What did I do wrong?
CRASH!
The wall of her palace crumbled as she was thrown through it, she leapt across the floor each time she hit it, until her bruised body skidded into a wall.
Twilight laid there for long moments, until she summoned enough strength to lift her head, and took a weak look out the gaping hole where a good portion of her wall had once been. She could hear the battle raging on without her, and the Beast's pained roar rang through the night like all hell.
She knew this was a losing battle...
She only wished she saw this coming...
Her eyelids slowly became heavier, until her eyes rolled back into her head, and she slipped out of consciousness.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"Spike!"
Twilight snagged the young drake, and flung him to the side as she walked up to the poor pony.
"I'm sorry," she told flower mare, "it's his birthday, and I think he might have gotten a liiittle carried away." She chuckled apologetically, sending Spike the stink eye.
The dragon sulked, before popping right back into his unholy lust for materials as soon as she turned her back.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
She had been there through the whole day, she'd seen what overcame him when he was greedy. Oh, how she wished she could've gotten there earlier, and prevented what was one of the largest disasters to plague Ponyville that year. She wished she could've stopped him... back then.
It's amazing how one careless act- one stupid, foalish word -can mean the difference between good and evil. How one nerve can be calmed for thousands of years, only to become frayed during a silly argument.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"I can't believe you!" The Great Dragon's voice boomed across the castle halls. "You're still not moving on? It's been over five thousand years, and you still haven't moved past Flash? You're miserable, Twili, even I can see that."
Twilight shot him a death glare: "Yet you can never understand what's making me miserable, ponies don't always need a flurry of mates circling around them all day!" She screeched, before narrowing her eyes. "Another one of the bad habits given to you by Rarity!"
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Those dumb, dumb words. One damned moment of thoughtlessness, and the fire in his eyes became petrifying. She never expected that to be her undoing, for one phrase to change her life so dramatically.
She weakly lifted her head in time to see her niece fly straight through the wall directly above where she was thrown, before crashing into the crystal ceiling above her.
Flurry Heart landed with a sickening crack, and struggled to get to her feet. The Element of Honesty hung on a necklace beneath her chin, and the sad look in her eyes told that she was having as hard a time in the fight as Twilight.
She looked down to Twilight, and held out a hoof. "This isn't going away, Twilight. Celestia couldn't keep him in line, and he's using Luna to 'renovate' the south side of town."
Twilight grabbed her hoof, and Flurry helped her up. Twilight looked out the holes, and saw the immense purple tail of her oldest friend... her brother... her son... slithering away from the palace.
"I don't want to do it," she sighed.
"Neither do we," Flurry said slowly, "but it needs to be done."
Twilight groaned in agony, and flew out into the night: Flurry in hot pursuit. She witnessed the scaly Beast flick Luna into Cadence as if they were nothing more flecks of dust.
"SPIKE!" She called desperately. The Dragon lifted his head, which was easily as big as he was when he first transformed, and shot her a glare filled with hatred.
Twilight's eyes glazed over, as she didn't see Spike as the immense monster he was. She saw him as she knew him: a small, humble child of a drake, fresh out of the egg. She saw him as a smartass assistant, equal parts helpless and helpful. She saw him as the beast that would have died to save her, as he almost did several times.
She squeezed her eyes shut, praying to anything that listened that this was a dream, but when she opened them, she still saw only the creature he had become. The monster she didn't mean to turn him into. She looked on as the others got into position.
"Don't make me do this, please..." she choked, tears streaming down her cheek as a rainbow started to connect the jewels worn by the six princesses.
Spike merely growled and lunged towards her. She closed her eyes as the ends of the prism circled around her, and clicked into place around the star shining on her head.
She heard a pained scream as Flurry's Honesty shot out, and blasted Spike. Luna's Loyalty was next, followed by Celestia's Kindness, Cadence's Joy, and Starlight's Generosity. Her Magic shot out last, encasing the monster of her making in a rainbow of color. He roared in fury, pain, and fear, and swung at her with a claw.
The blow never struck, the sound of terror silenced. She opened her eyes, and froze from what she saw:
A large scorch made it's mark on the ground, where the beast once stood. Now, he occupied his own cell, in Tartarus.
Slowly, she lowered herself to the burned ground, and took a single step forward. Her eyes had run themselves dry, and they felt like they were cracking. She fell to her knees, and hurled what remained of her last meal to the dirt. The others circled around her, and gave their wings to comfort her.
She looked to the center once again, hoping to catch a glimpse of the baby she raised from birth. When she saw none, her head drooped downwards with a scream of pure anguish: a sound which had not stained Equestria since before the reign of Discord.
Only pain was felt that day.
History had been repeated.