We stand together

They somehow climbed down the ladder into a large, empty room. There were a few doors leading off into other corridors, but nothing more.

‘Odd’ said Dasher, ‘I was expecting much more of a fight’

‘Where do we go though?’ asked Rainbowdash.

‘Oooh! I love guessing games!’ squealed Pinkie Pie, ‘I say this one!’

She bounced towards one of the doors and flung it open. ‘Oh! There’s cultists in here!’ she hopped in and the sounds of screaming and breaking bones emanated from within.

‘You can come in now!’ she chirped gleefully from inside.

The scene that met them was indescribable, so I’m not even going to try.

‘You could have at least kept some of them alive for us to question, Pinkie!’ scolded Rarity, who seemed to be getting into this whole idea of butchering everything.

‘Don’t worry Rarity, Bowdler here’s good at bringing things back to life!’ she pointed at Bowdler who suddenly dropped his swords.

‘Who me? No powerful magic here!’ he spluttered uncomfortably.

‘Oki doki loki...’ she said suspiciously.

‘Guys!’ yelled Bluewing, breaking the tension, ‘Over here, I’ve found something!’

Everypony ran over to see what appeared to be a board full of moving pictures.

‘What in tarnation kind o’ sorcery is this?’ asked Applejack, sounding utterly dumbfounded.

‘No idea,’ replied Bluewing, ‘but it looks like it’s showing every room in the place as they are now!’

He looked to be right. In the top left was a picture of them, in the room full of corpses, looking at the pictures. There were mostly empty corridors or rooms full of talking cultists, however a few stood out. There was Overlord Dark Spectre’s office, where he sat, leaking blue gases all over the floor. There was a room full of ponies who appeared to be chanting and there was a room with a large black shape in it, looking like nothing on earth.

‘That black thing...’ said Dasher, ‘We’ve got to find out what that is’

A voice came from the other side of the door, ‘Bring heavier weaponry! One of these ponies just slaughtered the entire intelligence room!’

‘We have an intelligence room? I could use one of those!’

‘Just get the warp fiends!’

‘Looks like we’ve got company’ smirked Bowdler, ‘Good, we could use somepony to tell us where this room is’

‘Room number 81H!’ said Pinkie Pie, ‘it says, right here’

‘Oh... Right... Off we go then!’

‘Crap! Crap! They’re coming this way! Run!’ The clattering of hooves outside the door told them that they didn’t need to kill those poor cultists. They came out of the room and back into the hallway.

‘Here, this corridor has the letter H over it,’ said Rainbowdash, ‘This’ll be our one! Let’s go!’

‘Hang on a second everypony!’ said Bluewing, holding up his hoof for silence, ‘Where’s Fluttershy?’

~

They didn’t need to look far to find her. She was stood, frozen at the picture back in the intelligence room.

‘Fluttershy, what’s wrong?’ asked Bowdler.

‘Well, you have sort of stuck the most sensitive pony in Equestria into a room full of corpses!’ shouted Rainbowdash, which was a really good point.

‘So much death...’ she whimpered, ‘Why does it always have to be this way?’ tears began to form around her eyes. She couldn’t believe that her friend Pinkie Pie was capable of causing such a bloodbath.

‘Hey,’ Bowdler softly whispered into her ear, ‘it’s not always a bad thing. These were evil ponies, who would have caused even more death and destruction had they been kept alive.’

‘But why so many? How can this many ponies be that bad?’

Rainbowdash was keeping tabs on this whole conversation, eager to learn how Bowdler managed to get through to Fluttershy.

‘There’s not much good left in this world to be honest, Fluttershy. Corruption and greed flow through everypony in this day and age, it’s just that some ponies are more prone to letting it out’

‘But how could Pinkie Pie do this? They’re all dead!’

‘Pinkie did what she had to do-’

‘PINKIE CHOSE TO DO THIS!’ she squealed, but then looked surprised at the tone of her own voice. She pressed herself against him. ‘The world isn’t what i thought it was, Bowdler. It’s much less than that...’

‘And that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing! To make it what you thought it was, a good place full of kind and true ponies. Doesn’t that sound worth fighting for?’

‘I guess so...’ she perked up a little and shook herself off, ‘In fact, that sounds like something that would definitely be worth fighting for!’

‘Glad you’ve come to your senses! You ready to go?’

‘You bet I am!’ she galloped out of the door and joined the other ponies who were waiting out there.

‘I still have no idea how you do that,’ coughed Rainbowdash, ‘But it won’t work on me, my faith lies somewhere else!’ she flew out after Fluttershy, leaving Bowdler alone with Bluewing.

‘Well that went well’

~

The eight ponies began to walk down corridor H. It was long, narrow and dark, feeling similar to the interior of the old castle. Bowdler shivered, it was also extremely cold.

There were doors along the sides of the corridor, seemingly placed randomly. All of them appeared to be empty. One however, had a faint orange glow emerging from it.

‘Here, room 81H!’ said Pinkie Pie.

‘How did y-’ began Bluewing, but then he noticed the 81H written over the handle, ‘Never mind...’

‘You two still got your stealth equipment?’ Dasher asked him and Bowdler.

‘Why wouldn’t we?’

‘Alright. You five, wait out here. Be careful, I don’t really want to meet any of those “warp fiends” they were talking about. Me, Bluewing and Bowdler will go into the room, stealthed of course, and see what it is in there.’

Bowdler nodded and turned on his stealth equipment. When the three of them entered the room, they couldn’t believe their eyes.

The once mighty Bek’kiliip lay in chains, blue gases erupting from everywhere it could on his body. He was bound by magic and covered in deep gashes. He let out a moan of disapproval. Bowdler started to stay something but Dasher quickly covered his mouth.

‘The black dragons are in league with the cultists, don’t fall for this trick’

He nodded and began to move closer to Bek’kiliip. The dragon coughed feebly and began to speak, in Equestrian no less but in a weak and strained tone.

‘I can see you, mortals. There is no point trying to hide from an Elder dragon.’ The effort of speaking seemed to be tearing his mind apart. ‘You have to get out of this place... Nightmare moon... she’ll come for you as she did for me...’

‘But Nightmare moon was killed by the aliens, we saw it!’

‘As you said yourself, young Dasher, the dark queen is still capable of warp travel. She escaped and possessed myself and Overlord Dark Spectre, she chose him over me. He has been enacted with duty code A-46, she has total control over him. Myself however...’ he coughed up a welt of black blood, ‘I have been bound to code X-973. I am doomed to die slowly, as the fallen queen takes command of my aspect. I cannot allow this to happen. My little ponies. You must kill me.’

‘Bek’kiliip, we can’t do that. A powerful dragon aspect has died already this week, another death would upset the balance of the elder powers!’

‘Oh be quiet Dasher. I know of this. However, my death will show the Black Dragonkin that something is wrong and they will flee back to the Equestrian army. Most of the cultists will probably follow suit. Either way, I wish to join Arth’alaki... He was a close friend of mine...’

Bowdler summoned his swords. He could see the sincerity in the whites of the old dragon’s eyes. He truly believed his death would be for the greater good of Equestria and he wasn’t about to let the last wish of an elder dragon go unnoticed. He stepped forwards.

‘Bowdler...’ said Dasher and Bluewing at the same time, but they stopped themselves.

‘You prove yourself to be the bravest of your kind, Bowdler. Do it, do not hesitate.'

Bek’kiliip closed his eyes for what was to be the final time. Bowdler plunged his swords into the top of his head and destroyed his brain utterly. He lay silent. Suddenly, there were screams of distress from the hundreds of dragons inside the complex. They had realised what they were doing.

~

Dark Spectre’s ears perked up. This had been the first time he’d had any real control over his body for a while. He felt a wave of agony crash over him. Bek’kiliip had died. The dark queen was not amused.

~

Bowdler stood and looked at Bek’kiliip’s corpse for a while. He couldn’t believe that he’d just killed an Elder dragon.

‘We’d better get going’ said Bluewing, choking back some tears.

‘Agreed,’ replied Dasher quickly, ‘We’d better not let Fluttershy see this’

‘We’ve gathered enough intelligence to leave anyway, we’ll be fine’ Bowdler added. They went back outside the door.

‘What’s in there?’ asked Applejack.

‘Nothing...’ replied Bowdler quietly.

‘We’re leaving this place now, we’ve gathered enough intelligence to report back to the Princess!’ said Dasher, avoiding the awkward conversation that was looming around the corner.

‘DEE COLON!’ yelled Pinkie Pie, putting on the most disappointed face she could manage, ‘But I only killed one room full of cultists!’ she suddenly tackle hugged Bluewing, ‘Just a few more? Please?’

‘No Pinkie!’ he said firmly, ‘No more will die today’

‘Unless, of course, you count yourselves’ came a threatening voice from just down the corridor. They turned to see Dark Spectre staring them down, arcane magic pouring from his eyes and horn.

‘Dasher! Tell Celestia it’s not me! GAH!’  He blurted out suddenly, but flinched like he’d just been stabbed. ‘QUIET DOWN AND LET ME KILL THEM YOU MORON!’  he screamed, sounding like a completely different pony. Dark clouds erupted from his mouth as he spoke.

‘The pass-code is 42-1337-69-15! Use it to get out quickly!’

‘IDIOT! DON’T TELL THEM THAT!’  The ponies turned and ran, now knowing full well what was going on. They got to the main hallway and began to somehow climb back up the ladder. ‘You can’t hide from me you ignorant ponies!’  came Dark Spectre’s voice from back down the corridor, where his legs had suddenly seized up.

‘FÁFNIR!’ yelled Dasher, ‘GET US OUT OF HERE!’

‘si mi shafaer sia idol!’ The stone dragon replied as he began to descend from the sky. They ran up his tail and onto his back. He flew up into the air as fast as he could and tried to get his bearing from the ever changing skyline of Bloodstone.

‘mabliki, shala ve vi klewar ekess ehtah creolnali... si jinthil nomeno goawy...’ said Fáfnir quietly, sounding like he was beginning to well up. He flew down to a nearby mountain, with a clearing by the side of it. There was a large chunk out of the side of it. ‘wer dask verthicha... svanoa shilta nomeno qe? coi jahus sventa persvek wer irral lleisgarir di malrunwa welun! Vucoti wux tir ti vucot svabol si mi yentair, shar shala ve ekess demak wux svadrav wux renthisj mrith Celestia.’ He took off again, leaving the eight ponies completely lost for words.