Chapter 1
“Twilight? Is it gone?”
Twilight looked up to the sky, her eyes wandering over it until they had reached the horizon, where the giant fire-spitting beast could still be seen. “Yes”, the mare answered with a weak voice. She teared her eyes away from the sky and looked down to her friend, who worked herself out of the charred remnants what was once her boutique. She wanted to help Rarity, but as she had finally managed it to get herself out of her paralyzed state, her friend had already succeeded in her task.
The former fashionista stepped at Twilight's side, her legs shaking. Twilight looked into her eyes. The expression in them was hard to tell for the young Alicorn. Sadness? Grief? Or just pure shock over the events of this day? She couldn't tell. Rarity's eyes looked like a mix of all of these things. Her mouth was expressionless, like a straight, thin line in the face of a hastily drawn cartoon character.
A cartoon character..... Twilight wished this was true. If they were all just characters in a cartoon, then perhaps someone could rewrite their fate. But everything was real and Twilight got it confirmed by the face of one of her dearest friends. Rarity's expression was still hard to read, but now, some tears joined the glance in her eyes, making it clear that her face showed umistakenly grief. At least partially.
The distraught unicorn mare suddenly wrapped her hooves in a tight grip around Twilight, burying her head into her neck, and began to cry without hesitation.
Twilight knew she had to say something, anything. But she couldn't.
Out of words, she leaned her head against Rarity, tears streaming out of her eyes too now. So much happened and she knew it was useless to say something anyway. No words of wisdom or comfort could change what happened or undo it. No matter what she would say, nothing would be enough to calm down her friend or herself or anypony she knew. Anypony that was still alive.
Twilight closed her eyes and thought on the beginning of the disastrous events.
The day began as usual. She woke up. Spike made breakfast. They sat on the table in the dining room of her castle and were busy with eating and making their plans for the day. It was a sunny day, without any problems in sight. And Twilight was happier than ever. She was the Princess of Friendship. The Tree of Harmony had assigned important tasks to her, she knew that, even though she still wasn't exactly sure what he wanted her to do and in what other way the map in the throne room would be important after they freed Starlight Glimmer's village. She was a princess now, a princess without a kingdom to rule, but she still had a task. Everything was normal and even better. Until Celestia's letter arrived.
As Twilight had opened the seal and began to read it, her eyes widened. A monster had attacked Canterlot. A fire-breathing monster, not unlike a dragon, but different. It had attacked during the night, when everypony was sleeping. It caught all the ponies living in the mountain city by surprise. According to the princess' words, she was with Luna in Fillydelphia as she wrote the letter. Both of them fought hard for the capital city of Equestria, but in the end, they had to give up. Twilight couldn't believe her eyes as she read the part of the letter that told her that Canterlot was nothing more than a smoldering crater now. She had to read the sentence twice before she was able to take it in.
Canterlot was destroyed. There were no survivors. Luna and Celestia were the only ponies who could flee.
Twilight had to set down the letter after she read the horrible news.
No survivors. Her parents were dead. Her brother was dead. Her whole family wiped out in the course of a few hours. Even Cadance, her foalsitter..... Her sister-in-law..... Dead. Twilight cursed it that they visited Canterlot on this weekend.
She began to feel dizzy. Everything was spinning and rotating around her. If she wouldn't had been sitting at that moment, she would have collapsed to the ground. It was Spike, who tried to keep a cool head despite having read in her face how much the situation was at stake, who threw her out of this state. “Twilight, you must continue to read! It's important!”, he said and shook her at her shoulders.
The rest of the letter told Twilight that neither Celestia nor Luna knew what this creature was. They had fought dozens of Equestria's enemies in ancient times, some of them bound to return, but this one was unknown to them. The only explanation they had was that it was far older than them and far older than Equestria. An enemy so old, that no living pony could remember it's existence. And they neither did know where it came from. They only knew what was obvious, that it had to be stopped. Stopped before it would do with the rest of Equestria what it did with Canterlot. And it was on the way to Ponyville to continue the work it began in Canterlot.
The only advice the Princess of the Sun had to stop the monstrous beast was to retrieve the Elements of Harmony and to alert Discord for help.
Twilight did as her mentor told her. She did not have much hope that the Elements would do something to stop this monster, considering that it was so old that even Equestria's oldest princesses were not aware of it's existence, but she knew they had to try everything and if it shouldn't work, they had Discord as their trump card.
As he once told them, he already existed many thousand years before Celestia and Luna were born and though even he didn't know this creature, Twilight had high hopes that his ancient chaos magic would be enough to stop the monster.
She was wrong.
The Elements of Harmony failed to defeat the monster, as she had predicted, and Discord..... He fought hard and at the beginning, it looked like he would prevail, but then, while he was busy preparing another attack, his body suddenly disintegrated without a warning and he was gone. Twilight didn't even see how it happened. But it was the moment where she knew that their fight was lost. Even if she would have had any other ideas to continue, she knew it was useless when she saw the body of the draconequus disappearing in front of her. What could be able to stop a monster that was capable of letting one of the two most powerful beings of Equestria simply disappear and that probably just with a single thought? It was a force no one could stop. It was the end. Everything was over.
After Discord was defeated, everything went down quickly for Twilight's second home town.
The buildings were turned to ashes and burnt black remnants of the wood they were built out of.
Ponies got attacked and were burned alive or devoured by the cataclysmic beast.
And even the ones who survived the assault of the ancient creature died mysteriously after a few minutes had passed. Twilight could not explain this either. It was a kind of magic even she, as the studious Alicorn she was, had never heard of or read about in any of her books. Not even the ancient books in the old castle in the Everfree Forest described a magic of that sort. And they especially mentioned nothing about this creature. Otherwise, she could have done something. Maybe.
But now everything was lost. Almost all of her friends were probably dead or would be dead soon and Equestria and the rest of their world was doomed.
Twilight never believed in things like this. But she had to admit it now, after witnessing all these tragic and horrific events:
The apocalypse had come over the world.
Having gone through the events of the day in her mind, in futile hope to find a solution when recapping all that happened, Twilight opened her eyes again and looked to the direction the monster was flying in once more. It was, despite it's size, barely recognizeable on the horizon now.
Based on the direction, she knew the next destination of the apocalyptic threat. Fillydelphia. Knowing that Celestia and Luna were there, a small glimmer of hope rose in her heart, but it quickly died down when she realized that this was just her troubled mind that still searched for a solution to save the world.
She shook her head. Celestia and Luna already tried to stop the monster. They could do nothing. Soon, she knew, they would be among the next victims. New tears streamed down her face at this thought as she suddenly felt how Rarity's grip around her neck began to loosen.
Twilight lifted up the head of her friend and held it in front of her face, only to be greeted by cold, empty eyes. “N-No.....”, the Alicorn stammered. “Not you too.” Sobbing and crying, she gave the dead body of the last of her friends who was able to stay at her side another hug, her tears drenching the white coat of the dead mare.
“Twilight?” A voice behind her suddenly interrupted her sobs. Twilight released her friend and put her body carefully to the ground, legs trembling. Then she turned around to face the pony behind her. It was Scootaloo.
“Twilight, where is Rainbow Dash?” The filly's face adorned a worried, but somewhat hopeful expression. It was apparent that she had still hope. In her foalish innocence, she thought everything could still turn for the better.
“I don't know”, Twilight answered. Of course this was a lie. Twilight herself saw Rainbow Dash falling, directly in front of her. But this was something she couldn't tell Rainbow Dash's number one fan and appointed little sister.
The mare rubbed some tears out of her eyes and set up a confident smile, then she walked over to the filly. She knew that everything was hopeless, but at least she could take care of it that Scootaloo could leave this world with happy thoughts and hope in her heart.
As she had come closer, she saw it. The mark that was suddenly adorning Scootaloo's body. “No”, Twilight whispered, holding a hoof to her mouth, while new tears emerged from her eyes.
“What's wrong, Twilight?”, the energetic little pegasus asked her. She followed her eyes. “It's just my cutie mark! I have no idea what it means. And it's at a weird spot. I always thought cutie marks were supposed to appear at your flank. But I'm happy that I finally got it!” The worried expression left the filly's eyes for a moment and she presented Twilight with a huge grin.
Twilight gritted her teeth and slowly brought herself to regain stability. She knew she would have to be strong now. Strong for the filly in front of her. Her last deed had to be a good one. She couldn't let Scootaloo die in despair. She would have never forgiven herself if she would.
Once more, she rubbed the tears out of her eyes. Another confident smile appeared on her face. Twilight brought the last distance between her and Scootaloo behind her and wrapped the filly in a tight hug. “Congratulations!”, she said in a cheerful tone. “I'm sure you're happy that our lessons finally paid off.” Twilight could feel at her neck how the filly eagerly nodded. Scootaloo tightened the grip around Twilight's neck, out of sheer joy.
But of course the mare knew what happened. She had seen this mark on the bodies of so many ponies that escaped the creature's attack and even though she did not know what it was and what kind of magic was responsible for it's creation, she knew what it meant for a pony that was cursed with it's presence. But Twilight shoved away the thought that the unholy mark of the creature did not even stop for little fillies. She would be strong for Scootaloo. Strong in her last moments.
“I'm sure Rainbow Dash will be so happy to see your cutie mark! Once we've found her and defeated the monster with the new spell I discovered, we will ask Pinkie Pie to give a big party!”
Scootaloo released the hug and looked into Twilight's face. “Really? You found a spell to defeat the monster?”
“Mhm”, Twilight answered with a happy nod.
Scootaloo's eyes glistened from joy and she proceeded to hug Twilight again.
Twilight wrapped her hooves around the body of the young filly and embraced her gently. “Soon it will be over, Scootaloo, and then we can rebuild Ponyville and make it even better than it was before!” The filly answered with a thankful nuzzle against Twilight's neck.
Minutes passed and Twilight and Scootaloo stood still in the middle of the place once called Ponyville, enjoying each other's company.
Twilight felt the warm body of the young pegasus filly against her's and felt happiness for it that she was able to make it easier for her, to give her a death in peace, rather than one in despair.
As Twilight felt the heart of the little filly stopping and Scootaloo's body becoming limb in her hooves, a fresh stream of tears shot out of her eyes and soaked her coat and the orange coat she had pressed her face against.
Twilight opened her eyes and looked at the sky again.
“I believed what we had would last forever, after all the moments we spent together..... Were they meaningless in the end?”
A sob escaped her mouth.
“If friendship is supposed to be magic, then why didn't it help us?”