My Final Confession: Relapse

"What in the name of Celestia is going on here? Smoke throughout the castle, all the guards unrousably asleep!” Princess Twilight Sparkle fills the doorway with a concerned but curious expression, but it crashes as she fixes her alicorn eyes on Pinkamena and Cozy Glow. The crown on her head seems to pulsate with magic and it thrums with her long, elegant horn.

“Pinkie Pie.” Twilight narrows her eyes and sighs with frustration. “After all the inquisitors and guards I’ve sent throughout Equestria and other realms, you come to me. I suppose the reports from Ponyville are true after all. I thought Rarity had gone senile but to find you here is rather unexpected.”

“Don’t forget about me!” Cozy grumbles and glares daggers to the Princess.

“I wondered where you had gone, Cozy. I didn’t think it would be with the serial killer here.” The Princess is large and ominously standing above them. She regards them with curiosity more than malice. “So, what was the plan then? Two ponies come in here, put everyone to sleep with some cocamamy scheme and then … kill me, I would hazard to guess?”

Cozy stirs first, “It would be a lot easier if you just gave us your crown and allowed the transition of power over to me.”

“I’m sure it would but I’m not so inclined to let the ponies of Equestria be subjugated by a murderer and a narcissistic child.” The Princess shows no fear of the two and watches them closely. Pinkamena is still while Cozy appears ready for a fight despite her diminutive size.

“Let us go, Twilight. Please,” Pinkamena speaks, her words are passive and beleaguered with exhaustion.

“What? You came here, Pinkie. I can’t just let you go after what you’ve done.” Twilight scoffs at the audacity Pinkamena has presented.

“It’s your fault. Please. We haven’t hurt anyone except those who came to bring us harm. We just want to be left alone to live peacefully.” Pinkamena looks on the verge of tears.

“What are you saying, Miss Pinkamena? She’s right here! The guards are all asleep! We can take her here and now and rule by morning!” Cozy snaps angrily.

“There it is. You want to kill me and take the throne for yourselves? Whatever scheme you are at, I won’t tolerate it, Pinkie. You, a vile killer of ponies, who uses your guile and trickery to lure your victims.” Twilight stomps a hoof to the tile, a small crack weaves through the ceramic.Her muscles ripple expectantly.

Pinkamena turns her head to the floor. “Twilight, for once, please listen to me. Didn’t I come to you so long ago about what would come to pass if you didn’t help me? Please, just let us live our lives.” Her eyes downcast, Pinkamena pleads with her majesty. The lack of violence from the elder pink mare is surprising.

“I can’t let you live, Pinkie. I … I want to but how can I? You’ve terrorized the ponies of Equestria! You’ve killed dozens of our people, our friends.” The lavender alicorn sighs, duty and compassion struggling for control.

“Then why did you send the inquisitors to bring me back alive?” Pinkamena asks. Twilight appears taken back by the comment and casts her eyes doubtfully to the wall.

“I … I know you asked me for help before and … I didn’t listen. I’ve always felt guilty for that. As if the things you have done were a result of turning a deaf ear to my friend. That, maybe if I had listened, things would have been better.” Guilt and melancholy take root in the princess’ lavender eyes. She watches the pink mare closely and shakes her head as if trying to clear the thought. It obviously disturbs her to some extent. “But, how was I to know when you were serious? You were always so weird and hard to understand. Still, I should have given you the benefit of the doubt and that’s a guilt I have had on my conscience for a very long time.”

“Will you let us start a new life, Twilight? Give us a chance to be happy?” Pinkamena asks, Cozy rolls her eyes.

“I developed a new spell in case we ever met again. And you are right. I sent the inquisitors to find you and bring you back alive because I wanted to give you a chance to redeem yourself. I can’t let you stay in this world but maybe in a new one you would be able to change.” The alicorn’s horn burns with magic and she quickly bolts her horn forward. The horn shimmers with energy and a purple beam of light sears a spot of open space. The magic rolls and swallows a chunk of nothing the size of a pony as it rips time and space into a swirling, translucent vortex.

“This is all I can do, Pinkie. I’ve studied the boundaries between worlds and time extensively for this moment. It’s a portal through time. Enter it and you should find yourself in your body from years ago. From before you started killing our friends.”

“What about Cozy?”

Twilight scoffs once more and she casts a look of hatred to the pegasus. “No. Not her. This is your second chance, Pinkie. She’s already had hers. The best place for her is in the garden with all the other statues.”

Pinkamena looks blankly at the vortex and shakes her head. Cozy’s mouth is hanging open as she looks between Pinkamena and the portal as understanding dawns across her features.

“How many times are we going to do this, Twilight?” Pinkamena asks dryly. Sorrow fills her eyes and she sighs gently. “It’s never going to be different, is it? No matter what I do, it will always be the same.”

Confusion breaks the alicorn’s smile to pieces and she stares questioningly to the earth pony. “What?”

“I’ve lost track of the times, Twilight. Why does it always come to this? My inability to change Cozy’s nature. Your inability to allow her to come with me. Are we doomed to this cycle forever?” Pinkamena’s head tilts to the side and suddenly cranks to the opposite side with a loud crack. The mournful frown begins to twist into a crooked, worm-eaten grin.

“Are you saying that you have entered the time portal …”

“Many times already. Yes. It NEVER works, Twilight. I’ve tried finding Cozy but I have never found her before she attempted to take over and you petrified her. I’ve tried reasoning with you. I’ve tried remaining with the elements of harmony and pleading to Celestia for leniency for her. In the end, it always ends up the same. I always have to kill the ones I love to set into motion the events that lead to this moment. I’ve been here numerous times now. More than I care to remember.” Pinkamena’s body shudders and she breathes rapidly. “I’ve tried … I’ve tried ...when will this hell end?”

“Miss Pinkamena …” Cozy stammers and watches powerlessly. “That’s how you knew what was going to happen?”

Pinkamena nods and turns to Cozy. “Time for honesty, Cozy. I’ve almost given up on changing you. You’re lust for control and power has never been quieted through every attempt I’ve made to ease it. I love you, my Cozy. I’d do anything to save you from your fate. I’ve tried so many times. It’s making me crazy, honey. The things I do in each of these lives leaves their scars, just like I tried to explain to you.”

“So what you said about being injured? About what caused you to turn mean and into a serial killer, was it true?” The pegasus questions her with a quivering, small voice.

“The first time, yes. Once I was truly insane and did horrible thing. But … each subsequent life I’ve lived I slaughtered my friends to get back to you. The blood on my hooves was my choice because … because I love you so much and can’t stand the thought of you being unhappy. I hate killing my friends but there’s no other way to get back here with you. I’ve tried and tried. Some things would change but this was always the end: I kill innocent ponies to have another chance at saving you. There’s enough blood on my hooves to fill an ocean … and the one who lies asleep in that sea of blood. I’ve come to realize I have evil inside of me and I fight to keep it in … but the monster wasn’t really caused by the head trauma. I was her all along. We all have evil within us, and when we are pushed too far, it comes out.”

Twilight is horrified. She falls back a few steps in disbelief. “You, you chose to kill all those ponies when there was nothing wrong with you? You did it to … to help her?”

“I told you before, Twilight; I had something I had to do. Someone I had to save and there was only one way to get back to the moment I always fail.” Pinkamena’s teeth completely unzip and she cackles like a witch.

“Her? You killed our friends for that worthless villain?” Twilight growls, her horn flaring to life with waves of heat pulsing around the magical instrument. Twilight’s anger fuels the magic of her horn and she breath is bated, struggling to contain the rage inside.

“Cozy. This is your choice. I’ll hold her off as you run through the portal. Or we can fight her here and now.” Pinkamena steps towards Twilight, glowering up at the alicorn.

Cozy looks from the flickering, after-image portal and back to Pinkamena and Twilight. Her decision was made long ago. “This is the end, Twilight. Give me your crown or else.”

“Just when I thought you couldn’t disappoint me anymore, Pinkie Pie. I guess violence really is the only way to deal with the two of you. So be it. In a way, I’m happy. It wasn’t me who failed to be a friend. You failed to heed my good nature. You are a crime against ponykind. I can’t wait to open you like you’ve done to so many others!” Her majesty is lost to passion, her words steeped in hatred. It is a side of the princess we have never seen and it is frightening.

Twilight’s horn explodes a hot, sizzling beam of pure energy towards Cozy who slips it at the last second, the heat still hot enough to cause the fur of her shoulder to burst into wisps of smoke.

Pinkamena leaps at the alicorn’s lowered throat, her triangular teeth slashing for the jugular vein. Twilight snaps a foreleg up and connects with Pinkamena’s chin, forcing the earth pony’s jaws together with a loud snap. Twilight hops back a step and swipes with her horn, catching Pinkamena’s ribs and drawing a shallow cut across them.

“Is this what you want, Pinkie? Pain and suffering? I’ll give you plenty.” Twilight chides, her body taking a combat pose and awaiting the response from Pinkamena. On the other side of the room, Cozy Glow tugs one of the larger kitchen knives free from its magnetic shelf.

“Pain? You think this hurts?” Pinkamena’s ribs darken with crimson blood. Though the damage is superficial, it bleeds badly and begins to spill onto the floor. “You have no idea what pain is! What I’ve lived through!”

“Pinkamena!” Cozy can barely heft the large cleaver and uses her wings to spin, the centrifugal force adding enough leverage to send the blade whirling across the tiles of the floor and into the waiting teeth of Pinkamena.

“I was trying to give you another shot, Pinkie. You chose poorly. Now, I’m going to rid Equestria of two villains tonight.” Twilight feints a lunge with her horn, drawing Pinkamena to counter with a swipe of the shining blade. The cleaver pauses part of the way through the swipe and Twilight grins knowingly to herself.

“Stab me, Twilight! I’ll take your horn away in one hard hack. It’s a dense bone, but a bone none-the-less. This knife specializes in cutting through them.” Pinkamena snarls through the blade in her mouth.

Another feint comes from the alicorn and when Pinkamena reacts, Twilight laughs and brings her left hoof to curl forward and land on the earth pony’s right shoulder. The mass and strength behind the blow knocks Pinkamena a few inches to the side and the hoof retracts before the cleaver can come down upon it, striking only the tile. “Predictable, Pinkie. Is that what you’ve become?”

Pinkamena recognizes the difference in speed with the big knife and charges forward, a slight stagger in her shoulder from the previous strike. She twists and brings the butcher knife over and down in a chopping action. The attack is slow but Twilight’s larger body is slower and the blade opens a nasty gash in the princess’ lead leg. Carmine liquid streams from the wound as she cries out. Pinkamena attempts a follow-up strike but the blade is heavy enough that Twilight retreats out of distance before it even gets started. “Didn’t see that coming, did you?”

Cozy Glow is a sudden blur across the room, her wings beating with furious intensity. The pegasus is a bullet aimed for the crown on Twilight’s head. “It’s MINE!” the filly yells, but is batted aside by Twilight’s horn and sent careening into a nearby wall.

The cleaver swipes in a wide arc, aiming just above the hooves of the princess while she is preoccupied high with Cozy. It misses the mark but connects with the hard keratin hoof and bites deeply with a sickening crack. The weight of the blade would have removed Twilight’s hoof at the ankle had it landed cleanly, instead it’s only a painful splintering of keratin that oozes blood. “Damn!” Pinkamena grumbles and yanks the blade to free it of the bony hoof.

Twilight stomps with her good foreleg and narrowly misses the earth pony as she rolls back, the tile shattering from the pressure of her majesty’s hoof. “Do you like hurting me, Pinkie?” Twilight winces and tests her weight on the damaged hoof. A few drops of blood run from the cut but it holds steady.

“Not particularly. I didn’t want this! I just want my Cozy to be happy!” Pinkamena snarls, waiting and watching the alicorn.

Twilight narrows her eyes and regards the dazed pegasus. Her lips curl into a wry grin as she alters her target.

“If she’s the cause of this, maybe I’ll eliminate her first.” The alicorn’s horn heats up again with magic and she points it to the dazed pegasus sitting at the base of the wall and struggling to get her bearings, head circling lightly with unsteady eyes.

“NO!” Pinkamena darts forward and her majesty grins at the success of her ploy, rearing up on her back legs to avoid the slicing cleaver and bringing both her forelegs down onto the back of Pinkamena. Ribs crack loudly like splintering wood. Pinkamena screams and the cleaver flies from her mouth to rest against the distant wall. Her breathing is bubbly and labored, indicating at least one lung has collapsed from fragments of broken rib ripping through it. Twilight’s smile is horrid as she twists her good hoof into the mare’s damaged side, a glinting of wet bone stabbing through Pinkamena’s skin.

“Oh, Pinkie. Is this what you’ve been doing to others? It is kind of intoxicating in a disgusting kind of way, isn’t it? I can feel your shattered bones under my hoof tearing at your meat. It makes me feel a little … well, you understand I can’t actually say how it makes me feel but I will remember this sensation for years to come.” Twilight chuckles to herself as Pinkamena howls in agony. She savors the vibrations of Pinkamena’s painful cries and the continued crackling of ruined bone.

Cozy strikes, her eyes full of tears, against her majesty’s head and neck. The attacks are weak but the pegasus’ speed is astonishing. “Leave her alone! Stop hurting her!” Dozens of strikes land in only a moment, all of her legs kicking furiously but dealing no actual damage. Still, it is enough to step the princess back and away from the squirming body of Pinkamena.

Twilight’s charged horn discharges and blackens a spot on the marble wall while she bats her head back and forth, attempting to free herself from Cozy Glow’s tirade. Finally, the princess recoils her head like a spring and brings it forward quickly, her skull connecting with Cozy’s small body sends the pegasus spinning to the floor a few feet away. Cozy hops back to her hooves quickly. Twilight’s face is marked with swatches of irritation from the hooves raking against it and she spits out a small glob of blood.

Pinkamena drags herself away, coughing and sputtering for breath that sounds like an asthmatic in deep water. Her muzzle and lips drip thick, dark blood from internal bleeding. She edges towards the cleaver one hoof at a time. Cozy prepares for another attack.

“What? What are you going to do, Cozy?” Twilight mocks the youth. “You can’t possibly hurt me and your protector is crushed like your friend Chrysalis. Of the two of them, I’m uncertain which was the bigger insect.”

“I don’t care about Chrysalis! She was untrustworthy and stupid! But you leave Pinkamena alone! She … she cares about me. She’s the only one who has ever cared about me.” Cozy shudders and wipes at her eyes.

“Poor Pinkamena. She’s dying you know. I felt one of her lungs pop like a balloon. And maybe a kidney as well.” A sick smirk opens her majesty’s lips. “She’ll drown in her own blood at this rate.”

“Shut up! She’s not going to die! I won’t let her.” Cozy looks back and forth between her friend and the princess. The portal in the middle of the room phases between worlds in a dim blue light.

“Oh?” Twilight saunters over to the struggling earth pony and stands above her, eyeing Cozy playfully. “Then you better stop me.” Twilight gouges with her horn, it dives into Pinkamena’s back and through her abdomen, narrowly missing her spinal column. A loud clacking sound of horn on tile echoes as the horn shreds Pinkamena’s belly open. Pinkamena squalls loudly and her body jerks. Blood the color of dark wine drips down the horn as it retracts.

Cozy cries as Twilight sends her horn into Pinkamena’s body a second, third, and fourth time. With each jab of the horn Pinkamena’s reaction is weaker. “Please! Please, stop! Don’t kill her!”

“Why?” Twilight pauses, Pinkamena’s blood now running down between her eyes and dotting her cheeks. The earth pony below is a mess and has grown still on the floor. Her legs twitch erratically and the ghosts of groans sound from her bleeding mouth. Her breathing sound like a bicycle pump submerged in a foot of water.

“I … I give up. Just, please, please help her. I’ll go back to the stone garden.” Cozy frowns, her shoulders drooping. The fight has left the pegasus completely and she stands broken before her majesty.

“I don’t think there’s a doctor in Equestria who could help her now, Cozy. But, if you want to avoid the same fate as her, I’ll gladly turn you back into a statue.” Pleased with herself, her majesty grins smugly. She blatantly enjoys Cozy’s sorrow and teases the child.

“Put her through the portal, Twilight. You said she’d go back to an earlier time, to a younger version of herself. That would save her, right?” Cozy watches the floor, head down defeatedly.

“I’m sure it would. She would wake up in her young body some time long ago.” Twilight takes a few steps towards the pegasus, blood, unknown to whom it belongs, trails with each step.

“Then help me get her inside. I … I’d rather be a statue than watch her die. I … I love her.” Cozy’s cheeks are streaming with tears as she watches Twilight approach. “It’s my turn to not be selfish. It’s my fault. She didn’t want to come here. I made her.”

“How noble, Cozy Glow. Maybe there is something more to you than I thought.” Twilight stops before the filly and leans down, one brow lifting. “I kind of like seeing you vulnerable. I think I want to look at it every day. I’ll turn you to stone but only after you watch Pinkie Pie expire. That way I can see the pain frozen on your cute little face for eternity.” Twilight cackles and jabs Cozy with her horn, sending the child back to bump against the brick oven. Hellish light spills out of the open door from the still burning fire.

“No! That’s not fair! Don’t let her die! PLEASE!” Cozy wails, Twilight pushing her horn into the filly’s chest as she pins Cozy against the oven. The light reflects in twilight’s eyes, orange and bright, like a creature from the depths of Tartarus.

Behind Twilight, Pinkamena begins to shake and twitch. Her broken body rolls to one hoof, pink patches barely showing between the dark stains. Shakily, the hoof holds and Pinkamena makes another. Struggling to all four hooves, her head splits with a wide, toothy grin. Her head snaps back and forth uncontrollably and she laughs loudly despite the damaged lung. It fills the room, harrowing and demented. “Hi, Twilight. How I’ve missed you.”

Her majesty pauses, turning to look at what was the crumpled, defeated form of Pinkamena now smiling voraciously and sickeningly. “Impossible. You should be dead.”

“Oh, Twily. You don’t know me very well. Pinkie Pie, despite her strange abilities, is just a pony. She’s as easily dispatched as any other, including yourself. But, me, I’m a different beast.” her voice becomes rough like jagged stone. “You won’t kill me so easily. And yet, I will kill you just as easily as all the others.” She is like an apparition from the past, the legend our nightmares are made of. Pinkamena stands defiantly and giggles incessantly like hooves on a chalkboard that tear at your very soul.

Pinkamena not only walks but skips to the cleaver. Retrieving it, she notices some of her intestines are hanging from a terrible tear in her abdomen. Whether it was from a broken rib or Twilight’s horn is unknown but the skin hangs in a flap, revealing much of her inner workings. Pinkamena only bursts out in a hideous fit of laughter about it. “My balloons are showing! Isn’t that wonderful? It’s a party after all! Now … let’s see what your balloons look like, Twilight.”

Twilight’s mouth hangs open, stupor on her features. Her breathing becomes quick and spontaneous. Her victory is less certain and the display before her is unnerving. Disbelief marks her majesty and she stutters, “There’s no way. You stay back, Pinkie!”

Pinkamena turns her head to the side and grins somehow wider. Her pupils dilate to pin-pricks and her eyes burn with blue madness. She takes a step from the far side of the room towards the princess. “Just a little stabby stab, Twilight. Just a little bitey bite. I bet alicorns are sweet like ice cream.”

“No!” Twilight’s horn begins to charge another spell.

“I can smell your blood dribbling, Twilight. It makes me so hungry that I don’t think I can contain myself!” Pinkamena steps closer, still many steps from the princess. Her bloated intestine spills from the hole in her gut, now trailing behind her a few feet like a great, gray snake.

Cozy Glow, seeing the monstrous rise of her friend is both elated and frightened. She breathes hard from behind Twilight, still pressed to the open brick oven.

Twilight feels Cozy against her back leg as she attempts to put more space between herself and the supernatural Pinkamena. Her horn flares brightly and she turns enough to aim her horn at the pegasus while keeping Pinkamena in her sight. “I’ll kill her right now, Pinkie! I’ll leave only a smoldering stump where her pretty little head used to be!”

Pinkie pauses, head rolling to the other side. She laughs again, ear-piercingly high. “Hit me with it, Twilight. Because if you hurt her, we’ll find out all the wonderful party games we can play with an alicorn.”

Twilight, eyes full of fear, turns and releases the charge of her horn directly at Pinkamena. It sears the space between them and the earth pony ducks just enough to escape the crackling beam. The blast leaves a crater in the distant wall.

“NOW, COZY! HIT HER BACK LEGS!” Pinkamena screams, bolting into a full run. Cozy ducks and hammers her shoulders as hard as she can into the crooks of Twilight’s rear legs.

Twilight tries to rear, putting all of her weight onto her back legs, enough that Cozy is able to destabilize the alicorn. Twilight falls back, her hips catch the open mouth of the brick oven just as Pinkamena slams into her midsection, forcing her large body back and into the mouth of the oven. Twilight howls with pain as the fire surges across her easily burnable coat and mane.

“Shut the door, Cozy! Hurry!” Pinkamena grabs the iron door to the oven and tugs at it, bringing it around slowly while Twilight kicks and screams from inside. Cozy flies up and presses with all of her might, tiny body straining as she and Pinkamena slam the door closed and bring it down into a locked position. Pinkamena presses against it with her back, bracing the door with what strength her body has left. Her gray entrails swing like organic chains to the floor from the heinous wound in her tummy. Cozy flies against the door as hard as she can.

A massive kick shakes the brick oven from inside.The fire is far brighter now that it has begun feasting upon her majesty’s large body and black puffs of smoke seep from the cracks forming in the mortar holding the oven together. Many of the bricks shake and the crumbling mortar holding them together spills to the floor. The camera falls from the strength of the alicorn’s struggle and crashes to the floor. A crack splits the lens in half but the frame still holds the action.

Twilight’s screaming continues and another tremor rocks the iron door. One of the heavy black hinges breaks free, sending the bolts that used to hold it soaring across the room. Pinkamena grits her teeth and struggles from her many, seeping wounds to stay upright. Her coat is doused in blood and her hips wobble in their sockets from the stress.

The door crashes from its hinges, sending Pinkamena and Cozy sprawling from the power of the blow. Twilight, nearly hairless and flaming crawls from the oven. Her skin is melted, seared, and smoking as she collapses onto the floor below the oven. She is damaged beyond recognition and raw, glistening muscles congeal with scoured flesh. The crown on her head falls to the floor, skittering out towards the center of the room. It comes to rest at Cozy’s hooves. Twilight lay still below the oven: a heap of ruined, charred flesh.

Cozy sits in shock for a second and attempts to catch her breath. Her incarnadine eyes fix on the crown and back to what is left of the princess. It takes a moment to dawn on her but she suddenly smiles and gives a loud cheer. ‘PINKAMENA! WE DID IT! WE WON!” She scoops the crown up in her hooves and hugs it like a child hugging a doll. She turns towards Pinkamena and her mirth evaporates.

Pinkamena lies very still except for the rising and falling of arrhythmic breathing. Blood pools below her and her fractured ribs heave quickly and are labored. Her lungs wheeze weakly and bubble like a perforated plunger. The hole in her belly has opened further and much of her insides are heaped before her. Dark liquid from deep within the mare mixes with the bright blood from other injuries into a collage of pain and suffering.

Cozy moves to her slowly, tears form in her eyes and she drags the crown behind her. She sits next to Pinkamena and shivers at the mess that is her friend. “Pinkamena … Pinkamena?”

A blue eye half-opens slowly and Pinkamena smiles weakly. “My Cozy … we did it, honey. We finally won. You … get to be the empress you’ve always wanted to be.”

“Yeah, but … but what about you? You’re going to be okay, right?” Looking Pinkamena over, Cozy seems to know the answer.

“I’m done, honey. I don’t have a lot of time left. I just want to spend it with you. I’m so proud of you.” Her voice is weak and breaks. She meagerly reaches out and touches Cozy’s shoulder with one hoof before it falls to the floor.

“No, you … you were supposed to rule with me. I still need you, Pinkie.” Cozy drops the crown to take Pinkamena’s hoof in her own. The crown rolls a few feet away and lays in a puddle of blood.

Pinkie has to concentrate on breathing now but she still smiles softly. “This is … the best I can do for you, my love. Rule. Rule fairly. Don’t terrorize Equestria. Make them love you for all the good you have inside you … not the evil.”

“I … I don’t have any good without you, Pinkamena.” Cozy nuzzles the cracked hoof and bloody pink leg with her cheek.

“We’re all capable of good and evil, honey. It’s up to you to choose what you want to be. Twilight and I … killed each other. Equestria will need a strong leader. You have to believe in yourself and do what’s right. Even if …” Pinkamena struggles, her eyes rolling in her head. She fights to stay conscious. “ even if they hate you at first, love them. Like I love you and they will eventually come to embrace you.”

Cozy cries, tiny tears dripping down her cheeks. She notices the portal, much smaller now and getting smaller by the second as the magic holding it open wanes. “You have to go through the time portal, Pinkamena. It’s the only way to save your life. Come on, let’s get you through.” Cozy takes the hoof and struggles to lift the mare. She drags her a few inches before she is stopped by Pinkamena.

“No. I … I don’t want to do this again. This is the happiest ending we’ve ever had. You are the empress now. Let my last moments be here, with you. This is what I’ve struggled to accomplish for so long. I can die happy, Cozy. Truly happy.” Her time grows short and each word is a struggle.

“But … but …” Cozy stammers.

“I’ll always love you, Cozy. I’ll be here for you … in some way … always.” Pinkamena expends everything she has left in those last words and her eyes close. Her breathing no longer rises and falls; it is as still as the night. Cozy Glow presses into Pinkamena’s breast and sobs. She cries loudly, wails of loss tear her vocal cords. She squeezes Pinkamena’s body tightly against hers. She nuzzles her blue locks into what is left of her friend as she cries.

She suddenly pops up, a strange look on her face and then a small smile, “Your heart … it’s so quiet but it’s still beating.” The pegasus bites her lip, face wet with fresh tears mixed with Pinkamena’s blood. Her glistening, puffy eyes turn to the failing portal.

“I won’t let you die, Pinkie. Not here. Not like this.” She takes Pinkamena’s leg again and wraps her narrow shoulders with it, struggling to drag the body towards the swirling vortex. She breathes hard and uses all of her strength, pulling Pinkamena closer with each step.

It takes time for Cozy to haul Pinkamena’s body to the portal and by the time she reaches it, the winding, flickering vortex is only a foot wide. “I’m sorry, Pinkamena. I’m sorry I have to send you back but this isn’t how your journey ends. Please forgive me when you wake up.”

Cozy gets one foreleg into the portal, then the other. Lifting Pinkamena’s head and chest are the most difficult but Cozy somehow finds the strength to get them inside as the portal nears its end. The rest of the mare is pulled inside by the dying portal and Cozy watches as it closes and shimmers out of existence.

The room is a wreck, cracked tiles, smears of blood and other liquids. There are several black burns decorating the walls. Cozy sits silently for a long time in the cracked lens of the camera. Processing her future alone, the pegasus finally looks to the crown. Her eyes are vacant and hazed with the pain that is paired with wisdom. Alone now, she seems to come to a decision and steps slowly as if laden with heavy burdens as she makes her way to the crown laying in a pool of blood. The low battery light appears and blinks in the corner of the frame. Cozy takes the crown in her hooves and stares blankly at it. It's worth to her seemingly gone. She drops it to the floor and walks to Twilight’s body.

“Twilight! Wake up! Your empress orders you to wake up! I know you’re not dead, yet.” Twilight moans painfully and the battery light holds its warning for only a moment before the video dies.

That’s the end of the transcription. Our teams are currently still working on a recreation of the video comprised of the salvaged footage.

We here at Perfect News ask you, our loyal viewers to decide for yourselves the fate of our beloved princess, Twilight Sparkle. We hope that … what was that? Set? Type Setter? Hey! What’s going on?

What do you mean the royal guard have breached the containment door? This is supposed to be a HIDDEN location! How did they find us? Set?

Ahem … loyal viewers, the royal guard have infiltrated the underground safehouse we have been broadcasting from. I hope this shows the extremes the government is willing to go to protect themselves. Shining Armor, the tyrant, has seized power for himself after his late sister’s demise and we here at … they’re coming in? Set! The citizenry know! They wouldn’t dare harm us on live broadcast in front of so many ponies!

Viewers, we prepare to give up even our lives to bring you the truth that Shining Armor and his band of brigands deny you! Here they come! I see inquisitors and royal guardsmen. Someone’s in the back, yelling orders. Here they come … Oh my, it’s … it can’t be! … Princess!