My Little Pony: Friendship is Eternal

by AlphaToothless95

Days of reckoning, Pt. 2

Hours Later

Starlight was increasingly worried about everypony since they had been gone for so long. She had been trying to keep everypony calm, collected, and focused on fixing their only way of escape: the airship. Luckily, they were almost done; however, the only problem was the fuel. This thing needed a huge amount of fuel to fly and they had no idea where to even get that much in such a short amount of time or what could be big enough to contain it all. Suddenly the airship activates and she can hear the engines from outside the massive cave that the ship resides in. She looks shocked when this happens and even more so when Discord appears by her.

“That solves our fuel problem, the ship should only run off magic now.” He says before using a cloth to wipe some dirt and what looked to be oil off himself like he had just been doing some engineering work.
Starlight just rolls her eyes at this but thanks him before Twilight and the others appear behind them with Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie's families.

“You’re ok!” Starlight says before she notices the injuries the Mane 6 most likely received from whatever battles they were locked into. Discord growls when he sees the injuries on Fluttershy's body and swears to make all the villains pay for it with their lives.

“Barely! We have to hurry, they won’t be far behind! Is the ship ready?!” Twilight asks and they both nod and she nods in response. “Ok good, get everyone on the ship, I need to get Solaris.” Twilight says before starting to run off until she sees Astelle and Sky Blazer flying towards the hospital that Solaris is in. She flys there as fast as she can to protect her from whatever they plan to do with her.

---

When Astelle blasted the door off it’s hinges, she had expected to find Solaris or Midnight or whichever one she was now immediately, so she was surprised when she didn’t see either the small, cute, purple alicorn or the tall, dark, and scary one. They both look around, sensing that she’s still somewhere in the room. They check under the bed, inside the closet, etc. but they can’t find her anywhere. “Where is this little brat?” Astelle asks with a growl in her tone. Suddenly, they hear a yell before a burst of magic sends the hospital bed into Astelle, sending her through the window and giving Solaris enough time to run out of the room with a 6 second head start before Sky Blazer gives chase.

“Sorry Sky…!” Solaris says before using her magic to blast one of the sprinklers which activates them all. This doesn’t do much to distract Sky but when she uses her powers and electricity trails behind her, she’s literally shocked by her own powers, being constantly electrocuted as they backfire on her. Solaris continues running, trying her best to ignore the screams of pain coming from behind her. Astelle suddenly breaks through the wall in front of her as she gets ready to turn a corner. She screams and tries to stop but ends up sliding right into Astelle’s grip and being held up by her mane. She squirms and struggles to get free but Astelle eventually uses her magic to hold her up instead.

“Stop! Fighting! You can’t get away from this, child!” Astelle says and Solaris continues fighting until she looks at Astelle with a smirk.

“Who said I was really trying to get away?” She says, confusing Astelle until she’s suddenly blasted down the hallway, being forced to drop Solaris, only for her to be caught by Twilight. “Perfect timing. Thanks Twilight.” She says and Twilight smiles and nods before teleporting them both to the ship with the others. After a bit of time, they get everyone on and the ship starts to take off. Suddenly, an alarm starts going off and everyone sees an angry Astelle about to throw an entire mountaintop at the ship.

“They’re relentless… Now aren’t you glad I didn’t leave you?” Twilight says, looking at Solaris who doesn’t answer but Twilight can tell something’s… off about her now. Before she can even begin to think of what that could be, Pinkie rushes past them faster than ever to get to the top of the ship. Just as Astelle throws the mountaintop, Pinkie makes it to the top of the ship, charging energy from her powers into her legs and doing a massive leap towards it.

“PINKIE!!!” Everyone yells before looking on, shocked as she uses her now powered up fists to jackhammer through the mountaintop like Maud had done to save her from a giant boulder, only much faster and MUCH more powerful. She then charges her power to one leg and kicks the mountaintop or what’s left of it as hard as she can, shattering it. Even the villains are shocked by this. Pinkie laughs cheerfully before realizing where she was and beginning to plummet towards the ground, screaming. She closes her eyes, not knowing what else to do until she feels someone catch her with a firm but gentle grip and she immediately knows who it is.

“Thanks Fluttershy.” She says with a sigh of relief to a very annoyed but relieved Fluttershy, who nods before taking her back to the ship. Astelle, Sky Blazer, the Washouts, Ragnar, Midnight's dragon, and the Storm King all try to give chase, being the only ones who can fly. Suddenly the ship blasts off, causing a shockwave that knocks the villains away and out of Canterlot. Finally… Finally, Twilight and the others could take a breather and relax… or so it seemed.

---

As Fluttershy gets done rapping up Pinkie's leg which had been slightly injured due to it not being used to holding that much power or destroying something that big which put just a bit too much strain on her bones and muscles- even for her, she can’t help but admire how brave Pinkie had always been. Sure, she usually laughed at what everyone else would be afraid of, even if the danger was real, but today… today was different. Instead of laughing, Pinkie had been serious and determined to protect her friends and family. So much so, that she was the very first one to react and Fluttershy had to admit… she was impressed and her hidden feelings for Pinkie had gotten stronger, and so had her desire to be braver… more assertive- just not too assertive like she had been when she had learned from Iron Will. But… just more assertive than she already was.

“You should be fine in about a day, your leg has already started healing pretty fast but Pinkie… please… don’t ever do that again.” Fluttershy says and Pinkie seems to think about it before shrugging and nodding.

“I promise not to do it again as long as I don’t need to.” Pinkie says before giving Fluttershy her biggest smile ever, causing the pegasus to giggle before doing something… unexpected without thinking. She gives Pinkie a peck on the cheek, causing the pink earth pony to blush and look at her with a shocked look. It takes several seconds for Fluttershy’s smile to be replaced with a shocked and horrified look.

“Oh… Oh dear, I-I'm so sorry. I-I don’t know why- I don’t… I don't know what came over me, I’m so sorry Pinkie.” Fluttershy stutters while Pinkie continues to stare, shocked beyond belief. “U-Umm… I-I’ll let you… talk to your family.” Fluttershy stutters out, slowly getting up and walking out of the room, allowing Pinkie's family to go in and see her before the door closes and she leans against the wall next to it, holding her blushing face in her hands. “What was I thinking, forcing myself on her like that…?” She asks herself before slightly touching her own lips, a smile forming on her face as one thought crossed her mind. “I am glad it was her though…” She says quietly, leaning against the wall for a bit longer before going to check on her own family.

---

An hour later

As Twilight explained everything to her parents, her brother, her sister-in-law, and her niece, she had the nagging feeling that something was wrong, that something was about to happen and it only got worse the further they got from Equestria. Eventually it got so bad that it made her sick. She stands up suddenly without even trying to and starts walking to the room where all the former villains were along with Celestia, Luna, Solaris, Sunset, Starlight, and the Pillars of Old. “Twily…what’s wrong?” Shining Armor asks and Twilight just looks around, confused.

“I’m asking myself the same question… everything was fine until I started to get a bad feeling… then my body suddenly started moving by itself and brought me here.” Twilight says and Celestia and Luna look shocked at her then at each other then back at her.

“Twilight, that’s not just any bad feeling. That’s alicorn empathy trying to warn you… but it’s reacting so violently that you temporarily lost control of your own body to it.” Celestia says before Luna continues explaining for her.

“Which means… the danger is in here.” Luna says and just as she says that, the pain in Twilight’s head suddenly raises drastically, accompanied by some sort of loud booming, screeching sound that only she could hear. This causes her to yell in pain and hold her head as she falls to her knees. Everypony is immediately by her side, ready to help. Soon her friends all step into the room as well and notice what’s going on.

“Well, don’t worry Twilight, whatever’s going on, I’m sure you’ll figure it out before it gets bad. So I wouldn’t be worried.” Solaris says and all the other villains agree and Twilight smiles at them until something very strange happens. She looks at her friends and sees Applejack giving the former villains a skeptical look before crouching beside Twilight and whispering.

“Twi… someone here just… lied.” She says and Twilight is suddenly forced to her feet by alicorn empathy and walks to the center of the room, looking around at all of them like she’s trying to see which one triggers her alicorn empathy the most. She notices that the closer she gets to figuring out who, the more she hears screaming and feels anger, rage, and determination. She looks towards where Solaris is only to realize that she’s gone.

“Wait… Where’s Solaris?!” Twilight asks as she looks around frantically. Everyone looks around until they all see her sitting by a window just… staring outside of it. Twilight slowly starts to walk to her. “Solaris…?” Twilight hesitantly asks, really unnerved by all this, especially the fact that the closer she got, the more her alicorn empathy screamed inside her head to throw her off the side of the ship.

“She warned you, didn’t she Twilight…?” Solaris asks, her voice now having a cold edge to it to the point where she doesn’t even sound like herself. “She warned you to leave her in Equestria but noooo… you just had to play hero… and where has that led you?” She asks and Twilight suddenly backs up, knowing what or who was in control now. Solaris slowly turns her head and opens her eyes and when everyone sees them, they’re shocked to see that they’re black with purple slits for pupils. “Back to me.”

“Midnight…” Twilight says, causing her to smirk and nod before hopping up from her seat and walking towards everyone, causing them to back up. “I don’t understand… How?! When?!” Twilight asks and Midnight shakes her head as Solaris' fur slowly turns black along with her mane, some of her feathers turning a darker purple as she starts to grow taller, her voice getting deeper.

“It’s very simple really… Solaris making a friend that was unknowingly like me and then losing said-friend right before her eyes unbalanced Solaris’ psyche just enough to allow me to take control again and to be fair, it was already close enough to a breaking point as is.” Midnight says as she continues getting closer until Celestia and Luna both step between her and everyone else with their magic ready. Midnight just chuckles at this and continues. “But that’s not when I took control… that happened when she tried to warn you to leave her… Sky Blazer and Astelle are very good actors by the way. Fitting how Solaris knew she was going to turn only because I wanted her to know though… I wanted her to know what was coming… to fear it. All of it… and you just made it so much easier for me to bring about her worst fears… starting with letting her watch as I bring down this ship… and kill. You. All.”

Midnight says before the ship suddenly tilts to the right violently and so fast that it sends everyone flying towards the wall in that direction. Midnight just smirks, not even flinching from that and staying right where she was. Once the ship stabilizes, that’s when everyone notices they flew right into a storm and they notice that it’s not just a normal storm… it was being caused by magic. Twilight glares at Midnight as it all starts to make sense. “You… You’ve been planning all of this from the start! The very first day we defeated you! You had your plan all ready to go but you had lost too much strength to communicate with your army! So you waited… and manipulated not only us, but also the villains into doing what you wanted!” Twilight yells, causing Midnight's smirk to turn into a full blown evil, tooth-filled smile.

“Took you long enough to figure it out but I’ll tell you what. It was fun while it lasted! And my consolation prize will be finally making you suffer along with your friends and family… thanks for making this so easy… Seems like you make a great villain after all, huh… Twivine?” Midnight says, taunting and mocking Twilight's foolishness to provoke more foolishness…and it was about to work.

Twilight thinks about this as her anger raises to new heights when she hears Midnight's cruel, infuriating words towards her. Twilight’s eyes suddenly turn a darker purple than they already were and her magic combined with Twivine’s, causing symbols to form on her body as her voice echoes. “That’s. Not! Who I am!!” Twilight yells before charging at Midnight who charges back, beginning what would be one of their most brutal battles ever… and the one that would possibly leave the biggest impact.