The Last Stand of Twilight Sparkle's Personal Guard

by Type_Writer

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Elements of Harmony… They’re mysterious, I’ll say that now. Sometimes they seal our enemies in stone, sometimes they kill them dead, and sometimes they don’t work at all. But the one thing you can know about them for sure? If you’ve got friends, they’ll work for you. Take that lesson to heart.

-Princess Celestia, 1206 years before Lunar Return, in a conversation with King Neptune

"The Spark maay open her eyes now."

Twilight did so, and found herself in the throne room once more. Struggling out of Border World's grip, she landed in a puddle of blood. She shrieked, stumbling back, before stepping on something that went squish under her hoof. Border World chuckled as Twilight stood stock-still, afraid to see who she just stepped in.

His laughter was like a pony drowning in their own blood. "Hegh-hehh-hah. The Spark's friends are here, or will be in furtue, save The Seer. She is in the -chitter- Library. The Bullet shall ask of The Spark's whereabouts. Prepare a lie, which The Gryphon shall knowmas such."

Twilight exhaled as she moved her hind leg, hoping it would escape the squishyness. It did not. "What if I... Ugh... What if I tell the truth?"

"The Spark may speak of suxhc at her leisure. But for the events yet to occur, it is betternthey belbelieve The Spark speaks untruth than madñeßs. They will assume she has a good reason for doing so." He paused as his air-sack inflated and deflated. "Soon, The Mask shall arrive with six of his kin. He shall aid the Elements, and The Nightmare shall be repressed. The Daylight shall be freed."

Twilight nodded as Border World began humming and swaying again, before a thought struck her. "Wait!"

His humming continued, but his ears twitched towards her.

"Can you take me back to Luna sometime? Not now, but... Can I visit?"

He began to fade from reality, but he managed to both speak and hum. "Find This One first. Then, we shall both see." His humming didn't quite fade as he did, instead simply settling into the background creaking of the castle. As the afterimage of Border World faded, a pink blur appeared in the corner of Twilight's vision. "Twily!"

She staggered as a familiar, chubby pink pony slammed into and wrapped herself around her.
"Omigoshyou'reokaywethoughtBlackSnootyateyouorkilledorkilledandateyouordidotherhorriblethingsandandwecan'tfindFluttersandAJgothurtandmostofyourguardsaredead-" Was as far as she got before she clammed up, just silently hugging her.

Twilight blinked, working everything Pinkie said through, before returning the hug. "Uh... Hi, Pinkie. It's okay. I'm okay, you're okay. Applejack's okay?"

Pinkie nodded, whispering now. "For now. But Luna's not. Black Snooty's never been this violent before."

Before Twilight could ask what she meant, Dash glided into the room, her eyes lighting up when she saw Twilight. Rarity and Applejack trotted in after her, with AJ limping and one of her hind legs bandaged. Rarity was helping her walk, and keeping an eye on the bandage (made with yet another strip from her dress) which had already soaked through with bloood.

Dash landed next to Twilight, and almost looked like she was about to hug her for a moment, before deciding against it. "Hey, Twi. Glad you're back, we could use the backup. I've taken command, but I think Flutters is trapped in the Library. Thought you were too, 'cause... Well, it's a library."

"Trapped?" Twilight asked.

"Just that debris we saw earlier. The surviving guards are trying to shift it now."

Twilight brightened slightly as Pinkie stepped away, looking slightly green. "Well, should be foal's play to do that. Is something wrong, Pinkie?"

"You're standing- urp... In a stallion." Twilight blinked and glanced down, only to find that Pinkie Pie was, unfortunately, correct. She suddenly felt a little sick herself. Outwardly, however, all that changed is that she stepped out of the guard's chest cavity, and her sudden development of an eye twitch. "Right! Okay! Let's all go to the Library where there are some of my family's guards that are very definitely not dead. That alright with everypony? Yes? Great!"

Without waiting for a response, Twilight set a brisk trot to the door, leaving faint bloody hoofsteps behind her. Dash hovered over them as she followed behind her. "So.. Where'd you go, anyway? You just disappeared right in front of us."

Twilight gulped. "I, uh, I don't remember. I just woke up there a minute or so ago." This earned her a funny look from Applejack, but she didn't press the issue. Dash shrugged, and darted ahead. They stepped over a blood trail, which Rarity paused at. "That wasn't there before..."

Pinkie bounced over the trail, and Twilight got her attention. "So, Dash has been playing leader? How's that been going?"

"Oh! It's been great! Me and her and AJ all got cornered in a dungeon, and AJ got swiped by a Batpony, and then dash smashed his head in with a brick and growled at the other to scare him off, and then AJ got pissy at Dash for murdering one of the Batponies, and then the guards came down and we all went up here and started going around in circles until we went back down and found Rarity in a non-lethal pit trap." Motor-mouthed a slightly manic Pinkie. "So really, it's been going amazing!"

Twilight nodded. "And you never checked the Library?"

"Nopies! Dashie said it was too lame for Flutters to be hanging around in." They arrived at said Library in short order, and Twilight let the conversation drop in order to focus on the barricade, and the guards trying to shift it.

"Corporal Pinion, Corporal Cleavage! Good to see you got out okay." The two guards turned to her, saluting. Mineral had a few cuts across his uniform and a bad slash across his muzzle, but Jet looked unharmed.

"Ma'am," The latter started. "Likewise."

Mineral tilted his head back at the blocked door. "Mind lending your horn to this door?"

In actuality, it only looked impassable; Fluttershy had presumably entered through one of the larger gaps, between the fallen beam and the floor. Moving the fallen beam caused a distressing creaking noise, but nothing else, and they entered the Library.

It was easily the height of the throne room, with two balconies at equal heights leading around the walls, and massive bookshelves reaching all the way up to the ceiling. It extended for at least twice the length of the entrance hall, but was in noticeably better condition—in fact, the worst damage Twilight could see was a couple of bookshelves that had collapsed, lying at wild angles against the walls. The books seemed in better condition than the walls around them. If not for that and a layer of dust to rival the deserts of Saddle Arabia, it would almost seem that time itself had stopped only for this room.

Yet, as much as Twilight wanted to stay and read every word in this room, a set of hoofprints in the dust led deeper into the shelves. Fluttershy had seemed to be making a perfect beeline towards... Something. The only time the tracks changed direction was when the path was blocked.

Finally, she turned a corner and practically ran right into Fluttershy. "Whoa! Hey, there you are! What'd you find?"

Fluttershy was holding a off-white disc in her hooves, decorated with markings and bits of metal bolted to it. She glanced down at it, as if unsure it was still there. "I... I don't know. I found it between some books here... It called to me."

Curious, Twilight reached a hoof to to examine it, but Fluttershy yanked it to her breast shockingly fast. As soon as she realized this, she looked at the disc again, before holding it out for Twilight to examine. "Sorry. Just... Please don't touch it."

Twilight nodded, clearly keeping her hooves back as she leaned closer. "I think... Hm."

"Mind sharing with the rest of us, Darling?" Rarity asked from behind her.

Twilight tilted her head, following the shape of the markings with her eyes—they kept shifting, for some reason—as she explained. "I think it's an old good luck charm, but I've only ever heard of it being done in the north, with walrus bones..."

Fluttershy blanched. "W... Walrus b-bones...?"

Twilight shook her head. "Yes, but what's this one doing this far south... And why's it carved from Dragonbone?"

Dash snorted. "Serves whatever dragon it came from right." Applejack whapped the back of Rainbow's head with her stetson, before she flipped it back on her head. "Ow! What the hay?"

"Y'all dunno the Dragon what that came from, and ain't no reason ta speak ill o' the dead. Coulda been the nicest Dragon what ever was."

Twilight nodded. "Yeah. Don't show this to Spike." Once again, she was reminded just how much she missed her little brother. But this rune was so interesting! She could've sworn it was whispering to her-

A yellow hoof appeared between her eyes and the rune, breaking it's hypnotic hold. She shook her head as blood pounded in her ears. The noise was annoying, and she snapped at Fluttershy slightly, "What? What is it?"

Fluttershy recoiled, pulling the rune back to her breast. "N... Nothing. You said this was a good luck charm... And we could all use a little luck. I'll keep this safe." She slid the disc into the folds of her scarf, pressed against her heart. "What now?"

Pinkie threw a hoof around Rarity's barrel. "Rares spotted something out there, didn't ya? Huh?"

Rarity grimaced. "Yes, that blood trail. Fresh, unfortunately. It led to that corner tower."

Shrugging, Applejack turned and started limping back to the door. "Well, reckon we oughta follow it then. Ain't hardly any good reason fer somepony ta be draggin' a body 'round, not now, not ever."

They followed her, Fluttershy quickly catching up to the injured mare and wrapping a wing around her. "Applekack? What happened to you?"

"Jes' wasn't fast enough to dodge one o' them Bats. Means I gotta work a little harder once it heals." Dash hovered above them. "Hey, Flutters, could I... You know...."

"Of course you can, Dash." She pulled away, and Dash dropped in between them, wrapping her own wing around AJ, who pulled away slightly. "Ah don't need Somepony ta help me walk."

Rainbow growled at AJ. "Come on, don't be like this. You're limping, and very definitely uncool. Lemme help."

Applejack shrugged off Rainbow's wing as they approached the blood trail, and the staircase it was plastered upwards on. "We'll talk about it later, Rainbow. Sometime when you got a little less red on ya then anything else."

Twilight took the lead as they went up the stairs, Rainbow falling to the back of the line, behind Applejack. The blood trail actually began to peter out as they continued upwards, but it pointed them in the right direction. A doorway let out into a large, circular room a few stories short of the tower's top, which Twilight instantly recognized as an observatory. "Hang on, this looks interesting."

The massive opening in the dome above was left gaping wide open, as Celestia had removed it when she had begun construction of Canterlot Castle. It was entirely possible that the gargantuan telescope mounted in the Royal Observatory, which Twilight had used to stargaze with Celestia many times before, had originated from here. On the floor, a massive conjuration circle had been carved. It was coated in multiple places with wax, with dusts of various types, with caked salt, even likely some blood, but it's edges were not dulled by time. Thankfully, it lay dormant.

Rarity glanced around the room. "It's very aesthetically pleasing, but there's nopony here. Shall we continue upwards?"

Twilight nodded, and they retreated back into the staircase. As the eight ponies approached the top of the tower, Twilight was suddenly struck by déjà vu. There was no snow this time, and in comparison, the cold of the night wasn't half as bad, but the feeling remained.

A chewing sound, accompanied by the sound of tearing flesh, made itself evident. The eight glanced at each other nervously, and Twilight pushed open a door that led into the tower barracks.

The room was just as it had been before, or would be. Several beds, a stove for heat, but with a new addition in the centre—The Nightmare herself, crouching over a bloodstained corpse. She had discarded her helmet, and it sat on the floor beside her. With a start, Twilight recognized the visible, though pale, colour of the fur.

It was Major Gilded Wing's headless body.

Suddenly, Nightmare Moon's head snapped up, dragging a length of his intestine from his belly, and stared directly at Twilight. The Nightmare was unchanged from when Twilight had seen her last, save for the barely-visible sheen of The Major's blood and vitreous fluids coating the end of her muzzle and face. With a twist of her head, his guts tore, spattering reddish-yellow fluid across the carpet in the direction of Twilight and her entourage.

Still staring into Twilight's eyes, she swallowed, slowly and deliberately. "You escaped the void." Her lips curled with a hiss. "How?"

"Because we're here to save Celestia, and stop your reign of terror. We didn't come all the way here just to be deterred now." She turned her head to her friends, but kept an eye on Nightmare Moon. "Girls, the Elements, they're in my bags. Open them and take them out."

Rarity paled. "Darling... Why do you have a severed head in here?"

Nightmare Moon made no movement to stop them, simply narrowing her eyes as each of the mares grabbed a metal sphere at random. "It would seem that in my absence, Celestia has taught naught but Zealotry. You run so carefree into danger, for the honour of a creature that may already be dead?"

Dash flared her wings, and tilted forward in a combat stance. "Like we're just gonna let you up and conquer Equestria!"

Nightmare Moon lifted her helmet from the floor beside her, slotting it on over her horn and clicking it into place. "This rebellion is dangerous. I must end it, and killing you six will not cease rebellion elsewhere. But were Celestia to die by my hoof before you..." A shroud of darkness, flowing from her mane and tail, began swirling around her.

"No!" Twilight's horn sparked with electromagical discharge as she chain-casted, first Blinking into the shroud, and then snapping the Nightmare with a Disruption cantrip. The darkness fell away, and they both found themselves in the Observatory.

Nightmare Moon staggered, her Transversal interrupted, and snarled at her. "Insolent purple foal! You know not what you could have done! We may both have appeared inside a wall, or kilometers belowground!"

She regained her balance, and they began pacing around each other, pacing around the magic circle, like vultures. "It would have been worth it to end this insanity, Luna."

Nightmare Moon's eyes flashed with anger. "How do you know that name?"

Twilight spoke measuredly, without speed. "I saw the future. A thousand years from now, you will regret this day. Every moment."

"You mean the puppet will regret it." Nightmare Moon copied her, but spoke with a growl of anger. "I regret nothing. I am the Void. And my power is limitless."

Twilight could see the shadows of her approaching friends, hear their shouts, and she just needed to delay Nightmare Moon a little longer. "And yet you haven't killed me. I staggered you with a foal's cantrip."

Long fangs were bared as the growling intensified. "Silence."

Twilight continued, unbidden. "I don't think you're as powerful as you think you are."

"Be silent, damn you."

"And if Luna's fighting you as well..."

"I. Said. SILENCE."

"Then perhaps you never will be."

Something in Nightmare Moon’s eyes snapped, and flared her wings as tendrils of pure darkness began crawling through the room. She hissed like a demon, "I shall break your legs, your horn, and your spine, and I shall slaughter your 'friends' like pigs before cooking, then eating them as such! I shall force you to partake in their flesh alongside myself, and I shall rip out your eyelids so you can only watch!

"Celestia shall be executed before you, and I shall force you to drink every drop of her blood! I shall keep you alive and sane as your world crumbles around you, and then and only then, will I grant you the sweet mercy of death!" With a final shriek, she howled, "And it shall be as screaming firewood to warm my hearth!” Her horn ignited in cold fire, and the darkness coalesced into a single tendril, which swept downwards at Twilight with death as it’s intention.

She barely managed to get her brother’s shield spell activated in time, and she didn’t have nearly the strength he could muster. THere was a sound, like a glass globe being shattered, and the Thaumatic backlash from the spell blew through Twilight’s horn, sending a jagged crack running from the base to the tip. In an instant, Twilight’s vision went white as unimaginable pain shot through every fibre of her being.

She had broken a leg once, as a foal. Celestia had seen that she got the best surgeon in Canterlot to aid her inside of an hour, but that single moment, where her leg snapped and Twilight couldn’t do anything but scream, had been the second worst moment of her entire life (With the first having been the snake.)

This was worse.

Her horn’s crystalline core was wired directly into her brain, and now, even the slightest breeze on the subdermal layer sent daggers directly into her skull not millimetres away.

Her vision returned—when had she ended up on the floor?—just in time to see Dash slam at full speed into Nightmare Moon’s breastplate, staggering her backward half a step. Unfortunately, the impact was harder on Dash herself, and it knocked her silly, leaving her to The Nightmare’s mercy… Of which it had none.

Rainbow was plucked off the floor by a tendril of darkness, and brought face to face with Nightmare Moon’s sneering muzzle. “Like your wings, little bird?”

Dash’s eyes focused in an instant. “No! Please, anything else, but don’t touch the wings, don’t touch the- aaaaigggh!” With a surprisingly shrilly scream, she jerked in Nightmare Moon’s grip, her wings twisting and bending and cracking in all manner of horrible ways, accompanied by a similarly-horrible symphony of snapping bones. Then, with little more than a shrug, she was tossed away like a wishbone, landing in front of Twilight.

She coughed blood towards the mare, and caught Twilight’s eyes, before looking away. “S-sorry, Twi -koff- Twilight… I wasn’t awesome enough…”

Twilight tried to extend her hoof to comfort Dash, before finding them non-responsive. When she turned her head, she found that it was because they were bent very, very wrongly. With a quiet, “Oh,” she decided she should probably keep an eye on Nightmare Moon instead.

The Nightmare in question stood unchallenged a few metres away, until, in the blink of an eye, Fluttershy was just… There. Even Dash had been visible when she struck at supersonic speeds, but it was as if Fluttershy had stopped time just to approach, and time had resumed as soon as she got on Nightmare Moon’s back, with her hooves around her throat.

As she began trying to choke the living embodiment of fear into unconsciousness, Applejack galloped to Rainbow Dash, and tried to haul her to her hooves. But Dash just wouldn’t move—it seemed she had lost all will to live. Undaunted, AJ simply pulled Dash onto her back, and turned to Twilight. A white hoof appeared in her vision, and a green corona of magic lifted her into the air with all the care Rarity could muster. Her face was the image of concern. “Twilight? Can you hear me?”

Why did Rarity sound like she was underwater? Still, she nodded, or tried to, and her vision blurred as Rarity carried her safely away from Nightmare Moon. The creature was flapping her wings, bucking her hooves, swiping at her with tendrils of darkness, anything to try and forcibly remove Fluttershy from around her neck, but the previously-timid mare stubbornly made all her attempts fruitless simply by clinging tightly.

Twilight lost sight of her as Rarity carried her behind a fallen table closer to the door, and placed her back against it. The wood felt uneven, or perhaps that was her spine. Beside her, a blur of pink focused itself into Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie! Darling, puh-lease tell me your first aid skills can help Twilight!” As Applejack brought Dash into the cover, she glanced at them both, paling as she saw their injuries. “Maybe! But the first rule of first aid is ‘Don’t move an injured pony!”

Dash slid off Applejack’s back like a sack of potatoes, and AJ struggled to get her upright before trying to get her attention. Dash was still breathing, as ragged as it was, but she seemed to have acquired a thousand yard stare on the way back. Sighing, Applejack turned to Pinkie, “Pinks, either we woulda got ‘em to safety or Nightmare Moon woulda stomped ‘em dead, and ah know which ah prefer.”

She turned back to Dash, and muttered, “Ta hay with it…” Before kissing Dash. This finally seemed to get her attention, and she practically wrapped herself around AJ, uttering the same sentence over and over, though it was gibberish to Twilight.

Pinkie Pie, however, was shaking with rage by now, and leapt atop the table’s edge to shout at Nightmare Moon, “You’re a bad pony, Black Snooty, and we’re gonna get you!” She dodged a chunk of thrown masonry, and landed back next to Twilight with a ‘sproing’.

Twilight’s vision wandered, and focused on the entrance to the Observatory, where Corporals Pinion and Cleavage were defending the door from a dozen of so Batponies. Jet had her rifle, and she was firing as fast and as accurately as she could into the melee, where Cleavage had drawn his blade and stolen a fallen Batpony’s bladed gauntlet. Amazingly, they were holding their own, and were likely the only things standing between Twilight’s… The rest of Twilight’s friends, because after the last week, they surely had earned that title, and a squadron of Thestrals.

Pinkie guided Twilight’s vision back to her with her hooves, and stared straight into Twilight’s eyes. “Twily? Look at me, Twily.” She blinked, and Pinkie took that as confirmation, and held up a metal sphere, with an octagon pressed into it. “You gotta tell us how to use these, Twily. We can’t win without these.”

“Darling, I don’t quite believe she’s lucid-”

“Shpark.” This was more of a cough than a statement, and it was followed by a surprising amount of blood. Pinkie ignored it, focusing fully on Twilight. “She just spoke! Run that one by me again, Twily, come on…”

Twilight tried, with all her might, to form the right syllables on her tongue before letting them be taken by the flow of blood by her mouth. “Sh-spark… of Freeee-”

“Spark! That’s right, now the rest, Spark of Friendsh-”

A bright light, brighter than anything Twilight had ever seen, instantly filled the room. She flopped her head back to look, and it was a truly awesome sight. An orange flare, so bright it was painful to look at directly, had dropped into the room through the gap where the telescope had been. With an ear-rending shriek, it smashed into Nightmare Moon and swept past her, taking Fluttershy into the light as The Nightmare hissed in pain.

It left a trail of flame in the air as it banked over the table, and dropped Fluttershy next to them, completely unharmed. Finally, the flare dimmed just enough to look at, and landed on the edge of the table. “Ph… Philomena?”

Indeed, it seemed to be just what Pinkie guessed; Princess Celestia’s prized phoenix, elegant and dangerous as never before, and judging by the way the air rippled off her wings, she was pissed. Nevertheless, she gave the six a chirp, before turning back to Nightmare Moon and swelling to eight times her size, and letting a Mother Roc’s hunting shriek.

In it’s echo, they could hear the buzzing rumble of Airship engines, and a golden dirigible appeared, framed by the open shutters of the Observatory’s dome. Seven ponies, wearing black peacoats and golden, scowling masks, rappelled through the same gap, landing just before Nightmare Moon as one. A pegasus, who seemed to be in charge, began barking out orders. “Overseers! Formation! Shield-bearers in front, full power! Brothers Leg and Shot, draw and prepare to fire on the abominations! Sister Invocation, crank that music-box and let the tones of Order calm the turbulence of the void!”

Three bulky Unicorns stepped forward, and the lead of the triforce growled, “She shall not cross our meridian.” Their horns lit with magic, and a glowing golden shield spread across the width of the room, isolating Nightmare Moon from everypony else. Two more stallions, wearing saddle-mounted crank-guns, turned and aimed at the cluster of Batponies by the door, where Cleavage had disappeared under the onslaught of bat-winged reinforcements.

Finally, a mare in the back, wearing yet another mask, used her hoof to crank a music-box on her back, and the effect was both strange and immediate. The air around her distorted, and all sound except the dirge of the box was warped, including Nightmare Moon’s howl of pain as she dug in her hooves against the onslaught. The leader turned to the table, with the six mares hiding behind it, and shouted over the noise, “Fillies and Gentlecolts, the Overseers have arrived!”

Nightmare Moon hissed, taking a step against the sheer force of the sound, and the Leader spun back around to face her, pulling a grenade from his belt. “Back, Demon!” It flew right at her, and the blast threw her against the far wall, while the shield protected the Overseers. This angered the Batponies, and they lost interest in the remaining Corporal Pinion, flying straight at the Overseers with the crank-guns.

“Weapons free!” Was the last thing Twilight heard before the whirring of the crank-guns, the gunshots thereof, and the screams of the Batponies drowned everything else out, save that horrible dirge from the music-box. Twilight flopped her head away with the last of her will, and spotted Fluttershy, who was cowering out of sight from the rest of her friends, her ears bleeding.

Pinkie spotted Twilight moving, and shook her again, sprinkling the pink mare with specks of red. Over the gunfire, she shouted, “Now’s the time! Twilight! Spark of what?”

Darkness began closing in on Twilight, her vision going black at the edges. She simply no longer had the energy to move. She couldn’t breathe. She barely had the energy to wheeze out, “I… am… the sp-spark…”

It all made sense now. Everything Border World had said, everything Celestia had taught her, it all made sense, and it was all leading up to this moment.

She could see everything.

She was going to save Luna. She was going to save them all. And she was going to save her friends.

Her vision tightened to the Octagon on the metal sphere in front of her, tunnel vision separating her from her friends, who were shouting something. Maybe it was about Spike? She wanted to see him again, before she… before she… left.

But it was going to be okay.

Everything was going to be just fine.

With a few final wheezes, she managed to say, “You’re...all...really...good…”

The last word couldn’t come. Her mind was going blank; and her vision before that, with spots crawling across it like malignant ants.

“F...Friends…” The last word slipped out, echoing in the void around her paired with an exhale. Twilight Sparkle did not inhale. The last thing she saw was a bright flash, and then she was gone.

Author's Note:

Yes, I just killed Twilight Sparkle. Problem?

Oh, fine. She gets better.