Creeping through the ruined streets of Brockton Bay, mane plastered to her skin by the driving rain, Twilight still could not help but be fascinated by Vista’s power. The group walked forward and were instantly two blocks closer to the coast. Despite her nervousness and her worry, both for Luna and her friends, she couldn’t stop a small part of her mind from working on a spell that would replicate the effect. She could think of a thousand uses for it if the spell working could be standardized.
Lightning struck nearby and everyone dove to the wet ground as though it had been a directed attack against them. Shadow Stalker flickered into her gaseous state.
“That. Was. Close. Hey Twilight, didn’t you say ponies controlled the weather where you’re from? Can you do anything about this?” Clockblocker asked as they all got back to their feet and stepped two blocks closer to the sounds of battle and to the fiercest part of the storm. She looked up at the swirling maelstrom above as Vista checked the street in front of them.
“Oh, no. I’ve barely learned the basics cloud walking. Weather shaping is incredibly complex. Pegasi train for years to learn how to do it. Besides, I can feel Princess Luna’s magic in the clouds. I don’t know why she’s strengthening the storm, but she must have a good reason.”
“Yeah, not going to argue with the pony that turned off the sun.” He theatrically looked up at the sky. “I could get used to it.”
Twilight shook her head at Clockblocker’s completely inaccurate statement. Princess Luna wouldn’t do any such thing. She was quite sure the sun was perfectly fine, if not currently visible. She had told him that, but for some reason Clockblocker just wasn’t letting it go. She shook the thought from her head as Vista waved her hand and the group stepped forward again, covering five more blocks. The wind had noticeably picked up as they had gotten closer, and now the sting and noise of hail stones began to replace that of the rain.
She raised her good wing above her head to try and shield her face from the worst of it, but gave up after a moment because the force of the wind was tiring her out. They were close now, and Twilight laid her ears back from the near constant roar of thunder and explosions. The earth and air seemed to be trying to shake the very bones from her body. Vista waved her and everyone else close so she could be heard over the constant noise of the storm and the battle.
“Uber thinks we should go on without my power from here,” she pointed to a cross street, “He says that’s Lord Street, so we’re only a couple blocks from the bay. They must be fighting out over the water.” Uber nodded and spoke.
“From the trail of destruction, at least one of them seemed to be purposefully leading them to the bay.”
“Luna was,” Tattletale cut in. “She directed the fight in this direction to try and keep it away from Twilight and the Evacuation.”
“So, moment of truth time, we’re doing this?” Skitter asked.
“We’re going to fucking die.” Shadow Stalker said.
“Don’t be such a pessimist, there’s definitely a slim possibility that we’ll survive.” Tattletale Replied.
“Ok, Shado-“ Suddenly Twilight was blind and deaf. She felt herself fly off her hooves and tumble across the pavement. She cried out in pain as her truncated wing drug across the ground, but she couldn’t hear herself. It was like the very idea of sound had somehow been rendered mute. She scrabbled her hooves against the asphalt and when she came to a stop pressed her chest against the pavement desperately. If not for the feel of the ground beneath her, she thought she would have lost all sense of reality. It was terrifying.
She was unsure of how much time had passed, but slowly her vision began to return along with a ringing in her ears. The ringing slowly faded into Princess Luna’s voice which started as a whisper and steadily climbed back to the range of the Royal Canterlot Voice.
“…'Twas a fine gambit fiend. If thou hadst been facing THY MAKER IN TRUTH, MIGHTN'T YE BOTH HAVE PASSED INTO THE ETERNAL DAWN FOREVER.” Princess Luna was standing atop a small hill that might have once been a building above her. A long bloody slash ran down the left side of her barrel. The blackened remains of armor plate still hung above the cut, and her wing on that side looked burnt and was missing most of its feathers. Worst of all though, was her left foreleg, or the fact that almost all of it was no longer there. A shimmering dome shield stretched around the ruined building and its surroundings. Beyond it, the Simurgh.
As bad of shape Luna looked to be in, the Simurgh looked worse. Its remaining torso was scarred and riddled with craters. Half of its head was gone, and the remaining wing was nearly devoid of feathers. Twilight had seen into the creature’s dark mind, and knew the scale of its power, its cruel ambition, and its relentless, remorseless drive. She still could not fathom how something so injured could still be alive, let alone fighting.
“TWICE WE HAVE BESEECHED THEE TO UNSHACKLE THYSELF FROM THY TWISTED PURPOSE. THRICE IS THE LIMIT OF OUR ENTREATIES. BE OUR DUEL ENOUGH TO SATE THY DESIRE, OR ART THOU IN TRUTH NAUGHT BUT A SLAVE? WE FEAR THAT IF WE ARE TO CONTINUE THY FINE SPORT OF EXCHANGING LIMBS, THOU HAST A NIGH INSURMOUNTABLE DEFICIT TO OVERCOME.”
Twilight stared momentarily dumbfounded before a wheezing laugh came from behind her. She turned to see Tattletale chuckling and slowly standing up and brushing herself off. Clockblocker was helping Vista back to her feet while Flame Dancer was pulling Skitter up. Her heart froze when she continued to look, but couldn’t see Uber, Kid Win, or Shadow Stalker.
“Hey, easy. They’re fine, they just got thrown to the other side of the pile.” When Twilight looked at her harder Tattletale gave a crooked smile. “Psychic”
Twilight let out a breath, everyone was ok. Then her pulse quickened again as she looked back at the standoff happening above them.
“Yeah, I think it’s safe to say the plan just got eighty-sixed.” Tattletale said.
Shadow Stalker appeared as if from nowhere. “Got any other bright ideas Captain Custer? Maybe find some fucking cover?”
“You want to try to find cover, from the Simurgh?” Clockblocker asked skeptically.
“Better than standing out here.” Shadow Stalker glanced nervously at sky.
“I’m not so sure.”
“Yeah, like you have a fucking bead on things. It was you and the Bug Girl’s brain trust that got us here.”
They continued to argue, but Twilight wasn’t paying anymore attention. Her eyes were locked on Princess Luna and the Creature just beyond the edge of the shield. Something was wrong, something didn’t feel right, then a wave of vileness pulsed out from the Simurgh and something inside of her pushed back.
“THRICE OFFERED, THRICE DENIED. MAY WHAT AWAITS THEE IN TARTARUS BE ALL THAT THINE UNREPENTANT HEART HAS EARNED! TWILIGHT SPARKLE, BE THOU READY TO PROTECT THY FRIENDS?”
Twilight’s horn lit, and despite her exhaustion, she found her magic waiting eagerly. She took over the shield working and gave a solemn nod. Princess Luna nodded back with a grim smile, reared back, and teleported into what remained of the face of the Simurgh, delivering a blow that threw the creature backwards and away from them. Outside of the shield radius, a blizzard of debris rose from the ground, which began to slam into the dome like a thousand battering rams.
“Holy shit, she’s a badass.” Skitter exclaimed.
“What, you didn’t get that from the whole darkness descends when she wills it?” Clockblocker replied.
“There’s turning off the sun, and then there’s punching the Simurgh in the face.” Skitter said.
“Point.”
“So, anyone got any ideas on how to defeat the eldritch horror, or get out of this alive? Preferably both.” Clockblocker asked as the rest of her friends, all ok, gathered around her and watched the battle above.
A searing beam of green energy cut across the sky. The Simurgh dodged backwards to avoid it and was subsequently hit by a punch in the back that threw it forward into one of Luna’s hooves. Alexandria and Legend. Suddenly, the battering against her shield stopped as another larger dome of energy encompassed it. She looked, and standing just outside her own shield was the naked horned human she had seen just before Leviathan attacked. Beside her, a large mechanical suit. Dragon.
She dropped her own shield and ran as fast as her limp would allow her and gave one of the suit’s legs a hug. Her heart swelled in relief. Dragon was ok, another one of her friends was still ok. She heard the others run up and Tattletale started to speak before anyone else could.
“Dragon, the Endbringer’s bodies get progressively denser the farther from the surface you get. Which is why we’ve never really done more than scratch them. Something about the blades Twilight’s friend is using is somehow just ignoring that fact. Anyway, the important thing is they have a core. Destroying that is the only way to kill them.” She paused and brought a hand to hand to her face, wincing in pain. Then braced her other hand against Twilight’s back to steady herself. “The Simurgh wouldn’t have its core somewhere obvious, not in the head or, no, it’s in the wing, her remaining wing…top joint, thats what-“ She gasped and slid the rest of the way to the ground.
“Tattletale! Are you okay?” Twilight asked as Flame Dancer knelt down beside the girl. She gave the barest hint of a nod.
“I have relayed the information to the rest of the protectorate, but the one that truly needs it is the pony that has the ability to do the damage needed. Twilight do you have anyway to talk with her?” Dragon asked as something truly massive slammed into the shield with an ear-splitting sonic boom. The horned human staggered and Twilight thought quickly.
As she racked her brain for an answer, another wave of vileness came from the sky. Her whole heart rebelled against its very nature. Uncalled, her horn shone with magic. It flowed into her eyes, and she saw, she understood. The spiderweb of relationships and magic that bound the world together unfolded before her, and the dark core that she had mistaken before as the center of the black threads, was itself just a small part of a larger whole. This wasn’t a battle that could be physically won. They could defeat the Simurgh, but the malignant well of power and thought that fueled it would remain. It would send something else to take its place. Something worse.
“…Twilight! Are you okay? What are you doing?” Taylor-Skitter was hugging her and nearly shouting in her ear. Flame Dancer was leaning against her as well while she cradled Tattletale in her lap. Around her, nearly all the friends she had made since coming to this damaged world. This damaged world that still had so many good things, good people in it.
Something swelled within her and a multicolored aura surrounded her.
“I, I need your help. All of you, my friends, guide me.”
As she turned her eyes skyward once more she felt arms wrap around her, some questioning, some confident. She heard comforting assurances and love. Laughter in the face of Danger. Giving everything, even oneself, for the lives and happiness of others. Kindness in the presence of overwhelming cruelty. Honesty when all the world seemed to crave was deceit. Loyalty past the point all bonds should have broken. Everything that was right and true and good.
She felt the aura around her begin to shine from her friends as well, some bright and steady, others dimmer. One the barely flickering, but glowing even so, struggling to reach past years of pain to the core of herself. She leaned on their strength and was answered with more. Her call answered by five hearts impossibly distant, regardless that they knew nothing about what was happening, they still believed in her, were with her.
In an explosion of light the rainbow aura around them expanded outwards and upwards, then unfolded like a flower greeting the sun. A rainbow colored wave of power swept out and struck the Simurgh faster than thought. Even as the Simurgh’s dark weavings collapsed, The elements followed them back. Harmony raced along the paths of its influence, and then struck at the black well that sat at the heart of it all. A remorseless selfishness so great that even death had not stopped it.
It was so vast, it spread even beyond this reality. Twilight felt herself and the others sag under the strain as the elements’ power stretched to encompass the entirety of something too big for her to even conceive. She felt another join her and at last the depths of the well were reached, reached and swept away. The power flowed back and then began to spread out again, so much destroyed, so much lost. It could be remedied, it-
“TWILIGHT SPARKLE, COME BACK TO THYSELF. CEASE THIS. HARMONY KNOWEST NO BOUNDARY. WITHOUT FOCUS THOU WOULDST CHANGE THE VERY BEDROCK UPON WHICH THIS WORLD RESTS, AND LOSE ALL THAT THOU HOPED TO SAVE. THOU ART VICTORIOUS. IT IS ENOUGH.”
Princess Luna’s voice seemed distant. Something urged her on, there was so much left to do, but the biggest part of being friends, was listening to them. Trusting them as they had trusted her. Reluctantly at first, and then with a rushing snap, the power of the elements cut off and she collapsed into the soft grass and flowers beneath her.
Soft grass? She looked around to find herself surrounded by a huge semi-circular meadow bounded by the sea and stretching at least a mile in every direction. Her friends stood around her, gaping like fish. Above them the sky was clear, the moon looming bright and full. Though they looked exhausted and confused, their injuries were gone. Skitter was slipping her arm out of her sling in disbelief and Princess Luna stood proudly beside them on all four legs.
She was just beginning to marvel at her own lack of pain when Clockblocker spoke up.
“So, uh, I have absolutely no idea what just happened, but we won right? It kinda-sorta felt like winning.”
Tattletale, arms splayed out and laying in the grass beside her laughed.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was winning.”
“TWILIGHT SPARKLE, WOUDST THOU INTRODUCE US TO THY COMPATRIOTS? WE HAVE MUCH TO CELEBRATE AND MANY THINGS OF WHICH TO DISCUSS. NAMES ARE REQUIRED, FOOD AND WINE AS WELL!”
As a crowd of capes landed nearby and began to approach, Twilight brought herself back to her hooves and smiled, smiled enough to hurt her face. She ran forward and threw her forelegs around Princess Luna’s neck in a fierce hug. Then settled and nuzzled her deeply.
Everything was going to be just fine.
———————————
On the other side of the world, on a cliff above the sea a body lay in repose among a nest of wildflowers. No longer wearing a mask, its green hood pillowed under its head, providing a comfort no longer needed. Resting in harmony with the world around it.
In the sky above, a golden man looked on.