//------------------------------// // Chapter Twenty-One: Faded Shadows // Story: Light's Rising, Shadow's Fall // by jwizard //------------------------------// Equus, Everfest Ascent, 05-21-05 A.N.M., 3:27 PM (After Nightmare Moon) Twilight and Rainbow Dash had spent the last few minutes climbing the stairs that were on the other side of the last arch. Both had done so in silence, each mare consumed by their own thoughts. Twilight was going over everything she’d learned over the journey. Everything was somehow connected, and yet it didn’t make a bit of sense. Everything that had happened up to Northhoofton had the feel of a path that had been plotted, and yet they had somehow disrupted it by delaying as long as they did in both Trottingham and Mareago. Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, wasn’t looking for any connections. She already had figured out how the things were linked; they were supposed to do more than they had. They were supposed to follow through, find the connections of each to the Dark One, and seal them away. This whole trip had been nothing more than a witch-hunt; a way for Star Swirl to posthumously Re-Seal the Dark One. Of far more importance to Rainbow was the deep feelings that she had for the purple mare next to her. While she had always loved Twilight as a friend, Rainbow now knew that that love was far deeper and stronger than any she had with any other pony. Rainbow was torn; now was the worst time for her to be considering opening her heart in such a vulnerable way. Yet that inner voice that had been guiding her the whole time was leaning towards just that. Somehow, she knew that such feelings were the greatest weapon against the forces of the Dark One. A light at the top of the stairs grew closer as the two mares reached the end of the staircase. At the top was another opening. The pair walked to it, noticing as they did so that there were four statues on either side of the cave entrance. Twilight stopped at the first one on her left and began to read the runic. By now, it was like a second language for her, just as it was for Rainbow Dash. “For those that have come to this path with the Wand of Wisdom, place the Unbound Sword of Light upon the altar and intone the Words of Power inscribed.” Twilight snorted. “Well, we don’t have the Wand.” She blinked as she Felt a distant yet strong pulse of Harmony. “In fact, I don’t think the Wand exists any more.” A fracture went down the tablet she just read, causing the statue to fall to pieces. Before she could turn to the next one, it too fractured into pieces. Rainbow Dash looked at the other two, noticing that there were no words, runic or otherwise inscribed upon them. Instead, both had a pictograph. The one on the right showed an alicorn with a stylized star underneath, holding a sword before an altar. The other showed a similar image; however, this one differed in that the sword had been thrust into the chest of a cloaked unicorn with a curved horn. “You know what? I don’t trust either one of these; they’re not a memory of what has happened, and have no place anywhere near the Caves of memory.” As she finished speaking, both statues fractured in the same manner as the others. She snorted. “If Star Swirl meant to get us to do something, he pretty much failed in getting it past the Caves.” Twilight shrugged. “He was just as equine as any other pony. In any case, it’s pointless to waste more time here; if I know Star Swirl, he would have had another back-up not connected to the Caves.” Rainbow Dash nodded, and the two made their way out of the cave to the trail that was before it. The trail wound around the side of a mountain. Though a storm raged around it, there was no wind. The two ponies started to climb the trail, knowing that they were about to reach the end of a quest that was looking more and more like a wild goose chase. About an hour later, Twilight and Rainbow Dash came to the end of the trail, finding themselves at the beginning of a verdant plateau. Along the right side was a copse of trees surrounding a small pool. On the left was an ornate altar fashioned in the manner of Pre-Classical architecture. Before the two mares was yet another statue. This one was of Star Swirl, and contained yet another prophecy. Oddly, it wasn’t in runic; rather, it was Old Equis. Twilight read this out loud. “Herein lies the last chance to Seal the evil I fought on this Summit. The Child of Friendship must place the Sword given at the start upon the altar, and intone the Words of Power. Then the Child *~~~* must choose between giving the charged sword to a specter of Hope, or strike down the Agent of the Dark One.” Rainbow Dash followed Twilight as she made her way over to the altar. She looked at it with a nagging sense of deja vu. “I’ve seen all of this before,” Rainbow muttered as Twilight silently read the unicorn runic that was inscribed on the altar. The alicorn nodded tersely. “This is most definitely Star Swirl’s work. Even offering a choice; he was always a stickler for Balance.” She pulled the naked sword out of her bag and laid it on the altar. As she did so, Rainbow felt as though a cresting wave was coming. She shook off the feeling as Twilight backed up a few steps. Twilight channeled a minute amount of mana to the tip of her horn. She gestured for Rainbow to stand back as she uttered the words on the altar. Light flared around the altar as the sword was charged with power. The mana on the tip of Twilight’s horn grew into a bolt of power. Abruptly, the mare thrust her head skyward, releasing the bolt. The storm above was pushed aside as a band of aurora appeared in the sky. Suddenly, the band was ripped apart as twisting dark tentacles came out of it. Twilight looked on in fear as they made their way to where she and Rainbow were standing. Suddenly, a bright flash flared between the altar and the two ponies. Just as described, an image of Star Swirl stood before them. His horn was aglow as he held back the tentacles. Along the side of the altar, a twisting pool of shadows broke from the ones that had gathered along the edges. The pool congealed into a shape of a pony that was very familiar to the two mares. Neither mare spoke. After a moment, the two forms began to circle one another. A tone rung out; as it did so, Rainbow suddenly realized that she had seen all of this before. She turned to Twilight, only to gasp at the shadows that were pooling under her hooves. “Twilight, wait! Don’t chose either of them!” The alicorn turned to her friend with fear in her eyes. “Rainbow, there’s no choice. This goes beyond what I was expecting. If I don’t move to make a choice, then we all lose.” She started to walk forward, only for Rainbow to quickly stand in front of her. Twilight’s eyes narrowed; Rainbow could see the red in the irises of her eyes. “Listen to me Twilight, please! Neither one of these are worth it! If you choose the image of Star Swirl, the Dark One and all of what was Sealed away all those years ago will be Sealed again! That’ll just weaken us further, and with the Paths Unbound, He will be free to overrun us!” “But if you strike down that image of Sombra, you will Unchain him from where he is in Tartarus! That will unleash the hordes there over all of Equestria! If you choose either one, we all lose!” Twilight stomped her hoof. “Rainbow Dash, I refuse to believe that Star Swirl would have done something like this! That’s like saying he was on the side of the Dark One and Sombra all this time!” “Twilight, this has nothing to do with Star Swirl! The reason why the Crystal Empire was unsealed was because Sombra took control of the weakened Seal. He’s in charge of the spell; whatever choice we make concerning those two will play right into His hoof!” “Then all of this was a waste! We can’t chose either one, and yet we can’t not chose! We went on this journey for nothing!” Twilight would have ranted further; she was stopped as a cyan hoof struck her across the muzzle. “This trip was not a waste Twilight Sparkle! I’ve learned so much from you; that means something! You’ve been there for me, every step of the way! The only reason why I kept on going was because of you!” Rainbow’s wings quivered in unexpressed rage as she continued her rant. “This whole time, we’ve been following the trail of a unicorn that has been dead for over a millennia, doing his dirty work! It pisses me off that he is yet another pony that is twisting things to get the mare I love to do what he expects! No more! If a choice has to be made, THEN I CHOOSE TO FIGHT! I MADE THAT CHOICE EVERY NIGHT, AND IT’S ONE I WILL ALWAYS MAKE!” Before Twilight could stop her, Rainbow spun and launched herself at the altar, right between the circling images. Both burst apart into motes of dark mana, confirming everything Rainbow had said. Rainbow’s hoof touched the sword’s hilt. Everything stopped. Rainbow turned towards Twilight, a smile filled with love and hope on her muzzle. She then looked up at the broken sky. “Well, what are you waiting for? You want somepony to fight, then fight me!” The tentacles surrounded both the cyan pegacorn and the sword, pulling back towards the rift. As Rainbow disappeared into the center of the rift, all Twilight was able to do was cry out her name in both pain and fear. “RAINBOW DASH!” Equus, Realm of Light, 05-21-05 A.N.M., 6:47 PM (After Nightmare Moon) Rainbow blinked as she came to. The last thing she remembered was challenging a big ball of tentacles to a fight before blacking out. “That sounds like a really bad Neighpon manga, but it’s actually pretty accurate. At least they didn’t have thorns,” she muttered, shaking her head as she gazed around her. As she looked at the strange crystalline cave she found herself in, more of the battle came to her. Her rage had gotten the better of her again, causing her to go RYNO all over that morphic beast. She shook herself over to work out some of the kinks. She was just about ready to fly out the nearby entrance when her stomach growled. Blushing, she noticed in relief that her saddlebags had survived the fight. “Guess those spells the Guardians taught me are working. So long as I don’t take them off, my bags will remain safe. But carrying all of them around all the time while fighting is gonna get bothersome.” Concentrating on her torc, Rainbow surrounded her bags with an aura, linking them into the sub-space pocket Twilight had embedded into the center of the gem. She then pulled out a bottle of water and three granola bars. After she was done eating, Rainbow pulled on the other end of the spell. Her bags turned into motes of light before flowing into her torc. She bridged the connection and summoned her cedar-wood stave. Blinking, she realized that the stave no longer resembled what it originally did. Shaking her head, she made to move before her hoof made contact with a cool object. Looking down, Rainbow saw that the sword that Twilight had been carrying was lying at her feet. With little effort, Rainbow could sense the power flowing along the blade. She frowned. “I don’t feel like levitating this around while exploring; that’s just begging somepony to come fight.” The cyan pegacorn’s brow furrowed as she went over what Twilight had taught her about conjuring. She realized that it was fairly simple to substitute different word forms into the same spell. When she tried to cast it to conjure a simple bandolier and scabbard, she hit a snag. “Grr! That should have worked! It’s no different than conjuring those butterflies… Wait.” Rainbow smacked herself. “Dash, you need to specify the form as an object and link that into the spell; otherwise you’re just trying to create a butterfly that straps across the barrel.” Once Rainbow was certain that she had her modified spell form in her mind, she cast the spell. Motes of pegacorn mana flowed around her, forming into the shape she desired. Concentrating briefly, she took the unfinished ends of the bandolier spell and tied them to a belt buckle. The runic she had inscribed on it out of boredom took over, creating a loop. She then slid the sword into her new scabbard, and hooked the stave along the other strap. Satisfied that she was now prepared, she took off out the entrance. She soon realized that this wasn’t the best idea she ever had, as the small valley surrounding the cave entrance was filled with shadowlings and darklings. “Ah, crud!” Rainbow Dash dodged a swipe from the flying darklings that had been chasing her. For the last several hours, she’d been running and fighting from the small army of misborn that had waited for her to come out of the cave. “This is nuts! They’re not even really trying; there’s just a lot of them! Why am I not fighting back?” A deep surge of malice vibrated in the land around her at that question. The misborn shrieked in answer. Rainbow’s expression went from consternation to determination as she saw the looks of confused rage in the nearest misborn turn to malice. Summoning her mana, Rainbow let loose. Her spread wings flamed brightly as she once more channeled Pyreflame. Snarling, the pegacorn launched herself downward in a spiral movement, slamming the creatures around her with waves of Demon’s Flame. Within a short span, there were only a few left; these she took out with bolts of moonlight from her horn. Off in the distance, Rainbow spotted a ring of crystalline structures that the shadows seemed to avoid. She flew over to them and landed, sighing in relief. “I need a break! I should probably set up a camp and get some rest.” She frowned in concentration as she surrounded the inside of the cairn with a runic circle. “No sense in trusting that these crystals will protect me; just my luck that Sombra will use them to sneak up behind me.” She thought for a moment. “Nah , he’s not subtle enough for that.” She then set about in preparing herself a camp. After a while, she lay on her pallet and went into a trance; her mind was too keyed to sleep. Not only that, she didn’t want dreams of Twilight to distract her. Equus, Realm of Light, 05-22-05 A.N.M., 9:24 AM (After Nightmare Moon) Rainbow Dash blinked as she woke from her trance. Stretching, the cyan pegacorn looked just beyond the cairn she had made her camp in. She groaned as she saw what was awaiting her. “Great, this just keeps getting better and better,” she grumbled. “How many of these things does he have here?!” She quickly broke camp after eating the bags of peanuts and cashews she’d sat aside hours earlier. She then flared her wings, filling them with moonlight. “Have at thee!” she shouted as she launched herself at the waiting misborn. The next several hours went by in a blur as Rainbow Dash cut down the innumerable eldritch horrors that were pursuing her. With hoof, wing, spell, and blade, she made short work of all comers. She took a break sometime after two o’clock, having found a cave similar to the first one. This gave her time to rest, as polycasting over an extended period was taxing. Her shifting mana didn’t make any of this easier. After a far too short two hours, she started on her journey yet again. This time however, she wasn’t encountering any misborn. “I know better to think that they’ve given up; this had the feeling of being a trap.” Rainbow’s suspicion was confirmed as dark red crystalline structures punched out of the ground. One of them grazed her hoof; she yelped in pain at the deadly edge. She soon found herself trapped. “Well well, the pigeon thinks she’s my better,” said a smooth voice. Rainbow turned to see a shadow-wraith standing along the side. “I’m looking forward to this; it’s been a long time since I had a pegacorn to play with.” Rainbow’s next few minutes were spent in pain. In order to cope, she briefly closed her eyes. Suddenly, she felt nothing but the aches she had been dealing with since she started fighting. Her anger rising at the deception, Rainbow’s eyes snapped open, glowing bright white. “Your gonna need more than smoke and mirrors to get me!” Rainbow’s horn flared as bright as her eyes, blasting a wave of blessed moonlight all around her. The shadow-wraith barely got out of the way in time, only to have a crystalline sword chop him in half. Rainbow snorted as she saw three more galloping in. “More clowns.” This time, she threw her stave in a twirling arc; the spinning weapon sliced all three into bits which quickly dispersed. Rainbow jerked her head up at the sound of flapping wings. Three winged shadow wraiths were inbound. Snorting, Rainbow cast a modified version of the spell she had used to create her bandolier on the crystalline structure nearest her. Several spikes protruded, swiftly morphing into crystalline versions of her sword. She used these to chop off the wings of the three inbound wraiths before using her sword to finish them off. Galloping hooves heralded the arrival of more wraiths. Rainbow crouched, summoning a massive amount of pegacorn mana into her hooves. As the four dozen wraiths came in, she launched herself from a standing start into super-sonic speeds. The resulting ground-bound Sonic Rainboom tore through the entire group as well as shattered the crystalline forms. Rainbow Dash landed on a ridge to the north of that confrontation. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I have to find whoever it was that sent that Yogg-saron wannabe yesterday. I hope that my guess as to who it is is wrong.” She then flew off, going ever further towards the center of this strange Realm. Hours Later... Rainbow slumped in exhaustion in another cairn three leagues from where she had been ambushed. She had been fighting almost non-stop for hours, only getting a break here and there when caught in one trap or another. As much as she dreaded what awaited her, Rainbow realized that meditation wasn’t going to suffice. She needed sleep. Rainbow sighed before summoning her saddlebags. She then set about building herself a far more secure camp. Several minutes passed before she was satisfied. Her tent was set up; every inch glowed with the mana that she had filled the weft with. She had altered it in a manner taught to her by one of the Guardians. Three runic circles were inscribed around her camp; each one was keyed to a different element. She had also surrounded the camp with a grid of sealing scrolls. Rainbow sighed in relief as she was finally able to take a break. She then pulled out a scroll that had a sleep spell written on it. “As much as it pains me, I’m not gonna be able to sleep without this. I hope it does what was promised.” She cast the spell, then lay down. She soon fell into a dreamless sleep that would last until morning. The only thought in her mind was the same one that had been in the back of her mind throughout her journey through this strange land; I wonder how Twilight is doing. I hope she hasn’t given up, thinking I’m truly gone. Rainbow had little idea how faint a hope that was. Twilight gazed listlessly at the object held in her hooves. She had forgotten that she had placed one of Rainbow Dash’s shed coverts in one of her books. Her intent had been to study the leylines that ran down its length, once things had settled down. Instead, all she could do was picture everything they’d gone through. Everything, from moments during the earlier days of their friendship, to her realization that she was crushing quite heavily on the speedster. For the last two days, Twilight recalled Rainbow’s last words over and over again. She knew that if one more day passed, then she knew that there was no hope; Rainbow Dash wasn’t coming back. Still, something deep inside of her told her otherwise. That confession of Love woke a bond between them; the same bond that tied them both to the Tree of Harmony. She knew deep inside that Rainbow’s Loyalty wouldn’t let her fail. Because of this, Twilight refused to give in to despair. However, she had little will left in her broken heart. She only had enough sense about herself to eat and drink; even burying her business was more taxing than she was willing to go through. She still did so however; she was too neat a pony to do otherwise. A festering pool of shadows crept towards the heartbroken alicorn. Twilight suddenly scowled; her irises turned into slits as she burned the shadows with a wave of dark purple mana. Twilight gazed listlessly at the setting sun. Tears rolled down her muzzle as her traitorous mind whispered the odds of Rainbow’s survival. Not really wanting to, she made her way towards her tent. “Maybe I can get some sleep tonight. By the Blessing of Serenity, I sure need it.” The purple mare flopped down heavily. She only had enough energy to grab a bowl of trail mix she had left to soak. Twilight had spent the first several hours after Rainbow had been taken crying. To have her greatest hopes confirmed in such a way was almost too much to bear. After several hours, she was able to collect herself and make a crude camp. She had had the foresight to set aside bowls filled with trail mix to soak, only adding the water a couple of hours before she was ready to eat. As she lay there, Twilight once more wished that she had just called off the journey. Fresh tears fell as she was finally able to drift into a listless sleep. Off to the side, a hidden pool of shadows waited for the next sunset; that would be the opportune time to strike. Equus, Realm of Light, 05-24-05 A.N.M., 10:27 AM (After Nightmare Moon) Rainbow Dash trotted quietly past a pair of looming crystal columns as she made her way into a large valley. Even though they looked natural, Rainbow knew that they were anything but. The day before had been more of the same; dodging her way past crystalline formations as she hunted various eldritch horrors. The only real difference was that some of the stronger ones kept reforming until she shattered a piece of what looked like crystallized alicorn near their center. The piece of horn was almost always lodged either in the vicinity of the ribs, or just behind the horn. Those were child’s play compared to the five behemoths she’d fought. She very nearly lost a wing when she fought the first one. It took the surprising discovery of one of her sword’s chief abilities to finally take the thing down. Rainbow had come to find that the sword was tied to this strange land. Because of that fact, she was able to drain shadow and darkness mana from crystalline formations. Those were often the source of power for whatever she was fighting at the time. Rainbow had quickly realized that she was being herded. Towards the end of the day, she had tried to fly past the ridge, but quickly found her way blocked by pillars of dark red crystal. Nothing she did was able to cut them; not only that, the creatures surrounding them constantly shifted form, making it impossible to vanquish them. Rainbow’s musings on the apparent trap continued as she made her way past the pools of twisting shadows that dotted the trail. “He’s not even trying to hide them any more,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. A crackling to her left sounded. Without even bothering to look up, Rainbow blocked a bolt of dark mana with a conjured shield. More bolts were fired from all around her. Rainbow snorted, and let off a wave of concussive force. She nodded in terse satisfaction as the hidden wraiths screeched. Rainbow continued on her way, dodging around fallen stalagmites. As she was about to pass yet another pair of pillars, a snarling figure jumped from the side. Rainbow dodged, launching her sword at the creature. The creature writhed as it was slammed into a nearby crystal fragment.. To Rainbow’s surprise, it morphed into one of the pools that dotted the trail. Writhing bands of shadow mana crawled almost all the way to the hilt of the sword. Rainbow snarled as her levitation field along the blade was cancelled out. Before she was able to launch herself over to retrieve her sword, a pool of shadow began to bubble from underneath a rock right a her forehooves. Within moments, she was completely surrounded by the corrupted energy. Writhing bands of shadow energy flowed around her, tying her down. The heaviest concentration was around her fetlocks and along her wings. She snarled impotently as she channeled mana into her horn. Before she could shape the mana properly, the writhing energy found its way to her horn, cutting off her last line of defense. The only thing the mana avoided was her stave. At this point however, it was little better than a blunt instrument. “Well well, it seems as though you are every bit as predictable as any pegacorn I have ever fought Miss Dash,” said a darkly handsome baritone. Rainbow turned her head towards one of the other pools. The pool of shadows shifted into a form that had been haunting Rainbow for months. Sombra, the King of Shadows smiled sardonically as he gazed at the trapped pegacorn. “Oh, do continue to struggle; it is quite amusing to see you fight against what you have no hope of breaking. That trap is feeding off your mana Miss Dash. It would take the power of the alicorn tied to this Sealed Realm of Light to break it now. Such a pity that you came here instead of her.” The stallion stalked over to the struggling mare. He gazed at her in a hungry manner as he continued to taunt Rainbow. “Oh, you have no idea how much I am looking forward to this. You have caused no end of trouble for my Master. It would have ben so much simpler to just follow the trail you were supposed to; instead, you and that purple dyke could not follow a simple set of directions.” He shook his head in mock sadness. “Ah well, it matters little.” “Did you really think that a mare that has only been a pegacorn for a couple of months would stand a chance against myself, let alone my Master? If so, you were quite foolish.” Sombra turned away and walked towards where Rainbow’s sword was lodged. He stroked the crystal almost lovingly. A pulse of shadow mana flowed from it, swiftly taking shape as a dark sword. Sombra held the blade parallel to the road, calling all of the loose pools of shadows to it. Rainbow stopped struggling as the bands around her tightened. “Think Rainbow Dash, think! There’s got to be a way!” Rainbow went over everything that Sombra had said to her, looking for some way to break out. One way stood out; the trap was designed to hold a pegacorn. With that realization, Rainbow knew what she had to do. She focused inward, concentrating on her wellspring. She felt along its length, feeling where the energy flowed. Where it met her legs and hooves, she aligned it with the earth beneath. Where it touched the wind around her wings, she let it flow as naturally as her old pegasus mana. Where it flowed to her horn, she mentally shaped it as she did whenever she levitated something. Earth pony, pegasi, and unicorn mana built within her frame in equal amounts. Rainbow could feel the energy along her body as it continued to build. In moments, the new mana was at the same level as the pegacorn mana in her wellspring. With a shout, she embraced it. Sombra turned just as a cascade of light flared from the no-longer bound pegacorn. The stallion snarled as he realized that Rainbow Dash had just reached full apotheosis. He snarled, casting several bolts of shadow mana that morphed into crystal swords. Rainbow was ready however. She blocked each one with blades of her own. Sombra snarled. Pointing his horn at the ground, he called on the festering shadow mana beneath the valley. Rainbow’s eyes flared white as she linked herself fully to the ground beneath her. The pommel of her sword glowed as its shape altered to a stylized version of her cutie mark. Sombra growled at that, and pulled the sword into the fragment. Before he was able to do more, the fragment of crystal burst as light mana flared from within it. Rainbow swiped her horn several times; blades of pure kinetic energy cut every crystal formation that surrounded them. This released all of the trapped shadow energy. Sombra swung his formed blade at the alicorn. This time, she simply stopped it with her stave before calling her own sword to her. Sombra pulled back and made another pass; this time, Rainbow parried with her fully bound sword. Sombra’s blade shattered. Rainbow’s eyes flared as she conjured a whip of white energy. She swung it at the dark stallion, wrapping it around his horn. Jerking her head back, Rainbow used her earth pony strength to rip the horn right out of his head. His form then collapsed. Rainbow brought the horn to a point before her. It started to dissolve, before too long, all that was left was a tiny sliver of alicorn. She snorted. “Even when fighting a trapped opponent, Sombra is still a coward.” Rainbow realized that Sombra could pas his essence to any of his shades. She snorted as she realized that chasing them down was precisely what he wanted. She decided to try something else. Closing her eyes, the cyan alicorn linked herself fully to what she now realized was the Realm of Light. With this link, she was able to sense every single one of Sombra’s Shades. Instead of striking them down, she used the light of the Realm itself to pull the shards in each one towards where she was. Faster than light, shards began to join with the one she was holding up. In a few moments, she had a small sphere of them. Rainbow opened her eyes, focusing on several points around the sphere. Bands of scintillating rainbow mana started to wrap themselves around the sphere as Rainbow channeled the power of Harmony. The bands formed a latticework; once the sphere was surrounded, she let it close inward, crushing all of the shards with the might of Harmony itself. Rainbow then turned her gaze to her sword. “So, your name is Aura,” she said. She smiled happily. “Nice to meet you! Shall we go back and finish this?” The sword chimed in agreement. Rainbow sheathed her, then launched herself straight up. Rainbow turned her trajectory north before launching herself at the speed of light towards the mountain she had seen in the distance. She hit it within seconds, punching right through it into the hidden chamber that linked this Realm to Mount Everfest. She was in a hurry; there was another Shade torturing Twilight that needed vanquishing. Twilight dodged yet another tentacle as it tried to wrap itself around her barrel. She snarled, firing a kinetic bolt at it. She blocked two more with kinetic barriers. This day had started out much like the last one. Twilight had been standing next to the pool, pining for her lost love. All of a sudden, a pool of shadow mana had flowed from under a rock and surrounded her. Before she was able to break away, she was pulled down into a chamber deep in the mountain. She had spent the last several minutes dodging attack after attack. She did manage to get in more than her fair share of hits in, but the eldritch horror showed no signs that the attack had even phased it. Twilight glared at the beast. “I am seriously not in the mood! If I wasn’t concerned with potentially burning through to the mantle, I’d blast you with a pure beam of Sol’s energy!” The creature only snarled in response. Twilight turned as she saw a bright glow along the side. A blast caused a circular portion of the wall to blow outward as an arrow of light hit the monster midships. The wave of energy that flowed off the arrow burned the aura of shadow that surrounded it. Blades of cyan light flashed lengthwise against the crystalline stalactites and stalagmites. The crumbled. Before the beast was able to reconstitute itself, bands of light energy wrapped themselves around its barrel, cannons, neck, and horn. Twilight saw none of this. All she could see was the form that was standing between her and the beast. Rainbow Dash glared at the shade, her irises slitted. “Well, are you gonna say something, or am I just wasting time asking?” The creature’s form finally resolved itself as a mockery of Sombra. “You have no hope in stopping my Master! He controls the darkness that lies at the heart of Equestria, and you have no chance in stopping the one that sits at that heart!” Rainbow snorted. “I’ll be sure to give the Lady Lemyre you regards.” She then ripped the horn out of its head. Bringing it forward, she struck it with the head of her stave. The large jewel flared bright white as blessed Light burned the shard within. Shadows began to drip from the walls. Rainbow flew over to where Twilight had been standing. As she landed, her inner Light caused the shadows surrounding them to brighten. A barrier of light formed around the pair. It shrunk into a mote of light that flashed upward faster than light as the cave collapsed. The small plateau was silent other than the bubbling pool of dark mana that sat next to the copse of trees. A mote of light appeared above it. The silence was broken as the mote flared into a barrier of light. The barrier burned away all of the corrupted shadow mana that was present. It soon faded, leaving a pair of embracing ponies. Rainbow broke off the embrace. “I’m not going anywhere Twi; we’ll get back to this just as soon as I finish tying up a few loose ends, ‘kay?” Twilight nodded, a look of happy shock on her muzzle. Rainbow trotted over to the altar. Drawing Aura, she swiped along the top of it. At the same time, she cast three kinetic blades going downward onto the statue in the center. Both flared as they fell apart, no longer able to retain their shape without any twisted energy to draw upon. Rainbow pointed her horn skyward, firing a bolt of pure Light into the storm clouds. The sky flared as the Aurora spread itself from horizon to horizon. Where its light touched, the land changed. Fields of Crystal Berries revealed themselves. The Crystal Lake once more started to flow. Small towns and villages appeared here and there. Within a very short time, the Light of Aurora Unsealed the rest of the Crystal Empire. Rainbow Dash turned her gaze to where Twilight was standing. Before she could say anything, the purple mare launched herself at her fellow alicorn. They went down in a tangle of purple and cyan limbs. Rainbow soon found herself on the ground with Twilight on top of her. Rainbow blushed at the look in Twilight’s eyes. “I think you owe me an apology, Miss Dash; what took you so long?” Rainbow grinned around her blush. “I got caught up fighting shadows.” “Well, you’re late for your reward.” Twilight then bent down and kissed her. No more was said; the kiss of two hearts that had finally found each other said it all.