The Sword of Harmony

by milesprower06

A Princess' Fury, Part 2

Grubber found himself running for his life on the forest floor as the two dozen airships scattered barely three hundred feet overhead collided with one another. Explosions within the hulls and the shrieking and creaking of metal as they descended towards the supernatural forest overtook all of the other sounds in the area. Panicking Storm Guards jumped overboard, and if they weren't killed by the long fall, they were almost immediately overtaken by the ever-expanding branches and vines that they had been trying to beat back for nearly a week now.

As his mind started to panic, as he was well inside where the forest had originally been, never mind how far out it had expanded into the hills and prairie, he kept wondering what had gone wrong. The entire fleet had been holding a steady formation as they were dropping firebombs onto the forest, when suddenly the helms of all of them stopped responding, and they began to bunch up on each other. As he was scrambling to take the nearest rope down to the ground, he could have sworn he saw a red glow around each vessel.

As he ran as fast as his stubby legs would carry him, he didn't quite clear a tree root that was protruding out of the ground, and he fell face first into the dirt. He pushed himself up, and looked above. He thought he saw a flying purple pony high overhead in the precious seconds before the descending airship blocked his entire view of the sky. Knowing it was impossible to get out of the way in time, the last thought to go through his head was how daft they had been to come here, to a land with magic they couldn't possibly understand or control.

The last airship crashed into the forest, and the wood and vines began to claim the wrecks immediately.

---

Tempest Shadow slowly made her way down the mossy forest path. How little it had changed over the years made it feel like a dream. The wind rustling leaves and gently knocking branches together were the only sounds accompanying her hoofsteps; each one she took steeled her resolve further.

Her frustrations only grew over the last two weeks as more and more of her detachment had been recalled to the hills southwest of Canterlot to combat some supernatural threat they had not anticipated. She had decided that if she wasn't going to be given the resources to carry out her task, then she was going to send them all back, and go off alone to take care of something... Personal.

The ambient lighting grew dimmer as the forest became more dense, the canopy thicker. Fifty feet ahead, there was a clearing. She found it a bit unsettling how similar it was to her constant nightmares; this same forest, this same path... This same cave.

Regardless of how she had grown in the years since, it was still bigger than she remembered, the yawning mouth still looking like it was ready to swallow her whole. The majority of planks, boards and warning signs had long rotted away, and the inside of the cave faded to pitch black less than 20 feet in.

Tempest stepped into the clearing, and snarled, charging up her horn, and firing a blast of energy into the maw of the cave. It vanished into the darkness, and a few moments later, there was a dull explosion, as the ground around the cave rumbled for several seconds, before returning to the near silence from before.

Until the ground rumbled again. Tempest remained firmly planted where she was as she heard a roar echo out from inside the cave, and saw a purple glow begin to appear. There was another roar as a leviathan purple translucent bear came out of the cave in an aggressive stance. An ursa major.

"Remember me?" Tempest asked, leering up at him, her aetherium horn glowing intensely. "You took something from me a long time ago..."

---

Twilight glided over dense forests that were nestled in the Foal Mountains east of Canterlot, following the trail of her residual magic. She had obviously been aboard an airship for the vast majority of it, due in no small part to the sheer destruction she had witnessed following the magic trail down the east coast of Equestria. Cities that had been partially leveled and under siege. Equestria would be rebuilding for years when this was all over.

Finally, the trail descended into a small clearing in the forest; a small village about a quarter the size of Ponyville. She was beginning to wonder how far this trail would take her; if she had stopped here, the was likely long gone; absolutely no Stormships were on the horizon. But this was the only lead she had, so she descended to the center of the village, and she couldn't keep her mouth closed as she looked around at the surroundings she had landed in.

It was a massacre. Nearly every building had signs of battle. Columns of smoke rose from several of them as fires had broken out. But what shook her the most were the bodies. There were at least a dozen of them. Twilight galloped over to the closest one, an earth pony mare, and saw the bloody marks where she had been hit with attack spells. She placed a hoof on the mare's chest, and felt warmth. Her eyes widened.

This had just happened. She looked around, and saw that most of the dead had been shot trying to get into cover behind and inside buildings.

She heard a wet cough, whipped her head around, and saw a, older stallion curled up on the ground across the street, clutching his stomach. She ran over to him.

"Sir..." She started, but saw his gut wound, and the pool of blood under him. His eyes were pinpricks as he shivered. No healing spell would reverse this. He had mere moments left.

"Where is she?" She asked, cradling his head as blood trickled from his mouth.

"F... F-F-... Fizzlep-pop..." He choked out, barely pointing a hoof down the forest path to the north, before it fell to the ground, and he gave up the ghost.

She laid his head back on the bloodied ground as gently as she could, her horn crackling with red energy, hearing distant blasts of magic in the forest.

This ended now.

---

Tempest stood in front of the ursa major corpse, taking long, deep breaths, her aetherium horn cracking with purple arcs of lightning. She took another breath, closing her eyes. She had finally done it. She had made herself stronger, and stood victorious over everything that had weakened her as a filly.

But what was it all worth, in the end?

Her ear twitched, and she dove and rolled to the left, a split second before a magic blast hit the ground where she had just stood. She whipped around, and saw Twilight Sparkle galloping down the forest path toward her, as she fired another three consecutive blasts. Tempest flipped out of the way of all three, and leaped into the air, grabbing her last obsidian orb, and kicked it towards Twilight before she fell back towards the ground. The orb detonated directly in front of her, and the Princess of Friendship disappeared behind the cloud of green gas.

Tempest let out a breath of relief, and began to turn away.

"That trick's getting old..." Twilight's voice taunted, making the unicorn whip back around as the purple alicorn emerged from the cloud unharmed, and the gas began to collect and swirl around her. "You need a new one."

Tempest's confidence faltered considerably, taking a step back when she saw the shimmering shield that the glass armor around the Princess' chest had generated, and her horn was glowing with a violent and pulsing red hue.

Suddenly, the gas, having been collected and concentrated in a magic field, was thrust forward at Tempest, who jumped up and to the left, and the crystallizing agent took the ursa corpse instead. Tempest rolled to her hooves and fired off a burst of energy blasts. Rather than evade them, Twilight revealed a dark green bell, which reacted to her shots and seemed to absorb them. Not letting her stay comfortable in one place for long, Twilight retaliated with another four blasts, the last of which tripped the unicorn up a bit. Catching her balance, Tempest knew that whatever Twilight had done, winning this fight on magic alone wasn't going to be possible. Dodging another two shots, she jumped in closer, halving the distance between them, and she bent down into a sweeping kick, forcing Twilight to jump back, putting her on the defensive with the physical prowess she had honed over the years. With the Princess forced into either blocking or evading physical attacks, she had almost no time to fire off more spells. Moments later, Twilight tried to throw her off balance again with physical blows of her own.

The alicorn jumped forward and rotated on her front legs, spinning one hundred and eighty degrees and bucking Tempest in the side, knocking her off balance. Tempest leaned into the blow, and came all the way around and connected a right hook to Twilight's jaw. As Twilight brought her head back around, Tempest was ready, and the aetherium tip of her artificial horn connected with her cheek, forcing the Princess to jump back, yelping in pain, discovering that blood had been drawn.

Twilight jumped forward again, and faked a left lunge and dipped right, using her wings to dash forward unexpectedly, and threw forward with a right hook towards her head. She anticipated the dodge that Tempest pulled, and now in close range, she lit up her horn and gave her a paralyzing jolt right to the chest that the unicorn couldn't block in time. Using the precious few seconds she had, she lunged forward again, Bewitching Bell in hoof, and slammed it down on top of Tempest's horn.

"Ahhgh!!!" Tempest yelled, defiantly shoving Twilight away, but the connection had been made, and she felt the magic that had surged into her weeks earlier get sucked of her, leaving her lightheaded.

"Murderer!!!" Twilight yelled, as she charged forward and landed a direct punch to her face, followed through by grabbing her neck, and threw her into the crystallized ursa corpse. Hitting the obsidian with her back knocked the wind out of her, and she fell to the dirt, coughing. The instant she looked up, Twilight jumped forward and brought the bell down, slamming it into the side of her face. The unicorn cried out, and barely took a breath as another blow came, this time with a bare hoof. Twilight put all of her weight on her, held the bell with her magic, put one front hoof on her neck, and used her other to come down again and again with punch after punch.

"You! Fucking! Monster! Murderer!!!"

Her fifth punch connected with the aetherium portion of her horn, and she heard a satisfying crack as Tempest wailed in pain. She reared back and connected again. Another crack, a louder cry. Twilight took a deep breath and gave an enraged shout as she came down again, and there was a shattering sound as Tempest screamed in agony. The alicorn brought her front hoof back again, and saw what she had done. She immediately brought the bell down on the curved shard of aetherium in the dirt, and it glowed bright as it absorbed the last of the magic that was taken from her.

She got off of the weakened unicorn and stood up, holding the bell to her horn, and felt a rush of energy as the most familiar magic - her magic - flowed back into her. The transfer complete, she let out the breath she was holding, lowered the bell, and glared down at the unicorn who was weeping in pain in the dirt in front of her.

Tempest, her chest heaving, her broken horn weakly sparking, risked blinking, and tears spilled from her eyes as she made eye contact with the Princess.

"M... M-Mercy..." The unicorn choked out, tasting blood on her lips, as Twilight began to pace around her as she laid in the dirt.

"Like the mercy you showed Bostrot? Manehattan? The ponies of that village?" Twilight asked menacingly, pointing a hoof back down the path as Tempest looked at her fearfully. Getting no answers, she bent down to the unicorn mare's left ear.

"Like the mercy you showed the Princesses, and my friends...?" The alicorn whispered, her voice shaking, tears beginning to fall from her eyes.

Tempest felt magic wrap tightly around her throat, nearly cutting off her air supply as her quivering, trembling body was lifted up in a telekinetic chokehold, bringing her face-to-face with the inconsolable alicorn.

"LIKE THE MERCY YOU SHOWED MY FRIENDS?!?!?" Twilight screamed hysterically inches from her muzzle, the tears on the left side tinting red after reaching the cut on her cheek.

Tempest's eyes began to roll back into her head from the lack of oxygen as she took a wheezing breath.

"After everything you have done, Tempest Shadow, this is a mercy."

The next thing Tempest saw was an intense red glow from the alicorn's horn. Her chest heaving, Twilight let loose the surge of magic, hitting her near point-blank, smashing her through the crystallized ursa major corpse and sending her careening end over end into the cave. She rolled violently into a stalagmite, and coughed up blood, and unable to stand, tried to weakly lift her head to look how far she had been thrown.

There, next to an adjacent stalagmite, she saw a deflated, rotted yellow rubber ball, next to a small cone-shaped bone; the tip of a unicorn's horn. Her eyes were glued to the two items, and she vainly reached for them, as blood dripped from her mouth. She continued reaching with her outstretched hoof, ignoring the increasing brightness from the entrance, as well as the rush of frigid air that rushed through the cave.

Her horn glowing intensely, Twilight used all of her combined magic to reach across Equestria, opened a portal to the highest peak on the continent, pulled the boulder of pure aetherium through to her side, and flung it as hard as she could into the cave as she screamed and cried in a rage.

The boulder hit and scraped the ground, and a bright blue glow broke through the cracks as it smashed into the prone Tempest, a mere moment before the entire cave disappeared behind a deafening explosion of blinding white light.

Twilight felt a searing heat all around her body as she felt herself leave the ground and get hurled backwards. She wasn't sure what had stopped her trip backwards, nor what had broke her fall. She couldn't see, her ears were ringing, and she could barely feel the ground she had landed on.

With every sense overloaded, her brain made the not-so-calculated decision to black out.

---

She opened her eyes to an endless white expanse. She leaned up, and saw Spike, Pinkie, Rainbow, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Celestia, Luna, and Candance looking down at her, smiling.

But as she reached out for each of them, they faded into the white nothingness.

"Twilight?" She heard a muffled voice call out to her.

Tears running down her face, she reached out to Spike and Celestia last of all, and they too faded from view.

"Twilight?" The voice asked, clearer this time.

With nopony around her anymore, she laid back down, closing her eyes, wondering if this was the end, or what was to come next. She felt a hoof on her chest, and the white faded into blurry sky and trees. Taking a breath, she reached up to the hoof that had touched her, and was able to grasp it.

"Twilight?" She heard perfectly clearly now.

"S... Starlight?" She asked, letting her head roll to the right, seeing the unicorn that had knelt down next to her.

"We saw and felt that explosion in Canterlot, about two hours ago. Are you alright?" Starlight asked.

Twilight took another breath as she slowly rolled over, and shakily got to her hooves, looking around.

The aetherial blast wave had knocked her and the Bewitching Bell more than three hundred feet down the path, and where she landed marked the radius where the forest still had some green, and everything else closer to the cave, which had either been disintegrated or were leaning after having their roots half blown out of the ground. Bits and pieces of limestone were everywhere.

She began to limp back down the path, Starlight at her side, and she realized how sore she felt. She had cuts and scrapes all over where the armor hadn't covered her coat, and her mouth went dry when she saw what she had done.

The clearing in front of the cave had more than tripled in size, and there was no longer a 'cave' to speak of, as the entire southeast face of the mountain had imploded and collapsed.

She trembled, took a deep wheezing breath, and fell to her knees as she broke into uncontrollable sobs. Starlight leaned down and the alicorn immediately clung to her for dear life as she wailed.

"They're gone..." She choked out into the mare's heliotrope coat. "They're gone and they're not coming back..."

Comments

[TheAncientPolitzanian]

I find it depressing that Twilight’s last real interaction with her friends (sans Spike) before their deaths was telling them she’d be better off without them.

Unfortunately, now she has no choice but to test that particular theory.

[mishun]

Twiggles's beaten Tempest in hoof-to-hoof combat?

[milesprower06]

9877596
Mix of hoof-to-hoof and magic.

[Mechazilla88]

I have no tears for Tempest Shadow, she got what she deserved. She traded her kingdom, her own people and for what? A horn? Now she'll probably go down as the most hated pony in Equestria's history.

[The Ohvist]

9879000
Maybe in this continuity, Cozy shall follow not a path of gaining power, but to avenge the deaths of her family on the Storm Kings' followers (in another story from the same author, Cozy Glows' family lived in Manehattan)

[Starlight Fan]

Okay I may not like Tempest, and I don’t approve of stories that brutally kill characters, even if it’s her, but since it is clearly for story purposes, I’ll let it slide.