Defy

Lyra stared at her stricken son.

His eyes were open, but there was nothing behind them. Her one consolation was that he did still breathe, but who knew if he would ever awaken from this mindless torpor?

“He'll be okay,” she said. “He's strong.”

She was lying to herself, and she knew it. Shimmershine had never been strong. He had always been a fearful child, and his life had given him reason to be. He had been barely three when he had first asked why he had two mothers instead of a mother and father, like other foals. He had been not yet four when one of those mothers had walked away from him without so much as a goodbye, never to return.

He had lived his life since then in a cold, constant fear that he would be left alone; that Lyra and everypony else, like Bon Bon, would one day decide they just did not want him, anymore. Lyra had made it the mission of her life to ensure that he always knew she would be there to keep him safe and to watch over him. Still, however, it had been a constant theme of his existence; a fear of loneliness and isolation that seemed to form the core of his whole being. Now, in the last couple of days, she had finally learned from whence that fear had most likely sprung.

He had been alone for longer than she could even begin to imagine, and what little power she had ever believed she had to stave off the cold specter of solitude that haunted the little colt, she began at last to realize was feeble and utterly inadequate. Now, in his moment of greatest need, she could do nothing to stand against even greater specters – things that she could not even pretend to understand.

Never in all her life had she felt so great a sense of smallness, weakness, and impotence.

“Is there no mercy?” she asked aloud, almost screaming. “In all of this universe, is there no FUCKING mercy?”

She broke down.

***

Celestia listened at the door of Shimmershine's room in the infirmary. She could hear Lyra Heartstrings screams, and then she heard her begin to sob. She resisted the urge to do so herself.

Who she was forbade that she allow herself to feel, and never more so than at times like these, when her feelings would cloud her judgment.

“Choose not what is good; Choose what is best,” she whispered to herself. “Has this not always been your way?”

But why? Why was this her way?

She half-collapsed to lean against the wall, breathing heavily. Her face hardened, and she set her jaw tightly.

Why could she not have been born an ordinary pony? Why was this her lot? Why must she be so old, and yet appear so young? Why must it fall to her to choose the fate of an entire world? Why must she always choose to do whatever would bring about the most good and cause the least harm, even if it meant betraying her own heart?

She thought back to her earlier conversation with Twilight, not ten minutes past. She had been an inspiration to that little mare, once upon a time. She had guided her; been more mother to the little unicorn than teacher, in many ways. She had watched her grow, watched her change, and watched her earn the respect, trust, and friendship of others. She had placed in her the hopes, dreams, and future of every single pony in Equestria when she had trusted her to stand with those friends against the greatest perils of their age.

It had been madness, but had she not done it? Why now, then, must she do this terrible thing? Would it be so unthinkable just once more to trust in madness? Would it be so impossible to follow her heart?

“I am Celestia,” she whispered. “My will be done.”

"Caelestia sum," she growled, repeating once more, "I am Celestia," in her forgotten mother tongue, and she gritted her teeth.

She picked herself up off the wall, and knocked at the door.

It glowed pale green, and opened to her.

Lyra did not bow. She was too exhausted, sitting on her haunches, staring at the floor.

She said nothing, and neither did Celestia.

She walked to the colt's bed, and stared down at his open, mindless eyes.

For awhile, she said nothing. She simply looked into those eyes – cold, empty, and pale green.

“I could end this, right now,” she said. “One spell; one thrust of my horn, and Equestria could have peace.”

Lyra winced. She would be powerless to stop the Princess in every respect, -- size, magic, and force of will -- should Celestia choose to make good on her observation.

“But I recall, now, a promise,” said Celestia. “Once, I told a being which had no name for itself that I would help it to discover what it meant to love and to be loved – to have friends; to have family.”

Lyra lifted her head.

“That oath shall stand inviolate,” said Celestia, “unto my death.” She paused. “Unto the end of the world.”

***

Luna stepped onto the balcony and looked towards the eastern horizon. She had found a bed, but as expected, sleep had not been forthcoming. As the moon peeked over the edge of the world, she stopped, and gave it a long, peaceful look. How many times had she seen it this way?

“So many,” she said to herself, “and yet not nearly enough.” She smiled. “How good it is to be alive.”

She stood alone, staring into that distant, silver sphere, now and forever embossed with a vague likeness of the black goddess of nightmares she had once become. She had been there for several minutes when she heard her sister's voice.

“I could not do it.”

“I am glad,” said Luna, not turning her eyes from the moon.

“All the world depends on one act of cold, justifiable logic, and at last, I cannot do it.” Celestia came to stand beside her sister, and hung her head. “I am pathetic,” she said, her voice cracking.

“You say that,” said Luna, “but I wonder what Mother and Father would have thought of you, right now.”

“It does not matter,” said Celestia. “They are gone, and the world they left in our care may well be damned because of my unwillingness to do what must be done.”

“Perhaps,” said Luna, “but insofar as I am concerned, it may be for the best."

Luna bit down hard on her lower lip, then spoke again.

"I am very fond of your soul, Celestia. I would be distraught to know that you had lost it.”

“What good is it for me to hold fast to my soul if I should lose the whole world?” asked Celestia.

“Some would ask the inverse,” said Luna.

“They are fools,” said Celestia.

Luna turned to her sister.

“Yes,” said Luna, “What is one soul compared to the whole world?”

Celestia looked up into the moon.

“Ponies live their whole lives asking those sorts of questions,” she said, “only to learn there is no answer. We see it again and again.”

“And in the end, when it is too late,” said Luna, “they realize that they should have simply done what made them happy, rather than staring into the sky in search of answers that did not exist.”

"The futility of it sickens me," said Celestia, hanging her head. “Have I failed, Luna?”

“You,” said the almost-black alicorn, “who trade the entire world for one life – for her very integrity; you ask this one, your traitorous sister, Luna, whose heart has been so marred by envy and hate, whether you have failed, as if she had some right to pass judgment on such an act.”

“No one does, but you, sister,” said Celestia. “Who else is fit?”

Luna smiled. Then she snickered. Then, she laughed loudly, her head thrown back to the stars, eyes shut tight.

“What is wrong with you!?” asked Celestia, aghast.

Luna lowered her head, and slowly stifled her laughter, panting as she struggled to restrain herself.

“At last,” she said, breathlessly, “I have my revenge.”

“What do you mean?” asked Celestia.

Finally, Luna calmed herself, and looked into her sister's eyes.

“Even if this world is brought to ruin,” she said, “I will never judge you.”

***

Twilight heard the knock on her door. Like all the knocks she had heard in the last couple of days, it was familiar. This knock, however, was too slow, too strong, and came from too high on the door.

“Come in,” she said, and the door opened.

Celestia stepped inside.

“Are you sober?” she asked.

“Sober enough,” said Twilight.

“Good,” said Celestia, then she shook her head. “Who am I kidding? I don't care.”

Twilight gave Celestia a puzzled look, and then shrugged. Without a word, she poured herself a glass of wine, and took a drink.

“Twilight,” said Celestia. “I know I can't change the past; no magic in the world can do that. I can't bring back Spike. I can't bring back the Element of Magic. I can't even take back the words I said.”

She levitated Twilight's wine bottle to herself, and looked at the label. It was a vintage of which she had given Shining Armor and Cadance several bottles as a wedding gift over a decade ago. She shook her head, and smiled. Then, she took a drink directly from the bottle.

“I can say this, though: I am still proud of you, and if the world should come crashing down around us, even in the next few days, I will have no regret that I chose you, among all ponies, to be my student.”

Twilight looked at her teacher, realizing even in that moment that she was, once more, being taught, and she stood up.

“And if the world doesn't come crashing down?” she asked.

“Then come home,” said Celestia. “Wherever you want to call home,” said Celestia,”go to that place, and just live.”

Twilight stepped to the enormous, white horse, and lay her head alongside the huge, white neck.

Celestia wrapped her up in her right wing.

They did not move. Twilight stood and listened with one ear to her teacher's blood pulsing through her body. That slow, steady throb of a heart twice the size of her own was a sound she had all but forgotten, but hearing it once more returned to her a familiar sense of calm.

She could have stood there for hours.

“When will it begin?” asked the little alicorn.

“Soon enough,” said Celestia.

***

Celestia stepped into the infirmary in the early hours of morning. Luna, utterly exhausted, had finally managed to get to sleep, which was fine with Celestia. What she was here to do, she meant to do alone, anyway.

The colt's mother was there, asleep on a small couch near the bed. Celestia did not wake her.

She stepped to the foal, and looked down into his open, staring eyes.

“If you can hear me through that strange artifact which this foal has for a heart, you wretched, dead, and selfish, unforgiving souls,” she said, “then I will speak at you.” She gritted her teeth, and growled through them. "And you will listen."

Lyra stirred from her sleep, and sat up, stunned and alarmed to see Celestia standing over Shimmershine.

“Princess, what are you...”

Celestia raised a hoof, silencing the unicorn.

“Who is this who dares address us so haughtily?” whispered the sleeping foal. It was his voice, but also not. It was expanded, somehow, as if his vocal chords were vibrating along many different wavelengths, at once.

“I am Celestia, daughter of Sol, one who is still among you.”

“Sol?” asked the voices. “We know not our names. Those, like everything else, were taken from us.”

“Then how is it that he has spoken to me from within the void of this being?”

“What remains of us may speak, but whether it remembers speaking, or even knows to whom it has spoken, who can say?”

Lyra shook with fright. For the first time, she began to understand the magnitude of what was buried within her son's soul.

“He said my name,” said Celestia, her voice stern, strong, and calm as she recalled the manifestation of her father's consciousness that had spoken into her dreams a decade ago. “He knows me.”

“He knew you, once,” said the voices, “and that is all. The thing he is now, like the rest of us, knows only this: that the being which destroyed us must also be destroyed. It is only just.”

“You would do unto another world what was done to your own to punish a being that does not even remember its transgression?” Celestia's teeth flashed like those of a rabid animal. “How petulant.”

“Petulant?” asked the strange voice which emitted from the colt's throat, his lips barely moving. “It is petulant to demand justice?”

“Mercy is better than justice,” growled Celestia.

“Only those who have never been truly wronged can believe something so infantile.”

“Enough of this,” said Celestia. “It is also my world you would bring to ruin in the name of your petty justice. It is the world of countless others who will be wronged just as deeply as you were, and yet all that concerns you is to know that you have settled a score that not one living being in all the universe even remembers.”

She spread her wings.

“I defy your justice."

The foal sat up, and the strange sound emitting from his throat rose to a scream.

“YOU HAVE NEITHER THE RIGHT NOR THE POWER TO DEFY US!

Celestia answered the scream with a whisper.

“Test me.”

The foal dropped back onto the bed, and his chest pulsed with a faint, golden glow. Somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, Celestia heard the steady, pulsing throb of a heartbeat.

Elsewhere in the Palace, asleep in bed, Luna heard that heartbeat, as well.

“What is this that I feel, now?” she asked in her subconscious, not even bothering to create a physical avatar for herself in the rift between dream and reality.

“This is the end of your world,” said the infinite voices.

“Really?” asked Luna. “I shall have to contest that, I think.”

“You have no right to contest,” said the voices. “You are but a portal.”

“Very well,” said Luna. “I suppose that I should not have gone to sleep. I'll be waking up, now.”

Her physical eyes popped open.

“Foolish spirits,” she mumbled to herself, upset that her rest had been interrupted. “I'm a dream goddess. You can't just...”

Her horn began to vibrate, and her mind filled with the screams of millions of raging gods.

“Bugger,” she said, and she was on her hooves.

“Celestia!” she shouted, dashing into the hall.

“WHERE IS SHE?” she screamed in the face of the guard beside her door.

“She said to tell you she'd be in the infirmary,” he said, shrinking down in terror.

“Why, thank you,” said Luna pleasantly, and then she was off.

It took her only a minute to reach the infirmary, but in that brief time, the persistent, throbbing vibration in her horn had grown steadily more pronounced. It was not visible, but she could feel it.

As she threw open the door to Shimmershine's room, Celestia did not turn, but stared down at the unconscious foal, whose chest glowed with each beat of his golden heart.

“They're coming,” she said. “Right now! WHAT did you do!?”

“Are they, really?” asked Celestia, and as she turned to face her, Luna felt her heart stop.

She had not seen Celestia's eyes look like this in a thousand years.

“They mean to use me as a portal,” she said, far less terrified of what that might mean than of what she saw in Celestia's face, at that moment.

“How many?” asked Celestia. “All of them?”

“Not all,” said Luna. “I cut off the gateway in my mind when I woke up,”

“How many?” asked Celestia, once more.

Luna shivered as she spoke.

“Millions” she said, “and those but a fraction of the whole.”

“Let's get outside of the city,” said Celestia.

They made a wild dash out of the palace, and took flight.

“Does anypony else know what's going on?” asked Celestia.

“They will,” said Luna, cringing at the bizarre frequencies she could hear reverberating through her own skull. There were voices, images, and sensations that correlated to no sense she had ever known, before. Worse, they were growing in number and in magnitude.

They were not two miles clear of the city when Luna felt she could bear it no more.

“I can go no further,” she shouted, and the two sisters came to lite near where the green fields of the city became the snowy waste of the north.

“I won't be able to help you,” said Luna, her voice fearful and her body growing limp and weak.

She collapsed, and lay on the ground staring up at her sister.

“I know that,” said Celestia, and she bent down. She felt in her heart a deep urge to touch her sister; to kiss her beside her horn or to at least touch her on her shoulder or cheek, but even in such a moment as this, she could not. It was not who she was; who Luna was. It had not been for aeons.

Instead, she nodded gently, and turned her eyes to the sky.

“Let them come,” she said.

***

The earth heaved mightily, and all through the Crystal City, there was a panic. Most thought it was an earthquake, but the few who were privy to the goings-on of the past several days felt a much deeper sense of dread.

Twilight felt the tremors, and heard faint, inexplicable whispers in the back of her mind. She felt as if her heart and lungs had run into her guts.

She walked towards her door, but before she even reached it, it flung open, revealing Cadance, her eyes open wide in a lunatic gaze.

“Come quick,” she said, and dashed away.

Twilight followed her as quickly as she could, her heart hammering so fiercely she could hear her own blood pulsing in her ears.

“What's going on?” she asked.

“I think it's started,” said Cadance, hooves hammering at the floor. “Celestia and Luna left the city, but I don't know why.”

They galloped onto the balcony, and both of them stopped cold.

In the distance, a spire of purple-black light cut into the sky, feeding itself into a portal that swelled high overhead.

The portal itself was horrifying to behold. It was no simple gateway, but instead a writhing, amorphous mass of translucent black, brown, and gray. Twilight strained her eyes in an effort to get a better look at it. At this distance, it was impossible to tell just what, precisely comprised its substance.

Then, there came the sound, a terrible din that crossed every fequency that a pony's ears could interpret. It was like a screeching, a rumbling, and a howling, not of one voice, but of many. It was the enraged outcry of countless long-dead souls, all hungering for long-awaited recompense to a wrong older than time.

“Come on!” shouted Cadance, and she took off from the balcony.

Twilight followed her as quickly as she could, striking at the air with her wings in an effort to approach whatever it was that was forcing its way into the world.

“What are you even going to do?” she asked herself. “You can't stop a thing like that.”

As they reached Celestia and Luna's location, the nature of the thing that had appeared in the sky overhead finally became apparent.

It was a mass of spirits; souls twisting and writhing amidst one another, clawing over one another like wild animals. Within that twisted blob clambered creatures mammalian, insectoid, reptilian, aquatic, and so alien that they defied all description, all clawing, crawling and slithering over one another, pushing one another down into the conglomeration in a fitful eagerness to be among the first free of their ageless prison.

Twilight felt welling within her the deepest, coldest dread she had ever experienced. This was horrible beyond the bounds of imagination.

Then, for just a moment, she looked down.

Celestia stood, staring upwards into that maelstrom of the damned, seemingly unaffected by both its image and the constant, wavering cacophony it emitted. Luna lay beside her, apparently unconscious.

As she and Cadance lit beside her, the Sun Goddess said nothing. She only continued to stare upwards into the shapeless well of abominations writhing above her.

“What do we do?” she heard Cadance ask.

Celestia looked down at her sister, who lay on the ground before her, eyes open and unmoving.

“Take Luna, and go,” she said.

Cadance looked up at her aunt.

“But...”

Celestia turned her eyes towards Cadance, and Twilight saw in them a madness she had never seen before. She was thankful that it had not been she who had spoken.

“Yes,” said Cadance, shrinking down like a cowering animal.

“Twilight,” she said, turning towards the purple alicorn, “Can you teleport the three of us back to the Palace?”

“I can,” said Twilight, and in a flash, the three smaller alicorns were back on the balcony of the palace, Luna still lying on her side, eyes open and unmoving.

As Cadance moved to check on Luna, Twilight stood silent, staring into the twisting orb of spirits that still loomed in the distant sky.

“Cadance,” she said suddenly. “I have to go and try to help her.”

“No, Twi!” shouted Cadance, and Twilight disappeared, once more.

As she reappeared beside Celestia, the Sun Goddess did not turn her eyes from the horror that twisted far overhead.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I have to help you,” said Twilight. “Even without the Elements of Harmony, I want to help. Just tell me something I can do.”

“You can leave,” said Celestia. “Go back to the Palace, and stay far away.”

“Huh?”

“Twilight,” said Celestia, turning her eyes from the sky.

Now, at last, Twilight could see the intensity that had so overwhelmed her sister, and her bones felt as if they had melted within her body.

“I am exhausted,” said Celestia. “I am bitterly and utterly exhausted from aeons of withholding every moment of my despair, rage, or disappointment. Always, I have chosen the path of peace; the path of reason. Even in moments of peril, always I have withheld.”

Her eyes welled, but did not spill.

“When Nightmare Moon came back for me, I withheld for fear of destroying my sister. When Discord returned, I withheld for fear of a battle that might break reality, itself. When Chrysalis appeared, I withheld for fear that I would bring Canterlot crashing down around us, having saved nothing and no one for my victory.'

“There were those, Twilight, and a thousand times before that you were not alive to see.”

She hung her head low, and shook it.

“Not this time,” she said. “I cannot. My will – or at least that part of it which holds the rest in restraint; it is broken, Twilight Sparkle.”

She lifted her head, and looked at Twilight with glistening, maddened eyes.

“Run, child, and if the sun sets on this day, I will speak to you, again.”

She reached up, and forced her jeweled mantle off her shoulders, then threw her crown to the earth.

“And if there is no sun left to set,” she said, “then know that it was the greatest joy of my entire life to see you alive, again.”

Twilight's eyes teared up, and she took a step towards Celestia.

“GO!”

The force behind that word physically blasted Twilight backward, slightly.

Without a further word, she hung her head, and disappeared in a purple flash.

***

Lyra felt the tremors in the depths of the Crystal Palace, and released Shimmershine from where she had held him ever since Celestia and Luna had left the room in what seemed to be a mad panic. With each glowing pulse of his heart came another throb of the earth below her hooves.

“I have to see what's going on,” she said, moving towards the door.

She stopped, and looked back at her son.

“I love you, Shim,” she said, and then she was off at a gallop.

As she ascended through the Palace, there came more of the rhythmic, pulsing tremors that rose up through the floor.

“Heartbeats,” Lyra thought, and she quickened her pace.

As she reached the balcony, the scene that met Lyra's eyes seemed to cut her soul from wherever it moored itself in her being. Twilight Sparkle, Shining Armor, Cadance, and all of Twilight's friends – who were also her friends – stood at the railing staring outward into a swirling, shapeless abyss that rolled and twisted in the distant sky. Princess Luna lay in their midst, unconcscious.

What had her son brought upon this world?

“What's going on?” asked Lyra. “Where is Princess Celestia?”

Pinkie Pie, standing nearby, nodded westward.

“She's going to fight that,” said Rainbow Dash, “somehow.”

“Can she win?” asked Lyra.

“I have no idea,” said Twilight Sparkle, “but there's nothing any of us can do to help.” The alicorn swallowed audibly.

“Anypony who goes near her won't survive whatever it is she's planning to do.”

“Does she intend to die?” asked Cadance, her voice trembling and darkened with dread.

“I don't know,” said Twilight.

They all stood for several minutes, watching the legion of undead gods swelling in the heavens. Not a word was spoken. The magnitude of what was about to take place forbade it.

Then, with no warning at all, it began. The ball in the sky poured into a stream; thousands upon thousands of angry, dead gods, all headed straight downward. Before it even reached the earth, a point of blinding, white light shot upward through its middle. The sound reached them seconds later, a crash that shattered windows and sent cracks racing through the crystalline walls of the city's buildings.

Light coruscated through the brown-gray mass, and parts of it seemed simply to melt into nothingness. There was a sound, again like thunder, but too loud and too near. Explosions rocked through the stream of deific ghosts that seemed to flood endlessly from the bloated orb.

The smell of burned flesh and hair wafted over the city, borne on the wind of the inconceivable power being poured out in the midst of that distant melee. The ball in the sky began to shrink, expending itself into the conflict that raged below, but it was all too slow.

Still more titanic blasts rocked through the falling stream, and a single, white ray burst from a point somewhere in its midst, ripping a swath of ash through its center which was quickly closed up with still more of the writhing, hateful beings.

“How can she do this?” whispered Fluttershy.

“I don't know,” said Twilight. "I mean... I don't know if she can."

There came now a roar from within the seething horde manifest over the earth. A single, enormous beast that resembled a dragon with too many legs and far too many heads crested on the edge of the stream, and the stream itself continued to flow downward to pool on the earth around a point where they all knew that Celestia must stand. After a few moments' descent, the dragon thing landed, and the low, hollow thud of its impact echoed off the distant mountains. Its many heads roared and barked out words in some vile, guttural language that nopony had ever heard or could understand.

Even as it spoke, it's body began suddenly to distort, and its shouts turned from cries of anger and indignation into screeched laments of agony and terror. The ponies on the balcony all watched in awed, horrified silence as its skeleton burst out of its body through its flesh, each and every bone glowing pale gold. Those ponderous, bloody bones ceased suddenly to glow with the light of Celestia's telekinesis, and simply dropped from the sky and into the struggle below, where they were quickly swarmed over by the mass of undead deities. All else that remained of the creature collapsed into a mountain of shapeless, ragged, and bloody flesh.

As the bones disappeared beneath the mass of writhing monstrosities, there came next flashes and beams of white light; rays of brilliant, searing death that descended from the sun, itself. They ripped across the ground, vaporizing swaths of the ghostly horde assembled there, and left rivers of glowing glass in their wake. Still, the flood did not abate.

Now, out of the maelstrom, there appeared a thing like a whale. It was grotesque, its flesh drawn tight to a seemingly eyeless skull that sprouted a dozen jagged horns. It had huge teeth, and a beard braided together with golden bands set with rubies that must each have weighed many tons. It opened its mouth, and a vile, black mist poured downward, dissolving what must have been thousands of the strange beings that might have called themselves its allies. Still, the flood swarmed downward, even in spite of the lethal miasma pouring from the horned, eyeless whale god's cruel maw. Soon, they pooled in one place, and swelled upwards into a mountain.

Celestia was overwhelmed.

“She can't,” said Twilight, her voice fraught with despair. “Not even her.”

Then, a point of light began to grow in the sky between the mountain of beasts and the huge orb from which they still issued forth.

“Is that her?” asked Cadance. “Tell me that's her.”

“I don't know," said Twilight.

The light swelled faster and faster, glowing so intensely that they were all forced to shield their eyes from it.

“Goddamn,” said Applejack. “That's fucking bright!”

A low, steady roar rolled outward from it, and it continued to grow. Its surface sprouted geysers of flame that rolled around it, and scorched the land bare wherever they touched it. The sound that it made became a sizzling roar as the oxygen in the air around it was consumed, and the trees nearby began to flash explode with its heat.

Finally, Twilight realized what she was seeing, but she still had difficulty believing it. For one, it was impossible, and even if it could be done, it was absurdly reckless. Even so, there it was.

“It's a sustained fusion reaction!” she shouted

“Can you say that so we can all understand it!?” shouted Rainbow Dash, above the terrible din.

“SHE'S MAKING A STAR!” screamed Twilight Sparkle.

“Are you serious!?,” shouted Rarity.

It continued to swell, growing larger and larger, even as the mountain of things that covered the goddess' body piled higher beneath it. They felt its heat even from where they were, and its light became so bright that it seemed to shine through the hooves they all raised in front of their eyes. It grew, and it grew until had it grown a moment longer, the city itself would have been set ablaze.

Then, it collapsed.

There was a merciless blast that tore the roofs off of dozens of buildings on the western end of the city, and the glowing orb shrank downwards rapidly, disappearing out of sight. A mighty gust of wind erupted, heading not away from the place where the tiny sun had been, but towards it.

The bearded whale thing cried out in a high-pitched whine of terror, and turned, trying to swim through the sky away from the singularity forming from the remains of the tiny, dead star.

It was to no avail. The flood of creatures was pulled towards that tiny point of pure black that floated in the distant sky. The mountain of hateful beings was pulled upward. The undulating sphere from whence they had come was drawn downward. Lastly, the whale god was dragged backwards, and its lunatic screeches of primal fear compelled the ponies to cover their ears with their hooves.

One and all, the ghost-gods were pulled into the darkness of the black hole that Celestia had made, screaming, howling, and gurgling in terror. Its pull was irresistible, and it was growing stronger. Buildings at the distant edge of the city began to loosen and shift on their foundations.

“She'll destroy the city!” shouted Cadance, and she tried to take flight, meaning to save either her aunt or her subjects trapped nearby.

“No, look!” shouted Shining Armor, wrapping his forelegs around her waist, and pulling her down.

The singularity had at some point begun to grow smaller, and its pull began noticeably to lessen. The orb and the mountain of beasts beneath it had all but completely disappeared, and as their last remnants were sucked into the hellish void Celestia had created, the black void ceased to be, shrinking until it simply was no more.

They all stood, staring silently into the distance, their ears ringing from the roaring, concussive power of what they had just witnessed. They could not even begin to react.

Then, Princess Luna stirred. Her eyes, still open, began to shift, and she slowly rose, sitting up onto her haunches, swooning slightly.

She stood, and tried to walk forward. She made it only three steps before she collapsed.

“Somepony,” she said, looking up desperately, “go help her.”

“What?” asked Twilight, still not come completely to her senses.

“I saw everything,” said Luna. “It's terrible.”

She began to weep, and tried once more, ineffectually, to stand.

“It's terrible,” she said again.

Author's Note

This chapter is kind of my response to Celestia being shamelessly Worfed in "A Canterlot Wedding." Celestia is one of my favorite characters, and it's a teensy bit upsetting to me that she never gets to really rip evil a new one. I tried to write this battle a lot of ways, and I finally realized that the most powerful thing I could do with it was just show it from a distant perspective, to present an idea of just how tremendous of a struggle it really was. Some readers will want something more like the Nightmare Moon fight from "The Sun Eater," but it just didn't feel right, here.

Once again, I was listening to an Alice in Chains song while I wrote that scene: "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here."

Altered things a bit in the scene with Luna and Celestia right before the fight. I like the idea that Celestia and Luna almost never touch one another. No hugs. No kisses. No nuzzling or gentle touches of reassurance. The only time in this whole continuity that either one touches the other willfully is when Luna lays down beside Celestia to go into her dream in "The Sun Eater," and Celestia isn't even conscious for that. That's just what and who they are.