung-straining breath, and then howled out a vast gout of emerald flames. The fire washed over Grogar, completely covering him.

Spike flamed until his head spun and his knees wobbled, finally stopping after a few spark-laden coughs. He fell to his knees, panting, and strained to hold up his head to look at his foe.

The smoke cleared. Grogar was gone.

Spike got to his feet and took a step… only to be grabbed by Twilight again.

“SPIKE! No, please! Oh Celestia, please no… no, you can’t be dead… You CAN’T!”

Spike squirmed until he was facing Luna, and called out to the pinned Alicorn.

“Luna! You’ve gotta do something! I sent Grogar to the palace like a letter - he’ll be back any minute!”

Luna sagged in Celestia’s grief-stricken embrace, her downcast eyes lonely pale islands in the black of her form.

“What use can I be?” she muttered. “All I can offer is darkness. Black magic cannot undo what it has wrought. It only hurts. And defiles.”

“You-” Spike was drowned out by Twilight’s latest horrified wail. He waited for her to start sobbing before he continued. “You can help them with NORMAL magic! They’re pretty much dreaming, aren’t they? And you can visit dreams! You could lead them out of it!”

Luna looked away. “I… I have done so much damage already. Wh-What if I cannot reach them? Using pure magic to touch their minds will draw the Smooze - I shan’t have a second chance!”

Twilight pressed her face to the back of Spike’s head and bawled. Her tears slid down his face, and his own soon joined them.

“Luna… please,” he whispered. “Nothing you do could be worse than... this.”

Luna looked up and over her shoulder, staring into Celestia’s reddened, glassy eyes. Her own inky reflection stared back at her like the old shadow of the Mare in the Moon. She watched her sister’s jaw drop in silent, terrified denial as the ghoulish vision restarted.

“I… I will try.”


•   •   •   •   •


The Changeling queen’s ragged wings twitched; thousands of Changelings drones shifted and tilted their heads as if listening to unspoken words.

“So you do remember, even after all these centuries,” she said with a slow swish of her tail. “Are you pleased to see what your failure has wrought, Megan? Do you enjoy seeing what’s become of Flutter Valley since you left us?”

Megan’s upper lip curled. “Th-This is…” She grimaced at a gurgling hiss from a nearby drone, and found herself at a loss for words.

The queen sat down and assumed an aloof pose, head held high and gaze averted. She spoke to the cold night sky.

“You loved us once, as you loved all Ponies. How did we wrong you, that you hurt us so?”

Megan squeezed the empty heart-locket. “You didn’t! I never- … I didn’t choose to- …  This wasn’t my fault! I was trying to save you! You all meant so much to me!”

Applejack lowered her stance, assuming a defensive position between Megan and the closest Changelings - all of whom were now staring at Megan with the eyes of hyenas fixing on carrion.

The queen slowly inhaled, as if noting a subtle perfume. She let out her breath in a shaky sigh.

“Ahhh… such ancient love. A fine vintage, spiced with sorrow.”

She turned her gaze on Megan once more, her green eyes gleaming.

“Your excuses and feeble apologies taste less sweet, though. That is hardly enough to repair the damage you’ve done. You failed us! You’re a coward! A disgrace! Perhaps, if you stay now and let us wring out your heart for the rest of your miserable life, the scales will be nearly balanced. Perhaps.”

The drones began to close in, their horns igniting and their needle-fanged jaws gaping.

Applejack frowned. “Megan…!”

Megan stared down at the resin-streaked ground and took a breath. She looked up at the fallen queen, and her sorrowful expression sharpened into a scowl.

“No.”

The queen raised a chitinous eyebrow. “What? How dare you? After what you did to me and my subjects!”

Megan stood with her fists on her hips and her head held high. Unbowed. Defiant.

“I didn’t do a damn thing to you. And you’re not Rose Dust!”

The queen let out a chittering growl that was echoed by a thousand thousand snarling mouths.

“Of course not! Not anymore - because of you!”

Megan stomped on the tainted soil, the sound louder than even she’d expected. “You’re lying! You aren’t her... and you never were! No matter what she’d been put through, the Queen of the Flutter Ponies would never be this cruel! I thought I recognized Rose Dust, but it’s because you’re trying to be a ruler like she was! Now I see it, though. Now I know who you really are!”

The drones hissed in unison, loud as a hurricane. It was the queen’s turn to stomp.

“Silence! Not another word!”

Megan shook her head and spoke on.

“I remember. I was there. What happened was more your fault than mine! You knew Grogar was willing to destroy the Sunstone, but you pushed the attack anyway! I remember! I was trying to get to the castle, and you wouldn’t wait! We had a plan! We could have saved the Sunstone if you’d listened to us! I remember it all! And I remember you... Honeysuckle!”

“ENOUGH!”

The queen leaped to her hooves and let out an inequine shriek that passed through the drones in a living ripple. The numberless monsters spread their wings and surged forward.

“Kill them!” the queen howled. “KILL THEM BOTH!”

Applejack winced. “Well, shewt.”

Megan ducked down and wrenched a thick branch off a gnarled and blackened dead tree. She hefted the thing like a club, and as the drones closed in she looked to her comrade and said:

“Just like old times, huh Applejack?”

The swarm poured down onto Megan and Applejack… and broke like a wave on a rocky shore. The creature of legend and her empowered Earth Pony friend charged into the fray with wild abandon, kicking and smashing and turning and shouting.

Drones scattered and tumbled, bashed aside with casual ease. Ten swarmed in to replace every casualty, only to face the same fate.

“I’m done feeling ashamed!” Megan roared as she caught a half-dozen drones with one swing of her club. “You aren’t gonna mess with my head!” The little horrors went flying, crashing into brood-mates swooping in on the attack.

“I beat you varmints when I was half this size!” Applejack shouted. “I ain’t even TRYIN’ yet!” She unleashed a kick with all four back legs, and a dozen drones sailed back into four times as many of their kin.

More and more Changelings galloped and flew at the pair, some of them taking on familiar faces. Megan kicked Gusty off her hooves. She downed Firefly with an overhead smash. She charged into Majesty and bowled over the entourage behind her.

Applejack stampeded over a gang of Pinkie Pies, kicked a path through several Rainbow Dashes, and dodged magical blasts from a cadre of Twilight Sparkles before plowing back into a swarm of unchanged Changelings.

In a break between waves of aggressors, Megan stopped to marvel at Applejack’s sheer power. Dozens of Changelings lay battered senseless in piles all around her. And a moment before the next press of drones leaped in, Megan realized that she’d been effortlessly keeping up with her.

Megan gave a wicked grin, and then charged into the Changelings with even greater force.

The queen stepped back as Megan and Applejack drew closer and closer. Her horn and eyes glowed a toxic green. “I don’t need my children to destroy you! Your love for all your long-lost friends is more than enough! I’ll tear you apart with your own-”

The queen’s boast caught in her throat, and a knee-wobbling shudder passed from her head down to her hooves. She stumbled and choked on a dry heave. Her horn’s light went out.

“I-Impossible!” she wheezed. “It can’t be b-both!”

Megan pressed the advantage, cutting a swath through the vile monarch’s minions until she finally broke through the legions with a triumphant shout and closed in on the queen.

The queen roared, her translucent fangs extending like cat-claws… until Megan caught her on the nose with a solid right cross. The lead Changeling was knocked off her hooves, falling to the ground in a tangle of spindly limbs. 

“It can’t be both!” she repeated, a note of horror now creeping into her resonant voice. “How? How can one h-heart hold both love and hate at the same time?”

Megan scowled at the creature, towering over her like the heroine of the legends.

“You don’t know humans very well.”

The queen cringed, covering her face with her hole-riddled front legs. “Stay away!” she whimpered. 

The drones pulled back, sneering and chittering. Applejack trotted up to stand by Megan’s side.

“Humans aren’t like Ponies,” Megan said, her voice low and even. “We don’t have one special destiny that comes with its own label. We’re all heroes and losers. Sinners and saints. All at once. Every day, our choices can remake us. And today…”

She looked down at her forearm, where a drone’s fangs had barely even scratched her skin. Even after the lengthy brawl, she felt ready to run a marathon. She turned her stare back on the queen, and it blazed with menace and mercy.

“...I’m The Megan.”

She tossed aside the cracked branch, and stomped forward to seize the queen by her jagged horn. A faint whine scraped the top of audibility at the moment of contact, like a fingernail scratching the universe. Megan jerked upward, pulling the emaciated beast up so she could look her in the eyes.

“Grogar is back. And he brought the Smooze with him. You know how I feel about the Ponies. You know I’m here to save them. And so help me, you WILL help me do it!” She narrowed her eyes.

The Queen’s hole-riddled hooves skidded on the tainted soil as she vainly tried to pull away. Some of her minions were chewing at the ground in an effort to burrow away. Others simply cringed where they stood or ran in erratic circles like panicked roaches.

“I c-can’t!” she whimpered. “Look at us! The Utter Flutter broke with the Sunstone! The light is gone from us. There’s nothing but hunger now...” 

“Believe me, Honeysuckle,” Megan said, squeezing the beast’s horn tighter, “you can lose sight of the light… but it’s never gone.”

She jerked the queen back and released her, wiped her palm on her torn jeans, and then turned to face her oldest friend.

“Applejack. I’m sorry, but I need the Rainbow of Light back. So you’ll have to go back to normal-”

Applejack held up several hooves to silence Megan. “No need ta be sorry. This was fun, but this ain’t who I am. Heck, I’d go through a fortune in shoes!” She chuckled. “You do what ya gotta do.”

Megan smiled, and took off her locket. She popped it open, and pointed it at Applejack.

There was a burst of iridescent lights that swarmed like ribbon-tailed comets, and the Earth Pony’s silhouette shrank back down to her natural four-legged shape. The Rainbow sharpened into a single streak of colours, and whipped forward to meet the open locket and swirl around Megan’s hand. Applejack heaved a sigh, and wiggled each of her legs in turn as if making sure they were the same four she’d started with.

Megan turned back to the queen. “You wouldn’t trust me back then, and Rose Dust and all of Ponyland paid for it,” she said. “Trust me now, Honeysuckle - just this once.” She reached out with the Rainbow.

The queen squinted against the searing light, her whole body shaking. She grimaced in disgust and cringed back, but then slowly, cautiously, turned to look into Megan’s tiny, otherworldly eyes. She took a deep breath, and bowed to offer her horn to the Rainbow.


•   •   •   •   •


Lightning Dust spread her wings to steady her balance as the rocky ground beneath her and Rainbow Dash lurched. She winced in pain, still oozing blood from her wounded wing, as they parted their hug in favour of more stable stances.

“What’s happening?” she shouted over the rumbling in the air.

“I dunno!” Dash shouted back. “The volcano’s already erupting - what else can it do?”

Both Pegasi turned to face a sudden glow from the horizon, shining warm and golden like the dawn.

Dash and Dust shared a mutual “What the…?” as the glow intensified. It was like a southern sunrise, driving back the night’s gloom. The rumbling grew louder, and with it came the faint sounds of glass bells and silver chimes.

The two Pegasi stared in shock at the sight before them, and Dash softly muttered:

“I don’t believe it.”

A vast flock of sleek, thin-limbed, butterfly-winged ponies were bringing the light forth, shedding it from gossamer wings as colourful as hair-thin stained-glass. And everywhere the radiance fell, the Smooze sizzled and squirmed and dissolved.

The bulk of the flock soon reached a thick ridge of the slime on the slope of the volcano. It surged like a wave and boiled with enraged eyes. It held fast against the scouring light, and the rumbling became powerful enough to set Dash and Dust stumbling.

“Something’s wrong!” Dust shouted over the cacophony. “Whatever they’re doing, the Smooze is fighting it!”

“Wait!” Dash shouted back. “Look!” She nodded at the Smooze closer to them.

The Smooze was turning pale. 

Its ominous purple-black tone was giving way to a lighter though still noxious mauve. The lighter colour moved faster the farther it spread, and soon the dark Smooze was being replaced everywhere in sight. 

When the colour change reached the resisting wave, the rumbling peaked with a deafening thunderclap, and the wave burst like a bloated carcass. Gobbets of Smooze and dislodged eyes scattered in all directions, only to be burned away under the purifying glare of the Ponies’ fluttering wings.

The blast had knocked Dash and Dust off of their hooves; both Pegasi now cringed on bare patches of mountainside. The flock moved in to clear the space around them. Dash and Dust  could feel the golden light on their hides, falling with a solidity no other light had. It struck them, like the pitter-pat of a summer rain shower. The trickling light soothed Dust’s aching wing and her bruised hide.

When the stone around the Pegasi was scoured clean, three of the glowing Ponies flitted down to alight before them. The Ponies on either side of the larger leader each carried a passenger in their spindly legs. The leader stood alone, tall and sleek and elegant as the Royal Sisters, but sporting a pair of slender, luminous antennae in place of a spiral horn. The flock above continued to purge the Smooze, making the slope as bright as day.

One passenger stepped forward and stood at the fluttering queen’s left side: a familiar orange farm-Pony. The other rose up tall and thin on two legs, and stood at her right.

Lightning Dust stared at the group. Her jaw wobbled, but no words escape her mouth.

“Wow,” Rainbow Dash said with a grin. “She really came back.”

Applejack stepped forward, flipping her loose mane out of her eyes. “Boy-howdy - I dunno what you two did down here, but pushin’ that awful muck back just turned from rough as bark to smooth as an apple dumplin’!”

“Oh, nothing special,” Dash said, moving to offer her hoof to bump. “Y’know… the usual.” She raised an eyebrow. “So… I guess you’ve got a story to tell too, huh?”

Applejack chuckled softly as she returned the bump. “Dash… you have no idea.”

Dash turned to face Megan. She craned her neck to meet her gaze.

“Looks like you got your head in the game after all. Sorry I doubted you.”

Megan rubbed the back of her neck with a hand. “You weren’t the only one.”

Dash finally shifted her attention to the gleaming monarch standing a pace behind Applejack and Megan. “Uh… where did you manage to find Fairies, anyway? I always thought they were-” She caught herself. “...You know.”

The queen shifted, her aloof expression wilting somewhat. She inhaled to speak, but Megan interjected:

“It’s a long story. They can’t stay for long. They’re paying me back for a debt. One last visit, for old time’s sake. They’re just happy they can help. Isn’t that right?” She looked over her shoulder at the queen.

The fey Pony gave a silent nod, and her pearlescent eyes shone. There was bittersweet sorrow in her smile, like somepony seeing off a long-lived and well-loved relative for the very last time.

Megan stepped forward and knelt to face Lightning Dust, who was still standing in addled shock.

“Awww… look at you,” Megan cooed, her fingers gingerly tracing Dust’s many injuries. “All beaten up. What a little hellraiser. You remind me of Firefly.” She ran her palm across Dust’s spiky mane.

“I… I do…?” Dust finally managed to croak. Now her eyes were shining too.

Megan nodded, smiling. But then she straightened and moved to address the group.

“They’ve got the Smooze covered. We’re not done though. Not as long as the one who made it is still up and around.”

Dust’s awestruck expression smouldered into a furious scowl. “Grogar.”

Megan nodded again. “He loves gloating too much to leave that big capital. That’s where we’re heading. Need a lift?”

The Pegasi stepped forward without a word, and other Flutter Ponies swooped down to pick them up.


•   •   •   •   •


Spike crept toward Luna’s glowing horn and, half expecting to freeze or burn, reached out to grasp it.

There was a flash of darkness, and Luna and Spike fell as if sinking through deep water, running in slow-motion through the thick air. They came to rest in a warped and jagged Canterlot, all sharp, menacing angles like a mosaic of broken glass.

Up ahead, down a winding stone path, Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia sprawled in slowly shrinking pools of light in the shadowed city.

“There!” Spike shouted the moment his feet touched down. “Let’s get ‘em!” He scampered forward, running right into Luna’s downward-swung wing. “Oof!”

“Hold, Spike. Fearful dreams are unsafe places, and these are made all the worse by Grogar’s black arts. We must take care.”

She strode forward with caution, setting down every hoof with the care of one walking on thin ice.

Every shadow in the dreamscape shivered and writhed, turning the city into a warped mockery of a coral reef - every surface was covered in wafting fronds and squirming tendrils.

“You know young Twilight far better than I,” Luna whispered to the little Dragon by her side. “Speak to her. Soothe her. Safeguard her passage out of this terrible phantasm. I…” Luna suppressed a shudder. “I… shall do the same for my Sister.”

She walked on before Spike could ask any questions, leaving him alone a few paces from Twilight. The nightmare-logic of the place was taking hold already; Spike found himself walking forward when it was the last thing he felt ready to do.

“T-Twilight…?” he said, using his mildest waking-Twilight-on-a-Sunday voice. “Can you hear me?”

Twilight sat on the cobbles, wracked and drained by anguish. She cradled a blackened effigy in her front legs. The thing was a bundle of jagged twigs and charcoal and insect shells in a roughly draconic shape. She shuddered with every breath, and sobbed with every exhale.

“Spike…” she moaned. “It’s all my fault. I’m so s-sorry…”

“I’m… I’m not dead!” Spike piped up. “Twilight, look at me! I’m okay! I’m right here! You’ve gotta wake up!”

The little Dragon’s voice fell flat and warbled into a blur in the space between him and Twilight. Nothing got through to her.

At the same time, Luna watched a moment she’d spent ten centuries longing for. Celestia’s agony had been the light at the end of the tunnel in those ghastly days. The thought sickened her with shame now.

Celestia held a limp ragdoll stitched from ink-soaked fabric, its green button-eyes sightlessly staring out from under foil armour. She wept softly, barely moving, but Luna knew her sister well enough to sense every ounce of her torment.

“I failed…” Celestia whispered. “I tried, Luna. I tried. I tried so hard. I swear I did. But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t save you. I failed.”

Tears stained her white cheeks, and she hugged the false Luna close.

“Sister!” Luna cried out. “‘Tis a lie! I live! You did not fail! You-” Luna’s voice choked off with a sudden fit of coughing. The black foulness suffusing her body glistened in the dim light.

Spike reached out for Twilight, but found the space between them expanding. He couldn’t get to her. The Spike-doll’s branches were beginning to grow, spreading thorny bonds around Twilight’s body.

“Twilight! It’s not your fault!” The nightmare air still swallowed Spike’s shouts.

Luna turned to see her little companion faring no better than she was. She looked back to her sister, and saw that the black-yarn mane and tail of the Luna-doll were slithering over Celestia’s form like worms. Clotting and braiding to cover and consume her.

“Sister!” she cried. She staggered forward, but found, as Spike had, that no amount of movement could bring her any progress.

Luna wailed in frustration, her stationary gallop doing nothing but draining the breath from her lungs. She staggered to a halt and sat down heavily, wracked by another fit of coughing.

“Celestia… Sister…” she wheezed, hearing the white Alicorn’s soft sobbing begin anew. “You… you don’t…”

A tremor of pent-up fury lent warmth to Luna’s blackened, shivering form, and she cried out:

“YOU CANNOT SAVE ME!”

The shout echoed in the nightmare, and cracks shot through the jagged landscape. The coiling, snaking yarn quivered and paused in its flowing… and a flicker of awareness shone in Celestia’s eyes.

“L-Luna…?” Celestia croaked, her voice hoarse from misery.

The darker sister pushed on, almost daring to hope.

“You cannot save me!” she repeated. “Though I know I am dearer to you than any other, you mustn’t shield me from my own mistakes, or else I shall never learn from them!”

Celestia stared toward Luna, not quite seeing her; her grip on the effigy began to slacken.

Luna’s stance became firmer, and the cinder of a chance flared ablaze inside her. She turned to shout to Spike:

“SPIKE! Do not coddle her! Do not spare her! We must fight these awful lies with TRUTH!”

“Uh, all right…” Spike’s fingers knitted before him; he swallowed hard. 

“Twilight…?” he started again.

“It’s all my fault,” Twilight moaned. “You’re just a baby, and I let you die…”

Spike frowned at the creeping doppelganger slowly smothering the Pony who’d raised him. Like Luna, he felt a flare of righteous anger.

“I… I’M GROWING UP!”

He hopped into the air with the force of his shout, and green smoke puffed from his mouth and nose. Twilight’s ears twitched, and she finally looked up in Spike’s direction.

Spurred on by the change, Spike continued. “I won’t be a baby forever, Twilight! You did a great job raising me, and I’m learning every day! But you can’t just shelter me from everything. Even if I’m not making a hoard and getting all greedy, I’m still growing up!”

Twilight shuddered under the spidery branches, and weakly whispered: “Spike?”

At the same time, Luna watched her sister falter slightly, clinging to the doll once more.

“I… I hurt you so badly…” Celestia whimpered. “I should have seen it. I should have stopped it…”

Luna stomped a hoof, unleashing thunder from the void above. Cracks spread through the hard ground.

“I should have stopped myself!” she barked. “If you hadn’t intervened, I could have damned the entire world in my spite and bitterness! Celestia, when you banished me… I deserved it.”

The world was beginning to crumble, now; cracks and crevices spread and met, sending buildings and hills and sky crashing down into nothingness. The branches and twine covering the stricken Alicorns were falling away.

“Twilight,” Spike pressed, “you don’t have to shelter me to care about me! If you love me…”

“Sister,” Luna said, her voice thick with emotion, “my sins are my own, and I will pay the price for them. If you truly wish to see me become your equal…”

Both of them spoke in unison, their voices loud and clear as a tolling bell:

“...YOU HAVE TO LET ME GO!”

Twilight and Celestia gasped in shock, and the warped universe shattered with a flash of pure white light. For a moment there was nothing but that featureless blaze, and then the true Canterlot reformed around the group.

Luna stood tall and proud on the flagstones with Spike perched on her neck, still grasping her glowing horn.

Twilight and Celestia stirred from their horrific visions slowly; when their eyes fell on their loved ones, however, the light returned to their eyes in an instant.

“Spike!”

“Sister!”

They both surged to their hooves to offer relieved hugs… but then a shadow darker than the night fell over them. Spike looked past the Alicorns, his pupils shrinking.

The four of them didn’t even have time to cry out before a massive wave of Smooze crashed down on top of them.


•   •   •   •   •


Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Fluttershy crowded in to brace against the tower’s door once more after the last impact from the charging Dragons outside knocked them back. They moved clumsily and slowly, drained by the pain of the Smooze’s relentless onslaught of despair.

“Maybe they’ll get bored and go away?” Pinkie offered. The edges of her forced smile quivered slightly.

“I’m so sorry,” Fluttershy whimpered from the bottom of their hasty pile-up.

“Fluttershy!” Rarity replied. “What for?”

“I was s-so mean to you both… I never should have said those things! You both make Ponies happy with what you do! You make me happy with what you do! I never should have-”

Another impact smashed against the door. A deep crack split one of the weakening planks.

Once the trio had pressed in tight once more, Pinkie reached down to pat Fluttershy’s Smooze-covered head with her Smooze-covered hoof.

“It’s okay, Flutters!” she said. “That was a long time ago! And anyway, you were all confused because of that bull you listened to!”

“M-Minotaur,” Fluttershy softly corrected. Tears shone in her cyan eyes.

“Be that as it may, Pinkie is right,” Rarity said. “You don’t have to apologize for that. You already did. Several times! Why are you…” Rarity trailed off as she mentally answered her own question.

She slid lower against the door, and stared into Fluttershy’s eyes.

“Now you listen to me.” She spoke firmly, seriously, and strictly, without her usual flair. It was not a voice she used often. “We are not going to die tonight, Fluttershy. Do you hear me? We’ve gotten through much worse, and we will get through this.”

Fluttershy trembled, and then cried out in fright as the Dragons struck again.

The door threatened to cave in, but then the whole thing erupted in a sapphire glow.

Rarity gritted her teeth as the Smooze covering her body seethed and squeezed and thickened. It flowed down her mane and neck like a waterfall, spreading from around the base of her blazing horn. She growled with ferocious resolve, and bellowed:

“WE… WILL… GET… THROUGH!”

Pinkie and Fluttershy took the opportunity to assume better stances, and pressed against the magic-braced door. Attracted by the magic, the Dragons on the other side smashed against the door over and over, clawing and snarling and scrabbling at the splintering wood. All three Ponies cried out in hope and fear and fury and pain…

And then the smashing stopped.

The Smooze covering their hides and streaking the door and puddling around Rarity’s hooves shivered and rippled and then turned pale. The menacing, rolling eyeballs lost some of their wicked gleam, staring at nothing with dull, surly discontent.

Through the door, the Ponies could hear a gravelly voice say:

“My head hurts.”

At the same time, Pinkie, Fluttershy and Rarity staggered from a sudden and dizzying absence of pain. The Smooze still clung to them, sticky and miserable and stinking and heavy with discomfort and displeasure.

But the pain was gone.

Fluttershy sat down heavily, releasing her vast reserves of tension in choked sounds that were sobs and hiccups and chuckles all at once. 

Rarity paused, demurely brushed a Smooze-laden forelock out of her eyes, deeply inhaled, and then galloped in place while shrieking:

“EEWW! IT’S SO GROSS! EEWW! EEEWWW! EEEEWWWWW!”

She panted in the wake of releasing the disgust that her pain had suppressed, and then turned to check on Pinkie - only to watch the pink mare collapse on her back on the stone floor.

“Pinkie!”

She raced over and sat down next to the Earth Pony, reaching out to cradle her lolling head.

“Pinkie! Are you all right? Say something!”

Fluttershy raced over as well, fresh tears already welling up in her eyes.

And then, Pinkie’s jaw slackened, her chest shook… and she released a deafening snore.

Rarity and Fluttershy frowned in relief.

“Well. All right. Yes,” Rarity said, flipping her slimy mane in a vain attempt at decorum. “Let’s just get out of here and find out what happened, hmm?” She ducked down to scoop the snoring Earth Pony over her back, and then magicked open the ruined door.

Fluttershy tagged along, allowing herself a tiny smile as she watched her party-loving friend sleep peacefully for the first time in days.


•   •   •   •   •


Twilight Sparkle stood with her wings spread, frozen in utter shock. Smooze dripped from her feathers, oozed down her flanks, and clung to her mane and tail. A moment later, her nerves erupted in wrenching, tearing, chilling agony.

“N-No!” she groaned, staggering forward. She strained to focus on the other Princesses and Spike, her vision swimming from the pain.

Celestia and Luna were likewise stricken. The elder sister stood with all four legs lock-kneed and straight, adamantly refusing to kneel despite her torment. Luna, still weakened, suffered with less grace. She heaved out a mouthful of Smooze and let out a series of coughing groans, each one leaving her stance lower and more bent.

Spike was slowly shaking his head. His teeth were grinding and his claws were stirring in the muck beneath him as he wrestled with the savage, empty-hearted darkness that had gripped him before. As the Smooze tore at his soul, it was clear the baby Dragon simply didn’t have the strength to hold out forever.

And then the familiar hollow clacking of bone on wet flagstones chimed in the air, as light and lyrical and full of doom as the crack of a glass lantern on a hay-bale.

“Fire-sending,” Grogar mused. “Very clever. Luna told me that the Dragon Empress taught you that spell herself, Celestia. Pity you wasted it on making a whelp vomit letters.”

He stopped at the edge of the pool of Smooze, watching the Alicorns and their Dragon friend suffer with only mild interest.

“Of course, you won’t be casting much of anything now, really. Well, blame, perhaps. But that won’t do you much good.”

The three Princesses struggled to move, then to answer, then simply to remain upright - none of them successfully. Luna fell first, followed by Twilight. Celestia was the last to lose her hoofing. She kept her shining eyes on Grogar until the instant her knees buckled. Nearby, a low growl began to fester in Spike’s throat.

Grogar grinned a fleshless grin, and laughed a throatless laugh.

“You really should have stayed in the nightmare, my little Ponies,” he said. “In time, madness would have eased your ordeal. But now, there is only helpless agony for you… assuming I bother to keep your little Dragon from eating you alive.”

The skeletal Ram slowly trotted around the perimeter of the pool with a spring in his gait.

“Hmm. Perhaps just one of you. The other two can watch-”

A blur of purple and black crashed into Grogar, knocking him apart and scattering his bones.

“Thou dost go on without end.”

Luna stood before the debris, her glowing eyes narrow. Under the paling Smooze, her midnight-blue hide was regaining its healthy lustre. The excess magical filth was seeping into the Smooze like ink spreading through water.

The Ram reformed in moments, rising to his hooves with rage blazing in his pinpoint-eyes.

“No! NO!” he bellowed. “What have you done?”

Behind Luna, Twilight and Celestia were getting to their hooves, free from pain and full of menace. Below them, Spike was easing back down to rest from his crisis.

And above them, the sky was growing brighter.

Grogar snarled in fury and repeated: “WHAT… HAVE… YOU.. DONE?” The Ram’s horns blazed, and he charged at Luna.

Luna met his charge with a magical shield, and she arrested his movement before she’d skidded more than half a pace.

“I have made peace with my darkness, Demon!” Luna snapped back at him. “I shall neither flee from it, nor allow it to govern me, one moment longer!”

She shoved forward, and it was Grogar’s turn to skid on the flagstones.

“But as for your failing Smooze,” Luna continued, her eyes turning skyward, “you ask the wrong Ponies.”

High above, a false dawn poured colour and light across the sky. A golden wave of winged Ponies streaked past, trailing a curtain of shimmering gold. And everywhere they passed, the Smooze shrieked and boiled away.

The Flutter-Ponies came at Canterlot in a wide arc, circling around the mountain capital and freeing the foothills and countryside before closing in.

In Ponyville, Smoozed residents barely realizing that the stuff had weakened its baleful hold on them found themselves purified by the glowing downpour.

In Canterlot, Twilight, Celestia, Spike, Luna and Grogar all looked up at the sky in disbelief - for varying reasons. Luna’s shield faded out as both she and her opponent looked up.

“It… it can’t be…” Grogar spoke to the sky. “I broke you… I broke your Sunstone. Killed your Queen. It can’t be!”

He backed away from the increasing brightness of the sky, stepping into the shadow of a building.

Above, the Flutter-Ponies swooped in to complete their spiraling approach and finally doused the area in the cleansing power of the Utter Flutter.

Grogar howled in rage as the Smooze burned away all around him. Luna spread her wings to the shower, letting the sacred magic burn off the taint of Tambelon along with the Smooze.

Twilight and Celestia assumed the same pose, their heads upturned and their wings wide as the purple filth was destroyed.

A short ways down a side-street, a mare cried out:

“Oh, thank Celestia! My mane! My tail! The nightmare is over at last!”

Twilight took a step toward the sound. “...Rarity…?”

Rarity and Fluttershy trotted into view, with Pinkie Pie draped over Rarity’s back and snoring loudly. Rarity offered Twilight a weary smile.

“Rarity! Fluttershy! Pinkie! You’re okay!” Twilight galloped toward them - only to skid to a halt as a blast of magic cratered the stone between them.

“BAH!” Grogar scoffed. “You think I need Smooze to destroy you? I was a Necromancer King before you Alicorns were even born! There isn’t magic enough between you to slow me, let alone defeat me. All you’ve done is buy yourselves a quicker and more spectacular death!”

The colourless glow of his magic spread out from his horns until he was an unliving bonfire of seething force.

The Princesses, Spike, and the newly arrived mares all backed away from the heat and squinted against the light of that terrible blaze.

“You are INSECTS to me!” Grogar snarled, and stomped a hoof. The ground around him cracked and the few remaining windows nearby shattered. “Ponyland dies today!”

“Pretty sure they’re calling it ‘Equestria’ now…”

In the distance, a tall, two-legged figure was striding toward the group. Flutter-Ponies swooped to and fro above her, bleaching her dark clothes with concentrated light until her torn black shirt faded to pink and her torn dark jeans lightened to sky-blue. They poured out every speck of their light until they flew off into the shadows - their darkened actual forms hidden by the night. All of the remaining motes of Flutter-light were streaming toward the figure, gathering in her upheld hands. The light pooled there and broke into coiling multi-hued ribbons.

A stern and stalwart Earth Pony mare walked by her side, her hide orange as the dawn and her long, loose mane golden as grain. 

Behind them, a pair of martyred Pegasi hovered slowly, resolute despite their injuries.

Twilight and her friends took in the sight of the new arrivals with awe.

“When we met, I w-wasn’t really sure…” Twilight whispered. “But, the Fairies! The Rainbow! And A-Applejack!  It’s… it’s her. She’s real!”

“The Megan…” Rarity agreed. “The real Megan.”

“Oh, my!” Fluttershy squeaked.

Pinkie Pie shifted on Rarity’s back, shakily raised her head, and gave a wide and satisfied smile. “I never doubted it,” she croaked. “Not. Ever.”

As the last of the Flutter-Ponies returned what had been lent to them, The Megan pulled the Rainbow of Light taut in her hands like a glowing lasso. 

“All right, you monster,” she said. “You know how this works. If you want to hurt my little Ponies… you’ll have to go through me.”

Grogar let out a predatory growl, lowered his magic-shrouded head… and charged her.


•   •   •   •   •


Megan ran forward and slammed her Rainbow-wrapped forearm between the Ram’s fanged jaws as he lunged for her, and smashed her other fist down on the crown on his skull. She wrenched to the side, and wrapped the Rainbow around the beast’s horns to keep him from pulling away.

“You cost me ten years, Grogar!” she shouted. “TEN YEARS! I was just a little girl! I didn’t deserve the shit you put me through! And neither did the Ponies!”

Grogar’s blazing aura lashed out to strike Megan. She tensed and gritted her teeth, but she maintained her hold as the spell struck her.

“You’re STILL a little girl!” Grogar replied. His wedged jaws did nothing to muffle his growling voice. “You failed then, and you’ll fail now! I know you, Megan! Do you really believe you’re a hero? Some storybook champion?”

He lashed her again; Applejack, Celestia, Luna and Twilight moved to intervene, but Megan fiercely shook her head and cried out to warn them away.

Megan weathered the magical strikes, but burn-marks appeared where her skin was exposed.

“Honestly?” She shook her head. “No. Not really.” 

The tiny falter in her stance and voice made Grogar press the attack. He found her no weaker, however. 

Megan wrenched to the other side, making Grogar stumble again.

“But that doesn’t matter! And do you know why?”

She leaped and pulled her arm free, coming down straddling Grogar’s ribcage and gripping Rainbow reins wrapped around his horns.

“Because THEY believe it!”

Grogar roared and bucked like a mad bull, lunging and kicking and tearing at Megan with his magic.

Megan snarled against the pain, pulling the reins tight.

“They’ve spent a thousand years believing in me! Putting faith in me! Telling stories about me! Being inspired by me! I’m not a hero cause I wanna be one - I’m a hero cause they need me to be one!”

Grogar side-swiped a marble wall, bashing bricks out of place with the force of his aura. Megan struck the wall and let out her breath in a grunt.

But she didn’t let go.

“Hrrgh… Th-That’s how things work here, Grogar! That’s why you’ll n-never win! It’s all true here!”

She jerked the reins up and to the side, and Grogar lost his balance and tumbled to the ground. Megan shifted to stay on top of him, and gave his skull a smash with fists wrapped in Rainbow.

“Love is a shield!”

She struck him again. 

“Trust is a bonfire!”

She twisted the reins and pulled them tighter and tighter. Grogar bellowed in pain and fury beneath her.

“And FRIENDSHIP… IS… MAGIC!”

She cried out once more and pulled, and the Ram’s horns gave way with a deafening crack and a puff of blackened, dessicated marrow.

The Alicorns and Unicorn present winced and wrinkled their noses in horror. The others simply gasped in fright.

Grogar howled, kicking at the air with his front legs, and then collapsed in a heap, gasping for unneeded breath. His crackling aura flickered, faded, and vanished.

Megan got to her feet and loomed over him, now brandishing the Rainbow more like a noose than a lasso. The broken horns slipped out of its loops and clattered on the flagstones.

“Haahhh… go on, then, Megan…” Grogar wheezed. “Finish me off. You’re the hero. The one they need. Make a wish on your pretty Rainbow... and DESTROY ME.”

Megan tightened her grip on the gleaming ribbon. She scowled.

Grogar twisted onto his back and leered up at her.

“Nothing else will do, Megan!” Grogar’s voice was slowly gaining strength. Sputters of magic leaked from the stumps of his horns, leaving tiny splinters of growth in their wake. “None of them have the power. None of them have the nerve. And if you don’t destroy me, I’ll recover. You can’t cripple me - I’m already dead! Imprison me anywhere and I’ll break free. They built their Tartarus Prison on top of Tambelon, and I still escaped!”

Megan stomped down on Grogar’s skull, pinning it at an unwholesome angle. The monster’s voice spoke on unimpeded.

“Luna lured you here thanks to visions of my torments. If you don’t destroy me… maybe I’ll reach out to the others myself. Maybe Danny will have the courage ...or MOLLY?"

Megan let out a sickened cry and pulled the heart-locket off her neck. She gave it a squeeze, and the Rainbow slithered back inside it like a swarm of glowing serpents. It sat in her hand, heavy and hot, and throbbed low and deep like a living pulse.

“... I w-wish…”

Applejack strode closer. “Megan! No!”

Megan turned away from her oldest Pony friend. 

“...I wish…”

Luna reached out a pleading hoof. “I pray you… don’t!”

Megan turned again, looking down at the undead horror at her feet. At the architect of a lost decade of her life. At the killer of Rose Dust. The breaker of the Sunstone. The bringer of a dozen centuries of sunrises brought forth with magic because they would no longer come on their own. She squeezed the pulsing heart tight.

“...I wish you knew how it felt.”

She dropped to her knees, and plunged the locket between Grogar’s ribs.

“What? What are- AHHHGH!”

Grogar spasmed and thrashed, hoofing at the flagstones and crawling forward. The locket hung in the middle of his empty chest, its golden necklace spreading out in all directions like hair-thin veins. The Ram leaped to his hooves, threw his head back, and screamed a primal, echoing scream.

“Wh-What did you do to him?” Fluttershy whimpered in horror.

“Is he... dying?” Twilight asked.

“Neigh, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna answered softly. “The Megan is not so merciful.”

At the peak of his wailing, Grogar collapsed and gathered himself into a fetal ball of gold-streaked bones, shuddered all over, and sobbed.

“We know that sound,” Luna continued. “We know it all too well. It is the cry of the most personal pain. The wound for which there is no remedy but wisdom and time: Shame.”

Applejack trotted up to Megan with caution, as if approaching a wild animal.

“Ya… ya gave him a conscience?” she whispered. “After all he’s done?”

Megan nodded. She said nothing.

Grogar ground his skull against the flagstones, trembling with regret over thousands of years of atrocities. “I… n-never… I can’t…” He bashed the ground with his forehead, cracking the stone. The snaking golden wires had spread to his whole skeleton.

Luna approached her stricken former mentor, casting a moonlit shadow over his gold-twined bones.

“It will never end on its own,” she said softly. “You cannot flee from regret. You cannot hide from guilt. But penance and restitution can soothe it, Grogar. If you do not face your crimes and make amends, they will haunt you forevermore.” Luna reached out a hoof.

Grogar batted it away. “NO! Get away! You know nothing! NOTHING! I don’t need you! I don’t need your PITY!”

The Ram snarled at Luna, crawling backward. His movements were leaden from the golden chains coiled around his bones. The heart-locket was glowing red, heavy with emotion.

Grogar crawled until he came up to Lightning Dust. The Pegasus looked down at him with a tight mouth and tighter eyes. She knew more about the pain Luna spoke of than she’d care to admit.

“You tried to end the world, and you used me to do it,” she said, calmly and firmly. “I can see she’s making you feel it. So say it. For Celestia’s sake, just tell me you’re sorry!”

Dust’s words made Grogar cringe in shame, but he wrenched his head side to side in refusal.

“N-Never!”

He struggled to get to his hooves as the weight of the locket pulled him down. The stone beneath him cracked. He howled again, in rage and pain and loathing. Loathing for the Ponies. For Equestria. For his own wretched acts.

Most of the spectators turned away. Megan and Luna and Lightning Dust watched.

Slowly, in cracking, grinding surges, the skeletal Ram was dragged into the earth by the weight of his emotional burdens. With one last, echoing roar, he slipped out of sight and was gone.

Megan dropped to her knees. Her fingers brushed the flagstones, as if feeling for the now-lost locket’s warmth.

“It’s over,” she whispered. Tears streaked down her cheeks. “It’s done.”

Megan felt the pain of dozens of burns and scrapes and bruises and cuts flare up as the adrenaline of the moment faded. She groaned and gingerly rubbed her fang-chewed forearm.

The darkness all around Megan lifted suddenly and quickly, like a time-lapsed film. The night ended in moments, and she found herself squinting as day broke in a moment more.

A broad shadow fell over Megan; she turned around still on her knees to look up at Princess Celestia - now once more clean and gleaming as a gold and alabaster statue. The Alicorn was hanging in midair, her head held skyward and her wings spread wide. Once her task was complete she floated down and stood before the storybook hero. She magicked off her battle helmet, letting her weightless mane flow freely. She looked down at Megan, and then smoothly dipped into a kneel.

Immediately, every other Pony present did likewise.

“We bow to you, Megan the Earth Human,” Celestia said with firm formality, “not as a great spirit called from beyond, nor as a hero of legend… but as a friend. A friend to all of Ponykind, who has faced great struggles and endured great pain and fear on our behalf, and asked for nothing in return. We thank you.”

Megan got to her feet slowly, wincing from her injuries. She felt her cheeks redden; somehow, the old moments of triumph had never felt so… official.

“Uh, you’re…” She cleared her throat. “You’re welcome.”

Celestia leaned forward and gently nudged Megan on either hip with the side of her horn.

“Our gratitude knows no bounds, Megan. Ask for any reward in our power, and it is yours.”

Megan reached out and gently patted Celestia’s mane.

Nearby, Rarity stifled a scandalized gasp.

“You don’t have to do that, Princess,” Megan said. “Coming here and seeing all of this - the good and the bad - I can’t imagine ever… It’s all so…” Her eyes shone with fresh tears. “Gawd, I should have come back sooner!”

Celestia reached out and hugged Megan close; the others soon gathered in and surrounded her in caring embraces. 

“Please, noble Megan,” Luna spoke up in the group. “Your deeds cannot go unrewarded. You fought valiantly! Your example has inspired us all for generations! And with the final defeat of the terrible Grogar, you have…” Her eyes tightened. “...You have closed perhaps the darkest chapter of our history.”

“You were very brave,” Twilight Sparkle said with a nod.

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash agreed. “You kicked a ton of tail - you should get a medal!”

“Heck, more like a trophy!” said Applejack.

“No, no - a grand ball in your honour!” added Rarity.

Megan managed a weary laugh. “It’s okay. Honest. I’d settle for a trip home.” Her stomach gurgled. “...And maybe some food? Back in the day, we usually just celebrated with an ice cream party!”

At the back of the crowd, Pinkie’s wide-eyed, frizzy-maned, broadly-grinning face rose up into view. Spike was perched on top of her head. They both let out an eager and intrigued “Oooh...”

“Oh, don’t be so modest, Megan!” shouted a deep voice that echoed from everywhere and nowhere. “You defeated the monster, banished the Smooze, saved the day, and learned a valuable lesson about… whatever!”

Discord flashed into being above the gathering, hale and whole and restored in all his impish, mismatched glory. 

“Live a little!”

He snapped his eagle-claws, and the sky rained ticker-tape and confetti. Raucous music rang out from nowhere. He reached out with his lion-paw and grabbed the distant Indefatigable from the sky as though it was a nearby miniature. He shook it at ground level, and full-sized Ponies tumbled out of it like clowns spilling from a novelty cart. All of them were now wearing party-hats, ribbons, and other festive accessories.

Applejack spotted her dazed and confused little sister, and raced over to her. Both sisters hugged, and then giggled at one another's unruly and untied manes.

Megan looked up at the chaotic creature. Her eyes narrowed.

She carefully worked her way out of the circle of Ponies and jabbed a finger at the flagstones in front of her.

Discord obligingly floated down to stand and face her.

“You know, I was watching before,” he said with a raised eyebrow, a waggling finger and a coy lilt to his voice. “You showed me mercy instead of crushing me with a rock.” He buffed his nails on his tufted chest. “I’m lucky you’re such a good judge of charac-”

Megan seized Discord’s long snout with one hand, and then pulled a pinched thumb and forefinger across his lips with the other. As she’d hoped it would, the beast’s mouth sealed up with a metal zipper. She jerked him close and stared into his unevenly sized red and yellow eyes.

“Fluttershy showed you mercy. I’ve seen what you can do when you get bored, Discord. The only reason I didn’t crush you with that rock when I had the chance was because a Pony was willing to believe you’ve turned over a new leaf. Ponies believe in second chances. And after what’s happened…” Her grip slackened a little. “... I guess I do too.”

Luna smiled. Fluttershy let out the breath she’d been holding.

Megan leaned in closer, her gaze still steely despite the moment’s fading tension.

“If you give them a reason to stop believing that… I’ll be back for you. And from the looks of things, you don’t want that.”

The Draconequus tried to nod in Megan’s hold, and tried to agree through his closed mouth. A golden halo flashed into being above him, hanging off-kilter over his horn and antler.

Megan unzipped his mouth and let him go.

“Don’t you worry, Megan!” Discord said with a snaggle-toothed grin. He briefly peered over her left shoulder, in the direction of the distant Everfree Forest. “I promise I won’t start any new mischief.”

“All right, then.” Megan’s scowl turned into a wry smile. “Now… where were we?”

The crowd shared a sigh of relief.

And Pinkie Pie and Spike leaped into the air with an ecstatic cry of:

“ICE CREAM!”


THE END