//------------------------------// // 11 - Surrender // Story: Feedback // by RQK //------------------------------// Spike hopped from ledge to ledge without any real regard for where he went. The landings offered little ground and took considerable effort to peg down, but he put his full capacities to navigating them. Reaching the bottom was his only concern. Ledge after ledge met his feet as he spiraled around the deep hole in the cavern. The ambient light from the crystalline walls gave him enough to see. Through exasperated breaths and clouded eyes, he looked down and saw the bottom. And he saw a passageway at one end. Spike hit the ground running, heedless of the several voices behind him, heedless of the scattered bones, and heedless of the stale smell of saturated dirt. He clutched the letter in his hand even tighter as he sped down the tunnel. He felt every drop of blood boil under his scales as he ran faster than ever before. His frantic pants echoed throughout the cavern as he bolted down the corridor. Even as the passage turned left and started on a long spiral downward, Spike continued onward, certain that he drew close to the end. His heart beat faster and faster with each leg of the route. He chanced a look behind him to see five ponies racing after him. The five of them bore worried frowns as they tried to keep up. Their eyes remained fixed on him all the way. He hadn’t even thought of explaining anything to them. Reaching the bottom was his only concern. I have to get there! I have to get there! The path eventually took another left and then Spike saw it: large and ornate double doors that rose up in front of him. Stone swirls ran up and down their height, creating intricate pictures of beings he could not recognize. In the middle, where each door met, a small and perfectly hemispherical crater dug into the grey rock. He ran the short distance to the doorway and found two items on the ground. A clear and pristine ball made of crystal sat on the ground before the doors; he saw but failed to register the picture of the Canterlot tower within. The second item drew his attention instead: a single dusty, brown cloak sat on a charred spot of ground behind it. His body shuddered as he recognized the cloak as one that once hung in Twilight’s old abode. The door let off a short, metallic shriek as light coursed through several previously invisible leylines within the rock. And then, with a loud groan, the stone doors slid sideways into hideaways in the wall. Spike didn’t wait for them. As soon as enough space presented itself, he slipped through the opening between the doors. A large, hemispherical room greeted him. A red glow emanated from the sigils lining the walls. Even the very air burned like an angry hot. Several rings adorned with several symbols, each as unique as the next, wove around something blue in the center. Spike looked up and realized that it was a towering pillar of crystal. The structure likened itself to a tree whose roots spread across the room and stretched toward the walls. Magnitudes of branches near the top of the crystal tree held the top portions of ceiling up. Spike saw something in the center of the pillar and stopped. He narrowed his eyes as he discerned it before all breath rushed from his lungs. His knees then gave way and he fell to the floor. “Is that…?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she landed behind him. The other four rushed up and stumbled to a halt as well. “What in the…?” Rarity gasped. Spike’s eyes welled up against his will. He could not tear his eyes away from the crystal structure. He grasped the paper in his hand tighter than before. As the first drops fell down his face he let out a long wheeze. “Oh… T-Twilight… No…” The five ponies behind him looked up to where his eyes fixed themselves on. One by one, they screamed and shouted and slung profanities. Primal voices and mannerisms burst forth from the very depths of their souls at the sight. But, all the same, the five of them eventually devolved into holding each other and crying in one voice. At the very heart of the pillar, encased deep within the crystal, rested a solitary lavender horn. Pristine but unattached, without a body to call its own. Twilight Sparkle scanned the grounds outside the window, taking stock of anything and everything that happened to move. In the darkness of the new night sky, only a few stray lights on the ground and even fewer in the air moved about; the telltale signs of the Lunar Guard as they patrolled. She then turned and as she passed the desk, she levitated the crystal ball over to her. Five ponies gathered around the crystal ball to watch Twilight as she went about. As the mare in the ball disappeared down the stairs, Applejack placed her hoof on the ball in order to follow that mare down. Twilight sighed deeply as she reached the bottom. She took one last glance around the room, pausing at several things within. She eyed the bed on which she had slept, the counter where she prepared her meals, and the freshly watered plants around the room. Her frown deepened with each item that she passed over. For a moment, Twilight glance at the tall hanger on which a brown hooded cloak hung at the ready. With a roll of her eyes and the shake of her head, Twilight continued on without it. She approached the blue double doors that spelled the tower exit. “This is it, everypony,” Twilight announced with a gulp. “Time for me to go.” The torrential downpour outside the tower seemed to, almost in response to those words, beat harder against the glass. A thunderclap shook the tower, accentuating the bedlam. “At least take us with you, dear,” Rarity croaked. “Yes,” Fluttershy agreed. Twilight glanced toward her own crystal ball and nodded. “Okay. I will.” She stepped forward and placed her hooves on the door handles. With a creak, the doors parted, and Twilight stepped outside. The Canterlot air greeted her with a low whistle and a caress of her mane. Twilight drank it in and the smallest inkling of a smile etched itself across her muzzle. As their hearts pounded in unison, the five sucked in a collective breath. Another thunderclap shook the tower. Twilight flapped her wings and took to the air. She soared high into the sky, higher than the highest tip of the castle. She glanced down at the brilliant city below, laying her eyes across the crisscross of lights. Some buildings shone in the moonlight. Twilight drew higher and higher until she flew well above where the night patrols flew at. She drew toward the mountain, taking an occasional glance at one of the towers. She spotted Luna perched in front of a telescope, looking down toward the rest of Equestria, seemingly unaware that Twilight was even there. Applejack worked to keep the ball’s view on Twilight. Every so often, she made a correction to the course based on her own thoughts and the occasional prediction by the other four. But the more that Twilight outpaced them, the more Applejack moved toward the cave entrance instead. Eventually, Twilight landed on a ledge well above the city. She took a better look at the city below before casting a glance at the castle, settling on Celestia’s tower in particular. She smiled briefly before venturing onward. Twilight passed by several hut-like structures and mounds of dirt and sand as she walked toward the mountainside. The occasional table and set of tools lay around the outskirts of the site. She paid them no mind. Spike walked up at that moment. “Where is she now?” he asked. Pinkamena Diane Pie sighed. “Twilight’s at the entrance now.” Spike shuddered and crossed his arms. “Well… uh… I guess we have time still.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “And we still can’t do anything,” she said. Twilight looked up as the mountain met her and the cave’s mouth swallowed her whole. She cantered on, heedless of the spent torches attached to each side of the tunnel. “I remember,” Twilight began, turning her gaze toward the crystal ball as she levitated it beside her. “I remember the first time Cadance and I got out of these caves. All this time, I had never even known these caves were here. Shows how little I got out when I lived in Canterlot. “And then, around the time the Crystal Empire reappeared… that’s when they expanded mining operations here.” The six listened in silence. Twilight sighed. “And ponies got lost in here. Just like Cadance and I almost got lost in here. I wanted to make sure that never happened to anypony ever again.” She sucked in a breath. “I never even dreamed it would lead to this.” Twilight rounded a bend in the cavern before it opened into a large chamber. Several pillars of rock held the spacious room together while piles of spent rocks and the occasional stuck shovel and pickaxe littered the floor. Several smaller tunnels ran off like tributaries on a stream. Twilight crossed the room to one tunnel, in particular, and trekked downward. As Twilight continued onward, her expression grew somber. “I wonder…” she thought aloud, “how many others over the years have thought like me… and gone down there… and have had to sacrifice their lives just so it wouldn’t get out?” With each passing step, the walls lost their rounded appearance in favor of a more jagged path. The dirt eventually gave way to walls of complete crystal. Smooth surfaces of all different shades of color fit together like puzzle pieces. Every piece let off a soft and almost intangible glow that, when put together, lit the cavern before her. Twilight descended down and down and made no sign of turning back. * * * Sunset Shimmer wiped her brow and flipped the chalkboard over. She flared her horn again and sifted through the pile of broken chalk pieces on the floor. She then used her prize, a mere stubble of a piece, and drew out a new equation. The numbers practically flew off her hoof and the calculations did themselves. But the more and more she wrote, the more she recognized the series of numbers. Again. Sunset dug her head into the journal that contained all the work she had done over the past few days, again. With a frustrated groan, she wound up to throw the chalk against the board. Again. The torrential rain gave the windows an extra battering at that moment, prompting Sunset to whirl around before she could follow through. She felt at the pounding heart in her chest before she glanced at the water cascading down the windows. Calm down, Sunset… just stay calm! she thought to herself. She used her hoof to push out a long stream of breath and felt the beating in her chest subside. As the storm outside eased up (but remained violent all the same), she drew back to the chalkboard in front of her and glided the chalk into a resting position. The writing on the board still glared back at her. Sunset gave it an unsatisfied scowl. She lifted the eraser off the floor and wiped the whole side clean before flipping the board over and erasing the other side as well. Sunset fell onto her haunches with a sigh and buried herself within the book again. Sunset skipped through several pages as she tried to find something unsolved; for some sort of key that would allow everything else to fit together. There’s got to be something that I’ve missed! she internally screamed. There has to be! There has to! * * * Pinkamena stared out the balcony as the rain bounced against the magical bubble just past it. Her eyes drew toward the sky as lightning flashed through the clouds, causing them to flicker between bright and dim. As her eyes drew along the briefly revealed contours, she counted the seconds in her mind. She counted down until the moment. Somewhere, somehow, days had turned into minutes. How in the wide wide world did we end up like this? she thought. “Then why don’t we have Sunset go back in time again!?” a voice behind her cried. Pinkamena turned to see Rainbow Dash floating above her friends in a bellowing posture. Spike threw his hands into the air. “I told you already: she can’t. Only once in a lifetime, remember? She already used it.” “What if Rarity used the spell?” Applejack asked as she adjusted her hat. Rarity shook her head. “Goodness, I’m not nearly that capable, darling.” “Then let’s just ask Princess Celestia or Princess Luna. Ah’d reckon they’d be able to do it.” Pinkamena pushed herself off the railing. “But like,” she said, turning around, “what would they do?” The five of them turned with disgusted snarls. She slunk toward them. “It’s not like they know how to fix this. Even if they went back in time and tried to stop Twilight, how could they undo what that mean-meanie-pants Nameless is doing to her?” Several of them reeled and let out distressed groans. Spike picked a speck of dirt off his arm and flicked it across the room. “Besides, it’s not like they could help her. She’s in an alternate world.” Fluttershy grabbed a hold of her mane and held it close. “B-but, what about our Twilight? If there’s some world above us that’s nine days into the future, couldn’t they have helped her?” Rainbow Dash threw her hooves into the air, “Yeah! You saw how it was! They”—she pointed to the ball—“tried to come to the tower just like we did! So maybe there’s another us in some world above ours, yeah? And they talked to our Twilight!” “Yeah!? So!?” Spike roared. “Guess what!? Our Twilight is dead! My Twilight!” The storm outside whipped the tower with a surge in its downpour and a crack of its thunder. “But what about theirs?” Rarity asked. “She is still there.” Applejack swallowed. “That’s true… but how are we gunna do it?” “Don’tcha know!? It’s out of our hooves!” Pinkamena exclaimed. “How much time do we have?” Rainbow Dash snatched the ball up and then landed in the middle of them. She thought the ball forward until the view showed Twilight again. “Hey, Twilight, where are you at?” Twilight approached the edge of a large crevice and peered over the ledge into the bottomless blackness below. She whimpered once as she looked up and spied the end of a mining cart rail jutting over the far end of the expanse. “Cadance had to fly us across on our way out,” Twilight said. She turned her attention to the hole in front of her and swallowed. “And the chamber… is down this chasm.” “Oh word, she’s nearly there,” Rarity hissed. A clap of thunder drowned out Rainbow Dash’s swear. We really really really need more time! Pinkamena thought. Applejack hurled her hat across the room with a frustrated yell and then galloped up the stairs with a determined scowl on her face. Pinkamina asked no questions and bolted after her. She chased Applejack, who near-missed Sunset, and they arrived in front of the study’s sprawling window. “Somepony! Anypony!” Applejack cried. “Are you watchin’ up there? Say somethin’, please!” Pinkamena joined her friend at the window. “We need help! We need help!” she yelled, trying to find any sort of invisible face looking down on them. “Please! For land’s sakes!” The rivers of spent rain unheeded them and continued to wash down the outside of the glass. “We’ll take whatever!” Pinkamena cried. “Give us a magic spell! Give us more time! We’ll take it!” Sunset crept up behind them and peered upward into the glass as well, a piece of chalk still clenched in her magical aura. The other four appeared at the top of the stairs and stood there with sad and worried expressions. “Come on! Ah know y’all can hear us!” Applejack cried. “Say something! Say anything!” “Answer me already!” Pinkamena felt a pinch in her knee and gasped to herself. A pinchy knee! That means… Applejack stamped a hoof against the floor. “Ah didn’t go all the way across the world just for you to not talk! So come on already! Talk to us you… no good... varm—” The sky outside lit up as a bolt of lightning streaked down just outside the window. It reached out with its electric tendrils and drew down the length of the window’s metal bracings as it brushed past, sending small sparks coursing through the framework. In the same instant, the bolt reached the ground and then the loudest boom shook the tower to its very foundations. The glass rattled, the floor shook, and dust fell from the ceiling. Several of them screamed and ducked and plugged their ears in response, and then, in the moments following, shakily rose to their hooves again. All except Fluttershy, who remained petrified on the floor. Pinkamena looked back at the crystal ball in Spike’s grasp. Twilight walked in a downward spiral around the chasm. Every slow and calculated step took her a foot deeper into the mountain and closer to the door. Every so often, she would duck under a rogue crystal. Other times, the ledge cut out, forcing her to make a short leap across. All the while, Twilight’s crystal ball floated closely behind her. Spying a shortcut, Twilight spread her wings and leaped across the gap, skipping two full revolutions down the spiral. But Twilight slammed into the wall and her hooves slipped, and she was saved only by the fact that her body refused to slide off the ledge as well. Pinkamena felt whatever color that remained in her face drain away. Wait… she thought. Rainbow Dash let out a frustrated scream before she stormed down the stairs in a huff. Twilight struggled to climb onto her hooves again. She nearly made it before her legs gave way under her, only for her to try again without missing a beat. Once upright again, Twilight set forward like nothing had happened. Twilight still journeyed to her death, and the crystal ball remained silent. Pinkamena collapsed onto the floor. I… I… * * * Spike held the crystal ball close. He held it so close that nopony could have wrested it from him. He kept his eyes glued to the inside of the ball. He ignored the rain against the windows, and he ignored the scratches of Sunset’s chalk, for the only thing he wanted to attend to was Twilight. Twilight stalked forward. The long path before her curved downward in an uncomfortably wide arc. Every bit of wall looked the same and, in the cavern’s low lighting, there was no way to tell if it would end soon. But Spike knew better. He knew it would end soon. He knew it would all end soon. “Twilight, there has to be another way,” Fluttershy said, placing her hoof on the ball. “Please.” “We’ve been over this, Fluttershy,” Twilight said, “there is no other way. There never was.” “That can’t be true…” “Darling,” Rarity said, touching her own hoof to the ball, “you can’t. You simply can’t.” “I can. I have to,” Twilight replied. She looked further into the cavern and frowned. “It can’t be much farther now.” Fluttershy fought back tears, and for a moment, she managed to swallow what had worked up from the pit of her chest. “Don’t go, Twilight… Don’t go. Y-you can still go back and get us.” Spike bit his lip, wishing he had something to say. Anything to turn the conversation (and, perhaps, the mare inside the ball) around. “It is going to try and surface soon,” Twilight coldly replied. “It’s too late to turn back.” “No!” Fluttershy cried. “It’s too late.” “Oh… Twilight…” Fluttershy buried herself into Rarity and let off a sob. And then another. She burst into a maelstrom of choked cries and moans as she pressed herself deeper into her friend, especially as Rarity wrapped a hoof around her. Applejack and Pinkamena, both of whom lay against the room’s giant window, glanced over. Neither said a word nor gave the slightest change in expression, and in short order, they returned to mindlessly watching the storm outside. Spike ground his teeth together. First those two, and then Rainbow Dash. Now Fluttershy had succumbed. Rarity’s cheeks turned a bright red and she growled. “Well, I am not quite ready to give up on you, Twilight Sparkle!” Twilight shook her head and continued trotting onward. Rarity looked up. “Spiky-wikey! Tell her!” “Tell her what?” Spike asked. “Something! Surely you must have something?” Spike grimaced. “Don’t ask me,” he said and pointed to Sunset, “she’s the one with all the things.” Sunset’s chalk danced across the board, and with each stroke, another hair on her already-messy mane popped out of place. Rarity straightened herself. “S-Sunset!” she shouted. Sunset dug the chalk into the board too much and the nibble of a piece shattered into a shower of dust. She looked over with wide-eyes like she had just emerged from a daze. “Surely you have something?” Rarity asked. “Anything!?” “Rarity, I…” Sunset stammered. “Please, for the sake of Celestia, tell me you have something on that board of yours. Anything at all.” Sunset was uncertain of where to keep her eyes. She went to the board, to Rarity, to the board again, to Spike, and to Rarity again. She tried to speak a couple of times, but the words fell short. “Sunset,” Spike tried. Sunset shivered. “I…” she tried. She looked at every nook and cranny of the board, but with each part, her colors drew paler. She stared at her work for a long time, regarding every number and every symbol. And when she looked to the two of them again, her eyes sparkled in a plea for forgiveness. The next moment, Sunset dropped the chalk entirely. “I… don’t have anything,” she whimpered. Spike gulped. No Sunset, don’t… Sunset caved. She fell face-first onto the floor and shielded herself with her forelegs. She made no more sounds and made no indication that she would move from that spot. Rarity flared her nostrils. “Oh no no no no no no! Absolutely not!” She pointed an angry hoof at Sunset. “You will stand right back up. Right now!” Sunset did not budge. “You will stand up! Spike!” He averted his gaze out of shame. Rarity recoiled. She stared into the ball for a few moments as the mare inside it continued on. Her teeth chattered as the words tried to form. “We’re…” Rarity cried as she sniffled, “we’re really here. We’re really here!” Twilight tripped and fell into the dirt, kicking up dust as she fell. She coughed several times as she climbed back up one hoof at a time. She massaged her head and tried to stretch the rest of her body, but the painful screams she uttered afterward told of how well that had worked. “Oh stars!” Rarity exclaimed. “Twilight! I’m sorry! I’m so so so sorry!” Spike frowned but nonetheless continued to think the ball’s view forward. At that moment, Twilight rounded the corner. large double doors greeted her. The ornate stone doors towered over her and Twilight stopped to admire the etched pictures on their front. But once that was done, Twilight allowed a shade of color to drain from her already-pale coat. “I’m here,” she announced. “Oh s-stars, I can’t look,” Rarity quivered. She turned and sobbed into Fluttershy in return. Rainbow Dash appeared at the head of the stairs. She refused to enter the room and instead elected to rest against the banister with a sorrowful glare. Her scowl quivered, showing hints of every other conflicting emotion. This was it. The one moment Spike never thought he would see happen. Even with the knowledge that it had taken place nine days ago, Spike felt blindsided. Twilight was about to die. Spike glowered at it all. Twilight had died. Twilight was dead. Twilight was going to die. Dead, died, would die. Because this had happened nine days ago. Because it had always happened nine days ago. It would forever happen nine days ago. Several leylines in the double doors in front of Twilight sparked to life. With a slow and wretched creak, the doors parted, revealing the chamber beyond. The entryway turned red from the light within the chamber. It was much brighter than Spike remembered. Twilight held up her crystal ball and examined it. “Bringing this back here… Who would have guessed? Maybe in another life, I might have learned how to use this thing.” Twilight frowned. “Maybe…” She sighed. “I have to let you go now. Sometime within the next hour, the Nameless will make its attempt. I have to concentrate. “…I just want to let you know that I am so so grateful that I could spend these past few days with all of you. I am… So grateful that I got the chance. There’s no other way that I would have wanted to do it.” Twilight blushed, “And… I just hope you don’t remember me as a bad friend...” “Never,” Spike huffed. “I am going to leave the ball outside of the door.” She looked up with pleading eyes, “Okay?” Spike balled his fist. The cycle was complete. Twilight’s crystal ball in front of the door, in its place for them to find and start the cycle anew. No cloak, but what did that matter? Twilight was still lost either way. Because it didn’t matter. They would always lose Twilight. Because there was no escaping “Is, was, will be.” Spike looked at the others. Applejack and Pinkamena remained glued to the windows, but each had an eye in his direction. Rainbow Dash remained in the stairwell, but now had turned away out of disgust. Rarity and Fluttershy remained in a heap on the floor, trying their best to stifle their croaks and wheezes. Sunset remained curled up on the floor. She made no attempt to even open her eyes and see what was happening. Her ears lay frozen atop her head as if blocking out the sound. Like she was gone. Like she had shut down. Spike clutched the ball tighter than he ever had before. A moment later, his knees gave out and he fell to the floor. Heartbeat after heartbeat ticked by and none of them did anything to lessen the weight in his chest. Spike sucked in a breath. He used one of his hands to push it back out. “Okay. Twilight. I… understand. Go save the world. But… I’m going to be right here, okay?” The smallest inkling of a smile appeared on Twilight’s muzzle. “Spike…” “Okay?” Twilight considered those words for many long moments. And then she smiled. “Of course. I know you’ll always be there for me.” Spike nodded. “Always.” Twilight held her head up and nodded. She gently lay the crystal ball to rest on the ground beside her. “Okay...” Twilight said and took a deep breath. “Alright… I am ready to die.” A tear fell down her face before she broke into a smile. “Goodbye, everypony…” Spike said nothing. Twilight stepped forward. Every clop of her hooves echoed throughout the cavern. They echoed throughout the tower. At a slow and deliberate pace, Twilight crossed the threshold. Every step lasted for an eternity. With every step, Twilight looked farther forward. The crystal ball behind her could only watch. A weak thunderclap boomed outside the tower, but even when paired with the rain, it failed to silence the hoofsteps from the ball. The double doors jerked and slid toward each other with a loud groan. The mare in the chamber paid the doors no mind as she trotted toward the center. Spike closed his eyes. And in that moment, by his reckoning, the doors on the life of Princess Twilight Sparkle shut tight with a resounding and eternal thud.