Love Will Set You Free

by Ospero

When the Music Dies

Rarity looked around, seeing nothing but grey void in all directions.

"What is this place?" she wondered out loud.

"It is called the Spaces Between. It is my prison. I was banished here five thousand years ago by the power of the Elements." The black swirling figure of Doubt manifested only a few feet ahead of Rarity.

"And why am I here, then?" she asked, trying her best to keep her emotions out of her voice.

"Because you are needed, Element of Generosity, just as your friends are. They might still be fighting it due to the interference of the other Elements, but the six of you are my key out of this void." Doubt approached her, its face sinking until it was at eye level with her.

"Why should I help you?" Rarity laughed dismissively. "You are a creature of darkness, and you admitted that yourself. What earthly reason would I have to help you?"

"You do realize that the only difference between us is that you don't admit to being cruel?" Doubt sounded almost amused. "You dare bear the element of Foxglove the Flighty? He never could have done the things that you have done to others. At least I am aware of what I do. You are not."

"Cruel? You call me cruel?" The indignity in Rarity's voice threatened to boil over. "How dare you say I ever did anything even remotely on the level of what you did to my friends?"

"Oh, this is fantastic," Doubt crowed. "You really do not know what I'm talking about, do you?" It closed the distance between them until their faces almost touched. "It's your fault that I even have this chance. You kicked away the first pebble, and now the avalanche is in full swing. But don't take my word for it." It waved its right hand, and suddenly the scene changed.

Rarity saw herself and Fancy Pants, kissing by the lakeside. Her heart fluttered, and she smiled. "You are trying to get to me with the happiest moment of my life? Whatever are you hoping to accomplish with this?"

"Look to your right," Doubt said, pointing a claw at a large tree behind the image of her and Fancy.

She did as he told her, and her heart nearly stopped as she saw Spike standing there, looking at the scene before him with an expression on his face that made her wince even at this distance, a mixture of horrified fascination and pain. She turned back to Doubt. "This can't be! We would have noticed if we were being watched!"

"You had eyes only for each other. And I can't lie to you. I'm not Discord, nor any of my other siblings who operate with lies. I can show you nothing but truth. It's your decision what you make of it." As he spoke, Rarity saw further images flash up, showing her things that had happened over the two weeks following the kiss. Spike bursting into tears at the very mention of her name. Twilight and the others assembled at Sugarcube Corner, waiting for her, discussing what was wrong with her. Her gabbing away to Fluttershy about how wonderful Fancy Pants was, completely oblivious to the worried expression in the pegasus' eyes. Sweetie Belle standing in front of a darkened Carousel Boutique, barely holding back tears, because her sister had stood her up. Her parents, sick with worry about why their daughter suddenly and without explanation was not keeping in touch, which she usually did every other day.

Rarity knew that Doubt was not inventing anything, that those scenes had happened exactly that way, and tears came to her eyes as she tried to imagine what Spike must have felt seeing her kiss somepony else, and what her friends and family must have thought of her suddenly seeming so distant. She never would have traded that night by the lake for anything, and yet she wished she could return to the scene and shield Spike from the pain, and somehow undo her secrecy concerning her coltfriend.

Doubt seemed to sense her inner turmoil. "You are the Element of Generosity, yet love has nothing to do with generosity. It's probably the most selfish emotion you ponies can feel. Love shatters the bonds between friends and turns families against each other. Why do you hold it in such high regard?" Behind the mockery, Rarity could sense a hint of true puzzlement.

"You don't get it. Love is the highest and purest of all emotions, and if it destroys friendships, then those friendships can't have been worth it in the first place." It was a line out of one of her favourite romance novels, but it had never sounded this hollow and thoughtless.

"Oh? Is that so? Then what will it be, Rarity? As you see, love and generosity will clash. Which side are you on? Will it be love or friendship?" Doubt's voice sounded urgent, almost frantic.

"I ..." Rarity was about to say she couldn't choose when she suddenly remembered something. Spike had pulled himself out of his greed-induced rampage not because of friendship, but because of love. All the friendship he held for Twilight and the others hadn't kept him from savaging the town; only his love for her had finally stopped him.

Something in her mind screamed at her that she was overlooking something, but she ignored it. "Love."

Even as she said the word, she could feel the cold descending on her, wrapping all around her. She sensed a prickling in her cutie marks, and suddenly all warmth seemed to drain out of her heart.

Doubt laughed triumphantly. "Brilliant. An Element of Harmony denying friendship in the name of love." It looked her straight in the eyes. "That, my dear, was a very, very bad decision indeed."

Black tendrils grabbed Rarity, and she saw the golden disc burst out of the ground. The tendrils pulled her to one of the two empty spaces and smashed her roughly into it. The disc shuddered, darkening from gold to a yellowish brown, and cracks appeared in its surface. Doubt looked up at the white unicorn, and the last thing she heard before her personality went under was a hissing laugh laced with words that didn't seem to come from the black swirling form, but from her own cutie marks.

When doubt trumps generosity, disdain will grasp their hearts.

***

A white unicorn filly had watched this entire scene play out, unable to interfere, looking on in mounting horror as her sister was robbed of all that made her who she was, leaving only the worst parts. The black shape behind her laughed.

"Do you see it now, Element of Trust? You have no power here. You rely on others to come through, but they won't. Even your own sister can't fight me, and she is older and more experienced in such things than you are. How can you hope to go up against me all by yourself?" Doubt seemed to revel in its victory.

Sweetie Belle was trembling, feeling completely abandoned and forgotten. She was alone, and Doubt was right. It had taken her sister and the other Elements of Harmony; what chance did she have against it? Yet something inside her just refused to give in to the darkness. She was just a filly, a blank-flank, but she was needed. She was the last line in the sand against the shadow, and just as she trusted the others, so too did they rely on her.

She raised her head and turned to face the shadow. "You tricked her. Did you do the same to the others?"

Doubt looked at her with something like surprise. "Me? I just showed them the truth, my dear little element. What use is harmony when life comes calling?" It giggled, a hissing, fitful sound. "That is why they can't go up against me, you know. Doubt cannot be fought with the elements. Where doubt reigns, laughter sounds desperate, loyalty turns in on itself, kindness becomes meaningless, honesty changes into cruelty, and generosity starts to look like bribery."

"No one ever trusted in you, did they?" Sweetie Belle didn't know why she asked, but she had the feeling that this train of thought might lead somewhere. "No one showed you love or believed in you." Tears came to her eyes. "Five thousand years with just the worst feelings there are. I pity you."

The darkness that had started to close in on them suddenly recoiled and sizzled, chunks of it simply vanishing. Doubt's eyes turned from their usual green to a dark red. "How dare you! Who do you think you are, filly?"

"I'm the Element of Trust. And I believe in my friends and family, even when they have done something really stupid." Sweetie Belle smiled. "Celestia knows I've done some really stupid things."

"You call yourself the Element of Trust, yet you have no idea what that title means." Doubt seemed to have calmed down again. "Let me show you something."

It twisted its right hand, and suddenly Sweetie Belle was floating above a scene straight out of a nightmare.

Below her, ponies were battling hordes of black, shadowy creatures of all shapes and sizes in the streets of a town - no, she corrected herself, a city, and a pretty sizeable one by the look of it. Both the assailants and the defendants looked curiously blurry, barely recognizable for what they were, except for six ponies standing on a hill in the midst of battle. Sweetie Belle recognized the necklace one of them wore as her own; another bore the one she had seen Apple Bloom wear.

As she watched, the assailants gained the upper hand, until finally only the six elements were still standing. Without really meaning to, she wondered out loud "Who are they?"

"The original bearers of the Elements of Community." Beneath the usual contempt and hatred, Doubt's voice held a sudden unexpected note of respect. "This is the Battle of Vindoponia. Eight thousand earth ponies going up against the united forces of me and two of my brothers, Regret and Fear. It raged for five days, and at the end, all the ponies except the bearers had either fled or fallen. We were triumphant. Or so we thought."

A sudden screech sounded from above, and the clouds themselves seemed to recoil as a squadron of griffons broke through them and descended on the shadowy hordes, led by three figures bearing necklaces seemingly made of white marble. Within minutes, two of the three clusters of darkness in the centre of the attacking army had been shredded by the griffons' talons and the powers of their elements, but the third now turned all of its power on the unexpected reinforcements. Seconds later, nothing was left of the griffons except a few drifting feathers and three marble necklaces that fell to the ground, shattering on impact.

That had been all the time the Elements of Community needed, though. A sudden flash of deep red light enveloped the remains of the shadow army, and when that flash dissipated, the shadows were gone.

Sweetie's eyes turned to the hill again, and she gasped. Four of the bearers lay on the ground, their necklaces cracked and the gemstones in them shattered. The other two, Trust and Confidence, were barely keeping on their hooves.

She drew in a sharp breath. Perhaps Doubt was right. How could she ever hope to live up to something like this?

"Still have the gall to call yourself the Element of Trust, little one?" Doubt asked contemptuously as the scene vanished, replaced again by the grey plain. "The sacrifices of four of the Elements of Community and the three Elements of Virtue banished me and my brothers and destroyed our armies. Cor Angeli, the Element of Trust, lost his ability to speak, and his fellow element Vox Communitatis would never walk again. What have you done lately?"

Sweetie Belle had no answer. Her resolve wavered, and she was on the brink of agreeing with Doubt when she suddenly heard a quiet voice float down to her.

Don't believe anything it tells you. I did, and it was the biggest mistake I ever made.

Rarity. The thought of her sister led to thoughts of all the others who were trusting her to get things right again - the other Elements of Harmony, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, Spike, and all the rest of Equestria if Doubt had been truthful about its plans.

She raised her head and looked Doubt in what passed for his eyes. "I'm not Cor Angeli. But I am the Element of Trust now, and I won't let my friends down just because you tell me to." She gritted her teeth, her eyes narrowing. "Who do you think you are?"

The shadow exploded, and Sweetie Belle was falling again.

Comments

[Ospero]

Two (admittedly short) chapters in less than 24 hours. I love writing this story, and sleep is overrated anyway.

This time, it's the host country's turn to provide the title. This chapter is named for Azerbaijan's entry in 2012's ESC, "When the Music Dies" by Sabina Babayeva. Lyrics here. I like the song, although I think back-to-back victories for Azerbaijan are rather unlikely.

[rakdoz]

/)^3^(\

[Ospero]

461711 While I do appreciate the sentiment, this is the third straight chapter you've commented on this way. Not to sound rude, but you could express that feeling with a simple thumbs up. I enjoy comments as much as anyone, but I prefer the kind from which I can learn something.

[LloydZelos]

Rarity should have known Akbar before. In a more serious note, it was really easy not to fall against Doubt: love is the strongest form of friendship, after all. Perfect answer.

[rakdoz]

462387
Sorry It's just that i just that i really like both your fic and that emoticon so I get a little carried away.

[Ospero]

462711 Doubt is designed to get to the Elements of Harmony, so while Rarity might have lasted a bit longer had she thought of something like what you said, it wouldn't have been sufficient (and not just because she needed to fall to move the story along ).

As for your question after the last chapter: I'm planning to include a section describing what's happening outside this "mindscape" of Doubt's at the start of the next chapter. For now, suffice it to say that "stabilize" and "heal" are two massively different things.

[LloydZelos]

463231Doubt is a Mary Sue, then?

Ont thing that surprised me was the possibility of destroying an element. Twilight stated on 1-2 that this couldn't be done.

[Ospero]

464515 I don't consider Doubt a Mary Sue in any way, shape or form. How in the world would you get that impression? Doubt is designed to work against the Elements of Harmony in particular (and it said so), but it does have weak points - each one of his confrontations with Spike and the CMC went wrong somehow, for one thing. That's not a Mary Sue, that's more like a Superman villain armed with Kryptonite - great against Superman, not so great if someone else shows up to help.

That other thing? Elements can't really be destroyed (the necklaces are just physical representations, same as the stone spheres in "Elements of Harmony Part 2"), but in the case of the lost ones, it would take tremendous effort to get them back from wherever they went after their sacrifice. They're not completely gone, but like the avatars of the Ancient Darkness, they're somewhere very far away.

[LloydZelos]

464707 I got the idea from here: "Doubt is designed to get to the Elements of Harmony, so while Rarity might have lasted a bit longer had she thought of something like what you said, it wouldn't have been sufficient"

It's not like the Superman-kryptonite ordeal. Superman gets weak if exposed to this mineral, but he can attempt to fight. Doubt is like he's level 100, and Rarity, idk, level 50. She just can't win. What I'm trying to say is, the mane6 can't defeat him, period. Then why resisting? Maybe calling it a Mary Sue was too much, but I think he's overpowered. it would have been better if they had tried to fight him for a bit, doing some damage, but ended losing after some time. Not just falling. Only my thoughts, I still think this story's great. That way it would be even better, for me.

Ok, so they're just "banished". Got it.