The Hell of Life

It was noon when they got back from Canter lot, the sky was coated with a beautiful shade of orange and red. How ever, the only thing not beautiful was Twilight's attitude. She angrily slammed the door of the library open, allowing herself and Chrysalis in. Betrayed by her friends and now being forced to spend the rest of the day with the changeling. It was official, Twilight was pissed off.

"Twilight..." Chrysalis started.

"What?!" Twilight asked angrily, turning to her, Chrysalis swore she saw her mane spark a little fire.

"I-I just want to let you know that, your friends, they still love and care about you. They haven't turned their backs on you."

"Yeah, sure, and I'm supposed to believe you?" Twilight remarked.

"I'm just trying to make you feel better."

"By talking about the ponies that betrayed me!?"

"They didn't betray you!"

"You probably did something to them!"

"I didn't do anything you ignorant alicorn!"

"SHUT UP!" Twilight yelled, flaring her horn and pinning the changeling queen to the wall by her hooves. Chrysalis gulped hard, she knew she had gone too far with this unstable pony. "You show your damn face in my home, hypnotize my friends and mentor and now you try to take control of me!? I mean, can anything else go wrong?!" Just as she finished her sentence, a roar was heard from outside. Chrysalis's pupils shrank, she recognized that roar, however, Twilight didn't and thought it was something Chrysalis was doing.

She was about to threaten Chrysalis, but she saw the fear in the changelings eyes.

"...What was that?" She asked, suddenly, there was the sound of crunching wood, Twilight and Chrysalis turned towards the door, and saw something stabbing it in an attempt to break in. Twilight charged her horn ready to fight anything that broke in, while Chrysalis back away from it. Finally, the door could no longer withstand the assault and fell apart. On the other side, a thick fog has washed over Ponyville, but that was not what worried Twilight, what worried her were the floating skulls and spines. Twilight was about to question the logic of this until they charged. Twilight shot into the crowd, destroying three of them, but they were to fast and quickly reached Twilight. She closed her eyes, not knowing what was going to happen next, but nothing did. She opened her eyes and saw that the spines had completely ignored her and went after Chrysalis instead, who was now running around the library in an attempt to not get stabbed.

"Was... was she telling the truth. Were my friends telling the truth too. But that means..." Realizations then dawned on Twilight. "I... I've been so stupid! My friends were telling the truth! She's... not evil, she was redeemed in the purgatory, and I've been making her redemption here so much harder. I have been an ignorant alicorn. But, that doesn't mean I should continue being one." Twilight charged her horn, ready to obliterate the spines. With one magical blast, she destroyed the one closest to Chrysalis, gaining all their attention. Chrysalis was shocked that Twilight had just saved her, and the spines now saw Twilight as their target for intervening.

With a roar, they all charged at her, but Twilight was already ahead of them, blasting into the crowd, taking out multiple spines at once. But like last time, they reached her quickly. They all started to take shots at her, stabbing her in the chest, legs and sides. She quickly charged her horn and generated a shield, throwing back all the spines surrounding her, but not harming them. The all recuperated and attacked again, but some of them went after the defenseless changeling again. Twilight saw this, and attempted to attack them, but a spine head-butted her, throwing off her concentration, which also left her open for attacks. The spines stabbed the alicorn repeatedly, who was starting to loose to much blood and become light headed. She thought she was going to die, until the sound of a splat alerted her.

She opened her eyes and saw that the spines had parts of an apple on them.

"Ya'll demons go back to the hell you belong to!" Twilight and Chrysalis looked towards the broken down door, and saw Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie Rarity and Fluttershy at the door. Twilight was happy to see them, but she couldn't show it with the amount of pain she was in. The spines left Twilight and Chrysalis alone and headed for the newcomers. Rainbow Dash, however, flew I front of the spines at high speeds, disorienting them. She then swooped in and took two of the spines heads clean off, and the spines themselves fell to the ground, motionless and quickly turned to dust.

As for the remaining spines, they aimed for Applejack, who was in the front. But thinking fast, she turned around, a bucked the closest ones across the room. As soon as the spines made contact with the wall, they shattered into pieces. There were now only three spines left, but they didn't seem to care in the slightest. As they were about to start stabbing Applejack, they were suddenly entangled in cloth, which was under the influence of Rarity. The spines were now just stabbing the air around them, in an attempt to free themselves, but they were all picked up by Pinkie, who ran over to her party canon (wherever that came from) and started to stuff them in. Miraculously, she somehow managed to stuff them all in the canon.

Now with a loaded canon, she aimed it at a nearby window and pulled the trigger, the canon fired, sending the spines to who knows where. With that accomplished, they were safe.. for now. Fluttershy was tending to Twilight and Chrysalis wounds. Chrysalis was already patched up, but Twilight had suffered the most damage and was still being aided. She looked towards Chrysalis... and smiled, and it was not some evil smile at all, it was a calm and happy smile. Chrysalis smiled back after a moment, seeing that Twilight and her were no longer enemies, but the moment was short lived as Chrysalis heard something outside.

Something mumbling in an ancient language.

"...No..."