• Published 17th Jun 2012
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Justice Itself - Autocharth



Tyrael destroyed the Worldstone, saving mankind and blasting himself unintentionally across reality.

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Act III - Ch. 28 Frozen Elements

Chapter 28 Frozen Elements

***

Paladin stormed northward. Hooves slamming into the snow, crunching ice and sloughing through slush. He charged through the night, narrowing his eyes again the cold wind. With each step he felt Spike bouncing on his back. Occasionally a wince marred Paladin’s expression, the little dragon putting pressure on his concealed, injured wing.

Guilt, horrible, mind-numbing guilt lurked at the very edge of his thoughts. They had come north, in part to look for him. They were in this area, Spike frantically explained, because Twilight had predicted he would be nearby. Had his wing not been hurt, Paladin realised, she would have been right. He would have been there to help them, but he hadn’t been. He should have been.

My failures are compounded. I sought to insulate them from harm, yet in their rush to find me they have found only doom. Doom at the hand of one I trusted,’ he thought bitterly. The cold wind bit at his hooves, but when it struck his face it slid past him. Even with the coat spelled to contain warmth and protect from the elements, the sinister chill that permeated the dark snowscape threatened to overwhelm him. It crept up from below, into his unprotected hooves, biting at his tail and radiating from everything around him.

Yet there was still a warmth around him, and Paladin buried his nose into the fabric of the scarf for a moment, drawing in with his breath a feeling of strenght from it. It was more than just a scarf, he had long since realised. Fluttershy had put her emotions into it, as she had the little hat and coat Spike wore. They gave him the strength to ignore the despair every glance at the frozen wasteland told him to feel. His friends had been taken, but he was still free and Ardelon had no idea what was coming for him. Paladin was no angel. He was Paladin, and his friends were in danger. He was far more dangerous.

Spike held on, his expression as resolute as Paladin’s. He glared into the darkness, as if daring the night to try to stop them. The moon was shrouded, as all the sky was, leaving them to trust Paladin’s sharp eyes and luck. Something under Paladin’s hoof suddenly gave way as it came down, sending him into a stumble. Teetering on the edge of falling off, Spike regained his balance a few seconds after Paladin. Neither said anything as Paladin began to gallop. With his wing injured, there was no other course of action. They couldn’t even inform the Princesses; all the writing supplies had been with Twilight, and short of stabbing himself there was nothing for Spike to write with even if he used one of the maps Paladin had as parchment. He had still seriously considered it, until Paladin had pointed out neither was good enough with first aid to be sure they would be fine, and an injury like that would be dangerous in such conditions.

Lifting his head, Spike let out a little puff of fire, willing it to stay, to continue to light their way. His eyes bored into it, centred on it, thinking at the little ball of green fire. It was going to do what he wanted. It was magic now. He was magic. He was going to help his friends, and his fire was going to let him do that.

Paladin’s eyes flicked up for a moment, surprised by the green light, before going back to looking at the land before him. It stayed there, hovering as though caught by Spike’s stare, above Paladin’s head. It cast light before them yet the gentle glow was kept from Paladin’s eyes. He almost smiled at Spike’s forethought; if it had been in front of him, his night vision would be ruined by staring into it.

It was no easy journey, and he kept on pushing north relentlessly. Guilt drove him as surely as anything else, and in many ways it felt like it defined him. He just seemed to be making mistake after mistake, failing at every duty he took, even creating worse problems! He failed to protect his friends. He had failed to convince Gilda to abandon her selfish ways. He had brought untold suffering and pain to this world by his very presence. What use was his decision to sacrifice his angelic power, if they ended up dying anyway? He had, once more, damned both worlds.

A smell, hinting of wild flowers blossoming in the warmth of spring, slowly swept away the scent of winter. It was a smell he had become familiar with, far more than he ever had before. Tyrael had never had a favourite smell; he would not have really understood the concept. But Paladin did, and as he breathed it in he felt something spread through his limbs. The chill was pushed out, and he felt hope stirring in the despair.

“I may have made mistakes,” he growled out loud. “But they do not define me. I will save my friends.”

Spike made a questioning noise. “What about me? I’m here to help too!”

Paladin nodded, jumping across a rent in the earth, where something had split it so deeply not even the constant snow could fill it. With each step he felt the earth hardening, the rock of the mountains getting closer and closer.

“We will save them, my friend. I made mistakes. I sought to do this alone, because I feared for you all. I was wrong. Strength hoarded alone is nothing compared to strength shared between friends.” He let some of the confidence he was starting to feel creep into his voice. “Trust me, Spike, we are going to save them, and not even Ardleon will stop us, not with all the windigoes in creation.”

A wide grin spread Spike’s toothy maw. “You’re right! We’re coming to save you, everypony! Nothing's gonna stop us!” he shouted, willing the words to reach friendly ears, and even unfriendly ears. He wanted Ardleon to know they were coming for him.

Even with renewed confidence, Paladin felt doubt casting a shadow over his self-assurances. They had a long way to go. The bitter chill would only grow, and his strength would be sapped. If only his wing were unhurt, he could fly without needing to force his way through these foothills. From here he could see them rise up into the mountains. He had a journey that should take days. How long did he have? How long did they have until Ardleon did whatever he intended to do to them?

Questions, more questions than he had answers to. Spike had no more answers than he did, so he pushed them from his mind. Paladin focused on what he knew; that he had to help his friends, that he had to stop Ardleon. There was no room for doubt, not anymore. If he was to avert disaster, he would have to be relentless.

Paladin wasn’t sure how long he had been galloping. There was no way to keep track of the passage of time, and since Spike had granted them light, everything had become a haze. He kept moving as he thought, not registering obstructions as he swerved around or over them. Paladin’s hooves ached. They slammed into the snow, throwing it up as he charged ever onward. Each heavy step sent vibrations up through muscles that were slowly tiring. Flaring his nostrils, mist shot out as he exhaled sharply, like the steam out of an engine.

Nothing disturbed them. No windigoes attacked. There were no animals. He didn’t know if this was because they had fled with the coming of the sinister, draining snows or because they had already succumbed. Frankly, right now Paladin didn’t care.

The fire winked out at some point, but he barely noticed. Enough sunlight pierced the cloud cover to return sight to him. Paladin was panting, his heart pounding. Spike’s weight began to grow limp, and he had to unsheathe a wing to support the little dragon. There was more light, although everything was still dark and gloomy, the morning light locked behind a cover of grey clouds. Staying up all night, even bouncing on the back of the massive pegasus, was hard on him and he had at some point drifted off. He slumped on Paladin’s wing, cradled against the white feathers.

He blinked, and Paladin realised he wasn’t in the foothills anymore. Snowcapped mountains rose up around them, and beneath the slush he felt hard packed earth. Shaking his head, Paladin stopped, leaning against the rocky rise next to him. His legs ached, hours of mindless galloping taxing his strength. He cleared the snow away, lowering Spike to the ground.

A few minutes,’ he told himself calmly. ‘Just to plan my approach.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. He needed a plan. Just attacking Ardleon head on would be no good; in his current state, Ardleon would be able to overpower him with ease. The only way to reach success was to be smart.

I need to try talking him down. There has to be a way to convince him he’s wrong. Ardleon must see that what he is doing is not justice!’ Paladin pressed a hoof against his aching wing. It had fared badly in the hour long gallop. He had no illusions that it would heal in time to be of use, and the shame of his weakness hurt far more than his wing ever could.

As he stood, a shiver ran down his spine and he lifted his good wing defensively.The already cold air seemed to get colder, although such a drastic drop in temperature should have been impossible. His eyes darted about, and he shifted his stance to cover Spike, shielding the child beneath his own bulk.

Tyrael…

Paladin went still, his eyes wide. That voice…

“Ardleon,” he answered.

The air before him wavered, but the form that appeared was a ghostly and translucent, a reflection of Ardleon’s distant form. Or that was what Paladin took it to be, as much as the thought revolted him, for the angel that stood before him was not the angel he remembered. As Spike had said, great rents covered Ardleon, covered by ice that snaked about him like cracks in glass. It was hard to see, as transparent as Ardleon’s image was, but his wings matched Spike’s description of sinister, icy talons.

Tyrael, my lord,” Ardleon gestured, reaching for him. “See how the mortal drags you down. You weaken yourself, trying to support him when he cannot match you, even lessened as you are. He is but a mortal. Leave him here, and hurry to me. I will restore you to your true self. You will be what you were meant to be.

Paladin shook his head. “No, Ardleon. Cease this madness. You are doing untold harm. There is still time to end this without further conflict. It’s not too late to stop this.”

The angel fell silent, looking down at him. Paladin got the sense that he really was looking down on him. It was disconcerting, to feel such a thing from someone he remembered training. Tyrael had been there when Ardleon had been born from the Crystal Arch, had led the ceremony as they welcomed their new brother, listened to his Lightsong take shape. The angelic chorus had rejoiced at the birth of a new angel to join the ranks of the Court of Justice.

How, he wondered, could this be the same Ardleon he had welcomed with open arms?

You will see the light once more, my lord,” Ardleon finally said, his form beginning to fade away. His eyes, twin points of cold light, bored into him and for a moment, they flared with hate. “You will be free of the accursed mortal shell that so belittles you.

Before Paladin could say another word, Ardleon was gone. Beneath him, the quiet sound of Spike’s childlike snores were the only disturbance in the chill air. Sighing, he stepped away and looked down. For a moment Paladin considered leaving Spike there to sleep, to keep him from the battle. But he knew better. Leaving Spike here would only mean making him vulnerable to the windigoes or Ardleon himself, to say nothing of leaving a child on his own out here.

Lifting Spike onto his back, Paladin let the dragon sleep. They still had far to go, and perhaps sleep would give Spike some more energy for battle. A battle that would doubtless occur, if Ardleon refused to listen. Given the look the angel had sent him, Paladin felt what little faith he had failing.

***

Ardelon turned, the image fading from the ice as his frozen wing passed over it. He fixed his burning gaze on the mortals. They stood, bound in ice from which a constant mist wafted. With each step towards them, Ardleon felt his anger build. He itched to summon his blades, but a glance towards a towering shard of ice, thrust up at the sky like a dagger, told him it was too soon. With a gesture he pushed the shard, and the swords it contained, beneath his feet.

“You filthy mortals,” he snarled. The storm around them quivered in sympathy with his fury. “Befouling what you are too weak to understand. Mocking the greatest of the archangels, reducing him to your level.”

They couldn’t hear him. They should. They should have to listen to what he said. He trembled with the urge to simply destroy them now, to shatter the ice binding them and stain it red. The temptation was so strong, and he could feel the herd about him, urging him to do it. To give in to his rage. It was no surprise; they wanted the yellow one dead. It was shielding itself, and the others, from their influence.

It took effort, more than he liked, to resist their temptations. ‘I am in control. You serve me, and you will cease this,’ he commanded them, his thoughts booming out through their bond. He felt them shudder at the command, but they did obey.

Reassured by their obedience, he returned his attention to the mortals. They remained sheathed in ice, although he had been forced to ensure the cold wouldn’t kill them. He needed them alive, for now.

“We have time,” he said aloud, not sure why he felt the need to speak when there was no one to reply or listen. “Until the thing you turned Tyrael into arrives. You will surrender your souls to me.”

Approaching the first of the mortals, he pressed a hand against her frozen tomb. This one had stolen his master’s armour. Had he lips, he would have smirked. Though they had stolen Tyrael’s power, they were untrained in battle. Against his millenia of experience, they had fallen to an easy diversion. Watch the skies, as he struck from below. This thief was the first to be struck down.

“A true testament to Tyrael’s might,” he murmured. Even stolen and weakened, Tyrael’s armour would have required powerful attacks to breach.

He spread his will through the ice, questing, searching for the vulnerable weakness that was her mind. Even shielded as it was against the windigoes, he would find it easy to break. Break her spirit, and he would have what he needed. There was no time to be subtle; he would simply have to do this the most brutal way, battering through her mental defenses as fast as he could. They would surely all be defeated in time. What resistance could a mortal mind present to an angel?

“Show me your true self, mortal,” Ardleon hissed. Her mind grasped firmly, he pushed himself in, diving into her soul.

He stood above a forest, an endless ocean of trees. They were full of healthy green leaves, the branches long and laden with glistening apples of a thousand breeds. He swept his gaze, and their names assaulted him. Shoving the thoughts away, Ardleon turned the solid air beneath him insubstantial. Rather than float down as he intended, gravity as only a mortal could imagine exacted a heavy toll on him, dragging the angel to the ground. He fell, and fell, and fell, revealing what had seemed close, small trees to behemoths of impossible size. He hurtled past the branches, clawing at the air in outrage, until he slammed into the earth. Rich soil and emerald green grass were thrown in every direction, yet he found no crater beneath his feet.

“I will not be bound to your expectations. Even in your own mind, you will know fear,” he roared, rising with wings of ice flaring with power. His body became mist, which became a pillar as he rushed upwards.

Leaves that rustled gently in the wind became a shields and blades. Branches became iron, unbreakable. The apples, a million million of them, thrummed with power and warmth that drove him back to the ground.

In the mind, even a mortal could have mastery. But not to this degree. Ardleon knew he should have been uncontested here, able to simply overpower the whims and fantasies that dictated how the mortal’s mind took form. Quivering with rage, he stood tall and glared his fury at the plant-life blocking his path. A choice faced him; fight his way through this with the rules it imposed upon him, or withdraw. Give up.

“No,” he snarled. Frost gathered around his hands, blizzards contained around his forearms. Aiming at the base of one tree, he unleashed it, a blast of frost and chill. Ice shot up the trunk. He held the blast until half the vast thing was sheathed in ice. It was not simply a physical act of ice magic. He threw his raw will into it, overpowering a fragment of the mortal’s mind. Everything meant something in a mindscape, every gesture was weighed down with meaning and laden with symbolism.

Allowing his attack to end, Ardleon directed the frost and ice - in truth simply representations of his power - into the form of a weapon. From somewhere in the mortal’s own mind, the image of a wood cutting axe began to shape it. He rejected that. A lie, a trickery to make him accept influence from the mortal. Whatever form it bade him to take, to best do as he needed to do, was surely a trick.

His great blade of winter, fueled by fury and engineered with hate in every fleck of ice, struck the frozen truck at its base, shattering the ice and biting into the wood. The flesh of the tree shattered with the ice, and though they should not have, the cracks went upwards, beyond the ice into the bark, destroying the tree even as it fell.

The land shuddered, trembling with the collapse. Ardleon’s laugh boomed out, his head thrown back as a cloud of dust and wood fragments were blasted from the falling tree and blew over him.

The dust soon settled, and aside from the ruins there was nothing but a broken stump. The ground around it was scarred and lifeless, the destruction taking a toll. A single apple, its red surface shining as though polished to perfection, sat in the middle of the ruins.

Reaching in, Ardleon picked it up, squeezing it. Unbidden, he felt a flood of memories. Weak and feeble, even for a mortal, he felt all the emotions channelled into them. Mortal figures, the same quadrupeds of this world as the mortal mind he was invading. More, they were linked, related in some fashion. Two of them, indistinct with time and a young mind, speaking. Whatever memories this little apple held, they were unspeakably precious.

He crushed the apple.

The world trembled, the mindscape shuddering, and something massive and red struck him. The angel was thrown flying, slamming into another tree. The crushed apple fell in pieces, the land absorbing it, the mind trying to recover the precious fragments. Seeds took root from the crushed apple, this mind desperate to sow the memory back together.

So…” He stood, wings creaking and cracking as he flexed them. “That’s what it took to face your guardian.”

Shape liked a mortal, but colossal and red, it snorted and glared at him. There was something exaggerated about its form, but Ardleon neither knew nor cared about the difference. He would destroy it, and be one step closer to what he wanted.

The red giant charged, and he met it head on. His hands caught the crimson titan’s shoulders, a shockwave blasting as they pressed their weight against each other, trying to force the other back. A single step back would be all that was needed, a simple gesture of defeat that would decide it.

Behind his foe, Ardleon felt the mustered will and belief. The mortal mind believed completely in the strength of this guardian; whatever it was a reflection of was a pillar that supported it. A mindscape was shaped by many forces of the mind, not least belief. This mindscape believed in the guardian’s might, in a reliability that was second to none. It could not imagine defeat here.

Ardleon met belief with belief. He could not imagine defeat, he could not imagine surrendering this close to restoring Tyrael. And while belief and belief might come to a draw, he was an angel.

Mist swarmed up the guardian’s legs, crippling it as the angel’s power dug into the mental construct. It made no sounds of pain, but he felt the force behind it weaken for a moment. It was all he needed, and so his hands tightened into fists. All the belief tied into the guardian gave it considerable power, but now he exploited that. So much power tied into one form made it so easy to dispose of it all at once, rather than hunt for it in bits and pieces across the mindscape. He lifted the guardian, and when he brought it down it was to impale it on part of the broken stump. It broke the construct, and a freezing gale blasted over it, destroying the guardian totally. The stump became a frozen sculpture, captured and bound in his will.

Once more the mindscape shuddered, another defence defeated. Ardleon felt the rules give way, his will exerting against it. A wound had been formed, the scar of his victory providing him the opening. He thrust his will into it, scouring through the surface of it. No mind was so flexible to recover from the destruction of the guardian yet, at least not enough to challenge him. His thoughts quested through the trees, searching and seeking.

He found it, and the distance was closed with a few steps, his mind forcing the shift of location with some difficulty. Though he would not admit it, Ardelon was glad this mind was untrained. Enhanced by angelic power, it would have proven difficult even for him. For now, he took advantage and found what he wanted.

Even as he arrived, new defences snapped into place. Rather than a single guardian, a herd of them awaited him. The impressions of family, loved ones and those the mortal knew only as family, swamped him. Brushing them away, Ardleon summoned his power. There, behind them, a sapling, a tree smaller than the others. It bore a six fruit, each apple coloured differently. One glowed to his senses, screamed to him of the thing they had made Tyrael into.

They attacked without speaking, although their mouths opened in silent war cries. He struck with blades of ice, cutting through them. Hard hooves struck him, but his form was a reflection of his will, turning aside the blows as though they were nothing. His blades were not so harmless, and with each guardian he destroyed, he felt the mindscape balking and quaking. They fell so easily to him, but there were so many, each fallen construct soon replaced by another. Ardleon fell into the slaughter. After so long waging war against bestial demons, the lack of gore from the downed foes was strange and at odds with the damage he was doing, but he found himself losing his senses to the thrill of it. They simply fell, one after another, barely a bother, but it was good to finally unleash his fury.

He cleared the crowd, and only then realised he had been tricked, From every direction, the world was becoming shining and brilliant. Steel - angelic steel - wrapped the trees and the branches, sheathed leaves and apples, even carpeted the ground. All rushing towards the sapling with its six fruit, each a unique colour.

No!” Enraged at the trickery of the delaying tactic, he put on a burst of speed, great gauntlets grappling the sapling, biting into it. A wave of frost ran from him, covering the saplling’s roots just in time to deny the angelic steel armouring the world. What had been a lush, healthy forest had become a paradise of metal and silver, shining with heavenly glory. All except the sapling. That was his, and Ardleon began his work. The apple with seven colours, the pink apple, the purple, the white, the yellow, and at last, the fruit shimmered with white-blue intensity. He bound them in his magic, trapping them. Now closer, he noticed a seventh growth, a bud that might one day bloom into a flower and then apple. It hugged the violet apple, coloured in wavering patterns of purple and green.

And his work was done. The sapling, the new link that formed the empathic bond between the mortals forged from Tyrael’s power, was sealed in a tomb as cold as that which held the mortals themselves.

***

Paladin stumbled, a gasp escaping his lips. Digging his claws in, Spike only barely kept from falling off the pegasus with the instinctive reaction. He blinked blearily, looking at the pegasus in confusion at the abrupt awakening.

“Wha’s goin’ on?” he asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes. His expression creased, concern riding high in his eyes as he saw the alarmed look on Paladin’s face. “What’s happening?”

“I...I’m not sure...Applejack, she’s...gone,” came the breathless reply. Paladin pressed a hoof to his chest, staring at nothing.

Spike stared at him. The words, their meaning, just didn’t register for a few more seconds. “Gone? What- what does ‘gone’ mean?”

“She’s just gone, Spike. I can feel them all now, so close, a constant presence. No feelings, nothing yet, but simply a presence, a knowledge that they are there. Now it is gone. She is absent,” Paladin said, his tone pained.

The little dragon gulped, feeling something drop in his stomach away. “She’s not…” he couldn’t bring himself to say it, to say ‘dead’.

“No. No.” Paladin shook his head, and again with more force. “No. I would know if that happened. It would be more than simply nothing. She lives, but our bond is truly sealed. Ardleon’s work, I suspect.”

You are correct,” a cold voice hissed. They both started, a grunt torn from Paladin as Spike’s foot striking the joint of Paladin’s winged wing. “Even reduced, some of your glory remains. I have made the first step in returning you to what you should be.

Paladin faced the ghostly figure of Ardleon. Though it was a projection, it reminded him far too much of the windigoes. Almost fitting, in a sick kind of way, combining his former lieutenant with the foul things he commanded.

“Ardleon, I told you before; stop this! Can’t you see the suffering you’re causing? Where is the justice in this?” he demanded, lifting his head high to shield the drake on his back. Despite that, he felt the little claws on the back of his head as Spike pulled himself up to see.

Justice? The justice I deliver is what they deserve! You would see it too, if you were yourself! Can you not see how their weaknesses defile you? How they corrupt what you see and think?” Ardelon snarled, brandishing a hand covered in ice, like talons, at Spike. “Look at how feeble the mortal spawn is, using you as though you were some beast of burden.

“Hey, I’m not using him like anything! Paladin is awesome! Just because he’s not like you, not all glowy with armour and things like that, that doesn’t mean he’s not still as awesome and justice-y as he was before!” protested Spike. He glared at Ardleon, trying to set the image on fire with just his eyes.

The angel sneered, his voice heavy with contempt. “You should have abandoned the mortal. He’s weak, useless to you, and will only make your journey harder. The other mortals weakened you, wounded you, and yet you travel with another? You are blinded! Only the power of the High Heavens is suitable, Tyrael, to aid you.

Spike had no idea who this other ‘mortal’ was. “I’m not weak, or useless! I helped Twilight fight off your windigoes! I don’t even need all that angel-magic stuff the others have, and I still burned those things up. You don’t need that sort of thing to help a friend.”

You mock that which you do not understand. You are mortal, flawed by the demonic power that flows through you, defiling the angelic essence. You cannot understand, and so whether you intend to or not, you make mockery of it.” Ardleon trembled with fury.

Paladin stomped a hoof. It occurred to him if he left them to it, the dragon and the angel would devolve into childish bickering. While amusing, it would have done little but infuriate Ardleon.

“Listen to me, Ardleon. Undo whatever you have done to Applejack-”

No!” Cold wind snapped, a sudden blast of chill nearly blasting Spike from Paladin’s back. “You will listen to me! I will tear your glory from their souls, and you will be reborn from the ashes!

Ardleon was gone, leaving nothing but a lingering frost. They stood there, silent, until Paladin felt the shake in Spike’s claw on his back.

“...a-are they going to be okay?”

He nodded. “Yes, they are. Because we are going to stop him. Our friends will be fine.” Paladin set off again, galloping through the frozen land. Before him was a cleared path; an open invitation guiding him to Ardleon.

“Paladin…” Spike clung to him, his voice nervous before he even asked his question. “Are...are you sure you wouldn’t be better off on your own?”

It took Paladin only a moment to answer that. “No,” he said, his tone brooking on uncertainty. “I will not abandon you. You are my friend.”

“But I’m just weighing you down,” Spike pointed out sullenly. “I really am useless.”

Paladin stopped sharply, bending his head forward and letting Spike roll off, the startled dragon landing before him.

“No, you are not. If I have learned anything since leaving Canterlot on my own, it’s that being alone is nothing to cherish. I am stronger for your presence, and you are my responsibility,” the mighty pegasus laid a hoof on Spike’s shoulder as he spoke. “I will not abandon you, my friend.”

Spike nodded uncertainly. “But, I don’t want to be your responsibility. I want to help, properly.”

“Spike, you are here, in these mountains, because of me. Because of me, Ardleon is doing this. Because I sought to protect you all from him, I came north on my own. If I had been able to tell you more, if I had been able to share what I knew rather than go on my own, all of this might have been averted.” Paladin sighed.

“Huh? How is that your fault?” was Spike’s startled question.

“Ardleon has waged war for longer than any creature of this world has existed. What you tell me of his attack shows that; a distraction above, a strike from below, disabling Applejack before she can summon her armour, not allowing Rainbow Dash the time to teleport, all of it. If I had been there, if I had not come on my own, I would have been able to do something. Instead, because of me, because of my choices, my friends suffer,” Paladin said quietly, lowering his head in shame.

Spike stared at him for a moment. “You can’t tell Twilight I ever said this.”

“What?” Now it was Paladin’s turn to look confused.

“That’s bucking crazy!” Spike shook his head. “We all decided to come up here, and not just because of you!”

“A choice made because of my own actions,” Paladin countered.

“Maybe, but it was still a choice! You didn’t send Ardleon after us, he went after Twilight and the others because he’s some evil, crazy angel thing! Not because of you!” Spike said earnestly. “Like that time Twilight left the ice cream out. I decided to eat it all. Yeah, it was easier to make because it was all there, tasty looking, but I still decided to eat it, she didn’t make me.”

“This isn’t like ice cream, Spike! This is different. Because of me-”

“Stop being so selfish! Not everything comes back to you! I’m not going to blame you for Ardleon, and nothing you can say will change! My! Mind!” Spike shouted, the sound blasting from his lungs like a battle horn. “So stop blaming yourself for everything that happens!”

Paladin stared down at him, mouth hanging open. “I...I…that…” He found himself speechless. Spike was staring at him, glaring at him, with the same sort of stubbornness Twilight could display when matters came to the most important, most vital method.

Perhaps,’ a treacherous little part of his mind whispered. ‘Perhaps Spike has a point.’

Whether Spike did indeed have a point or not became a less vital priority. A deep rumble shook the mountainside beneath them, drawing both pegasus and dragon to look up. Although it was far distant, the storm of ice and sleet and stone tumbling towards them was obvious to both.

“Right, mountains, no shouting. Uh, sorry.” Spike gave Paladin an apologetic grin. “Hey, at least we know this one isn’t your fault.”

“Get on!” Paladin grabbed Spike by the little woolen coat, teeth closing firmly around it. He threw Spike up and over, not evening wincing as Spike landed on his back, already galloping. He charged along the flat, winding path carved through the mountains, not bothering to look up.

“It’s coming!” Spike cried. He wasn’t sure why, since Paladin was already galloping as fast as he could. Being told the inevitable falling tide of debris was, in fact, still falling wasn’t likely to be much help. Resolving to do more, Spike took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to be useless! He would prove Ardleon, and his own niggling doubts, were wrong!

Paladin’s hooves pounded hard against the crude path, his body already warning him of imminent failure. Muscle deep aches, the kind of thing he couldn’t have imagined as an angel, were telling him he wasn’t strong enough to keep this up. His legs burned from the continuous effort he had been putting out, but he would allow no relenting. Being buried alive or crushed by an avalanche caused by an argument would be, in his considered opinion, a very stupid way to die while his friends were waiting for him. He refused to fail.

“How close?” he gasped out, each word bitten out between pants.

“Not far! We’re nearly out!” Spike answered, swallowing his breath and revving up another.

Unable to spare the breath to correct him, to say he wanted to know how close the avalanche was rather than how far they were from getting out from under it, Paladin just kept going. The rumbling was shaking the ground beneath his hooves as they reached part of the path that hugged a cliff, a deep drop left by a pit formed from tall, straight standing mountains on metres away off to one side.

His hoof came down hard, and a cracking groan from below was, for a moment, louder than the avalanche. Paladin’s heart dropped into his stomach as his footing gave way. Weakened by the trembles of the avalanche, Paladin’s weight proved to be the final straw and this part of the path gave way, sliding out from under him. His wounded wing screamed, but he forced himself to open it. With Spike’s claws holding onto his head and feet on the coat, Paladin was forced to risk the whelp’s footing. His wings extended, ripping his guard’s winter coat open from the inside. The weight of the coat and the saddlebags fell from him, plummeting into nothing. Spike's weight remained atop him, the dragon's claws digging in to hold himself there.

The pain of his injured joint threatened to send them to join his supplies, but he would not allow it to defeat him. Pain was an enemy, but not one he cared to bother with. Paladin ignored it, pushed it to the back of his mind, and he flew.

Yet even as he flew, Paladin knew it was too late. The overwhelming roar was all around them, and he could see that the edge of the avalanche would catch them before they reached where the path resumed. Refusing despair, refusing to admit defeat, Paladin pushed on and made the attempt. As if in reward for his perseverance, a green light answered his hopes. Spike’s fire blazed out, soaring above them. The cloud of emerald fire met the avalanche. Ice boiled, plant mattered blazed, and rocks heated. For a moment that stretched on, a few seconds at most, the edge of the avalanche was held back.

Fire was still, no matter how magical, fire. It lacked the presence to hold the massive tide of matter back. Spike’s fire was obliterated by a force that overwhelmed it a thousand fold. Though it had bought them only a second or two at most, it was enough. Paladin slammed into the ground, stumbling and falling flat on his face.They were safe. He could hear the avalanche roaring, screaming down the mountain, behind him. He- they had gotten there, together. Now it wasn’t a mad dash. Now, he could afford to feel the agonising pain in his wing.

“Whoa, that close! Good thing I- Paladin! Are you okay?” Spike frantically looked over Paladin for sign of damage, and quickly found his wing. He winced. The crude bandages Paladin had put around it had been torn free when the pegasus had used his injured wing. “That looks painful.”

“It…” Paladin panted. “Is. I..need to...get some bandages…”

Spike looked behind them, down the drop. “I don’t think we’ve got any left. You, uh, you kinda dropped them all getting your wing out in time. Good thing I was holding onto your head.”

Letting out a pained growl, Paladin nodded. “Right, yes. I did that. Damn it. Now we have, ngh, nothing.” He lowered his head. The scarf, at least, remained. Somehow, that was more important than what they had lost.

Spike looked at Paladin guiltily. It had been his shout that caused the avalanche, after all, and now Paladin was hurt. He watched the pegasus, trying to think of something. When he saw Paladin nuzzle the scarf, an idea came to him.

“Oh! We can use the scarf!” He scrambled over, unwinding it without waiting for Paladin’s reply. “It should work like a bandage, right?”

Reluctant to part with the scarf, Paladin nodded after a moment. His wing twitched, prompting another grunt of pain. “I suppose it can. Can you do that for me? Fingers are a blessing I never appreciated.”

“Yeah, fingers are pretty cool,” Spike agreed. “Don’t worry, Princess Celestia got me to take some wing care lessons, first aid and everything. Not really sure why, I guess she knew Twilight would make friends with a pegasus or something.”

“Her foresight is- rragh.” He stiffened, feeling the scarf tightening as Spike worked his opposable digit magic. “Is...remarkable.”

Spike glanced at him, apologetic. “Sorry. Okay, how’s that?” He double checked his knot, gently testing the makeshift bandage. “I think it should help, you just have to not move it or anything and you’ll be fine.”

Paladin tested it, slowly standing. The pain was, amazingly, reduced vastly. He nodded. “It feels much better. Thank you, Spike.”

Beaming, Spike looked at the path ahead. It would carry them deeper into the mountains above the frozen wastes, to a glacier if he remembered right. His eyes flicked over Paladin, noting how the pegasus was now without anything to warm him.

“I can walk on my own this time,” he said, wishing he could give Paladin the woolen warmers Fluttershy had made for him.

Shaking his head, Paladin picked Spike up and threw him onto his back. “No, Spike. We don’t have enough time, and I can carry you without too much difficulty. Ignore what Ardleon said. He is no longer himself. I fear his control over the windigoes is not as one-way as he believes.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it?” Spike asked, using Paladin’s ears as holds.

A cold wind blew, drawing a shudder from Paladin. Unprotected, it cut through him. “Yes, Spike, it is.”

***

Ardleon erupted into the mind of the next mortal. Flush with fury from the confrontation, he barely bothered taking note of his surroundings before he unleashed an omni-directional blast of winter. It was a pointless gesture, he noted with frustration. The crystals that formed walls and ceilings, faceted tunnels of diamond, failed to react to the onset of frost. This did little to settle his temper.

Yet Ardleon found, to his shock, that this setting pleased him. It reminded him, in some way, of the High Heavens. Each edge, each surface, was perfect. He kneeled, gently running a hand across the flawless floor. He saw his reflection, but it was not as he was. He saw himself as he had been since his birth from the Crystal Arch. His reflected armour was without damage, no rents covered or filled with ice, no blazing blue eyes. He slowly stood, watching the ebb and flow of his wings in the reflection, brilliant blue energy that sung to him.

Shaking his head, he began to explore, seeking the place where this mortal was connected to the others. Each step, he found his eyes drawn back to the reflections all around him. It was disconcerting, somehow. He knew it should not be. He was an angel, a product of Anu’s perfection. He was, by definition, perfect. But now those reflections reminded him that he had changed. His form was no longer that which he saw when he looked into a wall of diamond.

Fear clawed at him for a moment as something about that thought registered. If he had been born perfect, created then in his true and proper form, did changing that mean he was no longer perfect? He looked down at his ruined form, staggering back as that thought overwhelmed him. He had changed, had left Anu’s perfection in his need for power to reclaim Tyrael. He had been perfect, but was he still perfect? Was he still on the path of the angels, the path of perfection that Archangels were the pinnacle of? Doubt ate away at Ardleon as he looked to his reflection, and wondered if he was still what he had been born as. He had come to save Tyrael, but was this price worth it? Ardleon ran a hand across one wall, spreading his fingers to stare into his own eyes, the only reflection to share his unnatural trait.

Tyrael...he straightened, smashing a fist against the nearest facet. The image splintered, and he saw himself as he was. The now shattered diamond wall cracked, a spider-web spreading out from the impact.

Trickery,” he snarled. “Deception, trying to manipulate my senses. I am an angel. I am perfection, and I will not be tricked. Any price is worth Tyrael’s redemption.”

He was perfect. Just as Tyrael was perfect, as all Archangels were. A perfection this mortal had dared to steal. Pressing his hand against the place he had struck, Ardleon channeled his power. He struck the weakened spot before it could be healed. The deception had come close to claiming him, but it had revealed its weakness. To entrap him it had to close in, and until now he had almost failed to notice that each tunnel had been slowly sealing off. The single flaw had been drawn to him, and he had shattered it, destroying the first guardian.

Leaving the defeated trap, Ardleon soon encountered the next. It started with a single note, sound bouncing through the diamond talls. He paused, listening for a moment. Another note joined it, a perfect tone. Then another, as he began to seek the source. Another note, and he began to increase his pace, until he was running, the chorus of perfect notes flowing by him. Whatever feelings of beauty it might have found in him were pushed aside, crushed by his certainty that they were not only a trap, but something stolen from Tyrael. No mortal could hold such perfection in their soul without stealing it.

He found the source, bursting from the halls into a great cavern, a perfectly symmetrical room. At its heart was a waterfall, pouring from a perfectly circular hole in the ceiling. It poured down, and where the water struck the floor it made not a splash, but a single, beautiful note for each drop as the flow vanished into the diamond floor. It was a song of perfection, a thing of beauty to match the Lightsong of an Archangel or the chorus of the heavenly choir. Though determined as he was to remain above the petty trickery of this mortal’s soul, Ardleon hesitated to condemn the music. It was, even to him, perfection. To destroy it was desecration of the highest order, no less than a demon setting foot in the High Heavens. He froze, listening, watching, and found no heart with which to attack it. It was untouchable.

And there Ardleon found the flaw. It was perfect...too perfect, for a mortal. It was surely stolen. Now the mortal’s mind sought to trick him. Yes, it was perfect, but he could not let that stop him. He could feel what he sought, hiding within the water. A pathetic trick; to reach it, he would have to destroy a thing of beauty.

“You have tested me, mortal, and you have failed,” declared Ardleon, slashing with a single blow that tore the waterfall apart. Ice snapped into place over the hole, ending the flow. The water shattered, discordant notes filling the room. Where the scattered drops struck the floor and walls and ceiling, diamond cracked and splintered. In the space of an instant, beauty had been replaced by shattered ruin.

Sneering in disdain, Ardleon approached the exposed display. Six crystals, five arrayed in a ring, the sixth beyond the circle, awaited him. Orange, blue, pink, purple, yellow and, away from the others, blue-white. A seventh he spied, small, shifting between green and purple, was tucked in next to the purple crystal. No matter. It was of no importance.

Such a weak mind, so unworthy of its stolen glory,” he growled as his ice overtook the crystals. “Another falls. Your rebirth grows ever closer.”

***

This time when Paladin stumbled to a stop, Spike knew exactly why. They both felt it, although Spike hadn’t been aware of the silent presence until it was gone. He pressed a claw against his chest, his heart beating so hard it felt like it might rip itself from his chest.

“Rarity…” He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he did. Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes, and though Paladin had assured him Applejack hadn’t been dead from what was undoubtedly the same thing, Spike felt terror and grief rising up through him at the mere possibility that it had happened to Rarity.

Paladin regained his footing, and began to walk again. “She’s alright, Spike. We just can’t feel her, that’s all. The link is gone, but she isn’t dead.”

“H-how…”

He looked back, letting Spike see a smile that had more confident than Paladin really felt. “Because she’s our friend. We would know, wouldn’t we?”

Drawing in a breath, Spike nodded weakly. “Right, yeah. I’d know! I would! So Rarity must be fine, we just have to...to make sure.”

“And we will. I promise, Spike, I’ll make sure none of them pay for my folly,” Paladin vowed, quickening his pace. He felt Spike’s claws tighten slightly on his ears.

“Not everything is your fault. I told you that, and Twilight, and Rarity, and all of them would say the same. Unless by ‘folly’ you mean being not very nice in Canterlot. You know, Rainbow Dash was pretty much about to cry. Rainbow Dash was going to cry, “ Spike muttered sullenly.

Paladin winced. He had really been hoping Spike wouldn’t bring that up. “I’m sorry, Spike, I really am. I was trying to keep you from getting hurt. I knew, even then, that Ardleon would take action. I thought, if I could...could make you hate me, or at least dislike me, you would be safe.”

“What? But you’re our friend, even if you were acting like a jerk.” Clinging tightly, Spike stared at the back of Paladin’s head in shock.

“I know. Damn it all, boy, it broke my heart to do that, to treat my friends in such a manner. Do you think I wanted to do it?” he demanded harshly, putting on another burst of speed, storming through the cold. “It hurt to know I was hurting all of you, but it would be worth your hate if you, all of you, were unharmed!”

“Well, it wasn’t worth it to us! It hurt! I wasn’t there, but I saw how much it hurt them. How is that worth it?” Spike was not, in general, a deep thinker. He was still a baby dragon, so that was okay. Nopony expected him to come out with stunning rethinkings of ancient philosophy or the nature of existence. But he wasn’t an idiot, and he understood Paladin’s reasoning. He just didn’t agree.

“Because death is too final, and I refuse to allow Ardleon to destroy them. Spike, I understand, I do. Please, just...we can talk about it. Afterwards. I’m sure the girls will have more than enough to say to me about it anyway,” Paladin said. huffing as he ran.

Spike nodded, falling silent for a moment. A little snicker escaped him. “Dash sure will.”

Paladin let out a chuckle. “I’m sure she will. If that’s what I have to endure after this, I think it will be worth it.”

They continued their journey, getting ever closer, and the land getting ever colder. Paladin’s body ached, warm within from the exercise and freezing on the outside, but he didn’t stop. He was at least relieved to find his wing was aching less, doubtless the cold numbing it.

***

Ardleon forced himself to remain standing. This was taking more energy than he had anticipated, more than it should. Though the conquests seemed easy, the energy it took astounded him. Their minds fought the takeover of such important fragments of their beings, and for each moment of resistance he lost more time and more energy. He would have to rush the rest; there was no time to let them resist him, and the hours he spent in each of them drew Paladin closer, too close. He needed more time. He needed more power.

The cold voices of the windigoes slipped into his conscious, and Ardleon found himself nodding. They offered him their power, their very being, to aid him. Spreading his arms, Ardleon sent out an order, calling some of them to him. They flowed down, eagerly, to mingle their ghostly forms with his being. Their ethereal bodies caught against his angelic armour, and with a roar that echoed through the mountains, Ardleon drew power through his reforged blades from their resting place in the ice below. The magic of the windigoes seeped through the weapons and back into him. The frostiron of this plane, used to reforge his shattered blades, mortal and heavenly metal joined, capable of bonding him to the windigoes - and this world. He stretched his frozen wings, luxuriating for a moment in the freedom. This world was no longer attempting to reject him, and he had all the power he needed.

The one who so blatantly misused Tyrael’s power. She had given away their location, so at least her idiocy was in his favour. He stalked to the ice holding her limp form, mist swirling around them as he reached in-

-and lightning struck. Ardleon jerked away, the multi-coloured bolt searing past him. His senses tingled, and he dodged again. Rainbow lightning was falling, striking from a pristine white cloud cover above. He glanced down. The endless void below would have been disconcerting to a mortal, but he had looked down from pinnacle of the impossibly tall Silver Spire and it was nothing to him. Looking above, his eyes narrowed. From above a lightning bolt fell. He lifted a hand, catching the bolt. The colours broke apart, streaming around him. Rather than exhaust itself, the lightning continued, pushing down on him.

He gathered his strength, pushing back to break the flow. He thrust it away from him with a final flare as it shattered. Though his hand was smoking, he felt a sense of satisfaction. With a thought he stopped the smoke; it was something this mind was trying to impose on him.

A flash of light caught his attention, distant and nearly hidden among the clouds above. Lightning in even more colours. He saw pink and white, solid orange and purple. For a moment, he hesitated. This was too easy. It was far above, but he had practically only began his assault, and there his target was. Banishing his doubts, he began to ascend. This mindscape was pure skies, and an angel was more than at home in such a world.

No sooner had he began to rise than the lightning strikes began once again. He jerked and dodged, avoiding the falling bolts. This mind was being refreshingly direct; it was attacking him, not waiting for him to act. It was a welcome change to the subtle trickery of the last mind. Gathering his will, Ardleon charged into the storm of rainbow lightning. He struck the bolts directly, simply overpowering them and knocking them to the side. They scored his armour, cackling against his wings, but he pushed on. The windigoes were aiding him, their power augmenting his own awesome angelic might. A corona of frost spawned around him as he ascended. In response, the flurry of lightning grew, until they were a constant thundering rain against him. He felt emotion, energy in each jolt. The closer he got, the more powerful they got. This mindscape seemed to recognise his intent and his target, and it grew ever more defiant. It would allow him no chance to harm its link to the other mortals; it was furious and determined, and there was no hesitance as it unleashed waves of lightning, the colours blending together in the endless assault.

It was a powerful attack, but it was the wrong tactic. The other minds had resisted him longer because they had been mazes, the first an endless forest that had concealed in its depths his target and the second in its halls of diamond. As much as the brutal offensive nature of this mindscape appealed to him, it was less effective. It had made their fight one of pure power, and that was a fight he would always win. For a moment, he wondered if this mortal had sensed the failure of the other tactics, and sought to try something new

Ardleon erupted from the clouds, roaring fiercely. The clouds where the sparks of lightning sat was further still above him, but it worried him not in the slightest. He would seal them in ice and his plan would be closer to completion.

Before he could attack, the cloud layer before him erupted. Something huge, massive, bigger than could have been hidden in it was exposed. It was...a beast of some kind, a round shell protecting it, some bizarre device atop it with whirling blades buzzing and spinning with such fury that it was conjuring a whirlwind above it. The guardian construct blinked, slowly, as it hovered between him and his destination.

Ardleon sneered. The guardian was huge, and everything about it spoke of strength, a resolute bulwark blocking the way. He was sure he could get around it, but he wouldn’t take such a cowardly path. This guardian would be the easiest of the lot-

The guardian construct blinked, again, slowly. He had a moment to notice the dim red light in its gaze before a ray of heat lashed out. It seared through one of his wing’s frozen blades, despite the angel dodging at the speed of thought. The guardian tracked him, firing off another ray from its eyes. The angel struck back, but each wave of frost simply washed over the shell, leaving rime but doing no harm.

Conjuring mist and fog did nothing, the construct knowing where he was. The propeller atop its shell allowed it to simply rotate in place, heat blasts firing one after another. Once again this mind was opting for brutal power in its attacks. They couldn’t slay him, but the energy he would lose resisting them was power he would need later. Ardleon hesitated to rely entirely on the windigoes; he was an angel, after all. He didn’t need the aid of lesser creatures.

He continued to evade, waiting until he was sure of his aim. When he struck, it was with a spear of ice. It slipped between the rays, striking the glowing connector between the blades and the harness. He forced his will into it, holding the image of it breaking firm in his mind. He pushed it out, imposing the image and feeling the satisfaction of the device breaking. The great beastial construct made a remarkably placid roar as it plummeted. His satisfaction was marred by a parting blast, and the fact the clouds below held up the construct. It wasn’t subject to such silly things as physics here, so the clouds made no move to drop the beast. It arched its head, continuing to blast away at him with attacks just as intense, but with the greater distance, the divide between them growing Ardleon as he ascended towards his goal, they were all the easier to avoid. One more victory.

***

“Rainbow Dash…” Paladin closed his eyes, brow knitting. “Damnation. So close. We’re nearly there, Spike, we’re...nearly there. We’ll help them. We need to, or they won’t be able to be upset with me for running off on them.” Paladin was, it was fair to say, a novice at humour. He still tried, if only to lift Spike’s spirit.

Compounding his emotional state, his body ached. He had been running all day, his breaks infrequent, and he refused to leave Spike simply behind to reduce his burden. The only relief was that his wing no longer hurt. He didn’t even think about it now, the matter pushed aside. He had his legs, his joints, his hooves, every part of his body except his wings burning in agony. Paladin glanced at Spike as best he could with the little dragon on his back.

“S-she...she said she didn’t want to be your friend, you know,” Spike muttered, not very helpfully. “But, she still wanted to help you. W-we can’t let her, or any of them down. Twilight...he’s going to get to her soon.”

“She’s strong. Don’t fear for them, Spike. We’re nearly there.”

***

This new mind was a riot of colour and sound, assaulting Ardleon from every direction the moment he set foot in it. He held up a hand to fend the brilliance from his eyes, staggering back. He felt things behind him being knocked back, and moreo pushing at him from the sides. Bringing his hand down in a vicious backhand, he tried to ward them off. He saw them as his hand passed through them, mortals of all colours, all smiling, beaming, constantly moving in a massive crowd. The angel turned, looking out across the mortals he towered over. They were everywhere, so solid until he tried to strike them. Whether they were insubstantial or he was, he had no idea, but it frustrated him as he struck out at another. The construct giggled as though he had simply tickled it, smiling and vanishing into the milling crowd.

Overhead, lights in a thousand colours beamed down, countless suns of countless shades, some shifting and some static. The mortals didn’t just walk and run, Ardleon saw. They gathered in groups, barely discernable in the crowd as their members shrunk and grew to incalculable tides. They danced and cheered, screams of joy disturbing the air only to be lost beneath the wave of sound from another group as it broke into mad celebration.

Madness was the perfect word for it. There was no order to it, no guiding logic or sense. The mental constructs just seemed content to do whatever, bouncing and dancing, talking and laughing, as though they had no care in the world. The slosh of liquid in containers, the bang of strange little colourful bottles that exploded into bursts of coloured paper and the little sound of a hundred games provided an ever changing background chorus to the music of countless mortals loving and laughing.

Shaking his head, Ardleon set off through the mass. He was ever ready for an attack from behind. Doubtless an attempt to disorient and distract him until a guardian construct could strike. Suspicion made his eyes narrow and his pace become steady and prepared. The constructs he either moved through, their being not interacting with his as he strode through the crowd. He stalked, a silent, furious ghost in their midst. Where they rejoiced, he seethed, glaring at them hatefully. The mind of this mortal mocked him, feigning at joy and brightness when it must know it was at his mercy. A single stroke of his blade and he could remove its head. Mortals were simply so fragile.

His fury stayed with him as he ventured deeper into the party. He didn’t notice the general flow in the same direction right away, only taking note first of the dark, shadowed constructs. They were like the others, but they were grim and unhappy, their manes limp and their steps the trudge of the damned being lead to the noose. But as he approached them, he saw the dark constructs gathering, surrounding a curious stage, he realised they were being drawn towards him. Was he? No, he banished the thought, knowing he could not be so influenced. They were constructs, representations of thoughts and memories, puppets being played by the mortal’s mind.

Approaching the stage, he observed the construct atop it. It was aged and weak, the ultimate fate of all mortals, yet it moved as though it was in its prime. It danced, curly greyed mane bouncing about as it laughed, speaking words he didn’t bother listening to. The other constructs laughed uproariously, their darkness lightning, and the old mortal went bouncing across the stage again, spinning around a group of balloon gathered at the centre, and suddenly he heard the sounds it was making, the harmonised notes of a song.

“~Smile, Smile, smile~”

Ardleon shook his head, yet he held off turning away, watching the mortal caper about, singing. Reluctant as he was to admit it, he found some beauty in the song. The voice was old but strong, embracing life he somehow knew the mortal the construct reflected no longer possessed. It spoke of joy and light, laughing at fear and chuckling away anger. He felt the constructs around him reacting, embracing the subtle light radiating from the construct, a light he hadn’t noticed before. Or had it not been there until now? He wasn’t sure. Laughter seemed to boom at him, shaking the ground and the sky. It caught him in its grip, enveloping him like a wave of warm air that gently cradled him, whispering to laugh, to let go of his worries and fears and just let it all out. Laugh, and smile. His anger felt like a weight, dragging him down. What had been a fire pushing him on had become a leaden mass in his chest. It threatened to bring him down, to make him fall, but the song and the laughter told him he didn’t need to. He just had to let go of the anger, throw away his fear and rage, and embrace joy.

He almost did it. He almost let go of the fire that burned within him. The cold flame of hate dimmed, a cobalt fire that flickered, threatening to go out as the love and laughter embraced him. Ardleon realised the constructs around him were all as brilliant and bright as the rest, their darkness discarded. He could be the same. He could let go, and all he had to do was laugh, embrace the song that tugged at him.

A cold wind blew.

He stopped, a hand outstretched to the beaming old constructl who stood before him. When he had approached the stage, he couldn’t remember. But he heard a whisper, a thousand cold voices hissing to him; It was a trick. Another deception, trying to trick him into surrender his power. They wanted to steal his power, just as they had stolen Tyrael’s!

His hand was inches away from the old construct’s hoof, the guardian, extended as if to touch, which was why it had no time to dodge. He slammed his icily-spiked fist through the construct, destroying its shape and scattering the thought-matter that made its head. Ascending the platform, he idly kicked aside the disintegrating form. The sounds of the party were muted, and he no longer cared for them any way. The balloons, their strings tied to the centre of the stage, floating before him. Five, no, six, again there was a small green-purple one hugging the side of the purple, hovered in a group. Above them on a longer string, lit from within by a faint glow, was the white-blue balloon.

Tendrils of mist crept up, curling around the strings as they reached up. Ice flowed through the mist, until the balloons were encased in a glacial tomb. Now Ardleon laughed, but there was nothing warm about it. His form faded from the empty party grounds, and in his wake was left only a sinister laugh that slowly, as it died away, became the knickering of winter spirits.

***

Four minds fought, and their bonds severed. Ardleon shuddered, pressing his gauntlet against his helm. They shouldn’t be able to resist so much, require so much energy. The angelic essence they had stolen was so well bonded to them it was giving them more resistance than such creatures should. Though little time passed inside their minds, he knew hours passed. Tyrael was getting closer. Ardleon could feel him, already approaching the edge of the glacial plane, hedged in by frozen mountains.

“I am an angel,” he hissed. “I am orders of magnitude greater. You are all nothing to me. Nothing!”

They didn’t reply. The windigoes did, They answered in howls and whinnies, translated through the bond to Ardleon into words. They offered their power for the last two minds. He was too weak now, they said, too vulnerable-

He lashed out, making the entire storm shudder. The anger they cultivated in him rose, his unchecked temper a double edged sword.

“Be silent. I am not weak,” he barked at them. Ardleon’s anger blew up at their insult. He stomped over to the two remaining mortals. This one had simply stolen raw power from Tyrael. She would suffer for it.

***

Paladin staggered to a stop, breathing harshly. Hours separated the sudden absences, a loss defined only by the emptiness. It didn’t take the sting away, the pain of loss, and the closer they got the worse it hurt. Spike’s link was based through his link to Twilight, and he cringed each time it happened. Pinkie had been lost, and the world had seemed a little a less bright.

The pegasus looked down, where the mountains stopped. He pushed snow out of his way as he began to descend. The mountains continued in every direction except ahead. The edge of the glacial plane was visible, mountains rising up around it like the bars of a prison cell. There was no question as to their destination now, the massive storm that reached from the heart of the plane to the sky. They could hear the screams of the windigoes.

They descended in the ancient prison of the windigoes.

***

This mindscape reminded Ardleon of the Library of Fate. He immediately refused the comparison. This was a mortal’s mind. It was a lesser thing, in no way worthy of being held up to the angelic domain of Itherael, Archangel of Fate. Standing at the nexus where dozens of walkways met, split by shelves of book after book, he had a moment to comtemplate what the first guardian might be before it formed. It appeared before him, perfectly matching the mortal to whom the mind belonged.

“Actually,” the guardian said calmly. “I’m not a mental construct. This is me. We are in my mind, after all.”

Ardleon paused, looking down on it. His own mental walls slammed shut, sealing away the mindscape’s influence. No, this wasn’t possible.

“You lie, construct,” he dismissed it with a wave of his hand, summoning his will in a mental attack that took the form of a wintry blast.

The mortal held up a hoof, casually brushing aside his attack. That, more than anything, caused the angel to hesitate, reevaluating it.

“I’m afraid not,” she said, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. “I have more mental discipline, a few incidents aside, and after sensing what you were doing to my friends I had to prepare something to stop you. This is my mind, Ardleon, and I won’t let you do whatever you want.”

He replied with a gale, a ice flecked wave of freezing wind at hurricane speeds. A book of all things appeared, its open pages catching the blast before snapping shut.

“I just said I prepared for you. Have you looked at your own mind? I can feel it,” she frowned, cocking her head to the side. “Something is very wrong with you. I don’t even know what an angel’s mind should feel like, and I-”

“Be silent!” he roared, conjuring his mind’s power for another attack. “You dare mock me with your stolen might? You think you are different, better, because you have greater skill with the power you took from an archangel? You’ll fall like all the others.”

She vanished before his attack struck, reappearing in another spot. “Please, listen to me! We didn’t steal anything from Paladin-”

“Tyrael! There is no Paladin! The thing you call that is merely an illusion!” He appeared at her side, fists descending. Thought the floorboards were shattered, she had again evaded. He looked up, fixing her with a hateful glare.

“Okay, fine, Tyrael then! It’s not too late for you to stop this,” she pleaded, jerking back as the edge of the bookshelf, at some point having become large enough to be a balcony, was destroyed by the rogue angel.

“Your words condemn you! You think I wouldn’t recognise the words you put in your puppet’s mouth?” he sneered. The fight became a deadly game of tag, the mortal shifting through her own mindscape with Ardleon in hot pursuit. She was always gone just in time, he was always a moment too late, and he felt his rage growing.

She pleaded with him. She tried to reason. Yet the angel would hear none of it.

“Think of the innocents you’re hurting!” she cried.

“Among your kind, there are no innocents!” he snarled.

She shifted, seeking to trap him between shelves that were suddenly not so distant. “Don’t make me hurt you. I don’t want to do that. You’ve done terrible things, but you can still make them right. We can work together, try to find someway to help him become what he was. I’m trying to do it, to find a way that won’t kill my friends.”

Why she was trying to reason with him, she was unsure. Here in her own mind, Twilight knew she could try fighting him. She might not win, but she could hurt him. Something was coming, or perhaps someone, to help them. She had to delay, buy time. Every moment spent here was a moment his attention was fixed on her and nopony else.

“There is no need to find another method,” Ardleon declared, howling in fury as he missed once more. “You are thieves. Worse than thieves. Monsters. Defilers. You must be punished, and the justice of your sentence will reignite Tyrael’s power. You will die, along with your ‘friends’.”

That, more than anything else, tempted Twilight to attack him. She remembered him capturing them, saw again the look of fear on Spike’s face as he was frozen and discard, thrown away. The fear and pain Ardleon had caused across Equestria. He was a monster, and he needed to be stopped.

It was only a fear of her own that kept her from attacking. Fear, and trust in Paladin and Spike. They were coming. She could feel them now, getting closer and closer. She had to trust them. Her fear, on the other hoof, came from another source. To attack another mind, to consciously seek to harm even Ardleon, would risk defeat too quickly. She could evade him, frustrate him, but the angel was right; she couldn’t defeat him. Though she could feel the shape of his mind, she couldn’t understand it, not completely. There was something about it that simply defied her senses, even in her own mind. He was an alien thing, his nature so far distant from hers she couldn’t mind trying to invade his mind.

Yet, Paladin had once been such a creature. As she shifted through her mindscape, constantly pursued, Twilight couldn’t help but wonder if Paladin was, truly, at all like the being he had been before. The only parts of Ardleon’s hostile mind that made sense were the parts she could feel the chill of the windigoes seething, pushing him.

“Ardleon, this isn’t going to achieve anything,” she said, turning to another tactic. “You talk about justice; where’s the justice in hurting ponies who have never had anything to do with Pa- Tyrael? In bringing terror and hate and destruction upon countless souls unable to defend themselves?”

He brought the suddenly mountainous bookshelf crumbling down with a great blow, ignoring how it repaired itself in an instant as he continued his pursuit.

“What would you know of justice, mortal? Have you beheld the Lightsong of Tyrael, as it echoes through the Courts of Justice? You know nothing!” he bellowed, his voice a constant shout.

“I know enough to know that what you’re doing is wrong! How can you think he would ever condone this? He would never agree to this sort of thing!”

He was trembling with barely restrained fury now. It all seemed to be an impossible anger, a rage that gripped every part of the angel and just wouldn’t let go. It was insane, the sort of unnatural emotion that would tear a mortal mind apart.

“You think you know better? You think you know more about Tyrael? Better than I, who has spent uncounted millenia at his side! Let me educate you, mortal, to the scale of what you think you understand!” He vanished from her mind, and for a moment Twilight opened her eyes, gazing up at Ardleon. He towered over her as her ice prison crumbled away, but before she could act his freezing hand had caught her around the head.

“Wha-” was as far as she got before, unable to stop it, the memories began to flow. She shuddered, her body shaking as Ardleon unloaded memory after memory into her mind. Billions of years of war, constant battle upon the fields of eternity, were fired into the mind of a creature confined to mortal flesh. It was a tidal wave, a flood, too great to resist and too much for any mortal mind to contain.

When he finally released her, long, painful minutes had passed. She fell limply, her eyes empty, and Ardleon felt a wave of satisfaction as he reached into her mind. There was no challenge. It was a simple overload, overwhelming her with more than she could possibly comprehend, and it had done his work. There was only one left.

***

The blizzard struck before they had reached the visible wall of the storm. Galing winds assailed them, threatening to tear Spike from Paladin’s back. The dragon held on, crying out in alarm. How Paladin kept himself standing, Spike had no idea. The pegasus had to be exhausted. He had galloped, nonstop, for hours. All through the evening, all through the day. Yet he was undaunted, and Paladin kept moving long after Spike was sure he would have collapsed in exhaustion.

This seasonal attack was no different. He simply kept moving. Paladin refused to stop. He had decided he would not surrender to anything, and he would keep that promise. He hadn’t been able to protect his friends as he had hoped. He had only hurt them. He wasn’t going to fail again.

“Ardleon!” he roared, the wind stealing his words away. “Ardleon! Face me!”

If the rogue angel heard, he gave no sign. He certainly didn’t appear to face his former master. The blizzard simply continued its relentless work, and Paladin continued his determined charge through it. Snow piled against his legs. He plowed through it. Ice crystals, sharp and deadly, scraped against the bottoms of his hooves but he didn’t cry out. He didn’t even acknowledge them or the pain, the way he refused to acknowledge way his muscles screamed at him for this abuse. His mortal form was so fragile, so easily weakened, but his spirit was not so quickly broken.

They watched his approach, the cruel eyes of the windigioes gleaming, but did nothing. It was all a game to them, albeit a game they wanted to win. Almost kindly, they eased their assault, letting him get closer to the angel they had bonded to. After all, it wouldn’t do to delay him too long, and risk the angel actually succeeding.

Paladin burst through into the heart of the storm. Ice-covered him, rime edging his hooves and lacing his fur. Spike was in little better shape, not even the woolen garments literally knitted with love and kindness preventing the savage snowy assault from taking effect. Both forgot their own discomfort, however, as they finally saw Ardleon again.

The renegade angel was, if anything, more monstrous. The icy veins spreading across his body pulsed with an unnatural cobalt energy, and his frozen wings gave off a sinister mist. Worse of all was that he stood, looming above Fluttershy’s trapped form. He looked up, his eyes meeting Paladin’s as they widened in shock. The pegasus looked to Fluttershy, and relief filled him. She was safe. Trapped, a prisoner, but her mind was untouched. She was safe.

“Tyrael!” Ardleon called, turning to him. “You have come! Wait, just a few more minutes. This is the last one. With her mind conquered, I will be able to reverse the foul chains they have bound you with and restore you.”

Paladin stared at him, aghast. Where had he gone wrong, for his once-lieutenant to fall so far and not even realise it? He said nothing for a moment, looking to Fluttershy. They were so close now, their bond was alight like fire. She was not conscious, yet her mind knew something of what was happening. He could feel it, her fear, her uncertainty, her...her certainty. Her trust.

Her…love...

He bowed his head for a moment, a shock running through him, and he knew he wasn’t worthy of what she felt in his presence.

“Ardleon,” he said, his quiet voice heard over the roar of the storm. “Stop. Please. Just...stop.”

The angel stared at him, saying nothing, and Paladin realised why. Ardleon didn’t understand. He simply...didn’t understand.

“Stop?” Ardleon echoed. “What? I can’t stop now. Once I control the link between you, I can rip your essence from them and return you to your true glory. I can’t stop!”

“But you must. Don’t you realise what you’ve done? The lives you’ve endangered? There is no justice in this. You have simply caused pain,” Paladin thundered. “You couldn’t restore Tyrael like this, can’t you see that? Allying with the windigoes, creatures of hate-”

“I have not allied with them. They serve me,” Ardleon cut him off. “Listen to yourself! Pleading, begging. They’ve stolen your dignity and your pride, and their curse blinds you to it!”

Ardleon turned back to Fluttershy. His mist swirled around him, a protecting ring that pushed Paladin back.

“This is for your own good.”

Paladin knew his body was too weak to push through the mist, but he didn’t care. He refused to let Ardleon do to Fluttershy what he had done to the others. He forced himself into action, and almost unbidden, instincts dictating rather than thoughts, his wings spread. There was no pain. No ache. The knotted scarf fell away, and his pristine wings threw Paladin at Ardleon. His hoof slammed into the angel’s helm, his entire weight thrown behind the attack. The mist broke, Ardleon staggering away. More shock than damage drove him back.

“What-”

“Back, damn you!” Paladin stood between Ardleon and Fluttershy, his eyes burning with fury. “If you call this justice, you’ve truly gone mad. You’ve Fallen.”

The angel recoiled as if struck. “Fallen? Never! I am an angel. I have remained faithful to the High Heavens, to you! I am not Izual!”

“No, Ardleon, you haven’t. You’re blinded. You might have started this crusade of yours with the best of intentions, but you lost your way. You’ve turned from the light, and you can’t even see that.” Paladin snarled. He glared, anger twisting his features. “You’re hurting innocents, those who have done nothing to you, simply because you can’t stand the thought that I would choose to give up my power for the sake of others.”

“They are mortals-” Ardleon tried to counter, but he found himself shouted down.

Who cares? They needed help! Angel, mortal, it doesn’t matter! Justice is not reserved for one group! You never understood that, did you? Humanity didn’t deserve to survive because I said they did, they deserved to survive entirely on their own merit! I’m not perfect, Ardleon, and I never was!” roared the incensed pegasus. “No angel is, and certainly not you!”

Ardleon stared at him, speechless. The windigoes began to howl, and he snapped out of his shock. They screamed around him, the winter spirits focusing their storm upon him. His cobalt glare was fixed on Paladin, his anger and hate aimed straight at the pegasus.

“No,” he agreed, the ground beneath him trembling. “You aren’t perfect. Because you aren’t Tyrael. You...you’re a fake, a false thing made as a mockery of his image. You’re wrong. You must be wrong.”

Cracks spread out from him through the ice, power welling up around the angel. Mist snaked out, surrounding the ponies he had done his work on. Unnoticed, Spike hid behind Fluttershy’s frozen form. He huffed and puffed, little green flames licking out, melting the ice.

“I don’t need the last one. I can do this with just five. You’ll see. Tyrael will return. He will know I did what I had to, that I did what I needed to do. I did what was right!” Ardleon reached out with his will, grasping the power he had left within each of the mortals. The bond forged of angelic power was his to command, and he commanded them.

Die!’ He ripped at their souls, demanding the power of they had been gifted. The bond trembled, and Paladin gasped as he felt talons of ice spear his spirit. Five chilled knives sliced into him, but he knew they could do nothing. Ardleon burned with hate and fury; there was no justice in this. He was about to kill Paladin, kill all of them, and the last embers of Tyrael would be destroyed.

“No. Live,” whispered a quiet voice, solemn and strong though fear filled her.

Slowly craning his neck, Paladin saw her. He felt her. Strength flowed through their bond, and this close, this open, there was nothing he could do to hide. He wasn’t sure he wanted to anymore. Her eyes glowed, and the knives of ice melted. Love for her friends flowed down the bond, slipping past Ardleon’s attempt to bind them. His power seethed with the dark energy of the windigoes, and no matter how he fortified it, there was a weakness in such power that could never be fixed.

The ice around them melted, revealing four pairs of opening, shining eyes. After a moment, it faded. Only Twilight remained unchanged, collapsed. She hadn’t moved. Ardleon hardly noticed. He was too busy screaming with rage.

“No. No!” He clutched his helm, hearing the whispers of the windigoes. He had been so close. It had been within his reach. He had failed. He was too weak. A failure. It was their fault.

“Get back!” Paladin called. There was no time to apologise, not until later. He shielded Twilight with one wing, Fluttershy ducking under it to look over the fallen mare. “Where are the Elements? Something is happening. Ardleon, stop!”

“I got ‘em right here, and as soon as this is over I’m gonna-” Rainbow Dash called.

“Be angry at him later, Ah know Ah will!” Already sheathed in her armour, Applejack grabbed the Element of Honesty from Rainbow Dash. “Let’s use these things an’ work out why the heck he didn’t bother hidin’ ‘em later.”

It was a question Paladin had asked himself the moment Rainbow Dash had began to go through their bags. He felt better already, in the presence of his friends, though he spared a look at Twilight. She was still unconscious.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Fluttershy murmured, running a hoof along Twilight’s brow. Spike kneeled at her side. “I-I’m not even sure what’s going on. Ardleon kidnapped, and did something awful to the others, and now Twilight is like this, and you’re back…”

Tears ran down Fluttershy’s cheeks. A tinge of guilt struck Paladin, feeling her happiness at his presence mixed with fear for Twilight. Fluttershy’s eyes snapped into focus, zeroing in on his instantly..

“Stop that. Please. You don’t need to feel guilty about everything,” she murmured.

“I…” the words caught in his throat, so he simply nodded. “We have to deal with Ardleon, and without Twilight the Elements won’t work. Look after her.”

He could remember facing endless armies birthed from the heart of sin, yet lowering his head to nuzzle her took more courage than a thousand battles as an archangel. Trotting away, he found the others waiting.

“I’m sorry,” Paladin said simply. “I should have trusted you, and not taken this burden upon my own shoulders.”

“Quite right, darling. We can decide if we want to put ourselves in danger, thank you very much.” Rarity sniffed haughtilly, but gave a thin smile. “Shall we deal with this brutish fellow?”

Pinkie had a hoof around Paladin’s shoulders before he could blink. “That’s right! The fate of Equestria is on allllllllllllll our shoulders, not just you, mister thinks-he-can-do-everything-alone. You can’t! That’s why you have friends! So let’s save the day!”

“We’re gonna kick some angel flank. No offence.” Rainbow Dash didn’t make much effort to sound non-offensive.

Applejack just nodded, and together they turned to the looming angel. He was caught in the grips of some insane fit, thrashing about with his hands over his head. The ice across his form was pulsing, inner light supplied by some sinister force that grew with each second that passed.

They stole him from you once, and now they will again, hissed a thousand voices only he could hear. They will win. You will lose. Tyrael will never return. You just need to be strong.

They were talking, the mortals, talking at him, saying things he didn’t care about. About what he had done. But he had done it for Tyrael’s sake. Everything had been to see Justice returned to the High Heavens.

Listen to them preach. They talk down to you, an angel. Mortals, finite beings. They can’t understand.

They were so limited. Their pain was fleeting, their fear a minor thing. Alive one moment, rotting the next. What did their suffering matter? It was inevitable, and he had done only what he needed to.

So weak and unworthy. So what if they suffered? You needed them to suffer. They needed to suffer. You know it. You just did what you had to do.

He hadn’t revelled in it. He hadn’t done it because it gave him such a sense of rightness, of satisfaction, even though it did. He had done it because he needed to, to bring them to him. It had shown them the cost of defiance, of siding with the Hells. What else could they be but allies to the demons? They weakened an Archangel, reduced him to a mockery!

They need to pay. You can make them face the consequences for their actions. Only you can do it.

You- I- We just needed more power.

Yes. Ardleon rose from a crouch he hadn’t remembered falling into. They surrounded him now, four of them and the fake, the other two gathered by the fallen mortal with the shattered mind. He had to make them pay.

All of them.

“All of them,” he echoed. He ascended into the sky, the ice beneath him blasting open. His hands opened, closing a moment later as his reforged weapons shot into them. “To me! Join me! Join me!

His cry rang out. For a moment, all was still. The windigoes, so passive, simply watching, came to a halt.

“What…” Paladin breathed.

Rarity’s eyes slipped into seeing beyond mortal ken, and she saw it first. She saw the ruin that was Ardleon, and the energies that shot through him like burning veins. They pulsed and throbbed, each time drawing in threads from the surrounding herd.

“Not threads,” she whispered, horrified. Pinkie looked at her, cocking her head to the side, but she received an answer to her unspoken question.

Ardleon became a vortex. The storm fell in on him. At first, it looked to Paladin as though the windigoes had turned on the fallen angel. The truth was far more horrible. It took seconds for the entire storm to vanished. Thousands of windigoes, the old once bound and the young born from their great feedings, vanished from the skies in an instant.

In their place, Ardleon loomed. He was swelled, grown. No longer sleek if ruined, he had become a creature of bent and creaking steel. Ice formed talons from his armoured knuckles, his wings stretching wide. He fell, striking the ground with a thud that belied the wave of force and frost that lashed out from him.

“I...am...strong…” he rumbled, his voice distorted, booming but broken as though heard through a great wind. “Look upon me... and feel fear. I have grown. We are greater.”

Bile rose, and it took all Paladin’s willpower not to vomit. He had never felt so disgusted. A sour note sung in the air, shifting as Ardleon spoke, and he saw revolted expressions on their faces as his friends looked at the monstrosity Ardleon had become.

“His...Lightsong,” Paladin groaned, panting. He could hear it, the greatest proof of Ardleon’s corruption. The Lightsong of an angel was unique, their own part of the angelic choir contained within their armour. To be able to hear it with a mortal’s limited senses should be impossible, and it should never have elicited such disgust.

“Ah don’t know what y’all have done to yaself, but it ain’t gonna help-” Applejack began. A tremendous force struck her, launching the armoured mare. She cried out in shock, stunned at the speed.

“Enough...talk…” the angel spat. He struck again, teleporting to Rainbow Dash’s side. Her wings began to flicker into life, but too slow. He simply slammed a foot into her side. The pegasus plowed a trough through the snow. Her scream of pain echoed in the sudden silence.

Darts of magic, so tiny as to be almost impossible to see even had they not been hurtling at extreme velocity, shot towards him. Ardleon stretched a wing, a gale with hateful cobalt eyes reaching out to batter Rarity’s attack side. When he appeared before her, his blade was already falling.

Slow!

Pinkie hit Rarity a moment before Ardleon, throwing them both out of the way. The invisible force that had arrested his strike, reducing it to a fraction of its speed, faded. The angel roared with countless voices behind his own, turning after them.

Paladin charged in, hooves flying. The angel caught the blows, taking a moment to casually bat the pegasus aside with the flat of his blade, and continued his march on Rarity and Pinkie.

“I am...ancient…I have fought wars...uncounted…”

Applejack came in a flash of light, to one side, and was gone the next as he started to react. She appeared again, right in front of him. Hooves releasing the mare, Rainbow Dash teleported again as her living payload slammed into Ardleon. He met the attack, lashing out with his right blade. It screamed as it scored Applejack’s armour, carving a deep mark and knocking her back. She was surprised at the damage he had done, and the pain that shot through her, as though her own flesh had been cut. Flying back from the force of the attack, she nearly struck Pinkie. Only Rainbow Dash’s speed, catching Applejack and teleporting away, kept the armoured mare from hitting them.

They came again, Applejack released like a battering ram at Ardleon. The force from his own attack on her was turned against him, carried from teleport to teleport. He flexed the icy talon to grab her, and Applejack took the attack. Her steel-shod hooves rose and fell, crunching and cracking ice as it sprung around her, curling and grasping at her.

Boom!” Pinkie shouted, her voice becoming an invisible canonball.

A dozen tiny darts came in the wake of the sonic blast, peppering the angel. They left no mark, bouncing off his armour. He snarled, pointing his blade towards them. Before he could attack, Rainbow Dash was back. She bucked up, back hooves knocking his head up.

“Enough!” he roared. “I have fought...war eternal...you are nothing!

The storm within him was unleashed, blasting out in every direction. Applejack found the ice-bones of Ardleon’s wing twisting and throwing her, while on every other side her friends were sent flying. Fluttershy and Spike clutched to Twilight, keeping her from being thrown wide.

“Please, Twilight,” Spike begged, whispering the words like a prayer as he held her. “Please, wake up.”

A moment passed, the attack ended, and for a moment Spike was sure her eyes would open. They had to. She had to wake up. He knew with iron-clad certainty she wouldn’t let them down.

Ardleon appeared above them, both blades above. The screaming spirits of the windigoes wrapped around the cold steel, their eyes winking in and out as they hungered.

Strike, they whispered, and their puppet obeyed.

Fluttershy stared up at the descending blades, her mind blank as, for a moment, she was certain it was over. She had time to curl a hoof around Spike, praying at least that she could shield him. The little dragon clutched tight to Twilight. His faith never wavered. Twilight wouldn’t abandon him. She promised.

Twilight’s eyes snapped opened.

The scream of clashing forces unleashed a wave of energy in every direction. Expecting no resistance, Ardleon allowed shock to stall him for a moment. A brilliant magenta light had formed a dome around them. It flickered, all of its magic expended just delayign that attack. Her mind worked quickly, creating another shield, and another below that, and another. They absorbed the rest of the strike, the blades tearing through them even with Ardleon’s attention diverted. The fifth shield guttered and died, taking with it the last of the attack’s power. The fallen angel stared down in shock into the mortal’s open eyes.

“How?” he asked. A moment later a hammer of magical force threw him back, though he took no harm from it. “A mortal’s mind could not withstand so much!”

Twilight sat up, nodding. She was, despite having awoken as a pair of evil swords fell towards her, completely calm. She gently pried Spike off, running a hoof along his spines.

“I know. Unfortunately for you, the gift I was given wasn’t simply raw power. He gave me the potential to shape such power, and to do that needs a mind able to withstand such stresses,” she turned away from Ardleon, nuzzling Fluttershy. “I’m sorry for scaring you, it still took me a while to get through that. I nearly didn’t manage it.”

“I’ll kill you properly…” Ardleon growled. “You are too weak...to defeat me…”

Twilight whispered into Fluttershy’s ear for a moment, her horn glowing, then looked back to him, and to the very great surprise of all of them, she nodded. “You’re right,” she admitted. “But power doesn’t mean as much as you like to think. Do you know what my special talent is?”

“Twilight, get down!” Applejack roared, charging at Ardleon’s back. The angel ignored her, lifting his blades. The thrashing aura of the windigoes infused into him grew, pulsing. He teleported, leaving Applejack to hit nothing and Rainbow Dash teleporting above empty space.

He reappeared behind Twilight, Fluttershy and Spike.

“Magic.” Twilight’s horn glowed. “I guess thanks to Tyrael, that includes angelic magic.”

Before he could strike, in only an instant, light passed from Twilight to Ardleon.

“Fluttershy, now!”

Just as Ardleon had thrust his own memories into Twilight, Twilight forced him to see memories she had taken from Fluttershy with a reversal of the magic. She pushed the suffering of everypony she had seen in the aftermath of the savage windigo attack, and she made him see the attack. From Fluttershy came a flood of memories.

Fear. Pain. Anger. They swarmed him. He could do nothing to stop them. Ardleon lived the memories, the same attack again and again. He felt the horror that had taken the victims of the windigoes. He saw, he felt. The suffering he had dismissed came to life. The force shocked him, the sheer power the memories held nothing he could have imagined. They were unlike, strange, yet so real. They were real, and he had caused them. He had made the skies a thing of terror. He had broken bonds of love with the hate-aura of the windigoes. It had been his words which commanded such things. Terror begat hate, hate begat destruction, destruction begat terror.

No,’ the thought ran through him. ‘I did.

One blade fell to the ground, the angel pressing a shaking hand to his helm. He stopped, staring down at it. Horror, his own this time, began to fill him. He retreated a step, rebelling against the bloated steel that formed the ruined armour. The voices of the windigoes filled him, screaming madly. They ordered him to strike, to attack, to kill them. They told him not to listen. They had stood at his side, only they could be trusted.

Torn by the conflict within his own mind, Ardleon nearly failed to realise he still had one weapon in hand, and that the arm was moving. The power of the windigoes wrapped the limb, driving the blade down.

“No!” Two voices screamed. Only one of those voices fell into a cry of pain.

Far away, behind walls of life and the gate of death, the great chain snapped, betrayal begetting darkness.

A spray of red coloured the snow before Paladin’s weight came crashing to the ground. Fluttershy squeaked in shock and fear, thrown clear of the blow by Paladin. Her breath hitched. She was numb to the cries of her friends as they saw Paladin’s blood seeping into the snow, simply throwing herself to him and searching for the wound.

“How strange,” Paladin grunted, blinking. “I’m...bleeding. Still not used to that.

Ardleon stared at the sword in his hand. Against reason, the blood didn’t freeze. It slipped along the blade, dripping into the snow.

“No...no…” It fell to the ground, the angel staggering back. The windigoes continued to scream, but he was deaf to them now. “What have you done to me…no...what have...what have I done?”

Fluttershy wasn’t sure where she had found Paladin’s scarf, but she had it in hoof before she knew it. She looked up from the bound wound, not caring that the bleeding shouldn’t have stopped so easily with simply the scarf. She didn’t say anything, she simply looked at Ardleon. Her friends surrounded her, guarding Paladin, their gazes hostile on the angel.

He retreated again, shuddering as though simply to be looked at was to be struck. He held up a hand, trying to stop them, trying to make them stop seeing him. Ardleon could hear his own Lightsong, the music of his soul, and it was disgusting.

You are ours. We are you. You welcomed us.

“Stop, no, stop...I’m not. I’m not!” They were trying to take control. He had woven their essence through a powerful medium, reforging a part of himself with their power flowing through the native frostiron. Worse than their simple presence was that he could feel them spreading through him. Ardleon suddenly realised how far he had fallen, and how dark a pit he had dug for himself. There was no way out, and soon they would win.

You have fallen. You can never be rid of us.

He wasn’t aware of his own hands clamping on his chest, but they had. Ice cracked, shattering as he dug his fingers into the largest rent in his armour. He screamed, pain and defiance mingling.

“I...deny you…” he roared. The windigoes railed, wailed, screamed, but he ignored them. He pulled, his armour creaking as he literally ripped himself open.

Paladin forced himslf up, looking at the thrashing form of his once-ally. Ghostly forms rose and dived around Ardleon, but he ignored them.

“Ardleon...you’ll die…” he bit out the words, pain stabbing him with each syllable.

The angel lowered his head, forcing down another scream of agony. The tear grew larger. “Tyrael, no, Paladin...I’m sorry. It means nothing, bu- argh! But I am! Oblivion will take me, ah, before they win! May the Light of the Heavens...guard you!”

With a final great pull, Ardleon ripped open his chest. The ponies shielded their eyes. a flare of light blinding them. The ice and snow burned with its reflection. The light of the Heavens beamed from Ardleon like a sun. He expelled his own essence, his own being, tearing it apart to remove the purification. An invisible ripple spread from pure white sun he had become.

The grey clouds vanished. In the mountains, three ponies trapped in ice were freed. As the ripple spread, the same occurred in every corner of the land touched by the windigoes. The tyranny of the unnatural winter was obliterated. Ponies lifted their heads, watching the sky return to them.

In Ponyville, Octavia looked up from her hot chocolate, staring with wide eyes as the clouds vanished, a faint dot of pure white flashing in her vision for a moment. She nudged the sleeping unicorn, not taking her gaze from the sky.

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom nearly dropped their mugs. Scootaloo slept next to them, wrapped in a warm blanket. The sky was clean, the frightful grey clouds gone. The two fillies exchanged looks, neither mentioning the white flash, before breaking into cheers, certain their sisters had saved the day again.

His little propeller buzzing, Tank couldn’t claim to understand what was going on, why the sky was bright again and there had been a strange white flash. He hovered in the window, staring with simple, long-term determination as he waited for his pony to come back.

In Canterlot, an assistant found herself sent from the room, an irritated photographer fuming over missing the moment when it happened. The artist bitterly muttered about missing ‘ze magicks’ of the white flash, shaking her head in frustration.

Curled up in the corner of her room, the powder-blue unicorn whimpered. The white flash had been too strange for her. She didn’t like strange. She just wanted things to stop being strange. She didn’t know what was happening; she had refused to leave her room, and the orderlies had eventually decided she would be safer there.

High in the mountain. Paladin bowed his head in farewell. He lay in the snow, looking at his friends from his forced rest. They had spoken, quiet words of understanding, apology, and forgiveness. He was sorry, they were sorry, it was all so confusing. He just lowered his head, closing his eyes.

“It’s over,” he whispered. “He’s gone.” He felt Fluttershy’s comforting touch, and slowly closed his eyes, just for a moment, just to rest them. None of them saw the weak flutter of energy over the crater that had once been Ardleon. There was a moment, a suggestion of a humanoid form on the air, because it was gone, the energy dissipating once more. It would be days before it occurred again, with much the same result.

Paladin didn’t remember when, exactly, he gave in to his body’s demand for rest. He certainly didn’t remember how he got back to Canterlot, although over the days that followed he gathered it had involved a lot of teleporting, quite a few unicorns, and a week of sleep for Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

He would remember the somewhat hasty awards Gala thrown in their honour. Not for the food, tasty but simply not pancakes or mayple syrup. He wouldn’t remember it for the nobles around him, although the company of friends and a somewhat recovered Shining Armour certainly made it more bearable. The medal and knighting were great honours, the rank of Justice of the Everfree and Ponyville, to act on behalf to the Crown in defense of those lands, even more so. But they were not what he would remember it for.

He stood there in the glittering hall, wearing the same suit as before. Despite Rarity's protests, he could indeed wear the same thing twice. Paladin glanced about the hall, sweeping his gaze past the guests. A few nobles had already tried to worm something out of him. They had been sent off with the metaphorical boot put, metaphorically, up their flanks.

It was then the music began, and he stood there passively, wondering when he could politely withdraw. Fluttershy stepped up to him, and despite himself, Paladin smiled.

"Fluttershy," he said by way of greeting. "How are you faring?"

She smiled back, a meek blush on her cheeks. "F-fine," she mumbled. "I was, uh, I was wondering if..."

Paladin gave her a curious a look, but didn't interrupt. He was nothing if not patient when it came to his friends, now he wasn't trying to make them leave him alone.

Fluttershy took a deep breath. “W-would….would you like to dance?” she asked, a tremble in her voice but at nearly speaking volume.

This was why he would remember tonight. Not for the honours bestowed, not the nobles, not the fancy food. Because he said, “yes”.

***

His steps were heavy, his tread sedate. Clad in darkness, the great beast was shown only in flashes of flame. Bars and chains surrounded him, but only a pair of severed manacles bound him. Sliced clean through, the chains dangled from his wrists and dragged across the floor behind him.

A flare of light lit him for a moment, revealing the red-skin covering his chest and the coarse black fur that spread across him from the waist to all four hooves. One muscled fist held a seemingly harmless pouch, a sack of rough brown material. Pausing for a moment, he tapped one of his deadly horns against the bars of a prison.

“Are you in there, old goat?” boomed a thick, smug voice. Silence was his only response, the creature eventually banging against the cells. “Answer me!”

A dry, weary sigh finally came from within the dark cell. “Please, do be quiet.”

The freed beast sneered. “Be silent, old goat. Your barbs have no use now. I am free, and soon this world will fall to me as it is destined to. Though you rejected this offer once, I give it once again; serve me, and I shall free you. A simple enough thing, yes?”

“Hm, and I thought my brother was the joker,” the dry voice replied. Gleaming red appeared in the darkness, resolving into a pair of cold, blood crimson eyes.

“Answer me!”

The voice sighed, its reply taking on a faintly mocking note. “No. I am content, thank you. If you survive to return, I shall be sure to be on hoof to welcome you. It is the least I can do, after all..”

Another gout of flame lit the halls of the sunken prison, and for a moment the demon was illuminated as he slammed his fist against the bars.

“Still your tongue, cur! This world will fall to me, as it should have so long ago! They will know the fear that has not touched them in generations. Their bastions will crumble before my might, their leaders will bow to my will.”

The beast reared, slamming his forehooves into the bars as he held them in his tight, scarred red fists.

“I am Tirek, Lord of Betrayal, and after generations untold, I am free!”

***

Author's Note:

I hope you enjoyed Act III Best Served Cold, although it wasn't my favourite, personally. Next up, Act IV! The last Act! Please comment and such, I love comments.

So, yes, the Big Bad is Tirek, and as his name implies, he's a demon. Not one of the Prime or Lesser Evils, obviously. Similar to the lesser demons like Ghom, Lord of Gluttony. If you'll recall the dreams of Tyrael's memories, there is mention of a Lord of Betrayal....

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