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When Your Whole World Shatters5,713 words
Looking For A Distant Light2,570 words
Someone Who Could Save A Life3,174 words
Your Heart Is Full of Broken Dreams2,552 words
Everything's Gone (But the Pain Carries On)3,051 words
No One Will Hear Your Cries3,172 words
Interlude - Canto I: Just A Fading Memory809 words
Interlude - Canto II: So Out of Reach1,054 words
Interlude - Canto III: I Am With You1,570 words
When You Feel Like It's Over3,509 words
Look Up and See (Love Has A Face)2,313 words
Slowly Fading Away225 words
I'll Be Your Hope2,796 words
Lost in the Rain Again3,250 words
In A World So Cold2,165 words
I Am Here2,556 words
Can You Save Me Now?3,321 words
You're Not Alone3,353 words
Epilogue: Red396 words

I'll Be Your Hope

The looks of disgust on the faces of the other Elements did not surprise Twilight very much. Save for Fluttershy, they all knew that Discord was not a being to be trusted, not even after Fluttershy had “reformed” him. None of them believed that his true nature could be suppressed; even his name belied his propensity for causing chaos and disharmony.

“Of all the magical beings that you could have picked,” Rarity piped up, “why did it have to be him? You know we can’t trust him any further than we could throw him.”

“Oh come now,” Fluttershy chided. “You don’t know that he hasn’t been reformed. He could be just as good as Celestia is now.” Her tone of voice, though, gave a clear implication: not even she herself believed her own words, not fully anyways.

“Nopony really believes that, I hope you know,” Applejack replied. “Discord is just too much… well, Discord. Sure, he’s got some of the most powerful magic that Equestria has ever seen, but howdya think he’s even going to help us, if we do go to him? Wouldn’t somepony like Zecora be a much better choice for this?”

Twilight thought for a moment. “Well… Zecora has proven to us on multiple occasions that she is most definitely on our side. But I don’t know if even she has what it takes for us to be able to get Dash out of there before Chrysalis ends up fully going through with her plan.”

“It’s worth a shot, though,” Applejack replied. “Especially if that means we don’t have to go to Discord for help.” She tried to avoid Fluttershy’s pained gaze, but she was finding it very hard to do so. She sighed inwardly. “I really want to trust Discord. I do. It’s just that… He hasn’t really given us many reasons to do so.”

“I think that’s because we haven’t really given him any situations for him to do that,” Fluttershy pointed out. “And this would be a perfect way for us to do that. I mean, he’s told me himself that Dash is the one out of us that he likes the least. If he’s willing to put his magic on the line to save her, then maybe he actually is as good as he says he is.”

“I think Applejack has a point,” Twilight said, “but I believe the rest of you do as well. Discord could turn out to be our closest ally in this, but he could also turn out to be the thing that denies us the opportunity we need to save our friend. If need be, we can always just turn him to stone, I guess…”

“Didn’t we already tell him that we weren’t going to do that, though?”

Twilight nodded. “And I don’t intend on breaking that promise. He is supposed to be reformed, after all, and I think that at least he should be given the chance to prove he is, like Fluttershy said. I do think, though, that we should have a back-up plan should the worst come to fruition, and I think Zecora would be the best back-up plan in this case.”

“Then let’s head out to the Everfree Forest,” Rarity said, “so we can talk to Zecora and ask her if she’s fine with agreeing to help us.”

“I don’t even think she’s in Everfree anymore,” Twilight replied. “I sent Owlowiscious to deliver an unrelated message to her a few days ago, and Owlie came back with the message still tied to her claw. If she did see Zecora there, she didn’t give her the message, and I don’t think she’d do that. So that lends some credence at least to the idea that Zecora isn’t in her cottage for the time being.”

“Could she have just stepped out for a minute, and that just happened to be when Owlowiscious went to go see her?” Fluttershy asked.

“I suppose that’s possible, but Spike said he talked with Owlie a bit later- don’t ask me how, I guess he can- and she had indicated to him that her cottage looked like it hadn’t been lived-in for a few days. So maybe something happened to where she had to go somewhere and-”

They all heard a loud belch from the other room, and a few seconds later Spike came walking in bearing an official letter from Princess Celestia. “This just came in,” he said, rubbing his stomach a bit queasily. “Why can’t she figure out some other way to get into touch with you when she needs to…?”

Twilight took the letter from Spike and read it silently. When she finished, she rolled it back up. “Well, that explains at least why Owlowiscious wasn’t able to get the letter to Zecora when she went over there.”

“What did it say?” Rarity asked.

“Well, apparently, Zecora has been a guest at the royal castle for the past few days. The Princesses were having a talk with her about the current situation. I guess they had roughly the same idea that we did. The letter also said that they would like our presence at the castle tomorrow for a meeting with Zecora and them.”

“I wonder what for?” Fluttershy mused.

“I hope they have a plan for getting Rainbow Dash out of Chrysalis’ clutches. If not, then they’d better come up with one soon. And we need to help them.” The others nodded in agreement. “How about this? Let’s all meet up back here tomorrow morning, and then we can head out to Canterlot together. The meeting isn’t until the afternoon anyways, so we’ll have plenty of time to get there if we catch the train.”

“That’s fine,” Rarity replied. “I was supposed to be going over to Derpy’s house tonight anyways. I told her I’d help her clean up her house, since she’s been putting in so many hours at the post office lately. I want to help her and Dinky out any way that I can.”

“And I have to change out the lining in all of my animals’ cages,” Fluttershy said. “It’s been a few days since I did it, and I want them all to have fresh lining.”

As it turned out, almost all of them had other things to do that night, that would keep them busy until the next day. As they left, one by one, Twilight came to a realization: she didn’t have anything to do that night. She wandered off in the direction of the staircase leading to her room, wondering what in Equestria she could do to pass the time until the next morning.

Down below her, sitting on the coffee table in the center of the room, a vase suddenly sprouted eyes, which looked around for a few moments before blinking and vanishing. After that, all was quiet.

The royal bedroom of Queen Chrysalis was dark. None of the lights were lit, which was exactly the way that she wanted it. Her head was pounding with a splitting headache, and every bone in her body felt like it was about to shatter into a million pieces.

She was in the most severe pain of her life, and she had no idea why.

Her Changeling guards stood at their posts outside her room, occasionally exchanging worried glances at each other, though they did not turn their heads or otherwise move. They knew she was in terrible pain; her anguished cries and moans throughout the previous night and all throughout the day had been enough to clue them in on that much. And as they were all magically linked to their Queen, to a certain extent they felt it as well.

One of them shifted restlessly, trying to take pressure of his rear left leg, which was currently developing a rather irritating cramp. The other guard looked at him out of the corner of his eye, a twinge of fear going through him. Would their Queen come out unexpectedly and berate them for their un-guardlike behavior? After a few moments, though, he relaxed, seeing that there wasn’t going to be a lecture in their immediate future.

Inside the room, Chrysalis gritted her teeth, trying as hard as she could to not pass out from the pain. She had tried to contact Nightmare in an attempt to try to figure out if maybe this was the spirit’s doing, but she had been thus far unsuccessful. Either Nightmare Moon didn’t want to talk to her at the current time, or the pain that she was experiencing was interfering somehow with her telepathic capabilities.

Whichever was the case, there was something unsettling about the silence on the other end. Normally, the spirit who called herself Nightmare Moon was incessant in her talking to Chrysalis, checking up on her, trying to figure out if the preparations had been finished for the ritual that would (hopefully) end up in reconstituting her original physical form, so she didn’t have to just possess whichever pony was convenient for whatever her current purposes were. Chrysalis couldn’t get her to shut up on most days. And now that she desperately needed answers the most… Nightmare was nowhere to be found.

It aggravated the hell out of her.

She tentatively tested her legs, flexing them slowly to minimize the number of twinges that those small movements sent through her every muscle. Sure enough, the pain hadn’t lessened up at all since the last time she tried doing that about fifteen minutes previously.

“Why is this happening?” she asked angrily, gritting her teeth through the pain. “Is someling trying to kill me from the inside?!” No answer came, obviously, and she was sorely tempted to roar in frustration. She restrained herself, though, if only because she didn’t want to be racked with another body-wide spasm of pain like what happened the last time she’d tried something like that.

She sighed, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. Why was she having to go through this, when she should be getting ready for the meeting of the Changeling nobles the next day? They were all counting on her being there. She was their Queen, after all. And not only that, but she still had some final preparations to make for Nightmare Moon-

“Give it up…” came a soft, raspy voice from the corner of her room. “You’re not going… to win… You should just… accept that… and move on…”

Chrysalis’ eyes flitted towards the prisoner that was in chains in the darkest corner of her room. She had almost forgotten about Rainbow Dash being there; the Element had long since lapsed into sullen silence as long as Chrysalis was in the room. She never heard a peep out of Dash, not even when she got into one of her crueler moods and used her eldritch magic on Dash, torturing her in an attempt to break her spirit- and her faith that her friends would ever come rescue her- even further.

Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash proved to be even more tenacious than Chrysalis could have ever imagined, and the Queen’s attempts to break her had always ended in failure. Even when she had been off doing her Queenly duties and had set her most personal confidant, Adriu, to keep watch over her, he had unfailingly reported that during his prolonged questioning of her, Dash had never once indicated that she had given up faith in her friends, the fellow Elements.

“You should keep quiet, young one,” Chrysalis retorted, “and save your energies towards your mere survival. Soon, this will all be over, but I cannot have you dying off before-” She was racked with a fit of coughing, and every muscle in her body cinched up with an unholy pain that brought stars to her eyes. She felt so sure that she was going to pass out, that she began to subconsciously give her body up to it, just so she could finally be rid of the pain.

Unfortunately for her, in a few moments, the worst of the pain had subsided, and she was still conscious, though every fiber of her being now throbbed with the worst possible pain.

“It looks like… it’s you… whose time is almost up…” Dash smirked silently to herself. “Like I told you… Good always wins…” Her tiredness overtook her then, and she laid her head on her hooves and closed her eyes, succumbing to the tiredness.

Chrysalis lay staring up at the ceiling, wanting only to die. She would have relief from this pain, she determined… One way or another.

The following day, the Elements arrived at the royal castle. None of them had slept much during the night, they had discovered when they had convened at Golden Oaks Library that morning. All of them had reported waking up at various intervals during the night with excruciating cramps in their legs, a phenomenon that none of them had any rational explanation for.

Following an uneventful train ride, they stepped into the foyer of the castle. They immediately saw Princess Luna coming down the hallway, alongside her royal guest. The Elements bowed in deference to the Royals.

“We are glad to see you here,” Zecora said as they straightened back up. “There is not much time left to act, I fear.”

“Why not?” Twilight asked with a twinge of fear running through the back of her mind. “Did you all find out something?”

Luna nodded. “I am the one who sent you that letter, Twilight. I did not trust Celestia to do it… for the reasons that I explained to you the last time we met. I have already apprised Zecora of the situation, and she has agreed to keep the matter under close wraps until it can be resolved.” Zecora nodded, silently indicating her implicit agreement in the matter. “But no matter for that for now. I have dire news that you all need to hear. Follow me.”

Luna led them into the royal throne room, and when they saw the scene there, they all gasped. The entire throne room had been tossed into disarray; most of the banners had been ripped and torn asunder, a few of the stained glass panes had large cracks spanning them, and the throne itself had a rather large chunk taken out of the right side of it.

“What in the hay happened here?” Applejack asked, as much in shock as everypony else was.

“The Changelings launched an attack on the royal castle early yesterday evening. I was in my chambers with Zecora when it happened, and we only barely made it into the throne room to ensure that it was not completely demolished. The guards, Zecora, and I fended off the remaining Changelings, and we managed to send them all away… Except for one.”

“What happened to that one?” Twilight asked.

“The one who is left is in the stocks,” Zecora replied, “cursing us though chained to rocks.”

“Take me to them,” Twilight demanded. Luna nodded, and began to walk again. It took them a few minutes to get down to the stockades, but as soon as they walked into the room, they saw that Luna was indeed right: a solitary Changeling was chained between two stone pillars, looking rather pained and weak.

Twilight immediately strode up to it. “Why did you attack the castle? What purpose did you have for doing this?”

The Changeling managed to lift its head to look Twilight straight in the eyes. It spoke in a telepathic voice, keeping its words to her alone. As it spoke to her in her mind, the look of anger vanished off her face, and was replaced by a look of shock and horror. A moment later, it hung its head again, having said its peace. Twilight turned to her friends, tears coursing down her cheeks. Immediately, the other Elements flocked to her.

“Undoubtedly it has told you how dire the situation now is,” Luna spoke up. “We need to act more quickly now than ever.”

“What is it?” Fluttershy asked. “What did it tell you?”

Twilight sniffed, trying to speak through her tears. “Chrysalis plans on doing the ritual to resurrect Nightmare Moon… Tomorrow night.” Amidst the gasps from her friends, she continued on solemly: “We now have only twenty-four hours to find and rescue Rainbow Dash… before Chrysalis kills her as the sacrifice to bring back Nightmare Moon. We have to find her… or we’ll lose her forever…”

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