Favorite Pupil - Brightest Star
All the air left Celestia’s lungs as she slammed into the iron bars again. She collapsed to the floor and panted for breath, closing her eyes and ignoring the long forgotten sensations of exhaustion and pain. She truly couldn’t remember the last time she’d pushed her body so hard, but she had no choice. Thin, stale air wheezed through her throat and into her chest as the first trickle of blood in centuries dripped out of a split on her cheek. Thick stone walls blocked sight and sound and smell, and Gulvain’s trickery prevented the use of her magic, yet somehow she sensed the events unfolding in the castle’s keep high above her. Equestria’s six bravest souls stood against him, but he held the upper hand.
He had taken too much from her already, and she refused to allow him to take anything more. Her eyelids slid open, revealing a glare harder than steel and a burning purpose more intense than the sun. With wavering limbs, she righted herself and prepared to charge forward. Why should such a thin layer of metal be enough to stop her?
“We won’t give up!” Twilight shouted, standing tall and proud with her friends. “Try as you might, you can never crush our friendship, and that’s the most powerful magic of all! Girls, now!”
Six pure vessels, channeling universal essences of harmonious virtue lifted from the ground and sparkled with a blinding light as ancient arcane energies beyond mortal reckoning bubbled up from the depths of the world and into the Elements only to fizzle and fade.
Gulvain’s deep, howling laughter echoed around the room. “It’s over! It’s over and you’ve lost—why can’t you accept that?” he snarled, black cape billowing behind him. Rows of torches at the far end of the room cast an immense shadow from him, engulfing the bearers of the Elements in darkness. “The moon is banished, the sun imprisoned, love buried in despair... what does Equestria have left?”
“Why? Why didn’t the Elements of Harmony activate?” Twilight asked, staring with a blank face into Gulvain’s wicked grin.
“Oh but they did! I just didn’t care! Funny how a stallion with a grudge can stand and chortle in the face of Equestria’s supposed greatest weapon,” he said, calmly stepping up to Twilight and lifting her chin with a hoof. He brought her face next to his and smiled. Then he twisted the smile into a furious frown and screamed, “Determination!” Flecks of spit flew from his lips, spattering on Twilight’s cheeks before he turned around and trotted away, letting her head slump and point to the floor.
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “Determination, huh?” She turned to Twilight. “Come on, let’s blast him again!”
She stared at her hooves.
“A for effort, but that’s not what I meant,” Gulvain answered. “I meant that there is no such thing as an unstoppable force. No such thing as an immovable object. There does not exist something with no potential equal, and that includes the Princesses! You rely so heavily on the Elements that when they’re ineffective you have nothing else, and that is why,” he said, pointing a hoof down at Twilight, “you have lost. It was easy, too! All I’ve done is saturate the air with magic—to the point that space here cannot hold much, if any, more energy.”
Rarity furrowed her brow and shook her head. “That’s impossible! No unicorn has that much power, right Twilight?”
Twilight sat frozen on the floor.
Gulvain chuckled once more. “Did I not already tell you? Determination, my little pony. I never say that I did it all at once. All it took was a lifetime of blood, sweat, and tears. All the hatred I could muster, focused through the lens of an unfaltering will and a life sacrificed for this day.”
“You’re a monster!” Applejack yelled.
“Don’t the heroes usually defeat those?” he spat.
Twilight slowly rose to her hooves, eyes closed. “Okay girls. Let’s give him another shot,” she said flatly.
“Twilight? I know you’re the smart one, but won’t that not work?” Pinkie asked.
“I have a plan,” she uttered, opening her eyes and revealing a dull and unfocused stare.
Each of the other five bearers shared a brief look of concern and confusion before assuming their positions.
“I admire sentiment,” Gulvain said, “really I do—”
“Can it,” Twilight blurted, rising into the air as the Elements charged for another attack. The moment of decision neared, and her facade cracked. She could no longer prevent her lower lip from quivering or hold back the tears springing up in her eyes. “Girls... I’m so, so sorry.”
The magical pressure in the air had not changed. Twilight had instead directed the Elements to funnel all of their power into her own body and teleported herself at the last moment into Gulvain’s face. Just before the force erupted out of her, she wrapped her limbs around him and squeezed him into a hug. Then, with a blinding flash of light, Twilight Sparkle exploded.
“Twilight... open your eyes, Twilight.”
Celestia’s prized pupil did as commanded, and her vision filled with the sight of her mentor standing in a featureless void. She jerked her head about, finding her own body intact and not a scrap of matter other than the two equines. “What... happened?”
“You’ve made me more proud than I can possibly express,” Celestia said bowing as low as she could.
Twilight saw the bruises marring her teacher’s otherwise flawless coat. “D-did you escape?”
She turned and regarded her own body, then nodded. “I did indeed, and just in time, too. It was unfortunate that I had to resort to more... brute methods when my magic was unavailable, but I am fine.”
“I don’t understand, though... I... where are we?”
Celestia frowned. “Twilight Sparkle, do you know how alicorns come to be?”
“No,” she replied, taking a step back and creasing her brow, “but I don’t see how that’s relevant...”
“There is more than one method, but the most pertinent one has quite a drastic effect. It’s quite extreme, but desperate times have called for desperate measures in the distant past.”
“Princess—”
“Please, there is no need for formality here.”
Twilight stamped a hoof against the non-surface beneath her. “Where is ‘here?’”
“This place is outside of both space and time, an empty pocket all on its own. It is also not important to know this.”
“Well fine, then, how did we get here? I was just about to—”
Celestia’s face became grave. “Die. You are moments away from death, Twilight.”
“I had to! There was no other way to stop Gulvain!”
“I know,” she replied, taking on a somber tone. “And I am incredibly proud of you for it. Without a doubt, your actions saved Equestria from being plunged into an age of darkness, and though there is still much to be done to ensure tomorrow, such noble sacrifice is worth commending.”
Twilight blinked back a few fresh tears. “...What about the others? Are my friends okay?”
A smile crept back onto Celestia’s muzzle. “Your friends are all fine, and with every word you convince me further that I was right to choose you. It fills me with joy to see your concern for your loved ones even at death’s door.” She laid a wing across Twilight’s back. “But you needn’t worry about their safety — or yours.”
“Huh?”
“Soon, you will be reunited with Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity, and when you return home, Spike will be overjoyed to learn that you’re well.”
Suppressing a sniffle and shaking her head, Twilight wiped her eyes. “I don’t understand at all. Did you take me here so I could escape the blast? Is that it?”
“No, Twilight. You have already been mortally wounded, and were it not for my decision, your fate would be sealed. It is not a decision I make lightly.”
“Then I’m still very confused! What decision?”
Celestia inhaled deeply and broke eye contact, staring across an infinite expanse of nothing. “I’m afraid I must admit that it is a decision I make selfishly. The only way to save you is to grant you the wings you deserve.”
Twilight’s eyes grew huge.
“We are here, so that you might become an alicorn.”
“Princess... I mean, Celestia, I don’t know what to say! I’m... I’m honored! So, so honored and touched!”
“You’re very important to your friends, you know,” Celestia said, returning her gaze to her student. “But it’s so much more than that. You’ve proven to everypony that you’re important to all of Equestria. Even still, that does not justify what I am about to do. Ponydom would live on even if you died today, and so it’s not so dire an emergency that I’m forced to act. And so the decision becomes a personal one... a selfish one.”
Twilight looked down, eyes wavering. “It’s alright, Celestia. If it’s against the rules for you to do this... I accepted the consequences when I thought up the plan. I was prepared, and I don’t want you to bend the laws for my sake.”
Celestia tilted her head back and laughed, even as tears streamed down her face. “You are convincing me of exactly the opposite, Twilight. You’re also misunderstanding: I’m not doing this for your sake.” She leveled her gaze back at Twilight, her eyes shimmering with bittersweet moisture. “I have lived a long, long life, Twilight, and in all my years I have never seen a soul with so much potential. The potential to live and to love and to learn so much more. You have within you the ability to become exactly what ponies are meant to be.”
“And what happens if you do break the rules?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Celestia said with a chuckle. “Alicorns answer to no authority, and are bound only by their own morals. It is not the breaking of a superficial rule that makes the gesture the most profoundly selfish thing I have ever done.”
“Celestia, please, why are you being so vague? What aren’t you telling me?”
She exhaled, and her horn began to glow. “When Luna is finally recovered from whichever awful corner of the cosmos Gulvain sent her to, tell her—” She gulped, and one last tear splashed down into the abyss. “Tell her that I’m sorry.”