Sweetie Belle grappled with Applejack, grunting and straining her guillotine chokehold. She crashed against the wall, her thighs stinging with half-hearted strikes from the workhorse. Sweetie constructed binds around her legs and forced Applejack to sit hog-tied at her hooves.

"Let go of me! She needs to pay!" Jacquelyn screamed, hoarse and screeching from dehydration.

"Applejack... You can't kill her. I have to-"

"I don't care! What bullshit are ya gonna tell me now, huh?! What will she do the same thing as you? She gonna come back some stupid magic zombie pony and kill every filly in the city?" The mare spat, swiftly knocked unconscious by Scarlet Skates.

"Nice kick." Her beloved said, sharing a crooked smile with her.

Twilight crawled over the crystalline floor and lay on her carpet, coughing red as her busted nose and broken ribs stung every nerve in her body. She caught a glimpse of her own face in a nearby mirror, reminded of the war she developed powerhooves for. Appleloosa was an inferno of ruined buildings and blazing barns. When somepony came in and tried galloping about, they were torn to pieces by fire bolts or fire mines from the buffalo forces. And when Twilight herself galloped for her life, chasing her commanding officer, she remembered the uproar of noise as the element of magic erected a shield around her. Twilight begged her to take it down and save herself. But Equestria's Twilight had no strength left to expand the multi-layered shield. In the mirror, she saw Twilight's face twist into a smile as she passed and told her 'keep Ponyville safe.'

So she did. She kept it safe. Safe from what happened when the Elements of Harmony created an opposing black magic. And when the pure good of an element of harmony reached its full potential, it could just as easily corrupt. Corrupt elements turned sadistic. Monstruous. The children were not safe. She still had time to keep Ponyville... safe.

Lilith burst through the door and shook, muffling her mouth. Twilight was beaten. Bruised. She was clutching her sword and slowly bleeding out. Sweetie Belle reached toward her with swirling, corrosive magic swelling at her forehooves.

"Get...! Away from her...!" Lilith screamed, her voice travelling in waves that split and tore Sweetie Belle's coat all over.

"Sweetie...!"

Scarlet Skates went wide-eyed and held the nearest object, finding a power hoof and attaching it haphazardly. She charged the incubus and swung into her gut with a left jab. It blew the breath out of Lilith. She reeled back and sucked air in, throwing a left jab. Before Scarlet could feel the hit, she was hooked from the right. Everything blurred in and out. Her temple was struck and her brain was rattling. A desperate struggle with her legs started.

Stand up...

Lilith stuck her ribs with a compact uppercut.

Shit. Stand up.

Scarlet Skates put all her weight into one strike, lifting her left hindleg and slamming her right foreleg. Lilith barely weaved out of it and struck her chin with a right cross. Then the world grew black.

Before the doll could land another blow, she was strangled by pure, undiluted hatred. Sweetie Belle barked her name and hellfire sprayed from her maw. The toxic flame licked her flesh, but stayed unable to truly char and immolate her. Lilith furrowed her brow and spat on their pretty white muzzle.

"Your girl over mine anyday...! You wanna fucking kill someone I love, you get ready to join them...!" Lilith grunted, feeling her larynx crush by the second.

"Your precious girlfriend here murdered Applebloom... She murdered me. She's the one who's been ordering the cults around, and you really want her to walk away from that? Are you just that selfish...?"

Sweetie Belle grit her teeth and screamed when her spine broke inwards. Reflexively, she impaled whoever it was with a spike of hate magic. But when she came to and saw who it was, her pupils shrunk to dots and Lilith slammed freely into the ground. The incubus watched her beloved choke on her own blood, gushing from the entry wound in her chest. Her torso ripped apart where the spike pierced her breast. Twilight trembled and broke it off with her powerfist. Heavy, warm water spilled down her eyes and blurred her vision. Twilight walked toward the only cluster of pink in the room and fell into it.

Lilith caught her and held her head, begging her to fix it. To heal herself. She bolted straight out of the castle and down the halls. She couldn't feel anything but Twilight's hands gripping her mane. The handle she'd worked into slipped more and more by the second.

"L...ilith..."

"N-no! Don't talk! I need to get you to a hospital! I- I need you, Twilight! You're the only one I have left! You understand me! Y-you love me...!"

Lilith stormed down the last flight of stairs before her gut gave way and she collapsed, landing on her back so Twilight wasn't hurt.

"Lilith... you can't make it in time anyway... I'm dying. But you... you don't have to do anything. I should be th-the one helping y-you to a hospital."

"Twilight... Twilight please- don't go! I-I don't care about what you did, but please don't- d-d-don't g-go...!" Lilith choked out, biting her lip to silence herself.

She muffled her lips so Sweetie couldn't find her, stumbling to regain footing .

"Stop- running. I-I love you. Let me go. I... deserve this. I let you down."

A wash of tears hit her pink, bloodshot eyes.

"Twilight-! Twilight you- you didn't hurt me- you made me happy. You made me happy, please don't- don't leave, I'll do anything, please...."

Her angel chuckled and some of her blood splattered against Lilith. It didn't matter. Her hooves briefly sunk into her cheeks as she said 'I'd never leave you. I love you too much to say goodbye.' When Twilight's chest stopped rising and falling and her eye became glass, Lilith felt her heart stop. There, the world stopped. A world without sound left her soaking the chest of a corpse with her tears. She lay her cheek where Twilight's heart used to beat and froze them in time with the last of her magic. Entombed in ice, they slept holding hand and hoof in matrimony.

She wouldn't be happy without her angel.

Tomorrow would never sing for them.

So she slept away from the world, alone with her Twilight.

Alone together.

Together forever.

Author's Note

Forever and always.

I'd never let you go.

https://youtu.be/tnPhlrmTBNA