//------------------------------// // Professor Death // Story: Split Second: An Eternity Divided // by wille179 //------------------------------// It had felt like years to her. It had been years, actually. By her count, she and Cobalt were now likely in their early-to-mid thirties, though neither of them looked it. Thorn, now in his early twenties, was the only one who’d really changed as his minimum size slowly crept up. He was growing up, but they were not growing old. And yet, only now did it really hit her just how long her future was going to be. It wasn’t even a spectacular revelation; she’d just seen a newspaper with the date on it, and realized just how long — just how shortly — she’d been Death. One month. It was significant to her. It reminded Sparkle of the identity ritual she’d cast on herself all that time ago, right after she’d ascended. It reminded her of all that she’d seen in that instant. Her past, her future, the inner workings of herself, the inner workings of the universe... it all came to her in that one singular moment. And in that moment, the gradual second stage of her ascension had accelerated. She’d given herself one month before her ascension completed and she was one hundred percent bonded with the abstract concept of Death. That day was today. And like a switch flipping on, and yet nothing like that at all, she became aware of the entirety of her domain. It wasn’t a rush of new information, but a gradually increasing of a familiar sort of information, like sensation returning to a numb limb. In fact, if she hadn’t been paying attention because of the date on the newspaper, she suspected that she wouldn’t have noticed the changes at all. But it did make her aware of something else. She was set in place, unchanging. The face she saw in the mirror would be the one with her until the end of this world. The slight melancholy that thought bought didn’t last long, though. She thought of the future, and what all it would bring. Moreover, she remembered what her vision of herself showed her: that she would be the one to write the final page in the annals of history when the universe itself finally died. But for now, Death had a more pressing concern than the eventual heat death of the universe: money. Sure, she had a good number of bits stashed away, but that wouldn’t last forever. And with Cobalt no longer her student — and thus no longer paying her for his tutelage — she was technically unemployed. Yes, she had that solid cone of gold from Lady Evrfyr, but something like that was nearly impossible to sell. It was bigger than her whole body, and nopony had the sort of money to buy it; as for cutting it, Thorn wouldn’t allow it. Thus, Sparkle was out of a job and slowly eating through her finances. Sure, she no longer needed a home, but she and Thorn still ate real-world food and her experiments sometimes needed expensive materials. “Well, you’re a teacher,” Cobalt had replied when she brought the matter up to him. “Teach.” He’d been joking slightly, thinking that if she even took the suggestion, she’d repeat what she’d done with him. But she immediately turned the joke on its head. “Wouldn’t it be funny,” she countered, “if I went back to teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts? Maybe even full time this time?” They’d joked about it, but as the conversation went on, Sparkle quickly latched onto the idea as a serious goal. Not serious as in I really want to do this serious, but an I want to see if I can do this serious. She didn’t have the princess’s help this time. Sparkle arrived at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns in her unicorn form. Cobalt, currently dyed orange and wearing a prosthetic horn instead of his usual blue earth pony appearance, walked alongside her. She was going to apply for the job later today, but right now, they were curious as to who was teaching the class presently. After a little bit of digging, Cobalt found the room the class was being held in, and at the appropriate time, the couple wandered in and took a seat at the back of the lecture hall. Sparkle glanced around, her eyes lingering on the various ponies. A good number of them looked like they were military, but some of them were decidedly not; those in the latter group were obvious by how much louder they were. What’s more, none of them, military or otherwise, looked that stressed out. Sparkle had told Cobalt of how she’d taught the class back before her untimely death, and knowing that this wasn’t the first day, told the two of them that this class was extremely different than the class she’d taught. There was one thing that caught the couple’s attention, though. A mare sat down next to Sparkle, and like Sparkle, she was suppressing her magic. That was not what drew Sparkle’s attention to the pink-maned unicorn; no, it was the fact that her soul was bigger than her own body. Princess Celestia, of all ponies, had just sat down next to her. “Well now, that’s interesting,” Cobalt remarked through their link. “You think she’s here to observe?” “Obviously,” Sparkle replied. “This school has her name on it, and this class is training her soldiers. I think she’d want to know what they’re teaching her country’s protectors. She did this with me, once, when I was first starting out. She even gave me a few good pointers.” “So now the question is, does she recognize who she’s sitting next to?” “You mean Blueblood’s killer? How would she even know what you looked like?” the dark goddess quipped. The demigod rolled his eyes. “Not what I meant.” “I know what you meant. No, she simply can’t recognize us. Unlike Luna, Celestia is not resistant to illusions, and is even less resistant when suppressing her magic.” “If she were your student, she would have just failed,” Cobalt observed. Sparkle snickered. The teacher came in and began the lecture. Sparkle and Cobalt observed her closely, watching her more than the lecture. She was a middle-aged unicorn, one that had the body of a scholar, not a fighter. As the soul-sorting spell activated for her, Sparkle slowed it down so that she could observe the character of the mare that was teaching the class. Past Evidence was her name, and her talent was understanding historical patterns. She’d applied that knowledge to military tactics, and had written several books on what strategies worked, what didn’t, and why. Between that and what she was writing on the chalkboard, Cobalt and Sparkle realized what sort of class Defense Against the Dark Arts had become: a defensive strategy class. Sparkle, being the academian she was, found the lecture quite interesting. It was by no means how she would have taught the class, but she could see the use of the information that was being presented. Cobalt, on the other hoof, was far less enthused. As an assassin, his entire mindset was that every plan is always failing, and that improvisation is always needed. And, more specifically, he knew that plans tended to fail because of the assumptions upon which said plans depended. Cobalt raised his hoof. Sparkle glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, curious. Up at the front of the class, the professor stopped to take his question. “Professor, that formation depends on a number of assumptions, and I’m concerned about its viability when it comes to facing dark mages.” “Oh? Now, I feel fairly confident in it, but I would love to hear your concerns.” Cobalt nodded, accepting the unspoken challenge. “Well, first it assumes that the caster is using Canterlot Frontal, Germane Fest Schritt, or Prench Magie Linéaire. Yes, those are the three most common casting styles in Equestria, but they are hardly the only styles, and Backcasting, for example, allows a unicorn to cast while retreating. Second, it assumes that the unicorn will be rather stationary while casting, which is, again, quite common. But I know for a fact that some ponies—” Here, he lit up his false horn with his red magic and launched a harmless ball of light. It flew through the air, but with Cobalt’s extreme speed, he ran to the front of the room fast enough for him to be hit by his own spell. “—Can outrace airborne magic. Third, it assumes that disabling the horn is enough to disable the unicorn.” Here, he flicked out a hoof, causing a black blob of magic to fly out and hit the professor in the chest. “Again. That’s usually enough, but you never can tell. Fourth, it assumes that—” “The unicorn cannot turn your own allies against you, like I have just done,” Cobalt and the now specter-possessed teacher said in unison. “Fifth, it assumes that the caster is, in fact, a unicorn.” Here, Cobalt pulled off his fake horn. “And finally, it assumes that the target will attack with only magic.” He closed the distance between himself and the teacher. From the rubber horn, he pulled out a small switchblade and held it up to her throat, dull side towards her skin. Simultaneously, he commanded his specter to release her and dissipate. “There’s more than that, but that’s six assumptions already, each with an unknowable array of possible arrangements. Six assumptions puts you six hoof-lengths under.” He folded up his knife, picked up the prosthetic, and zipped back up to his seat before the teacher could even reply. “I see...” Professor Past Evidence replied as she gathered her wits again. “All of those are valid points. However, as I covered in yesterday’s lecture, this strategy is for a specific situation in which you can be reliably certain of your opponent’s abilities.” “Again, I would argue against its validity. My marefriend, for example, has a twin sister with a vastly different combat style. Yet, give her thirty seconds, and she can emulate her sister so well that you literally wouldn’t be able to see that you were fighting the wrong pony. You think you’re fighting a barrier mistress, and then suddenly she rips your heart out. My point is: information can be wrong, even maliciously so; circumstances can change; and then you find yourself back at square one with little-to-no useable information and a plan that will put you in an early grave.” By now, the entire class was staring at Cobalt, who was twirling the switchblade in his magical grip. Even the disguised Celestia was staring at him. He stabbed the blade into the blade into the desk hard enough that it remained upright when his magic released it. “But what do I know? You’re the professor, and I’m just a stallion in love with Death.” The teacher took a second to get her class’s attention back, and then quickly explained her counter-arguments to Cobalt’s points. However, the two goddesses in the room weren’t listening to her. Celestia leaned around Sparkle to address Cobalt. “Well now, you’re an interesting stallion. I haven’t seen an earth pony mage in a long time, and never one so young.” Cobalt grinned. “I learned from the best,” he replied. “And while your compliments are much appreciated, I’m already taken.” Startled slightly, Celestia shook her head. “No, no, no. That’s not what I meant at all!” Cobalt’s grin morphed into a smirk. “I know. But even if you were flirting with me, you’re a bit old for my tastes. I prefer my mares to be less than a century old, Princess Celestia.” Whatever the disguised princess was going to say, she didn’t get a chance as Sparkle shushed them both. “Can’t you hear that?” Celestia blinked and flicked her ears in the direction that Sparkle’s were pointed. Cobalt did the same. “The bell?” Cobalt asked, referring to the muffled clanging of a bell he could hear coming through the windows. It sounded like the bell of a clock tower, except that the tower they could see wasn’t one; it was the central tower of the Mage’s Guild. “I don’t hear anything,” Celestia remarked. “I know that sound...” Sparkle remarked, frowning. But, more than the sound, she recognized the foul power that it carried. “No, it was a recording... Um... Oh, it was with that poem in the books. Um, what was it again?” She switched to speaking ancient unicornian. <> Next to her, Celestia’s breath hitched. Sparkle paid it no mind. “Damn, what was the last verse? Um... oh!” <> Sparkle stood and trotted to the window, a feeling of unease filling her body. Her senses told her that something was about to happen, that ponies were about to die. Her horn started bubbling with black magic, the release of which slammed into the awareness of every magically-sensitive pony in the room like a ton of bricks. *Clang, Clang, Clang...* With each morbid ring, a pulse of black magic surged out of the Mage Guild tower, accompanied by hundreds of orbs of darkness that zipped through the air until they bounced off of Sparkle’s magic. Sparkle’s knees buckled under the sudden strain; she was using her magic to contain the power of the bell’s to a small area, but she hadn’t expected it to be that hard. Flashes of various colors started appearing in the yard below, revealing several disoriented ponies, with more appearing every second. They were ponies who had had the misfortune of trying to teleport within the vicinity of the active bell. “Sleeper, no teleporting.” The use of his title instead of his name cued him into the fact that they were now very much on duty. “Right. Reaper, you might want to take a look at the professor.” Sparkle glanced back down. One of the black orbs had struck her and burrowed into her head. The dark goddess had only looked in time to see the orb devour the mare’s soul. However, the professor’s body didn’t fall. Instead, it looked right up at Sparkle, Cobalt, and Celestia. “Well, what do we have here?” the thing in Past Evidence’s body cooed. “Two brilliant souls to-” *BANG* Whatever it had been about to say, it didn’t say it. It couldn’t, on account of the fact that its head was now splattered on the blackboard. Back up at the top of the lecture hall, Sparkle eyed the devastation her smoking, prototype rifle had caused. “Well, that explains why future me liked these things so much. I’ll have to thank Sci-Twi for the specifics.” Celestia could only gape at the destruction the weapon, cheerfully engraved with the words “Humanity’s Salutations.” had caused. When she looked away from the gore, away from the now screaming students, the Reaper had transformed back into herself and was galloping out the door, the Sleeper right behind her. Celestia moved to chase after her, but when she tried to run through the door, she was thrown back. A pain unlike any other coursed through her very being, and up in the sky, for only an instant, the sun flared brighter than it had ever been before. Now untransformed herself, Celestia picked herself up off the ground. She looked  at what she had just run into. With no small amount of horror, she realized that she was inside Death’s soul trap, and trapped with a bunch of panicking ponies. She knew that she had to act quick; if a mortal tried that, they would die for certain. “QUIET!” Outside, the two aspects of Death galloped through the school in an effort to get to the tower. “What’s going on?!” Cobalt exclaimed. “No time! We have to get to the bell in the mage’s tower and disable it before it rings again, or worse, gets destroyed!” “And what was that thing that attacked the professor?” “Demon!” Sparkle shouted, both as an explanation and an exclamation as she shot another possessed pony’s head off. She kept sprinting, nearly slipping through his blood as she passed the corpse. “Grab your weapons. Kill anything or anyone with an abnormal soul. Destroy the demons, reap the good souls. Go!” Cobalt nodded once, and then dashed off so fast that he seemed to flicker out of visibility. Sparkle turned her attention to her other aspect. “Thorn!” “Got it!” the dracolich replied, having been privy to her thoughts and memories. He pushed his way through the afterlife and into the soul trap. His roar as he emerged was loud enough to shake the entire building. The next possessed pony Sparkle came across hardly looked like a pony anymore. The demons were transforming the living corpses they inhabited into nightmarish abominations, and they were doing it very quickly. But that wasn’t all they were doing. The abominations would attack anypony they came across, killing them but at the same time leaving them unable to part from their bodies — in other words, zombifying everypony they touched. The screams were growing louder and more plentiful, and the loud report of the gun was echoing through the halls more and more frequently. Sparkle burst through the doors of the school and into the field between it and the mage tower. Unicorns were still teleporting in, unable to stop themselves from being ensnared by the bell’s pull. Demons and zombies were there waiting for them by the dozens. Fire rained down from above, scorching the field and all within it with divine fury. Incinerated by the flames of a divine dracolich, the demons exploded, the zombies crumbled to ash, and the unfortunately still living found their souls reaped before the pain of the inferno could register in their minds. Sparkle strolled through the emerald flames, unharmed as they licked at her fur. “Thorn!” The dracolich, large enough to swallow her whole, landed beside her. “Yeah?” “Get me up to the top of that tower,” she said, pointing. “Then cough up some of your fuel; I might need it.” “Got it.” He snatched his mother up with his mammoth claws. “Now, question: What happens if you can’t safely destroy the bell, or disarm it?” Sparkle didn’t answer. “Right. And Celestia?” “...We’ll deal with both as it comes to that.” Thorn sighed. “Right. Well, I’ll try not to burn down too much of her school, but no promises.” Sparkle looked up at Thorn, and his six eyes glanced back at her six. She said nor thought nothing, for she knew that he knew everything she wanted to say. One of Thorn’s fists lashed out, punching a massive hole in the top of the tower. The claws carrying his mother deposited her in the hole. Without a word, he turned around and looked at the small monstrosities that were flooding out of the building. He roared, and they were consumed by fire. Meanwhile Sparkle was making her way into the tower, levitating a blob of Thorn’s fuel behind her. However, she’d barely gone the length of a single hallway before a pony jumped out to face her. She leveled her gun at him, but something made her pause. Like the other possessed, he was in the process of transforming. However, he seemed to still have his soul as well as the demon inside him. What’s more, he had a choker with a single silver bell on it. “Greetings, Death. It’s been a long time since we met last,” the possessed pony said, even as curved goat horns erupted from his skull. “Fifteen hundred years to be exact. Fifteen hundred years since you left me to rot in Tartarus.” Two names floated into her view from the soul-sorting spell: Puzzle Piece and G̵̷͕͖̀r̷̺͔o̶̢̪͕̫g̷̢͈͘a̴̭̰r̡̬͍̖͝ͅ.The first was a pony she didn’t know, but the second was from someone she’d once called a no-talent hack for relying on the power of the bell; perhaps, though, she needed to reassess that opinion, since she could tell that there was more to him that met the eye. “You know, the only reason I can imagine myself locking someone away is if my past self was going to kill them in the future. Time is funny that way.” She pulled the trigger on her gun. The forelegs of the increasingly goat-like pony vanished in a shower of gore, causing him to fall into his own blood. She pulled the trigger again, and the still-aloft hindquarters of the pony-goat exploded as well. Grogar should have been in excruciating pain, but didn’t look it. The bell on his neck jingled, causing all the sprayed gore to start collecting again, rebuilding his legs and ass. “If you think I am going to let you kill me, think again. And even if you do-” He stood up again. “-no prison will hold me forever. Not even the one you call the afterlife.” *Bang.* “Do you even know what the afterlife is, Grogar?” *Bang.* “It’s not a prison.” *Bang.* “It’s my stomach. And I am never.” *Bang.* “Ever.” *Bang.* “Going to choke you down.”  *Bang.* *Bang.* *Bang.* “I’m going to erase you from existance... kind of like that,” she remarked as she looked at the bloody mess that had been Grogar. Rule one of fighting anyone: don’t give them a chance to fight back; and rule two: there’s no kill like overkill. With her magic, she plucked the silver bell from the pile of guts, noting that it remained clean despite having been drenched in blood. It radiated a powerful magic, and as long as it did, Sparkle dared not assume Grogar was actually dead or destroyed yet. However, she did figure that she had a moment to move before he could reform. Galloping along, careful to not let the clapper in the little bell ring nor spill any of the precious dragonfire fuel she was still carrying, Sparkle explored the tower for the primary bell. It didn’t take long to find; the central bell had a psychic pull on everypony around it that compelled them to find it, urging them to ring it again. Sparkle knew it was a trap, however. When she finally found the bell, she’d expected to see it hung by the old wooden beam it was depicted with; had the bell appeared there by itself, as the legends said it was capable of doing, it would have come with that beam, which would have embedded itself in the existing architecture. Instead, it was free standing in the center of the room on an obviously modern support rig. Runic markings covered the floor around it, and delicate magical instruments were lined up around it, confirming Sparkles fears: the bell had been brought there. “Now, how to disable you?” “Cursefire might work,” Cobalt said as he zipped into the room. Only a forewarning thought over their link had kept Sparkle from shooting him with fright. “No. Not yet,” Sparkle replied. “We might take out half of the city that way. That’s a last resort.” From over the link, Thorn threw in his own suggestion. “What if we set it off? If that legend is to be believed — and I double checked the wording on my way here — destroying the bell has the risk of opening a portal straight to Tartarus. It would be this times a million as everything trapped in there could get out again! But, if we set it off and it took one of us with it on its return, we could destroy it there.” “Except that Sunbutt is still in here,” Cobalt countered. “Sparkle may have caught the magic in her soul-trap, but she also caught the Princess. I really doubt that she’d enjoy being dragged down to Tartarus with us. Buck, I can’t believe we’re actually seriously contemplating getting dragged into Tartarus.” “Focus!” Sparkle snapped. “I can drop the trap for an instant, letting one of us rush her out. Then I put it back up and whoever’s left.” “Correction,” Thorn growled, “Them — Luna just got ensnared. She’s on the other side of the trap from Celestia, and she’s coming at me! Gah!” Thorn went silent as his thoughts fully shifted to warding off the attacking princess of the night. “QUIT IT, YOU IDIOTIC PRINCESS! I’M ON YOUR SIDE!” his massive voice bellowed. Thinking quickly, Cobalt came up with a plan of action. “Alright. I’ll get Celestia out, you get Luna. We’ll have Thorn ring the bell, since he’s the best fighter and the most destructive of all of us.” Sparkle nodded and echoed the plan to her son. “Right, I have no idea what’s going to be waiting for the chance when I pop this bubble, so you’re going to have to move fast. I’ll be placing down the new trap 200 hoof-lengths further out than this one, and I’ll give you ten seconds. That should be more than enough time to get out at a full gallop. As soon as we get out, circle and find anything that managed to escape with us.” “Obviously. And leave that stuff here.” He motioned to the fuel and bell still in Sparkle’s magical grip. Sparkle set them down. “Right. Let’s go.” Cobalt zipped off to find the solar princess, and Sparkle traced her way back to the hole that Thorn had made. She jumped out, never minding the several story fall, and transformed into a cloud of formless black smoke. In that form, she rushed towards her son and the nocturnal princess. “Luna!” she called out as she rematerialized. The princess was currently fighting off a trio of demons; without a soul-and-body shredding weapon, she was having a much harder time of it than Sparkle had been. However, that wasn’t to say she was totally defenseless; quite the contrary, she had summoned a pair of warhammers and was bashing the demons senseless. The only problem was their incredible healing and extreme toughness. Three more shots roared out of Sparkle’s rifle, quickly despatching the demons with terrifying ease. A fourth shot fired, killing an approaching zombie mare. “Luna! We have to get out of here right now." “We cannot! Our citizens are in here! We must defend them!” Luna roared. "Luna, they’re all dead. There’s not a single uninfected soul left in here! Believe me; I can feel it,” the Reaper replied. “We need to get out of here before the bell drags us all to Tartarus!” That shut the lunar princess up nice and tight. She nodded. The two of them raced to the edge of the soul-trap, though Sparkle had to clear out several more undead and possessed along their way. As they approached, Sparkle received word from Cobalt that let her know that he and Celestia were ready. “When I drop the barrier, we’re going to have to sprint. Ten seconds, two hundred hoof-lengths. My partner is explaining this to Celestia as we speak,” Sparkle explained. “Celestia is here?” Luna exclaimed. “Yes. Ready? Three, two, one, RUN!” The two of them bolted. Across the burning campus, Cobalt had said the same thing as she and was now running alongside Celestia. Their hearts pounded, the magic swirled around them, the demons roared, and Sparkle counted. Ten. The barrier shimmered into existence just behind them. “Cobalt?” “We’re out.” “Thorn!” “Give me a second...” Sparkle would, but she had other things to attend to. She dissolved into smoke and began spreading herself around the bubble that was the soul-trap, careful to not let a single part of her slip back inside. As she spread, she sought out anything that had escaped and destroyed it with extreme prejudice. “Alright... See you guys later,” Thorn announced, though there was a trace of fear coming over their link. Then the bell rang. *Clang, Clang, Clang...* Then, like a bathtub drain being pulled, the world swirled at the top of the tower, drawing everything into the vortex, souls, building, and all. The howling winds threatened to suck those outside the soul-trap in, but they held their ground. When it finally stopped, there was a perfectly spherical crater dug into the ground, extending to the exact contour of Sparkle’s barrier. There was nothing left — no buildings, no life, no flames, nothing. Sparkle let the spell collapse, and then she herself collapsed as well. Thorn was in Tartarus. Her little baby was in Tartarus! The thought alone made her choke. She could feel him still and see through his eyes just fine, so she knew that he was fine for now, but some part of her still made her worry. Suddenly, she felt extraordinarily tired, as if the life was being sucked out of her. In a way, it was; Thorn was calling upon more of their shared magic than he had ever done before for a massive cursefire blast, and it was taking its toll on her. “Hey! Hey!” Sparkle looked up with heavy eyes. Cobalt was running towards her, both princesses in tow. “Reaper! Get up!” Sparkle hoisted herself to her feet, very much aware of how the sudden lack of earth pony magic in her made her legs feel like jelly. “What?” she snapped. “I could be asking you the same thing,” Celestia said. At that moment, Sparkle’s head was spinning so badly that she couldn’t tell what emotion Celestia had said that with. “What was that?” “Bells of Tambelon.” “We know that much,” Celestia replied. Whether it was the royal we or she was actually referring to herself and Luna together, Sparkle didn’t know. “What we’re talking about is why you felt it was necessary to slaughter our subjects!” “They weren’t your subjects. Not anymore. Some were consumed by demons, others were zombified,” Sparkle replied tersely. “The paladin order could have handled it with far less death and destruction,” Celestia quipped. “They are literally right there.” She pointed with her hoof, and sure enough, there were close to a dozen paladins and three times that many royal guards exactly where she was indicating, having gathered in response to the magical burst. “If you hadn’t noticed, sunshine, I had the situation handled!” Sparkle growled. Something about Celestia’s statement had struck a nerve with her. The fear and stress in her warped to anger, while at the same time Sparkle found her second wind. “The bells should have taken the entire city down to Tartarus, you and Luna included! I think I did a pretty damn good job of containing the situation. Look around you! Half a school and a mage tower, and all the ponies in them! That’s a bargain compared to what you could have lost thanks to your mages’ idiocy!” “A bargain?!” Celestia shouted. “There are hundreds dead! And what do you mean, ‘My mages’ idiocy?’” “That bell sure as Tartarus didn’t just appear there. It was placed there. I saw it with my own eyes. An artifact that was designed to feed entire cities to the demonic hordes inside Tartarus was brought into the third most populous city in Equestria!” “SILENCE!” a bloodsoaked Luna roared. The two other goddesses shut their mouths and stared at her. “Thank you. Now, Tia, callous as Death may be, she is right. I know you are not as sensitive to the workings of dark magic as I am, nor are you as knowledgeable, so you can be forgiven for not knowing. However, she did just end a disaster that should have by all means destroyed the entire city. In fact, I am utterly astonished that she did as well as she did. Death, I mean no offense, but given my past with you, I would have expected you to not act at all until it was too late.” “None taken,” Sparkle replied. “Celestia, those paladins? They would have been able to do nothing, and we would have lost them as well,” Luna said. There was a muffled shout of protest from said paladins. It was ignored. “I beg to differ. They are extremely skilled at purging demons and putting down the undead,” Celestia replied. “The implication being that I’m not?” Sparkle quipped. “At least I can get the whole soul out every time. I’ve had to stitch sixteen ponies back together after a botched re-killing in the last week alone.” “Enough, you two!” Luna shouted, though not in the Canterlot Royal Voice this time. “Tia, I do not know what has gotten into you, but you need to shut your mouth about those little white knights that you are so fond of. And Death? Please, be quiet. I am trying to defend you here, against my better judgement even, but you are not helping at the moment.” Sparkle ignored the backhooved declaration of help and wisely stayed quiet. “Thank you. Now, Death, forgive my bluntness, but could you just go wherever it is you go whenever you’re not ending innocent lives? I want to speak to you later about this, but right now, Celestia and I have an utter disaster to clean up. Come, Tia, we have ponies to keep from panicking.” “Yes, Luna, that sounds like an excellent idea.” The solar princess was looking Sparkle directly in the eye when she said that. Sparkle knew that it wasn’t crowd control that she was agreeing with. With a huff, Sparkle opened a portal directly below her hooves and fell through it to the afterlife. Behind the two princesses, Cobalt copied her. Their portals closed an instant later. Luna turned to her sister. “Now, that stallion who was with you...” She looked over her sister’s shoulder. “Wait, where did he go?” Sparkle screamed into her pillow. Thorn mercifully had returned, though not without injuries that were taking a remarkably long time to heal, and was currently wrapped around Sparkle and Cobalt. He too was upset, though more indirectly. “That was extremely rude of Celestia, insulting your talent and our domain like that,” Thorn said. Sparkle screamed again. She was putting off waves of anger and frustration, not just because of that situation but from years of bottled-up frustrations. Her emotions were affecting Cobalt as well, who was gritting his teeth in frustration. But, playing devil’s advocate, he replied, “To be fair, I don’t think she realized what she was saying. Emotions were high, and she was used to thinking of her paladins as the best line of defense after the Elements of Harmony and the princesses themselves. Still, she could have handled that better. A thank you would have been nice.” “YES!” Sparkle shouted. “Two words, and I would have been able to shrug that off. But Nooooo... Now I’m pissed.” “Relax, Sparks,” Cobalt said. “We’re all safe and sound and there are no disasters here. Relax.” There was a knock on the door to Sparkle’s Chambers. “What?” Sparkle called out. Sombra’s voice drifted through the wooden door. “My Lady, you have a letter from your sister.” Sparkle’s head popped up from the pillow. “A letter? From Twilight? Why didn’t she just come herself?” “It was written on your magic typewriter just a minute ago. It seems urgent.” She hopped up and trotted over to the door. Yanking it open, she snatched the letter from her butler and began to read. “Shit.” “What did it say?” “Shit.” Sparkle ripped open a portal to Twilight’s timeline and hopped through, letting the letter fall to the bedroom floor. Cobalt, not knowing where she was going, hopped off the bed as well and picked up the letter. Sparkle, help. Attacked by Tirek, lost magic. Can’t get EoH. Friends trapped. “Shit,” Cobalt echoed as he followed after her.