My Little Pony: Friendship is Eternal

by AlphaToothless95

Final Stand, Pt. 1

Author's Note:

This took WAY longer to finish than I thought it would but I want this and the chapter or chapters that follow to be worth the wait cause I’ve put a lot into this story and the last one and yes, there will be another and that one will be the end. Hope you enjoy this chapter and I hope it’s worth the wait to you all too. Have an amazing day or night!

Also sorry it’s so long.

The Next Day, Twilight’s dream

As Twilight opens her eyes, she recognizes where she is… when she sees the two paths in front of her. One light and one dark. “No…. Not again… it was already hard enough to figure out what to do the first time… Why am I here again?” She asks to no one in particular. She knows that the reason it was probably so difficult last time was because of Twivine but… since they’re not sharing a body anymore, she’s confused as to what she’s supposed to be doing this time. She sighs and just stands there until she hears a voice from behind her.

“You’re here because last time… you didn’t really make a decision. This time… that mistake needs to be fixed.” She hears the voice from the last time she was there say. She still didn’t know who the voice belonged to but for some reason, the presence she felt somehow seemed… familiar. She looks around, hoping to find some sort of clue as to why. To her expected disappointment, she finds nothing.

“Who are you…? I know that you gave us these powers and made us choose a path for a reason… but I can’t help but feel like I know you for some reason… and you know us.” Twilight says and she can sense hesitation from the presence she felt. “You don’t have to be afraid… you can trust me and I don’t think I could hurt you even if I wanted to.” She says, trying to reassure whoever the presence belonged to.

“And yet… you already have.” The voice says before a bright light forces Twilight to cover her eyes and when she opens them again, she looks to see… herself… no, a astral projection of herself that looked to be sparkling and Twilight immediately realizes who- or what she was talking to.

“You’re… the tree of harmony?” Twilight asks and the projection of herself nods and suddenly it all starts making sense. How they got their new powers, how they got their elements back… how their powers seemed to get stronger most days and get weaker on the most chaotic days and also seemed to get weaker over the year whenever Twilight chose to try and turn away the memories of her friends and family. “Last time I was here… I couldn’t choose the light path…” She says and the astral version of herself nods.

“That was because of Twivine but… part of the reason was you too… You were doubting yourself… overthinking. You didn’t know which path would be best for ending this… but you have decided to forge your own. A path based on both light… and dark. You’ve taught others to do the same. And with that… you can bring balance. You can bring harmony. It’ll take more than just light or dark to beat Midnight… it will take both. So Twilight… are you ready to bring harmony back to Equestria? Will you fight until the end for harmony and equality?” The tree asks and Twilight looks at her hands before clenching them and giving a look of a determination and a firm nod. This causes her astral self to smile and gesture behind her and when she turns around, there’s a multicolored path there that’s bigger and brighter than the others and it leads to a giant statue type version of herself that has a giant statue of her element between its hands.

She doesn’t waste any time walking down the path towards where the statues were but she slowly reaches up to touch the element when she gets to it. As soon as she touches it, it starts glowing and so does she and suddenly it feels like all the magic coursing through her has been supercharged. The brighter she gets, the stronger she feels. Brighter and brighter she glows until finally…

---

“Twi? Twi, wake up… it’s time.” She hears Rainbow Dash say as she feels herself being gently shaken awake. She looks to see her already up and in her new outfit. She slowly sits up, getting ready to get her own. “You go ahead and get your stuff. I’ll meet you outside.” Dash says and after Twilight nods, she goes to the door, gives Twilight one last look, opens it and then walks out, closing it behind her.

Twilight stands up, breathes in, closes her eyes and concentrating her magic and using it to bring her armor and her element to her. Once her armor is fully on and her element is attached, she looks at Rainbow's bed and notices something under the bed and takes out a chest with a note attached. The note reads “For you, Twi. Don’t be afraid to show it off.” And these words manage to peak her interest. She opens the chest and gasps when she sees a new battle mask that was perfect for her. She reaches in and grabs it, slowly taking it out and bringing it up to eye level. She smiles at how it looks and slowly puts it on. After seeing that it perfectly fits her, she uses a spell that pretty much deforms it into an earring and makes it invisible until she needs it. And knowing how today was gonna go… she was gonna need it a lot.

---

As Twilight walked through the huge crowd of ponies and other creatures, she couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous. She was literally about to lead them to war, a war in which their victory solely depended on the success of a plan that none of them were sure was gonna work. Not to mention, it depended on if all of Equestria would listen to the message Twilight was about to try and send. Fortunately for her and everyone else, her nervousness did not go unnoticed.

After a few more moments, she suddenly feels a wave of calmness move through her body, calming her nerves and she immediately gives a grateful smile towards Celestia, Luna, Cadance and Flurry Heart. They all nod at her and when she looks towards her friends, they do the same. She smiles more at them all before standing in the middle of everyone. Celestia and the other princesses walk forward and Celestia gives Twilight a concerned look. “Twilight… are you certain that you want to do this? The process will be very painful and you’ll have a very limited amount of time to deliver your message to everyone.” Celestia asks and Twilight nods without hesitation.

“Positive… do it.” Twilight responds and they all nod and stand around her and Celestia and Luna at the front, touching her shoulders while Cadance and Flurry are behind her, touching her back. They all close their eyes and use their shared Alicorn empathy to make Twilight’s stronger and increase the range so it would spread across all of Equestria without going to Midnight or anyone in her army. Once she’s sure that her alicorn empathy got to everywhere she wanted it to, that’s when she began speaking. “Hello Equestria… I don’t have a lot of time to explain, so I’ll get right to it. My name is Twilight Sparkle… and I need your help. By now, you all have heard of Midnight and the havoc she’s been wreaking on our home. We have a plan to stop her but we need your help. To those of you who can make it or anyone who wants to fight for what’s right, the battle will take place… here.” She says before using her alicorn empathy to let everyone see the location in their heads and know exactly where it is.

“You don’t have to risk your lives for Equestria, but if you have any, I BEG of you… do it for the people you love. Help us stand against Midnight so they, along with everyone else… can have a bright future.” Twilight says and with that, the connection is cut off and all the princesses separate and Twilight falls to her knees, struggling to stay conscious, even with all the pain she felt. Rainbow was immediately the first one by her side and after her vision becomes less blurry and she can think more clearly, she smiles at Rainbow who smiles back before slowly helping her up.

“So… do you think your message got through? That it will convince others to come and help us?” Cadance asks and Twilight thinks about it before sighing, shrugging and turning to her and the other princesses.

“I guess we’ll see… but for now, I think it’s time to make a tough call… literally.” Twilight says, mentally preparing herself for what she knew would be a terribly draining and painful experience. After she steeled her resolve, she uses a spell that projects a screen in front of her and after a few seconds, the face of Midnight appears on the screen. “Midnight… I want to make a deal… call off your armies, release the kingdoms and other areas that you have under your control from under it… then I’m all yours… you can take my magic, kill me, whatever you want… just leave the rest of Equestria alone… What do you say… do we have a deal?” She asks and when Midnight forms that same damn infuriating smirk on her face… Twilight fights the urge to smile… as that becomes the only answer Twilight needs.

---

A hour later

Midnight was actually pretty impressed. She had expected Twilight to put up more a fight instead of just foolishly giving herself up like she would actually hold up her end of the deal. The surprising part was that Midnight actually considered it after all the headaches Twilight caused her. Then she remembered that there was still more she could do to Twilight to make her suffer more, there was still more she could take from her. Twilight hasn’t lost everything which means her suffering isn’t over quite yet. She would finish Twilight off when she begged for death but not before. She truly was evil and she loved it.

She’s broken out of her thoughts when she hears one of her soldiers calling her. She sighs in frustration before turn to where they were. “What is it?” She asks, having an annoyed tone in her voice even though she was in a good mood.

“We’ve spotted Twilight Sparkle but something feels off.” He says and Midnight looks confused before following him and seeing a screen that was showing Twilight. She had new armor, she was standing on top of a mountain and she had a magical orb floating above her hand. This was definitely an ambush… but where was everyone? There wasn’t a whole lot of room to hide out in this dessert-like wasteland. Before she can think about it too much, Twilight throws the orb towards the ships and it explodes, making fireworks as if Twilight was trying to get their attention. After her ship gets close to the ground and to Twilight’s location, Midnight jumps out and lands with enough force to make a giant crater.

Twilight glares and jumps off the mountain, gliding before landing at the bottom of it, still a good distance away from Midnight. Midnight walks out of the crater and as Twilight looks at her, she can’t help but be honest… with red as a secondary color now… Midnight looked more intimidating than she did before… how did she get this way? “What did you do…?” Twilight asks, holding her ground as Midnight continues walking towards her.

“What? A girl can’t change her appearance every once in a while when her old one starts getting boring?” Midnight asks with a chuckle and Twilight huffs, continuing to glare.

“Not this one. Not without there being something more behind it anyway. So… what’s your secret?” Twilight asks and Midnight sighs, holding her head back and crossing her arms as she does, looking up at the sky until she starts talking again.

“My, you sure are a persistent one. Tell you what, I’ll tell you my secret as soon as you come with me.” Midnight says but when Twilight doesn’t move an inch, she glares at her. “Don’t make me come get you Twilight. I’ve just about had it with you already.” Midnight says and Twilight clenches her fists, still continuing to glare at her, much to her annoyance. She walks closer to Twilight and Twilight backs up a bit and just as she goes to grab her with her magic, she gets hit with multicolored electricity then bicycle kicked and knocked back. She’s then held down by vines then frozen.

After a few seconds, she breakers free with magic and sees Twilight’s friends standing by her. She growls and slowly stands up, the red on her glowing even more as a sign of the anger and hatred she felt. She glares at Twilight who smirks at her. “You tricked me!!!” She says angrily and Twilight just gives a shrug.

“It wasn’t hard, plus you’ve done the same multiple times and were planning to do it again. Your manipulative nature was your own downfall Midnight. Now… we end this once and for all!” She says before she uses her magic to disperse the many clouds above them, revealing a few reinforced purple airships with golden armor in some places and Twilight’s cutie mark is on all of them. They’re smaller than Midnight's own airships, but they’re also faster and have quite a few “surprises” that Midnight's own forces are sure to absolutely hate. Once they start firing at Midnight’s ship, she yells in anger and starts attacking Twilight and her friends. They all split up and start using their powers to try and beat her but what they didn’t realize was that while they’ve gotten stronger… she has too.

Meanwhile, everyone else was keeping Midnight's army at bay for as long as they could. They were throwing everything they had at them and they managed to take down at least two of her ships. That’s when they started firing back and their ships start maneuvering to avoid the blasts and receive as little damage as possible despite the size of these ships. “Guys! We can only maneuver our way through this for so long! Starlight, Lightning Dust, take your teams and do something to distract them and draw away some of their fire! Spike, Adagio, Aria, Sonata, go with them!” Shining Armor says over the comms and they all get ready before Lightning Dust leads the Wonderbolts and the Washouts towards the ships and manage to draw some of their fire away from their own ships.

One of the hatches in the bottom of one of the ships opens and Starlight, Trixie, Tempest, and Sunset all fall out. The magically projected glowing blue cape that was part of Trixie’s armor disappears and turns into flaps/wings under her arms that are attached to her hips and she spreads them, allowing them to catch the wind and Starlight does the same, attaching the hidden flaps on her suit to her arms then spreading them and gliding right beside Trixie. Tempest lands on top of Spike and Sunset lets out a yell as her eyes glow a fiery red and yellow and her body glows as she curls up before she spreads her limbs and the glow stops as her power is focused into making wings made of fire and she flys right beside the Dazzlings towards the ships.

“That. Was. So. Cool!” Sonata screams and everyone agrees, amazed at Sunset's amazing ability, gaining a chuckle from her before they go back to diverting enemy fire from their allies while also dodging all of it themselves. Storm clouds roll in and the Storm king appears and lets out a monstrous roar that fits with his appearance. Spike flys towards him with Tempest still on his back as he dodges blasts from the giant reincarnated fallen king. He counters some of his blasts with a few of his own fire blasts. Once they’re close enough, Tempest gets on his nose before Spike launches her off towards the face of her former boss faster than he can keep up with. She charges energy from her broken horn into her body and focuses it into her fist and her eyes start glowing from the amount of power she’s using and she screams as she pulls her arm all the way back then brings it forward, landing a powerful punch that manages to knock the Storm King’s head back, cracking his horns.

“Spike! Now!” Tempest yells and Spike breathes fire at his horns, heating them up and weakening them before using his claws to slash them both off. Ember comes out of nowhere and grabs one of his horns and stabs him through the heart with it. He roars in pain and anger as he slowly starts cracking and glowing until finally he explodes, causing Spike and Ember to use their wings to shield themselves and Tempest. They uncover themselves and see that there’s nothing left of him. “Holy shit… nice job you two.” Tempest says to the two giant dragons who smile down at her and nod.

Midnight sees this and yells in anger, knocking the Mane 6 off of her then letting out her loudest whistle. As soon as she does, her own dragon flys out of the dark clouds behind the airships and tackles Spike and Ember, taking them down to the ground and when they crash, Spike ends up letting go of Tempest and she tumbled away from the three huge dragons. She comes to a stop when she hits a magical barrier. She looks to see that Discord is the one who was making it. He helps her up as they notice at least a hundred of Midnight's soldiers departing the airship. They see a bright red glow coming from the ship in the middle until a red light goes into the sky then lands on the ground with a massive impact. It’s revealed to be Astelle when the dust clears… and she has the alicorn amulet attached to her armor. She’s followed closely by the elements of insanity and as soon as they land, they start aiding Midnight against the Mane 6.

Before they can get too much done against them, the legion of doom appears in front of them, thanks to Discord’s magic, and starts fighting and keeping them away from the Mane 6 while Celestia and Luna engage in a battle with Astelle. Sombra appears from a cloud of black smoke and he starts making things difficult for the heroes by growing crystals which explode when impacted by their magic, swinging and throwing them into each other, even making them attack each other by getting in someone’s line of sight then disappearing right as they attack and letting them hit each other.

It could’ve gotten a lot worse but before it could, when Sombra appears again, he’s wrapped in two magic ropes then pulled away and thrown through a boulder. Cadance and Flurry Heart land in front of him and immediately start attacking, leaving him on defense. He takes out his scythe and swings at them when he sees an opening but Flurry slides under it, cutting his leg with magic and giving her mother the chance to drop kick him, which she does instantly. He recovers rather quickly and swipes at her with his scythe, managing to leave a deep scratch on her leg. She almost loses her balance so she’s forced to fly up a bit.

Sombra turns into black smoke and rushes at her and she stops him in his tracks with a magic barrier. Flurry takes the chance to use a spell on him that will trap him and it almost works but then he disappears, probably sensing that she was gonna do that. “Have to be quicker than that… Insolent child.” She hears him say, pausing before he strikes at her from behind, slashing her wings and her back then blasting her forward. Cadance sees this and feels more rage than she’s ever felt in her life. Her eyes and horn start glowing as she yells in anger and charges at Sombra faster than he was expecting and she forms a crystal sword and swings at him and he retaliates by swinging his crystal scythe to counter her attack but as soon as their weapons connect, his shatters instantly. He stares in shock but then turns to face her only to get stabbed in the stomach and he yells in pain.

She kicks him back and goes to slice off his head or some other limb, she didn’t really care. But right as she’s about to, she gets blasted away by a changeling…. Actually a whole bunch of changelings. “Uhhhh Uncle Thorax?! What’s going on, I thought all the changelings were good now!” Flurry Heart yells, much to Thorax’s confusion.

“They are! I don’t think these are natural changelings! I think Midnight made them from dark magic!” He says, earning a laugh from Midnight who’s starting to overpower the Mane 6.

“Good guess! They are made from dark magic and they’re stronger, faster, and deadlier than normal changelings! So you’re all in for an even more challenging battle than you anticipated!” Midnight says before she yells and blasts the Mane 6 away with her magic. She then wraps a magical tendril around Twilight and pulls her back to her before elbowing her straight in the stomach, knocking her back again. Twilight quickly recovers and dodges multiple blasts from Midnight and after she sees an opening, she fires her own blast and it knocks Midnight back a bit. While she’s stunned, Twilight takes the chance to fly straight into her, tackling her then proceeding to punch her and slam her head into the ground repeatedly as she’s flying with her.

Midnight kicks Twilight and breaks free. They both roll to a stop then continue fighting. Midnight was actually surprised out how uncharacteristically aggressive Twilight was being. The only other time she had seen her like this was when they fought on the ship that day. Back then, she had Twivine in her head though but now that she didn’t… that meant Twilight was actually fighting to kill with her own will to do so. This could mean bad business for Midnight since Twilight was stronger and faster now. She was also more powerful and knowledgeable than before when it came to magic. Midnight forms an axe and swings at Twilight, causing her to use a magical shield to block and it manages to but she gets sent flying back. When she stops, Midnight lands on her but is electrocuted before she can start relentlessly attacking her.

Twilight takes the chance to elbow her in the stomach, knocking her off. Midnight rolls to a stop but is landed on by Rainbow Dash before she can get up and then her arms and legs are either frozen or held down vines or ice. Rainbow Dash holds both her wings down as best she can but this wouldn’t hold Midnight for long. “Whatever you’re gonna do, hurry up and do it!” She says, struggling to keep Midnight’s wings held down. She seriously hated how Alicorns had to be so much stronger than everyone else, it was really starting to get to her!

“I know what you can do Dash… get. Off!” Midnight yells before she uses every bit of strength in her wings to break free from Dash's grip, also using a new ability that makes her feathers sharp and sends them flying. Dash is the first one to get hit by some of them, Pinkie and Rarity manage to avoid being hit but that was because Fluttershy and Applejack used their powers to protect them but couldn’t manage to protect themselves in time and Twilight manages to block most of the feathers coming her way but some managed to hit her before she formed a shield. Midnight keeps this going until she stops and slams her fists into the ground, knocking the Mane 6 further away than they had already gotten. Midnight then falls back a bit, getting closer to her own ships before she teleports her own fighters behind her.

Her dragon automatically knows to move and he manages to push Ember and Spike off then get behind Midnight and just as she’s about to do whatever she plans to do, Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Flurry Heart, and Twilight all start blasting her and she yells in pain and falls to her knees. They keep it going and they start thinking they’ll actually win… until Midnight smirks at them and slowly stands up. She starts glowing more as well and they start getting nervous until they decide to stop and she slowly walks forward a bit before her smirk turns into an all-out, sharp-toothed, evil grin.

“You lose.” She says, causing everyone to realize what she’s about to do and she curls up into a ball before releasing all the magic she had apparently just absorbed in a huge wave of destructive energy, sending it out in all directions. She makes sure her own side is covered but is more than happy to let anywhere or anyone else feel the effects of the blast. Twilight tries blocking it to keep her and her friends safe and the shield takes most of the blow before it breaks and she lets out a scream as she’s sent flying back. Everyone continues being bombarded with loads of magical destructive energy, barely staying alive until finally it stops and everyone is injured and it was big enough to reach the airships which are now starting to go down.

After the dust clears and all the ships are down, none of them exploding but all of them receiving pretty good damage, the villains all look to see the heroes all still in one piece but Twilight is gone. Midnight shakes her head in disappointment. “Pathetic…” She says before starting to walk towards the downed heroes. She looks at Celestia and smiles down at her. “Once again… you failed.” She says before she raises her hand and everyone notices her own airships starting to reveal their weapons and aim at them. They all get up and try to move or protect themselves but it’s too late. Midnight lowers her hand then teleports out of the way as shots are fired towards them. Midnight watches as the shots make contact with the area and make dust spread, shrouding the results of the onslaught from her view.

---

Seconds Earlier

As Twilight slowly wakes up, she immediately feels so much pain in her body. She looks down to see her armor is damaged and she’s pretty far away from the battle. She tries getting up but as soon as she moves, a feeling of intense pain surges through her body and she instantly goes back to relaxing her body as much as she could. She sees the edges of her vision starting to blacken. She can also see her element flashing but before she can question it, her eyes become even heavier and she finally closes them, reluctantly allowing herself to rest.

“Twilight… you’re not done yet. Your friends need you, your family needs you… Equestria needs you.” She hears her father say before she hears her mother speak next.

“Get up my little Princess… Get up.” She says and just as she does, Twilight feels all the magic she had felt in her dream coursing through her. No… even more than that. She opens her eyes and unknowingly to her, they’re both glowing along with her mane, tail, wings and horn. As she gets up, a magical aura starts surrounding her body and she feels all her pain dissipate. She senses something bad about to happen to everyone else and teleports to them, immediately making a shield around herself and them just as Midnight's ships start raining fire on the area. It goes on for a few minutes until the blasts stop and the dust is allowed to settle. Once it does, Midnight is surprised and annoyed to see Twilight had protected everyone. She was surprised by her appearance and how much power she was sensing from her.

“Twilight…?” Rainbow Dash asks, amazed by how incredible and incredibly intimidating Twilight looks. Twilight turns to her and smiles, nodding.

“I’ve got you.” She says before looking at everyone else as the rest of their army joins back with the rest of them, having mostly survived the blast from Midnight and the crashing of the airships. “All of you.” She says before she suddenly teleports away and everyone looks confused. That is until they hear the ships firing and they look to see them shooting into the clouds. A purple ball of magical energy starts flying at them… then flying through them, badly damaging them and even blowing a few of them up if they don’t crash… or when they crash. It stops when there’s only three left and the glowing lessens a bit, revealing Twilight, who’s now pushing one ship into the other two like it was nothing. She gives one more harsh push and that sends them crashing down to the ground.

All the villains are absolutely stunned by the incredible power that the young alicorn possessed. “You said we had lost Midnight?! Well how about I correct you!” Twilight says before she teleports back to the others who now all stood ready to fight. “We… have already won.” Twilight says before Midnight starts chuckling.

“Did you? Cause from how I see it Princess…” Midnight says as her horn lights up before suddenly another airship of hers that’s way bigger than any of the others she’d seen appears and Twilight could sense that… possibly Midnight’s entire army was inside of that… war machine. “You’ve lost.” Midnight says and before she can give the order to attack, she stops because… she senses something… it feels like… determination? And there was a lot of it on it's way. She looks past the so-called army in front of her, causing everyone else to do the same, and sees so much dust being kicked up until ponies, dragons, griffons and many other creatures all make it past the hill, some even flying in airships, pirate ships or just flying on dragons, all of them yelling, roaring, or screeching their hearts out.

Midnight can’t believe what she’s seeing… and neither can Twilight… They all actually came. Twilight starts gaining tears in her eyes and she looks at Celestia who smiles proudly and nods. “So… how do you wanna do this Twilight? Any backup plans, any final words of wisdom? Anything?” Spike asks as he walks up beside her and her friends. She could tell he was nervous so she gently pats his head and gives him a reassuring smile.

“Hey… we’ve got this.” Twilight says as she looks at him, then her friends, then at Midnight and walks forward a bit. “Together.” She finishes and with that, Spike roars as Midnight's own army or at least half of it starts exiting the airship as it gets closer to the ground. Once both armies are prepared Midnight takes out a sword and points it towards Twilight's army, giving her own the signal to attack and they all charge forward.

Twilight smiles at that before her and all her friends start powering up. “Let’s do this...” Twilight says and at the same time, she and all her friends say the same thing, prompting the army to do the same before they all start leading the army towards the battle that would determine the true fate of the world.

“FOR EQUESTRIA!!!”