Friendship's End

by Thought Prism

Chapter 3

Author's Note:

Cue Dramatic Music

At the corner of his perception, Bolas felt something tug at the effects of his magic, breaking his control. While unlikely, such a thing was possible, and had been accounted for. Considering the sheer number of beings he had just turned into killers, the million-to-one odds of any one of the unicorns having a latent spark added up. And only a Planeswalker had enough willpower to even begin resisting him without the aid of magical mental barriers, which these ponies do not possess.

So, when a white filly, wreathed in an aura of deep crimson, rocketed herself towards him through the air, he knew exactly what he needed to do. He would destroy her.

Issuing another command to his remaining thralls, he proclaimed "Kill that pony!"

They turned their heads towards the flying Sweetie Belle and began firing hundreds of beams in her direction. But Sweetie's rage-heightened senses made quick work of the problem as she juked herself backwards, sideways, and every which way to avoid the onslaught. When they stopped firing, Bolas was disappointed at their pathetic mana capacity.

Minds overwhelmed by sorrow, Twilight and Celestia watched the battle with uncharacteristic indifference. They couldn't even tell who the dragon's opponent was at this distance, and there was no way to bring back all who had perished, regardless of the outcome.

Calling upon her memory of the spell implanted in her mind, known as Terminate, Sweetie fired her own barrage at Bolas in retaliation. But Bolas merely waved his hand, and the spells ricocheted off of a partial bubble of blue energy.

In retaliation, the Elder Dragon launched a shower of sparks from his maw at high speed. These were not aimed at his prey, however, and they landed upon the bones of dozens of pegasi, whereupon they burst into flames. A chorus of unearthly wails filled the air as the newly formed fireherd rose into the air on skeletal wings.

As they careened towards the floating filly, her horn glowed an even brighter red. As if crossing an invisible threshold, they were crushed to cinders by overwhelming telekinetic force. Turning her aura towards Bolas, she attempted to do the same to him, but the dragon's eyes flashed, and the aura around him shattered like glass.

Realizing the need for a faster method of attack, Bolas launched himself skyward with a single enormous wingbeat. He aimed a claw, and the clouds above the city darkened and swirled themselves together.

However, Sweetie wasn't stupid, and recognized the thread of incoming lightning. She flung herself into a nearby tower through a window at the precise moment the thundercloud unleashed a furious storm of cracking white lightning, which seared the masonry and fried all the gold and purple flags off of the structure's many flagpoles.

Roaring in anger, the dragon then called forth a gust of wispy blueish vapors, dragging the filly back out into the open before she magically stopped her forced movement. As she did so, Sweetie wreathed the entire tower in her aura, ripping the building from its foundations with a crumbling sound.

Now turned on its side, the tower launched towards the airborne dragon like an enormous missile. But he was ready with his own kinetic powers, and ripped the structure in half lengthwise just before impact, sending the two chunks in opposite directions, reducing themselves and two other buildings into rubble.

Within his mind, Bolas laughed. This was the level of ability that these ponies could access if they only gave up the pretenses of restraint and accepted power in its purest form. Still, he would pull out all the stops and obliterate the insolent horse who dared defy him. This whole time, he had been holding back to avoid harming his conquests. But no longer.

"Your doom is nigh, Planeswalker!" A wicked smile upon his face, he directed a volume of magic towards Canterlot Mountain. Most did not know that it was once a volcano, and had long since fallen inactive. Well, it was inactive no longer.

With a blast of power that shook all of Equestria, it erupted scalding gouts of ash and magma high into the air. The looming orbs of lava began their descent upon the entire city.

Sweetie Belle gazed upon the oncoming onslaught, and attempted to redirect the molten rock away from her as it fell. To her surprise, the volcanic fallout appeared completely immune to her magic.

Mind racing, she needed to find a way to avoid being incinerated by the still-erupting volcano. The buildings wouldn't last forever, hiding in them would be pointless. Then, she realized, how would her mortal foe survive?

As if to answer her question, the tyrant enveloped himself in a shroud of impossible cold, with ice visibly crystallizing around his scales. She dove diagonally down to the area of sky directly below Bolas. "Oh, no you don't!" he exclaimed as he began twirling through the air in an erratic draconic dance.

Sweetie continued her descent, matching move for move. Bolas followed, spiraling downwards as he fired blasts of necrotic energy at her from his mouth, the sheet of flaming rain close behind.

Soon, both approached the ground, Sweetie narrowly evading the attacks. Twilight squinted upwards at the approaching blood-cloaked pony, who was diving headfirst towards the ground nearby.

Twilight couldn't believe her eyes. It was Sweetie Belle. "Sweetie Bell! Help us!"

The filly turned, observing the two chained alicorns. Realizing exactly what needed to be done, time seemed to slow down as she released her magical grip over her own body, going into freefall. She focused all of her energy into snapping the glowing chains. A loud crack echoed through the city.

"Impossible!" Bolas cried out.

It had worked. Immediately, Celestia took action, her whole body flaring with a searing radiance, absorbing the fiery energy from the lava above, reducing it to nothing but gravel and soot. After silently nodding to eachother, Twilight and Celestia teleported into the skies above their former captor.

The two alicorns reared back their heads, horns flush with power. They unleashed twin beams of white light, tinged pink and golden, at Bolas' exposed back.

While still quite upset about the freed immortal, he heard the attack, and managed to harden the spell around him into a thick sheet of ice, which then broke, absorbing most of the impact as he was sent careening sideways. He righted himself in midair at the same time as Sweetie Belle did, flipping herself around with her magic to face the villain.

The three mares shouted battle cries as they fired their magic once more at the looming threat before them. Bolas put up another shield of countermagic to blunt the assault, but the beams from the Twilight and Celestia combined with a barrage of Terminates from Sweetie Belle was relentless, and his defensive bubble was beginning to crack.

Loathe as he was to admit it to himself, Nicol Bolas was on the ropes. The odds of him being able to fend off three spellcasters with this much power at the same time and come out of it unscathed were slim. The new Planeswalker had even somehow dissipate a spell which had been thoroughly hexproofed. To express his disdain, he roared in anger.

"It's over, Bolas!" declared Celestia.

"You will pay for what you've done!" added Twilight.

Sweetie Belle seethed with malice, her triumph approaching. "I'm going to enjoy grinding your bones into dust!" The others glanced over to her in shock.

They seemed to be under the impression he would let them win. How cute. All he needed was a distraction. One that would not fail to draw all of their attention. Gathering an enormous quantity of mana, his eyes flared deep purple.

The three mares heard a 'woosh' behind them, followed by an immense 'thud'. Turning to look, Twilight and Celestia couldn't believe their eyes.

Standing almost as tall as the castle, looming over all of Canterlot, there was an enormous monster. It looked like the deformed skeleton of some sort of bipedal creature, if its bones were made of black stone. Blue light shined behind its emotionless visage, and razor-sharp claws jutted out from its arms and shoulders.

As soon as it appeared, it began rampaging throughout the city, leveling structures with its tail and crushing stupefied unicorns underfoot like so much bubble wrap.

Twilight immediately registered the impending deaths of hundreds more ponies. "No!" she yelled, flying off to confront the beast, firing energy beams at it as she went. Celestia had a similar reaction.

But, Sweetie Belle never even bothered to spare a sidelong glance at the creature. Her full, undivided attention remained fixed on Nicol Bolas, the cruel puppetmaster who had fractured her very being with his machinations. She kept firing black bolts at his shield, slowly wearing it down.

"Don't you care that the Mortivore I just summoned is killing everyone who wasn't dead already?" Bolas inquired.

"Everypony." she corrected, her tone deadpan. "And no. Not when the target of my vengeance still draws breath."

"Quite the vocabulary for one so young." Then, drawing upon his gathered knowledge: "Well, what about your sister, Rarity? You could lose her too."

In the distance, Twilight was batted out of the sky by a gargantuan arm, Celestia retaliating with a gout of flame directed at the beast's face.

"Not important right now," Sweetie replied, still on the attack.

The two glared as their duel continued, eyes locked. Neither made a sound, save for the spells clashing and Bolas' flapping. This went on for a while, Lhurgoyf and princesses raging in the background.

Bolas started laughing, as he was now deeply amused by the unshakable fury in her actions. "Sweetie Belle, you are a mare after my own heart. It seems we are at an impasse. I can't think of anything I could do to kill you that wouldn't also end up taking out Celestia as collateral."

"So, you'll let me rip your scales off one by one now?" she asked.

"No. I'm leaving." He pointed a single claw at the filly. "Know that this isn't over! One day, I will return to claim what is rightfully mine!"

She gave him a most aggressive raspberry.

With one final indignant roar, Lord Nicol Bolas vanished.

It's master's mana now lost, Celestia's next blast of divine radiance bored a hole clean through the massive Mortivore's thin spine, the two plummeting halves of its body shattering upon impact with what little remained of Canterlot. Its corpse vanished into black mist soon after.

At this point, the unicorns that survived the battle had all returned to normal, non-glowing eyes and all, now free to move. Most winced in pain from their minor, rubble-related injuries while wailing in sorrow at what they had been forced to do.

Now free to catch their breath, Twilight and Celestia warped over to Sweetie as the three returned to the earth.

Twilight reached out and enveloped the filly in her hooves, followed by Celestia, the flow of tears resuming with newfound vigor. They held eachother close in a warm embrace.