The Pony Of Vengeance

by BradyBunch

The Only Power That Really Matters

Celestia’s vision was first opened to see her blurred sister standing over her hurting eyeballs. It contained Luna’s worried face, flickering in the flames that burned in corners and edges of the room she was in. Her face was therefore painted an unhealthy mix of bright orange and navy blue. As her vision cleared, however, her face came into sharper focus.

Letting out a small moan of discontentment, Celestia slowly put forth the effort to stand up on her four legs, shaking from the tremendous effort required to even straighten her leg. Once she was finally standing upright, she inhaled a copious amount of oxygen, almost making her black out again from the sheer effort she had to put forth.

“Sister? Art thou all right?”

Celestia nodded her head wearily, putting a hoof to the side of her head. “I...I’m okay, sister. Simply exhausted. I feel...I…” She started to sway in place, but Luna kept her upright with a balancing hoof. “I don’t feel very well. And you?”

“I have certainly had more blood in my body at other times before,” Luna admitted. “But I still stand firm and tall.”

Celestia took the time to take more breaths of oxygen, dirty though the air was with smoke and dust. When she was done, she glanced towards the mound of splashed asphalt near the base of the Manehattan Project. Lying inside of it, and poking out of holes in the mound, was the inert and unmoving form of Ironheart’s mangled body.

“Is it safe?” Celestia wheezed. “Is the bomb off?”

“Yea, sister,” Luna replied. “Cadence hath done so very well indeed.”

“How did you find us, anyway?”

“I simply searched for thy location and thy immediate surroundings. Once I had pinpointed thy spot, I took Cadence and appeared here.”

“And what about Shining Armor?”

“He is helping retrieve Rainbow Dash and is giving her medical treatment as we speak. Once we depart from this forsaken place, we must add thou and Twilight to the records of treatment.”

Celestia’s gaze overlooked the mound of asphalt where Ironheart’s body lay. “And what about him?”

Luna looked pensieve. Then she said, “He is still a danger to Equestria’s citizens. We must restrain him and take him back to Canterlot.”

“And what then?” Celestia asked. “Do we execute him then, or do we detain him indefinitely?”

“No chains can hold him,” Luna said resolutely. “We must remove him permanently.”

“No,” Celestia insisted.

“No?” Luna demanded quizzically. “Why not?”

“Because I still love him.” Celestia gulped down something that made her throat burn. “I couldn’t bear to end his life in cold blood. I can’t stand to...I can’t...”

“What about several mere minutes ago?”

“Because then, my sister, my blood was hot.” Celestia winced once more and pressed on the back of her head. “This is not our way. This is not the way of friendship. It’s gentleness.”

“Thou...hast unfeigned love for him? Even now? At the end?”

“Yes, Luna. I still love him because he’s still my beloved student, that suffered so much that he took such barbaric measures to protect himself from harm. I love him.”

The pile of rubble still didn’t move under her steady gaze.

“But…” Celestia continued. “If you have the courage to give in to your own emotions, then you can do that. For me, succumbing to your carnal desires isn’t courage, but if you think differently, then you can kill him right now, where he lies helpless and broken.”

Princess Luna didn’t move, but stood staring at the pile of broken rubble. Her face was conflicted, but angry. After a few moments of indecision, she turned her face away from the mound, her expression a mix between enraged and distressed. She couldn’t do it.

Cadence came over, helping Twilight limp over to the other princesses spot. She also looked at the mound of rubble at the base of the bomb, where he was encased. “So.” She sighed. “What now?”

“We take him back to Canterlot,” Celestia stated. “It may be the only way he can prove his worth again.”

Twilight, who was bleeding and bruised from many, many spots on her body, let her head droop down in a sort of half-nod in approval. She looked almost relieved.

“And what if he doesn’t rehabilitate himself?” Luna asked.

“He must, or be imprisoned for life,” Celestia insisted. “If he could be turned, he could be a powerful ally.”

“Yes…” Cadence looked thoughtful. “Yes, he is a pony of great potential.”

“But no prison can hold him, save for the immortal chains of Tartarus. And I do not wish for him to suffer even more in life than he has.” Luna looked sympathetic. “Is there a way, in the event that he cannot control himself, that we can put a quick end to him?”

“Transmutation,” Twilight offered with a cough. “We could...transform his...Infinisteel atoms into...normal steel, and from there...he should be...easy enough for us...to deal with…”

“Shall we do it now?” Luna asked of her.

“No. We’ll do it back in Canterlot. The conditions here are far too extreme for experimentation,” Celestia insisted.

“That leaves only the question of the bomb,” Luna finished, glancing at the catastrophic device.

“What do you mean?” Celestia asked.

“Shall we dispose of it? Or study it? Or shall we detonate it over the ocean, and forget that it ever existed? This is the only one of its kind, after all.”

“Is the bomb even off?” Twilight asked heavily. She tried to stand upright, but very nearly collapsed. “Is it safe to handle?”

“I only cut off the power making the timer count down,” Cadence made known to all. “It can still reactivate the countdown sequence, if we tried hard enough to make it so.”

Before any princess could make a reply to the analysis, a deafening boom sounded forth as a metal hand very suddenly shot itself out of the rubble and reached its fingers out. From behind the four princesses, something small and cylindrical flew out and smacked solidly into his palm. The four princesses all ignited their horns instinctively as a battered, blackened, dented, and slashed Ironheart slowly rose out of the broken rubble.

His posture was weak, but just enough to keep him standing. His legs twitched, and he fell backwards, pressing his spine and wings against his deadly project. Above him, a dangling light cast a shadow forward, projecting Ironheart’s own shadow in front of him.

“No…” he muttered, weakly and deeply. “No, please, don’t…”

“It’s over, Ironheart,” Celestia panted, the blood on her face lending a fierce addition to her scowling expression. “We are willing to take you in alive.”

“No,” Ironheart snarled, breathing hard himself. “I...told you...that I would never be taken in alive. And now…” He panted, then pointed the sword hilt at the direct center of his chest. “I keep my word.”

Twilight grasped the implications of what he meant in an instant. “NO!” she cried. “IRONHEART, PLEASE! DON’T DO THIS!”

Ironheart only let loose a hard, deriving bout of laughter. “YOU LOSE, PRINCESS TWILIGHT!” he bellowed at her.

“But you also lost,” Celestia tried to say, pleadingly. “Because you couldn’t get Twilight to see how you feel as well!”

“The world is too dark for me to stand,” Ironheart declared.

“THOU ART PATHETIC!” Luna bellowed. “SIMPLY BECAUSE THOU WERT ABUSED IN THY EARLIER DAYS, IT DOST NOT MEAN--”

“SILENCE! I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO LIKE THAT!” Ironheart roared at her, artificial saliva flecking out of his mouth. “I can finally leave you, and hurt you more than you can possibly imagine, in one foul swoop!”

Friendship. Such a notion. How could these other princesses possibly be so naive as to think that it could influence ponies to be decent people? They were wrong. Ironheart, even at his death, was the most powerful one in the room, because he had the power to kill Ironheart. They possessed the ability to harm him, but they certainly didn’t have the will. But Ironheart possessed both the will and the way, which made him the most powerful one in the room. The only power that really mattered was the power to kill.

That power had taken him to the pinnacle of pony experimentation. What could he do in his new body? Take up baking? No, he could use the power for a noble purpose. His purpose was to cleanse the earth of the filth and scum that populated the pitiful landscape, because they had gone without punishment for long enough in the land of tolerance. Too much tolerance was, in hindsight, a bad thing, for it would give leeway for ponies to simply do anything that they wanted to do without fear of punishment.

Because of him, now they had fear to betray the natural laws of loving others.

And Ironheart almost froze in place. Almost, not quite, but enough to render him immobile.

Where had that line of thinking come from? Because they hadn’t demonstrated friendship, it was a good reason to destroy them? Where? And why? Why was he thinking like that?

He then reflected and tried to reason that it was just normal for him to feel that way; he was at the end of his life. Which, he reminded himself forcefully, was his own decision. He had the power to choose who died in the world. That was the power that really mattered, the only one that ever really mattered.

But which lives had he taken? He had hunted after filth like Amadeus, and Count Privilege, and when he was done in Manehattan, he was planning on going to other major cities and doing the same there. He had steadfastly refused to harm a hair on the head of the normal civilians. Even with the Equestrian Military members, they were attacking him, and weren’t technically civilians so much as they were soldiers simply doing their duty, simply doing what their superiors told them to do.

And then there was Rainbow Dash. He had her cornered, bleeding, and broken. But he hadn’t plucked up the resolve to blow her head off. Some other power had taken over his power to kill her. But what power was it? What power could be so strong as to stop a bullet that required only a twitch of a finger? What kind of power could stop the power to kill?

And a single line from yesterday’s talk wove its way into his thoughts.

We love you because you’re a fallen soul!

Twilight was his friend. As was Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie, and Rarity, and all the rest of their friends. No matter how much evil he had done to all of them, those six girls had never stopped believing in him. Even at the end, they were still trying to try, again and again. Maybe it was because of that...that he couldn’t bring himself to kill them. He may have hurt them, he may have broken them, he may have almost split them apart, but he had never had the resolve to kill them.

And by allowing his mind to travel down this particular lane, this line of thought, he found himself slipping more and more from his original thoughts.

He had thought friendship was bogus, but he had also killed anypony that didn’t display the elements of friendship. So there was another power controlling his power to kill. The power to kill was powerful, and certainly mattered in the world, but it was a power entirely dependent on his internal feelings, which were filled with rage. Filled with rage, but only at bad ponies, ponies that didn’t show friendship.

And why was he so angry at ponies that hadn’t shown friendship to each other? It shouldn’t have bothered him that much, right? He hadn’t cared about friendship at all. He only cared about harming those that...didn’t show friendship...to each other…

Oh, he was blinded! Oh, the powers he had experienced were only illusions, reflections of other forms of influence that had wrapped around his mind! The power he had ignored the power he had condemned, was the power that had led him all along!

There was indeed a power greater than the power to kill and the power to harm. It was the power to decide who to kill, because if you simply let loose of yourself on absolutely everypony you met, you would be only a posturing child, uncontrolled and unfocused and unreliable. Uncontrolled power was not power at all.

So the only power that mattered was how to use discernment to decide who it was that mattered to you. And the people that mattered to you...were friends.

The power of friendship was the only power that really mattered.

All of this raced through Ironheart’s lightning-fast brain in a mere few seconds, and when he arrived at the stupefying final conclusion, he almost collapsed to the ground in shock. He was wrong. Thinking back on his logic, everything that he had ever said or done or thought, he was wrong. For all of his life, for all of his existence...he was wrong.

He truly was no more than the filth that he had so brutally murdered. They, at least, were blameless, for they hadn’t heard the message of friendship before. But Ironheart had no excuse. He had known it. He had heard Celestia try to teach him it before. And this anguish, this agony of worthlessness, this feeling of hatred at the world and at himself and at Celestia for teaching him it, made him almost snap and lash out at the princesses once more.

But instead, he focused his resolve on getting rid of the influence that had polluted the world more than he had cleaned it. Now he knew that for all of his efforts, for all of his resolve, all of his work and sweat and blood and tears, he was his own enemy after all.

“I should never have existed,” he whispered to himself. It was so quiet, so soft, that the four of them almost couldn’t hear it. He pressed his back firmly against the curved side of the bomb and looked down at his own shadow, standing in front of him, flickering in the fiery light.

Ironheart closed his eyes tightly, and the black insides of his eyelids blocked all of his vision. “I should never have lived...I’ve had enough!” His voice became broken as something lodged in his throat. His shaking hand against his chest almost made the sword’s hilt drop. “Oh, please! Enough! Enough!”

“Ironheart! Stop!” Twilight’s broken voice sounded, across from him. She sounded on the verge of tears. “We love you! D-don’t!”

The last thing Ironheart was aware of was that something had leaked out of his eye and was dripping down his face.

He could cry after all. He had tried to make sure not to before, but apparently, he still could. Even at the end of his life, he was no better off than where he had started. He should have done this a long time ago.

In pain and in shame, in anger and in despair, and in perfect clarity of the truth of all things, Ironheart ignited his sword.

The blade blazed through his body effortlessly. Where everything else had failed, the white sword had no trouble in piercing his invincible frame and splitting his heart straight down the middle. The sword had emerged from his back and had pierced the Manehattan Project, missing the ignition chamber, but destroying the timer on the other side, short-circuiting it temporarily.

Ironheart hadn’t even made a sound. His knees now trembled as nothing supported them, and as his arms drooped down at last from holding the sword hilt, his knees buckled as well. Ironheart dropped to his knees helplessly as the life inside him departed at last, the sword de-ignited as his thumb had relaxed, and Bright Mind, that traitorous old soul, bowed in his own shadow.

Twilight was sure that she had screamed something right then. She was sure that she had screamed “NO!” and lunged forward helplessly, her vision blurring with watering tears. But she hadn’t heard anything. She knew that her lips had moved, but she was unaware that she had actually said anything aloud. As far as she was concerned, nothing had existed at that moment, save for Ironheart’s broken corpse.

And then the tears came, raining harder than ever, coming one after the other and collecting at the point of her chin. Twilight was crying for a murderer, mourning for a killer. Despair overwhelmed her consciousness, and she went to her knees, burying her face in her hooves.

Celestia, Luna, and Cadence had recoiled as the sword had ignited, and were now staring at the metal corpse in abject horror. None of them made a move; what could they do now?

Twilight was weeping. The corpse of Ironheart was lying on his face, his wings spread out to the side and hanging off his shoulders limply. There was no movement, no further stirring. His eyes were tightly shut, closed off from the rest of the world that had hurt him so badly. The world had become so painful and so jolting to his notion of reality that it was painful for him to live in the real world.

Twilight was weeping. The ruins all around her and the crumpled body of the traitorous soul were burning in tiny, flickering sputters of colorful fire. Scars were burnt into the ground from erratic laser blasts, sections of the ground were broken up, and rubble and rocks were strewn about as if it was dumped at random. In the midst of the meaningless destruction was Twilight, bent in grief over the stilled body of the machine.

Twilight was weeping. The noises she made as she cried over the body of the murderer stood out in the spacious lair, with only the small crackling choir of the flames to join her lament. The other princesses said not a word, and had their heads bowed in solemn reverence over the fallen soul. No tears graced their cheeks, but their faces were contorted in pity and melancholy as they remembered who Bright Mind was before, and who he could have become.

Twilight was weeping, and the world around her was silent as she emptied herself. For its silence, however, the world didn’t weep with her. The world didn’t weep for his end. Time still marched on, events far away from Manehattan still plundered on. The world hadn’t stopped and knelt in shock to pay reverence to the fallen soul. It was just Twilight.

Finally, she shakily stood up, and wiped her muzzle with a hoof. “He...he’s gone,” she stammered out. “And he didn’t even see...the truth…” She took several deep breaths. “I failed,” she whispered.

“No, Twilight,” Celestia said, but Twilight wasn’t finished.

“He was right! I couldn’t get him to see the way I did! I...I couldn’t...And I didn’t have the p-p-power to make him change…”

Celestia drew her in closer with a comforting wing. “Ironheart was the one that lost, Twilight, because he didn’t find the power friendship possesses. Ironheart lost because he couldn’t see the power of friendship. Even at the end, he was unrelenting.”

“No…” Twilight repeated, thinking wildly. What if Ironheart had seen the truth, but instead of accepting it, he refused to submit himself to its power? What if he was intimidated by the power of friendship, and had considered suicide to be his only option?

What if, what if, what if. No number of what ifs could change the past.

Beep

The sound drew her head up in surprise. What was that? It sounded a lot like--

Beep

The timer!

“Cadence!” Luna cried, shooting a frightful glance at her. “What happened?”

“Ironheart’s sword must have restarted the countdown!” Cadence guessed.

“Why is it counting down so slowly? Why has it only started now?”

Beep

“The damage from the sword must have damaged the timer’s countdown sequence! It’s going slower than before, but it’s still going!”

“What are we going to do, Celestia?” Luna asked wildly.

Beep

“Contain it!” Celestia cried, igniting her horn in a musical chime. The atomic bomb was enveloped in a glowing yellow aura. “Help me contain the bomb’s power!”

Cadence and Luna ignited their own horns, and the bomb’s aura became a multicolored mix of colorful candy hues.

Beep

“Can this work?” Luna screamed. “Can we contain the power of the bomb?”

“I have tamed the sun!” Celestia said, sweat trickling down the side of her face. “That is several million times worse than this! The bomb is a mere fraction of the power of the sun, sister. I can hold the radiation and the explosion enough, but you must stay with me!”

Beep

The bomb wavered in the auras surrounding it, but otherwise, it was peaceful and still.

Beep. Three.

“Get out of the way, Twilight!” Cadence commanded Twilight, spotting her lying so near Ironheart. “You’ll be caught up in the blast!”

“I need to take his body!” Twilight protested, as she tried to lug the stilled and cold metal corpse along with her.

“There’s no time, Twilight! Save yourself! You won’t do more for him anymore!”

Beep. Two. The princesses were stiff with anticipation. Twilight was unable to lend her magic aid to them, much as she wanted to. She was too injured by Ironheart’s attacks before, and was so weak that she almost couldn’t stand on her own. The adrenaline from the fight before had by now entirely worn off, and every inch of her body was stinging in pain and shouting in protest.

Beep. One. Twilight had managed to drag herself away from the bomb by then, and was watching with tired, sore eyes as the tension mounted to its zenith. She spotted the cold corpse of Ironheart. So near the bomb. So limp. So helpless.

Bright Mind was now nothing. Nothing at all.

Beep

B-B-B-B-BOOM!

The loudest sound Twilight had ever heard in her life erupted so close to her that she almost went deaf, as the still and silently ticking bomb erupted into a bright flash of color. It was so bright, and so loud, that it occupied her entire focus in the world at that moment. Nothing else mattered except for the swirling, billowing, furious light barely contained by the combined princess’s efforts.

Twilight stared into the depths of the bomb, holding a hoof over her eyes, and as she stared, she realized the auras of magic, combined with the luminosity of the atomic bomb and the deep orange color of the fire within…

They were beautiful.

She almost didn’t notice the silhouettes of Cadence, Luna, and Celestia screaming in combined efforts to contain the blast of the bomb. She didn’t notice the darkness that the room was suddenly thrown into. What mattered to her was the lovely colors the bomb made as it was furiously restrained by the magical efforts of the most powerful ponies in Equestria. It was billowing like a flower, pushing against the bubble it was encased in, making the shapes look so mesmerizing. The body of Ironheart, lying so near the bomb before it had erupted, had disappeared in the sudden, furious billowing of flames.

It was hot, so hot, so blisteringly, stuffily hot. Twilight was panting through her mouth as sweat poured down her head like she had climbed out of a pool. The glare from the glorious insides of the bomb made her vision turn fuzzy. Her blood poured out of her open wounds as her blood rate increased, and soon the blood and sweat were intermingling on her legs and face and chest. The salt in her sweat made the wounds sting, but Twilight was past the point of feeling pain.

“We need to disperse it!” Cadence yelled above the noise of the flowering flames in the auras. “We can’t hold it forever!”

“We need to get it into the atmosphere!” Luna cried.

“No!” Celestia screamed, gritting her teeth harder than before. “It will only cause more destruction!”

“We have no other choice!” Luna retorted, being pushed back ever so slightly by the tremendous force she was struggling to get under control. “In the atmosphere, it can dissolve safely!”

A few more frightful, deadening seconds passed as Celestia considered the idea.

“You need to keep your control of it at all times!” Celestia relented at last. “Always keep your hold of the explosion under bay!”

The top of the bubble containing the explosion shifted into an upward spiral, making the bubble look like a strangely-shaped lab beaker. Then the top expanded, and the catastrophic force, suddenly freed, drilled its way through the top of the lair and through hundreds of feet of earth.

The tight pillar of fire shot out of the ground and tore through the asphalt above them. It continued to shoot upward, a dozen times higher than the Chrystaller Building, higher into the cloudy, troubled atmosphere.

If anyone was watching the pillar of flame erupt from the ground like some hellish geyser, they would have recoiled and tilted their heads up to observe the tight pillar shoot into the thick cloud cover above the city. The pillar of flame singed the sides of nearby buildings into dust and shattered stories of glass, making the shards fall to earth like deadly rain. Black scars ran along the entire lengths of nearby skyscrapers, and the earth around the eruption point blew into dust and rubble, eliminating entirely the middle of the intersection that the pillar had come out of.

Eventually, the pillar of flame, wrapped in turquoise, navy blue, and yellow auras, ended erupting from its point of origin and sent itself shooting like some malignant orange cloud into the atmosphere. Because the entire sky was thick with clouds, in, near, and around the island of Manehattan, the entire sky caught aflame and spread its color to the far ends of the clouds, until it seemed like the entire sky was afire, and the atmosphere, from horizon to horizon, was infused with hellish orange light.

And finally, the orange dissipated, slowly, slowly, as the princesses still containing the fire hundreds of feet below let the fire throw itself many more miles upward until, reaching the stratosphere, it finally ebbed, curled, and, unseen by the ponies miles and miles below, finally went out.

Cadence, Luna, and Celestia, dripping sweat, and in Celestia’s case, blood, finally de-ignited their horns and gasped for breath as they crumpled in exhaustion. The sudden rushing of the flame had turned the room unbearably stuffy, and all of the energy stores they had were depleted at last. They all turned their gazes upwards through the hole that had been drilled by the flaming pillar. Through the layers of rock, and through the edge of the crumpling asphalt hundreds of feet above them, they could see the dark skies above them, thick with low, thundrous clouds.

Twilight was sitting on her rump, completely depleted as well, as the magic and flame ceased. The room was abruptly dark and quiet, and it took some time to adjust herself to that.

“Oh...oh, that.”

“That’s all that’s left?”

“The rest of him got caught up in the flame. He was inside the bomb’s blast. We contained the heat outside the radius, but the body...he was still inside the real blast.”

Twilight’s vision had adjusted to the change in lighting by then, and then realized what it was that the other three were talking about.

Lying on the ground, right where Ironheart’s body once was, was a small, shriveled, lumpy thing with wires and tubes sticking into it like it was a potato. It had a long, singed white crack down its smoking middle, almost reaching the bottom tip, and it was glowing red with residual heat.

It took some time to realize that the ugly object Twilight was seeing was his heart.

Spared from the rest of the heat because of its enormous density, his heart was all that was left of his immortal body. Broken permanently down the middle, as before, when Ironheart had been left heartbroken by the world he had been forced to adapt to.

It looked so pitiful. So small. So useless.

Twilight turned away from the broken heart in despair. They had gained the victory at last, but it was bitter, bitter, bitter.

---

Several minutes later, the princesses had all flown out of the hole they had punched in the bottom of Manehattan and were now in the streets near the Maneway’s waiting white steps. Most of the army that hadn’t been near the blasting pillar was still there. The few patrolling military guards that had been in close proximity to the twisting pillar of flame had been melted into shadow by the blast of the bomb; the auras protecting residual damage had been more focused in Ironheart’s lair than on the surface.

The center of the Maneway was bustling with medical staff and personnel. Wounded guards were on stretchers tinted with dried blood, bodies were hauled away in stained white sheets for identification, and medical staff were treating those with a priority first.

One of those, because of both the embedded glass in her body and her significance to Equestria, was Rainbow Dash. As Twilight came over to her stretcher, she saw Spike and her four other friends gathered in a close-knit knot at a respectful distance; a doctor was working on her wounds.

The smaller glass pieces, as small as a grain of sand, were being lifted out of her wounds with the doctor’s magic. The larger pieces were being left in to prevent blood loss. The sight of her friend’s broken body was hard for Twilight to process after the death of Ironheart, and seeing the dried blood in coagulated rivulets on her face almost made her turn away. But Rainbow Dash turned her head to see her, and she smiled weakly, and Twilight swallowed her fear and disgust and came to her side.

“Hey, Twilight,” Rainbow greeted her weakly. “How...how ya doing?”

“Are you alright?” Twilight asked, limping as she went. She had many long gashes all over her body as well, and she was dripping with sweat and old blood. So though she was asking about the welfare of others, she silently thought it was strangely ironic.

“Yeah,” Rainbow said, wincing as a bit more powdered glass was levitated out of a long gash on her leg. “The doc says I should be fine in about three weeks.”

“How bad is it?”

“Well, I broke a few bones here and there, and I need to be treated for infection, and my wing’s in trouble, but it should be back to normal pretty soon.”

“You got shot in the wing, Rainbow!”

“Yeah, but it’s nothing the doctors can’t handle. The bullet didn’t break anything as it went in.” She winced more as the doctor continued his work. “I...I’m okay. Are you?”

Twilight was reflective and silent.

“Hey, Twilight? Are you all right?”

“No, Rainbow. I’m not.”

“Well, why not?”

“I…” Twilight started, then she closed her eyes as tears threatened to leak out for the umpteenth time that day. “I couldn’t...save him…”

“Twilight?” came a voice, and Fluttershy came next to her, laying a hoof on her shoulder. “What is it?”

Twilight looked Fluttershy in the eyes. “Ironheart’s dead,” she got out, and then a tear ran down her bloodied cheek and she could say no more. The other girls nearby heard this declaration and responded with a symphony of gasps and recoils. Little whimpers came out of some of them.

Fluttershy's expression turned to one of distress. “Oh, no! Is it...is it true?”

“It is,” Twilight haltingly confirmed. “He’s gone...he’s dead.”

“You didn’t have to...kill him...did you, Twilight?” Rarity cautiously asked, coming near her.

“No,” Twilight admitted. “He...he did it himself.” She gasped a few more inhales, and added, “I’m not sure which is worse. Taking it into my own hooves...or watching him do it himself.”

“Woulja have done it, Twilight?” Applejack asked.

“We were trying to take him in alive,” Twilight weeped. “I’m not sure!”

And with that last comment, the girls fell into a wordless stupor of grief and loss. It hurt to lose him, terrible though he was. Why did it possibly have to hurt so much? What did he mean to the girls? He had barely come into their lives; only a few short weeks ago, they didn’t know he had even existed. And now, after only a few short days of knowing about the vengeful one, he was gone.

“So…” Rainbow Dash spoke up. A particularly large glass shard was yanked out of her body, and she gasped in pain. “What...now?”

“Well…” Spike started to say, then he looked down at the ground thoughtfully. “We go home?”

“Just like that?”

“Well...I dunno,” Spike admitted. “It depends on how long this is gonna stay in your heads.”

“This isn’t gonna go away anytime soon,” Pinkie said. “Now, every time I’ll be cooking, I’ll be like, “What if I could give this to Ironheart?” And then I’ll be a grumpy-pants for the rest of the day because I’m thinking about him and how he just couldn’t taste anything I could give him.”

“I just want him to be gone from ma mind,” Applejack said.

“Why?” Rarity asked in shock. “How could you possibly be that callous?”

“It ain’t because Ah don’t wanna remember ‘im!” Applejack asserted. “But when he’s gone, then Ah’m not in danger of thinkin’ bout him and depressing maself fer the rest of the day!”

“Oh.” Rarity blinked in surprise. “Oh, you make a good point, actually.”

“Is this it, then?” Fluttershy peeped. “Are we going to go home now?”

“I...I think so, Fluttershy,” Twilight said. “We’re done here.”

“I wish we weren’t,” Rarity admitted. “It all feels so unreal to think that this is going to end now. All we’ve had to go through...I would have thought it would never end.”

---

Rainbow Dash had been sent on a train ahead to Ponyville as a medical priority, along with other troops which were to be treated in Canterlot. On the next available train, Twilight and her friends had boarded. The doors had been swung shut, the whistle had blown, and the train made its way across the Bronclyn Bridge.

Twilight turned her head around one more time to regard the ruins of Manehattan. Smoke drifted upwards from only a few buildings damaged by residual heat. So many spots now looked so damaged and in disrepair. The docks by the ocean, where Twilight had first met Ironheart. The center of the city didn’t allow for a good view from where Twilight was, but the remnants of the Manehattan Central Bank was still in ruins. The front steps of the city hall were still stained with blood, which Twilight could notice if she squinted hard enough. And in Bridleway, several buildings had partially been collapsed.

Now, the only things that remained of Ironheart was the black book that Twilight kept in a saddlebag, and the ugly little shriveled heart that Princess Celestia now possessed.

“Twilight?” came a familiar voice, and Twilight looked away from the rattling window to see Dr. Brainstem there. His face looked significantly older than it normally did, and there was an alarming look of sickness in his complexion. “Can I sit?”

Twilight patted the seat next to her, and the doctor sat down. “I heard the news,” he said softly.

Twilight didn’t say anything.

“I didn’t know that anything could actually...well...harm him. He seemed so powerful. Untouchable. Free.”

“He wasn’t free,” Twilight croaked. Her voice was deep and hoarse. “He was tormented. He was tormented then, and he was still doing it to himself after he...after he...changed.”

Dr. Brainstem only nodded, looking thoughtful.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight whispered.

“Don’t be.”

“I should be.”

“Why?”

“My best wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t stop him, I couldn’t subdue him, and I couldn’t...change him.”

“That’s Ironheart’s fault.”

“I know. But still…”

“It’s terrible, Twilight. I feel terrible about this as well.” Dr. Brainstem looked into his hooves. “I...I keep on thinking, “What could I have done differently to help him when I could?” And I’m wracked with guilt because I’m so, um...conscientious of my former actions that weren’t enough. What if I had tried a little harder? What if I was a little better?”

“Now you have the opportunity. Now you’re appointed to be the leading scientist in Canterlot. Now you can try a little harder. But…” Twilight paused. “But what about me?”

“How you can try a little harder than you thought you were doing?”

“Yes, doctor.”

“I’m...not sure. Ironheart...he’s gone now. We can’t do anything more for him. But if you want to know what more you can do for him…” Dr. Brainstem paused. Then he spoke up. “I’d recommend making sure that the ponies you meet don’t turn out to be like him.”

“Only meet ponies that are going to turn out well?”

“No. Make sure that everyone you meet is treated with the sympathy and love they deserve. It saves the world a lot of trouble later on.”

The more Twilight pondered on it, the more she knew Dr. Brainstem was right. If she had adopted the mindset of treating everyone that she met with love, like they were suffering from terrible things, then they would be spared from turning into Ironheart. If she had the power to influence their lives for the better, then she had power over whether they turned into avengers and killers.

The power to love--the power of friendship--was therefore the only power that really mattered. It held power over death and life, over the past and over the future. The way you handled friendship influenced your destiny. What did the power to kill hold in comparison?

Twilight glanced out the window again. The train was rounding a bend, and Twilight had to crane her head to see the weary city of Manehattan. Then the train cars eventually blocked her view, and Manehattan disappeared from sight.

Author's Note:

And that is how you give a good end to a story!

Comments

[Xanatos Speed Chess]

Technically, Twilight and co. did succeed in getting through to Ironheart, despite what they think.

Sadly, it just drove him to guilt-induced suicide.

[Super Ponyman]

There was indeed a power greater than the power to kill and the power to harm. It was the power to decide who to kill, because if you simply let loose of yourself on absolutely everypony you met, you would be only a posturing child, uncontrolled and unfocused and unreliable. Uncontrolled power was not power at all.

Finally, Ironheart's dark night of the soul ends with a breaking dawn of revelation, it is the power of choice that is the greatest power of all...

[Notrab M]

Very deep! That's pretty much exactly what I think about it.
Also what about the radiation?

[BradyBunch]

9543953
It was contained by the princesses.