Heart of Courage

The United Equestria Nations’ frigate soared across the void, leaving two identical trails of plasma in the wake of her powerful engines. Much of the cyan paint accenting her leading edges had been scoured away from interstellar dust. It had been a long time since she had seen the interior of a dry dock for some much needed maintenance, and the wear and tear of her difficult journey was easily visible. Even so, the patrol frigate had a crew to protect and like the pegasus pony she had been named for, Rainbow Dash would not let them down.

Onboard the bridge of the Equestrian starship, Twilight Sparkle watched the various data outputs and video feeds she had on her personal computer. She studied them quietly as to not disturb anyone else in the room. A lot had already happened today, and they were not out of the fire just yet. The constant alerts of approaching cygnul capital warships kept anyone from forgetting that.

Behind them lay the dark heart of a dead star. By now, they had gained enough distance to be safe from its gravitational clutches. But many of those cygnul weren’t as lucky. Twilight thought about the fate her and her fellow crew members had nearly suffered and she failed to suppress a shiver down her back. If she zoomed in with a stern-mounted camera, she could still make out a small glowing ring of matter swirling into the stellar massed black hole. A significant portion of the alien fleet had been unable to make the slingshot maneuver, and they paid for it with their lives.

Twilight changed her focus to what was ahead of them. Growing larger by the minute, a glowing brown dwarf was the only other notable body in this strange solar system. Their onboard artificial intelligence, Alice, calculated its mass sitting a hair’s breadth below the limit required to collapse it into the smallest type of star, a red dwarf. Even so, it still had enough mass to fuse hydrogen’s heavier isotopes and thus give off its own muted magenta light. Unfortunately, with no more infalling matter to feed it, the failed star would remain so until the end of the universe.

She took a chance to check on her fellow crewmates. Ponies and humans quietly monitored the frigate’s various sub-systems, doing their due diligence to keep the ship running. Now that the inertial dampers were able to stabilize the frigate’s artificial gravity, Socket Wrench dove straight into the inner workings of the warp drive console on the bridge. The pegasus engineer tore out partially melted fragments of machinery whilst throwing fresh parts into the device, welding and soldering as she went.

Next to her, Victoria Schaefer gently applied bandages to the pony who had previously monitored the ruined station. His condition had improved greatly since their brutal reemergence into cygnul-controlled space and he unsuccessfully tried to wave off the medical officer. Twilight felt her lips curl upwards after the stallion pushed away one of the blonde-maned human’s hands and she glared at him with a stare powerful enough to set lesser creatures into stone. He gave in soon after that for her preferential medical treatment.

A jarring shake of the bridge harshly yanked her from her thoughts. Twilight’s right forehoof shot out and gripped her leg-rest almost hard enough to hurt. Even after the rattling had subsided, she hesitated to cease bracing herself. Her eyes poured over the new status feeds scrolling across the bridge’s main front screen. Overlaid over the image of the brown dwarf, she keyed in on their shield integrity as it trickled back to one hundred percent.

“Alice?” The voice of James Fletcher brought Twilight’s attention on the ship’s captain and the miniature holographic earth pony on his chair.

“That was a near miss by one of the cygnul barges. I am doing my best to saturate their sensors with noise on all frequencies. Coupled with the relativistic speeds we are traveling at, they are forced to guess where our actual position is. However…”

Before she could continue, Isamu Zhang spoke up, “even the blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.”

The artificial pony nodded her translucent head. “I can make it hard for them to target us, but I can’t make it impossible for them to get lucky.”

“I know you are doing the best you can.” James Fletcher shifted in his seat, his eyes darting amongst several status reports from different sections of the ship. As the captain of the UEN Rainbow Dash, he needed to stay aware of the happenings on his vessel. Every department, every system, and every tactical update fed across his computer. He had to keep an eye on the bigger picture while others focused on their delegated tasks.

Twilight Sparkle felt obligated to help in whatever way she could and she mirrored the human captain’s actions. She worked her way through the entire patrol frigate, from bow to stern. Then, as soon as she had finished, the lavender pony went back and started again. Captain Fletcher may have had mountains of experience compared to her, but she had already proven that she could come at things from a unique point of view shared by nopony else on board. Sometimes, it takes a different perspective to see the best path ahead.

As she finished checking on the backups for their fire control system, Twilight felt a pressure growing in her head. It escalated quickly to the point where she had to place her hooves on either side of her skull, pressing down hard to try and relieve the pain. A rumble of the ship followed another nearby detonation and surprisingly, the mental pressure subsided. Twilight took note that not only did this latest shockwave feel harsher and more violent, but the incoming attacks were coming in at a greater frequency. The cygnul haven’t hit us yet, but they are getting better and better at predicting our movements.

She sat up and swiped away the diagnostic routine on her computer that had just started a test of their main gun’s superconductor coils. It came out clean when I checked a few minutes ago anyway. She reassured herself. Rather, Twilight put in a request for Alice to analyze the cygnul firing pattern from the time they completed the slingshot maneuver up to the most recent near miss.

Pixelated sparks poured off the little pony as she vanished from James’ chair to reappear on hers. The human only glanced over only for a second at them before refocusing on his readouts. Alice and Twilight leaned in as a three dimensional map of local space displayed their flight trajectory as a long curving blue line leading away from the terrifyingly sharp turn they had made around the black hole. Around them, several red lines came in from above the solar system’s plane where the cygnul fleets had been waiting.

Initially, their wildly aimed volleys came no closer to the UEN ship than within a few hundred kilometers. Even the powerful city-buster-sized weapons fired by their bombardment barges did little to the frigate at those distances. However, as they had traveled, the cygs began to miss by less and less with each shot. The last one detonated at a distance of only twenty kilometers, and their shields were starting to feel the strain.

“It’s not just luck.” Twilight whispered to the artificial pony, turning her head to meet the AI’s all too lifelike eyes mirroring her own fear. “They are learning.”

“That should be impossible.” Alice blinked once before bringing a glowing forehoof to her chin in thought. “The cygnul are still too far away for them to be able to predict our position this accurately. This changes things. I will need to make alterations to my avoidance algorithms, radio noise projections, and gravitic jamming procedures until I can determine what they are doing to track us this well.”

Twilight Sparkle felt her gaze fall upon the brown dwarf on the front view screen and she once more felt that pressure in the back of her mind. Still growing larger, their slingshot around the black hole gave them the much-needed boost for them to reach the failed star before the cygnul would. These unfortunate thoughts gave her an idea as to why the cygnul might be getting better at targeting them much faster than they should have been.

“Alice,” she kept her voice low, “when I touched the cygnul with my mind on Valles, I was very close to that brown dwarf. I think they might have something there that could be tracking us.”

“That would explain how they are receiving better targeting data.” The AI nodded up at her before facing forward. “I will direct all of my sensors on the vicinity of the dwarf. Wait one…”

Across the bridge, external sensor feeds ceased updating for a few seconds. Crew members currently studying them mumbled about faulty equipment, looking back at the raised dais, where James and Twilight sat, for guidance. The human captain looked over at her for an answer and she had just opened her mouth to explain when Alice screamed out a warning.

“Cygnul construct coming around the dwarf!”

Twilight Sparkle did not know what she expected Alice to find during her scrutiny, but what she saw was unfathomable even in her wildest dreams. Around the right side of the fiery, magenta-hued sphere, a small moon crept into view. As the orbital satellite, inched around the dwarf, she understood right away that what she was looking at was not a natural construct.

Her first revulsive thought was that of a large sea urchin. The spherical-shaped satellite had rocky spires protruding from its entire surface which itself glowed with a muted, dark navy light. Along its spines, the blue gave way to a deep violet, which shifted to teal up around their tips. Extending for hundreds of miles into space, each spine on its own had little resemblance in size and height to its neighbors. This inconsistent construction led to a pattern-less landscape of abstract design.

Even so, as Twilight studied it further with the ship’s optical suite, she realized something. Those aren’t spines, they are buildings. As the picture cleared, the razor sharp spires resolved into gigantic turrets that rose high into the void. This planet-wide fortress stretched from pole to pole, leaving no portion of the surface untouched. Many of them ended in extravagant city-sized towers covered in brilliant cerulean lights, while an equal number terminated into large flat platforms covered in gun turrets that would have dwarfed a battleship’s main weaponry.

It was a terrifying sight to watch these guns swivel their way, bringing ship-sized barrels around to target the elusive UEN vessel. The physic pressure in the back of Twilight’s mind began to grow once more and she sucked in a deep breath as the first guns released a volley of energy beams. Brilliant columns of greenish-blue light sliced across the void, reaching out for the Rainbow Dash while the frigate danced around them in an impressive display of maneuverability.

Twilight Sparkle tried to think of a way out of their predicament when she fought off another surge of headache pain. It didn’t help that Alice seemed to yank the ship around to avoid another attack every single time the pressure in her head peaked. It began to severely grate her nerves when a strange thought came to her. What if they are related?

Wanting to test it, she concentrated on the dull pounding in her head and compared it to the cygnul firing pattern. Each time one of the high energy beams cut through the sky near them, she could feel a synchronic ache just behind her horn. It’s not just a coincidence. This must be how they have been targeting us all along.

No one else seemed to be as sensitive to the cygnul magic as much as her. Isamu Zhang barely reacted beyond a small shake of his head or a pinching of the bridge of his nose. The other unicorn in the room must not have had the magical aptitude either, since he only glanced around as if searching for an annoying fly. I’m the only one who can do this. Gritting her teeth, Twilight Sparkle focused her magic inward in a direction away from the existing universe. She narrowed her eyes and imagined slicing through the oncoming wave of psychic pressure much like the bow of a ship in a storm. A short brilliant flash lit up the tip of her horn and around her, she felt the broken tendrils of energy wither away as the cygnul’s arcane tracking broke down.

As she came to, the lavender mare took note of several things at once. First, the concerned face of Victoria was only inches away from her and the human immediately recoiled to give her space, seeing that she was up and aware now. As the medical officer started to check on her, the next thing that Twilight noticed was the latest cygnul firing pattern missing them completely. Not a single detonation occurred near enough to even nudge the frigate. This resulted in several confused looks around the bridge at this latest development, but the final thing the unicorn caught out of the corner of her eye was a small flashing transmission request icon in the lower corner of the front screen.

It had been weeks since they had even conversed with friendly forces and the cygnul had never tried to contact them directly before. They generally were a shoot first, don’t ask questions species in her experience; especially with what happened at Valles. Twilight’s shock must have been evident because even Victoria turned to see what had transfixed the unicorn’s attention. “Is that…” The human’s question went unfinished but not unnoticed.

“Captain, the cygnul have stopped shooting us, but…” Dmitri picked up on the flashing icon and his shocked voice caught the rest of the bridge crew’s attention. “I think we are being hailed?”

James Fletcher stared at his screen’s identical request for a communications handshake from the cygnul. He reached out with a hand to accept but he faltered at the last second, leaving his fingers hovering above the touch screen. “Well, how bad can it be?” The Captain of the Rainbow Dash asked out loud before accepting the invitation.

A window expanded from the alert icon and took up the entirety of the front monitor. The black screen flickered as a status bar slowly filled, marking the connection status. “Alice?” James inclined his head towards the glowing pony perched on his armrest.

“Don’t worry, sir. I am keeping an eye on any malignant data packets they might try to send through the connection. Nothing will get by me.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.” Isamu Zhang sat up a little straighter and tried to pull the wrinkles from his uniform.

Seeing this, Twilight Sparkle finally took note of her appearance from the faint reflection on her own seat’s computer. The violent shaking she had been forced to endure left her looking rather frazzled and she had to lick her forehooves and run them through her mane several times to try and pull it back into place. She would need a bath and a brush before she could fully return to normal, but at least she had a presentable appearance. If anything, Twilight thought she had an aura of hardiness about her. It would take more than a simple face to face with the cygnul to phase the time-traveling unicorn.

A soft chime pinged from the speakers and the blackness of the transmission window vanished to be replaced with a peculiar sight. In the center of the screen, a nebulous, sapphire-blue cloud sat in front of a towering winged throne. Talons and claws carved of dark stone clawed the air, and wide nebulous wings splayed out far and wide, extending beyond what they could see displayed on the front screen.

Tinged with a light magenta, the edges of the cloud sparkled and undulated as if responding to a gentle breeze. In the center of the mass, pinpricks of white popped into existence almost as quickly as they were extinguished, leading to an ever-changing display of constellations and patterns. As the video screen finished synchronizing, the center of the nebulous mass swirled around twin points of cerulean light that resolved themselves into two eyes, directing their cat-like irises in a glare directed at the bridge crew.

“You have invaded our domain! You are not welcome here!” The grating voice not only emanated from the ship’s speakers, but it pierced directly into the minds of everyone on the bridge. Ponies and humans flinched together as they felt a physic backlash of anger and fury that was not their own.

James Fletcher addressed the form, trying his hand at diplomacy. “We are just passing through. Let us go and we will bother you no more.”

“You misunderstand. Your very existence is a perversion. We will bring an end to your plague that has infected this universe. This is something you cannot control. This is something you cannot stop.”

The entity’s response confused Twilight and she furrowed her brow in thought, bringing a forehoof up to rub at her chin. Our existence is a perversion? It sounds like it is referring to both ponies and humans. What would all of us have in common? She mulled over it for only a moment before the answer hit her like a kick from a mule. “You’re talking about life, aren’t you? You want to rid the universe of life.”

Another flare of white-hot anger washed over the crew, and the creature’s eyes narrowed even further, directed fully at her. “You! We would have succeeded before if it weren’t for you, Twilight Sparkle. Your Princess of the Moon was ours to command and your world would have died if it weren’t for your… your Harmony!” The voice crackled into a scream at the last word.

“It was you!” Twilight finally recognized the light behind the eyes of the monster on the front screen, remembering where she saw them before. “You are the Nightmare that took over Princess Luna and corrupted her. You tried to cover Equestria in eternal darkness!”

“Her jealousy made her weak; easy to infect. It should have been enough. She didn’t understand what an eternal night would do to your pathetic world. By fire and ice, it would have died!” The layered two-tone voice caused Twilight to wince slightly with each harsh syllable. “But your Sun Princess weakened me enough for you and your friends to banish me. You forced me to flee.”

The malevolent eyes never wavered their unblinking gaze, stabbing at Twilight from the front screen. “But I should thank you, Twilight Sparkle. You gave me a lot to think about and I have had a lot of time to rethink my strategy. If I could not remove your epidemic by myself, then I would need an army of my own.”

“So then, you created the cygnul and you set them upon Harmony and Equestria.” James Fletcher’s voice remained steady and in control, but Twilight could sense a bitter rage in his accusation. “It’s been you who we have been fighting this whole time. All of the cygnul we have ever killed were just mindless beasts under your control.”

“My creations are stronger than you! My creations are better than you!”

“Is that what you think? Have you forgotten Pegasopolis? What about New Cadia, the Polis Massa Asteroid Field, or even the blockade at Kasterborous? Time and time again, we ruined your plans, broke your armies, and destroyed your fleets. Last but not least, I distinctly remember our rag tag fleet sending your forces running scared during our first meeting at the Battle over Harmony.”

“Hold your tongue and learn your place, you mewling, homeless creature.” The nebulous cloud’s edges rippled fast enough to blur into a haze as it directed a venom-laden response towards the human captain. “Your species’ extinction has been long overdue. This is not a fate your dying race will be able to run from this time, no matter how many of your own worlds you sacrifice.”

“You assume much about humans!” Twilight Sparkle felt a spark of brilliant anger rise to her throat and she couldn’t stop herself before shouting out. “I may have not known them for my whole life, but in our short time together, I have seen that they emulate the very best virtues of Ponykind. They’ve experienced the worst the universe had to offer and yet they still remained true to their better selves in the end. You could learn a thing or two from them and then maybe we could all coexist together.”

“Coexist? I remember a time long before even light infected my universe. It was mine before, and it shall be mine once again. You can make your pacts, your treaties, your alliances, but it won’t help you in the end. Your mortal lives will be extinguished while I shall reign eternal.”

Twilight Sparkle pinned her ears far back on her head, and let out an angry snort from her nose. Before she could rebuke the dark mass though, James stepped in. “That is a strong statement coming from a failure like you. You failed to take over Princess Luna. You failed to resist the Elements of Harmony. Then, after having thousands of years to prepare, you still failed to wipe out Harmony a second time when you had it on a silver platter! Do you really think you are going to succeed now that you’re no longer hiding in the shadows? Ponies, and humans, are going to defeat you, and they will do so together.”

Around the bridge, Twilight noticed the crew sitting up a little straighter and calls of agreement circulating amongst the various ponies and humans. Over at the damaged warp controls, Socket Wrench finished plugging in a bypass and she stood up side by side with Victoria Schaefer who held a reassuring hand on her wounded charge next to her. Even though he was strapped in his seat, the warp control pony still managed to glare out of his one unbandaged eye at the malevolent dark entity on the front screen.

Isamu Zhang leaned up from his station and gestured with an open hand. “You claim that your cygnul are stronger than us, yet even outnumbered, we have turned your forces away multiple times.”

“Da, Zhang is right. You overestimate much about your cygnul.” Dmitri Bearclaw leaned back in his seat, avoiding eye contact with the front screen. He waved a hoof in the air flippantly, dismissing the allegation the entity had said previously. If anything, this only seemed to infuriate it further.

“Look around you, cretin. Do you think you will stem the tide of my next attack? Your warpgate can send every fleet you have and it still will not be enough. For every ship you destroy, a thousand will take its place. I will descend upon your worlds and burn them to their cores.”

Twilight took a glance at the system map on her personal computer. Seeing the swarm of cygnul capital ships closing in on them, she swallowed thickly. There are so many of them, she tried to keep a straight face but when she looked back up, the dark cloud stared at her and its edges curled upwards in a dark recreation of a smile.

“Do you understand now? Not even with your new allies could you stand up to me!” All across the system, an innumerable number of cygnul ships dove towards their lonely frigate. The warship counter continued rising as Alice detected more and more heat blooms lighting up in the outer reaches of the system. Warnings screamed a wailing howl as another barrage of incoming projectiles flew their way.“Goodbye, Twilight Sparkle, it is time for you and your friends to die!”

The dark nebulous cloud undulated as a shrill laughter filled the speakers just before the connection terminated to static. Alice quickly brought back the feed of the orbital fortress moon just as its thousands upon thousands of gun towers zeroed in on the Rainbow Dash once more. Enemy target-lock alarms cycled through the text window in the corner too fast to see clearly.

The bridge of the UEN ship exploded in a flurry of activity the moment that the cygnul reengaged them. James shouted out commands to open fire, which Isamu did immediately. Their celestial cannon lanced out a beam of intense red light that connected with one of the platform guns on the orbital fortress, overloading its power systems and blowing it apart in a cascading eruption that engulfed its neighbors in a blinding detonation. A mushroom cloud towered from the surface and slowly drifted apart in moon’s thin atmosphere.

However, even though the self-immolation of one of the cygnul guns took dozens of its neighbors with it, there were miles and miles of these structures, and the little frigate did not have the time to target every one of them. The cygnul weapons zeroed in on them and one by one, they returned the favor a thousand fold. They may not have had a hard lock on their actual position due to the actions of Alice, but enough shells filled the sky to overcome that advantage.

Proximity detonations shook the UEN vessel hard. The turbulence threw Twilight against her seat’s straps and she cried out in pain as they dug into her shoulders. She blinked through tears in her eyes just in time to watch two unfortunate souls, who were not buckled in, tossed haphazardly across the bridge. Socket Wrench screamed as her already injured front leg slammed into an instrument console. Victoria Schaefer clutched the back of her head as she tried to drag the pegasus to clip onto a nearby crash webbing wall.

Twilight tried her hardest to come up with anything that might help their situation, but one look at the encircling warships and rapidly approaching fortress world told her all she needed to know about their chances. The deep pallor of despair settled upon her like a wet blanket and smothered her hopes. All she could do was sit there and wait for their luck to run out. She didn’t have to wait long.

Burning its engines at full power, a cygnul battleship fired its main gun where its sensors thought the Rainbow Dash was. In the blink of an eye, a brilliant turquoise lance powerful enough to vaporize entire cities crossed the intervening distance and cut along the hull of the patrol frigate. Only a last second maneuver from Alice saved them from outright annihilation.

Punching through her shields, the cerulean bolt’s edges tore across theRainbow Dash’s outer hull, spalling away molten fragments of its hardened armor into space. Even though the main body of the attack had missed them, the glancing blow still had enough power to gouge a deep scar along the frigate’s nose. The entire ship shuddered under the impact, knocking her crew around violently. A metallic howling reverberated throughout the entire vessel, and its deathly wail sent chills down the spines of every living soul onboard.

The Rainbow Dash was dying.

A voice from Twilight’s left caught her attention, and she turned to see James staring at her. “What did you say, Captain?”

“I’m sorry, Twilight.” James Fletcher said to her. He spoke gently and she could see the remorse plastered on his face. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save you.”

She looked around the bridge and noticed everypony watching her. She could see the fear in their guilty stares. They had been so close in completing their mission of bringing her home safely, but now in this hidden star system, they were destined to die. The crew of the Rainbow Dash had failed.

“No.” Twilight Sparkle began, pinning her ears back in anger at such a thought. “Stop it. You did not fail. The odds were stacked against us from the very beginning but that didn’t deter any of you at all. Each challenge we faced, we did so together.”

She paused for a moment to collect herself. Everything going on outside of the frigate went unnoticed. There was nothing anypony could do anymore. “I am a stranger to this world, and I came here with nothing but my memories of an Equestria long gone. I lost my home, my friends, and my family.”

Twilight choked back a sob and blinked away a few tears. “I lost everything, yet you all were there for me. It was more than just saving an Element of Harmony. You all did so much more for me.”

“Isamu, you got me to open up about my memories that were haunting me. If you hadn’t come along, I don’t even want to think about how I would have coped on my own. You got me to be true to myself and accept what happened in order to focus on my future.” The human officer gave her a nod of respect, bowing forward slightly.

Her eyes then met those of the ship’s medical officer. “Victoria, you were there when I first woke up in this world. I had just learned about the fate of my family and friends and you did not hesitate to comfort me and to let me know that I was not alone. You have always been there to care for me no matter if I was hurt physically or emotionally and for that, I am most grateful.”

“Dmitri,” as her attention fell to the earth pony, he grinned widely at her, “I want to thank you for brightening up my day over and over. Even during these dark and foreboding times as of late, you always knew exactly what to say and do to make me smile. You reminded me of all of the wonderful stories I have from my old life and it was a pleasure to be able to share them with you.”

“Socket Wrench,” Twilight addressed the wounded pegasus who still managed to give her a feeble smile. “You have given up so much for this ship and its crew. I watched you risk your life to save everyone on board, and you did so with the knowledge that you might not make it out alive. Thank you for taking me under you wing, giving me a place to stay, and all of the little things you do for us all.”

Finally, Twilight twisted her head around to face James. “Last but not least, thank you Captain for keeping us together. You stand up for what you believe in, even if it means you must sometimes make tough choices. Taking on the cygnul over Valles showed me that you are someone I will always be able to rely on to stand by my side, no matter the consequences.”

Twilight turned to address the whole bridge crew when she noticed the intercom icon blinking on her monitor. Apparently, Alice wanted the entire ship to hear her words and a sly smirk from the glowing pony now standing on her legrest confirmed those suspicions. “Life can be fleeting, but that’s what makes it so beautiful. All we can really do in the one life we are given is to love each other as best we can. My friends taught me this lesson back in my own world and you all have reminded me of it here in this one. What truly matters in the end is having good friends by your side, so let me say thank you. Thank you for being my friends.”

Twilight smiled at her friends, blinking away a sparkle in her eye. Settling back into her seat, she felt a calm feeling of acceptance come over her. This may be the end, but I have been so lucky to have such wonderful friends in my life, she thought to herself when something peculiar happened. As she took in another lungful of air, Twilight noticed a pressure building in her chest.

It continued growing and she began to struggle to breathe. Panicking, she placed a forehoof against her chest and was about to call out for help when her world turned white. A continuous chime drowned out all other sounds, and Twilight screamed in fear as she felt a power that was not her own flow into her body. That was, until she recognized it. The Elements of Harmony?

For a short moment, Twilight Sparkle saw herself existing in two places at once. On the bridge of The Rainbow Dash, she saw her body still strapped into her seat. Eyes glowing white with power, her head arched back in the air and her mouth opened wide in a soundless scream. Around her, shocked crew members stared at her and she could see several of them frozen in time as they made to unstrap themselves to help her.

At the same time, she saw a peculiar sight. She could see a huge open room, complete with high arching columns. In the center of the empty space stood a shrine of some kind that glittered under soft moonlight shining in through several tall floor-to-ceiling windows. The shrine comprised of a giant branching crystal that somewhat resembled a tree, and each of its branching arms held a uniquely shaped gemstone. Her heart soared the moment she recognized them.

It is the Elements of Harmony! She thought about reaching towards them when the Elements acted on their own accord. One by one, the various colored and shaped gems glowed brightly before vanishing with an arcane pop. Lastly, the violet six-pointed star seated in the middle of the tree lit up and popped out of existence. At the same time, Twilight felt something wrap comfortingly around the top of her head.

She started to lift a forehoof to her head when the strange tree-shrine room vanished in a burst of white light. The roaring sound of water filled Twilight’s ears when the world at large came rushing back to her. She came to tumbling forward out of her seat and a quick reflexive scramble of her hooves saved her from face planting on the deck. Standing up, Twilight finally had a moment to reach up and feel the Elemental tiara sitting on her head.

Twilight Sparkle stood up and looked behind her. The chair that she has been sitting in now rested in a sagging heap against the rear bulkhead. Next to her, James Fletcher had gotten out of his own captain’s chair, but what caught her eye immediately was that he was glowing, and he had a ruby red lightning bolt gemstone hanging from his neck.

She stopped and glanced around the bridge. James Fletcher wasn’t the only one with an element of Harmony. Victoria, Socket, Isamu, and even Dmitri all wore an Element around their necks. Loyalty, Kindness, Generosity, Honesty, and Laughter!Even though she traveled across time and space, the Elements of Harmony had never left her. She just needed to be reminded about the lesson she had learned so long ago. “Friendship is magic.”

As one, Twilight Sparkle and her five friends faced the front. Slack-jawed crew members stared frozen with shock at them while the main video feed displayed the next incoming barrage of cygnul attacks. They were coming up to the fortress moon and at this range; there was no way the cygs could miss. Closing her eyes to concentrate, she picked up on a melodic ringing that quickly grew in intensity, originating from the tiara situated on top of her head. Twilight felt the Elements yearning to be set free and do what they were meant to do; and so she allowed it willingly.

Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes, now blazing with light, and she became part of the Elements of Harmony along with her friends. A chromatic wave rushed out of the bridge, flowing through the entire frigate in less than a second before it passed through the outer hull and encapsulated the warship just as the first cygnul beams made contact. Arcane shrieking reverberated through the void while the rapidly rotating shield bore off every single attack without fail.

The cygnul threw everything at them. High-energy particle beams, kinetic armor piercing rounds, and nuclear-tipped missiles detonated against the prismatic capsule containing the UEN Rainbow Dash. The amount of weaponry sent after the little ship could have cracked a small moon, yet the Elements shrugged it off like it was nothing.

Twilight and her friends watched all of this happen from the Elements of Harmony’s perspective. As the Elements were part of their Bearers, the Bearers were also part of them. Three ponies and three humans watched as space lit up from thousands of weapon strikes against their shield, and they didn’t even feel the barest flicker of feedback from the insane amount of firepower bearing down on them. The frigate finally rocketed past the cygnul’s fortress moon and the Bearers picked up on an arcane scream of rage and frustration emanating from the horrid structure.

“No, it cannot be possible!”

“You never learned your lesson.” Twilight took the lead and spoke directly to the Nightmare, her words being conveyed directly to the evil creature. “The Elements of Harmony can never be defeated by you, not when there are still those of us who love and care for each other. You had many chances to learn those lessons and you have refused each and every time. Your antics have brought a reign of horror that has hurt millions of souls. We will not give you another chance to change your ways.”

” I will never listen to you, Twilight Sparkle! I will see your home turned to ash!”

“No, you won’t.” Twilight Sparkle felt the cold pinprick of regret, but she, along with her friends, understood what had to be done. The UEN frigate had fully passed the cygnul base and it now receded away from them rapidly since Alice could continue accelerating along their original flight path. The Bearers took note of the moon’s heavily armored crust and though the Elements of Harmony seemed to have no limits to their capabilities, they needed to make sure the dark entity did not have time to escape once it came under attack.

So, after a short deliberation amongst them, the Wielders of the Elements shifted their attention to the glowing brown dwarf. The failed star did not have enough mass to undergo sustained fusion of elemental hydrogen by gravitational collapse alone. However, if we give it the right kick….

With a single thought, Twilight and her friends brought the nose of the Rainbow Dash around to aim at the heart of the brown dwarf. Alice attempted to counter the maneuver at first, but she ceased once she realized that her efforts were futile. Next, they concentrated inwards and reached out to feel the ship. Every nook and cranny, every hallway, every room became known to them. The Bearers could feel how the way the ship’s life support system circulated breathable air, how its massive engines hummed reassuringly to give them power, and how the crew took part in keeping everything running as smoothly as they could. In that moment, the frigate seemed more than just an advanced machine. To her and her friends, she felt alive.

At an urging from James, they focused on one system in particular: the frigate’s celestial cannon. Their target was large, but if they did not hit perfectly dead center, then their efforts might be wasted in a glancing blow. They needed something that could make a pinpoint shot across thousands of kilometers of space and not miss.

Mounted spinally, the entire ship had to be oriented in order to aim, but its ability to channel any level of power through its superconductors made the disadvantage irrelevant. Twilight steadied herself and she felt her five friends do the same. As one, they let loose with the Elements, pouring their energy into the reserves of the Rainbow Dash’s main gun.

On the bridge, the few remaining crew members who still had their wits about them noticed warnings from Weapons Control flash on the main screen. The charge levels of the main guns had risen so high above their max limits that the sensors monitoring the super-conductors themselves had burned out. Worried faces glanced from each other to the six figures standing stock-still in the back of the bridge, still radiating a light almost too bright to look at.

Twilight Sparkle, James Fletcher, Socket Wrench, Dmitri Bearclaw, Victoria Schaefer, and Isamu Zhang leaned back, letting the Element Gems direct their energy fully forward. The musical ringing grew to an ear splitting crescendo, and the ship began to shake once more. Together, they then released it all in one fell swoop and the Rainbow Dash fired her main gun. The universe went white, and a pillar of prismatic fire punched directly into the center of the brown dwarf.

The column of energy burned through the hot vaporous upper atmosphere, continuing down through subsequent layers of gradually thickening gases. Moving at close to the speed of light, the blast did not even slow down as it traveled the seventy thousand kilometers in a fifth of a second. The Elementally-powered beam reached the center of the brown dwarf, coalescing into a tiny sphere so intense and powerful, that it immediately began to tear the super dense core apart. Rather than allow that to happen, The Bearers made one final thought, and the tiny mote of Harmony blew outwards with overwhelming force.

An unstoppable shockwave expanded outwards from the core. Compressing the depths of the brown dwarf to levels not seen even in the largest of stars, its hydrogen fuel had nowhere to go except to smash into its neighbors hard enough to initiate fusion. The subsequent release of energy further initiated more and more of its core to fuse, and soon, a runaway reaction began surging up through the layers of the failed star. A planet-sized volume of matter went super critical and detonated in the largest artificially-created explosion in the history of the universe.

Back in space, the Rainbow Dash’s celestial cannon ceased firing, and the six Bearers of Harmony dropped out of their ascended state. Twilight Sparkle blinked back her normal eyesight and she glanced around at the other Elements. James seemed to be slightly confused at the rapid transition. Isamu and Dmitri were smirking at each other’s necklaces, not realizing that they were each wearing one as well. Victoria helped a now healed Socket Wrench back to her hooves. The pegasus mare pawed forward with her previously hurt foreleg and smiled as it did not hurt anymore.

The lull in battle only lasted for a short moment before they remembered what was about to happen behind them. Then the six Bearers jumped right back into action and status updates were yelled across the bridge. James Fletcher went straight to calling Alice to swing them back around and accelerate at full thrust away from the dwarf. Isamu and Dmitri rallied the rest of the crew to snap them back into focus. Victoria took off running, shouting something about prepping the med bay for warp travel. Socket Wrench practically dove into the backup warp controls, and not having a chair to sit in anymore, Twilight joined her.

As she assisted the pegasus, Twilight kept an eye on the video and sensor feeds on their stern. The brown dwarf’s upper atmosphere roiled from the influx of so much energy imparted to it from the Elemental blast. Electrical storms stabbed massive bolts of lightning across its glowing surface as it tried to equal the static charges that had built up. Even though the core had entered its death throes, the rest of the dwarf had yet to realize that it only had seconds to live.

It happened so fast, that had Twilight blinked, she would have missed it. First, the brown dwarf seemed to puff outwards slightly. Then geysers of hot gas blew out from a thousand different spots, and finally the entire thing went pure white and every single camera feed and electromagnetic sensor on the rear half of the ship overloaded at once.

Twilight had enough time to suck in a shocked breath when a piercing shriek of physic energy cut through her mind. She flinched as the deathly howl cut off not long after. Goodbye Nightmare. I am sorry I couldn’t save you. She thought with a mix of relief and sadness.

Even though she knew they had defeated the dark entity, they still had a more immediate concern to worry about. The creepy thing to her was that there was no sound or instant shockwave to feel. Twilight only knew of the approaching nova from final dying scream of the Nightmare, and the warnings Alice displayed from hull’ temperature-monitoring instruments buried deep enough to survive the initial flash. It disconcerted her and she wanted nothing more than to leave this system once and for all.

“The bypass is active. All I need is your help locking in those circuits there, and there.” Socket gestured with a forehoof when Twilight redirected her full attention on helping the pegasus.

Twilight nodded at her and looked back into the open panel. Wires and cables ran everywhere, some as thick as her foreleg and some thinner than a strand of her mane. She wondered how the pegasus could have fixed something like this without magic, but the ones she had gestured to were easy to spot. They were the only ones in the very back not plugged in.

With a small amount of thought, she levitated both boards and simultaneously attached the loose wires back in place. No sooner had their indicator lights flicked from red to green did the ship’s warp drive begin spooling up. Twilight and Socket made for the crowded crash webbing as the ship began to feel the turbulence from the leading edges of the encroaching shockwave.

“Alice, we need to go now!” James Fletcher screamed in frustration.

“I’m nearly done with the emergency checks!” The artificial computer shouted back while Twilight and Socket struggled to lock themselves in. She took a glance at the front screen where a hazy white cloud started to encroach on their forward field of view. Temperature levels were reaching critical levels and their hull began groaning under the stress.

“Alice, we don’t have time!” Twilight cried out when smoke started pouring out of one of the air vents.

“Emergency checks complete! Priming warp drive!”

James yanked his webbing straps to tighten hard enough to dig into his shoulders. “Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!”

Alice did not even call out the standard sequence for initiating a jump through warp space, and by skipping the usual processes for such a delicate transition, it was the weirdest one Twilight had ever experienced. She heard her old friends laughing, the front of the bridge seemed to stretch away like bubblegum, she could taste the color purple, and her skin prickled from static electricity washing over her. With a final crescendo, the Rainbow Dash blasted out of the universe and vanished from real space.