Equestria just encountered it's most powerful enemy ever. After leaving a path of destruction in it's wake, the Elements of Harmony and Discord fought brave against it, but failed.
Now everything that is left for Twilight is to recap the events.
How could it come so far? Why was no one able to stop the monster?
Why didn't friendship help?
Inspired by Aviators' song "Friendship" and this PMV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YTiT46Yc_c
Cover picture by Ventious on Deviantart.
May 11th 2015, 04:00 PM (CET): Surpassed 100 views in record time! Thanks for the read, everypony! 
October 2nd 2016: Now with a reading done by Eighth Flame! Check it out here.
November 9th 2016: Now with another reading, this time done by Dusky Novel! Check it out here.
August 1st 2018: Another reading joins the first two! "The End" now has three readings, check out the new one, done by The Shadow Reader, here.
why didn't it help.
cause plot convenience mostly. cause obviousyl the power of a tree god cannot possibly stop an entity of raw destruction, even though it could overpower the netirety of equestria's might in one entity.
not even the tree of harmony's might can stand against contrived writing.
........ know you had a reason to write it, but it honestly is too contrived. there is no reason at all for it not to be stopped, other than for grimdark and plot.
5964441
That's sad that you think that way, however, I want to remind you on two things I had in mind when writing this story:
1. The Tree of Harmony's only two known powers are keeping the Everfree Forest from expanding, which is a passive use of magic rather than an active one, and the magical energy that was in the box (called by me "The Essence of Harmony"), which was used up by Twilight and her friends and the rest of it probably went into the creation of the castle, so they couldn't use the Essence of Harmony against the monster.
2. As mentioned in the story, the attacker is an ancient monster from the past, so old that neither Luna or Celestia nor even Discord know about it's existence. This also implies that it's powers, as well as how it got those powers and how it could become so strong, are beyond their knowledge.
I also hinted on it that the Tree of Harmony, if he could actively attack the monster, wouldn't be able to defeat it, with Discord who got killed so easily, despite that he is an ancient being even more powerful than Celestia and Luna and similar powerful to the Tree of Harmony itself, as well as by the fact that the Elements of Harmony, who use the same magic the Tree uses, have proven to be useless against the monster.
I assume what you're aiming for with your comment is that I basically explained nothing about this monster.
Not where it came from, not why it's so powerful, not how it's exactly possible that it could defeat Celestia, Luna and Discord with such ease.
I can see your point and usually I would agree with you there, but including all these infos was also not intended for this kind of story.
I left all these questions intentionally open and my goal with this story was simply to portray the downfall of Equestria from the view of one pony in particular, Twilight, in the last moments of her life, as well as depicting the last moments in the lives of Rarity and Scootaloo.
And, since this story is written from Twilight's perspective, I also recommend you to put yourself in Twilight's perspective when reading it:
Twilight does practically know nothing about this monster and therefore, everything is very vague.
All the details in regards to the monster and the threat it poses were intentionally left open for interpretation by me and you are invited to interpret the exact events that happened before the monster destroyed Ponyville in every way you wish or you can come up with.
Rather a bleak story, old boy. A few plot holes here and their, but generally enjoyable.
This... was an amazing chapter... I've never read anything like this before, but I can say that I liked this chapter, and I am sure I will enjoy the rest of the story just as much when it comes out.
But it's so sad...
PINKIE!!!
5964520
While I don't have any problem with making a monster too strong for the elements or rainbow power (and thus no problem with this story), there's no evidence that the rainbow power can be depleted any more than the elements could. In fact, the mane six showed that they still had rainbow power after Tirek, both when they created a rainbow in the final season four song, and when the EG mane six managed to manifest rainbow powers with Twilight's help in Rainbow Rocks.
5964520 .......... the elements are an extension of its might. and the mane six channeled its very power through them to defeat tirek, who wielded the power of much of equestria, all four alicorns, AND discord at the time.
discord is nothing compared to the tree, so there is no comparison there. and i am pretty fucking sure the tree would be as old, if not older, than some random dark dragon. and as its kinda obvious that the tree either has a will of its own or something similar, it could be rather easily compelled to abandon its hold of the forest to kill such an abomination.
seriously, your reasoning is half way to deceptive. you have no reason for them to fial other than to fail, no logical conclusion.
5964659
In hindsight, I'm surprised I could write this too. Especially the part with Scootaloo.
Would you tell me what you consider as plotholes? I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that.
And thanks for the follow, it's appreciated!
5964932
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!
Though, it is not a chapter. It's just a one-shot I was inspired to by the PMV and song, there will be no continuation or prequel to this.
I have not planned to expand on it further, sorry.
But thanks for the favourite! Even though this story won't be expanded, you can expect more stories by me.
5964987
You make a good point here. To be honest, I forgot this little moment from the Season 4 Finale. The hiatus was very stressful for me and now I'm all in Season 5 hype, so, this completely slipped my mind due to that.
However, for this story's scenario, the magic of the Tree, and thus the magic in the Elements and the Essence of Harmony, are useless against the monster, because it is far older and has an unknown immunity to the specific magic that the Tree wields.
As I said, a lot here is intentionally open for interpretation and own theories, as I just wanted to depict the aftermath and the last moments in the lives of Rarity, Scootaloo and Twilight.
a few past & present tense issues . good read for a dark piece
Dear Princess Celestia
The Ponyclyepse is coming.
DUCK
Twilight Sparkle
5965152
oh! ok, I'm fine with that. But I am looking forward to more stories!
5965238
Thanks for reading and liking it, I'm glad you could enjoy it.
I had that feeling too when writing, though, I could not pin down where they are. I think it's somewhere in the flashback when Twilight thinks back on the events that led to the destruction of Ponyville. Or somewhere in the transitions between the flashback and the present.
It probably just happened because I wrote that story late at night while I was already tired, though, it would be interesting to see what I did wrong to learn from it. Can you name me a few examples of those issues?
5965300
And you're going to get them! Thanks for the follow!
The flashbacks were the main plot holes.
But still, I really enjoyed this.
I've never thought that i could enjoy something that make me sad
You got an entire story from a single song that I probably listened to a billion times. Damn.
7676318
The song and the PMV based on it. And it's actually just the end of a bigger story. But thanks for reading and following me!^^
Wow that was hard on the feels..
7709218
I know.
Still hate myself for writing this..... Thanks for the read, though.
7709242 You know I have to save them. Thank Luna for an Eva and a time machine and a really big mirror!!!
7710553
I can cope with it that I wrote about Equestria dying. It IS just a fic, after all, the real Equestria is just fine.
But letting Scootaloo die at the end was when I went too far, I realized that only in hindsight. She means the most to me, yet I wrote her being the filly who dies in Twilight's arms, because she was the first one who jumped into my mind when typing that fic down.
It's cruelly ironic, the fact that I love her the most was the reason why I chose her for that role, I guess that love for her led to it that my mind thought of it as sort of a compliment to give her that important role, yet at the same time, doing so was contradicting my love for her. And that's what I feel guilty for.
But who knows..... Maybe it's all just a dark dream.
I also recommend to watch the PMV that largely inspired this fic which I linked in the description. You will have to ignore the one scene with Chrysalis, but other than that, the PMV gets a whole new meaning when watched after reading my fic.
You know, since the fic got the second reading yesterday, I'm thinking strongly about picking it up again and adding another (optional) chapter.
Something that puts all of that in a more lighthearted direction, because I feel even more bad for it now after the fic got two readings.
It's set in stone, actually, I just can't tell when I will write it, but hopefully not too late from now.
7711199 If I caused you any undo sadness I am sorry.
7711208
You didn't. Nothing regarding this fic can cause me more than there already is.
I like.
What was the creature?
Second or third read now.
9160633
Second or third?
Wow..... Even though I'm not happy with the end of the story and still feel bad for writing this about Scootaloo of all ponies, I feel humbled by this.^^
The creature, it is mysterious..... I imagine it to be an old, ancient evil, that only wakes up every few thousand years or maybe even only every few ten thousand years, to feed on the planet's population before it goes back to sleep under the ground, where it waits for the next time it has to eat.
Every time it wakes up, it consumes everyone on the planet, leaving it devoid of life..... But somehow, every time after the feeding is over, new life starts to form, building populations, that then grow and develop for a very long time, until the creature returns and undo's everything once again. It's an endless cycle that always continues like that for all of eternity.
And because the creature is so old and the new life that gets created after the feeding doesn't know about it or what happened to the population that was there before them, there is no historic record of it, so nopony ever heard of it. And because it is much older than them, Celestia, Luna and Discord don't know anything about it or how to stop it either. Which they also couldn't, even if they would know what it is, because due to its existence that spans across many million years, it has developed powers far beyond anyone's imagination.
There are a few kinks that would have to be worked out if that would be a longer story and I would probably write it a bit different today, but as it stands, it's supposed to be a mysterious short story that is open for interpretation.
Lately, the thought to rewrite it has crossed my mind a few times, to see how it would turn out today now that I am a better writer than three years ago and to give it a different end that doesn't weigh on me like the current one, but I'm not sure yet as I have a lot of other, more important projects planned right now.
9161065
The ending is perfect...
Everything is gone and destroyed, it thinks it's passed over and left death in its wake, every sapient creature will die, except twilight.
Who has to wait, let's say ten thousand years, to aid the next creatures that arise... humans.
Multi chapter story and feature box.
Maybe tv tropes when fans love it enough.
9161084
It is an interesting idea. I don't like the end, because I let Scootaloo die even though I love her so much. I wanted to focus on a filly dying in Twilight's hooves at the end to make it more tragic, and my mind instantly jumped to Scootaloo because I know her so well and love her so much, so I chose her without thinking. But I regretted it then, because that decision also contradicts how much I love her at the same time.
That idea with Twilight is interesting, though. Maybe this time, the creature ensured that there will be a population it can feed on the next time it wakes up by sparing Twilight and letting her live.
Though, that idea would mean that the creature created a weakpoint for itself, as with Twilight surviving, she could figure out a way to kill the creature the next time and help the planet's next population to survive the feeding, which would break the endless cycle of my idea. So if I would have written this as a longer story, that's not the way how I would have gone about it.
And if I make the re-write one day, I have a more positive end in mind, something that the PMV that partially inspired this story implied, too.