I saw the light fully illuminating the queen’s face. I, Dinky, stood by my friends and counted the seconds. Chrysalis was swatted to the ground, and her light went out. She had no magic to control the light, but there was still light, light that formed the most appealing circle. The circle brought my hope back.
“Come girls!” I shouted out excitement. I ran to the circle and I knew it was safe. Whatever darkness had kept us hear has no light for a reason, and I knew that the circle was a greater place to be.
“Where are you going?” Scootaloo shouted after me.
“Just come!” I mocked back playfully.
Unable to stop themselves, they leapt after me and shouted many things that all mixed together with each other’s words. I couldn’t make out any of it. I finally past through the circle, and so did the crusaders.
“…And if you just. Woe!” Applebloom silenced when we made it through the circle.
I saw the light. I could see the light of day clearly. The beauty of the earth after being tortured by the dark was a site. I could taste the air. I could feel it press against my sides and my face. I knew I was safe. There were no houses, just trees of green, grass, and white flowers.
“Where are we?” Applebloom started talking before anyone.
“I think that we’ve gone out beyond Equestria,” I replied confirming to her my gut feeling.
Sweetie Belle rubbed the remaining tears from her eyes and joined the conversation.
“How are we here?” she moaned dopily.
“We got here through the portal,” I replied, “the circle.”
“What portal?” again Sweetie Belle answered less upset now.
“The… y-you didn’t see it?”
“No,” they all responded at once.
“Well, Never mind. I saw it and what’s important now, and what’s important is that we save our friends. “But did I have friends other than these?”
I turned to them.
“We have to use light.”
“What?” Applebloom said in an exceedingly confused voice.
“That shadow… what did she call it… Acerbus must have a weakness, and Chrysalis tried to fight it. She knew him, she must know his weakness; it must be light.” I thought over how lucky I was that Twilight taught me how to reason like this in such situations.
“We don’t know that,” Scootaloo can back into focus, “How can we try for this?”
“Because we are their only hope,” I looked down.
“I saw Twilight in there, I saw our teacher Miss Cheerilee, and I saw all of those faces staring back at me.” My voice started to weaken and crack.
“I saw my mom, I saw your mom, and I saw every one of our moms looking at us: seeing us escape. They were telling us that we had to get out and find a way to break the darkness and win them back.” I was on the verge of tears, now.
“They need us now, and they need us every day, they know that we are their only hope now, because I saw Celestia there, too! You know that I know this so please help me now!” I cried. I sat and wept. I couldn’t hold back the emotions now. I had just seen my friends in Cages, all of them without hope. I was the hope now and all I had were my friends. I knew that that the words that had said were completely destructive of my friends faith. I had told them about the capture of their princess and it was unlikely that they would ever find their rightful ruler as anywhere near the level of power (whatever it was before) as they would again. I wondered if they’d follow me. Did they really accept me? Am I really their friend?
“We never said that we wouldn’t help you,” Scootaloo stepped forward and spoke, “You are our friend. You never were unworthy of our attention.”
“You are the one of us that had valued this friendship the most of any of us, and you clearly have what it takes to show us the way” Applebloom said and then asked, “would you lead us into the darkness?”
I tried to stop crying, but it kept coming. when I could muster the maximum amount of strength that I could, I accepted “yes” timidly, I mustered.
“Sweetie Belle, are you in?” Applebloom turned to the intimidated filly in the corner.
Sweetie Belle cowered to me, barely assertive enough to stand and say: “I know… one thing… and one thing for sure, and that is the greatest lesson that princess Twilight had ever taught us. She taught us that a true friend helps a friend in need. I know that Dinky is our friend and that she is in need. I know that we will help her now, because the cutie mark crusaders never split apart. I will help.”
“So, You thought that you could bring me down? You thought that you, a friendless, unfortunate little changeling could take down the very essence of darkness? and that little fillies would have the courage and strength to come back and fight me?”
I, queen Chrysalis understood my terrible mistake as he said it. I had come against a very word itself. I had come up against one of the strongest forms of magic. I had fought the power of a word; one word: Acerbus the very phrase that makes those that hear it it cower in fear. Acerbus is a concept meaning: no light. Concepts were the most powerful forms of magic and I was foolish enough to make a portal where Dinky and her friends could get through. I had just made Acerbus mad by giving up a little bit of hope. He hates hope.
“Now,” he continued, “You will watch your princess die. you will watch the princess that accepted you into her home be destroyed and never hear of her again. Then you queen Chrysalis will go. I will remove your hope just as you were warned in my prophecy.”
“You can’t!” I responded the best I could, he put weight on me, and it came out more choked.
“That’s just it though, I can’t destroy her. Not yet. Not until your little friends are here to become the darkness. Thank you, queen, thank you for helping create more hope for me to destroy. There is no better torment besides the ones that you will suffer.” He snickered the last words, his face nowhere to be seen.
He then got out a knife and pliers and described the worst forms of torment that he would then try. I dare not say more.
“Dinky?” Applebloom asked me for more of an answer on our plot, “how does it work again?”
“We will use the light from all of these things to destroy the darkness. Then we will break the cages open using all the unicorn’s magic combined. Those cages can’t be that strong.”
We had gathered multiple items that could possibly be used as a source of light. We had gathered small shiny rocks, small jewels we found in the last hour of looking, and quartz. I was going to use magic as light, and so was Sweetie Belle. We were ready. We had light to defeat the darkness. It only made sense.
“Do we have everything?” I turned to Sweetie Belle.
“Not yet.” She reached around her neck and fully attached a necklace. It was shiny (almost pure gold) and carried not but one red jewel at the base.
“What’s that?” I asked politely not trying to sound like I was prying.
“My sister gave it to me the day of the sisterhooves social. She told me that it was a symbol of our sisterhood. That we would never stop being friends. She had love for me, and I was something to somebody. I mean something and I have a purpose.
“Wow,” I said, “She must really like you.”
“She doesn’t,” Sweetie Belle defended, “She’s my sister what like? It’s love, Dinky, We love our siblings.”
“You hold onto that necklace, then. We will need something shiny like that.”I shook my head and walked. I sometimes wish I had a sibling, but I didn’t think that someone would want it more than one that already does. Sweetie Belle really wanted to have this friendship with her sister and she had it now. I couldn’t even want it that much.
“Are we ready, now?” I asked again.
“Yes,” everyone said at once. Everyone looked so happy, they had just been put through so much and after not much time already recovered. “I guess they just have that effect on each other” I thought to myself.
“Let’s get to it, everypony!” I called. We charged into the woods and had no idea where we were going. I just knew that we had to get there sometime, as long as there is no distance limit, I would get anywhere if I just kept walking.
No sooner had we took off then we were there. I had just went through the bushes in the edge of the clearing when we were already face-to-face with black.
“So. You play games?” The darkness blinded me and I was forced into a ball with no friends on either side. I was trapped.