Celestia walked into Ponyville, surrounded by a hundred of her most highly-trained guard. This advance unit would protect her while she gauged the situation, and another five hundred guard from the auxiliary and reserve would be here in a few hours.

Her golden armor caught the sunlight, nearly blinding the nearest guards. Celestia had not worn this since her war with Nightmare Moon. “Spread out, formation foxtrot, twenty-pony teams. Corporal, your men with me.”

“Yes ma’am!” Ponies began to split off and enter the town, searching for survivors.

All around thick vines and leaves larger than a pony grew over the buildings. Root systems snaked through the dirt and cobblestone roads. The town was so overgrown with plants that it made the Everfree look like a gently rolling plain.

Celestia saw one tree in particular, larger than the east wing of her castle. It was a weeping willow with leaves at least twenty feet long. Several of the leaves had curled up, forming fruits that dangled from the upper reaches of the tree. She watched as a dragon swooped down, plucking a large pink fruit the size of a pony, and flying off with it.

She turned to face the library and see if Twilight was alright. Celestia couldn’t make out her student’s home, due to a massive crater that had swallowed up a large chunk of the town. In the middle of it grew another tree, dwarfed by the weeping willow, but still rising a few stories above ground level.

In front of the library, Twilight was slowly walking towards Celestia with a wide smile on her face. “It’s so good to see you, Celestia!”

There was something wrong and Celestia knew it. “Twilight, what have you done?”

“Me? I haven’t done anything. I just uncovered the lies you buried millennia ago. I unburied Gaia.”

Celestia and her guard came to a halt twenty yards from Twilight. “Look at yourself! Look what you’ve done to the town, and what you’ve done to Luna. Where is she?”

Twilight smirked, advancing to within ten yards of Celestia. “She’s with Gaia now, and you will join her shortly.”

“You can’t beat me in a fight, and if you try I will not go easy on you,” she threatened. Her hooves dug into the ground slightly as magical energy accumulated in the air around her.

Laughter was the only response from Twilight. It was a deep, throaty laugh full of malice. “You and what army? The other platoons are already dead, and your pathetic guard here is about to join them.”

Celestia looked to her right and left. The royal guard was looking around for the threat, ready to die to defend Celestia. They didn’t notice the ground splitting and roots rising until it was nearly too late. “Look down!”

The guard followed her command, and all but eight of them managed to jump back. The other eight were snared by the legs. The vines twisted around their shins, shattering the bones and grinding the tissue to a bloody pulp. Their screams filled the air as they were dragged down towards the dirt.

Unicorns used their magic to try and free their comrades to no effect. The pegasi in the guard had taken to the safety of the air, swooping in and slashing at the vines with blades strapped to their forelegs. Earth ponies tried to use brute force to help their friends, but were so distracted trying to dodge the vines they could do little.

There was a crunching sound as eight ponies were wrapped up in roots, and forced underground. A crimson tide spilled across the dirt as the remnants of mangled armor were dragged under.

Celestia watched this all in shock, her excellent memory ensuring she would forever remember the look of betrayal on the eight guard as they died. There was nothing Celestia could have done for them.

“Haha! Look at how frail they are, Celestia. You were a coward to lead them to their deaths, when it was only you Gaia wanted!”

“Leave me. Now.” Celestia spoke with such authority that her twelve guard ponies obeyed without question. They backed away from the princess, unsure where to go. Celestia had surrounded herself in a golden aura, and the noon-day sun had brightened considerably.

“Oh, was that frustration I heard in your voice? Tell me, have I finally gotten you to express a real emotion?”

With the battleground cleared of bystanders, Celestia turned to face her pupil. “I know you can hear me Gaia. You shall not have another pony as long as I draw breath. We end this today.”

“Cliche words for a cliche Princess. You rule because you’re immortal, not because of any skill or right to rule. You’re powerless without pawns to manipulate from behind the scenes.”

“I’m sorry, Twilight.”

“Sorry for wha—”

Before Twilight could finish her reply, an itch in the back of her mind prompted her to raise a shield and protect herself. A beam of golden magic with enough power to slice clean through a building slammed into Twilight’s shield, throwing her backwards.

Celestia advanced towards the cloud of dust where Twilight had landed. As the dust settled, a purple blast laced with corrupt green energy slammed into her own shield. Gaia’s magic threatened to overwhelm her, but the ancient wards in her armor bolstered her defense. Once she had shrugged off the attack, she fired another beam at her opponent.

Twilight teleported, dodging the attack, before throwing dozens of vines that had grown on a nearby building at Celestia. She smiled as they surrounded her bubble of defensive magic and began to grind against it. The vines curled up, crushing her with the force of a collapsing mountain.

Celestia felt herself sweating from the exertion and closed her eyes. She would not go down so easy, and lit up her horn. Her focus was not the plants, but the sun. In mere seconds, she had moved it closer to the planet, causing the temperature to jump thirty degrees. Ponyville had become hotter than the deserts of Saddle Arabia.

More importantly, Celestia was actively siphoning as much energy as she could from the sun, forming a connection with it. Twilight felt her hair sizzling from the heat as she watched in awe of her mentor’s power.

Look out, Twilight! Gaia’s warning reached her just in time, and she leapt backwards. A massive solar flare slammed into the ground, vaporizing the vines and igniting all the nearby houses on fire.

Celestia looked worse for wear, but now had golden flames burning in her eyes and on her horn. Her mane flowed in a dozen hues of orange like a wildfire.

Twilight felt her heart sink as Celestia faced her and smirked. This was going to be a harder battle than she thought.

Applejack bucked behind her, hearing a loud snapping sound as the guard pony’s spine was shattered. She then whipped a fine forward, lassoing a pegasus in mid-air and slamming him into the ground hard enough to break his wings.

She felt a weight on her back as an Earth pony landed on her, using his hoof to slam the side of her head, knocking her out.

Pinkie saw Applejack go down and ran to her aid, leaping onto the attacker. She stuck to him, oozing over his side and immobilizing him. However, she would have to completely surround him and suffocate him before she could let him go and check on her friends.

Dash swooped down from the air, picking up a unicorn guard pony. She flew upwards in a steep arc, releasing her hold on him once she was fifty meters in the air. Dash heard him scream as he fell to his death, and was already half-way to another unicorn when a pain split through her side. A unicorn on the ground had hurled a rock at her, knocking her to the ground. She spit out some blood as she got to her hooves and faced him.

Before Dash could charge him, an apple hit him in the face. Rarity had thrown it, and this special apple began to cover his nose and eyes. He scraped at it helplessly as he was encased.

“Hey, he was mine!” Dash complained.

“There’s no time to keep score, but if there were, I’m up by five,” Rarity said.

Twilight hit the ground hard, tumbling until she hit one of Gaia’s roots and stopped. She immediately put her shield up as Celestia fired a beam of energy at it, then retaliated with her own deadly spell.

“Cease this madness, Twilight. Let me free you from her curse.” Celestia landed and looked at her pupil, who had begun to cry.

“C-Celestia, I’m s-sorry.” She continued to weep, curling up and whimpering like a baby.

“It’s okay, Twilight.” Celestia took a few steps towards her, preparing a spell to cleanse her. “Just hold sti—”

There was a loud whipping sound as a root three feet across slammed into Celestia’s side. Twilight stood up, dropping her charade of being a mournful student.

Against the wall of the pit was an indent where Celestia had hit. The loose soil from around Gaia slid down towards the epicenter of the crater. It was here that Twilight and Gaia were most powerful.

Celestia felt a tooth fall out from the force of the impact, spitting blood into the soil. When she stood up and opened her eyes, the intense golden flames that burned in them had tripled in size. Though she would mourn the loss of her student and Luna, she would not allow Gaia to rise again.

Twilight felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. All around her rocks and loose soil began to levitate, as if magnetize. The air carried a current in it, and small arcs of static electricity leapt through Twilight’s mane.

She could sense Gaia’s fear. For the first time, Twilight had felt something other than confidence from her new master. The air temperature was rising, and Celestia’s armor was glowing red-hot.

Words in an ancient tongue filled the air as Celestia chanted, and Twilight was out of ideas. She threw all the magic she could at Celestia to stop this unknown spell. Purple energy bathed Celestia and scorched the walls of the pit behind her.

As the dust cleared, Celestia was still channeling her spell. She was now hovering thirty feet in the air, waves of heat rolling off her and scorching the nearby plantlife.

Twilight looked up towards the sun, shielding her eyes. Even with her magic blocking the light, it was too bright to look at for more than a fraction of a second. The sun seemed to fill the sky as far as the eye could see. It was like being thrown into an oven and cooked alive.

Gaia withdrew, curling her leaves up around herself. The many vines and roots that traveled outward from her center pulled themselves out of the soil, and wrapped themselves around the heart of the plant. She was cocooning herself, attempting to shield herself.

Luna slid out of her pod next to Gaia. Even that was being withdrawn to protect her from Celestia’s wrath.

Twilight stared at Celestia in horror. She was no longer being told what to do and fed arcane power by Gaia. For the first time since this had began, she realized what a horrible thing she had done.

Even as she trembled in fear, she knew what Celestia was about to do. This was the moment she would utterly vaporize Gaia to protect her nation. Twilight looked at Luna, who was laying too close to Gaia to survive the blast. She wasn’t even sure she would survive the blast, being halfway between Gaia and Celestia.

Twilight’s senses exploded in pain as the spell finished being cast. She had so little time to prepare, and leapt straight for Luna. She mustered all she could into the strongest shield she had learned.

A column of flaming plasma, channeled straight from the sun, slammed into Gaia. There was a wailing screech that could be heard for miles as Gaia was consumed by flames. Everything within fifty feet of the plant was turned to glass and ash by the intense heat.

The flame continued for a full minute, until finally Celestia had no power left to continue. She fell to the soil, and slumped over in pain. Celestia had no energy left to give.

Where Gaia had once stood, was nothing but glass.

Author's Note

A couple notes:

1.) Thanks for reading, this was my highest viewed story for nearly a year. If you want more vore, see my story "Vore is Magic." It highlights every type of vore, every type of predator, and prey. Upcoming chapters will feature types of plant vore I couldn't fit in here.

2.) I decided to self-edit this instead of using editors. The reason is that writing is fun, whether or not I use an editor. However, nine times out of ten, editors create stress as their job is to point out everything you did wrong. That's not fun... and seeing as I'm very busy with mid-terms, I chose to release this chapter and trust my self-editing abilities so you could enjoy the finale! Hopefully it is worth it.

3.) This is the end I had in mind from the start. Just wanted that in before someone says how horrible the epilogue is.