Glare didn't like this. It was unexpected.
Glare was the kind of person to expect everything. Very little had caught him off guard until today. He knew his enemies, his strength, and his kingdom back to front.
Today however, it was a different story.
The six mares should have bent to their counterparts. They should not have injured him like they did. Luna shouldn't have woken up. She should not have put up that much of a fight. Discord should not have been able to break free from his prison. And most disturbing of all, he and the six mares should not be gone.
It wasn't right. It was... Unexpected.
"Where are they?" he asked through gritted teeth. "Where in Tartarus did he take them?!"
"Away for the time being," came a voice from behind him. "They'll be back soon."
"Don't be CRYPTIC with me Luna!" Glare spat. "I'm going to ask again. Where are-"
Glare turned around and stopped dead in his tracks. What he was seeing wasn't possible.
"No where you can get to them Seraphim," Celestia said softly. "He made sure of that."
Glare's eye twitched. One more surprise. "And who would he be, daughter?" Glare said calmly. "The same stallion who woke the two of you up from your little trance? I would very much like to talk to this pony. After all, as a father I should teach my daughters the dangers of strange men..."
"If all goes well, you'll get your chance," Celestia said pleasantly. "He'd like to have a few words with you too..."
"Would he?" Glare nodded. He looked at his daughter right in the eye. "Celestia, why do this? All I've ever wanted-"
"Save it!" Celestia said sharply. "I won't hear your bile anymore. All you have ever done is tear any dissension down. Any free thought outside of your narrow mind was treason. It was hell. For me and Luna. With every bit of false praise and pride you placed in me and every hostile hoof you put to Luna I grew to hate you more and more. And now we're ending it. All of us."
Glare's ice cold laughter filled the room. "And who is 'All of us?'" Glare asked. "You and your sister? Darling daughter, I may have taught the two of you everything you know, but I certainly didn't teach you everything I know... Perhaps you mean the two of you and that thing March became? That would make things a bit more difficult, but right now you are only annoying me... Let's add that ragtag group of six to the pack... That could be a problem..."
"You're missing a few," Celestia smiled.'
'
Glare stopped dead. "What?"
"She said...," Luna shouted as she rose back to her hooves. "Your math is off."
Twilight looked at Star Swirl with her mouth on the floor.
"Oh...," Star Swirl smiled. "Studying magic you get that look a lot. The Universe made sense about five minutes ago didn't it? Now that's merely a daydream..."
"You... How did you..." Twilight stammered. "You're dead!!"
,
"This is true," Star smiled.
"Am I dead?" Twilight asked in a panic.
"Not at the moment!" Star laughed. "Aha! See! As relieved as you are right now you're also a little disappointed. That would have mad sense wouldn't it? No such luck!"
"This is where you go when you die?" Dash asked. "It's kinda more... boring than I would have thought."
"No, Loyalty," Star answered sadly. "This is where you go when you die and They don't know what to do with you."
"They?" Fluttershy asked.
Star thought hard about how to answer that one. "The ones in charge," he finally said. "They saw me do a lot of good at the beginning of my life, and shut my self off from everything at the end of it. Had I done one or the other my whole life the decision would be easy... Instead I sit here. And I wait."
"Wait...," Rarity asked. "For what?"
"For you, Generosity," Star Swirl said frankly. "I've spent a thousand years waiting for all of you."
"Will you stop callin' us by our Elements?" Applejack was obviously irritated.
"I'm sorry," Star said quietly. "I'm an old man. It was hard for me to keep names straight when I was a teenager. And the Elements of Harmony are important. The Elements of Harmony are how we are going to defeat Seraphim Glare."
The six were confused.
"Um... Excuse me?" asked Fluttershy. "The Elements of Harmony were returned to the Tree of Harmony, weren't they? So... How are we going to use them?"
Star chuckled and shook his head. "You're making the same mistake she did."
"Just tell us what's going on!!" Pinkie Pie cried. "My brain can't take the cryptihihiiiiic!!!"
"She's right Star," Discord spoke up. "It's time we told them how we're going to win this thing."
Star Swirl nodded. "You're right," he said frankly. "Listen, I'm going to show you all something. It will be less confusing if you stand where I tell you."
The mage directed each of them to stand in a very specific place in a large circle. "What are you going to show us?" asked Twilight.
"A memory," Star Swirl explained. "My very last. Something that no one knew besides me, and I think Sunshine found out the basic gist of it sometime later. She only had half the solution however. She received the second half five minutes ago when I woke her out of that deep trance."
"What's the solution?" asked Dash.
"The Elements of Harmony's full power," Star smiled. "And because I screwed up, you six can't unlock it on your own."
The area around them began to warp and shift and warp.
They found themselves in the Canterlot Statuary Garden next to a sculpture that was all too familiar. Sitting on a bench next to it was Star Swirl, much older than Twilight had ever seen him. Much weaker. Much sadder.
"They're saying six months...," he said to the statue. "For me it feels like less time than that." He fell into a cough after he said that.
"Doesn't matter...," he wheezed, waving his hoof. "The world will exist without me. I think it has for quite some time. I'm not my old self anymore March. I haven't been since I lost Sombra... I can't even finish a simple spell anymore. I'm missing a line. I've worked so hard and I just can't think of it. I thought it was something I was missing, but Celestia was right. It was something I lost... Though it's hard to tell what. What I've lost could fill volumes...
"But I still haven't stopped dreaming...
"When you've studied the art as long as I have you start to have dreams. You can't tell if you're seeing the future or the past. It all comes in symbols. Lately I have been getting one symbol that I have been interpreting over and over again. I think I finally figured it out. I came to talk to you about it because... I've run out of ponies to talk to."
Discord's statue remained silent.
"Good. I'll just go on," Star continued. "I'm standing in a dark empty room... All of a sudden there is a blinding light and ice cold laughter coming from above me. A look down on the ground to shield my eyes from the brightness and I see an insignia. A six pointed star. After looking at the star it seems to... Split? I don't know if that is the right word, but it looks like an identical star is rotating behind it. It stops. The laughter turns into a scream of primal rage and then... I wake up.
"Can you figure it out? It took me quite a while but I finally got it.
"The bright light and cold laughter," Star started to explain. "Well, we can both guess who that is. And then a six pointed star
Star Swirl drew a line in the dirt pointing at where Rainbow Dash was sitting. "It starts with you. You were always the most Loyal among us. Loyal to Equestria. Loyal to your friends. Even loyal to me. For some strange reason...
He drew another line pointing at Applejack that met the end of the first. "Then there was Clover. She would never let a lie pass her gaze. Couldn't get anything past that mare. I think that's what first attracted me to her, both as a Mage and a lover..."
Another line drawn from Pinkie Pie meeting the other two at the center. "Sombra was always ready with a joke. Funny, since we was such a sourfaced little foal. That's why we named him Sombra. Play on "Somber" get it?" Star let out a coughing laugh. "Well... I guess you had to have been there..."
A fourth line drawn from Rarity meeting the others. "Then there is Celestia. He gave you the throne when she had all rights to it herself. She gives even the poorest of Equestria her time and respect. She even gave me every chance I didn't deserve after I shut myself off from the world..."
A fifth line drawn from Fluttershy almost completing the shape. "You'll never find a kinder filly than Little Wings. She was so young... So innocent about the ways of the world. She believed there was good in everyone even after all the things she went through. She believed it so much that she made you believe it too..."
One final line. Drawn from Twilight completing the shape. "And magic...," Star let out a sharp laugh. "Need I go on?"
Twilight looked at Star Swirl, the present Star Swirl, right in the eyes. He gave Twilight a knowing smile.
"Celestia thinks she has the Elements of Harmony," Star said sadly. "She's wrong. The Elements were always more than the fruit of the tree. Those were just a compass. Something to point you to the real source of the magic, powerful enough on there own. but next to the real thing you may as well pull a rabbit out of a hat. You can only find the Elements of Harmony in ponies. It's the souls that best represent them that carry the true magic. No trinket can do what they did...
"And one by one," Star Swirl sighed heavily. "We all lost them. Clover began to lie to herself and think she was worthless. Sombra began to sink into a sadness no joke could pull him out of. You lost your mind, and whatever loyalty you had left in you. Luna began to see everyone who liked the light as evil. Celestia became more guarded in what she gave. And I..." Star lowered his head. "I don't think I could make a friend if I tried.
"And so, the Elements..." The Symbol on the ground began to do as he had described. A similar shape began to rotate behind it and stopped just as it fundamentally changed the overall shape. "Split. And that's where we are now. They aren't whole. They can't be. And so they're true power can't be seen. So if Glare does come back, and he will, we might simply be doomed."
"Well," Applejack said dryly. "That's comfortin'"
"Shh!" Twilight said sharply. She looked at the symbol on the floor with amazement. That was her cutie mark. And she thought she saw something. Something that the Star Swirl of long past didn't see.
"You know...," the past Star said, looking at the insignia. "It's funny. In the dream the star in front and the star behind are two different colors. The way I've drawn it here it makes it look... like..." Star sat up straighter. His eyes widened. His jaw dropped.
He finally understood.
"Not a six pointed star..." he said breathlessly. "A twelve pointed star. Six more ponies. Six more chosen. Our successors. I was right... The Elements are split. But not between us and the tree... Between us and the next six. This isn't the past I'm seeing... It's the future!"
Star Swirl rose up and started pacing around the statue that once was his friend. Seemingly filled with new life. "How could I have been so arrogant! Thinking that Harmony stopped with us! It doesn't! It can't! We're not the only chosen. Hell, we probably weren't the first. But why are some of the elements still with us? I mean if we lost all connection with our Elements as we were corrupted why don't they just move on to the new Chosen? What's pulling them apart?"
He looked at his hooves. "Because we didn't," he smiled. "We never did lose our Elements... We may have stopped listening, but we never truly stopped being who we were... No matter how hard he tried.
"You know something, March!" Star said letting out a wide grin. "I'm feeling quite myself again!
"We all need to be there. Every one of us!" Star Swirl was moving into an excited shout now. "Not just you and me and Celestia, but everyone! I've already gotten Little Wings on the path for coming back. As for you!" He marched quickly up to the Statue and tapped its stomach. A crack emerged on it briefly and slowly faded away. "That's on a slow release by the way. You've been a very naughty general and you deserve a Time Out. You can come back when you're ready to learn your lesson."
"'Time Out'" Discord muttered.
"Well you did deserve one," said the Star Swirl of the present in indignantly.
"What about Clover and Sombra?" Star said. "There both a bit... hard to reach. What to do?"
Star thought about it for a moment and then slammed his hooves to the ground. His eyes began to glow and he began to speak, seemingly in two voices. "Can you hear me?! It's important! I know it breaks many of the Universal Laws you've written, but when the time comes you have to send them back! Just for a moment! We need them! If Seraphim Glare has his way with this world, trust me he's coming for yours! Please! We need their help!"
The magic rose through the entirety of the garden both into the sky and under the ground. And then it calmed into silence.
Star Swirl was looking at the ground and smiling. "They said yes," he said softly. "But it cost me... It cost me about six months."
Star Swirl collapsed onto the statue.
"No!" Twilight cried.
"Oh. it wasn't that bad," the present Star Swirl sighed. "A bit inconvenient..."
"I thought I'd have more regrets," said the Star Swirl of the past. "But now I realize that I'm going to be the one to make it right, I have almost none. The only one that really sticks with me is that spell." He coughed hard and continued. "I know the last line... I just can't get home to write it down...
"No... I don't regret that," he said before another coughing fit. "That's my little test for the next Element of Magic. If she... I don't know... it just feels like it's going to be a she... can finish that spell, then we'll know..."
And then, after one more coughing fit. "Then we've got ourselves a ballgame."
And with that, Star Swirl the bearded died. His body laying next to the insignia of a twelve pointed star. A contented grin spread across his face.
Twilight looked at her idol. His form in the present shared the same grin. "Is... Will it be...?" she asked hopefully.
"Permanent?" Star Swirl finished. "No. And that's good. I've been waiting for so long, I don't want it to be. I have an Eternity to enjoy!"
Twilight laughed. "So what you're saying is..."
"What I'm saying is," Star put his hoof on her shoulder. "Get back there. We'll be right behind you."
Glare held both of his daughters by the throat. He was frustrated. The fight was insanely taxing, and it shouldn't have been. He was losing focus. Losing control of the situation. He hated that. He needed to end this quickly and find out who was pulling strings against him. Whoever he was would pay for this.
"Put. Them. Down."
Glare's head snapped upwards to see that Discord had returned with the six mares. "Ah, you're back!" Glare said with mock delight. "I'll be right with you..."
"I mean it Glare!" Twilight shouted. "It's over! And you're fight isn't just with the two of them! Put them down!"
"I know my fight isn't with them," Glare spat. "They were brainwashed by Creatures of Darkness, and there's no turning back now. Tell me, what reason would I have to stop this euthanasia?"
"Simple," Twilight said with a smug smile on her face. "I didn't come alone."
The doors to the throne room flung wide open, and behind them...
No. He didn't see that. That wasn't there. He wasn't standing there in that damn hat and cloak. He wasn't jingling those damn bells. He wasn't looking at him with that same expression of undeserving self satisfaction he always had.
He wasn't there.
This wasn't happening.
"Hello, Your Majesty!" said Star Swirl brightly. "I know I don't have an appointment..."