> Rumors of the Apocalypse Are... Somewhat Exaggerated? > by SparklingTwilight > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Rumors of the Apocalypse > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Mane Six, the powerful and popular pony heroes of Equestria, had been traveling far from Ponyville, addressing friendship emergencies in Manehatten and helping Rarity open her new boutique. They, sans their assistant Spike, who had remained in Canterlot to address some business with Princess Celestia, returned to Ponyville on a midnight train ride. Exhausted from their achievements, they initially failed to note the bizarre purplish-pink sky, but their tired ears couldn't help but overhear cacophonous, tense chattering from the multitudinous mouths of an enormous crowd of ponies that cluttered the station. Mr. and Mrs. Cake, earth pony proprietors of Sugarcube Corner, where Pinkie Pie worked when she wasn't gallivanting off to save Equestria while leaving her employers in the lurch to scramble laboring double-time to make up for her absence, were the first to speak coherently to the Mane Six. "Twilight Sparkle?" Mrs. Cake asked, her lower lip trembling and her hind-legs bobbing nervously up and down beside her resting sacks of luggage. "Yes?" Twilight responded, craning her neck to better view the oddly borealis-like sky that bathed the station platform in a weird glow. "What happened here?" Mrs. Cake glimpsed back to ensure that her twin little ones were still close at hoof, then she explained: "I've heard a lot of things. I was hoping you might have a better idea, although mostly, I came here so I could catch the train to escape." Other ponies, swarming around with their packed luggage echoed her request, and they pressed closer to Twilight and her friends. "What have you heard?" Twilight said. "I heard," Mrs. Cake started, "that Discord attacked Ponyville and summoned an armada of monstrous rocks that blotted out the sky!" "Monstrous rocks?" Twilight asked. "Lyra told me," Mrs. Cake explained, gesturing to another pony in the crowd. "I saw them myself!" Lyra, an aqua colored pony, piped up. She hugged another mare beside her. "Bon Bon told me they were added faster and faster until it was like they were multiplying! Then they fractioned apart, dividing and glimmering like diamonds in the sky until a horrendous explosion subtracted all of them. "If you saw them, then why would you need Bon Bon to tell--nevermind? How did you see this?" "Via Bon Bon," Lyra nodded. "Personally." "So you didn't see it happen," Twilight sighed. "Perhaps Bon Bon could expound?" Bon Bon, the cream-coated pony enveloped in Lyra's embrace, had a bead of sweat break out across her forehead, just beneath her bouncy curls. "It's ... difficult to say what I saw." Pinkie Pie piped up: "Was it a tongue-twister? Like 'she sells sea shells sometimes slowly by the sea shore for shore'! Or was it just a really long word like antidisestablishmentarianism? A homophone? A homonym? A sound? A smell? Onomatopoeia? Maybe a weird gobbledygook word that's not really a word, like Austreaoh?" "It was ... terrifying." Lyra shook and hugged Bon Bon closer. Bon Bon croaked--not in the euphemistic sense of dying--although she was having difficulty breathing: "Can't breathe." Lyra let her go, and Bon Bon coughed something that sounded like "teacup". Before Bon Bon could clarify, Carrot Top, a curly red-haired pony, spoke up. "I heard there was an enormous explosion in the sky--like Trixie's fireworks--then after a keening screech, dust fell to the ground and all the crops died!" "But you didn't confirm it?" Twilight asked. "Our precious strawberries died!" One pony added. "And all our flowers!" The trio of ponies who worked at the flower show fainted as one. But they managed to speak from the ground. "We barely made it here. Ponies were fighting and dying, wilted like flower-stems in the streets. The horror! The horror!" "Dead ponies?" Fluttershy, the kindest member of the Mane Six, commented on the important point. But her voice was so soft that it was drowned out by the bombastic complaint of Applejack--one of the Mane Six who, when not saving the world, farmed apples on her family's land: "Oh no, the farm!" "Oh no, the farm!" Pinkie Pie mirrored Applejack's shock, showing solidarity with her great friend who was also possibly a distant cousin. Over the din, Carrot Top could barely be heard, but she shouted louder and louder. "I didn't dare return to check my farm; I heard about it from that tragically handsome Thunderlane--and now he's blind! I wasn't gonna stick around to see what happened!" "How could he see crops fail if he was blinded? ..." Twilight considered, failing to note the flower ponies' more dire reports of fighting and death likely because she had been mentally filtering out anything they said as nonsense ever since she had endured their weeping histrionic fit after Ponyville's latest rabbit invasion. "Thunderlane's blind!" Rainbow Dash, another of the Mane Six, interjected. "I heard that too!" Mrs. Cake added. "Terrible, just terrible." Her husband, Mr. Cake coughed, and added. "Yes, terrible. Uh, dear." He whispered something to her and she flushed, then looked him directly in his eyes. "They're so white ..." she hissed, but didn't say anything else. Fluttershy, the kind pegasus, noticed his cough and walked over, then passed him some pills she plucked out of the satchel she always carried for medical emergencies. She often tended to injured beasts and it was just a matter of dosage in adapting pony pills for them, so she always carried a bushel of healing powders and pills. "There, there," she comforted softly. "Hopefully this cures any PESTILENCE you may be feeling." Mr. Cake reached out, missing Fluttershy's hoof by several hooves. After steadying her husband, Mrs. Cake reached over and took the pills, then slapped them into Mr. Cake's mouth, mouthing "thank you" to Fluttershy. "Was Thunderlane blind when he spoke to you, Carrot Top?" Twilight asked. Carrot Top bobbed her head. "And you just let him go off? Blinded! By himself?" Whispers traversed the crowd, chattering how Carrot Top had abandoned (and in some versions of the tale) blinded Thunderlane! "His younger brother Rumble was leading him around." Carrot Top screeched, barely audible over the cacophony of outraged speech. Somepony pushed her into another pony, who shoved her back. "Get off me, you meanie!" One of the twin Spa Ponies pushed Carrot Top with strong massage-strengthened hooves. "Thunderlane was a lovely stallion!" The other whacked her with a massage paddle that apparently had been so important she had brought it with her for the evacuation. Carrot Top tumbled to the ground. "Ponies! Please!" Twilight Sparkle unfurled her wings and rose into the air. "Let's not descend to WAR among ourselves! Be calm." The unrest subsided. Fluttershy helped Carrot Top, face red and embossed with an impression of the wooden train platform, to her hooves, whispering to her, "I'm sure you didn't mean to say something someponies might just think was a mite bit thoughtless, dear." Carrot Top cried, and Fluttershy blushed. "Oh, dear," Fluttershy sighed. "That was a bit much. ... I don't know what's happening." Fluttershy looked desperately to her friends for help. "I'm ... not used to hurting otherponies' feelings." Twilight Sparkle alighted. "Fine." She fixed her stare on Mrs. Cake. "What happened next?" "Yeah, what about the loss of crops--we could have a FAMINE! Anypony seen that? Anypony seen any Apples?" Applejack Apple demanded, loudly projecting her voice as she inquired about her family and their farm. "They live pretty far from Ponyville; they may not have been affected." "Of course fate would have it that those ponies wouldn't be affected," Strawberry Sunrise, a golden pegasus who hated apples and who had recently moved to Ponyville to be closer to her friends, snorted. "We'll probably have to subsist on awful awkward apples." "Now just a gosh darn minute here--" Applejack was distracted by the horrifying statement. "Ponies! Please!" Twilight repeated. "We're not moving forward; how about we trace events back ... when did this disaster start?" "When Doctor Hooves died!" "What? There was a DEATH? Who said that?" Twilight asked, looking frantically around. "Oh, Sweetie Belle!" Rarity, a white-coated unicorn mare member of the Mane Six, called out, recognizing the voice of her little sister. "What terrible things are you saying?" "Doctor Hooves was standing in front of a shadowy extraordinarily tall pale pony near what was left of the clock tower." "But wouldn't the tower's destruction have been the start--" Twilight tried to impose some sense and logic. "It was destroyed by lightning!" Lyra exclaimed. "You saw this?" Twilight asked. "No, but Octavia told me about it." Lyra gestured to a gray-coated pony with a black mane who was lugging around an enormous cello grasped in one foreleg and gripping an oblivious, headphone-wearing, music-appreciating DJ-Pon3 in her other. "It was quite a disturbing sight," Octavia said, enunciating clearly. "I lost no time in evacuating myself from the premises, taking a moment only to rush back to my abode to recover the essentials." She indicated her instrument and DJ-Pon3 in turn with sharp movements of her head. "It was more of a magical explosion," Bon Bon's raspy voice interjected. "You never told me that!" Lyra huffed, a look of betrayal crossing her eyes. "It was more important to evacuate." Bon Bon looked around. "And where there's magic, there may be bugbears." Lyra gasped and grabbed Bon Bon tighter. "Anyway!" Sweetie Belle interjected. "The clock tower isn't important! But it happened there. Underneath the tower's rubble, the scary pony touched Doctor Hooves. He reared up in horror. Then he fell down, all stiff." "Maybe he was just struck down, dear, knocked unconscious." Rarity hugged her little sister. "Nuh-uh." Sweetie Bell shook her head as much as she could while wedged tightly in the overly-perfumed pit beneath Rarity's shoulder. "Scootaloo poked him with a stick." Scootaloo, Sweetie's orange pegasus friend, was close at hand. "And he didn't move!" She said it almost gleefully, happy to provide a helpful answer. Rainbow Dash, struggling to make out words, only heard part of that exchange. "Why'd you hit Doctor Hooves with a stick Scootaloo?" "He was already dead!" Scootaloo shouted. The crowd pressed around Scootaloo, who was lost amid a sea of angry words. Then a gray, blond-haired mare bearing a bump on her head zipped in, clearing the crowd around Scootaloo with a crash landing accompanied by a shrieked demand: "What did you do to my beloved brother!" She grabbed Scootaloo by the filly's shoulders, shook the young pony back and forth like a cat toy and lifted her off the ground. "Why!" The mare demanded, her crossed eyes darting to and fro in a vicious search for truth in Scootaloo's gaze. "Aaaaahhh!" Scootaloo shrieked, flailing in the air. "Deeerrrppppyyy! Leetttt meeee goooo!" Rainbow Dash struggled to pull Scootaloo away, but Derpy's grip was shockingly strong. "How can you be a murderer?" Tears were forming in Derpy's eyes. "Whyyyyyyyyyyy," she whined. Scootaloo shivered, and also cried. Shoving and fighting broke out again on the station and, now that the train was ready to move, the stationmaster called "All aboard! Tickets please!" The ponies, sans the Mane Six, Derpy, Scootaloo and Scootaloo's friend Sweetie Belle, raced to jump aboard the train that would take them far from Ponyville. Since the Mane Six had the conflict in hoof, the evacuees prioritized their own survival; none of them stayed to help. "Nopony killed anypony, Derpy." Rainbow struggled to pull, digging into Scootaloo's flesh. "How do you know!" Derpy insisted. Scootaloo started crying as her body was torn two ways. Sweetie Belle started trying to pull to help, but it just strained Scottaloo's limbs worse. Then Twilight, with a vast exertion of her magic from her horn, picked up and separated Scootaloo from Derpy. Huffing, Twilight spoke shaply. "Quite a grip, Derpy. Now, listen carefully. Scootaloo never said she'd killed Doctor Hooves. Nopony said that! Scootaloo just said she found him lying prone, so she poked him with a stick--to see if he was okay." "But whyyyyyy?" Derpy's eyes were so full of tears that one could not even see her distinctive floating eyeball. "I don't know," Twilight said. "But I intend to find out. He might not even be dead." "Really?" Derpy sniffed and cleared the tears from her eyes. "We can search better if you get on the train." "Okay," Derpy rose. "Whatever you think is best, Princess Twilight." She sniffed again and more tears came. The train blew its whistle. It would soon depart. "You should get onboard too, Sweetie Belle, dear." Rarity added. "But I can help!" "Matters appear to have become quite grave." Rarity ushered Sweetie Belle onto the train, stuffing her into a car far from the one that Derpy entered. "You look after Scootaloo." Scootaloo was wincing and had involuntary tears filling her eyes, but she let Rainbow Dash escort her to the train. "We'll see to this problem," Rainbow Dash asserted. "No sweat." "Thanks, Dash," Scootaloo breathless, boarded the train. Dash flew up to Sweetie Belle's ear and whispered into it. "Hey, kid. Take care of Scoots, and keep Derpy away from her, you hear?" "You got it!" Sweetie Belle said with a brisk nod. Then the train, packed burgeoning to the windows with its fearful exponentially rumor-generating ponies, was off and the Mane Six galloped into the town to confront apocalyptic terrors lying within. > Were Greatly Exaggerated > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dust blew into Ponyville upon a foul wind. The sky was still purple and pink, its colors whirling together like a choleric dream. The Mane Six cautiously entered the town, eyes peeled for a storm of boulders, deadly rains of sparkling death, pestilential clouds, or worse. They picked their way around shattered glass, noting many broken windows. Eventually, they reached the Ponyville clock tower, which had been blasted apart by something--probably a lightning bolt, as evidenced by scorch marks on its facade. There, they found a young pegasus pony stumbling around, blind, but it wasn't Thunderlane. "Rumble?" Rainbow Dash recognized the colt, but did not notice his white glazed-over blinded eyes. "Where's Thunderlane? We heard you were escorting him!" "We got separated," Rumble sniffled. "Is that Rainbow Dash?" "Yeah! Don't recognize me?" Dash scoffed, living up to her reputation for vanity. "You blind or just forgetful? And where's your brother?" Dash sneered. "Not loyal enough to stay at his side?" Rumble cried louder. Twilight shot Dash a chastening glare, then trotted over to Rumble and pressed him underneath her wings. "What happened?" He sniffed. "I was leading my brother to the train station, to get us out of here. But we stumbled and he bit my shoulder and then he was frothing. Before I could stop him, he ran away. I followed, but then my eyes clouded; I couldn't see." "You poor dear." Rarity reached to pat his side. "Um," Rainbow Dash frowned. "I didn't know--sorry." Fluttershy shot Rainbow an annoyed look. Twilight, meanwhile, was focusing on Rumble. "He bit you; then you were blinded?" "Yeah," Rumble said. "Hmm," Twilight considered. "We'll get you to the hospital; then we'll find Thunderlane." "And fix this disaster!" Pinkie Pie added. "Yes," Twilight considered, noting out of the corner of her eyes a cutie-mark on the hindquarters of a corpse of what must have been Doctor Hooves, near the base of the devastated clock tower. That rumor at least, had some truth. Taking care to avoid the sparkling remnants of what Twilight judged to be a variety of ceramics and rocks and sofas and feathers, she and her friends made their way to the still-operating hospital. Nurse Redheart and the doctors within had not stopped caring for ponies despite the surrounding chaos. But those diligent workers had not seen Thunderlane. The Mane Six escorted Rumble to a bed where he would be examined--eventually. The hospital was bustling; sounds were coming from across the hall and down it. Doctors and nurses were rushing here and there. Twilight finished questioning Rumble, but she didn't probe it too far--the colt was too traumatized. "Thunderlane said there were four big ponies--bigger than Big Mac, plowing across the sky. One got hit by bright exploding lights and crashed. I didn't see that, but I saw boulders streaking across the sky like one of those meteor showers Doctor Hooves shows at his observatory. Bang! Boom! Striking detritus straight to the moon--over the moon!" Rumble chuckled despite the gravity of the situation, his spirits raised by thoughts of the good Doctor. Thinking of the Doctor's corpse, a tear formed in Twilight's eye; she was glad Rumble could not see it. "Thank you Rumble. That's enough. ... Nurse Redheart, has anypony else here been blinded?" Twilight sniffed back her sadness. "Nope." Nurse Redheart shook her head then grabbed hold of a cart with medicines on it and wheeled it around. "Can you talk about what's been happening--" "I've got too many patients to give you much attention, dear," Nurse Redheart explained. "And some of those patients used to be doctors; but even they're dropping like flies drop around Trixie--forget I said that. Please escort yourselves out." And then she bustled off, cart rolling before her. Meanwhile, Rumble whispered: "--teacups ... a tempest of hundreds floating. Porcelain and a foul liquid ... but then I was bit and I couldn't see." But his words were so soft that only Fluttershy heard. The whispers sounded like nonsense to her and she put them out of her thoughts, merely comforting Rumble with a light pat and a "There, there." The Mane Six bid goodbyes to Rumble, promising to find Thunderlane. Then they left the room. Once in the hall, they overheard a familiar pair of voices. From within the room across from Rumble's there was a flat tone. "You will recover." "Agreed, Excellent and Caring friend and help-maker; the Great and Powerful Trixie will certainly recover to her Ultimate and Infinite potential!" "You are already coughing less." "Of course. Nevertheless, The Great and Powerful Trixie commands more tea!" "Coming." "That's Maud!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, recognizing her sister's voice. And before anyone could stop her, she broke into the 'quarantine'-labeled door that held Maud and The Great and Powerful Trixie. "Wait--Pinkie!" Twilight called, following Pinkie into the room despite the labeled warning that she had noticed. Her friends, who had failed to see the sign, also entered. Inside the room, weirdly lit with the purplish-pink swirling glow from outside--they saw Maud Pie. Her mauve-maned head cocked and turned toward them. "Pinkie?" She asked, seeing a pony particularly familiar to her. "I'm so glad you're safe, Maud." Pinkie hustled over and embraced her sister. The mare straightened and shifted away from Pinkie the warm tea kettle gripped in her hooves. "Thanks," Maud replied, her words a little muffled, but otherwise understandable. "But did something terrible happen to you when the sky was raining down a plentiful plague of pestilence?" Pinkie pulled back, staring at Maud's lower jaw. "What happened?" "That?" Maud placed her hoof at the red swollen portion of her jaw. "Nothing. No relation to pestilence." "Ah-hem." The Great and Powerful Trixie cleared her throat, then sipped at a teacup. "The Great and Powerful Trixie is also present." Twilight grimaced. The Great and Powerful Trixie had long been like a particularly Prickly and Obnoxious thorn in her side. And Trixie also, Twilight noted, was (bizarrely) surrounded on the floor by a field of dead mosquitoes. Or were they flies? Anyway, the floor was littered with a variety of pests. Rarity, the bearer of the Element of Generosity, responded more generously (as was her practice), approaching the boastful mare and providing her a pat on her shoulder. "There, there. No need to feel excluded--oh dear!" Rarity recoiled as she noticed Trixie's face, a pockmarked, greasy and decayed husk, a shadow of its prior striking light blue coloration. "What happened to you, dear?" Trixie coughed, not shielding her expectoration. Maud hoofed over to her a napkin. Trixie rolled her eyes, then accepted the napkin and blew her nose into it. "Trixie is experiencing a bit of pestilence. But Trixie has been winning! The Great and Powerful Trixie is always winning!" Trixie placed the napkin beside herself, then she took another sip of her tea. "Except when she loses," Applejack, element-bearer of Honesty, muttered under her breath, recalling Trixie's lost magical competition with Twilight Sparkle, among other notable failures. "Could you tell us anything about the ... strange happenings in Ponyville?" Twilight asked. "Of course," Trixie coughed into her napkin. "You see, The Great and Powerful Trixie was throwing an excellent party to celebrate Starlight Glimmer's graduation, and the Faithful and Fastidious Maud was assisting. Trixie's magical demonstrations were so exquisite that Glimmer had thrown her hooves around Trixie in a thankful embrace, so moved was she; this is the power of true magic." She affixed Twilight Sparkle with a glare. "Trixie doubts you have ever had such a momentous embrace occur." "Well, actually--" Twilight Sparkle began. "And this stolid mare beside me also joined in the embrace," Trixie quickly added. "Trixie sincerely doubts that Twilight Sparkle has ever had two ponies, much less an entire audience so moved by passion to embrace her. Trixie, in point of fact has had orgies full of ponies embracing her!" Trixie downed all of the remaining tea and hoofed over the cup to Maud, who dutifully carried it away. "Uh," Twilight didn't have a comeback for that criticism. Instead, she affixed Maud with a weird look, wondering if she would clarify. Instead, Maud merely blinked. "Ain't it called a herd of ponies rather than an org-organism--what did you say, Trixie?" Applejack narrowed her eyes. "It's a synonym, bumpkin." Trixie guffawed, then continued. "Of course, this was before my grandiose firework display. But subsequent to that embrace, we looked up to the sky and what did we see but four haughty horsemares striding across the sky! Four heavenly horsemares that had decamped from the constellations themselves." "You don't mean--those horsemares." Twilight Sparkle knew her constellations well. "Of course." Trixie nodded. "The four horsemares of the apocalypse?" Twilight Sparkle continued. "But those are myth--even older than the windigoes." "And just as true!" Trixie exclaimed. "Regrettably," Maud interjected. "Though details of the myths may be imprecise. One of the horses looked like a stallion and the last transcended classification." "Mares? Stallions? Who cares. Everypony is the same to Trixie--inferior!" Trixie gratuitously added. Maud fixed Trixie with a tired stare. "Except Trixie's good friends, who are her equals, of course," Trixie sighed. "As well as Twilight, who Trixie admits has great power." Maud tapped Trixie's bed. "And Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Princess Cadance, Prince Shining Armor and a few other ponies. Even certain loyal--no that wasn't it. ... it was brutally honest bumpkin ponies." Trixie glared at Applejack, then grotesquely grinned at Maud before continuing. "Trixie is certain that Trixie must be omitting somepony and for this oversight, Trixie apologizes effusively. Trixie is trying to be more fair-minded." Trixie screwed up a final frightening smile, teeth askew and cheeks distorted, directed at Maud. Maud noted that with a nod. Trixie coughed, and Maud, with a hoofkerchief cloth, wiped Trixie's face. "And then what happened?" Twilight asked. Trixie took a deep breath before speaking: "The first horsemare to emerge was a big, bulging white horse, but Trixie, not intimidated at all by the beast's girth, stood on her hind legs and told that mare just where she could get off. And Trixie did get that mare off--which is something Trixie is very adroit at doing!" Trixie winked. "The mare ran back, frightened by Trixie's Great and Powerful confidence! And fireworks! I ejaculated celebratory fireworks, which sent that mischievous mare straight back to the stars!" "Oh-kay," Twilight noted. "But there was a victim," Maud added. "He's not here. Somecreature should find him." "A victim?" Twilight asked. "Black pegasus. Was spit on by the horsemare," Maud explained. Then she spoke to Trixie. "And I think you meant 'discharged' when discussing your fireworks." Trixie waved a dismissive hoof. "Trixie has memorized all appropriate synonyms to titillate and delight audiences from the eminently reputable Sophistic Synonomic Soliloquies, thank you very much." "To actually be erudite, rather than to merely mimic, one must also understand synonym's definitions before using them with abandon--" "Pish-posh," Trixie laughed. "But since you are such a Wise and Powerful 'friend'," Trixie made the air quotes, "Trixie, as Trixie has done with other Interesting and Important points you have made, notes your suggestion for improvement and will take it under advisement! The less malapropisms, the more impressive the cheers and less appropriate the jeers." "Um," Twilight interrupted. "And the other horses?" "Of course," Trixie continued. "The second mare was fiery, coated red and swelling with anger and passion. Trixie also defeated her, by asking Maud to knock her down." "It was my pleasure," Maud noted. "The third, a beast with sallow skin and famine-thin assaulted Starlight Glimmer from behind; embracing her within its nasty haunted hooves--" "Where is Starlight?" Twilight interrupted. "Ah-hem," Trixie cleared her throat. "Trixie's Terrific and Terrifying tale is not complete!" After some silence, Trixie resumed her story: "Starlight was bound, but Trixie used her powerful and pestilential new magic to distract the mare and free Starlight." "And where is she now?" Twilight asked, concerned about her recently-graduated student. "Around," Trixie noted, with a slight wave in the air. "And then, of course," Trixie continued. "The final horsemare was defeated." "Nopony can defeat Death!" Pinkie Pie objected, recalling from tales the name of the fourth horsemare of the apocalypse. "Ah, ha!" Trixie noted. "The correct prophecy is 'no one pony can defeat Death'." "That's not right," Twilight interrupted again. "Scholars disagree but the best interpretation of the Old Ponish is--" "You weren't there, Twilight," Trixie sighed. "Regardless, we united and defeated Death and saved Ponyville from the horsemares and here we are today!" "How much of this is true?" Twilight turned to Maud, who, though often succinct, was rather truthful. Maud took a deep breath and walked beside Trixie. "All of it." "Whaaaaa?" Pinkie Pie tilted her head. "You're telling me that Tall Tale Trixie who claimed to be the most powerful magician in the land was telling the truth this time?" "As she saw it," Maud amended. "... What did you see?" Twilight asked. "Four horsemares arrived. Damaged Ponyville. Trixie charged. We fought them; her and Glimmer with magic and Boulder and me with blunt force." Boulder was her pet rock. As far as the Mane Six knew, Boulder wasn't sentient or even ambulatory. "We defeated them: together. Many creatures. Not a "single" pony. Then we came to this hospital." "Could you elaborate?" Twilight frowned. "Why?" Maud blinked. "That's what's important." "But why is the sky still weird?" Pinkie Pie asked. Maud walked to the window, where Pinkie Pie was pointing. "The aurora borealis?" Pinkie asked. "At this latitude? I guess it explains the glow. Good weather for cooking steamed yams." (Pinkie's on another wavelength.) "Hey Trixie," Maud looked back at her. "Can you do something about the aurora?" "Of course Trixie could, Maud, but then we'd be in darkness." Maud walked over to Trixie and placed a hoof on her forehead. "You should sleep. You're still burning up." Trixie sighed, "I suppose you may be correct. All of this pestilence has been tiring." She shut her eyes. And the purplish pink glow stopped. Maud removed her hoof from Trixie's forehead, then carefully patted her shoulder. Trixie's breath came more even. "Um," Applejack started, eyes wide and horrified as they considered Trixie. "Her magic wasn't that good before, guys." Maud spoke: "It's because we defeated the horsemares." "That raises darn well more questions than it answers, honey," Applejack said. Maud blinked. A snore broke the silence: Trixie was already snoozing. With a whisper, Maud said, "Starlight Glimmer can expound. I need to watch Trixie." "Are you sure, dear, that whatever Trixie has isn't catching?" Rarity asked, putting on a surgical mask she had finally located from within a nearby drawer. "Of course it is," Maud explained. "That's why we're under quarantine." "Quarantine?" Rarity recoiled more. "Did you see the sign?" Only Twilight had, and she grinned, sheepish. "Don't worry too much. She is getting better at control," Maud continued. Trixie kept snoring. "What you you mean, better at control?" "The first doctor who touched her came down with boils; he's in the male quarantine room down the hall. And those mosquitoes died when Trixie coughed on them." Maud gestured to the tiny corpses littering the floor beside Trixie's bed. "You're still alive. Without any boils." Rarity fanned herself. "Is it a bit hot in here, or is it just me? Fluttershy, dear, do you see any imperfections in my coat?" She sidled up beside the kindest member of the Mane Six, who took a quick step back. Then Rarity shrieked, "What do you see?" Maud appeared at her side. "Quiet. Please. Out." She, burning hot and flashing red in an instant, grabbed Rarity and Fluttershy and pushed them out of the room. "Trixie needs to sleep. Starlight Glimmer is probably in the bathroom sorting out her magic." "Sorting out her what?" Twilight asked, but Maud had already turned back to Trixie, and was placing a cold compress on her forehead. So, Twilight followed her friends out of the room. In the hall, the situation between Rarity and Fluttershy had escalated. They were pushing each other and screaming. Rainbow Dash had grabbed Fluttershy while Applejack and Pinkie Pie were pulling on Rarity, who spit all over both of them. "What has gotten into you mares?" Twilight asked, with umbrage. Rarity spat at Fluttershy. "This pig thinks I'm diseased!" Twilight did, sadly, note a set of boils forming on the side of Rarity's face that had been facing Trixie. Fluttershy recoiled. "This monster keeps trying to touch me!" "This is not in character for either of you!" Twilight scolded, but the two kept sneering and snarling. Twilight maneuvered everyone into an empty office, so their dispute would not disturb the patients. Despite several attempts at outreach, the others were unable to subside their boiling emotions, so Twilight sighed and ordered: "All of you, stay put while I search for Starlight." Then, she left the room and headed to the bathroom. Inside the bathroom, she heard retching. "Starlight, is that you?" "In here," a weak voice called from behind a stall. "Oh, no." Twilight opened the stall and saw her protege, flanks thin and stomach so distended one could see the rib-cage bones outlined. "What happened?" "Famine," Starlight explained, backing out of the opened stall, her voice parched and weak. "The third horsemare of the apocalypse." "She attacked you?" "Yes. But that didn't cause this;" she indicated her thinness. "This is because friendship won." Starlight looked at Twilight with a determined expression. "Pardon?" "Here's what happened:" > What Truly Happened > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight Glimmer wiped her mouth clean and, in a hoarse voice, began her tale: "Trixie and Maud threw a party for me. To celebrate my graduation as your student, and to cheer me up." "Cheer you up? Why did you need another party? Pinkie Pie already threw you one!" Twilight interrupted. "At Pinkie's party, there were so many ponies. I hid in the corner. ..." Starlight shuddered. "No you didn't. You knocked down that piñata!" Starlight's face turned weirdly sable and she glowed with a sudden rush of power. "You weren't beside me the entire time! I put on a happy face for as long as absolutely necessary; then, when I could get away, I hyper-ventilated and did my best to calm down!" "Oh," Twilight backed up, blinking. "I didn't know." Starlight huffed and puffed, but her face soon-enough reverted to its normal coloration. "It's okay. Okay. It's past." "I'm really sorry," Twilight said. "Don't think about it. I'm--I think I'm getting better. But if I'm not, then we may not have a lot of time," Starlight said. "Here's what happened. We had the party, a low-key affair:" Maud brought the wine, seasoned with cooled stones of the "gneissest caliber". Trixie, showing off a newly-mastered spell, assumed responsibility for providing the wine glasses ... which turned out to be random items she proudly, in front of us, transformed into identical tiny porcelain teacups. And I brought some fish-shaped pastries I bought from the Cakes." A tear came to Starlight's eye, then she blinked, took a deep breath and continued. We sat and started talking about life, the universe: everything. We drank--a lot. I expounded a bit--well, maybe more than a bit on advanced transfiguration--Trixie was yawning near the end and she preemptively tried to turn a rock into a proper wine glass, but she was still conceptualizing teacups, so that didn't quite work. Starlight sighed. "If it doesn't revert, that's why, Twilight, you now have a vase-like teacup; it has whale patterns--Maud had mentioned it looked like a whale. It's probably for the best that Trixie didn't come into her full power that early in the night. I'll get it fixed." Starlight continued: Trixie and Maud played rock-paper-drink with Boulder--Maud's pet rock. And Maud was laughing a lot. Yes, really: Maud. She spiked her drink with perfectly round black rocks: organic sedimentaries, she called them and was rolling them around inside of her mouth and Trixie was casting sparkling spells on the rocks and then I joined in to, well, fix Trixie's spells after one almost burned a hole in Maud's mouth--by Celestia, Maud doesn't react much to pain but that looked horrifying. ..." Starlight Glimmer shook her head. "It was supposed to be low key." Then we played a game that Maud and her sisters sometimes play, Hitchhiker's Guide, where somepony blindfolds her eyes and gets guided around by anotherpony and has to guess correctly where she is and what she is holding onto and then she'll be turned around and around and around and will hitchhike again with one of her friends until she wins twice more--a silly fillies game, I know. Starlight shook her head. So Trixie cast a spell and apparently she located something "great and powerful" jammed behind a secret passage. She used that discovery as my book to guess--I'm going to make absolutely clear I didn't know it wasn't one of your display books until much later--and we wandered into the garden. If it hadn't been obvious from the grass I was stepping on, our location would have been clear by the bouncing sounds I heard. Trixie had installed a stunt trampoline for the party and Maud was putting it to good use. Anyway, Trixie laughed after I correctly guessed we were in the garden but I failed to guess the particulars of what I held. It was obviously a book--but she demanded a title. "You're a verrrrrry powerful lizard, Starlight; you can do a lick or two better than just guess it's a booooook." Trixie had drunkenly laughed. Maud made chicken sounds, sounding soft when she vaulted into the sky and louder when she descended. "Chicken sounds?" Twilight asked. "I know... right?" Starlight said, then she continued. "I can do even better!" I'd responded, after concentrating deeply. "This is a... Spellbook! I'll cast from it even though I'm blindfolded!" "Ooh, we can use that bit in the show!" Trixie exclaimed. I sometimes assisted in her magic show. "I know that," Twilight interrupted. "Well, sorry for trying to cover everything comprehensively. This is all quite traumatizing--" "Sorry." Starlight continued. Still blindfolded, I flipped to the random open page. The spell's name and its description, I later discovered, had been on a previous page, but the page I was on started with step one of the recipe. Much faster than one would assume would be necessary for such a devastating spell, I had properly cast the Apocalyptica. From the Apocalyptica. The book and the spell share a name. "I've never heard of that ..." Twilight's interruption trailed off, as she was thinking deeply. The spell was for summoning. I read the Old Ponish language and I called it down. Seriously, I am not sure why anypony would create a spell like this--but given that we were able to defeat these horrible creatures, it's plausible that the spell's creator was able to defeat them and then wrote the spell down for additional research. I'm sure you'll have fun researching it and/or dissecting me. Anyway: the next thing we knew, the sky's color shifted into weird purple and pink swirling chaos, and we heard hooves beating and pounding. Trixie noted the magic and was rather excited since she thought it was a spell she could use in her act. She was running around triumphantly shouting: "Ventriloquism spell! Ventrilloquisssssm!" She'd mastered throwing her voice, but she hadn't managed to create a full aural-experience. "No." Maud removed my blindfold and took the book away, considering the page with her ever-keen eyes. You know Twilight, I think she picks up on almost 'everything', you know. Uncanny. Anyway, meanwhile, she gave Trixie a rump tap and a warning: "Sober up, Trix." Blinking from the sudden return of vision, I stared up at the strangely disconcerting colorful sky, which is where I saw them. "Look! Big ponies!" I'd called, like a filly, not quite sober enough to realize what I had summoned. "Cool!" "They're horses." Maud commented. "What?" "This says they're 'horses'." Maud shoved the open book in front of me. That word wasn't on the pages I had cast the spell from. She had flipped back to the real first page, which, in Old Ponish, explained the spell. "Horses of something." "You can read Old Ponish?" I asked. "My Rocktorate studies required knowledge of geological and archaeological scientific words to identify specimens. Many of those words are derived from Old Ponish." "Okay," I said. "I don't know anything about this word you say means 'horse', but these last few mean 'of the Apocalypse', that is, of the end times, like when the windigos will destroy everything." "Mmm-hmm," Maud nodded. "Horses are an extinct race, although their bones have been found. They predate ponies by tens of thousands of years." "Wait--wait--you mean we are descended from ... those big things?" "Yes, we evolved from them during a time of scarcity to become shorter, requiring less calories, becoming more compact, more magical." "I'll be a bucking monkey's uncle before I believe horseapples about evil-lotion like that," Trixie laughed. "Next thing you'll tell me ish geologishts believe tha world's round and like four point five billionsh years old." Maud met Trixie's accusations with a neutral stare. "We have a big problem." She gestured to the approaching thundering hooves above, mid-air. In the lead, far ahead of the others was a white 'horse'. "Horseapples, Scarlight," Trixie exclaimed. "That'sh shome scary bit ..." "--book must have summoned these creatures," I concluded. "You mean you did." Maud had a penetrating stare. "How can you blame me?" I boiled. "Why is it always Starlight's fault?" Then, overcome by anger, I blasted a wild lightning bolt into the sky. It curved back down. There was a distant explosion. "Sorry. I hope that didn't blow up anything in Ponyville." "The clock tower. ..." Twilight mused, but Starlight looked away and continued her report. "No blame; just a statement." Maud often was very precise, sometimes infuriatingly so. "You spoke the spell-words; then they arrived." "Trixie thrust the book in front of me. ... And you started the game!" "True," Maud nodded. Meanwhile, the lead skybound horse approached within hailing distance. "They friendly?" Trixie squinted at the coming beast, which unfurled its wings. "I, Pestilence, have come to herald the end of the world! THOU MUST PREPARE!" The white stallion declaimed, its voice shaking the castle grounds and causing the ground to shake. "Pest lints; don' wanna buy that," Trixie slurred her words and stumbled, then fell flat on her back. But she bounced up, barely missing a beat in her patter--she had a lot of experience tumbling during her stage act. "We're havin' a party, so would ya kindly go back inta tha book tha' ya live in?" "THOU MUST GIRD THY SOUL," the stentorian voice commanded, and the horse's head peered around, at us, then back at Ponyville. "Go away, snotty." Trixie had waved a hoof. "We're havin' a Trixie party. And a Trixie party don't stop for nothin'." "PREPARE FOR THY END!" The horrible beast sneezed into a hoof, then reached out with a foreleg and scattered its phlegm and aural detritus to the wind, on Ponyville below. I sheltered all of us with a well-timed protective bubble. "I jest told ya' we ain't endin' anythin', ya' party pooper." "YOUR FLESH WILL BOIL, YOUR EYES WILL SHUT, YOUR BLOOD WILL TURN, YOUR BREATH WILL FAIL, YOUR END WILL COME." "I hate party crashers," Trixie mumbled. Then, she brightened. "S-Starlight, why dontcha send him back intah tha book?" I grabbed the text and started reading frantically. "It takes time to decipher Old Ponish," I warned Trixie. Maud held the book steady for me. My hooves were flailing wildly as I paged through it, seeking key words on pages. "Lorem Ipsum Sin Dolor..." I tried to pronounce the book's Old Ponish under my breath--not a great idea but, hey, I'd already summoned these horrific creatures so it's not like things could get much worse. And I was drunk, so give me some slack, Twilight. And then, recalling some very obscure literature about the stars that I'd read during my foalhood, I realized what had happened-- "These horses ... I think I know what everything means! They are the four horses of the apocalypse!" "Apoco-what?" Trixie chewed the words. "Apocalypse--the end times, Trixie." "Whatever ya say." "We already established that," Maud commented. "We established they were four horses of the apocalypse, but those words have special meaning! There's a constellation and a legend." Distant memories returned. Then I flipped frantically through the book for information on how to stop the beasts. Meanwhile, the monstrous horse reached for Trixie. But Trixie, though inebriated, wasn't helpless. She threw a smoke grenade to the ground and galloped away, evading the horse's grasping touch. Then, Trixie rushed across the garden and jumped on her elastic trampoline, which sent her flying high, while she shouted: "The Great and Powerful Trixie has a greeting for you, Pest!" Pestilence flew up to match Trixie's height, and she twisted and ignited her horn, shooting her unicorn magic at where she had concealed fireworks for my celebration--and off they went, screeching. A huge purple-and-white-striped rocket struck Pestilence with a thud, propelling that horse higher into the sky. The rest of the fireworks exploded, some more striking Pestilence but most hitting nothing, certainly not impeding the other three rapidly approaching flying horses. But that first horse, Pestilence, screeched in horror. Windows shattered. Then Trixie shuddered and the horse exploded and all of its magic--I think it went into Trixie. Starlight gulped and pawed at the ground with a hoof. Then she shuddered and shuffled toward the toilet bowl, where she dry-retched. A little later, she returned to Twilight. And her fireworks kept going off, multiplying across the sky, but that didn't stop the next horse to arrive--a red-coated beast wearing sparkling barbed armor--snarling and snorting. "War has come for you, little ponies!" He had growled. "I come to level ponies rich and poor to be the same; I will grind their bones to dust and their monuments, their wonders, their buildings into petty, worthless stones!" Maud, still supporting the book for me, tapped me on my shoulder. "Stone me." "We don't have any of that to smoke--" I started. "It's not a euphemism." "See, she actually needed stones, Twilight, not to 'get stoned'. Maybe you don't know this--I didn't. I learned what that meant from some students at the School of Friendship, see, getting 'stoned' can mean ..." Twilight glared at Starlight, who concluded her feverish non-sequitur thought: "nevermind." So, I replied: "Why?" War was approaching, inexorably, ever closer. "Too much thinking, Starlight. Trixie defeated the first horse easily." Maud pointed out. "Indeed Trixie did!" Trixie kept bouncing up and down. "Maud! Are you sinking whats I'm s-thinking?" "I'm not planning to take over the world," Maud deadpanned, "or to serve as a strongmare sideshow." "But your strength--" Trixie started, then sighed. "Alas. But no, Trixie was suggesting you throw stones at the beast. Its verbose verbiage provided me that Interesting and Idyllic idea." She smiled, smug. "Agreed. Our opinions are in sync," Maud nodded. "On wha?" I had been absorbed in the book, puzzling out an overarching solution. Maud's plan was simpler. "Summon me rocks. Move them from the rubble piles." "What rubble?" I asked. Maud provided a precise description. "Oh yes," I nodded. "Why?" Meanwhile, as reported by the bouncing Trixie from her higher vantage point, the red horse pursued an unfortunate gray-coated, blond-maned pegasus and whacked her aside the head with the butt of a sword. She tumbled to the ground. Then the horse bucked and smashed holes in several buildings. Sofas and quills spilled out of one in a gory massacre of feathers that had been stuffed within sofas and fastened to quill-stands. "I will throw the rocks," Maud explained. Maud's idea made sense, so I summoned her material. She went to work right away, grabbing and flinging. Her tossed rock barrage caught the horse's attention, and it rose to meet her challenge; but it was smashed straight out the air and crashed to the ground. Moments later, Maud shuddered and a panoply of colors emanated from her, the chromatic array settling on a brilliant blood red for a moment. And her haunches and forelegs burgeoned with muscles, but then the glimmering and the colors subsided and Maud looked the same as she'd always been. "Huh," she took a step, smashing a deep hole in the ground. I peered over the edge, concerned for her sake. The third horse snuck up on me while I was watching Maud. It was very thin and extremely fast. It had been far in the distance, but it must have teleported. It caught me from behind in a horrifying embrace with rotting hooves, then squeezed. Trixie, still bouncing above, squealed and coughed. "Starlight! No!" "Help--" I called, before the horse's shoulder muzzled my mouth. I couldn't even speak words to spells or make the motions. And I felt myself growing thin and weak. I must have passed out, but the next time my eyes fluttered open, I was confronted by the sight of a tempest of teacups, foul-smelling and acrid in their splashes. The teacups assaulted the horse, and burned my coat, but importantly, the horse released its hold on my mouth and I could breathe and move and speak. Trixie was ranting as teacups smashed into and shattered against the horse. "The Great and Powerrrful Trixie insists you unhoof that mare right now!" The teacups probably would not have caused much damage under normal circumstances, but boils erupted where their acid splashed. The horse writhed and took to the sky. Before it could escape completely, I started casting a spell, vomited, but finished the spell. It was good enough. The horse spiraled out of control, smashing into the ground beyond the castle walls. I collapsed. And shuddered as I felt power wash over me. Trixie came to my side. And poked me with a stick. I didn't flinch. I was simultaneously too spent and too stiff with power to react--I didn't feel pain--my body didn't automatically react--I was overwhelmed. Maud, a weird, disturbed look on her face, emerged from the chasm. On firm ground again, she took a light step. The ground failed to subside. She'd nodded; then a rare look of shock crossed her face. "Maud!" Trixie raced over to the Earth pony and embraced her. "Starlight's ... dead." Maud walked forward fast, effortlessly dragging the still-hugging Trixie beside her with her strong strides. At my side, Maud paused. "Dead ponies don't breathe." Her look of shock subsided back into her neutral resting expression. "Whaaaa?" Trixie's head tilted to a side. "Starlight's breathing." "But she's immovabile-immobile," Trixie insisted. Then she coughed. "Ugh," I finally found my voice. Then I vomited. "Starlight!" Trixie embraced my back-legs since my forelegs and face were covered with ... ichor." Starlight shuddered at the memory. Maud's ears perked up and she wandered away from me. She had heard the fourth horse. Trixie's tears were falling on me. "Starlight. What would I ever do if I lost my Great and Powerful assistant!" She accompanied sweet words with raspy coughs and expectoration, all across my face. She hugged me close; I could feel bursting boils on her forelegs. "I have to go," Maud turned to leave. "Why?" I asked. "The fourth horse alighted. Then a life ended." "Where?" "I heard it." "I didn't hear--" I started. "I need to go." Maud blinked. "There was a struggle, a conflict. I sense a fight. I need to go." And she was gone. When Maud came back, Trixie had gotten me standing and was supporting me. My cheeks were already sallow and my stomach had been emptied of more volume than I thought it had held. And I was avidly studying the book, although that thankfully remained vomit-less. "It's managed," Maud said. Just above her jaw there appeared to be desiccation, rotting into her coat. But after I blinked, my clearer eyes were pretty sure it was just a bruise. "I'm trying to note everything, Twilight, but I don't know if that will help," Starlight explained. "It might explain something when all of this information is considered together," Twilight pondered. "Anyway, the next thing that happened was:" "No it's not!" Trixie, proud to express knowledge she had just learned from me, shouted. "Even if you defeated that horse; we've got to do it again." Maud arched an eyebrow. "It's all your f-f-fault, you know, Maud," Trixie added. Maud cocked her head. "You s-suggested the wine that we imbibed; that'sh the proximate cause for all of this." Trixie finished, with a grin. But, after an oh-so-brief pause, she demonstrated that she wasn't finished. "And T-trrrrrixie had to fix everything for you, defeating not one but three horsemares." Maud took a deep breath. "It'sh all right," Trixie coughed. "Trixie is Great and p-p-Powerful. You are not. Trixie s-serves the less-endowed!" "You provided the spell to Starlight. From a strange book. And you had no idea what it might do." "And yet! You-y-you did nothing to stop Trixie!" Triumphant Trixie grinned. Maud took a deep breath, then closed her eyes. "Too stunned to look on the face of one who has Brilliantly and Boldly defeated you with logic and facts?" Trixie laughed. "Haha!" "It says here," I indicated the book, "that the four horses have to be defeated four times by four." "But there's only three of us." "The book may not be entirely correct," I added. "That may be how they were defeated last time, but there could be other ways." Trixie nodded sagely. She always liked to be in the know. "But it does say the horses grow more powerful each time they are defeated." I swallowed, then quickly spat it out--I couldn't even hold down liquids. "Physically--physical defeat is what was done last time. The ponies who wrote this spell didn't know about alternatives, probably." "Alternatives?" Trixie asked. "The ponies who wrote this," I explained. "Didn't know about the magic of friendship." "Are you still drunk?" Trixie asked. "Trixie s-supposes all the vomiting might have helped sober you up, but what the buck does friendship have to do with the price of horseshoes in Saddle Arabia? Friendship is only important insofar and insomuch and infomercial as it has utility for each party. It's obvious," Trixie yawned. "It's not possible to just be friends. There's always a transaction!" She noticed my glare. I had thought we resolved this distinction about friendship after Trixie and I performed the Moonshot Manticore Mouth Dive and Trixie asserted that our friendship wasn't just based on my utility to her in annoying my mentor, Twilight Sparkle. "I mean," Trixie quickly added. "We are friends because Trixie enjoys the services you provide and that are part of your personality--nothing to do with Twilight's opinions. Meanwhile, you enjoy the Trixie Treats, including all of Trixie's myriad and multifarious splendid services: Trixie's cleverness; Trixie's gumption; Trixie's beauty; and of course, Trixie's tricks." "Trixie," I warned. "And Trixie understands it's difficult playing second fiddle to Trixie but one must get used to the inevitable dynamics of the situation--" "Trixie," I increased my volume. Trixie kept yammering, and I was getting really mad. I don't even remember what she said but it ended in me repressing my anger so much that, weakened by my encounter with the horse, I passed out. Glaring at each other, Trixie and Maud managed to rustle me awake. I tried to forget about the quarrel and I focused on our problem. "Good." So frustrated was I that I barely noted their assistance. "I don't think we can defeat them with magic alone again--not even supplemented by whatever specialness we took from them or hoof-strong earth pony magic." I looked sadly at Maud who had done double-duty defeating a duo of villains. She shrugged. "Then what can we do? Although Trixie is Very Special, you two are not quite as sp-special, and of coarse-course we are not ha-harmonious--not elements of harmony!" Trixie insisted. "I don't know!" I shouted, staring at the ground surrounding me, which had once held green grass, but now, all grass that I brushed up against was wilted--from the famine powers I had absorbed. "Is everything I touch going to wither and die of blight? Am I never going to be able to hold a pony, or a plant--is this my plight?" I stomped my hooves, indenting deep into the ground. "Maybe," Maud suggested--heartlessly. "I wanted a plant, Maud, a healthy green one. I'd name her Phyllis. ..." "Real crazed drunk-talk from me." Starlight shook her head. "I was sobering up for a bit there, but--bam. Lose some weight and get freaked out and--" She started hyperventilating. Twilight reached out for her and she recoiled and waived her mentor off. Then, she took a deep sigh and continued. "This is stupid." I sighed, pushing vast amounts of air through my nostrils. "I feel famished, so much." The bottom of my jaw hung open; some water drooled. "Ew ..." Trixie held her nose. "Disgusting. Starlight, pull yourself together." "You're so full of yourself!" I shouted. "Stop!" Maud interjected, her voice calm, but raised. I shoved her aside. "Not now!" "Yes." She pushed back, her tone once-again even. "We cannot fight. Not now." "This is a perfect time to fight!" I kicked at the dirt. "We're going to die if we can't get Twilight or Celestia, so we may as well have it out--you emotional rock!" Maud blinked at me and cocked her head. She may not have realized the content was an insult, but she could read the agitation in my tone. Trixie laughed. Up until that moment, I had thought we were going to need to track you down, Twilight. But then I saw the glow, and another solution arose. I spoke to Trixie. "Look at your flank." Trixie's flank was glowing. More precisely, her cutie-mark was, but I assume her inebriated-influenced view of the world led her to perceive it as being on fire. "Aaaahh!" She shrieked and jerked and bucked. "The map of Harmony is calling you," Maud calmly noted. "And Starlight. And me." She gestured to her own pulsating cutie mark. "So, if my theory is right, we'll have the tree's assistance in solving a friendship problem." "What friendship problem?" Trixie asked, having realized there was no point to flailing around. "That's ... a good question, " I noted. "This is more of a threat-to-all-of-Equestria problem," Maud noted. "But maybe the map can call ponies together for that too?" "We don't have time to track down ponies that might be having friendship issues!" Trixie adamantly beat her hooves against the ground. "I don't know," I cogitated. "Perhaps the problem may be ... with us?" We heard distant hooves, pounding across the sky, making hoof-falls even with lack of clouds or ground to against them pound. "We could list some things that might be putting up barriers between us?" I suggested. "Trixie's braggadocio can be annoying. Sometimes." Maud started, almost immediately. "Trixie never suspected you could be so c-cruel!" Trixie puffed her cheeks. "I second Maud's comment. I don't like when you demean me," I spoke up. "What- wh- wha-" Trixie trembled. Maud approached her and patted one of her shoulders. "It's fine. Criticize me." "I-um-uh-I-" Trixie sputtered. "You're so Cool and Confident ... I'm jealous." Maud pat Trixie on her shoulder. "It can be difficult to discern my emotions, but I feel scared too: sometimes." "Really?" Trixie's eyes were filled with rheumy liquid. "In the pit, with only Boulder by my side, I missed you two. Boulder's good. But he can't wrap appendages around me to give me encouragement." Weeping loud, Trixie flung her forelegs around Maud. I joined in the embrace and whispered in Trixie's ear. "Sorry, but we have to be thorough about this; can you criticize me, now?" The hug ended and Trixie backed off. She looked me in the eye. "I--feel inadequate to my assistant--Starlight. She's so powerful, great, and I don't want to drive her away and I need to be more thankful. I don't wanna hafta see her driven away; say so long to her. I should say thanks more often. Thanks for all the ... fish cookies you brought tonight." Trixie paused. "No, that's not enough," she realized without prompting. "I mean, thank you for all the m-m-magic," Trixie wept. "Didn't you once say to Starlight that you could both be great and powerful?" Maud noted. "But she's great and powerful all the time." "But your sacrifice was necessary in the Changeling hive." I pointed out Trixie's recent effort at heroism. "We couldn't have saved Equestria without it." "But it wasn't magic. I--" Trixie sniffed, and she was coughing a lot. A cloud of miasma ballooned near her face. "I find you amusing, interesting, and vibrant," I said. "I concur," Maud nodded. "Please, let's not try to one-up each other." "Okay ..." Trixie sighed. "Trixie knows that Trixie was scared... and drunk." She turned to Maud. "But it was Trixie's choice to drink." Maud inclined her head. "You didn't critique me for this, Maud, but I sense it bothers you," I added. "I don't like to admit when I'm wrong." Maud nodded. "I'm just so afraid I could be as wrong as I was when I enslaved that town; but that's stupid. I need to stop doing wrong things before it gets that bad; I need feedback. I shouldn't have fought you when you were right. I am the pony who cast this spell." "I also should apologize. I can hammer on things a bit too much," Maud admitted. "I forget to add kinder, tempering words. Not everycreature has the stolid soul of a rock." I wept with joy, joining Trixie's sniffling. We looked at each other: two of us crying and Maud with her eyes focused low toward the ground. Here we were, three more-or-less drunk mares--though I think Maud and I had mostly sobered up by then--talking about stupid stuff like we were chatting in a restaurant when here we were, confronting the maybe-end of Equestria, at the end of the universe, at the end of time. And then we hugged. The light of our cutie marks grew brighter and brighter. And the thundering horses drew nearer. I didn't see the horses that were pounding them; I just hugged tighter and tighter until I heard Trixie squeaking. Then I released my hold and looked up to see what the power of friendship, forthrightness, and forgiveness could accomplish. The horses were enveloped by the glowing light from us (courtesy of the Tree of Harmony), which blasted them out of the sky. And all of us felt stronger, both in our friendship and certainly in our magical power. "So that's what happened," Starlight Glimmer concluded. "I suspect we entirely subsumed the four horses' powers after they were defeated. I'm still working on mastering my portion of the magic." Twilight could see Starlight's bones through the wide folds of her coat. "Um," Twilight started. "Thank you, Starlight." "Could you walk me back to Trixie and Maud?" Starlight asked. "Sure." Twilight lent her a shoulder and Starlight stumbled down the hospital hallway. "I'm getting better," Starlight said. "Really?" "Yeah," Starlight elaborated. "You're not famished now, right?" "What?" "At first, whicheverpony I touched got thin and famished--" "But Trixie and Maud aren't--" "That's because they have their own special powers. Trixie's taken over pestilence, Maud has war and death," Starlight explained. "But I've got famine under control. You're still healthy!" "...who did you touch?" Twilight asked, with a frown, either concerned for the touched person or at having been a test-case for Starlight. "A doctor," Starlight sighed. "He'll be fine though. I followed up with a sustenance spell once I realized what was going on." "Oh, Starlight," Twilight started to launch into a lecture. "Here we are." Starlight cut her off by pointing at the restricted-marked room holding her friends within. "With luck, I'll be able to get and hold down some weak tea; maybe I'll work my way up to biscuits. We'll get through this Twilight." And she stumbled into the room. Twilight looked down at her own barrel; she didn't look famished, or feel nauseous. Whatever horrible magical side-effects Starlight might have been emanating hadn't affected Twilight. But ... what about her friends? Maud and Trixie had touched them! What if they were fighting, sick, or dead. ... Panicked, Twilight galloped to the office where she had left her apocalyptically-touched friends. > Let's Have a Do-Over > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight arrived at the room and there were sounds--a good sign. ... supposedly. Her friends were shouting and there was crashing and smashing, but at least that indicated they were still alive. She thrust the door open, which revealed Rarity smashing Fluttershy's head against a wall while Applejack lay listlessly coughing in a corner. Pinkie Pie, her face covered in pustules, croaked, "No," and hid her face. "Oh," Rarity, face pock-marked and distressed with disease, noticed Twilight standing, dumbfounded at the threshold. She picked up Fluttershy's limp puppet-like head and waved her body in the air. "Welcome back, Twilight." Her words were a bit mealy-mouthed. "I just finished solving a teensey-weensey problem. Pardon though. Would you be a dear and help me clean up? This mess is far from fabulous." Blood oozed on the wall, on the floor, on Rarity. Rarity sponged it up with Fluttershy's coat. Twilight shut the door. She hadn't seen Rainbow Dash but there were colorful feathers everywhere. She shuddered. And Applejack and Pinkie Pie, covered in pestilential detritus, were lying sick on the floor, inert, unable to stop Rarity and Fluttershy. Both of those ponies had, before Twilight had left them, been roughly handled by Maud. She must have, unwittingly, passed to them the curse of war. Rarity and Fluttershy had fought; Rarity had won. Twilight stared at the door for a good long while. Then it opened and Pinkie Pie crawled out dragging squeezed between her powerful hind legs an unconscious partially de-plumed Rainbow Dash. "Twilight," she mouthed. "It's terrible." "I know," Twilight agreed. "Applejack can't move ... but I ate a lot of sugar. I was able to grab Dash. She's blinded. She freaked out. Tried to fly east. Away from here. Collided with one wall, then another, and another and another, like a big blue ping pong ball. What can we do?" "Is Applejack in danger?" Twilight asked. Pinkie shook her head. "Rar-rar's was only angry at Flutters. But I could drag her outside," she winced. "I should get her." She crept back toward the door. "I'll do it." Twilight stepped in front of Pinkie, and she, shielding her eyes from the gore, creaked the door again and dragged Applejack out into the hall. Applejack blinked at her. "Twilight ...". "We need to get out of this ... charnel-house; then I can think," Twilight said. "Fluttershy ..." Applejack mouthed. And the answer came to Twilight. "We can save Fluttershy." "Unless you've got a zombification spell--" Pinkie's voice was deadpan. "No." "Then she's gone." "No. We can go back in time." "Why did Rarity ..." Pinkie's eyes watered and she draped herself over Twilight's shoulder. "She and Flutters couldn't control themselves after Maud touched them. What happened to my sister?" Twilight explained what Starlight had told her--in a very abbreviated fashion--about how Maud had gained the powers of two horsemares of the apocalypse--War and Death. "Okie dokie. But then why were they only fighting?" Pinkie asked. "They didn't both die." "Urm." Twilight took a quick intake of breath. "One of them is ... not alive, Twilight turned to leave. Pinkie didn't follow. "Twilight," Pinkie said. "I'm too weak to carry Dash any further." Twilight twitched and took a quick intake of breath, loud through her nostrils. Then she closed her eyes and re-centered herself. "Think of ladybugs ... ladybugs." She recited a comforting childhood memory, to blot out the disgusting image she had seen. Once re-centered, she suggested: "I'll look for a loose gurney." "Mmmm," Pinkie hugged Rainbow Dash tight. Twilight trotted off until she located a rickety gurney in a nearby closet and hustled it out of there. Then she loaded Dash and Pinkie. Applejack watched. "I cain't fit. I'll wait." She waved them on. "'ts all right. Rarity won't ... she won't bother me." Twilight wasn't too sure about that, but the gurney could only fit two ponies, and that wasn't even a good fit. With a heavy heart, Twilight headed off with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie crammed onto the gurney, which started jerking unsteadily to one side with every push. "You sure we can't squeeze Applejack in?" Pinkie asked. The gurney shuddered, twisted and nearly jackknifed. But Twilight wrangled it under control, overcoming powerful natural forces with her thankfully more powerful magic. "I don't know," Twilight sighed. "This isn't moving very well--". A front wheel popped off. Twilight jammed it back on, once again using her magic, then hammered it in once with a hoof. "We'll have to come back." After a great struggle, she pushed the gimped gurney and two of her friends out of the hospital--the gurney was only just better for transportation than levitating both ponies. Over a short distance, levitation would be better, but Twilight needed to remove them far, far away from Ponyville's apocalyptic devastation. She wasn't too sure that everything had been wrapped up quite as simply as Starlight suggested. What if Maud had touched some other pony--maybe one of the doctors was infected with "war". No, that couldn't be. ... But maybe-- Outside, they nearly collided with a big red stallion. "Big Mac!" Twilight recognized Applejack's brother. "Yup," he solemnly nodded. Then he tossed his head to indicate the town: "what happened?" "How's the Apple farm?" Pinkie asked, covering her cough with a shoulder. "Fine," Big Mac said. "But have you seen Apple Blossom? She wasn't in the fields." "She wasn't at the station," Twilight said. "She must have gone looking for her friends," Big Mac's forehead knit in worry. "Nothin' better of happened to her. Is she with Applejack?" He noticed Rainbow Dash and Pinkie's injuries. His voice fell deep and very flat. "Where's Applejack?" "The Four Horses of the Apocalypse destroyed the town," Twilight started to explain. Big Mac impatiently pawed the ground with one strong hoof. "Your sister, Applejack only, is inside--" Twilight quickly added. "She's sick. It's horrible." "She'll be fine," Pinkie added. "Rarity wasn't interested in her." "Don't let her cough on you--" Twilight added. Big Mac reared up. "My sister?" "Trixie coughed on her and then Pinkie's sister, Maud, touched Flutt--" Big Mac thrust a powerful and angry hoof against the ground. But Pinkie Pie interrupted. "--and that's when the pirate-ninjas attacked." "That didn't happen." Twilight Sparkle added, quickly, but Pinkie's work had been done; Twilight omitted explaining a portion of the chain of consequences that started with Pinkie's sister and ended with Fluttershy's demise. Instead, she explained where to find Applejack and asked that Big Mac ignore whatever horrors he might see and to, above all else, not open the door of any room that Applejack might be in front of. "Rarity's far from in her right mind. We'll make this right. You don't have to worry." Far from calmed, Big Mac raced inside. "Although this pains me," Twilight said to Pinkie, eyeing the unconscious Rainbow Dash. "A solution here is beyond anything I can conceptualize except that frightening time travel spell ... and Discord. I better talk to him about straightening this out. ..." "But something's bothering me," Twilight pondered. "Did Maud receive the power of two horsemares? Or, did some other pony get the last horsemare's power? Maud touched Rarity, but she didn't die--she only got really combative. Who has the power of death? Is death still out there wreaking havoc?" Twilight, stomach churning with worry at the horrors that had already happened, the rumors that were spreading to panic ponies in towns and cities across Equestria, and contemplating what further devastation could occur, knew that she had to go back in time and fix this. (Unbeknownst to Twilight, Boulder, the final rock remaining in Maud's grasp when that stolid grey pony confronted silent and pale Death, had boldly struck, sacrificing himself in an audacious thrust that thankfully did not end in his demise, but in Death's. And while Twilight was desperately divining Death's final destination, Boulder, resting in Maud's pocket, dreamed. In Boulder's dream, he traveled to an olden ponies living center, specifically alighting on a bed stand where a pony within did not breathe. Boulder observed. A ghostly form resembling the pony drifted up and away from its body. Boulder implored. The pony, with a start, noticed Boulder, then acknowledged the rock's presence with a long sigh. "Funny. I'm dead, right?" Boulder loomed. "Death ..." The pony considered. "I thought you'd be taller.") And Twilight, with Discord's clear support after he had finished savagely slaughtering Rarity in this cursed timeline, did successfully travel back in time. ... Which is why no pony ever speaks of this terrible apocalypse that sort-of-kind-of didn't happen. No one remembers, except Twilight. Discord would have remembered but he demanded Twilight seal far, far away the horrific memory of his friend's demise. Although Twilight destroyed the spellbook's summoning-recipe, the horses (or horsemares) are still out there, patiently resting within their constellations, waiting to pounce: to bring pestilence, war, famine, and death. In her report to Celestia, detailing words that must not be spread except in dire emergency, Twilight noted hard-earned lessons that Starlight and Trixie and Maud had discovered, lessons of friendship that those three, sadly, would need to rediscover without such a forced union now that the timeline had been restored. Alas (for them), the three great forgotten "heroes'" lessons might be less likely to recur since Twilight, in a fit of disgust at her failure to protect her former student during the latter's graduation party, traveled far enough back in time to not only remove the terrible book of spells but also to ensure that Starlight didn't have quite such a social-anxiety-inducing graduation party. Twilight's last words in her report, informed by the three "heroes'" lessons, were: "allponies must be vigilant and in unison meet threats that can be beyond the control of any onepony. Each one of us, from the worthy to the unworthy; from the talkative to the circumspect, must be forgiving of foibles, understanding of each other, tolerant, and kind--united in friendship as much as allponies can be."