//------------------------------// // The End // Story: The Element of Harmony // by Imperaxum //------------------------------// It was in the shadow of vast factories, not a mountain, that Cress shivered in. Everything here felt wrong. There were ponies outside the hastily put up perimeter walls, crowds of foreigners watching and bustling with activity. On the other hoof, Cress had never seen so many soldiers in one place. There must have been fifty thousand black helmeted ponies disembarking from a hundred transports, falling into formations and marching off into the city. Most marched towards the rubble of the mountain. He couldn't see it past the factories, but he could feel it. The story of Loyalty's Triumph was an uncomfortable memory as every pony spoke of the burning wrongness inside them, and occasionally a great light would flare up from beyond the factories. The Colonel was positively glowing, pointing out weapons and technologies dragged out of storage or museum, detailing the histories of the banners that some of the Central Guard units flew. Cress only half listened, until the Colonel yelled in delight at the sight of a procession rolling off a completely armor-clad ship, the gavel of justice painted five hundred feet tall on its side. A judge in orange and gilded robes strode out, flanked by a hundred unicorns of dazzling appearance. "Look! The Element of Honesty! There is a great battle happening, this is a tale worthy of a thousand years of song! It's happening again!" The Colonel was barely disappointed when they recieved orders from a harried Guard officer to march for the Southern Quarter, aside the mountain and the growing roar of combat, and secure the underfactory areas. The industry was so built up here, and stil inhabited, that there was practically another city beneath it. Cress was rather relieved that they were not maching towards the mountain. They were split up, and Cress soon completely lost his sense of direction as they plunged into the masses of ponies that were getting out of work, or just leaving to stare up as the clouds flashed from the light of the battle below. Not a single one was hostile or gave the Central Guards a nasty look, but so many had odd totems and necklaces affixed to them, obviously having something to do with the Magic Cult. Cress and his fellows were on edge, but none made an attempt to detain the cultists, who rushed to a fro without care. The air was filled with excited conversation, and every face save the foreign Guards had a smile. The Lieutenant leading them had no more idea of what to do that they did, and started posting Guards in sight of each other, telling them to shoot whoever started a ritual and commend their souls to the Heavens. Cress ended up on a street corner, surrounded by metal and apartments and foreign ponies as more factory shifts were obviosly ending. His black helmet felt very heavy on his head as he jumped up onto the curb to avoid being swept away by the crowds. He hardly realized it when one of them started talking to him. "Hey, hey!" sounded like any of the other greetings and words, until a mare in an overcoat not unlike the ones worn back home tapped him. "Are you from Equestria?" "Erm," he hesitated, then remembered the black helmet on his head, "yes, I am." "Oh, how interesting! My brothers are fighting your fellows right now at the Element." she gushed, smiling as she spoke words that made Cress shrink back and feel around for his blade. "Everything has come together, Equestrian! The magic is coming back!" Cress narrowed his eyes but did not draw his blade. The mare looked brighter than a common pony, but not so bright as the cultists back home. Truth be told he was more curious than anything. He glanced around, and could not see any other black helmeted ponies. Perhaps they were simply lost in the crowd. Perhaps they were being killed off by something. A strong desire to leave took hold of him. "Very interesting words," he said finally, "very different from what I would say about this." "We're supposed to be fighting!" the mare said cheerily, "but what's the point if you might die and miss out on the end? An Equestrian, here, and the Seventh Element raising up, in my time! Simply exciting. I feel like the luckiest mare in all history." "You speak much like us," Cress observed, glad to hear her mention the past like a proper common pony. "We're just ponies, but we can be so much more," she smiled, and pointed to a door nearby. "Come on! We've surely only got a little time before the end." Cress did not argue, quite confused but possessed of that damning desire to find out what was going on. Surely this was a proper military thing to do, gathering intelligence. She led him into a tiny 'cafe' as she called it, grabbing hot drinks and sitting down at a table with a little window. "This is not at all how I expected the landings to go for me," Cress confessed as he sipped at the drink. The taste was unfamiliar but the liquid was hot, so he drank it with gusto. "Well. You expected Loyalty's Damnation, did you not?" "Damnation? Let me tell you of Loyalty's Triumph, foreigner..." Cress was happy to see the mare perk up with the same eagerness for a story any of his factory mates would display back home. That Rose would display. He told her the story, as best as he could remember, of the mountain's fall and the Tree's defeat. The mare nodded vigorously, smiling at the while. "You Equestrians don't understand much, do you?" she said after he was finished. "Not even the basics. Things were different in Equestria, long ago. Magic was in every pony, common or unicorn, and pegasi flew in great numbers. It bound ponies to the earth, and to each other. The Tree was the source of all things and of magic, and the Six Elements were its offspring. Yet when the offspring forgets its roots and ponies forget their magic, it is up to the parent to set things right and as they were. "Short, I know," she said, "but I learned that at a very early age. Everypony here does, about how we have the real element." "Of what? Equestria has them all. We're lucky to have them all under the control of one government, too, in our days." "Like what?" "We have Loyalty, for starters." he said. "Do you?" the mare asked, deadly serious without warning. Before Cress could respond, a great shriek sent a bolt of agony through him and the wind howled in fury outside. Everypony else appeared absolutely estatic at this development. He looked back to the mare, who was grinning from ear to ear. "Would you look at that, Harmony is chastising her children. You brought all six Elements here, did you not?" "Um, yes," Cress said, gripping their table to steady himself. "You know," the mare said, heedless as the wind increased and the light of the heavens cast shadows that defied the sun, "The bearer used to be somepony special in the old days. It used to be bound to them, not thrown about like some weapon. Loyalty? You've got that helmet of yours, but I can see you don't love it. I have this little necklace," she pulled at a bit of metal on a string that was around her neck, "and I love it. This is a tiny shard of metal from the armor of a cultist three hundred years ago, at your 'Triumph'." "You speak well, foreigner." was all that Cress said. "I really am so very lucky, though," the mare gushed, changing topics with dizzying speed. "A hundred generations of mucking around before Loyalty was damned against the Tree, and another three hundred years before know. It's very exciting." "I gather so much, foreigner." "Foreigner. You call me a foreigner. You call yourself an Equestrian. But the real Equestrians, so many thousands of years ago with more magic than we would know to do with, would be horrified." "That's a real Equestrian? Somepony all those years ago? You foreigners are more rooted in the past than we are. You can't even look forward." "Oh but we are. We are raising up the Element of Harmony." Cress shook his head. "What even is that?" he asked. "We will bring the end of all things. You Equestrians have strayed so far. Last time we shackled the Tree to fight you, but we were supposed to release it. Three hundred years of planning and preparation is nothing." "You know so much and you do not seem like very much." "Neither do you. I suspect we both were told stories by our leaders." "Leaders, ancestors, elders. What does it matter?" The mare smiled with warmth, and closed her eyes. "We are nothing, you and I. We are the dust of creation. Shadows of magical beings. What is there to celebrate about defeating the Tree and beating some cultists and having another thousand years of ponies forgetting those who came before? You must admit this. This is the greatest moment. We're the tiniest speck on what's going on, just talking in a cafe before Harmony is restored. You must feel something." Cress shuddered. "I do. I certainly do. This is a small event, here, this table and two ponies from across the sea, but it is the world to me right now." "You're sounding like an old storyteller," the mare laughed, then stopped. "Quiet now. What little magic that is in me can feel it. The ritual has been completed." A notably load sound echoed around them, and a oddly colorful light from above bathed the street outside. They rushed out without a word, joining the throng of ponies staring up. The mare was right. Cress knew he was seeing and living through an incredibly momentous occasion. Six lights were striking out at the brighter seventh in the heavens, but the light wasn't painful anymore. There was a rainbow, reaching out to join all seven, and that was when the world began to shake. The mare shrieked with laughter, and Cress joined in as the air warped and an utterly foreign feeling of warmness and rightness spread through him. He looked around, saw holes in the air, saw worlds unfamiliar and terrifying and inviting through them. "Oh Rose, if you could see this. If you could see this!" he yelled, and the mare wrapped a leg around him, leaning on him and nearly falling over in her happiness as the seven lights merged in the sky. "Momentous. Simply momentous!" the mare giggled, and the staggered like drunkards. "We will see fantastic things." "We will. And I will show a mare from across the horizon to my sister, one day. Unless you have something better to do?" The lights shone brighter and the rainbow exploded outwards. "It's Petunia. I've never seen a petunia. I've seen roses, though, they're very lovely." Cress smiled, the mare smiled, and they looked on to the future as the lights began to dim.