Love Will Set You Free

by Ospero

Kuula

"Whatever this thing is, I'm sure you'll do our family proud with it." Granny Smith smiled at her youngest granddaughter.

Apple Bloom felt a surge of gratitude at the words of the Apple family matriarch. She and Spike had shown the necklace to the others immediately after their conversation, and also told them what they'd found out. They were assembled in the kitchen again, though this time Sweetie Belle and Granny Smith were present - for their first meeting that morning, Applejack and Big Macintosh had urged them not to wake Granny, but now it was two in the afternoon, and the old mare seemed just as awake and alert as any of them.

"I'll do my best, Granny," Apple Bloom said.

"So, you think that whatever is happening does have some ancient evil behind it after all?" Applejack said, steering the conversation into more dangerous waters.

Twilight shrugged. "Who can tell at this point? Did doubt get to us because our friendship with Rarity is currently under stress, or did doubt cause that to happen?"

Applejack seemed to reflect on that for a second, then she shrugged as well. "It doesn't matter. We needn't think about the causes, we need to deal with what is before us now."

"You're right." Twilight looked at Spike and Apple Bloom. "Do you have any ideas what we should do?"

Spike scratched the back of his neck. "Um, Twi, usually it's you who makes decisions like that. I just follow along."

Twilight smiled. "Fair enough, but the shoe is on the other hoof this time. Your visions showed us that something evil was happening, and perhaps they'll get us to the next step too."

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. Applejack got up to answer it, and a few seconds later, they heard her voice from the hall. "Derpy? What are you doing here at this time of day?"

The familiar tomboyish voice of Ponyville's mailmare drifted in. "Hi, Applejack. Sorry to disturb you, but Mr. Cake asked me to get this message to you." She peered into the kitchen. "Oh, hi everypony. Twilight, I've got one for you too." She produced two sheets of notepaper.

Applejack frowned. "You don't usually play messenger, Derpy. What's going on?"

"No idea, but Mr. Cake looked terrible. Something must have happened." Derpy gave them an apologetic glance. "Sorry, but I gotta be off. My afternoon round starts in an hour."

"Bye, Derpy." Applejack closed the door as the mailmare took off and looked at the sheet of paper in confusion. "What in the hay can that be about?"

Twilight had already unfolded the paper and now paled visibly. "Dear Celestia."

"What is it?" Applejack now read through her note and blanched as well. "Oh goodness. We need to get going immediately."

Spike suddenly shivered, as did Apple Bloom. The dragon turned to Twilight. "What is it?"

"It's Pinkie." Twilight's voice was shaking. "She's at the hospital."

***

Ponyville Hospital, Monday, 18th August, 3 pm

The sight made Spike's blood freeze, and by the looks on his friends' faces, they felt the same.

Pinkie lay in a hospital bed, her usually vibrant coat and mane looking pale, almost as if they had been bleached, only the faintest trace of pink remaining in the white. Her mane lay flattened around her head, and she was gazing into the distance.

Twilight turned to Nurse Redheart. "What's wrong with her?"

The white earth pony didn't turn her head, keeping her gaze fixated on Pinkie. "We don't know, Twilight. Nopony has ever seen anything like this. Mr. Cake found her like this, sitting on the floor of the bakery, but her condition is getting steadily worse." She gave Twilight an imploring look. "Please, if you can do anything for her, anything at all, try it. We're at the end of our rope here."

"Can we talk to her?" Twilight asked.

"You're free to try, but she hasn't said a word since she was brought here." Nurse Redheart stepped aside.

Twilight, Spike, Applejack and Apple Bloom stepped closer to the bed. Twilight forced a smile. "Hi, Pinkie."

Pinkie didn't react. Twilight tried again, as did Applejack, to no avail. Then Spike reached out his hand and tried to touch Pinkie's cheek.

"Ow!" He jerked his hand back as pain shot up his fingers. When he looked at them, he saw something like black smoke drift from them, though they didn't look burned. He looked at Twilight. "What was that?"

"No idea, but I'm on it." Twilight's horn glowed, and she looked at Pinkie and at Spike's hand. "Hm. There seems to be something inside Pinkie that reacts violently to the power you carry."

"Inside her? And it's an enemy of my element?"

"Exactly." Twilight looked at Spike, then back at Pinkie, who wasn't showing any reaction to this at all. "Something very bad attacked her, and she seems to be losing the fight."

"So what do we do about it?" Applejack asked. "We can't just sit here and let her die!"

Spike carefully stretched his hand out again. When it made contact with Pinkie's cheek, it burned, but this time he was ready for it. A strange hissing noise emerged from between his fingers, black smoky tendrils rose up, and when he drew his hand back, there was a vibrant pink print of it visible on Pinkie's cheek.

Twilight looked puzzled for a moment, then comprehension dawned on her face. "Perhaps you can help her out of this!"

Spike looked at his hand. The prolonged contact with Pinkie had actually caused the scales on his fingers to blacken slightly. "I don't think I can keep this up long enough, Twilight. It hurts a lot."

Applejack cut in. "Then use your element directly."

Spike's eyes widened. "How? I've never done that!"

"Neither had we when we defeated Nightmare Moon." Twilight gave him an encouraging nod. "Just focus on it and think of what you want to do."

"Should I help?" Apple Bloom piped up.

"I don't want you to get hurt, AB," Applejack said, "but if this is why that element showed up in you, perhaps you'll have to. Be careful."

Spike and Apple Bloom took positions on opposite sides of Pinkie's bed, looked at each other, then closed their eyes and focused...

***

They opened their eyes.

The first thing that was immediately noticeable were the rocks. They were standing in a huge pit filled with rocks, stones and boulders of all sizes and shapes, all kinds of rock imaginable and a few that Spike didn't even recognize.

Then they heard the sobs.

They looked ahead and saw that Pinkie was sitting at the very lowest point of the quarry. She had her back turned, her coat looking as bleached as it had in real life. She was crying - not like she usually did, loud and flashy, but quiet sobs that were only audible because it was deathly quiet otherwise. Around her fetlocks, her tail and her head, black smoky tendrils wove and stretched, seemingly strangling her.

Spike and Apple Bloom carefully made their way down the rocky slope to the bottom of the quarry. Pinkie must have heard their approach, for she looked up and turned to them.

"Help me. Please." If Spike hadn't seen who was speaking, he never in a million years would have believed that it was Pinkie. Her voice was quiet, yet it held depths of despair that Spike hoped he'd never fall into.

He exchanged looks with Apple Bloom, then he turned to Pinkie again. "What is happening to you, Pinkie?"

"It's draining the laughter." Pinkie pointed to where her cutie mark should be. Spike saw that the balloons had vanished almost completely, leaving only the vaguest outline. "It's taking my heart, and I can't fight it."

Spike noticed that his necklace was getting warm, and that the gemstone was beginning to glow. "Oh yes, you can, Pinkie. Fight it. It can't win if you don't let it."

A green ray of light shot out of the gemstone and hit the tendrils around Pinkie's left foreleg. They hissed and started to boil away very slowly, but Spike felt that he couldn't keep this up for very long.

Apple Bloom stepped up to Pinkie and looked her in the eyes. "You are Ponyville's party pony. You can win this. Everything will be alright." An orange ray of light emerged from her necklace and started to burn away the tendrils around Pinkie's head.

Spike realized that he was feeling cold and hot at the same time. When he looked at Apple Bloom, he saw that the filly was covered in lather, and he noticed that he was panting as heavily as he could. Apple Bloom raised her head and looked at him. "I can't keep this up any longer, Spike!"

I'm sorry, Pinkie, was the last thought Spike remembered before everything went black.

***

"Spike? Hey everypony, he's awake!"

Why does Rarity sound like a child? Spike slowly opened his eyes and saw what he'd expected - a white pony head topped by a horn, and a pair of green eyes looking at him expectantly.

Then his mind seemed to clear a little more. Green? Something's not right.

The fog lifted completely, and he realized that he was lying in a hospital bed, and that it wasn't Rarity who was looking at him, but her sister. "Oh, hey Sweetie Belle." He tried to sit up, only to immediately fall back. He felt completely drained.

Then he remembered and looked around wildly. "Apple Bloom! Where is she? What happened?"

"You saved Pinkie, that's what happened. I knew you could do it." Sweetie Belle smiled. "Twilight can probably explain this better, but she said you've stabilized her for now."

"Have we, now?" sounded a weak voice from the neighbouring bed. Spike felt a rush of relief that Apple Bloom was alright.

"Yes, you have." Twilight had just entered the room. "What happened?"

Spike launched into a description of their adventure. When he'd finished, he looked at Twilight desperately. "Why didn't it work?"

"But it did," Twilight said gently.

"You drove out Nightmare Moon with your elements. I didn't even manage to defeat this thing inside Pinkie." Spike tried very hard not to let his disappointment show.

"We had six elements that were made to work with each other, Spike. You had two, and if the necklaces are any hint, they're not even meant to be combined. I'd say you did very well." Twilight stretched out a foreleg and drew Spike into a hug. "But you two gave us quite the fright, I must say."

Spike returned the hug, then he realized it was dark outside. "How long did we sleep?"

"It's about eight now." Twilight sighed. "This won't do your sleep cycle any good, you know?"

"Sleep cycle? I seem to be spending most of my time unconscious at the moment." Spike barely managed to suppress a grin. "Besides, that's the last of my worries right now."

They were interrupted by a crashing sound outside. Twilight jumped up and raced to the window, trying to get a look outside, as did Sweetie Belle. They gasped in unison and then ran out of the room without another word.

Spike turned his head to look at Apple Bloom, who looked just as confused as he did. "What's going on out there?"

Apple Bloom shrugged. "Why don't we go and have a look?" She rose slowly, obviously still weak, but she managed to keep on her hooves. Spike followed suit, and they went to the door and looked out into the corridor. Seeing nopony there, they walked towards the brightly lit room behind the glass doors at the end, catching sight of Twilight and Sweetie Belle behind it. A pony was being carried in on a stretcher as Spike and Apple Bloom stepped through the door. Following that stretcher was a very familiar orange pegasus.

"Scootaloo?" Apple Bloom asked in surprise, causing everypony in the room to turn to her and Spike. The dragon barely suppressed a gasp as he saw the look on Scootaloo's face - a mixture of determination and sadness.

Then his eyes fell on the stretcher, and this time, a gasp did escape him. The pony on that stretcher was a pegasus with a very pale blue coat and a strange-looking mane striped in pale pastel tones, yet she was immediately recognizable despite the changes in colouration.

"Spike?" Apple Bloom's voice was shaking. "Is that who I think it is?"

Spike stepped up to the stretcher and touched the pegasus' wings, immediately drawing back his hand when he felt a familiar burning. He turned back to Apple Bloom, ignoring the shocked stares of the nurses and doctors in the room. "Yes."

Sweetie Belle had joined Scootaloo and now was trying to talk to the orange pegasus, whose eyes didn't leave the pegasus on the stretcher for even one second. Scootaloo's lips were moving, seemingly repeating the same words over and over. That piqued Spike's curiosity, and he stepped closer, followed by Apple Bloom, who obviously was worried about her fellow Crusader.

He had to step very close to hear the muttered words that were escaping Scootaloo's lips. Just six words, repeated over and over again.

"Be brave, Rainbow Dash. Be brave."

From somewhere nearby, he heard Twilight speaking to the doctors. "What happened?"

"From what we can tell, and by what Scootaloo told us, she had just finished her shift and was heading home when something seemed to take hold of her. She simply stopped using her wings in mid-air." The doctor looked as puzzled as Twilight.

Twilight turned to Spike. "The same thing that happened to Pinkie?"

"Yes." Spike looked at Twilight in despair. "Twi, I can't do the same for her. I'm spent, and so is Apple Bloom. We can't help her."

These words seemed to draw Scootaloo back to reality. "What do you mean, you can't help her? Why should you be able to help her? She's Rainbow Dash, she doesn't need help." Her voice had grown quieter by the word, until she was whispering.

Sweetie Belle, who had been watching and listening to the conversation without speaking up, looked at the dragon and at her fellow crusaders, and Spike noticed a strange gleam in the unicorn filly's eyes. Sweetie approached Rainbow Dash, who was staring into space like Pinkie, and looked the pegasus in the eyes. Her horn started to glow.

"Sweetie Belle, don't! What do you think you're doing?" Twilight asked in alarm.

The unicorn filly looked up at Twilight, and now the gleam in her eyes was visible to everypony. "Rainbow Dash needs help, and I'm the only one here who can help her." Her voice was different - she sounded as though she was speaking in harmonies, two or three voices overlapping each other. "I'm asking you to trust me. I can do this."

As if in answer, the gemstone in Apple Bloom's necklace began to glow. Apple Bloom raised her head and looked at Sweetie Belle. "I have no idea what's going on here, but I trust you."

"So do I." Scootaloo had walked up to Sweetie Belle.

"So do I," repeated Spike, then Twilight, and finally the assembled doctors and nurses.

Sweetie Belle closed her eyes and went rigid. A flash of golden light made everypony in the room avert their eyes - everypony except Spike, who instinctively closed his nictitating membranes, but did not turn away. Sweetie Belle touched her horn to Rainbow Dash's forehead, and a hissing sound was heard as a few strands of black boiled away from the pegasus.

It lasted only for a few seconds, then the golden light vanished, and Sweetie Belle keeled over. Spike, as the only one who had seen that happen, raced to her side and gasped when his eyes fell on her.

Just when you thought this day couldn't hold any more surprises, eh?

The necklace had fallen away when Sweetie fell over. It was lying on the floor next to her - burnished copper, like Apple Bloom's, but set with a light purple gem in the form of a heart-shaped musical note.

Apple Bloom joined him at Sweetie's side and said out loud what he was thinking.

"And then there were three."

***

Cloudsdale Weather Factory, one hour earlier

"Oof." Rainbow Dash dropped onto one of the cloud benches outside the factory doors. I sure hope that was the last we've seen of that storm. For a second or two there, I thought we weren't going to make it.

They had been at it for their entire shift, finally finishing one and a half hours after their usual time, but they had managed to rein in the storm, limiting its worst effects to the Everfree Forest. Somepony should warn Zecora, Rainbow Dash thought.

Gazing out at the vista of Ponyville stretching below her, Rainbow Dash's eyes fell on Carousel Boutique. Here's hoping that unicorn comes around sooner rather than later. She's not exactly being the best of friends at the moment.

Oh, look who's talking, she chided herself. I have hardly seen my friends over the last weeks. How's that for the Element of Loyalty?

I've had a lot of work. They'll understand, Rainbow Dash tried to reassure herself, but the words sounded curiously hollow in her head. Something seemed to worm its way into her mind and her heart, speaking to her in her own voice.

They will turn away from you. Loyalty is not rewarded as it should be. They're not as faithful to you as you are to them. Any friend can turn away.

Look at what happened with Gilda.

At that thought, something inside her turned to ice. She felt a strange tingling in her cutie marks, but she didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

She took off, heading home, but she barely managed to bring up the energy to flap her wings. She hardly noticed the voice of her biggest fan somewhere below, calling out to her. She didn't care that Scootaloo's voice turned from excited to puzzled, and finally to scared.

She hardly even noticed when she hit the outside wall of the hospital head-on.

As she fell, a hissing laugh could be heard emerging from the black tendrils dancing around the remains of her cutie marks, a laugh that carried words.

When doubt smothers loyalty, indifference will take hold.

Comments

[Ospero]

Another night, another chapter. This one is named for the Estonian contribution to 2012's ESC, "Kuula" (Listen) by Ott Lepland. Lyrics with translation here. The progress of light and darkness, and a mention of rainbows in the lyrics? No matter what I think of the song (and I actually think it's not bad, if a little boring), that just fit with this chapter.

Two down, four to go.

[Material Defender]

Wow, that was fast! Nice work, as usual.

[Captawesome]

Sleep is for the weak!

[LloydZelos]

I said the last time, but I'll repeat it: dude, you're fast

This chapter was great, but I have a doubt. How's that Spike and Applebloom's elements are related to darkness, but hers is not black? In fact, it's very similar to Sweetie's. I'm so confused

[Ospero]

447700 The explanation is already there if you go looking for it. It will become clearer, I promise.

[Trave]

I have finals tomorrow... Buck it! Next chapter here I come!