Path up to The Ruler

Nighttime.

Somepony knocked the library door. “Twilight, can I come in?” Door unlocked, The Great and Powerful Trixie walked in.

Library was in a mess: broken glass fragments all over the floor, bookshelves destroyed, books scattered around with torn out pages, pages were drawn over with pictures and words hating Twilight. Twilight was sitting in a middle of a puddle she created with her tears, shivering.

“Oh no, here too?” Trixie was shocked.

“Hi, Trixie,” Twilight responded unemotionally.

“Are you ok? What’s going on here?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. Look what happened.”

“I’m better than ever.”

“Don’t lie to me. I’m The Great and Powerful Trixie going to help you with your problems. We’re going to find who did this and punish them. With your intellect and my Amazing Power nopony will escape the justice.”

“I don’t need your help. You need my help.”

“Well yes I do, but you do too, different kind of help.”

“It’s time!” Luna entered the library.

“Ok,” Twilight responded unemotionally.

“What’s the meaning of all this mess?”

“Everything is great.”

“She doesn’t say what’s wrong, I asked her,” Trixie whispered to Luna.

Luna avoiding stepping on any shattered glass approached Twilight. With her hoof she raised Twilight’s head to meet hers. Twilight was soaked with tears and blood: her bandages on front hooves were all red and loose, her eyes watery blurring her vision, she was shivering.

“What’s wrong, Twilight?”

“Nothing. I’m having the best time of my whole life.”

“It’s ok, you can tell me, I’m not going to hurt you or think about you any differently if you just told me what’s bothering you so much?”

“Open your eyes! What did you see coming in here?!”

“A mess?”

“Yes and I am the pony doing all of that? I mean destroying my home, painting interior with all the profanity calling myself the worst pony in existence and that I should die. Does that make sense?”

“No. But you shouldn’t take that to heart.”

“How?! How can I do that? I saved many lives of these ponies and Equestria numerous times, I helped them with their problems, I always been kind to them. I see everypony as a friend if he or she accepts my friendship, it doesn’t matter what they were before or what they’ll become later as long as I can offer them my friendship I’m happy. But how can I offer them my friendship now if they don’t accept it and despise me entirely. Discord, Chrysalis, you – Trixie, Luna, ponies change… Celestia… Ponies change.”

“There is a way to change all of this.”

“Yes? Overthrow Celestia’s leadership and take over? Then ponies would hate me even more. They probably would start riots and revolutions against me. Ask Chrysalis to come over to Ponyville and tell the truth? Like ponies would believe her after what happened before. I’m sure they will be hiding or attacking her rather than listen. Kill myself and spare them the hassle? Yes that’s the best option. I bet they’ll be having yearly celebrations of my death.”

“No, none of that. Twilight, you must show everypony what happened while Celestia was under your spell, the spell you used to teach her and your friends a harsh lesson.”

“That won’t help. That spell is evil and forbidden. It would be no problem for Celestia to tell everypony is being manipulated by it and nothing they saw was real. That would be a proof that I’m evil and further increase pony hostility towards me. Can you understand the absurdity of this?”

“But you don’t want them any harm. You want to help them.”

“It doesn’t matter if I do, and I do, but nothing is going to change the minds of anypony no matter what I did. I’ve been through these possibilities in my thoughts while waiting for you two, I found no solution. Unless you could convince your sister to stop all of this.”

“I can’t, it will be impossible.”

“Kill me right now. I can’t make myself to do so. I rather die getting killed by a friend than anypony else.”

“Twilight, what are you saying?! Snap out of this!” Luna grabbed Twilight and hit her several times.

“Please use more force to your attacks, or better yet find something sharp and stab me.”

“I’m not attacking you. I’m not trying to kill you. What possessed you?”

“Realization.”

Luna released Twilight. “She’s helpless. She’s mentally broken. Let’s go, Trixie, she’s unable to help us now.”

“No. I’m not going to leave a pony who needs my help not helping her. It doesn’t matter how bad I feel, I’m going to help my friends. I’m not the pony who gives up only because of hate, I’m going to do what I’m passionate to – help my friends.”

Luna admired Twilight’s determination. “So, you’re not dying as long as there is a friend in need of your help?”

“I guess so. Thank you, Luna.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll understand if you need some time to calm yourself, you should make something hot to drink, and you should clean this mess, we’ll be happy to help.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie does not stoop to this low level of peasantry,” Trixie disagreed.

“But you do clean the mess after your performances, don’t you?”

“I-I… Yes. I’ll help.”

“Thank you, girls,” Twilight smiled.

She removed her bandages and looked at her hooves, it wasn’t bleeding. “I’m not dead yet.”

-

“Are you sure you’re up to the task? We can do it tomorrow night if you’re not feeling alright,” Luna was worried about Twilight.

“I’m fine,” Twilight was positive.

“Then we begin. Now we sleep.”

Trixie, Luna and Twilight fell asleep in a guest room in Twilight’s castle, locked it from any possible disturbance.

-

Three of them were standing in a middle of a battlefield barely avoiding crossfire. Two obvious factions were fighting. What appeared to be Trixie-like different skin colored pegasus, unicorn and earth pony clones with different color manes and manestyles to Trixie’s fighting undead zombies, skeletons and other shadowy beings in the battlefield.

It wasn’t long before “the Trixies” noticed them and started escorting them after commander’s order. “Our Empress returned and brought Goddesses for aid! Squad Foxtrot and squad Sierra, form Cage and escort them to the main camp, Squad Echo, provide support.”

Luna had heavy armor covering everything but eyes and wings. Her armor was a mix of black and dark blue color. It wasn’t what Luna was used to – it was very inconvenient and hardly mobile. Weaponry included five hard steel swords and two iron daggers she could levitate and use in combat, one bag full of smoke bombs and another bag full of exploding ones.

Twilight had light purple, dark purple, dark blue and pink colored magical wizard robes with a hood. The robes were surprisingly light considering how thick and massive they were. Weaponry included a magical staff for fire spells, a wand for lightning spells, one bag full of offensive and defensive alchemy potions and another bag full of healing potions and other eatable (or not really) herbs.

Trixie had steel, gilded and decorated light armor covering whole body but not head, it was light blue and silver color. She had a golden crown decorated with a sapphire of her cutie mark initials. Weaponry included magical glowing sword, pony sized round, gilded, steel shield with Trixie’s cutie mark decoration, oak bow and iron arrows.

-

“All hail The Great and Powerful Empress Trixie Lulamoon The First and the two Goddesses she brought to our aid,” chorus of loyal soldiers greeted.

“Isn’t it a big excessive?” Twilight whispered to Trixie.

“Legion – my loyal soldiers, I have returned, and as you can see I brought Goddesses to help us: Goddess in blue heavy armor is Luna, the Goddess of the Night. While I’m a great leader during the day, my skills lack at nighttime, she will lead our soldiers fighting during the night. Goddess in purple robes is Twilight Sparkle, the Goddess of Guidance, Morale, Unity and Care, or in short the Goddess of Friendship. She’s going to be boosting morale of our soldiers and healing them with the help of zebras. She also possesses powerful aoe (area of effect) spells and can fight.

“Both Goddesses can fly and use magic, better and stronger than us. Losing either one would be tragic. In this pony form Goddesses can die as you may think otherwise. I want everypony to provide equal support and backup to both of the Goddesses as much as you do for me.”

“That’s definitely too excessive,” Twilight mumbled so that nopony could hear, unfortunately Trixie did.

“Scouts, report the current status of the battle.”

“Yes, Empress. During your absence and lack or guidance our troops push onto enemy main stronghold gates failed. Our siege suffered hugely and is in need of repairs, but we don’t have enough wood for that. Cutting down trees is dangerous with all the enemy shadow assassins lurking inside the forest, and there is nowhere else near enough to obtain wood without wasting too much time.”

“Buck! How’s aerial battle?”

“We won many important fights and pushed enemy aerial forces back to its stronghold. However we cannot directly attack the stronghold from air, enemy is using some kind of magical black smoke around the stronghold preventing our air forces from engaging, anypony caught in that smoke suffocates. Zebras are currently researching a solution. Meanwhile our commanders ordering some air unit squads to bombard enemy ground units with holy water bombs, it’s somewhat effective.”

“Good.”

“Sadly some of our hospital tents were destroyed by successful enemy assassin infiltrations. All of our best nurses and most wounded soldiers there are killed. The remaining tents are overfilled and we cannot tend all of our injured soldiers at the same time anymore.”

“Hmmm… So, we need wood for siege repairs. Ok, Luna, go to the forest, gather most of the bravest ponies up to the task and defend them from assassins or any other threat endangering them. I’m sure you can spot enemy shadow units hidden in dark.”

“Yes I can.”

“Good. When you’re done return here with the wood, a lot of wood, and help our engineers fix our trebuchets, your levitation abilities surpasses theirs. You have your orders, now go.”

Luna left.

“Commander, order the wounded to go to zebras.”

“Yes, Empress!”

“Twilight, go to zebras and help them researching the solution for that black smoke. And while you’re there heal all the wounded ponies coming there. I’ll join the front line and distract enemy bringing their attention on me so that my other troops could backstab them.”

“You surely took a leading role here,” Twilight smiled.

“You have your order, go!”

Twilight left.

“Commander, squad Foxtrot, squad Sierra and squad Echo return with me to the battlefield. The rest of you here, continue your work tracking our scout reports. When Luna returns and finishes with the siege repairs, report to her all the new intel our scouts gathered and tell her I ordered her to return to battlefield with the siege weapons.”

“Yes, Empress!”

Trixie left.

-

Luna struggled to find many willing to help her with her dangerous task. Even as a request from a Goddess “the Trixies” hesitated and refused. Eventually she managed to gather roughly about twenty woodcutters. She decided to join them cutting the trees for wood too, risking durability of her swords and lessening her focus on shadow assassin assaults.

Cutting down trees fast wasn’t too much of a problem with the tools woodcutters used, and it also spared Luna of helping them. Luna dealt with all of the shadow assassins attacking easily. When woodcutters were done a bigger problem emerged – transporting everything to the camp. Their unicorn magic alone weren't enough to transport everything at once and it would waste much more time than Luna wanted making several tours transporting everything. Carrying all the wood herself was possible, but that would prevent Luna from combat endangering the woodcutters and herself on the way back. Luna chose carrying everything herself in hopes of not getting attacked.

Luna was in luck she and the woodcutters returned safely.

Fixing the trebuchets was quick. In cooperation, Luna lifting the heavy parts and engineers connecting them with other parts, the siege weapons were fixed.

“Goddess Luna, the Empress ordered us to report you all the intel we gathered from our scouts: Apparently the enemy is gathering forces in North-East from the battlefield for a flanking attack, if they succeed uninterrupted, and they will, their attack will reach zebra camps. It’s far too late for you to help them, but Twilight is there, nothing is lost. You must meet the Empress in the front line with the siege weapons. That’s an order of the Empress.”

Luna proceeded slowly as siege weapons were massive and slow.

-

“A fine solution for a pony issue, a gas mask against smoke mask, we begin production immediately,” zebras thanked Twilight.

Their rhyme-talk wasn’t as good as Zecora’s was, but that’s not a reality, it was just what crazy Trixie’s mind imagined and she couldn’t handle it alone after messing with the magic she couldn’t control, Twilight thought to herself while healing another soldier with a healing potion. Apparently she had infinity of them, which made no sense, or that potions were able to regrow body parts, but really nothing made sense in Trixie’s mind world anyways.

“They are here! The enemy skeleton troops are attacking! They will be here any minute now, everypony must defend Goddess Twilight Sparkle or everything is lost!” random Trixie’s scout warned everypony.

“That’s no good,” Twilight regretted releasing all healed soldiers back to the front line. Being alone with defenseless zebras and wounded soldiers was unfair against thousands of enemy skeletons heading their way. Even if soldiers were to defend Twilight with their lives it was pointless, they were in no normal condition to fight, and losing any of them was also not good. Twilight had to fight skeletons alone. “Zebras, run from here and hide at the camp, soldiers who are in no condition to fight, go with the zebras as well. I don’t have enough time to provide healing potions to all hundreds of you here before they attacked us.”

Zebras packed all their equipment and gas mask sketches and ran to the camp, after them hundreds of soldiers followed, leaving Twilight with a dozen most heavily armored unicorns guarding her. She gave potions to boost their strength, stamina and agility.

Skeletons reached the camp. There were so many of them that they surrounded Twilight and her guards blocking all the exits. Shortly after they attacked.

They were earth pony skeletons, very fragile, but heavily armored. They were using basic iron flails, swords and axes with their hooves or teeth. Their attacks were weak, inaccurate and blocked by Twilight’s shield and Twilight’s guards armor, but there were so many of them filling the space all around Twilight and her guards. Their armor prevented them from going down easily.

Twilight was using quick strikes with her horn, but these were as useful as to only push skeletons a bit. Twilight also was swinging her staff to hit skeletons with, it was mostly useless, she didn’t knew how staff was working. Randomly Twilight was able to cast a basic fireball with the staff, she just had to focus her magic into it instead of her horn. Fireball was more effective against the skeletons than anything she cast with her horn. Shorty Twilight was blazing hordes of skeletons creating opening for her and her guards to escape being surrounded.

When they finally escaped being surrounded, a shower of arrows from the sky met them. Twilight formed a shield above her and her guards blocking all incoming arrows, but the arrows kept on coming and Twilight had to hold the shield at all time thus limiting her attacks with the staff. Twilight replaced staff with the wand. The want required less magic to cast electricity which traveled from one skeleton to another electrifying their bones into ash. Soon only their ash, armor and weapons remained. Onto archers.

Archers kept shooting nonstop as Twilight and her guards were approaching. Her shield was blocking everything. When she was close enough, she used her wand to finish off the archers. This however required her to open a hole in shield for electric attack to hit skeletons, consequently several arrows gone inside the shield piercing armor of Twilight’s guards, but not inflicting any sever injures.

Twilight and all twelve of her guards, now heroes, returned to the main camp alive. Zebras were finished prototyping designs of gas masks and were in a middle of mass production.

“Goddess Twilight Sparkle, we’re glad you have returned victorious and safe. Zebras are finishing producing a solution for enemy aerial blockade, when you’re done healing the remaining troops here, return to the front line with them immediately.

“Scouts report that Goddess Luna with siege weaponry are halfway to the front line and will reach it within half an hour. Empress is holding the front line very well, but draining her energy too quickly, if this continues she won’t have enough for main attack onto the stronghold when the gates falls. You must hurry.”

-

“They keep coming, there are infinite of these damned undead,” another soldier was whining.

“Don’t lose your spirit. These creatures are no match for our forces: they have no brains, no strategy, no motivation, no goals, unlike we do – our unity,” Trixie encouraged the soldier to not give up.

Swinging her sword through endless hordes of zombies and skeletons was very tiring and mostly pointless, but it was part of the plan drawing attention on her until Luna and Twilight joined.

Trixie’s shield was battered, her sword was out of magic charges and dull after long use. She had a bow and arrows to use, but it wasn’t effective against heavy armor enemies wore.

“Empress, the Goddesses arrived with a backup and siege weapons,” commander informed Trixie.

“Good. Commander, order engineers to build up trebuchets as soon as they are in range of attacking the main gates. Tell the Goddesses to join me in the front line with the troops they arrived with. We will be attacking with all our forces as soon as gates are destroyed.”

“Yes, Empress!”

Luna and Twilight joined in. Twilight was providing potions and herbs to boost all the soldiers, and was also engaged in the battle dealing fire aoe damage to zombies and electricity chain damage to skeletons. Luna was leading the army while Trixie returned to the main camp to resupply and rest.

-

Stronghold gates were almost destroyed. Before that happened Trixie gave encouraging speech. “Legion, our war is coming to an end, the war that lasted us months. The enemy that endangered our perfect well-being – kidnapped and killed the closest to us, burned our homes and violated our economy. I’m going to need everypony giving your very best in the final battle, and the enemy stronghold is going to fall! Legion, ready your breakfast and eat hearty, for tonight we dine in hell!

“Yeah!” Soldiers cheered.

Twilight found Trixie’s encouraging speech to be really grim. She herself would never came up with such morale boosting speech even if she’s Goddess of Morale (and other stuff) based on what Trixie identified her as.

Gates had been destroyed, just in time for pegasus soldiers to return with gas masks on. But before they were to attack, hundreds of huge skeleton elephants were charging on the ground, stomping everypony and killing them instantly without getting slowed down. Twilight tried to use electricity and fire spells, but these were of no use. Then she thought of an alternative.

“Girls, I know what to do!” Twilight dragged Luna’s and Trixie’s attention. “We need to charge our most powerful spell we can handle together and fuse it into one.”

“Might work, worth a try,” Trixie was pleased.

The charged blast was so powerful it melted all of the skeleton elephants, piercing them like butter. Path was clear for an attack. Pegasus were already inside fighting, gas masks worked, everypony else charged inside as well.

Once everypony was inside, the enemy trap went out – dynamite explosions, severely injuring or killing most ground and some air units. After that a massive quantities of enemy zombies and skeletons came from graves and cellars and surrounded the attackers.

Trixie was aiding ground units and killing enemy units. Luna was helping air forces in aerial combat, inside there were more enemy air units than what they could had handled alone. Twilight was healing everypony still alive as fast as she could. Slowly three of them with what’s left of an army were enclosing enemy’s main castle.

Pegasus scout flew to three of them to tell latest intel. “Two thirds of our forces were killed by enemy trap. Dragging all our forces here opened enemy a free pass to the main camp, they are headed there right now as we speak. All exits are blocked by enemy units, and even if we managed to kill these units more traps will go off. Air forces are outnumbered by enemy three to one, ground forces outnumbered ten to one. We’re all dead, everything is lost!”

“No, we’re not! We will win, no matter what you think. Every unit here is worth fifty of these darned undead. Our unity is stronger. We will win.”

“Y-Yes, E-Empress.”

“All of you here are my heroes, no, heroes of Trixiestria—she calls her world Trixiestria—Unspeakable glory awaits you all if we win!”

“Yeah!”

“Twilight, teleport to the main camp and deal with the attackers there. Make sure everypony and zebras could return somewhere safe – back to the Empire, we don’t need their assistance anymore. Leave the camp empty before enemy reaches it if possible and then return here.”

“But how about you? You will lose a lot of aoe damage coming from me, and potions.”

“Leave your bags here, we can take and use them ourselves. Don’t worry about the damage output, we will manage. Now go!”

Twilight teleported out of the stronghold, with several teleports got back to the main camp. Luckily it wasn’t attacked yet and enemy was still beyond sight. She ordered everypony and zebras there to return back to Empire.

Enemy forces approached the main camp, it was empty, only Twilight stood against them. She could had left it as well, but that may had meant enemy advancing further into Empire, she couldn’t let that happened. If the undead had any brains they would had laughed at her. They attacked.

Enemy included just same skeletons she fought before and no archers, just more of them, a lot more, and she was alone. None the less the fight was easy with lighting chaining through all them, turning their bones into mere ash. Twilight was done there. Back to the Stronghold.

Luna, Trixie and remaining soldiers struggled to overcome hordes of enemies. It was a relief when Twilight returned sweeping away the enemy with aoe fireball blasts.

-

They finally reached the entrance to the main castle. It was guarded by four heavy armored undead alicorns.

Twilight used every spell she could, but her magic did nothing more than draw their aggro on herself. Avoiding damage she was teleporting all over and counterattacking, but her magic still was of no use. Their fight seemed like cat n mouse chase than an actual battle, but it did provide time for Trixie and Luna to come up with a plan. Soldiers were forming a wall of barricade with themselves holding the enemy from behind, not engaged into fight with undead alicorns.

“Twilight, can you stop them from moving?! We have a plan to defeat them.”

Twilight levitated the alicorn skeletons. Luna used four of her swords to stab them through the back imprisoning them to the ground, immobilized, but still alive. Trixie ordered all the soldiers to continue holding the line, if needed using any potions, Twilight left her bags near them. Three of them proceeded into the castle.

Inside the castle was specious. There were lack of furniture and rooms in the castle for its size. Every room they checked was filled with bloody piles of dead and rotten unknown mutant beings. The ceiling was up so high it felt like castle was one floor high. Nothing tried to attack three of them there. They were walking slowly, resting, but cautious towards the biggest, not fully closed door with some red light leaking from inside.

They opened the door. Inside the room were stairs leading to a throne with zombified Celestia sitting in it. Some bits of her flesh were torn exposing rotten teeth and insides. Her mane unbelievably was still as glorious as Celestia’s in real Equestria.

“This is the source of all of this?” Twilight asked Trixie.

“No, it’s not. This is just another of his minions, our last challenge I’d say.”

“How do you know?”

“She’s dead (undead). Also I saw the one behind all of this – black alicorn stallion.”

“So, we defeat her and then go after him.”

“Not so easy. Knowing how well he planned his moves throughout the whole war, I’m sure he’ll be more of a challenge than we had hoped. I’m almost certain that our military advantage was an illusion and part of his master plan of some sort.”

“What made you think that?”

“Unlike you, I was in this war longer. I know how he was conquering my empire’s lands, what trickery he used. He even killed my Maud Pie—“

“Ok, ok, enough, we got it – he’s evil and smart. How do we defeat him? But first her?”

“Hmmm… Don’t fight her at all.”

“What?!”

“We will defeat him by waiting, close the door, she’s not attacking.”

“I don’t understand. This doesn’t make sense.”

“Like healing potions regrowing pony flesh made sense to you.”

“No.”

“This is my world, other rules apply.”

“So, our Empress received Godly aid from outside this realm,” mysterious voice echoed throughout the room. His voice was more terrifying than Chrysalis’s.

Twilight lost the ability to speak. Luna didn’t, but she hadn’t anything to say. Trixie went for chitchat with the mysterious voice.

-

Chitchatting lure him out of the shadows. He was black alicorn stallion with red eyes and a cutie mark of a skull. “Hello.”

Luna, Trixie and Twilight stood into a battle stance.

“Welcoming, indeed. Shall we dance?” He immediately dashed into attack knocking off Luna and Trixie and stabbing Twilight’s throat. Twilight choke blood and couldn’t breathe. He got stuck on Twilight after his attack, with excellent opportunity Trixie and Luna stabbed him to death—that was quick and easy—Twilight felt like dying.

“She cannot die, if she does, she won’t wake up. Luna, do something, get potion from outside.” Trixie was holding Twilight in her hooves.

World around began erasing itself into white abyss. “Everything is great, one of use woke up. Twilight is okay. I hope she is.”

-

Luna and Trixie woke up. Twilight was having uncontrollable seizures, spitting blood from her mouth and crying out bloody tears. She couldn’t control her magic: she was shooting random missiles and levitating random object, including Trixie and Luna too, in the room.

Suddenly her magic flow stopped and some kind of worm with sharp teeth pierced through twilights belly from inside into outside. The worm died instantly chocking on its yellow blood (or whatever that was) after being separated from Twilight. Twilight wasn’t breathing.

“What was that?!” Trixie was shocked.

“Oh no. I must have forgotten that. No!” Luna realized something.

“What? What you did?”

“It was in the tea, Arcane Worm. I forgot I put it in Twilight’s tea, I didn’t wanted to.”

“What you did?!”

“My sister ordered me to kill her. She knew Twilight will be helping you and asked me to use it.”

“So, you’re on your sister’s side then?”

“No, no. Listen to me. I had to do it, or else she would punish me.”

“Great you did what you must. Now leave my sight, you traitor.”

“I’m not finished. When I saw how sad and depressed Twilight was, I genuinely wanted to help her. I decided to not obey my sister, and tell her that worm didn’t worked. But I forgot I used it.”

“That’s the lamest excuse I ever heard. It doesn’t matter what you wanted, you killed her. She needs medical help.”

“Nopony will help, it’s still past midnight, and if it wasn’t, still nopony would have helped her, everypony despises her and wants her dead.”

“Oh shut up, you! Like I don’t know that, I understand, there’s nothing that could be done. Buck you and your sister! Leave my sight at once... The Great and Powerful Trixie demands you to not die… Twilight I demand you live… Trixie demands you… Twilight, please…”

-

“White, I think it’s white. I can’t feel myself. I can’t move or speak, or can I? Where am I? Is this the end? Where ponies leave to after death?” Twilight was floating on pure water in white abyss.

“Such words of such cute and young mare? I refuse to believe,” unknown jingling pony responded.

“Somepony is calling me? I don’t know here, show me a way.”

“Done drowning yourself in that bloody well yet? If you continue thinking like this you truly will die. Or do you need a leading hoof for help? You’re not dead, filly, stop acting like you are. It’s disrespectful acting here like this you know. Very few could be proud to ever be here.” Jingling pony was Star Swirl the Bearded. He levitated Twilight from the water onto a more solid surface.

“S-Star S-Swirl the Bearded?”

“Oh, excellent. I’m glad somepony remembers my name after a millennium. And that Equestria has more Princesses than just two it had, my students – Celestia and Luna. Say, how many are there now?”

“F-four: Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Cadence and me – Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

“Oh, great. How’s my Tia and Woona doing?”

“Who?”

“Celestia and Luna. I just used to call them that back then.”

“I and Luna were helping our friend with nightmares. In these nightmares I got stabbed and died, in reality too, or that’s what I think happened.”

“Interesting. You should’ve used insane amount of magic to kill yourself and appear here. Please, do tell about Celestia.”

“Celestia was a private teacher of mine until I became a Princess.”

“Are you saying that you haven’t been an alicorn all the time?”

“No.”

“But how did you became one?”

“Because of The Elements of Harmony, I and my friends are the carriers.”

“The Element of Harmony? I had been researching them my whole life. I never expected The Elements to provide ability to become an alicorn. Please do tell me more about The Elements.”

“To be honest I don’t understand them myself either. It’s just that The Elements awarded me with wings and my own castle after my adventures with friends.”

“Everything sounds amazing, but why are you here then?”

“It’s not. Celestia is doing everything to make me regret everything and die.”

“Why? What have you done so horrible that led her to that? She’s mostly gentle and kind.”

“A thousand years ago – probably yes, now – no. She wants to end me for reading books on forbidden magic. She totally misunderstood my intentions, and tried to justify her actions claiming I’m evil.”

“These books are forbidden for a reason. Your intentions mustn’t been noble.”

“These books appeared with the castle – a gift (or a curse) from The Elements. There was a reason for it. I knew these books were forbidden, and I was burning them, but before I did so, I read them all, I couldn’t stop. I always loved books so much, these were no exception.”

“You little fillies and your addictive nature to books. I guess in your future everypony will be glued to mechanical devices wasting their lives on.” Star Swirl laughed for a brief moment. “Say, did you used any of the spells from these books?”

“I did on Celestia and my friends as means of defense.”

“Oh no. This is why she must be so determent eliminating you.”

“No. She wanted that as soon as she heard about it. The spell I used wasn’t harmful. I used fear to create and show her and my friends a dark alternative future if they succeeded getting rid of me. I wanted good for them even if that was too harsh.”

“Your cause sounds reasonable for using it, but you should never relay on it, or else it will consume you, and it will, I just know it. As much as I hate to tell you this, but Celestia is doing a right thing.”

“But I don’t want anypony harm. I want to help my friends. That’s why I was helping my friend before I got here. Everypony is my friend if they accept me as theirs. I saved their lives and Equestria many times from the evils that I even managed to change into good. I’m not evil, I don’t want to be and I never will. I’m Princess of Friendship, not Tyrant of Corruption or something.”

“You have undeveloped mind and inexperience as Princess. Mistakes are made. But probably it’s too early to jump onto conclusions about you, young Princess.”

“What should I do?”

“Firstly convince Celestia to stop trying to kill you. I still don’t understand how can she do such a thing to her only student?”

“I’m not the only one, and I’m not her student anymore. She had many before me, none succeeded as much as I did. Celestia said they all failed her, but neither managed to become as influential as I did. That is also why I’m the bigger threat to her than they were.”

“Poor Tia, she burned herself over the years. She lives with guilt of failing her agenda I suppose.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She has personal issues. And unless you manage to convince her in talking about it, there is nothing else that could be done. And you wouldn’t want to kill her, do you?”

“N-no.”

“And you won’t be able to. Alicorns don’t die or be killed. And you’re not dead, unless that’s what you want. Alicorns meet their doom only if they decide to, you almost did. You didn’t looked like you were mentally stable when we met.”

“It’s just that nopony appreciates what I did and flat out hates me, misunderstood.”

“It must never concern you what others think about you. You did nothing wrong, or at least not for any evil intentions, you must prove that to them. How? – I don’t know, this is something you’ll have to deal with. Heck I don’t even know the full story of your problem, just that it’s destroying you mentally.”

“B-but—”

“You do have friends?”

“Y-yes.”

“Splendid. No problems or hard tasks should be dealt alone, you have friends to help you with that… And they are calling you right now. They do care about you. Don’t let them down. Join them. They need you.”

Twilight began to evaporate. “But I have so much to ask—”

“Don’t worry, we will meet again. Only the most powerful ponies with pure hearts can access this place. I knew you were good. I just wanted to help you, and I hope I did. Goodbye for now, Twi—”

-

Twilight woke up in a painful gasp. She couldn’t felt most of her body, but the rest was like on fire. Amethyst was licking Twilight’s nose before she got scared by Twilight waking up. She almost began to cry, but didn’t, instead she jumped on Chrysalis sleeping in bed and began jumping on her screaming repeating “Mama, Papa is guwd,” until she woke up.

“Look who’s back in Equestria.” Chrysalis inspected Twilight’s forehead for temperature, it was boiling.

Twilight examined the room with her hardly mobile head and blurry eyes. She was still in the same guest room. There was Trixie sleeping besides Chrysalis and Amethyst, but no Luna, or anypony else.

“Trixie was worried about you. She didn’t wanted to believe you’re dead, I did, claiming you’re one of her very few friends and she doesn’t want to ever lose you. She couldn’t sleep – she was awake for full three days and two nights. It’s a miracle she’s asleep now. You should get some as well. We’ll talk in the morning there’re important matters to discuss.”

Twilight was too tired to even talk and fell asleep quickly. That time happy dreams.