//------------------------------//
// South Gale 
// Story: The Order of Koaxia 
// by HellRyden 
//------------------------------//

This is the continuation of the story of six mares who have yet to realize their own destinies.

After admitting Rainbow Dash to the hospital, Twilight Sparkle discovered that her friend’s body was now host to an arcane thunderstorm of energy that had previously belonged to one of the presences that had been stalking the Bearers of the Elements. Before she could investigate further, however, she received a visit from Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, the monarchs coming to inform her and the other Bearers of the threat that they potentially faced.

Secrets were uncovered, and forbidden knowledge was made known as the Princesses taught them the truth behind the bloodiest period of Equestrian history; of what really happened in the ages before and during Discord’s reign.

Now, with the burden of this new knowledge, Twilight delves further into the mystery of what happened to Rainbow Dash, uncovering a web of intrigue which depths she cannot possibly begin to fathom...





“The Order of Koaxia”


Chapter 5


South Gale


~



Glaring down critically at the notes that she had been scrawling for the better part of the night, Twilight’s brow furrowed in confusion as she continued to jot down what she had learnt from her brief forays into Rainbow Dash’s head.

The facts she had managed to glean were hazy at best, and downright incomprehensible at worst. However, sifting through the cyan pegasus’ experiences had yielded a select few, very interesting facts. Chief among these was the identity of the mysterious assailant, a strange-looking, hairless ape of some sort, clad in bizarre clothing and calling himself a ‘human’ by the name of ‘Melchior’.

The fight itself between the two had been mind-blowing - Rainbow Dash and her opponent had been moving at speeds almost imperceptible to the pony eye, with flashes of lightning sparking between the two every time they clashed; Twilight had barely been able to follow their movements at all.

Though the details were nothing but an indistinct blur, Melchior had obviously dominated the fight. Yet, in spite of the impossible odds, Rainbow Dash’s tenacity was nothing if not incredible, the cyan pegasus refusing to ever drop or give up no matter what her human opponent threw at her.

As far as the scholar could tell, this strange being looked nothing like the demons that Celestia had shown to them through her illusory visions of the bloodiest part Equestria’s obscured history. However, Twilight knew that appearances could be deceiving.

After all, there had been no disguised viciousness with which Melchior had attacked Rainbow Dash, carving up her body with that nasty sword of his and breaking her bones in so many places... Yet the more she replayed the visions of the fight in her head, the more the lavender unicorn got the feeling that Melchior had actually been testing Rainbow Dash for something.

For all the blows that he had landed, none of them had been fatal. True, all of the injuries he inflicted tended towards being either debilitating or disabling, but the creature had never attacked with the intention to truly kill with a single strike. In fact, the golden-haired ‘human’ seemed to be hardly even trying in the fight - Twilight suspected that if he had truly desired to kill Rainbow Dash, he could have easily done so within the first few seconds of encountering her.

Again, the fears that the transfer of energy had somehow transplanted his memories and personality into the cyan pegasus’ body as well, overwriting Rainbow Dash’s own mind, flickered through the scholar’s mind. Gritting her teeth, Twilight abruptly shook her head, desperately dispelling those thoughts as swiftly as they had arrived and forcing herself to focus on the facts in front of her.

There was still one thing that had stood out, though - something that she just couldn’t figure out.

As her quill floated idly over the parchment where she had inscribed her notes, she eyed her findings on that one part of Rainbow Dash’s memories that she still had not been able to understand, despite all the piecing together she had done - the one phrase that Melchior had uttered whose presence made absolutely no sense at all.

“Kirin...” The lavender mare pursed her lips in thought, her mind attempting to draw a logical conclusion and coming up absolutely empty. “But... isn’t that a Neighponese mythical creature? I can understand having one language being in common across worlds, that being common Equestrian for the sake of communication, but how can they possibly know Neighponese as well?”

It just didn’t make sense... Yet somehow, there the facts were lying in front of her, plain as day. Apparently, the new arrivals from the foreign world somehow had knowledge of the Neighpon province’s native dialect, and not only that, apparently some of their... ‘spells’ seemed to require an incantation of some sort to be spoken in that particular dialect as well in order to be cast.

Her mind briefly considered the possibility that Melchior’s own world had some sort of Neighponese equivalent, and by some form of impossibly cosmic coincidence, it just happened to be exactly the same as the native dialect of one of Equestria’s eastern provinces.

The cynic in her immediately dismissed that notion, before her inner logicist smacked the cynic upside the head and forcibly redirected her attention to something more pressing than the reasons for why these strangers from another world knew Neighponese - namely, exactly what that strange incantation Melchior had chanted before hurling his huge thunder spell at Rainbow Dash meant.

If she could puzzle it out, perhaps she could reverse-engineer the spell and figure out just what she was being faced with here!

A few minutes of picking at her brains however availed her practically nothing - honestly, "disappear with the thunder" didn't sound so much like an incantation as it did sound like a pre-mortem one liner being delivered by a teenage colt who was trying too hard to be cool. The lavender unicorn glared critically at her findings, connected the dots to form a conclusion, and promptly slammed her forehead down onto her desk.

“Great,” she pressed her hoof to the bridge of her snout, muttering exasperatedly to herself. “Not only are we being attacked by a sneaky little group of aliens from another world, they’re their race’s equivalent of preening, posturing stallions, to boot! Honestly, screaming out attack names; aren’t colts supposed to have outgrown that ‘By The Power of Grayskull’ phase by the time they’re twelve?”

Her head was pounding from just how long she had spent sitting at her desk peering at her papers, and the sheer ridiculousness of what she had just discovered wasn’t helping her headache either - she needed some coffee, and badly.

Ugh. Men.

… Wait.

The lavender mare, in the middle of walking towards her kitchen, suddenly froze in place mid-step, her pupils shrunken in shock.

… Stars above, where had that word come from?

Shaking her head vigorously, Twilight tried to get her suddenly scrambled thoughts in order, trying to get back on track the train of thought that had been so thoroughly derailed by the sudden appearance of that unexpected word.

She tried to push it out of her mind, dismissing it as nothing as she set about making a cup of coffee for herself. Tried, and failed. Like some kind of persistent ghost flittering around the edges of her vision, it lingered at the edges of her mind, maddeningly teasing her with the enigma of its existence and compelling her more and more to go and find out more about it.

Unable to dismiss it any longer, Twilight’s mental reflexes immediately took over, and, moving on autopilot, she did the first thing she always did any time she encountered something that she didn’t know about - drop whatever she was doing at the moment and go straight to her books.

The lavender unicorn set the half-made mug of coffee down on her kitchen table and immediately cantered right for her bookshelves... Only that as she arrived in front of her first bookshelf, she realized that there was no relevant bookshelf for her to peruse.

She had intended to simply remark to herself with great exasperation on how stallions obsessed themselves with that crazy, macho manure. Instead, that strange word, ‘men’, had come to her straight out of left field and completely blindsided her, leaving her with absolutely no idea on where it had come from.

Standing there uselessly in front of her shelves for several moments,Twilight found herself so completely confounded that she had no idea where to even start looking. Just as she had racked her brains to the point that she was almost ready to start smacking her head on the wall, a flash of insight occurred to her that was so darned obvious in hindsight that she almost slapped herself for it.

The first things she did was retreat to her room, pull out a cushion from the nearby sofa, and plop down on it, her eyes closed. It wouldn’t have done for Spike to see her ‘spacing out’ in front of the book shelves, though he wouldn’t have really known what Twilight was doing simply because his senses for the arcane hadn’t started developing yet.

If she was right in her deductions, that new fount of subconscious knowledge could have come from just one place only... a place in her that had not even existed until but a day ago.

Shuttering her mind to the outside world, the lavender mare turned her gaze inward, and her vision turned into a kaleidoscopic burst of colors as she beheld her body’s ley line system for what it truly was.

The first thing that she noticed was that it was a lot brighter in here than it had been yesterday.

The tiny ray of light that had burned brilliantly within her breast but two days ago when she had first interacted with the diamond had grown - now, it was a bursting, shining beam that all but blinded her whenever she tried to look directly at it. The light already enveloped more than half of the ley lines on her chest, and she could feel it growing, feeding off her body’s latent magical energy...

Yet despite this, she felt no disgust, or horror. Because it didn’t feel anything like a parasite - if anything, the light felt like it was a part of her, a part of her that was growing... maturing. The light warmed and comforted all it touched, bringing with it feelings of hope, of life, and all the joys and wonders that came with it. For this... there was no way she could possibly regard such a thing as a parasite.

Her mind briefly registered a small pulse of concern that she ought to have been afraid of some strange energy taking over her body, but she ignored it - she was far too busy revelling in the warm radiance of the light, bathing in its glorious, comforting embrace, and completely forgetting what she was even doing there in the first place.

When Spike would next enter Twilight’s bedroom the next day, he would have found the lavender unicorn laid out on the floor atop a cushion fast asleep, a contented smile spread across her face.





Beneath the covers of her bed in her boutique, an alabaster white unicorn shivered madly.

Rarity had no idea why, but the night had been absolutely chilly.

The fashionista had rolled herself up to the tenth degree in all her thickest, warmest fabrics, yet nothing seemed to be able to stave off the frigid cold that bit through her skin and all the way down to her very bones.

Sometimes the chills were barely even noticeable, hardly keeping her from carrying out her daily activities - other times, they got so bad that she could barely even move legs that had virtually turned blue and stiff from just how cold she felt.

The fashionista had barely been able to complete even half of her planned itinerary for the previous night, and she had ended up suffering a huge backlog in several of her projects. It had become so bad, she was barely even able to move her own hooves and spark her own horn, let alone use them to dexterously manipulate the fabrics and sewing needles that she was so well-known for working with as though they were an extension of her.

As she reached a shivering hoof out from her covers and peeked her head out just to take a brief look outside her windows, a flash of irritation shot through her as she spied the birds perched on the branch of the tree outside, twittering cheerily in the warmth of the rising sun of the spring day... while she was stuck inside here, wrapped up in all manner of fabrics as though the frigid temperatures of winter had decided to make her body their permanent residence.

Celestia, what was causing these chills?

Rarity shook her head blearily as she tried to focus her thoughts on something other than just how cold it was. She would have tried to go to Twilight’s library in an effort to find out just what was happening to her, but the latest bout of shivers that rippled through her body had sapped her energy to the point that the only thing she could do was simply huddle up in her bed, wrapping her covers around her trembling form.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the shivers subsided, and Rarity regained enough semblance of mind to climb out from below her covers, her muscles stiff and sore from having moved so little from their cramped positions for close to half an hour.

‘All right, that’s enough!’ the unicorn thought to herself vehemently as she quickly grabbed a scarf nearby and threw it around her neck, determined to push past this mysterious bout of shivers and get around to completing the work schedule she had set for herself today. 

‘I am not going to let some mysterious illness get the best of me out of nowhere! I’m going to go to Twilight’s, get a quick remedy, and get on with replenishing my gemstone stocks! Perhaps little Spikey-wikey would like to come along... He always did like accompanying me on gemstone hunts, and he always makes himself so useful!’

Nodding satisfiedly to herself, the white unicorn quickly trotted out of her boutique and broke out into a canter as she stepped outside into Ponyville’s streets proper, determined to reach her friend’s library before yet another bout of shivers hit her.

Nothing more than a slightly drafty feeling washed over her as she cantered across the streets of Ponyville, and by the time she reached the hollowed-out tree that was Twilight’s library she was finally starting to feel almost normal again - that is, until she raised a hoof to knock on her friend’s door.

The temperature of the air around her suddenly felt like it had dropped ten degrees, and Rarity almost froze up on the spot. A discomfited hiss escaped through her suddenly clenched teeth, and her entire body shuddered like mad as she instinctively huddled in closer to herself.

Almost entirely on instinct, the seamstress shot a glance over her shoulder, and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a swish of sapphire-blue cloth disappear behind a nearby building. Beyond that brief flash of movement, the streets were deserted as they normally were at this time of day, most ponies already busy with carrying out their day-to-day jobs and routines.

A brief shiver totally different from the ones that had been bothering her all day suddenly travelled down her spine, and the unicorn mare quickly shook her head to dispel any paranoid thoughts before they could take root. 

No, she couldn’t possibly have been followed around today.

Nevertheless, nervousness lent her foreleg speed as she rapped on Twilight’s door a little faster than she needed to, and the moment the door open she quickly slipped inside, ducking past a confused, small purple dragonling.

“Hey, what the- Oh! R-Rarity!” Spike stammered in shock at her sudden appearance as the purple-maned unicorn quickly shoved the door shut before he could even move to close it.

“Oh! Why, hello there, Spike!” The white unicorn gave the little dragon an absent-minded pat on the head as her gaze flickered about nervously. “Say, would you happen to know if Twilight is in?”

“Eh? Twilight?” Spike seemed to have trouble getting his thoughts in order with his sudden close proximity with the mare of his dreams, and he paused for a full three seconds before he actually began to speak again. “Oh, right! She’s uhh, I think I last saw her sleeping in her room - why, what’s up?”

“Oh, it’s nothing to worry about, Spikey-wikey, just a little-” The unicorn was suddenly cut off as a brief spell of cold slithered over her again, and she shivered in place for a second. “A little thing that I have a couple of questions about for her.”

Spike gave her an inquisitive look, obviously not buying the full story. “Umm... all right then? Rarity, you’re looking a little cold there - are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m-” Another chill passed over her, and this time she concealed it behind a nervous smile as she took in an inaudible hiss of breath to brace herself against the cold. “I’m fine, Spike, don’t worry about me. I’ll just be along now - oh, but do stay around for a little while! I need your help with another gem hunt, but I’ll have to speak with Twilight first...”

The little dragon’s expression lit up with joy at the prospect of spending an entire day on another gem hunt with his beloved, and Spike’s eyes practically went all googly as he uttered a half-coherent reply of assent - Rarity totally missed it as she trotted right past him and up the stairs to Twilight’s room, knocking on the lavender mare’s door to announce her arrival.

“Twilight!” Rarity called out as she pulled the door open and peeked her head inside her friend’s room, looking around curiously. “Are you in here?”

A quick glance around Twilight’s bedroom availed her a most peculiar sight that she had not expected to see: the young scholar’s bed was neatly made and untouched, yet said scholar was fast asleep on the floor at the foot of her bed atop a cushion, the strangest of contented smiles spread across her expression, looking positively radiant.

The sound of Rarity’s voice jolted her out of her slumber, and Twilight immediately jerked slightly in place, blinking sleepily as she groggily raised her head.

“Huh? Wha- Rarity?” Twilight let out a small yawn as she rubbed the remnants of sleep out of her eyes, and she slowly rose to her hooves. “Oh, nice to see you and all, but, what are you doing here? Wow, I just had the strangest... most pleasant dream, I just... can’t recall what it was about though...”

“I’m sure it was wonderful, Twilight, darling,” Rarity reassured her friend almost reflexively as she stepped up next to her, placing a hoof on her shoulder and subtly guiding her out of her room and towards the many bookshelves of the library. “But I really do need your knowledge and expertise rather urgently on something right now - something strange that’s been affecting me since last night.”

“Strange?” Twilight’s expression immediately became analytical and critical, and she gazed at Rarity inquisitively as she stepped out of her bedroom and into the library proper with the fashionista. “Hang on, what exactly do you mean by that?”

“Well, it’s sort of like-” A brief shudder against another sudden spell of cold overcame her, and Rarity gave the unicorn mare standing before her an expression that spoke volumes. “... Well, yes. That.”

“Shivers?” Twilight arched a skeptical eyebrow as she raised a hoof to press it against her friend’s forehead. “You’re sure you’re not just catching a- Oh, yeah, you definitely are not just catching a fever.”

From what she could feel, Rarity’s body temperature couldn’t have possibly been more normal. She looked positively hale and healthy, with only one exception: every few seconds, the fashionista was overcome by shivers, trembling as though she were standing in the midst of a blizzard in nothing but her fur.

Twilight found this to be highly odd, to say the least - her brain was already working at express speed to arrive at a deduction on just what it meant.

“You...” the alabaster white unicorn began hesitantly, her voice low and soft. “You don’t think this has anything to do with that sapphire I touched the other day... do you?”

Celestia’s protege opened her mouth to speak, but found herself pausing. She realized she had to choose her next few words carefully. After all, she still had very little concrete information on this - most of it was still based on educated guesses and conjecture, but Rarity’s expression had grown heavy with worry. She looked like she could use all the reassurance she could get.

“Well...” Twilight began slowly. “It’s highly possible, but I need more information to be sure... If it’s all right with you...”

The alabaster white unicorn bit her lip nervously, giving Twilight a pensive stare, and after a few moments, she finally gave a hesitant nod. “Do it.”

“All right then - just relax, this is going to tingle a bit...”

The purple unicorn’s horn flared, and both the mares’ eyes glazed over as their senses mutually dove into the spell. Hopefully, if all went as planned, this would reveal just what was wrong with the insides of Rarity’s ley line system.

Twilight had been expecting, as was the norm, mental feedback that would present itself to her in the form of visual data. What she did not expect was the sensation of a blinding sleet of snow slamming into her like a physical wall.

Freezing, biting cold snap-froze her entire body until she could barely even move her limbs. It took her a tremendous force of effort to simply keep her metaphysical eyes open, just so that she could comprehend the information that her spell was feeding her.

As she observed the activity going on within Rarity’s ley lines, she realized that she wasn’t the only one who had experienced unexpected changes.

The tiny breath of wintery fog that had once flittered aimlessly around Rarity’s ley lines had bloomed into a full-blown gale of icy wind, hurtling around like a miniature blizzard. Tiny bits of frozen ice crystals glittered in the corners of her conduits of magical energy like miniature encrusted gems, lending it a sense of unearthly, otherworldly beauty.

Another wave of biting cold washed over Twilight, ravaging her senses and nearly blinding her metaphysically, the chills so intense that they blocked out almost damn near everything else. Taking in a sharp hiss of breath, the librarian immediately ended the spell, breaking contact with Rarity and pulling her own senses back into her own body.

Blinking to clear her eyes and restore her normal vision, the lavender mare opened her eyes to see Rarity giving her a troubled look, one that spoke volumes about how unsettled she was.

“It’s spreading, isn’t it?” the unicorn asked softly, and Twilight swallowed as she slowly nodded her head. A strange lump that felt oddly like trepidation built up in her throat, and the young scholar experienced a most peculiar sensation - of just how small and insignificant she was next to what was happening around her - she was way out of her depth right now.

“It’s happening to me too,” the lavender mare admitted, her eyebrows knitted together in a frustrated frown. “I don’t know what’s going on, Rarity - this is all just so new to me, I’ve never seen anything like this before! I just can’t figure it out...”

A white hoof suddenly laid itself on her shoulder, cutting her frustrated rant off, and she looked up to see her fashionista friend giving her a comforting smile.

“It’ll be all right, Twilight,” Rarity spoke sincerely. “Whatever it is that’s going on here, I’m very sure that you’ll be able to find out more about it. I have faith in you, that you’ll be able to get to the bottom of this.”

“That’s just it, Rarity.” Celestia’s prized student gave Rarity a weary, resigned look. “I have a feeling that I’m not going to find out until it’s too late.”





Few things could possibly unsettle Rarity - the top two items on her admittedly short list were cockroaches and crying babies... well, a crying cockroach baby would probably have been truly terrible to behold, but that was besides the point.

However, what she had found out about what was happening to her ley lines from Twilight was not helping to calm her down at all - in fact, the knowledge that some sort of cold energy was freezing her entire body from the inside out did very little for her nerves.

The point was, right now, after her little visit to Twilight’s, she was now out on a routine gem hunt out in the Diamond Dog badlands with Spike. Luckily, after that little fiasco involving that little pack of mongrels who had made the mistake of abducting her, Diamond Dogs of all sorts made it a point to avoid her like the plague. And yet somehow, despite the assurances that she would be left alone, she could still feel an off-color sensation flitter across the back of her neck every now and then. Though she did her best to ignore it, the feeling remained persistent, a paranoid flutter of irrational fear that nagged at the back of her head as she roamed the desolation with Spike.

It almost felt as though something was stalking them from behind just out of sight, making her highly reluctant to glance over her shoulder out of fear that she might see something she didn’t want to.

All in all, a series of very unsettling emotions.

Already Rarity had caught sight of several ghostly flickers, always a swish of sapphire blue cloth that would disappear out of the edges of her vision before she could catch a proper glimpse of it. She had not breathed a word about it to Spike, not wanting to spook or upset her young companion, but the repeated sightings had made the fashionista increasingly jittery and nervous. Whatever it was out there, and she could feel its approach, sense its intent.

Still, at least she had managed to hide her distress from her companion. Even now, the baby dragon eagerly leapt forward into the dirt, his claws a blur as he dug furiously into the spot that Rarity’s gem-seeking spell had highlighted with a bright sky-blue glow. Meanwhile, the unicorn mare cast her gaze about anxiously, unable to shake off the oppressive feeling that had settled over her like a heavy cloak.

Something was closing in, and fast.

As Spike returned to her with his latest handful of jewels, dumping them into the cart that he had been tugging along, he gave the beautiful mare next to him a concerned look.

“Hey, Rarity, are you all right? You’re looking a little nervous there.”

The young dragon certainly didn’t expect Rarity to suddenly jump a full foot into the air, clutching a hoof to her heaving breast as eyes that were wide fear darted about jumpily.

“Oh!” the fashionista exclaimed breathlessly. “Well, I’m just feeling a little jumpy out here - this is where I got ambushed by those Diamond Dogs from before, after all. Just a couple of dreadful memories resurfacing is all!”

Spike gave Rarity a raised eyebrow, totally unconvinced. “But... I thought they never bothered you again after that time you totally broke them when they tried to kidnap you! Those dogs should know better by now than to try and nab you again! Besides...” The young dragon puffed his chest out proudly. “I’m right here with you, and those knuckleheads will think twice before tangling with a dragon!”

As nervous as she felt, Rarity couldn’t help but feel slightly reassured by the dragonling’s little display of bravado. Of course, when push came to shove, Spike would probably be even less capable than she was at fending off potential attackers. All the same, it was the intent behind the action that mattered, and the unicorn found herself feeling greatly heartwarmed by the sincerity of Spike’s dedication to protecting her.

“I’m very sure they already do, my little Spikey-wikey.” Rarity patted the little dragon on the head, giggling slightly to herself and ignoring the dour tone his expression took on at her mention of the pet nickname she had for him. “Who else would be so suited to be my little knight in shini-”

The unicorn suddenly froze in mid-syllable, painfully and acutely aware of somepony standing behind several feet behind her where nopony had been standing a second ago.

Frigid winds, buffeting her from all directions, ice creeping through her veins, freezing her to my very bones...

Mind-numbing, freezing terror froze her to her very bones as she stood rooted to the spot, her eyes wide as dinner plates as she shook madly from horn to hoof.

Oh, sweet dear Celestia, it was here.

“Knight in shining armor?” A smooth, lilting voice sounded from behind her, a subtle grin present in its tone. “Darling, I have your shining armor right here.”





He had very little doubt in his head that Aldrick Melchior had experienced something similar when he had faced off with his own counterpart.

The man cast a steady, appraising gaze at the porcelain white unicorn mare a slight smile curling his lips. Even considering the wide-eyed, terrified stare she was shooting his way, it was clear that he had found himself a kindred spirit.

The feminine pony, with her elegantly coiffed mane of the richest purple, one whose beauty he could appreciate immensely, was trembling madly, either from fear or extreme cold - people around him had the tendency to do that even when he tried to rein in his considerable power, and he could never tell the difference between the two.

Several seconds passed, and the mare still continued to stare at him wordlessly, frozen on the spot like a deer that had been suddenly caught in the headlights of an oncoming carriage.

“Oh, come now.” He let out a little chuckle as he straightened from the rock he was leaning on. “Don’t tell me you’re going to get all mute and dumbstruck on me as well. It’s enough that I get that kind of treatment from the women on my own world because of my charming good looks, but this one too?”

That little phrase seemed to coax something out of the unicorn, and the slightest tinge of red faded across her cheeks as her mouth dropped open slightly in mute shock.

She shifted backwards slightly by half a step, and to anybody else it would have simply seemed as though she was nervously shuffling on the spot - but he wasn’t just anybody else. He could see her lower her head slightly in the direction of the tiny dragonling who was standing slightly behind her, and whisper quietly to him.

“Spike - get out of here. Go back to Ponyville, and warn Twilight.”

They probably didn’t even have the slightest idea that he had heard their whispering, despite the fact that he was standing more than twenty paces away. Years of combating the infernal forces of Hell had honed his senses and reflexes into a razor-sharp edge, just as the same went for all of his compatriots - his hearing was just that sharp.

The man had expected the little one to immediately turn tail and run. No one could have blamed him, after all. However, in a surprising show of bravery, the dragonling, who couldn’t have possibly been anything more than a child, actually stood his ground, refusing to budge despite the fear that was plainly showing in his eyes. “What? No! I’m not leaving you alone here with this... this thing!”

“Well now, I resent that!” he made a faux wince with a mock hurt tone, placing a hand on his chest. “I live, breathe, and think just like you do, thank you very much!”

“Excuse me, but I don’t believe we were talking to you!” the unicorn mare suddenly snapped at him, and then her eyes widened in surprise as she realized just what she had done, slightly stunned at her sudden reaction.

The man raised an eyebrow at that, his mouth curling into a slightly impressed smirk. Even in the face of fear, she still overcame it to stand in defence of herself and her companions - a worthy trait, but it was one he had to test to ensure it would persevere even in the most extreme of circumstances.

As he mused to himself, the mare once again shuffled slightly backwards, and gave the little dragon a hard nudge with her hind leg.

“Spike, you have to get out of here!” he heard her hiss sharply under her breath despite still being dozens of paces away. “Twilight needs to know what’s going on here so that she can send help! I’ll hold him here for as long as I can - maybe lead him on a little wild goose chase, I still remember where some of the tunnel entrances are, but you have to go now!”

“B-but Rarity, I-”

“Spike, please.” If the desperation in her eyes hadn’t been indication enough, the pleading urgency in her tone was more than enough to convince the dragonling to leave - his mouth setting itself in a grim line, little ‘Spike’ nodded and turned on his heel, sprinting off into the distance as quickly as his stubby little legs could take him.

He gave the fleeing dragon a bemused glance, and let out a small chuckle as the white unicorn mare, ‘Rarity’, immediately took a step to place herself square between him and the retreating Spike, almost as though she thought herself capable of blocking his path.

“Really, you think I wouldn’t be able to just rush past you and instantly stop him before he got any further than even twenty paces?” he deadpanned, letting just the tiniest bit of power trickle out of himself... and immediately, the temperature of the air around them dropped by ten degrees.

Rarity flinched as the cold washed over her, and her shivering almost redoubled itself in strength as she struggled to keep herself calm and composed. The sense of might and power that permeated the air was overwhelming, far outstripping her own capabilities - could she really stand up against him? Images of Rainbow Dash lying limp in her bed in the hospital flickered across her mind, and the unicorn mare shook her head violently.

No! She wasn’t going to end up like that as well!

Swallowing a nervous lump in her throat, the fashionista stood her ground, determined to go down fighting despite how obviously outclassed she was - it was the only way Spike would be able to reach Ponyville in time to get her word of warning out to Twilight...

Which was why she blinked in surprise as the stranger sighed, a peculiar expression crossing his face, and suddenly gestured with one of its strange ‘hands’. Abruptly, a tea table and a set of chairs carved completely out of ice suddenly materialized by his side, a pair of glasses of what looked like iced tea perched atop the table.

“Well, there’s actually no need for us to get off on the wrong foot, surely?” The stranger, clad in the most resplendent cloak of royal turquoise she had ever seen in her life, with his wavy, shoulder-length mane of icy blue hair curling smoothly over his eyes, gestured at one of the chairs next to him. “Care to join me for a spot of tea?”

For all her expansive vocabulary and knowledge of decorum, Rarity was so flummoxed by the sudden show of hospitality that she could only answer in a confused splutter.

"Uh... Wha-?"





Spike sprinted back to Ponyville, moving as fast as his stubby little legs could carry him.  A nagging sensation of deja vu flitted in the back of his mind as he ran, reminding him of the other time he made this desperate journey for a frighteningly similar reason.

Within minutes, the dirt path that led to his current hometown came into sight. Though his lungs were positively burning and his legs were about to turn to jelly, Spike continued to run, unwilling and unable to stop until he had the rest of the Elements of Harmony behind him, ready to run to Rarity’s rescue.

The dragonling’s heart hammered as he reached the town square, sprinting across it in a panic borne of his fear for Rarity’s fate. He was moving so quickly that he didn’t see the orange mare in his path until he charged straight into her front legs, nearly knocking them both flat to the ground.

“Whoa there, sugarcube, relax!” Spike heard a familiar country twang grace his ears. Looking up with a mixture of relief and desperation, he confirmed that he had indeed run straight into Applejack, who was staring at him with a concerned expression. “What’s the rush? What’s got you all so riled up?”

“Applejack! Thank... Celestia... here!” Spike visibly sagged in relief, so out of breath that he could barely string two words together through his panting and gasping. "Gotta hurry - Rarity... Diamond Dog lands... Big trouble!"

"What's that!?" Applejack's eyebrows shot up at that, her features furrowing in concern. "Rarity got kidnapped by them no-good two-bit varmint diamond dogs again?"

The apple farmer may not have gotten along with the fashionista in the best of ways, but at the end of the day Rarity was still her friend. There was no way she would leave her in the lurch just like that. "Spike, tell me right now, slowly - what's happening? Where is she?"

"I said... Diamond dog lands!" Spike wheezed out, his expression pained and already beginning to show hints of irritation at having to repeat himself. "Same as before! But... But not the dogs this time..."

Applejack's confusion only deepened at that, unable to understand what Spike was getting at. "Whoa, hang on a sec - whaddya mean 'not diamond dogs'?"

Spike gave her a terrified glance, and his next words opened up a yawning pit of terror in her stomach for Rarity's safety.

"Not... Not diamond dogs, Applejack... I think... It's the same guys that attacked Rainbow Dash!"





"You..." Rarity gave the stranger a suspicious glare, reluctant to budge even a single step from where she stood. "You and your... ilk - you are the ones who attacked my friend Rainbow Dash, are you not?"

"Rainbow Dash?" The stranger's expression turned quizzical. "Ah, Melchior's counterpart. So that was her name - I trust she is still alive and well?"

"She is currently lying in a hospital in a coma thanks to your friend, thank you very much!" the unicorn hissed icily, a cold rage overtaking her at just how flippantly this... this 'man' was regarding Rainbow Dash's fate! "And why would a ruffian such as yourself be concerned about my friend's condition?"

The stranger's face took on a hurt expression. "Why, Miss Rarity, you wound me with your words. I admit Melchior was always a bit... overzealous, but there's no need to associate my personality with the likes of his. We are more of two nobles who are alike, you and I."

Rarity again suddenly found herself thrown off-balance by his words, totally stunned by what she was being faced with here. She had been expecting a savage, heavy-handed brute hell-bent on either subduing or killing her, yet that clearly was not the case! Here she was, having an intellectual conversation with a strikingly handsome individual who, judging by his words and mannerisms, was eerily similar to her.

"I- wait, how do you know my name?" the fashionista found herself asking, unable to contain her curiosity.

The stranger chuckled, and flashed her a disarming smile that made her go sickeningly weak at the knees. "Oh, where are my manners? My name is Lucius Balthazar, South Gale of the Order of Koaxia. A pleasure to meet you, Miss Rarity."





“Did ya manage ta get his name at least?” Applejack asked, and Spike shook his head helplessly.

“I didn’t even think he’d have a name - Rarity sent me away the minute he appeared, she said she’d buy me time to get back to Ponyville with a warning! Please, Applejack, we’ve got to hurry and get Twilight!”

The poor young dragon was practically in a panic right now, and despite his exhaustion he was already back up on his feet, fidgeting uneasily and itching to get moving. Applejack might not have shown it, but she was just as worried for Rarity’s safety as Spike. The facts flashed through her head in a split-second, and she instantly made a decision.

Rarity’s safety was paramount, and every second that they spent here would increase the odds of her getting grievously hurt, or worse - there was simply no time for them to go get Twilight from the library, which was still at the other side of town.

“No time, Spike,” Applejack said resolutely. “You and ah are headin’ out there to find her right now, and we’re gonna bring her back safe.”





Rarity had the distinct impression that, even as fast as Spike could run, it would still take the dragonling quite some time to find Twilight and rally the others. In the meantime, she would have to stall for as long as she could. If that meant playing along with this 'Balthazar''s certainly false charade of hospitality, then she would just have to go along with it.

Taking in a breath and steeling herself, the unicorn mare stepped forward to the table and chairs where Balthazar awaited.

As she neared, the azure-cloaked man stepped forward, pulling out a chair from her side of the table and gesturing her to take a seat, that same damnably disarming smile still set upon his features. As suspicious as Rarity was of his intentions, she could not help but be thoroughly impressed by how politely the stranger was treating her.  It was especially astounding when she considered that he was probably out for her blood, just like Melchior had been for Rainbow Dash's.

A very worrying notion, because she was finding it increasingly difficult to remain on her guard around the strikingly good-looking Lucius.

“You know, you still haven’t told me just how you know my name,” Rarity said as she took a seat upon the exquisitely designed chair, which looked as though it had been carved from solid ice itself. Yet she did not even feel the slightest bit of cold as she sat her haunches upon it, her bare skin coming into direct contact with the ice.

"There are many things that you and your friends do not know, Miss Rarity. No offense,” Balthazar quickly added as Rarity’s eyes narrowed at the first part of his sentence. “It is just that the universe is a huge place, and your kind has barely even begun to look past your own world.”

“And I suppose you must have?” Rarity saw Balthazar reach for his cup of iced tea, and as her host took a little sip the fashionista decided that perhaps drinking from her own cup might be safe as well.

Her horn lit itself aglow, and her glass lifted itself off the table, encased in a baby-blue aura. Slowly, the mare brought the cup to her lips, and she took a little sip to sample the tea... only to find herself receiving a simultaneous taste of Heaven and Hell.

The flavor of the tea was exquisite, with many rich layers of flavor simultaneously flowing over her tongue like warm honey or spiced wine... yet, as flowing as the flavors were, there was absolutely nothing warm about them. The temperature of the tea was as frigid as the arctic wastes themselves. Rarity felt as though she had just swallowed an ice cube, her throat raw with the biting burn that came from extreme cold.

“Is the tea too strong?” She heard a concerned voice ask, and she looked up from her glass to see Balthazar looking at her with a bemused expression, his eyebrows raised - she must have made a face of some sort at the tea’s... ‘unique’ taste.

“No,” the unicorn answered stiffly, unwilling to show her discomfort. “So, as I was saying, I suppose then that you must have been around the universe, seeing things that we have never even glimpsed in our lives?”

Balthazar’s face turned troubled at that, and his smile faltered, his expression pensive.

“Yes, unfortunately,” the tall, lean man answered after a brief pause. “I suppose that you want to know the full story behind what’s going on here? Melchior would have not told your friend Rainbow Dash of his purpose here - as is to be expected of him. That brute always did prefer to just rush headlong into things.”

“Even if he did, I doubt we would have been able to learn anything from her, seeing that she’s in a coma right now, thanks to him,” Rarity replied testily, her voice dripping with barely concealed venom. “Is there anything in particular you’d like to tell me here?”

“Yes - that your world is in grave danger.”

Balthazar had spoken with such seriousness and conviction that Rarity could only blink in response, uncomprehending.

“E-Excuse me?”

“I do not speak in jest, Lady Rarity,” the male human before her said with an utterly serious expression upon his countenance. “My compatriots and I are here on this world on our final mission - a mission that could possibly be the only hope for salvation for the entire universe.”

“I-Well...” Rarity’s jaw simply just dropped open, its owner barely able to muster a coherent reply in the face of the mindboggling notions presented to her. “You’ll excuse me if I do not take your words at face value, but such a tale sounds positively far-fetched.”

“And I wouldn’t blame you for that,” Balthazar said dryly, a wry smile gracing his features. “The things that we have seen... It would make most mortal souls doubt their own sanity. When we inherited these powers from our mentors, it changed us, made us more than what we once were... more than just human.”

As he spoke, Balthazar’s expression grew somewhat wistful, looking as if he was recalling a pleasant past memory, and Rarity eyed the human curiously, studying him closely.

“But enough about that!” he exclaimed suddenly, and Rarity cursed inwardly as Balthazar’s face snapped back to a neutral, bemused expression before she could glean anything else. Chuckling, he looked at her as though he was dining with an old, close friend. “Where we come from is not important - what is important is what we came here to do.”

“And... what would that be?” Rarity had a feeling that she wouldn’t like the answer, but she asked the question anyway - she was burning with an intense curiosity to find out just what was going here. No doubt such information would be invaluable to Twilight, if she managed to get out of here alive and in one piece.

“A succession,” the azure-cloaked man answered simply. “We are the last of our kind, and our time is running short - there are nightmares waiting out there amongst the stars that would not spare a second thought before setting your world to the flame. My compatriots and I are the universe’s last line of defense against them, but our days are numbered. We came here to find a new sanctuary against the horrors of the immaterium; to create a new place where our sacred Order could once again make a stand against our ancient enemies.”

“The demons,” Rarity breathed out in sudden comprehension as her eyes widened in understanding, and Balthazar gave her a surprised look.

“Oh, so you already do know of them?”

“Our world has had history with them, but it was more than thousands of years ago.” Rarity found the story tumbling forth from her lips, surprised at how willing she was to part with the information. In hindsight, she realized she probably should have been a lot more clammed up, but something about Balthazar made it seem as though he could be trusted to not use that information to malicious ends.

Either that, or it was the strange premonition she had, that by the end of today it wouldn’t even matter whether or not he knew about it. Regardless of the reason, Rarity continued to explain her world’s history to the human stranger she had just met.

“It was a bloody period of history that none but our monarchs recall - every scrap of information related to that period has been purged from our Royal Archives,” the fashionista elaborated. “Our kind has encountered them before, but we beat them back... once.”

“Once...” Balthazar repeated to himself softly, an amused smile growing on his face. “And you say that your kind’s first encounter with them was thousands of years ago?”

Rarity nodded, and Balthazar shook his head, sighing softly. “Well then, Lady Rarity, I hate to tell you this, but you have barely even seen what they are capable of now.”

The seriousness and conviction that he spoke with made Rarity not doubt his words for even a second - there was not even a shred of doubt in her mind that Balthazar was speaking the absolute truth.

The unicorn had never felt any smaller or more insignificant in her life. Everything she had ever known, done, and aspired to in her life, it all seemed so... so petty, so trivial next to the fate of entire worlds, of the universe itself. Despair threatened to drown her as she contemplated just what was out there; demonic monsters unlike anything on Equestria waiting to prey upon the world itself. Desperately, she floundered around in her mind trying to latch on to a concept that she could still comprehend.

“So... then... Wait, you said that your Order was here to find new sanctuary - a new place to guard against the... demons?” Balthazar nodded in answer to her question, and Rarity indignantly slammed her hooves down onto the table, rearing up out of her chair and standing on her hind legs. “Well... then, why are you attacking us!? We pose no threat to you! How can you claim to be enemies of the demons when you attack innocents such as ourselves as well? You’re no better than the demons yourselves!”

Balthazar looked slightly hurt as the accusation struck home like a well-aimed arrow, and Rarity briefly found herself surprised at his reaction and somewhat confused - this wasn’t what she had been expecting.

“You misunderstand our intent, milady,” the man said slowly and patiently. “I understand that it  would have seemed that way, given Melchior’s approach, but I assure you that we have not come here with the intent to simply kill you.”

Rarity blinked, unable to wrap her head around what she was hearing. “Well... then... what are you here for?”

“You and your friends have been chosen, Lady Rarity,” Balthazar explained. “We are here to test your worthiness to be our successors.”





“Applejack, are you sure we should be heading in without the others?” Spike asked concernedly from his perch atop the galloping orange mare’s back. “I mean... we don’t even know what we’re up against here!”

“Ain’t no time, Spike!” the apple farmer responded hastily, barely even winded despite the pace at which she was running. “Every second counts now, and ah ain’t waitin’ around ta gather the others when Rarity could be turned into a frozen popsicle any second now!”

“But that’s just it!” Spike protested as he held on to the orange mare’s neck for dear life. “If we don’t have the others to help us if we get into trouble, we’ll get turned into frozen popsicles ourselves!”

Applejack gritted her teeth at the dragonling’s words - Spike had a point. With just the two of them running to Rarity’s rescue, without the others even knowing where they were headed, nopony else would know what had happened to the three of them if tragedy struck - she would have needlessly wasted her life and Spike’s in a foolhardy charge to the rescue.

But if there was one thing that Spike had failed to consider, it was that that was his logic talking, logic based on the facts that all thought they had known. And those once immutable truths had undergone a most recent, unexpected change.

Applejack remembered which gem Rarity had touched, and which one she had touched herself - Rarity’s gem had been like an ice crystal, while hers had been the fire ruby. Touching the fire ruby had implanted something deep within her - the apple farmer was no fool. She could feel a strange, hot feeling stir in her belly every time she felt particularly strongly about something - and that strange heat was the strongest any time she felt angry or agitated.

Even a foal knew that fire was the diametric opposite of water, and by extension, ice - if anypony amongst her friends stood the best chance of rescuing Rarity from whatever creature had her in its grasp, it was Applejack.

The orange mare redoubled her pace, and that strange heat flared to life in her gut again, spurring her onward as she poured on the speed, until she was sprinting at a pace that would have given Rainbow Dash a run for her money.

Ah’m on mah way now, Rarity - don’t ya dare die on me!





“Worthiness... to be your... successors?” Rarity said slowly, unsure if she had heard that right.

“Indeed.” Balthazar nodded. “You and the other Elements of Harmony are incredibly powerful individuals for your species - you are the prime specimens of your kind, the paragons of the pony race. You each embody virtues that stand in complete opposition to the destruction and the chaos that the demons strive for. You are the perfect candidates to be the champions of the light, to carry on the torch that we have to pass on.”

“Well... I... This is just...” Rarity’s head was spinning with the implications. While it was true that she and her friends were already the chosen ones of Equestria, Balthazar expected her to believe that they were the destined defenders of the entire universe! Countless worlds and innumerable living creatures, all depending on her to stave off demons and other monstrosities? How could anypony be expected to believe such a fantastical declaration!

But even as she struggled to refute the impossible claim, the unicorn’s mind whisked her away on a flight of fancy. For the tiniest and briefest of moments, she entertained a wondrous, awe-inspiring vision of the future. Herself, alongside her friends, standing atop a vast, opulent stage, being hailed not only as the saviors of Equestria, but of all existence, a crowd of trillions spread out before them.

A second later, however, the mare quickly shook her head, dispelling the mental image and bringing herself back down to the ground.

By Celestia, this human knew just how to push her buttons!

Clearing her throat as she tried to get her thoughts in order, Rarity turned to face Balthazar, trying to keep a straight face. “Well, then... how exactly are you going to test our worthiness? A test of some sort?”

Balthazar gave her a sad smile. “Well, you would be right in that regard. Melchior decided to test Rainbow Dash in his own manner, and now, I am going to have to test you in my own manner as well. And for that, I must apologize.”

Rarity cocked her head puzzledly at him. “Apologize for what?”

“For this.”

The temperature of the air around her abruptly dropped to freezing as the smile on Balthazar’s face vanished, replaced by a cold, frigid expression that could have been carved from ice itself. Abruptly, all around her, the ground itself froze over as it was covered by a thin sheet of ice. Far off in the distance, she saw the walls of a gigantic ring of ice rise forth from the ground, entrapping her within a spacious arena with no visible way out.

Freezing terror rose up in her again, and Rarity reacted just in time to avoid the next blow as Balthazar suddenly rose from his seat, placing his fingers under the table and flipping it over towards her in a sudden display of force, sending the two glasses of iced tea flying.

The fashionista unicorn dove to the side in a last-second graceless belly flop, desperate to just get out of the way. She landed in a slide, skidding painfully on her belly on the ice that coated the floor and turned it slick. Her hooves scrabbled for a grip on the slippery ground as she scrambled to turn over, trying to get Balthazar back into her field of vision.

Through the haze of panicked fear that clouded her mind, Rarity remembered just one thing from the self-defense lessons she had taken in her youth - never let your attacker out of your sight. If you could see him and what he was doing, you could at least react accordingly to his movements and defend yourself from there - you could hardly defend yourself against a threat you could not see coming.

Scrambling to get back onto her hooves, she glanced frantically around for any sign of Balthazar. To her dismay, the azure-cloaked human was nowhere to be seen - it was as though he had suddenly disappeared into the air itself. Before she could even take a step, the very ground beneath her hooves began to shake violently.

Rarity nearly shrieked in terror as glittering, icy walls suddenly rose up in front and behind her, forming a long corridor that extended down both her sides. More walls began to rise up through the ground around her, until she saw that she had been entrapped within a labyrinth of some kind - a maze, where undoubtedly, Balthazar stalked her from the shadows, an unseen predator hunting down his prey.

There was no doubt about it - this was the test that Balthazar had set for her, and he certainly wouldn’t have set it upon her if he hadn’t thought her capable of passing it in some manner... the only question was in exactly what manner he expected it!

As she pondered her situation, there was a sudden thunk! next to her as something whizzed past her face and embedded itself in the ice mere inches from her left hoof. Looking down, she saw a frozen arrow sticking out from the ground - a grim reminder of her current and very immediate predicament.

“You’ll want to get a move on, my little moth!” Balthazar’s lilting voice echoed out hauntingly throughout the cavernous walls of the icy labyrinth, mocking her with its ringing echo. “You may yet escape from here, but first you will have to be a part of my swan song - my final masterpiece! Go to the centre of the labyrinth - and hurry now! My muse is a fickle bitch, with a very short attention span!”

His voice suddenly turned high and irritated at the end of his sentence, and Rarity found herself actually recognizing his tone - it was the inflection her own voice took on any time she was dealing with the concept of a particularly elusive idea that just wouldn’t take form in her head. Evidently, Balthazar was formulating some sort of plan; but a swan song? His ‘final masterpiece’?

Just what was going on here?

The unicorn shook her head and immediately took off at a gallop before any more frozen arrows could make another attempt at skewering her. Whatever answers there were to the questions that raged about in her head, she wouldn’t find them by simply standing around.

Rounding about the corner as she skidded on her hooves, barely managing to keep her footing, Rarity was about to continue down the corridor when she beheld a sight that made her stop in her tracks in pure shock.

The corridor before her was littered with ice sculptures that did not look quite right. As she took a closer look, she saw that the sculptures were contorted in strange postures that spoke of terror and agony... and that they looked strangely like diamond dogs.

A closer peer at the ice sculptures afforded her a truer glimpse of just what she was faced with here... and as the ball dropped, Rarity gasped out loud in horror as she realized that the ice sculptures weren’t even sculptures at all - they were diamond dogs that had been frozen alive.

As she looked upon the travesty of death, the oddest sensation began to wash over Rarity -  cold, purposeful rage began to flow through every fibre of her being. Her entire self settled into a numb haze as her mind suddenly became as clear and focused as a crystal ball, and she knew exactly what she had to do.

There was absolutely no love lost at all between the fashionista unicorn and the subterranean canines, but this was nothing but a brutal act of murder, twisted into some perverse form that was a mockery of life, art, and everything else that Equestria stood for.

It didn’t matter what Balthazar had up his sleeve, or how much more powerful he was than she - that man was going to answer for this.

It. Was. On.

The unicorn took a single step forward, and Balthazar’s voice suddenly rang out from the walls around her, his voice loud and authoritative.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? The arctic wastes care not for the lives it takes, only the harsh beauty of its sheer purity, freezing and burying away all it touches, until they become a part of the arctic itself. Behold, the beauty and splendour of my work!”

All around her, Rarity could feel sudden surges of power, chilling spikes of freezing cold passing from underneath her hooves and through the air around her, and she sensed it pouring forward... into the frozen diamond dogs before her. Once more, Balthazar’s voice reverberated throughout the labyrinth in a grand, theatrical announcement.

“Tannhäuser!”

The sensation of cold surrounding her approached a sharp, freezing crescendo, and, suddenly, one of the frozen diamond dogs twitched in her direction.

Rarity let out a surprised scream, her composure shaken briefly, as the supposedly dead canine suddenly opened its jaws, the frozen flesh and sinew splitting itself open with a nauseating crack! Letting out a guttural snarl that should have been by all means physically impossible, the frozen diamond dog lunged at her in a feral pounce, seeking to pin her beneath its icy bulk.

The unicorn twisted herself away from the lunge, barely dodging the canine’s frozen claws by inches. Her hooves slipped out dangerously from beneath her, and Rarity managed to get back her footing just in time to dodge another swipe from below as the diamond dog recovered from its missed lunge and attacked her again.

Turning on her heels, Rarity ran for all she was worth down the corridor, fleeing as the diamond dog behind her gave chase. As she sprinted down the labyrinth, the frozen statues around her came to life one by one as she passed them by, each of them swiping out at her. Some even managed to leave long, bloody scratches on her coat despite her best attempts to dodge around them.

The fashionista, however, shockingly felt nothing but a slight, dull surprise even as the icy claws raked against her coat, drawing long red lines that she barely even registered. As she ran on, the coldness of the labyrinth pressing in against her, her entire body descended into a numb haze that dulled all sensation. Her mind slowly cleared, focused to a razor’s edge as she fell into the zone, and she began flawlessly taking in every detail around her, filtering out the distractions of pain and fatigue as she coldly and instantly made the decisions that could mean the difference between her life and death.

There wasn’t any conscious effort on her part - the zen-like trance that she was submerged in had her body moving of its own accord. Automatically, Rarity ducked underneath another swipe and spun around to face behind her as she slid backwards, telekinetically grabbing several icicles from the labyrinth’s ceiling and arraying them in the air before her. Another spin, and she flung the icicles outwards with all the strength and precision she could muster, throwing them through pinpoint trajectories that carried them through spots that would have been vital points in living diamond dogs.

Years of handling her sewing needles with perfect precision paid off - those vital points were now the focal points through which Balthazar channeled his magic into the ice mannequins, allowing him to control their movements. The needle-thin icicles, charged with Rarity’s own magic, punched right through the focal points with surgical precision, disrupting the flow of arcane energies that controlled their movements and cutting right through the sculptures’ proverbial strings.

Four of the frozen diamond dogs pursuing her suddenly dropped, skidding limply on the slick, icy ground like puppets that had suddenly had their strings cut.

Rarity didn’t even stop to admire her handiwork - smoothly completing her spin before her icicle needles had even hit, she turned to face forward again and continued her gallop down the ice labyrinth’s corridor. The fashionista unicorn soon came to a T-junction, and, without missing a beat, her mind instantly deducted which direction she had to take to reach the labyrinth’s centre. She leapt upwards skillfully, leaning slightly to the right, and galloped across the wall for a few steps before stepping back to the ground, having not bled off even a single iota of momentum or speed in her incredibly smooth right turn.

“Splendid performance, little moth - simply splendid!” She heard Balthazar’s voice echo throughout the labyrinth’s walls once more. “You can keep up with the main act - now let’s see how well you perform the finale!”

Rarity barely even registered his words - moving in a trance, she continued galloping down the labyrinth’s numerous passages, dodging swipes from frozen diamond dogs that had managed to catch up with her. Every now and then, she  spun around with a hoof full of icicles to send flying their way, dropping more and more of her pursuers with each precisely-delivered volley.

Turning around the next corner, she suddenly found herself running out into an open chamber that was just about as large as the biggest theatre she had ever seen in her life. In the centre of the chamber was a grand stage, raised from the ground in a majestic sculpture of ice, and atop it stood Balthazar, his royal turquoise cloak flowing out grandly behind him.

Flanking him on both sides were massive statues of ice shaped unlike anything she had ever seen before, though another look availed her that they were shaped more or less like Balthazar himself, standing upright on two legs. Their sculpted forms appeared as though they were clad in ornate armor, each with its own unique appearance, and they held various wicked, menacing weapons within their massive grips.

“Bravo, little moth, absolutely bravo!” She heard Balthazar call out to her across the chamber from where he stood upon the stage, as though he were an opera conductor. “You have done well to make it this far, but now, I shall truly test your mettle - let us see if you can remain cool under pressure! Now, as we begin...”

Rarity cringed at just how bad the pun was, but before she could respond any further Balthazar suddenly raised his arms, a glittering rod of ice held in his right hand. Sweeping it over the frozen statues that flanked him, he bellowed out in a loud, clear voice that rang sonorously throughout the entire chamber.

“Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg!!!”

There was an abrupt rumbling as the statues surrounding him suddenly shuddered to life. The first of them, an utter behemoth of a golem, stepped forward, hefting a massive axe that was half again the unicorn’s size over its shoulder as it menacingly cracked its neck from side to side, fixating its soulless gaze upon her.

There was not even a flicker in her trance - Rarity simply looked the golem up and down, analyzing it critically. Only the slightest ghost of a smirk haunted her face before she darted forward again, snatching up more icicles from around her as the golem charged forward to meet her, its axe raised in a high killing arc.





“Well... doesn’t look like there’s any way through this.” Spike gaped up at the towering wall of glittering ice before him. “You know, I really think that we should’ve come here with the others by now, Applejack.”

“Lahk ah said, no time, Spike!” Applejack said urgently as she paced about in agitation, completely stumped on how she was going to deal with the frozen wall of ice barring her way. So far she had tried bucking it as hard as she could and bucking hard and heavy objects at it as hard as hard as she could, yet the barrier before her was as thick and unyielding as a glacial wall. “Every second that Rarity’s in there... Consarnit all! Why can’t ah get through this!?”

Fury rose up in her chest as she let out a frustrated yell, and in a fit of rage she spun herself around and lashed out at the wall again with everything she had, screaming as she did so. Once again, roaring heat bloomed inside of her as her inner fire suddenly flared to life, and the moment her hooves came into contact with the ice, the wall absolutely shattered.

Spike’s jaw dropped even further to the ground at the sight. The section of wall that Applejack had kicked in didn’t just topple over, but actually continued to fly on inwards, punching through several more walls ahead of it and leaving behind a series of holes straight through.

“Whoa.” The dragonling’s mouth was hanging open as he stared in awe at the damage the apple farmer had managed to achieve. “Since when were you that strong, Applejack?”

The orange mare was staring slack-jawed at the hole as well, her mind awhirl as she contemplated the amount of strength she must have used to cause that kind of damage. Even Big Mac on his best days could only slightly uproot an apple tree over with a full-strength buck - kicking the apples off the trees required far less than that, and her much stronger elder brother usually had little reason to exert his full strength.

But the kind of strength she must have used to kick that wall in far exceeded mere applebucking - if she had hit one of the trees in her orchard with that kind of strength, she would have shattered the trunk on impact and sent its upper half flying off into the distance!

Gazing down at her hooves, Applejack started slightly as she noticed the slightest wisps of flame dancing about her forehooves before they winked out of sight. Consternation rose up in her as she contemplated just what this meant - was she truly gaining some strange powers of her own?

It didn’t matter right now - Rarity was somewhere inside this ice ‘maze’ of some sort, and in very immediate, very real danger. If she didn’t get to her fast enough... Applejack didn’t think she could live with knowing she had failed to save Rarity because she had been too slow.

Stepping through the hole she had blown open with her forceful kick, Applejack and Spike ran into the labyrinth proper, yelping in surprise as they skidded slightly on the slick, frozen floor.

“Whoa! It’s already hard enough moving around in here with the cold and all, but a slippery floor too?” Spike griped out loud as he clambered onto Applejack’s back. “I sure hope Rarity’s all right...”

“She will be, Spike.” Applejack smiled at the young dragon as reassuringly as she could, trying to fight down the fear that she was too late which was rising up in her. “We’ll make sure of it.”

As the orange mare took off at a awkward, clumsy gallop through the corridors of the maze, slipping and sliding across the floor, they passed by several fallen bodies - Spike took a closer look at them even as Applejack ran on heedless of them, and his sharpened dragon eyesight afforded him glimpses of what the apple farmer had overlooked in her haste.

“This is Rarity’s work,” Spike suddenly breathed out in surprise, and Applejack nearly tripped over her own hooves as his words registered with her.

“What’dja just say, pardner?” The orange mare looked at him with an incredulous expression, unable to believe that the fallen bodies, frozen as they were, had been the work of the fashionista unicorn, of all ponies.

The bodies looked oddly like diamond dogs, but she just couldn’t comprehend the fact that her friend had been the one to put them down - there were needle-thin icicles sticking out from several of the bodies’ vital points; neck, chest, arteries, everything. Whoever had thrown those icicles had done so with the precision of a master - precision that certainly was not beyond Rarity’s skill.

The implications weren’t pleasant, but Applejack knew that jumping to conclusions would avail her nothing - only confronting Rarity about the truth when she found her would get her anything useful out of it.

“C’mon, Spike.” Applejack nudged her head in the direction of the corridor that lay ahead of them. “We ain’t gettin’ no answers by hangin’ around here.”

“Yeah... yeah, you’re right,” Spike said pensively as he nervously eyed the fallen diamond dog corpses. “Let’s go.”

Even as Applejack resumed her gallop through the labyrinthine corridors, Spike found his gaze drawn to the fallen bodies of the diamond dogs, unable to tear his eyes away from them as he considered the possibility that his beloved had been responsible for this carnage. Could she really be...?

Before he could get any further down that train of thought, an unfamiliar, foreign voice suddenly rang through the corridors of the maze, its booming volume almost sending Applejack tumbling right to the floor as it rolled right over her ears.

“Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg!!!”

“What the- was that Germane we just heard!?” Spike’s eyebrows shot up incredulously, but Applejack had her mind on far more practical things.

“It came from over there!” Abruptly, the orange mare veered down a corner that left Spike hanging on for dear life. The sprint brought her down to a doorway several moments later. As she ran right on through, the sounds of several crashes reached her ears and light reflected from over a dozen sources suddenly blinded her; Applejack yelped out in surprise as she immediately dug her hooves into the frozen ground beneath her, sliding to a stop several seconds later.

Blinking to clear the spots in her vision, Applejack squinted to try to make sense of what was around her - apparently she was standing atop a parapet of some sort, overlooking a large chamber that seemed strangely reminiscent of a theatre, as there was a giant stage of some sort raised in the centre of the chamber... and atop the stage stood a spectacle she had never thought she would witness in her entire life.

Rarity stood upon the stage, moving in short, sharp bursts and smooth, flowing dodges as she danced a narrow sequence of evasions among the wicked weapons of what looked like ice golems. There were at least four of them atop the stage, and though each of them carried a different sort of weapon, every single one of them was assaulting the unicorn pony with unabated ferocity.

Atop a pedestal overlooking it all was the strangest creature the farmer had ever seen. Its shape was similar to that of the golems attacking Rarity, but it was clad in a cloak colored in the most royal shade of turquoise she had ever seen, and it looked more akin to a clothed, hairless ape than anything else - Applejack noted with consternation that Fluttershy probably had been telling the truth, and the orange mare experienced a pang of guilt at having doubted her friend so aggressively.

Slung over the strange monkey-creature’s back was a large, glittering body of ice that resembled a composite bow, and in its grip it held a long, crystalline wand. It waved the glimmering baton about like a conductor’s rod, directing the golems that were attacking Rarity so ferociously in a viciously one-sided fight of four-against-one.

Not to say that Rarity wasn’t putting up a fight of her own - in her telekinetic grip she held her own razor-sharp length of ice that she was whirling around like a shortsword, wielding the makeshift weapon with a surprising amount of grace and skill. As she smoothly dipped underneath the first swing of one of the golem’s greatsword, her own blade simultaneously flashed out, carving out a deep furrow in the statue’s thigh that would have hamstrung a living being.

Unfortunately, it seemed as though the golem was made out of solid ice, the towering creature appearing to regard the furrow as nothing more than a tiny scratch. Unhindered, it lumbered forward again with its compatriots, following up its first attack with another overhand chop that would have cleaved Rarity in half. At least, it would had she not parried it aside with a flickering movement, extended her dip into a forward roll, and slipped underneath the golem and between its legs to end up behind it.

Another one of the statues took a swipe at her with its polearm, and Spike’s heart leapt to his throat as the blade passed inches from taking Rarity’s head off at the neck. The fashionista only narrowly avoided the blow by ending her roll and taking off into a forward leap. The polearm’s blade passed harmlessly below her, and suddenly her own blade shot forward and embedded itself in the forehead of the attacking golem as her horn flared.

The golem almost immediately went limp as it visibly sagged, and Rarity landed behind it in an immaculately graceful landing, yanking her impromptu shortsword from the golem’s head in a telekinetic burst. Without pause, the remaining three continued to descend upon her, swinging their weapons wildly.

All of a sudden the strange figure standing atop his conductor’s stand called out in a clarion voice, his voice echoing out across the chamber, his words clear even to Applejack’s ears...

“Das Rheingold!”

Abruptly, the first golem to have fallen, a tall regal figure whose head was encircled by a frozen wreath and who had wielded the polearm, vanished in a flash of glowing energy. In its place stood a shapeless hunk of ice... a hunk of ice that suddenly blocked off an entire quarter of the stage, limiting Rarity’s movement.

The fashionista seemed to hardly notice - whirling her improvised blade again, she gracefully spun around the thrust of another statue’s weapon, this one a feminine figure clad in ornate armor. A tiny pair of wings extending from behind the ears of the helm she wore and in her hands she wielded a longsword paired with a shield.

Rarity’s impromptu shortsword flashed out again as she shot it forward with another telekinetic burst, and it buried itself in the statue’s neck, the construct letting out a strange ringing, choking noise before going limp, sagging at the knees.

Again, the strange conductor cried out again in a clarion call, his voice ringing in Applejack’s ears.

“Die Walküre!”

Just like before, the fallen golem vanished in a flash of light, replaced by another hunk of shapeless, lifeless frost that cordoned off another quarter of the stage - at least two of Rarity’s sides were blocked off now, and she had even less space to work with than before as she faced off against the remaining two constructs.

As Applejack watched the fight proceed, the ball dropped as she realized that Rarity was slowly being boxed in - with her back to the two ice walls that blocked off any form of escape or retreat, she was completely at the mercy of the two remaining statues as they thrust their weapons at her, intent on finishing what their two comrades had failed to do so.

Before she could shout a warning to her friend, the unicorn’s blade lashed out once more, cutting through the third statue’s neck and leaving it hanging off by a sliver of ice, sending the sculpture toppling to the floor - the stranger’s voice rang out once more, announcing the greatsword-wielding golem’s fall as it turned into another hunk of lifeless ice, cordoning off a third quarter of the stage and leaving only one of Rarity’s sides unblocked.

“Siegfried!”

Applejack didn’t even have time to register what was happening - Rarity seemed to be moving as though she was in a trance, shifting and stepping about so quickly that it was as though she was performing a routine from muscle memory. Before she even knew it, Rarity had shot her blade forward again like an oversized arrow, blasting it right through the forehead of the final greataxe-wielding statue and leaving behind a hoof sized hole.

“Götterdämmerung!”

The conductor called out what sounded like the final golem’s name, and Applejack’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach as the construct sagged where it stood, already beginning to glow from within.

“No, Rarity! IT’S A TRAP!!!”

The unicorn’s eyes suddenly widened in surprise at the sound of Applejack’s voice, but the warning had come too late - only when the final golem suddenly transformed into the final block of ice that cordoned off her last open corner, boxing her in from all sides, did she realize that she had been outmaneuvered.

“Der Ring des Nibelungen!!!”

The ring of ice that surrounded Rarity began to shine with unearthly power, and it all suddenly rushed in all at once, caving in upon her in a crashing torrent of frozen water. Applejack instinctively ducked down and covered her head as shards of broken ice went flying past her, and when the mist kicked up by the impact finally cleared, she lowered her forelegs to behold a horrifying sight.

Rarity lay upright, half of her body entombed within a solid casket of glittering ice, though her head and upper chest lay exposed to the cold air of the chamber. Standing before her, the strange, cloaked conductor faced her evenly with a satisfied expression, the bow that was previously slung over his back now clutched in his right hand.

A glittering arrow of ice materialized in his left hand as he strung it into his bow, steadily drawing it backwards. The oppressive cold that hung in the air around Applejack suddenly magnified in its weight, freezing her down to her very bones until she could barely even budge an inch, the air before her turning into a ghostly fog with every breath she exhaled.

“Yes... I am satisfied now, little moth...” The apple farmer heard a lilting voice reach her ears. “You have certainly impressed with your performance - you truly are a worthy successor. Now, it is time for me to pass on the torch. Do not fear, this should not hurt... much.”

The strange, upright creature lifted up its bow, aiming the arrow right at Rarity’s heart, and Applejack struggled to scream out through teeth that couldn’t stop chattering, to force air out from lungs that were ravaged by the frigid air around her.

“Sing; Shemhazai the Whisperer.” 

Behind him, a ghostly afterimage began to materialize - a grotesque mockery of the equine form that had been twisted into a bipedal shape, the spectre’s visage hidden by an armored helmet as its form was wreathed in a rose-red cloak.

Slowly, the spectral image wrapped its arms around the strange conductor’s neck in a loving embrace, their contrasting cloaks of turquoise and rose flowing together in unison as they wrapped themselves together. Without warning, the chamber suddenly darkened, as though every single bit of light had been drained into the two beings standing intertwined in the midst of the theatre as they began to glow with an incandescent light. So intense was their gleam, that it made Applejack’s eyes hurt when she tried to look directly at them, as though they shone as bright as the sun itself.

“Farewell, Miss Rarity.” Applejack heard the lilting voice whisper again, a hint of tenderness and melancholy tinting the undercurrents of its tone. “It was a pleasure creating this performance with you.”

And then he released his grip on the bowstring - the arrow streaked forth, and buried itself in Rarity’s chest. The orange mare heard a scream, and then suddenly the entire world around her exploded, turning everything into a sheet of blank white.

Miles away, in the Ponyville General Hospital, a cyan-furred pegasus suddenly awoke with a gasp, bolting upright in her bed as something inside of her surged in response.