We Remember Everything

by Thunderscourge

Nothing Lasts Forever, I'm Sorry, I Can't Be Perfect, Now It's Just Too Late, And We Can't Go Back

I hope you enjoy, and I hope to hear from you all in the comments below!

While Thanos was being occupied by the collective power of all those outside the coliseum, things were still chaotic within it. Out of all those escaping the Jotuns fell victim to the most casualties as the army belonging to Thanos swarmed and hunted down anyone who might interfere with the battle their master was in. Certain Asgardians had tried to join to protect their lord, but with their powers drained they could do little to get past the blockade formed since the point Trixie attacked Thanos.

The Jotuns fell victim more due to more sluggish reactions as a whole to the situation, as if their entire race was having an off-day. Few actually managed to get anywhere while the more cerebral Asgardians and the ponies present were capable of at least making it a safe distance from the conflict. Neither their rivals the Asgardians nor the xenophobic Equestrians minded though, and neither was about to go back and look for them.

One Asgardian had stayed though, and while finding it difficult Fandral found himself able to match the skeletal-machines assaulting the coliseum using his expert skill and speed. While weaker due to having his powers drained since the beginning of the conflict, he could still muster his mental skills and his quick reaction time had not left.

He had chosen to stay not for Loki or Thor, who he knew he would be unable to help, but rather to hunt two people in particular who he now had a score to settle with.

It was after cutting down what must have been his twentieth foe with his sharp blade, once the weapon of the fierce warrior Volstagg, that he caught side of one of his targets.

Off to one side, where a gaping hole in the side of the coliseum made the inner hallways and structure visible, he saw Adagio slowly trying to climb away from the conflict. She was moving weakly, and it seemed she couldn’t walk, which made his timing all the more easy.

Adagio would have shrieked if she was not so exhausted, so instead she just rolled over to her side so she could look at whoever just threw to embed itself in the ground inches in front of her face.

A part of Adagio wished it had strayed a little bit and hit her; though the woman couldn’t tell if that was Aria or her own guilt.

“You…”

Fandral scowled as he approached her, one hand reaching for his sheathed sword while the other balled in fury. This woman was the reason Sonata was gone. This was the reason he had lost the person who helped him through his pain.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Adagio couldn’t respond because she honestly did not know. What could she do now when her magic was taken and her companions were dead…or as good as dead, Aria reminded her?

Her lack of response did nothing to aid the grieving man. He had lost too much in recent times to allow for this loss to go without some kind of revenge.

Adagio had been looking over the axe by her face, partially wishing she had the strength to use it and also partially wishing Sonata was here so she wouldn’t have to…

There was only dried blood on the blade, because for some reason the foes Fandral was defeating seemed less willing to bleed that he would expect. Fandral did not give her much time to look it over before he finished approaching her and yanked it from the floor.

“That blood belongs to Sonata. My friend. She died protecting me because, unlike you, she had a heart.”

The sight of Sonata’s blood etched all over the blade made Adagio show her first traces of emotion since her defeat. Her pride and bravado were gone with her chances of coming out on top in this conflict, leaving her only with what felt like regret and self-loathing.

“Kill me…”

Her request actually caught Fandral off-guard. Had defeat reminded her of a time before her haughtiness? Before she abandoned one of her companions to be slain?

“Please,” Adagio pleaded, her left arm weakly reaching out to his ankle, “I have nothing left…”

It was then that Fandral realized that her right arm was laying at her side despite not appearing to be any worse for wear than the rest of her. Whatever had happened to this evil villain since he set on his quest to defeat her? Was it the other one who had done it?

Whatever the case, the gentleman had a difficult time finishing off his wounded opponent, much as he would have liked to. He hesitated as she rolled back onto her stomach, and once he noticed the severity of her wounds he decided against doing it.

“If I kill you, you will never have to live with your decisions.”

“I’m sorry…” Adagio sobbed, though her tears fell on death ears. Regret did not redeem a criminal or villain. It only made them seem more pathetic in his eyes.

“Your apology does nothing to ease my opinion of you.”

“I…”

With that, Adagio collapsed onto the ground, her forehead flat on the floor and her left arm no longer moving. Instead, her right arm struggled to move from beneath her as she had partially passed out on top of it, the limb moving independently of the rest of her.

Fandral frowned. Just what had he missed?

Thanos disappeared from view as the golden beams bombarding him from the sky continued to pound into the Earth. When he reappeared, it was to swing a heavy fist at Trixie before she could react. He still held a speed advantage on them except for Loki, and while Trixie could teleport to avoid him she had to expect the strike in some manner to do so.

As Trixie stumbled over scorched earth of the plains she temporarily shifted forms to that of an Alicorn, large wings sprouting out and her body expanding rapidly as she changed involuntarily. Her brief moment of unconsciousness and loss of control was fixed as she snapped back to attention and teleported away from him to give herself some distance, ending the teleport in her Unicorn form so as to mask her actual form once more.

Thanos took a deep breath and held up the Infinity Gauntlet smugly. With it he could harness the powers of the gems and mitigate their drawbacks while also having their full potential. While he may have been exhausted he was still not done fighting yet, and with such power at his disposal he was still a threat.

“While I may be left weak for now, I can feel my power rushing back to me…” he found some of his calm confidence returning as he realized that it was now him that only needed time. That the longer this conflict dragged out, the more it favored him now, “For now you have the advantage, but when I return to my true strength I will have nothing left that can stand in my way! I have four gems to your one!”

Luna had turned to find Trixie and make sure she was okay while Loki rushed at Thanos and began an assault on him once again. Joining him was Maiev who took to dragging her crescent blade across the man with pleasure, having been informed that Thanos had been the one to finally put Illidan down in Hel while she was left empty-handed. Not only could she earn Loki’s aid in finding her son, she could take revenge for the man she had dedicated her entire life to.

Thanos managed to keep up with both of them with his own incredible speed, first catching one of Loki’s glaives and then forcing the man off-balance with a tug so that he was hit by his own ally. In the brief moment of confusion that followed Thanos used his large leg to punt both of them away from him, though his arms, legs, and torso had a new slew of cuts to show for the encounter. He would have considered it all trivial if not for the blood running down his head from a wound Loki placed above the madman’s right eye.

By now Trixie had collected herself and prepared to fight again with the aid of Luna healing her, though she was caught off-guard by something that should not have been on the battlefield. Thanos was just as surprised, though for different reasons as he looked over Trixie’s mother on the far edge of the battlefield.

“Another illusion?” Thanos scoffed at how his opponents were fond of such underhanded and indirect tactics, “I could swear I am seeing double, though I can feel that this one has only as much power as any of you animals.”

“Mother?!” Trixie shouted, her eyes widening as she watched Thanos lift his scepter up to point at the mare who appeared too weak at the moment to run.

“It’s no matter, you will die like the rest,” Thanos commented as the scepter glowed blue and then fired at its lone target.

Trixie initially thought to intercept the blast with her body, of tackling her mother out of the way, or do some other kind of saving move but the rush of emotions she felt right then kept her from completing any rational thought or react in time.

The area where her mother stood exploded in blue energy. Trixie felt her chest seize up as she watched it happen, though when the energy dissipated a moment later she was left in an even more shocked state.

She hadn’t moved in time, but Kael had. She hadn’t told him to do it, yet he had just thrown his body in front of her mother faster than even she could.

Trixie could feel herself crying as the Elf crumbled to his knees, the impact of the blast having knocked the wind out of him and also blown a hole through his armor. The red of the armor and his clothing hid the wound and made it difficult to tell if he was bleeding at all, but that didn’t stop Trixie from rushing over to them both, “Kael?” she helped him softly down to the ground with her magic as he continued to fall over, “How…why…?”

In a show of his wound’s real damage, Kael spat out blood as he closed his eyes and smiled. Unlike Trixie, he knew fully well why he took such a brutal attack head on.

“She’s your mother. You may hate her, but you will never forgive yourself if something were to happen to her. Remember what happened months back when you thought you lost her?”

Trixie was not the only one surprised for her mother took a soft expression as she saw the man cough out more and more blood with each passing second. Trixie began to heal the wound with what she learned ironically to heal her mother, granting her mother time to look over the two with regret.

“Sir…” she trailed off as she noticed that he had passed out. She wanted to thank him, but it seemed like that would have to wait. She had not intended to enter such a high stakes battlefield, and now one of the combatants in this life or death battle was defeated thanks to her. She felt terrible, but she had only come to see if Trixie was okay…to help her if she could…

Left with Trixie to talk to, her mother sighed and watched as Trixie finished healing Kael, “He’s a good man, isn’t he?”

“He’s the one person who hasn’t hurt me,” Trixie murmured, not able to meet her mother’s eyes with her own. She had run her mother off the last time they were both really talking to one another, and afterwards she had tried killing herself in grief. Trixie felt guilty for that, one of many emotional struggles she had weathered in her mind in recent years, and even though she hated her mother she couldn’t bring herself to feel good about the matter.

A part of her mother though was pleased that Trixie had found someone she could trust, even if he wasn’t a pony, “Your lover?”

His wounds healed, Kael groggily began to awaken, and with that his first action was to finish coughing up the last of the blood in his mouth before collapsing entirely again, “…plat…”

Trixie sighed as she cast a glance over to elsewhere on the field, where Luna and Loki had taken to assaulting Thanos once again to cover for the others while they did this, “Platonic. Believe me, I’ve never had a stomach for anything more.”

Her mother only nodded, not knowing what else to say because she was still not on speaking terms with Trixie. What could they say, especially at such a time?

Turning back to Kael, Trixie ran a hoof over his cheek. Yes, it was platonic. That was the point. But it didn’t mean she didn’t still care deeply about her friend, apprentice, and companion of sorts.

“Kael, rest…we might have so much work to do later if…”

With that Trixie rose up to her full height and narrowed her eyes at Thanos. Luna had taken to firing lightning strikes and magical beams from a distance while Loki and Maiev occupied him at close range while peppering him with one slash after another. Neither had the body or presence to keep him from trying to get at Luna, whose magic was searing through his body a little better than their enchanted weapons, though she managed to keep away from him by teleporting rapidly like she had taught Trixie how to so long ago. Luna wasn’t going to let him actually hit her now as the last hit he did to her finally began to sink in and ache for the massive blow it had been. He was quickening and growing stronger with each passing second so Luna feared what a second strike would do if the first had been so devastating.

Trixie didn’t look at her mother as she commanded her to do something, her eyes observing the battle for an opportunity to attack, “Stay back. You’ll only get in the way. You shouldn’t be here.”

Trixie teleported so that her horn would impale Thanos with his own momentum as he swung a fist at Loki, and with a follow up beam of magic Trixie managed to blow a hole directly through her opponent’s chest as her bottled emotions and restrained power came out all at once in the attack.

Thanos retaliated with a punch to her side, then his own follow up with the scepter to blast her back, though it just shot through thin air as Trixie reappeared elsewhere along with a small army of illusions of herself.

“Thanos, if you wish to spend so much time with Hela, why don’t you just let me kill you so that you can spend all of eternity with that witch?”

He would laugh if not for the insult to Lady Death, “And here I was under the impression you were family.”

Loki and Luna had shot Trixie suspicious looks at the insults, with Loki understanding the reasoning but curious as to what Trixie’s hatred of Hela really stemmed from, and Luna’s stemming from a sudden bout of fear that in this next generation there would still be petty sibling squabbles that could possibly tear a family apart.

“She is a different person than the child born weeks ago. Different from my beloved sister. She is a person twisted by the reality and life she grew up with, one wounded and harmed there…” Trixie responded while preparing for another attack, pausing only because Loki was still engaged with Thanos in melee and any attack could hit and harm him instead.

“She let her experiences and pain drive her insane. She let her duty get to her. I despise those who can be described in such a way!” Trixie growled as she teleported back in to try and impale Thanos’s upper arm. If she took the gauntlet from him, if she just separated him from it (and the arm attached), this would all end quickly.

Thanos had recovered enough speed to avoid her strike and to instead use the gauntlet to backhand her as he moved to impale her with the scepter. If he could impale one of the three major threats he could win, given that the scepter’s mind controlling capabilities were powerful enough to sway even these champions.

“Then you are a hypocrite!” he yelled as his scepter’s blade grazed her blue fur just as she teleported away in response to the backhand strike. He used the momentum to instead swing around and knock Loki off his feet with a powerful strike to the gut.

Trixie retaliated with a pillar of ice right beneath Thanos’s feet, the ice forming and rising to alter his footing and make him a better target, “Whoever said I exclude myself from this statement?”

Thanos launched himself off the ice and grabbed Trixie by the throat, his speed having improved yet another notch since he had lost the majority of his abilities.

“No wonder you were so foolish to invite me here. To challenge me to a final battle to decide everything,” he clenched his fist to crush her between his gauntlet, though the golden metal of the Infinity Gauntlet only grabbed itself as he finished, “You want to die.”

Trixie had to clear her throat after the close save, her body reappearing a few dozen feet away as she continued to battle with him physically and verbally, “Think what you will. I have too much to accomplish to allow you to be the death of me,” Trixie decided to bring the aces up her sleeve back into play, “Though it might be best if this ends as a mutual kill…”

With a thought, the Bifrosts resumed their assault on Thanos. This time though he did not move to run and instead lifted his scepter up to point at the center of the beam cascading down on top of him.

“I think I have had enough with these distractions,” he smiled as he charged the largest blast anyone had seen from the scepter, the sight of which made Trixie realize something that sent shivers down her spine.

“No, you can’t—”

Thanos discharged the energy upwards into the Bifrost, and with a speed and power just as great in the opposite direction but more focused the blast pierced through the middle of it all and came back to its point of origin, damaging the actual structure after passing through space in a seemingly impossible fashion.

Thanos laughed as the beam of energy hitting him ended and as the other one halted, his amusement ending up as a cackle. The scepter was even more powerful with the Gauntlet wielding it, and unlike Trixie he could control anyone’s mind with it given the right touch. She was unable to control someone like himself who had the power of multiple gems at his disposal, but soon enough he could make these fools do whatever he pleased.

Trixie reacted to his attack on the Bifrost as a complete affront against her, her face growing more shocked than it had ever been, “I—I needed that! Do you even know what you have done!?”

“Improved my chances to crush you, and that is what matters,” Thanos smirked as he felt his wounds begin to heal faster than either Maiev or Loki could give them to him. In fact, he had begun to completely ignore the damage because of how meaningless it was, though for the most part he was managing to shift in and out of place to avoid the attacks entirely now.

Loki kept waiting for the giant to have his guard completely lowered, to have a moment where he wouldn’t be able to see through an illusion or be able to stop Loki from what would only take a moment to do and a moment to escape. Seeing as how he could no longer even keep up with Thanos, Loki would not risk it. A part of him feared the weapon he kept hidden. If it went wrong he would never be able to forgive himself, and for that reason he kept it hidden in his armor for the time being.

Still, that did not mean he could not try and gouge at an eye while Thanos paid a moment of attention to Trixie. The glowing green blade granted to him by Illidan pierced the soft organ and shifted all attention back to Loki even as Luna and Trixie each fired more magic at the man.

“You grating…” Thanos growled as Loki completed his jump over the man. He was about done with these little cuts, even if they were now just annoying rather than actually harmful.

A ways back from the frontline of the battle Luna exchanged glances with Trixie. The elder mare had noticed quite well that Thanos was improving by the moment, and whereas they once held the advantage it no longer seemed to be the case, “Trixie, can you still take him?”

“We sapped his strength, so the damage we are inflicting now is harder for him to recover, but he should return to his full power soon…”

That thought was not one Trixie wanted to imagine. The man was a monster with two gems…with four at his disposal it would be impossible to defeat him.

Something came to Luna’s mind that irritated her in retrospect due to the unfairness of it all, “I thought when your Elf drained people that it was permanent?”

“Thanos controls the Reality Gem I believe, which allows him to bend certain rules about how things work,” Trixie gritted her teeth as she charged up as much of her power as she could without losing control, “In this instance, I believe he is using the Gem as a substitute Aether to gain power and regeneration. Using its full power to bend reality enough around him to grant him the qualities the other gem grants.”

“And the other gem he brought?” Luna questioned as Trixie didn’t fire at Thanos but instead upwards to the sky. During their conflict Trixie had lost awareness of Thanos’s army hovering above them all both in the sky and orbit, but while observing the scene she noticed Captain Rogers fighting one of the skeletal machines that comprised the army’s foot soldiers. Their small flying ships and giant leviathans in the sky all were in a compact grouping around and above the coliseum as they exterminated all life within it.

To remove their possibility of being a threat later Trixie let loose a curved blast of far greater power than she had ever used. It was in fact even enough to possibly outright slay Thanos if it directly hit him, but she was hesitant about aiming such power anywhere but up for it could possibly rip through the planet given the Aether’s massive power boost to her abilities.

It was in this manner that the entirety of the fleet in the sky and orbit disappeared in a soft purple light with red, black, green, and blue sparks coming from it. Not a single piece of the airborne army remained, and Trixie let out a large breath as she finished the attack. She only wished she had the power to do such a thing in her own domain she had created, but sadly she had been sucked dry of power there due to maintaining an entire reality all on her own.

As Luna marveled at the brilliant display of power, Trixie finally answered the question, “It is the Space Gem. Because of it he can move to wherever he pleases at an astonishing pace,” “It is why even your husband cannot keep up with him now. Thanos is not moving so much as he is teleporting in rapid bursts.”

Luna could tell why the gems were such objects of desire for a madman like Thanos…if he possessed the magical capabilities of someone like Trixie or Twilight, he would be unstoppable, not to mention that with his own gems he was managing to warp reality and space itself to accomplish his goals.

Before either Luna or Trixie could continue their ranged barrage at Thanos, Loki was too slow to avoid Thanos’s scepter. The blade slashed down Loki’s chest and sliced through the skin like butter even with his armor on. Now off-guard he was susceptible to Thanos stabbing the weapon straight through Loki’s back, having appeared behind him to do the brutal tactic.

“Loki!” Luna shouted, her body moving to rush in to help him before her mind could even process the events her eyes just witnessed.

“Mother, if he hits you now he might kill you!” Trixie shouted after Luna, though her warning fell upon deaf ears. She attempted to get in the way of Luna by teleporting in front of her, but Luna leapt right over her and teleported in mid-air to close the entire gap between herself and the man who just harmed Loki so terribly.

Trixie was worried because Luna was not as tough as herself or Loki. While stalwart and a bruiser in her own rights, she did not have Loki’s undead status or Trixie’s own massive power boost from the Aether to keep her alive from Thanos’s attacks. In fact, Trixie was surprised that even the weakened Thanos hadn’t killed Luna in one strike given the power disparity between them, but then again Luna had always been stubborn to a fault, so perhaps she had just fought off the damage to her body with willpower…

It did not mean she would survive a second one though.

Summoning forth all of her own power, Luna’s eyes glowed a bright white as she prepared to do to Thanos what she did to his associate sent to harm her family, “You are the scourge of my husband’s life! Let him go you wretched being, for I will not allow you to torment our family another moment!”

“What incentive do I have to give in to your demands? You will try, and fail, to kill me no matter what I do,” Thanos laughed as Luna attempted to run his heart through with her horn, his hand even catching the glowing source of magic.

Thanos began to move to break the horn off entirely, but in a surprising display of coordination Luna shifted forms to release herself and then changed back to finish her attack, though she only managed to get his shoulder with it instead of her more vital target, “I am the Princess of Equestria, the Queen of Asgard, and will soon rule Jotunheim as well! Don’t underestimate me!”

With that Luna let out a fusion of every kind of power she could wield right into his shoulder blade. The beam broke through the thick man’s body entirely, though most of it went on to carry on out into the air as Luna was no longer impaling him.

Thanos stood beside her, having moved in the middle of her attack, and with a fist pulled back he taunted Luna right before smashing her into the dirt.

“I apologize. Were you saying something?”

Luna made no movement, making him smile. He could feel that she was still alive, but she was little threat before and she was no threat now. If anything, her being alive acted as a shield for him should he ever be by her because it would limit the movements the others made.

“One of those singers posed as much of a threat as you. You are nothing without that boost you have since forsaken.”

It was at that point that Thanos realized he had left the scepter in Loki’s gut when he moved due to Luna, and also that point that he realized that Maiev had since removed the blade and had handed it off to Trixie, who was livid in anger at the sight of Luna defeated.

Without a word Trixie leapt at him and began to recharge the attack used on his fleet previously, no longer caring about the resulting damage if it meant finally murdering this man. She only managed to begin the power charge before Thanos finally reached his complete power and knocked the wind out of her by teleporting to her side and bringing both hands down together into her neck.

Trixie collapsed on the ground without any further resistance, completely defeated by his obscene capabilities. Done with her, Thanos kicked her brutally aside so he could focus on the next target, “A valiant attempt, but I am seeing that perhaps I should stop using my gems for the sole purpose of expanding my already incredible physical qualities.”

This time the heavily wounded Loki assaulted him, though Thanos took his time enjoying this one by using his powers to copy Kael in some ways and mess with gravity: only instead of reversing it Thanos increased it to make Loki’s charge slowed and pathetic.

Thanos met Loki halfway and grabbed the man by the face, once again able to savor the battle.

He had won, and Loki was literally in the palm of his hand. It was the end of these wretches and their miserable lives that had so long irritated him.

“Oh I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun! I don’t know why I was ever worried to begin with…”

From the kick she received Trixie had tumbled almost a hundred feet of smashing into the ground and leaving a trail of blood. If not for the Aether’s healing qualities Trixie would have died outright, but instead she was left disabled and as close to unconsciousness as she could be without actually being there while the Aether worked on fixing her body’s bones and the many fragments they had been shattered into.

She didn’t know it, but it was likely on purpose that she landed at the feet of her mother, Lulamoon. A sick display of what his power could accomplish. A way of toying with her and likely displaying what he would do to her next. The sadist did not need to know the entire family history between the two to know what it would do, all he needed was the fact that Trixie called this one “mother”.

“Trixie…” the marginally older woman softly stated as she looked in disbelief at the sight before her. Trixie lay limp with her eyes shut as her mother nearly crumbled onto the ground herself.

The helplessness she felt did not make her any less determined to make sure that man would never lay another hand on her daughter. She had seen an Alicorn fall at his hands, but all it took was the right moment to exploit and even the strongest being could fall…

As she looked at Trixie she remembered every time she had hit the young mare with her own hooves. The times she starved Trixie not only because they had nearly nothing, but because she found some new reason to resent Trixie. Remember everything that she had yelled or coldly told Trixie for having ruined her life at such a young age.

She lowered herself to embrace Trixie, and after a moment of comforting her like this Lulamoon lowered her head to nuzzle with her as well, “I know that nothing I ever can do to make up for all your suffering and pain…”

Seeing how Trixie reacted at the sight of Luna falling…that was how a daughter ought to love a mother. Trixie had hesitated when her actual mother was in danger, while she carelessly rushed into danger to help her adoptive one.

Lulamoon knew she deserved it, and she was happy that Luna could give Trixie the warmth she never had been able to.

“I know that she’s the one you love. That she’s done more for you than I ever have, but…”

She felt tears well up in her eyes as she fought to keep herself from choking up. She failed to though, but as she kept talking she slowly regained her façade of composure.

“I ask that you forgive me. That you forgive everyone who has hurt you. You have a heart that your father and I never did, and I’m proud of you.”

She had expected to die long ago. She had contemplated killing herself for years. She had tried, only to fail because Trixie had a big enough heart to come and talk to her even after everything she had done.

If she was going to leave one thing behind, Lulamoon was honestly proud to have it be someone who would risk their lives for others. Who had a supportive family and a true friend they could live life happily with.

But she had also seen the cracks in that happy world Trixie was hiding from everyone else. Trixie was close to breaking down from all the pain inside rather than anything outside, and it was because she cared too much. She tried to act in control. She tried to seem confident at times. But Trixie was, to her mother, still just a filly who wore her heart on her sleeve and would be hurt far more through how things could tug and cut at it, including herself and her own emotions.

If Trixie was to be happy, she would need to let go and forget. Something her mother had never been able to do, culminating in her murder of the man who forced Trixie upon her, “But part of having a heart, of having a soul, is learning to forgive others even if it doesn’t mean loving them. I don’t deserve your respect or love, but others do, and I don’t want you to harbor the same feelings of hatred and pain that I did for so many years.”

She was crying fully into Trixie’s still body. She couldn’t tell if Trixie could actually hear her, but this would be the last time she would have a chance at doing this, so she continued to wear her own heart on her sleeve for once, no longer stoic or reserved as she had been for so many years.

“Pain begets more pain, and I don’t want you to suffer any longer. If I could, I would never have started the cycle you’ve been victim to since birth…”

With a gentle kiss to the forehead, Lulamoon stood up and focused her eyes on where Thanos stood, Loki beneath his foot as the man stomped down on top of him time after time with no way of escape for the Asgardian King given the intense gravity pushing down on him as well as the weight of his opponent. Thanos had won and was celebrating like he had originally intended to, with Loki finally beneath his foot and under his power. If Lady Death could not respect such a display of power, nothing could woo her.

Lulamoon noticed Loki doing something though. He was weakly removing something from his armor, and it seemed to be important given that he was doing his best to not let Thanos see it.

“But I can try to help end it,” she whispered with determination to her offspring, finding herself unable to look back down at Trixie as she summoned up the courage to try something of her own.

First she teleported over to Luna, who was struggling to move but still not dead due to her own grit and refusal to let someone harm her family.

“Please, look after Trixie. You may be flawed too, but she chose you in the end. I don’t even deserve to be called her mother.”

It was then that she left Luna to seize another opportunity before Luna could even give a sign that she had heard.

Loki’s voice signaled the turning point of the entire battle, “I’ll see you in Hel!”

On the ground beneath Thanos, Loki realized that this was the end. He had come so far, toiled through so much, and now he lay defeated…

Strike after strike landed on him, and Loki found himself preparing for his final gambit. He could no longer fight and it was only Hela’s curse on him that was keeping him “alive”. He did have one last option though, but it meant he would be leaving his son and daughter behind forever.

“Luna…forgive me…”

His father had been taken from him when Asgard was invaded by the Dark Elves. Now he was to die as well, leaving Thor and the others behind…in fact, where had Thor gone? Loki had no idea, but Thor had collapsed along with the others shortly after Thanos had taken control of the Life Gem. There bodies were only being kept powered through it, and while they were no longer dead they were still in no condition to fight without magic coursing through them.

His mother would be upset, but if it meant he could let his legacy live on through Hela and Sleep Near Loki had little regrets. He could either die for them, or die with them, and he refused to let anyone else he loved die so long as he could help it.

It was with this in mind that he retrieved from his armor the black hole grenade he had acquired after the battle with the Dark Elves and kept in case of emergency. One such weapon had killed the last king, and it would kill him too it seemed. Loki had feared using it and having Thanos use it back on him or someone else, but now there were no other options. The weapon would annihilate anything nearby and tear it apart, even someone as strong as Thanos. Such power was too much for everyday use, and so he had made sure all of the others were disposed of after the Dark Elf conflict.

This one though…he would have literally carved Thanos’s name into it if he had not feared doing such a thing would set it off somehow.

After the barrage of boot stomps stopped raining down on him Loki realized it was time. Thanos hadn’t seen him remove the grenade, so all he had to do was activate it…

“I would turn you against your family, but I think we are done here. They are all at death’s gate as well.”

Thanos grabbed Loki and held him up, his face smug as he watched the crushed man weakly writhe in pain. His super speed and reflexes allowed him to catch Loki’s deadly action though, and as Loki shouted Thanos reached his hand out to crush Loki’s hand.

“I’ll see you in Hel!”

Loki would have liked that to be the case, but Thanos had grabbed his hand before he could finish activating the grenade. The damage Loki had taken had made his movements and his actions slow, and so he was unable to finish the job.

He had failed, and now his family would pay the price.

Thanos ripped the grenade from Loki’s grip and tossed the man to the ground. He did not intend to give Loki the chance to use whatever this thing was, so with Loki a good ten feet ahead of him Thanos began to inspect the objet, “An interesting device you have here…”

It only took a moment for Thanos to realize why he recognized the device as something to be dealt with immediately. He had heard about this tool before when he had checked up on details concerning Loki.

As he held the egg shaped, dark objet in hand, Thanos smiled at the gutsiness displayed by Loki in using it, “I think The Other told me about these…” he held the grenade out in his right hand as he drove a verbal knife one last time into Loki, “A grenade killed your father. How quaint for you to carry one around. Is it in memory of him, or in spite of him?”

Loki couldn’t respond he was in so much pain, leaving Thanos to grip the device in the upper part of his palm just enough to maintain a grip and enough to not set it off. He actually saw potential in bringing this back with him as a way of instilling fear in others once it was mass-produced. Being a physical god was one thing, but it was often the smaller horrors that produced the best effects. One could only react so much to a planet exploding. One could cower in horror as they watched their friends and families erased from existence itself.

“Such a weapon can be studied and replicated in my new world. The idea that one could kill any foe with such power is invigorating! And when I scale its power up, I will not even need to be the one to wipe out planets—”

His glee was cut short by a purple flash right in front of him. He swatted to the left where an illusion had appeared, leaving him vulnerable for the split second needed to end his boasting forever.

Having teleported right into the air in front of him with the momentum of a leap behind her, Lulamoon grabbed the barely showing activation button with her mouth.

Thanos realized in horror just as the device glowed red that he had no way of getting rid of it instantly, “You…”

Sparing one last look at her daughter, Lulamoon smiled with tears in her eyes just as the weapon went off. Thanos had attempted to toss it at Loki, but a purple glow had surrounded the red one and slowed down the toss. Both Trixie’s mother and Thanos’s lower right arm were engulfed in the power of the weapon, and it threatened to pull the rest of him in as well.

Thanos struggled to fight the pull over the few seconds it lasted, the gold of the gauntlet and the colors of his gems swirling around inside of its intense gravitational pull, but at the end he was left with nothing below his mid bicep. Horrified, Thanos took a step back as he looked at the damage done to him that was for once no longer regenerating. Furthermore, he no longer had what made him so powerful, so his body began to bleed from all the wounds that had still been in the process of healing.

Only pieces of the Infinity Gauntlet remained, and the gem previously belonging to Kael was the only one to escape the pull of the grenade given the short timespan of the explosion. It rolled across the ground only to be picked up by said Elf, who had since gotten back up and was ready to raise his allies to their feet again.

“I WILL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU VERMIN ON THIS PLANET! I WILL ERASE EVERY EQUINE IN EXISTENCE FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE! YOU HAVE DESTROYED THE GAUNTLET, YOU HAVE RUINED EVERYTHING I HAVE SOUGHT FOR SO LONG!”

Thanos was not taking this all well. Off to the side, Luna felt magic rush into her and give her the strength to get back up. She was at a loss for words with the sacrifice she had just seen, but she wasn’t going to wait and possible let the mare’s death be for nothing. Thanos still lived, and he needed to die.

Loki too had been given the strength to fight again, and with a breath he grabbed his blades from the ground. He was alive…though he had a feeling he would need to do a lot of cuddling with his new daughter to make up for her loss. He could do comforting and cuddling. It would just kill his pride.

“It’s over, Thanos.”

Loki swiftly impaled one of the vibrant green blades into the tyrant’s chest cavity, while Luna began to electrocute the man with all the power she could muster. Together, they made Thanos kneel down as he struggled to overcome the pain his body could no longer handle.

“You should have never involved me in your plans. I would have loved to out-gambit you, but even my mind cannot surmount the strength you had…” Loki sighed. So this was it. What was likely to be his final battle. He would feel more disappointed if it had not been such a turnabout victory.

Loki looked over to Trixie even as he used his second blade to eviscerate Thanos more, “It seems that my daughter had more tools at her disposal though. It is unfortunate she is not awake to see our victory.”

Withdrawing his first blade, Loki prepared it to sunder straight into the man’s throat. It was about time.

“For Illidan, Volstagg, and Coulson, not to mention the untold trillions you have slain in your life terrorizing the cosmos,” Loki closed his eyes as he promised himself that this was it. That no longer would he have to suffer at the hands of this man or any other, “I, Loki Odinson, King of Asgard and Prince of Jotunheim and Equestria, sentence you to death.”

The blade found its home in Thanos’s neck, and the villain fell choking on his own blood.

Luna took the next two minutes bombarding the corpse with energy until nothing remained, while Loki instead turned to address the situation elsewhere. Thanos’s men were still alive on the ground, or at least they ought to be outside of more (welcome) interference from others.

Loki decided to address the man who had gone to help protect the evacuees, known to some as Captain America and Rogers to others. Loki didn’t really care to call him by anything less than the title he deserved, so he addressed him as such.

“Captain, report. What is going on in the coliseum?”

“With the aid of one of the…” Rogers hesitated as he attempted to remember the odd name he had been told moments ago, “Alicorns, I organized the escape of the civilians. Many expressed desire to partake in the battle, but the sight of those stubborn enough to try falling in combat made the others run all the harder.”

“I take it that we can arrange for everyone’s return?” Loki was only worried because Trixie seemed to have been worried about the Bifrost having sustained damage.

“Yes sir. The matter has already been taken care of by…Twilight?” he paused again, unsure if he had gotten it right. The Alicorn who had helped him also had done the organization, “Isn’t that a book series?”

“There are many books out there, so I have no doubt that it is a book of some variety, though I cannot claim to know of its quality or its lack thereof.”

Loki sighed as he realized he had no stomach at the moment for accomplishing actual work. He wanted to rest. And lay in bed with Luna. And not rest because of Luna.

“Can I leave you in charge of handling this clean up?”

Rogers saluted Loki and returned the respect shown to him. From what the man had seen, Loki had been willing to put his own life on the line despite being royalty, so he was redeemed in Roger’s eyes from when they first met, “As you wish, sir.”

“What about me, my ray of sunshine?” came the simultaneously amusing and annoyed voice of Stark. Loki turned to him before just pointing him to Rogers.

“Assist him with that suit of yours. Enlist Banner’s aid too,” Loki was a bit sore that his brother had been unable to help at the end, so when he saw him try to saunter off Loki beckoned him back, “Thor, you forsook your title. You will help just like the others.”

“You just enjoy seeing him do menial labor, like any good brother,” Stark laughed, though it was Loki’s response that made everyone else laugh as well. Except for Thor that was.

“Guilty as charged.”

Luna realized that Loki was making preparations to just leave, and while she was concerned about Trixie she saw that Kael was helping Trixie up to her feet. Trixie was fine, and Luna didn’t really know how to explain what just happened to her. So she’d put off that conversation until she could find a way to do so gently.

Luna winked at Loki and kissed him on the cheek as she returned to her Asgardian form, “How about we head back to Canterlot and help deal with things there? So much happened…we’ll have so much to do…”

Loki could get behind this idea. Get behind her fully with it.

Thor was pulled out of his own self-pity as he waved for his brother to leave, “Go ahead brother. We can handle things here.”

Before Loki and Luna could leave the crowd and go over to gather Trixie (who likely needed a week to sleep off everything, much like themselves), some chanting from the coliseum and the outside rim where some refugees now were began.

“Twilight! Twilight! Twilight! Twilight!”

Luna rose an eyebrow in confusion. Had none of them just seen how awesome they had been? How they defeated an undefeatable menace? Why were they calling the young princesses’ name?

“What’s going on?”

At this point it was Celestia joining them, her face displaying damage from when she had been used by the Sirens to stall Trixie and Twilight, “It seems that the ponies in attendance believe Twilight to be the one who saved the day, since she was here in the stadium helping fend off the attackers here while you all engaged in battle outside.”

If the ponies gave all the credit to Twilight Luna could most definitely see there being issues down the road. Twilight didn’t win the day. Twilight didn’t make sure the universe still existed as they all knew it. Trixie did. Luna herself had. Loki had. Even Trixie’s mother deserved the honor of having defeated Thanos, the actual threat. And besides, Trixie had wiped out the enemy fleet…

Idiots. Luna felt her old rage at her nation’s populace resurface.

“Someone should set the record straight.”

Celestia sighed, actually sympathizing with Luna on this issue but also not being willing to be a killjoy after such a momentous victory, “I agree, but right now we shouldn’t take this from them. Not yet at least. After all, we all contributed, though in different ways.”

Before the issue could carry on any further, a voice shouting caught everyone’s attention.

“No!”

Trixie was scavenging on the ground near where Thanos died rapidly. She was jittery as she looked back and forth at the small golden fragments on the ground, all that was left of the Infinity Gauntlet.

“No, no, no, no, no…Where is it?!” she began to look around to see if anyone had taken it, seemingly not willing to entertain the idea that it was gone entirely, “I…we need…I can’t…”

“Are you looking for the Infinity Gauntlet?” Loki questioned, worried for her as she frantically searched for it.

“It’s…” Luna sighed as she saw Trixie’s hopes rise at the mention of the tool, “It’s gone. I am sorry, but we couldn’t save it.”

A pause followed. Trixie just stared blankly at them for a half minute before asking in a nervous voice.

“Wh-where’s my mother?”

That was a sucker punch to Luna, who had hoped to not address the issue yet. Another day she might have been able to tell Trixie and help her through it, but right then it was too much.

“Trixie…”

Trixie gave a small smile as she looked around, the crowd looking at her with pity as most of them had seen the event and those who hadn’t could tell from Luna’s voice that things had not gone well for Trixie’s mother, “She left, right? Went back to the hospital? Because I never told her she wasn’t dying anymore. I never told her that I cured her so we could…”

Luna teleported to Trixie to wrap her up and hold her tight. The act of doing this made Trixie begin crying, as it said everything in and of itself.

“She’s gone. She took off Thanos’s arm, and…”

Luna couldn’t finish that sentence. She despised what the mare had done to Trixie years ago, but now she had something to thank her for as well: their lives.

“She loved you, and so she…” Luna couldn’t tell if it was her or Trixie that was crying more, as Trixie had grown silent as Luna held her as tight as she could, “I’m sorry Trixie…”

Loki felt at fault for the event. It had been his grenade, and he had been the one who failed to use it at an earlier time. He had never tested how quickly it would go off, he had no real idea what the range was…it was just a weapon he kept for emergencies such as this.

Now he killed the true mother of his adopted daughter. Sure, she had done it to herself, and it took Thanos out, but…

Loki sighed as he watched Trixie slowly worm her way out of Luna’s grip. He had lost his father in the same way, a parent dying to save their child, and so while he was nowhere near as close to Trixie as Luna, he still fully felt the pain she must be going through.

“I…” Trixie began as she started to move away from Luna, her back turned to the woman as her mind began to piece things together.

Trixie looked up at the sky, which had begun to grow dark as the day began to end.

“Mother…I hate you.”

Trixie’s tears continued to fall, her face crumbling as she failed to maintain her composure.

“I can never forgive you for what you’ve done to me…I can’t forget my pain, I can’t forget the toil, but…”

She lowered her head and used the red cloak provided to her earlier to wipe her tears away, only to realize that they weren’t stopping yet.

Despite everything that had happened, or rather because of it, she felt empty.

“I loved you. And in the end, that’s what hurts the most.”