The Hero's Choice
“Quick, get under the trees!”
We all scrambled into cover, and a few seconds later a trio of guard pegasi swooped over our position. We’d been on the road for six hours since leaving Cadance behind, and we’d been making pretty good time; we were already on the edge of Whitetail Wood. The fact that the moon was up, and the temperature was at least thirty degrees cooler than it had been on our trip to Canterlot probably helped a lot.
So far there hadn’t been any signs of pursuit from Shining Armor and the Canterlot garrison, and the guards we’d just evaded had come from the other direction. Odds were, they were scouts from Celestia’s forces. We were getting close.
That still left the issue of what to do once we met back up with Luna. We would have to find some way to get Celestia to pull out the Elements before we could snag them. Maybe the old fake defection ploy? Celestia would want to believe that Twilight’s friends would be on her side in a fight against Nightmare Moon, especially since having five other ponies to use the Elements with would make them stronger. It would be an inverse of Luna’s plan, letting all the other ponies use their Elements while Celestia subbed in for Twilight. That would get us five out of six, and then we would just need to snag the Element of Magic from Celestia and get it to Luna to seal the deal. Risky, but I could make it work.
First we had to get to Celestia and Luna though. It was a good thing we’d left Cadance behind, because if we still had her along she probably would’ve gone running out into the open or just started screaming her head off to attract the attention of the guards. Even if it didn’t get us caught, that would kill any hopes of tricking Celestia into thinking we were on her side.
“Alright, we need to know where Luna and Celestia are, and get a general idea of the lay of the land. Rainbow Dash, can you get up there, take a look around, and get back here without being spotted?”
“In my sleep!” The pegasus shot up through the trees, and after several tense seconds zoomed back down. Rainbow looked worried.
That was bad. Really bad. If Rainbow Dash was worried, it usually meant that people who didn’t have her boundless self-confidence should be panicking. “Alright, how screwed are we?”
“The Princesses are that way.” Rainbow pointed a hoof in more-or-less the direction we’d already been heading. “Looks like they’ve been fighting for a while, and it doesn’t look like our side’s winning. Plus, it looks like the guys from Canterlot found their princess, ‘cause we got a whole bunch of pissed off pegasi on our tails.”
Super. Just super. “Alright, time to start running. We’ve got to get to Luna before Celestia wins their fight.”
We suited action to words, and all of us started galloping. It meant not sticking to cover any more, but getting there without getting spotted wouldn’t do us any good if we got there too late. Not only were we racing against the clock to get there before Celestia finished off her sister, we also needed to beat any messengers from Canterlot brought word to her about our try at grabbing the Elements if we wanted to have any chance of duping Celestia into thinking we were on her side. The six of us didn’t have much better than a snowball’s chance in hell of being able to take the Elements from her by brute force.
I looked up, and saw that the moon was setting. I’m not an expert on Equestria, but I’m pretty sure that was not good.
“Halt! Who goes there?” A quick look up confirmed that we’d drawn the attention of some of Celestia’s scouts with our mad dash towards the frontlines
We sure as hell didn’t have time to try and fast-talk our way past them, so that really only left one option. “Forzare!” My force blast sent a pair of pegasi tumbling, and I followed it up with a quick “Arctis!” to lock them down for a bit. The ice would only hold them in place for a minute or so, but that was enough time for us to make our getaway.
That still left the third guard, who’d had the common sense to not fly close enough to his teammates to make it easy for me to hit all three of them with a single spell. I tried to take him down, but the pegasus flew through a series of erratic loops and swerves that made him just about impossible to hit, and as soon as my salvo of spellfire passed him by the guard dive-bombed right at Fluttershy.
For a second I thought we might all be doomed right then and there, but an instant before the guard tackled her Fluttershy squeaked out three vaguely familiar words. “Wuld nah kest!”
Fluttershy shot forward twenty feet in the blink of an eye, causing the guard to plow head-first into the ground where Fluttershy had been running a moment ago. Rainbow and I traded a brief look at Fluttershy’s display of power, and the pegasus spoke up, “Hey Fluttershy! You can still do that shouting thing? There were a couple times when that would've been real handy!”
“Sorry.” Fluttershy broke out her standard conversation opener. “It’s just that most of those shouts could hurt somepony if I ever used them.” The pegasus slowed down and tossed a worried look back over her shoulder. “I hope that guard is alright, it looked like he hit the ground really hard. Maybe we should–”
“Keep running!” Rainbow Dash cut her fellow pegasus off before she could convince herself to turn around and go back to help the enemy. Fluttershy’s sweet and gentle nature was a wonderful thing, but sometimes she could really take it a bit too far.
Another glance up confirmed that the moon was getting uncomfortably close to the horizon. We needed to go faster. Like, now.
One last burst of speed got us to the edge of a clearing. Or rather, as I noticed a second later, it had actually gotten us to an area of charred ground with a few burned out husks of trees. Looks like we’d gotten to the place where the royal sisters were moving on to the next stage of their sibling rivalry.
We crested a small hill, and finally came within sight of the two princesses. Well, technically we couldn’t see Celestia, but I’m pretty sure the blazing golden figure in the sky above the battlefield was the solar princess. Luna, by contrast, was looking quite a bit worse for the wear, pinned to the ground by heavy iron chains and sporting a nasty set of bumps, bruises, and a couple burns.
Still, it looked like we made it in time. Luna was still on good old terra firma instead of hanging out on the moon again, and there was no sign of a messenger from Canterlot spilling the beans about our try at grabbing the Elements. We’d gotten here just in the nick of time.
We’d had the good luck to enter the battlefield from behind Celestia, so she didn’t know we were there yet. I was about to call her attention to us and get started with the deception when Luna spotted us, and a second later she locked her eyes on me, and I felt a sudden crushingly powerful presence in my mind. “Thou must flee from this place, Harry Dresden.”
Luna’s lips hadn’t moved, so I was pretty sure this was some form of telepathy. Considering the White Council’s wariness of mind magic, I’d never really looked into whether or not I could learn that particular trick, so all I could do was hope Luna had set things up for a two-way conversation. “Don’t worry, we’ve got a plan.” I did my best to direct the thought at her.
Apparently, Luna had the foresight to realize that I might have something to say, because a second later she responded, “Thy plan is undone before thou might even attempt it. The captain of the royal guard has means of contacting the princess in an emergency; Celestia received word of the attack on Canterlot hours ago.”
Hell’s bells. My plan was dead in the water before we could even try it. Still, there had to be something we could do. Some way to turn this thing around and pull off a win.
“Flee.” Luna ordered me once more. “Survive. Endure. Remain free of Celestia and Discord’s clutches. If thou and the Bearers of Harmony are captured here, all hope will be lost.”
Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit!
“Alright, we’ve got to get out here,” I told the other ponies in a harsh whisper. “We’re too late; Celestia knows we tried to grab the Elements, and Luna’s gonna go down any minute now.”
“What?” Rainbow’s voice got loud enough that the rest of us frantically shushed her. “We come all this way, and now you tell us we gotta run for it?”
“Luna’s orders.” My tone made it clear I didn’t like it any more than she did. “Celestia’s onto us, and if we tried jumping into the fray now all it would do is get all of us caught along with Luna. If we all get caught, it’s game over. As long as we’re free, there’s still some chance we can find a way to turn things around.”
“I don’t like it any better than Rainbow does, but I understand,” Applejack spoke up. “But even if we did make a run for it, I don’t like our chances of gettin’ away from that.” Applejack pointed a hoof behind us, at the rapidly approaching swarm of pegasi. Looks like those guards we’d taken down and must have raised the alarm, or maybe the approaching Canterlot garrison had put out the word.
Great. Just great. We were trapped between an entire army and a physical goddess. Stars and Stones, talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“We need a distraction,” Rainbow said dully. “It’s the only way any of us get away.”
“Good idea, but it’d take one doozy of a distraction.” I put my mind to the task. We’d have a much better chance of distracting Celestia and getting past her than we would her army. Godlike powers or not, she was still just one pony. As far as I knew, she couldn’t do anything like split into multiple copies of herself, so she could only be in one place at one time. If we could get her attention somewhere else for long enough, we could slip right by her.
That still left the question of what we should do to distract the princess. Taking a crack at freeing Luna seemed like our best bet. Celestia would definitely go after her sister if she got loose, and that would give us the perfect chance to slip by and make our getaway. Now I just needed to figure out how to undo the spells Celestia had holding Luna down. It looked like it was just a normal set of steel chains holding Luna down, but those physical chains were imbued with powerful binding spells.
If I had a couple minutes to work at them, I could probably find a way to undo them. It’d be sloppy and hamhanded, but it would work. Even in her current tired and worn down state, Luna should be able to hold out long enough for us to get away, and she might even manage to escape herself.
It was a long-shot; in all likelihood Luna would get caught again buying us time to get away, but she still had a better chance of getting away if I freed her than she would if I left her imprisoned in Celestia’s binding spells.
“Rainbow, how long do we have until that army’s on top of us?” Freeing Luna wouldn’t do us any good if we were neck deep in Celestia’s soldiers by the time I managed to pull it off. When several seconds of ominous silence greeted my question, I started worrying.
“Rainbow?” I turned around, half-expecting to find out that Celestia’s goons were already here, and had captured the lot of us. It’s been that kind of week.
Instead, I saw the five ponies were in the middle of a group hug. “Girls, this really isn’t a good time for…” I trailed off as my brain started putting the important clues together.
The fact that Rainbow Dash was at the center of the hug.
The way other four ponies seemed just as confused as I was about the sudden and totally out of place hug.
The unshed tears in Rainbow’s eyes.
“You guys are awesome friends,” Rainbow whispered throatily, her voice thick with emotion.
Oh hell no! Don’t tell me she was…
“I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Rainbow!” I tried to grab her with an ice spell, but the fastest flier in Equestria beat me to the punch, and all I hit was her rainbow trail. A moment later it was too late to stop her; all it would’ve accomplished was to drop her helpless to the ground right in front of Celestia.
It only took Rainbow Dash an instant to cross the space separating us from the princess, and she took up position right behind Celestia’s head. “Hey, behind you!” Celestia’s head whipped around in response to Rainbow’s cry, just in time for the princess to get bucked full-force in the face.
Celestia staggered from the sucker-punch, and I saw a thin trickle of blood and the beginnings of a black eye on the corrupted princess’ face. A blast of solar flame streaked towards the pegasus, but at the last second, Rainbow’s body glowed midnight blue as Luna managed to yank Rainbow clear of the attack with her own magic.
The blue glow lingered on Rainbow’s body as Celestia turned on her sister, and with a blinding blast of light her sister was no more, and there was beam of energy shooting towards the distant moon. A second later the moon dropped over the horizon, and the sun returned to the sky full-force.
Rainbow Dash, still glowing slightly from the aftereffects of Luna’s magic, took advantage of Celestia’s distraction to kick her in the back of the head. When the princess rounded on her in fury, Rainbow blew a raspberry at her. “Betcha can’t catch me!” A second later Rainbow was off, leaving a Sonic Rainboom in her wake. Celestia wasted no time following.
“Move it!” The ponies all hesitated to follow my order, there eyes lingering on Rainbow Dash’s rapidly fading rainbow trail. “Come on! She’s buying us time to get away, don’t let it go to waste!”
I would’ve stopped her if I could’ve, but it was too late for take-backs. Rainbow Dash had thrown herself onto the fire to give us a chance to get away. I’d be damned if I would let her sacrifice go to waste.
So we ran. The five of us as fast as we could. This wasn’t some sort of cautious, measured withdrawal, our minds had gone into instinctual fight-or-flight mode, and since fighting would’ve been suicide we opted for flight. Taking the time to think or plan or worry about the friend we’d left behind would’ve slowed us down, so we buried all those fears, and used that terror to push our legs to an even faster pace.
At first I could hear the sounds of the guards crashing through the trees behind us, which only served to add fuel to the fire, but a quick look over my shoulder showed the pegasi breaking off from the pursuit, presumably to go after the mad mare who’d kicked their ruler in the face. The sounds of ground pursuit slowly faded behind us as well; maybe they’d broken off to go after Rainbow Dash too, or maybe we just managed to outrun them.
I stumbled over a tree stump at one point, but somehow managed to turn my fall into a roll that ended up with me back on my hooves without losing too much of my momentum. From the look Rarity shot my way I think she might have used her telekinetic tricks to help me pull that little acrobatic stunt off, but I wasn’t about to slow down and waste time and breath asking her for confirmation.
I don’t know how long we all kept running; it could’ve been a couple minutes, or it could’ve been hours. All I know is that eventually, long after we’d gotten out of the woods and were almost to the outskirts of Ponyville itself, we all collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.
“I think we lost them.” I got out between gasps
As soon as we had a few seconds to calm down from terrified animal flight and actually think, the ponies turned their thoughts to something they cared about more than their own personal safety. “Sure, we’re alright, but what about Dashie?” Pinkie Pie demanded, a sentiment the rest of the ponies were quick to echo. “Is Dashie okay?”
It took me a moment to rejigger my tracking spell since I’d been running it off Rainbow’s magical friendship bonds, but the same basic principle applied, and in a couple seconds I was using Pinkie Pie as my base instead. I focused in on her connection to Rainbow Dash, and I found … nothing.
Rainbow Dash wasn’t on Equestria. She hadn’t been sent to the moon. She hadn’t even gotten booted to the Outside. She was just … gone. There was only one thing that could give that particular result on a tracking spell.
“Is Dashie okay?” Pinkie asked again, the first hints of fear edging into her voice.
I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. As my mournful silence dragged on, the other ponies started putting it together.
“No,” Rarity gasped. “She wasn’t captured, was she? Did Celestia send her to the moon?”
“No,” I answered flatly. “It’s worse than that.”
“Worse than –” Applejack fell back onto her haunches, shock written on her face. “You don’t mean she’s…”
I nodded.
Fluttershy was the first one to start crying, but it only took a few seconds for the rest of us to join her.
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And now everyone knows why I felt the need to write something fun and lighthearted before putting this chapter out...
hoo boy, things just got heavy
Wow man... really? Say it ain't so Boss... Say it ain't so!
This rather kills the Elements as a weapon to boot, so I have my doubts as to a permanent Mane 6 death. Thus... I damn you cliffhangers!!!
But But.... Dashie?
I fear i may have to call shenanigans. Or just use this... 
But still, I hope she isn't dead. Cause that might well ruin the story for me. 
Please let there be a convenient explanation/plot device to what happened to RD in the later chapters.
629751 I dunno. There may be substitutes for each element of harmony. For one, Harry could take up the element of Magic. Alternatively, he could take up the element of Loyalty. He's pretty determined.
Of course it's not a permanent death. They have all of fiction to work with, there's no shortage of ways to bring back the dead. Harry even mentioned it in chapter 11.
Actually this can work...If they do in fact beat Discord and return Equestria to it's cartoony state, it will once more have the No Death rule. Hopefully bringing Dash back.
Pleaseletthatbepossibleauthordontkilldashpleasrpleaseplease..
But, Dashie!
Game over man, game over!
Hard to do, but in that situation something bad was going to happen. But to kill off Rainbow? The Denarians have got some things to answer for.
629808
Yeah, all they need to do is go to somebody's D&D game and ask a cleric to cast resurrection! Heck, even the 5000gp worth of gems needed for material components wouldn't be much of an issue with Rarity's help.
Of course, they'll need to find the body first. Now, THAT might be a little problematic...
629892
Cast True Resurrection. Works even if the body is completely destroyed, and doesn't even drain a level/point of constitution, all for the low low price of 25,000gp in a world with gems bigger than your fist.
but... but...
i1162.photobucket.com/albums/q531/ADemonicPresence/tumblr_m2v7c74Bmg1r1kjklo1_400.gif
no...
DASHIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
...Well. Didn't see that coming. Or at least I didn't want to.
Great job with this story man, and please keep it up.
And I thought it was bad when I killed her. This is depressing! On the bright side, there is one particular Tumblr Universe (No you can't run in fear) that could help with that. The most recent Ask Pinkimena universe had her find a portal that fixes continuity errors and allows a pony killed to come back to life the next day. Course they'd still have to deal with a Cannibalistic Pinkie Pie...
A classic alternative would be to take some of Philomena's tail feathers and apply it to Dashie's corpse. (If she has one, that is.) She'd be up and flapping in no time!
629790
Didn't I make a comment about this before they went to Canterlot?
I bet ten bits that Lash showed up and pulled Dash out of whatever kill-spell Celestia launched.
Hey,
You can't kill Rainbow Dash!!! You didn't even title the chapter 'changes'!!!
New rule number one: Nopony's allow to kill Rainbow Dash or any other little ponies.
New rule number two: If an author has an arrogant pegasus pony for an avatar, just read the stories. Not a comment, not a blog post, nothing. And it's probably better to wait till they mark the story complete, because they're definitely the type to end chapters by leaving the cliff hanging (you wouldn't leave Ponyville hanging, would you?).
Great chapter, glad you wrote The Incredibly Dense Mind of Rainbow Dash first, because I need to read something to lighten the mood, so my animators can draw that smile back on my face. Looking forward to more of this, and seeing more of Cloud Kicker and Blossomforth (I bet Cloud Kicker's looking forward to seeing more of Blossomforth too, hur-hur).
JMH
*mumbles something about excrement and ventilation units*
Hoooly shit. break out the sad violins and waterworks.
Must...resist...urge...kill...Celestia...slowly!
So.... Pinkie.... Why didn't you bring everypony with you to the Outside?
629790
"Harry! You're the new Rainbow Dash!"
I'm not really sure where you're going with this.
A lot of things that have happened in the story don't seem to be really integral to it.
Everything that happens should be motivated either by characterization or by story progression. Yet a lot of things like Dash's beating at AppleGog's hooves, LyraBon, and Cadance and Shining's presence, while not unbelievable, seem rather irrelevant to the plot, yet are given major priority.
I only hope Dash's noble but idiotic (again) sacrifice will have relevance equal to it's gravity, and that you didn't just (maybe) kill somepony for the sad or to have something happen.
Honestly the real cliffhanger here wasn't "OMG Dashie" but "OMG just when stuff that actually matters started happening".
Also, the idiot balls are getting bigger and multiplying. You may want to watch out for those.
A very trippy chapter. I especially loved Fluttershy "shouting." Very cool.
Shame they don't go to the Dark Souls universe! Dashie would just step out of the bonfire, flick her mane and go, "Sup?"
Keep it up!
Cursed cliffhangers! Even if I'm sure that Dashie will get out of this in one piece in the end (come on now, did you ever really think that Emperor Ming was gonna kill Flash Gordon in those old serials?), this is still gonna hurt.
And great job on this story, Chengar Qordath! I am really and truly enjoying it, and I am SO looking forward to what happens when Celestia is ultimately freed and she, her sister, Harry, and the Mane Six confront the Denarians and Discord.
oh... horseapples!
he never said Dashie DIED...
so people you have to REALLY consider the fact that she got sent somewhere that the tracking spell cant go... after all i am sure the tracking spell can find dead bodies as well...
which means that she MIGHT. not be dead. or that something is SHIELDING her from his magic so he cant track her. that is a real possibility.
630549
You, pony, made me laugh out loud. Then my wife poked me in the side and I spilt cream down my shirt, which now has to go in the wash.
JMH
631966 Should I laugh with you for liking my joke or laugh at you for spilling cream down your shirt?
632231
Either. Both. Except this joke has an unfunny epilogue because my washing machine just flooded my kitchen.
JMH
632267 ...Dang. Now I'm not laughing.
I can't wait until fluttershy uses od ah viing. :3
Looks like Rainbow’s loyalty finally did her in. The Dresdenverse is more than happy to eat up those willing to do the whole heroic sacrifice bit.
I’ll restate this again from a comment on a previous chapter. Feel free to kill Nicky. Kill him with extreme prejudice. I wonder what weaponized friendship would do to a complete monster like Nicky?
*Looks back and forth between My Little Denarians and the Incredibly Dense Mind of Rainbow Dash.* These were by the same author!?
One possibility that seems to have been missed is the fact that Equestria has time travel.
For all we know, Rainbow has simply been knocked into next week and currently does not exist.
633317
that's an interesting thought. it's not a question of where she is, but rather when. which i'm fairly certain dresden wouldn't be able to detect without some serious research. hrm...
As soon as Rainbow Dash took off, I was like "No! You are not going to do a Heroic Sacrifice!" But then she was all like FALCON KICK! Argh, can't wait for the next chapter!
Damn...
No that's really all I have to say. This is bad, real bad...
-Glassed
No offence or anything but when you give dimension hoping abilities to Pinkie. On top of that you allowed her to take others with her. You didn't even make it a draining affair or a "can only use it once per [insert time frame]" affair. Therefore, when such an easy means of escape is available, this chapter makes no sense. It is one thing to follow a plot you planned, however it is sloppy writing and giving a whole group an idiot ball when you make characters forget such an ability especially since it is often used and was used as a life saving ability before (saving Harry from Darth Vader). If her ability had not been a major plot point and something so often used I could see that in the heat of the moment the whole group might forget, but in this situation it doesn't make sense for it to be ignored. I do enjoy the story but major plot holes make it much less enjoyable, especially when the plot hole causes senseless death (or at least an attempt at making the readers think a character died) because it screams to me "you're dead (or appear to have died) because the author says so."
If there was an attempt and it failed because Equestria was "dimension locked" either by Celestia when she received the message and knew of Pinkie's power from before hand, or was unsafe because of the immense power being chucked around, or some other explanation, this scene could makes sense. However since no attempt or explanation was made it just seems like the group was hit with an idiot ball (TV tropes term). I have no problem with character death it is just that the scenario doesn't make much sense to me as a reader.
I do enjoy your stories and your writing style a lot and this is one of my favourite pieces of fan fiction on this site, however, this is my critique of this specific chapter.
(If there is an explanation for why dimension hopping was not feasible in this chapter then disregard this, and please someone point out the chapter it was mentioned in, in that case I would probably have to reread XD )
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
YOU BASTARD!
637034
I'd go for the "ass of mass destruction" since it has a bit of a nice rhyming flow to it.
Why can't Pinkie Pie just yank Molestia and Trollestia out of their universes and throw them at Discorded!Celestia?
Also no. Dash ain't dead. At least not permanently. After all maybe Uriel finally decided RD was best pony? Either way I'm glad the author was willing to take that chance.
637099
Well, for starters you'd have to convince Molestia and Trollestia to help, which wouldn't be very easy. After all, Trollestia would get along just fine with Discord when he's not a threat to her power/authority, and Molestia doesn't care about anything but indulging her appetites.
On top of that, there's the whole issue of what to do with those two after you deal with Discorded!Celestia. Convincing Trollestia and Molestia to leave voluntarily might be a little tricky.
Dash no! They must have done an especially thorough job with Celestia's mind whammy. Rarity couldn't kill Fluttershy, yet Celestia could kill Dash? Arrrrggh! Cliff hangers now I'm all jittery to know what actually went down. I know Dash at least put a heck of a fight.
637258 Huh, you'd think Molestia would jump at the opportunity to create a paradox: If she does it with herself is it masturbation or molestation? Not too mention seeing if she could start a three-pony party involving herself and the other two. As for afterwards....that'd be the part in the story where the storyteller mumbles his lines incoherently before moving onto the next section of the story.
At this point I regret that I never did much research into the specific uses of shouts from Skyrim. I know a few of them from watching a friend play (fire breath/ice breath, seeing-people-through-walls, fus ro dah, the speed one Fluttershy used, and maybe a couple others which I forget), but I don't know if there's a resurrect-type shout for Fluttershy to use to get Rainbow back into play. Actually, now that I think about it, the existence of resurrection spells available in the Outside kind of means that death should be a relatively not-hard-to-overcome obstacle, in most cases as long as they can find Rainbow's body and in some cases even without it. Harry almost certainly knows the classics like Dungeons and Dragons, which is pretty varied in resurrection spells, so I doubt that will be too much of a problem. Assuming they can get to the Outside at all anyway, that is. If not I'll have to fall back on hoping that there's a shout Fluttershy learned which can fix Rainbow.
Ok, we have several different resurrection options, the cartoon land no death rule, someone casts resurrection, or my personal favorite, the Gandalf method. Though if it is the Gandalf method, what would Rainbow come back as? White Dash? Black Dash? Dash the Plaid? This is a tough question to answer.
639307
I'm almost tempted to go with Dash the Plaid.
639315 Dew eet. At least a joke chapter with it would be hilarious.
637258
Trollestia and Molestia would depend on which universe they came from.
Streak's Molestia is out of control, but JJs is actually good, just super horny.
Trollestia is not usually Discord level unless you get to one of the Tyrant/Troll combos.
Honestly, unless they get a stand in Twi and Dash, the only being from the Outside I can think of who could possibly go toe to toe with Celestia in power, would be basically immune to her attacks, has powers that wouldn't destroy the planet, and would actually be willing to do so: Superman. And that would be silly. Or awesome. Either way. Or maybe the Super Best Friends Forever. That would be hilarious.
639315
Well since you opened the door to that universe, you could always go rescue the slightly pathetic Cupcakes Dash and have her replace the slightly stoopid Dash they lost.
Well, I guess we didn't have a good, solid, Dresdenny gut-punch for a couple chapters...man.
Alas, poor Dashie. I knew her, Horatio.