Chaos

    The air heated up. Wingfeathers curled on their ends. The seal's charge was dulling with each blow, and Wildcard knew it.

    Seraphimus didn't, but she also didn't care. At last—she threw herself completely into Wildcard's offense. Two talons reached toward, gripping the nightstick lengthwise. The residual harmonic energy of the seal burned Seraphimus' palms. She merely sneered into the steam: "Curse your damned Blight, Jordan." Tears. Lightning in her eyes. Like a pair of pallid gravestones. "I am the Right Talon of Verlaxion!!!" And she pulled both of her burning palms in opposite directions.

CRACKKK! Wildcard's nightstick snapped in two. The Odrsjot seal burst between them, and Seraphimus reached through the ashes, gripping the Desperado's neck with both bleeding talons. The plunge was already barreling them both eastward—so that the two tragic combatants plowed straight through the face of the stormcloud... losing themselves in the thunder and chaos broiling within.

Th-Thump! Rainbow Dash's legs landed on a dark, dark cloudbed.

    Ariel and over three dozen sarosians flinched—a few of them gasping at the Austraeoh's arrival. The huddled line faced her immediately.

    "Rainbow Dash!" Ariel held a hoof over her fuzzy heart while her leathery companions steadied their rune cannons. "You're not dead!"

    "I know..." Rainbow wheezed, damp from sweat and rainwater. "That would have been all kinds of suck, wouldn't it?"

    "Save the jokes, Rainbow!" Applejack barked, pointing downward. "Here comes the cavalry!"

    "The bad cavalry!" Pinkie chirped. "Minus a few goody-goody griffons..."

    "Right! They're almost here!" Rainbow Dash hollered, shuffling about to form ranks with her allies. "How did Bard and company do with the drop?"

    "Scratch off one sea ship full of angry Rohbreddenites!" Ariel exclaimed. "How about Keris?"

    "The Talon's promised to do their best to rein in the troops," Rainbow said. "But we're still in for one heck of a scrap."

    "A large amount of the enemy forces have broken off, Rainbow," Fluttershy firmly stated, despite her trembles. "I sense that they're flying down to rescue the survivors from the Drop."

    "Sounds like Keris' hoofwork," Rarity said. "Er... talonwork?"

    Rainbow looked at Ariel. "According to Fluttershy, we're gonna be facing a smaller bunch of buttheads."

    "Right." Ariel nodded. "Best that we take advantage of it—"

    "Rainbow!" Twilight Sparkle exclaimed, eyes wide. "The Gondola!"

    "...!" Rainbow twirled to face east. She squinted at a faint line of glowing gold energy before the deluge. "Is it here?!"

    "I... I can actually sense it!" Twilight beamed. "Feel it! So much pure harmonic power! It must be arriving soon!"

    "Rainbow...?" Ariel leaned in.

    Smirking proudly, Rainbow let loose with a booming voice: "Alright, everypony! Listen up! The lift is almost here! But until Kepler and Flynn fire off the red flare, we still got some work to do!"

"Prepare the runes!" Ariel exclaimed, her eyes reflecting a wave of armored bodies rushing up from down below. "Concussive shots! Aim for the front line!"

"This is it!" Rainbow flapped her wings, hovering high along with her friends as the enemy wave approached. "Just hold a little bit longer! We're almost done here!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaand..." Ariel flung her hoof forward. "...fire!"

"H'rhnum!"

"M'wynhrm!"

"H'rhnum!"

The echoes of the runic explosives were dull thuds by the time they reached the sarosians carrying Remna and Logan back east towards the platforms. The trio grasping Logan sped ahead. Those carrying Remna—however—were lagging behind.

"Hmmmmf..." Remna's eyeslits narrowed at the Emeraldinian structures lingering far ahead. "We should be there by now. What is the matter—?" She felt a trickle of warm liquid staining her flesh beneath the grip of the sarosians. She looked up, and her ears twitched in alarm. "What in blazes...?"

"Scrkkk..." One of the sarosians carrying Remna hissed through her fangs. A crossbolt from one of the Frostknifers had been embedded in her flank, and she was bleeding profusely. "A... th-thousand pardons, defender of W'ynlppa yln H'luun... grnngh... we sh-shall get you there shortly..."

"Bite your tongue, mortal!" Remna grumbled. "You are clearly in no condition to perform this task!" She motioned with her violet head. "Disengage and retreat! Join the Exodus so you can mend—!"

"Impossible, dear friend," one of the other, healthier nightblooded warriors interjected. "You are as immense as you are courageous. I fear only two of us cannot carry you—"

"Then do not," Remna said. "Care for your ally. She need not die from such an insignificant wound."

"But... but we cannot simply drop you!" the third sarosian exclaimed. "We saw how helpless you were in open water—"

Remna gazed down at the platforms. "Our momentum is still swift. I suspect I can make it from here."

"But... the fall—"

"I will survive!" Remna growled. Just as she said this, the entire group dipped slightly—nearly losing grip of the violet mare prematurely. "It is of no use! Release me! Release me now—"

"We are s-sorry!" the injured sarosian whimpered. At last, she lost all strength. The other two twirled to support her.

In so doing...

Thwooooooooooosh!

...they dropped Remna like an anvil.

The mare's body angled forward. She furrowed her brow... concentrating... as if stretching invisible dragon wings.

Through no small miracle, she managed to land on the west edge of an Emeraldinian platform. ***THUDDDD!* The sheer mass of her draconian body sent a shockwave rippling outward in every direction. A severe fracture ribboned through the structure, sending chips of granite flying into the thunderous air.**

When the shockwave reached Logan, he was just settling down. The concussive blast knocked him to his flank and nearly threw his three sarosian companions into the drink. Even Flynn and Kepler stumbled where they were station.

Remna tumbled, rolled, and slid a few dozen more feet. Once her dazed figure came to a stop, she heard a salvo of angry words echoing from Logan's position.

"You stupid bag of dragon snot!" Logan spat. "Why don't you take the entire platform down while you're at it?! Buckin' ruin everything!"

"Big Show..." Flynn chided.

"No! Really! Who does she think she is?! We're out here risking our necks for the Austraeoh and—"

"I said knock it off, Big Show!"

"Make me—"

"Silence, brrotherrs!" Kepler suddenly hollered. **"Both of you!" Then in a calmer voice, bordering on jubilant: "I do believe it is arrriving!"**

Flynn gasped. He galloped to the very precipice of the world. "The Gondola?! Do you see it?"

"You tell me, frriend. I do sense something in the airr..."

Flynn focused with his mechanical eye. A few seconds later, the balding stallion grinned from ear to ear. "It's coming! Hahaha! Leaping leylines! It's almost **here!"**

"Hot dayum!" Logan sputtered. "Is it time for the signal yet?"

"Negatorry." Kepler shook his head. "Therre arre minutes yet until it fully arrrives! We cannot afforrd to rruin the timing of ourr flarres!"

"Sure thing!" Flynn spun about and gestured towards the three sarosians who had carried Logan over. "Shoo! Shoo! Back to Bleak's Plummet with you pixies! I promise—your warrior brothers and sisters will join you as soon as the sky flashes red!"

"Ourr moment of trriumph is at hand!" Kepler added.

"Yeah..." Logan huffed, pausing to examine the blade of his axe. "Assuming no more dragons slam into the ground."

Remna listened, but she wasn't looking at them. She spent all this time getting up... a process made even slower by an inexplicable stupor that had overcome the mare. Directly in front of her was the array of rusted stakes with empty dangling chalices. However, somewhere beyond the wind-blown chimes at the end of the world, there was a dull space in comprehension. Remna stared, and she saw starlight blotted out in an ink-black streak, constantly moving, swaying, dancing. The mist of the deluge toyed with the twilight, forming a faint—but very real—rainbow.

Her violet brow furrowed. Remna looked back at the other Heraldites as they ecstaticallyecstastically huddled before the golded steeples of alicorn metal. She then glanced west—at the distant flashes of runic explosions. Nebulaic color. Red and green and blue.

Then—nostrils flaring—Remna trotted straight into the sea of chimes.

*POW! P-POW!*

*KAPOW!*

Runic blasts erupted in the air below Rainbow, Ariel, and their allies.

The sarosians continued their moonwhinny onslaught, giving the air at the end of the world it's second layer of thunder.

The Central Guard—however—had since grown wise to the artillery barrages. Many of the the troops shifted north and south, easily juking the blasts. Their charge had been slowed, but not blocked completely. They still rushed the sarosian line as one combined force.

And just like that, the explosive blasts stopped completely.

Pinkie Pie gasped. "Uh oh..." She looked at Rainbow Dash.

And Rainbow Dash looked at Ariel. "Lemme guess..." She exhaled. "That's the last of the runes."

Sarosians were already nodding. "I'm afraid so," Ariel added. "We're all out."

Rainbow clenched her teeth. "Guess we gotta do this the hard way."

"But Keris is among the charge!" Rarity exclaimed. "Surely that will help us!"

"We can't rely on him for everything," Rainbow said. Hovering higher, she pumped a hoof in the air. "Foals of Luna! This is it!"

"Oh no..." Fluttershy covered her eyes. "...not another melee!"

"It's okay, sugarcube." Applejack hugged her. "Twilight said we ain't got much longer." She looked over. "Right, Twilight?"

"Uhhhhhhhhh—"

***"Let's make it awesome!"* Rainbow's shouting voice shattered the moment, and it was soon shared by the shrieks of her loyal cohorts. "Chaaaarge!"**

"Eee-eee-eee-eee!"

"Eee-eee-eee-eee!"

"Eee-eee-eee-eee!"

"Oh petticoats!" Rarity whimpered, clutching her ears as she and the rest of Rainbow's friends were dragged into the fray. "I really do wish they would be quieter about their bloodlusting violence!"

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—" Was all Pinkie managed, for soon Rainbow, Ariel, and the rest were colliding with the advancing forces from below.

"The Blighted explosives!" a crew pony on board the last remaining ship shouted, staring straight up through a spyglass. "They've stopped!"

"Defense Minister!" A griffon spun to face Chandler. "It's the Commander! He's engaged the Rainbow Rogue with his forces!"

Another griffon gestured at the wall of flame before the ship's bow. "And the Commander's other companies are rescuing our brothers and sisters beyond the shoals! In a matter of minutes, we should be able to regroup!"

All of these announcements fell on deaf ears. The greater majority of the ship's compleiment looked to see Brye Chandler huddled with his tight group of well-armored bodyguards.

"Defense Minister...?" A crew member trotted closer to the chariot. "What are your orders?"

At last, Chandler managed a throaty grunt. "Stay at your posts."

"Minister...?"

Chandler gestured at his bodyguards. Two pegasi hitched themselves to the vehicle's rigging while several griffons gripped the outer edges of the seat. "You heard me. Remain on board. Keep to this position."

"But Minister, the survivors—"

"I don't **care about our sister ship!" Chandler spat, gesturing for his helmet. "They've made their failure complete!" He slapped the bulky article onto his skull and fastened it tight. "That enemy artillery vessel needs to be taken out. I'm heading out with what remains of our elite to do just that! Then—once I've stolen the midnighters' Blighted magic—I'll turn the Rogue's weapons on her and end this once and for all!"**

"But... but what of the Commander's engagement—?"

"The Commander's made his motivations abundantly clear," Chandler grunted. "Our beloved Goddess entrusted this task to **me. Now I see that I must face the adversary personally."**

"Yes, sir. Of c-course, sir."

"If you see Seraphimus..." Chandler's frown briefly gave way to a grimacing expression. His tongue hung in the middle of his muzzle at he stared at the flames and shoals beyond.

"Minister...?"

Eventually, Chandler huffed. "Never mind." He slapped the edge of the chariot and barked at his bodyguards: "Take wing!"

The pegasi charged forward while the muscular griffons lifted and—WOOOOOSH!—the chariot ascended instantly. Bending north, the vehicle skirted the wall of flames and dipped low, threading through the rock formations and errant splashes of salt water.

"The explosions in the sky," Bard said, squinting upwards from where he gripped the Stardust's rudder wheel. "They've stopped."

"Our brothers and sisters must be out of runes!" one of his two companions exclaimed.

Bard leaned forward, staring at the lower deck. "Are we out of them fancy shmancy moon rocks?"

One nightblood warrior flung open the cabin door, revealing piles of silver runes still lying inside. "Not even remotely!"

"Good!" Bard gestured skyward. "Reckon we oughta make use of 'em! From the looks of it, Rainbow's buttin' heads with the enemy again! If we fill the lower air beneath them with flak, it just might give our partners the edge they need in kickin' flank!"

Right then, one of the warriors shouted. "Th'wylymnym!" He pointed a velvety hoof at the north horizon. "Syl'ynym hym symylym!"

"What?" Bard squinted in the direction he was pointing. "What's the reason for the spit static this time?"

The other sarosian bit his lip with fanged teeth. "Bard, we have a problem." He pointed. "Eleven o'clock! That's how you would say it, ywm?"

Bard's ears drooped. "I see it." He flinched. "Them."

"Hy'syllym thymym sylym!"

"It's a vessel of sorts..."

"No." Bard shook his head. "Not a ship. A chariot. A group of winged varmints are tryin' to take us out!"

"They're moving very swiftly!"

"Grnnngh..." Bard spun the rudder wheel, positioning the Stardust so its hull was aligned with more agreeable currents. "I can see that!"

"Minister!" One pegasus drawing the chariot turned his head to stare back at the vehicle's seat. "I think they see us!"

"Not surprising." Chandler gripped his helmet and struggled to look dignified. It only half-worked. "Whatever you do, keep low—!"

"They might fire upon us with their blighted magic!" one griffon bodyguard in formation hissed.

"You think I don't know that?!" Chandler frowned. "That's why we're sticking so close to sea level!" He gestured. "Maintain momentum! Circle them! Let them waste their ammo!"

"Yes, sir!" one pegasus shouted, flapping his wings hard along with his partner.

"Keep the pressure on them and circle closer..." Chandler reached deep into the chariot, fumbling. "When the moment comes... at our first opportunity..." He finally produced a crossbow, cocking it with armored fetlocks. "...we strike. Is that understood?"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

"Yes, Defense Minister—"

A flash of runic light emanated from the Stardust.

"Incoming!" one of the pegasi shouted.

"Maintain—" Chandler winced as a thunderous blast erupted directly behind him, nearly knocking the chariot and its entourage off-balance. "—position!" He gnashed his teeth, aiming down the sight of his crossbow—only to discover that the target was too far away. He cursed under his breath... even as more runic blasts erupted all around them. "We're on the edge of the world, you Blighted filth." His eyes stared emerald daggers beneath his helmet. "There's no left where to run..."

"M'wynhrm!!!" one warrior on board the Stardust shouted.

***POWWW!* His shell exploded between them and the chariot, warding the winged group off—one blast at a time.**

"I hesitate to say that it's working, Bard," the other sarosian said, loading a fresh new cannon. "They have not broken formation."

"But have they gotten any closer?" the Desperado exclaimed.

"Well, no—"

"Then it's darn-well workin'!" Bard frowned, spinning the rudder-wheel once more. He eventually forced the Stardust into a clockwise drift, cruising opposite of the invasive chariot. "The longer they stay away from us, the longer we can give Rainbow Dash the support she needs!"

"But they're keeping very close to sea level!" one of the sarosians exclaimed. "At any moment, they could lift up and descend on us—"

"So keep firin' at 'em so that they dun get any bright ideas!" Bard spat as thunder rolled overhead. "I know they figure they're harder to hit where they are, but they dun stuck themselves in a rut!" He waved a hoof westward at the midair battle. "Now it dun take two of ya to keep 'em occupied! One of y'all fire at the chariot and the other give Rainbow cover!"

"How long should we do this—?"

"For as long as it friggin' takes!" Bard hollered, fighting resistance against the rudder. "All that matters is buyin' Rainbow time!" He squinted skyward once again. "We must buy Rainbow more time!

Following Bard's orders, the other sarosian primed a bleakweed cannon, aimed up high, and fired it.

*P-POW!*

Keris and Windburst winced as the blast erupted below them. They steadied themselves in time to face a wave of shrieking sarosians.

"Incoming—!" Keris hollered as Windburst charged ahead of them.

"Yaaaaugh!"** Windburst punched one sarosian and headbutted another. After the adrenalized rush, he shuddered in mid-air, gripping his wounds.**

Two other sarosians rammed into him from the side.

Windburst flew back—and Keris ascended in his place. Hovering, the Commander of the Talon expertly blocked several whalebone bludgeon strikes and kicked the offending group back. Within seconds, the rest of the Frostknife line caught up and forced the sarosians higher, engaging in spark-flying melee combat.

"I'm... guh... not fighting at my best," Windburst wheezed.

Keris reached out to steady him while eyeing the frantic battle above. "Neither are they," he said.

Another runic blast erupted beneath them, and then Windburst said, "You think they're following Rainbow's advice?"

"That, or battle fatigue is finally consuming us all."

Windburst shuddered. "How long do you think we can keep this up, Commander?" He gulped. "Before it becomes an absolute bloodbath?"

"I have faith we can manage, Sergeant," Keris said, preparing himself for a flanking squadron of sarosians. "Even still..." His headcrest drooped just seconds before engaging in combat once again. "...this is not the battle that concerns me."

Enix lived—for what it was worth.

Bloodied, bruised, and bloodied some more... the mare clung to a piece of metal floating aloft in the tempestuous sea. The remains of the first ship's wreckage marinated around her, and the sounds of battle echoed in the east.

Not that she could hear much of it. Her good ear was cocked towards the sky, and her bad ear—a tattered, crimson thing—struggled to stay above the water line. Every now and then the salty-brine would invade her wound, and the nightblooded warrior hissed in pain.

Her grimace turned into a momentary grin. Something peaceful... contemplative.

Her breaths lessened... lessened. Then—with a penultimate sigh—she blacked out altogether... and sank deep into the ocean.

One second.

Two.

Sploosh!

A sharp talon stabbed into the water. Gripping tight, it raised Enix back above the surface.

Enix awoke with a gasp. Her slitted eyes widened, blinking at the figure holding her.

"... ... ..." Starstorm stared her down. Her feathered brow furrowed inquisitively.

Enix's one good ear twitched. After the brief moment of awkwardness had passed, the nightblooded warrior summoned a growl from deep within her midnight lungs. Her fetlock's muscles tightened and her fangs showed in the stormlight—

"A friend?" Starstorm asked. "Of Rainbow Dash?"

Enix froze, locked in Starstorm's grip.

Calmly, Starstorm leaned in until her break was grazing Enix's neck. "I would regret the murder of one of her allies on my conscience."

Enix simply gaped at her.

Starstorm exhaled firmly. "Bleak's Plummet. Can you still reach it by air?" She squinted. "If you fly now?"

At last, Enix gulped. "I... I-I believe so," she managed.

"Then you had better get flying." Starstorm released her grip of the sarosian. "If all goes well, your brothers and sisters will be joining you shortly."

Enix jerked in place... but found the strength to hover. She gawked at Starstorm... then at the rookie coming into view behind her. With bristled mane hairs, the warrior said, "I do not flee from a battle."

"You have an Exodus to Equestria to join, yes?" Starstorm glared. "If you are truly a friend of Rainbow Dash, then I'd say your warrior days are over."

Enix gazed at her. She shuddered slightly. Then, with a flash of fangs—"Ee-ee!"—she turned tail and soared west in a pale blur.

Starstorm hovered in place over the wreckage, watching her depart towards a glowing blue spot along the sea. Raptr flew in close, clearing his throat.

"That, uhhhhh..." He fiddled with his claws. "That wasn't Seraphimus."

Starstorm sighed heavily. "Was it obviousness that got you enlisted with the Talon?"

"I'm just saying. If we spend the entire time picking up stragglers—"

"She was here, though," Starstorm said, spinning about. "Above here."

"You mean...?"

"That midnighter had survived a battle with her." Starstorm scanned the local waters. "Barely, even."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I've been around the former Commander longer than you, rookie," Starstorm explained. She looked straight up. "I've seen the scars of her wrath on many a body. Those were Seraphimus' claw marks for certain."

Raptr shrugged. "Well, she's not here now. And somehow I don't think some random sarosian would have been enough enough to beat her." He blinked. "So... where did she go and what got in the way?"

"... ... ..." Starstorm was staring upwards and towards the east.

"...?" Raptr turned around, following her line of sight. Soon both Talon members were staring at a tall dark anvil cloud—broiling with silver lightning from within.

Starstorm murmured: "Where else would a soul as angry as Seraphimus take her in a time like this?"

Raptr winced. "Ahhhhh jeez..."

*KRAKKK!*

Lightning forked through the hollow of the cloud, glinting off of wet feathers and lashing tails. Pale strands and dark fibers twirled amidst the tumult, illuminated by intermittentintermintent electrical flashes.

"Grrrrrrgh!" Seraphimus swung and struck and sliced endlessly with her claws. "Hrgggh! Mmmfff! Httt!"

Wildcard, weaponless, drew away from her in a spiral, raising his prosthetic and deflecting each attack with desperate precision. *Clank! Cl-Clack! Clang!*

Seraphimus' offense was insatiable. She shifted left and right, occupying his peripherals and giving him no chance to escape. Amidst the onslaught, she kept a careful eye on his goggles. And when lightning flickered—filling the heart of the cloud with an infinitesimally bright flash of silver *light—she capitalized on his inevitable blindness. With a flap of her wings, she shot down, twirled, and rose up behind him. Claws raked around in a deathly semi-circle.*

Wildcard flattened his body and spun. He was able to dodge one set of claws—but not the other. Sliiiiink! Blood sprayed the thunder between them, and he lost the air in his lungs just as he lost sight of his former superior.

Seraphimus dove in for the kill—only to receive a lucky kick to the beak. Wildcard followed up with two metal punches to the chest. Seraphimus absorbed the second blow—pain and all—and gripped his metal wrist with both talons, anchoring the two of them in midair.

Thinking fast, Wildcard threw up his lower body and slammed both paws into Seraphimus' figure. Just as he did so, he popped his prosthetic loose and vaulted off of her. The action separated the two of them by several wet, rainy feet.

Before Seraphimus could make sense of what happened, Wildcard magnetically drew the sparkling end of his disconnected arm back towards him. Seraphimus—still gripping it—jerked forward with the motion. The very moment that Wildcard—whirrr-chtung!—reconnected with his prosthetic, he brought his flesh talon up with a savage uppercut. **WHAM!**

Lightning flew. Seraphimus flew. A black streak followed her and—through the murky shadows following—Wildcard materialized to deliver a merciless drop-kick.

*THUDD!*

Seraphimus plummeted through the belly of the cloud. The air around them buzzed with electricity and rain. Miraculously, the former Commander's body narrowly missed two stabbing branches of lightning.

Wildcard struggled to see through the blinding flashes. If the Desperado was even capable of spotting what came next, he would likely have struggled with believing it.

Seraphimus had turned her free-fall into a curved glide. Hugging the inner edge of the cloud, she reached both talons out and dragged up a rolling cluster of stormy mists. Arcing back upwards, she collected more and more cloudy material—just as dark and ominous as the layers surrounding them. By the time she flew back up towards Wildcard on an intercept course, she was shoveling a thick wave of stormcloud. Sparks danced betweeen her feathers as she screamed at the apex of her ascent—twirling her body backwards and **bucking the material up at Wildcard with nightmarish force.**

On its way towards him, the dense cluster of stormclouds buzzed and fluctuated with crackling energy before—KRAAAAAK!—exploding directly in front of him, forking lightning in all directions.

Wildcard may have actually screamed; he couldn't tell from the deafening thunder. Soon after, he couldn't tell from the pain of Seraphimus flying into him and pummeling his feathery skull with merciless lefts and rights.

One punch after another, Seraphimus shoved the two of them up... up... up the neck of the cloud...

...until they finally burst out of the summit altogether.

Exposed to the rain and twilight, Wildcard and Seraphimus wrestled in the upper atmosphere for dominance. It was a battle that Wildcard—after layers of blinding pain—was swiftly losing. He telegraphed it with weak blocks and wheezing breaths, struggling with every flesh and metal inch of his being to hold the former Talon Commander at bay.

In the next flash of lightning, their black and silver bodies glinted...

...so that they showed off like a beacon far across the tempestuous waves.

Bard's eyes twitched, reflecting the monochromatic struggle in the deathly distance.

His muzzle hung agape. Loose hooves slipped from his grip of the rudder wheel.

"Bard!" one sarosian shouted as the Stardust plowed through a blunt wall of water.

"Grnnngh!" Bard spat through the resulting spray. Hopping down off the platform, he joined his two velvety companions on the lower deck. "Look! Up high! Due west at 9 o'clock sharp!"

One sarosian paused in reloading his bleakweed cannon. His eyeslits scanned the twilight—then spotted the two combatants. "H'Luun... ly'syllem thryll sy'wym..."

"It's Wildcard!" Bard's voice cracked. "The damned mofo's in trouble! I just know it!"

***"M'wynhrm!!!"* The other sarosian fired a blast at Chandler's chariot, forcing it to veer off into a wider orbit. Panting, he looked at Bard while loading another rune. "We have enough on our hooves as it is, friend—"**

"Shut yer bug trap! Look..." Bard gestured. "Can we fire an explosive at 'em?"

"To what end?!"

"I dunno!" Bard gnashed his teeth, flinging another worried look west. "To break up the fight! Knock 'em off their wings and give Dubya-Cee a chance to fly free?"

"I'm afraid it's too far, friend!" one sarosian said, enchanting the cannon and aiming at the circling chariot. "And our enemy approaches—"

"Can it be done or can't it?!"

"Possibly—but with double the payload of runes and with two enchanters committed to the spell! But right now we are requiring both cannons just to ward off these damnable land-dwellers—"

Frowning, Bard wrenched the cannon away from the warrior. "Gimme that dayum thang!" He rushed towards the edge of the Stardust's starboard side, slid on his rear knees, and shouted: "W'rhynnym!!!"****

"NO!" One sarosian shrieked, leaping towards Bard. "That's not the right command—!"

But the cannon fired anyway—and it trailed burning smoke as it did so. *Phwooooooooooosh—!"*

"Defense Minister!" One bodyguard shouted, flying alongside Chandler's chariot. "Look out!"

"Yes. They're firing at us again," Chandler grunted, trying to get a good shot with his crossbow. "I see that—"

"But this one's d-different somehow!" A griffon's head turned in mid-flight. "And the trajectory—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Bard's ordinance landed in the waters before the chariot's flight path. The burning of the rune continued underwater, and within two seconds that portion of the ocean was **bursting with scalding hot steam.**

"Look out!" one pegasus driver said, swerving in his reins.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!" The other shrieked, flinching as he and his partner were carried forward by the momentum of the low-flying vehicle. Within a blink, the two pegasi's skin were peeling off from the sheer heat.

"Minister!" a griffon reached into the chariot and yanked Chandler out. "Jump!"

"Goddess—!" Chandler yelped as he and his companions were all engulfed in blood-stained steam.

    The sarosians on board the Stardust watched—dumbstruck—as a pocket of ocean exploded in a scalding hot mist. Chandler's chariot flew in on one side... and came exploding out the other end with a loose spray of shrapnel and shattered metal. The eruption ended as soon as it began, leaving a fresh hot cloud looming over the crash site.

    Bard stood up, and the cannon in his grasp was on fire. He tossed it limply into the drink and spat in the ocean. "Soup's on, ya douche kettle."

    The bat ponies blinked.

    Turning around, the Desperado pointed at their one remaining cannon. "Can we get that to fire a long-ranged shot or not?"

    Briskly, the two rushed towards the Stardust's stockpile of runes. "We will need your swift assistance!"

    "Brother..." Bard slicked his ponytail back and galloped after them. "...you got it!" He flung a look west. "Hang on, Dubya, ya crazy cat rooster. Just a little bit longer..."

    "Rrrrgh!" Seraphimus swung a claw.

    Breathless, Wildcard managed a narrow dodge.

    Seraphimus swung her other talon.

Sliiiink!

    Blood flew from Wildcard's sliced shoulder.

    His beak flew open from the torturous strike. Thapp! A talon closed around his break. He struggled to break free from Seraphimus' grip—but in so doing he offered up the actual target of her latest attack.

    Seraphimus hoisted his body around by her grip of his metal limb. Twisting the Desperado until he was bent backwards, she slammed and slammed and slammed her elbow repeatedly into the joint of his prosthetic. Within seconds, his artificial claws dangled limply... harmless.

    Seraphimus did not let up. Kneeing Wildcard hard in the square of his back, she stunned his body from head to tail and flung him towards a floating remnant of stormclouds.

Th-Thwump! Wildcard pinballed off the mist...

    ...and flew straight back into Seraphimus' grip. Thwppp! She now held both talons around his neck. Leering down at him, the former Commander of the Talon gradually applied pleasure... slowly and agonizingly digging the tips of her claws into his flesh as he struggled for a breath.

    "You gave up your voice, Jordan," she found the civility to whisper, charcoal eyes glaring at her own reflection in his goggles. "What use have you of your throat?"

    The Desperado trembled... dangled...

    Droplets of blood ran down two of Seraphimus' digits. Four. Six...

    "It's..." The sarosians winced from the heat of the doubly-enchanted runes packed into the cannon. "It's primed and ready!" It took both of their combined dexterity to hold the thing from where they perched squarely in the middle of the Stardust's rain-slicked deck. "Do you see your compatriot?"

    Bard exhaled, squinting down the sight of the cannon—a difficult task with how brightly the runes were shimmering. Off in the distant west, a dark speck dangled from a silver speck's grasp. "I do."

    "Then it will be your shout to give, Bard—"

    "M'wynhrm!!!'" Bard hollered melodically.

SHOOOOOOOM! The Stardust rocked east from the sheer force of the launched projectile.

Th-Thunk! The smoking cannon fell to the deckplates.

    Bard watched breathlessly as the runic missile flew its course...

    "Httt!" Rainbow Dash punched an armored pegasus in the face and bucked off the attack of a flanking griffon.

    She sensed a flicker of burning light in her peripheral and spun towards it with a guarded hoof raised. Upon seeing the source of the illumination—a bright missile of lunar dust flying below her—she froze in the midst of battle to gawk.

    "Whoahhhhhhh..." Pinkie Pie shivered all over. "That thing's h-headed s-somewhere with an attitude!"

    "Where in blazes did it come from?" Applejack asked.

    "The Stardust!" Twilight Sparkle exclaimed.

    "Oh yeah?" Rainbow Dash caught her breath and flew back into the fight, joining Ariel's side in fending off Frostknifers. "Where's it headed?"

    Twilight Sparkle gazed west. She bit her lip...

    Wildcard trembled, growing limp in Seraphimus' grip. His muscle spasms lessened. The feathers of his headcrest drooped.

    Seraphimus sneered and sneered. Just as she flexed her wrist to dig into his neckmeat...

    ...a pair of blinding lights reflected off his goggles.

    Seraphimus' charcoal eyes squinted. She flung a nervous look east.

    A burning froth of lunar dust sailed straight towards the two of them.

    "...!!!" Alarmed, Seraphimus dropped Wildcard altogether and flew in a random direction—

POWWWW!

    The runic payload discharged. A spherical wave of concussive energy rippled outward in every direction. It sliced off the top half of the anvil cloud below, almost entirely vaporizing the storm altogether.

    Wildcard barreled towards the east side of the cloud. A swath of mists scattered... then coalesced just in time to act as a drifting bed for the Desperado to land on.

    Seraphimus, meanwhile...

    "There!" Raptr pointed up high at the dissolving stormcloud. "I see her!"

    "That explosion!" Starstorm exclaimed, squinting into the trailing brightness of the discharge. "Where did it come from?!"

    "Who cares!" Raptr shot up like lightning, sailing towards Seraphimus' plummeting body. "Quick!"

    "Oh Goddess..." Starstorm clenched her beak tight as she soared after the rookie.

    Seraphimus fell like a ragdoll, thoroughly unconscious. Before her body could ricochet violently off the remains of the stormcloud, the two Talon members intercepted her. They caught the former Commander... cradling her and slowly carrying her down to sea level.

    "That... that was crazy," Raptr wheezed.

    "No lectures on 'crazy,'" Starstorm stammered, using a free hand to rummage through her belt. "Not quite yet."

    Raptr craned his neck to look over Seraphimus' head. "What are you doing?"

    "What does it look like?" Starstorm produced a series of metal cords. "Help me restrain her."

    "Tie her up?!" Raptr grimaced. "Seraphimus?! You sure that's a good idea?!"

    "... ... ..." Starstorm simply glared at him.

    He gulped and nodded as the two perched with her on a drifting piece of wreckage. "Right. 'Shut up, rookie.'" And the two swiftly went about binding the figure's paws and talons.

    On board the Stardust...

    "Yeeeehaa!" Bard hopped up and down, his wings flexing. "Desperado delivery received and signed! You can thank me later, ya feathery bastard!"

    The two sarosians shrieked jubilantly.

    Bard shuddered, slicking his bangs back as he smirked into the thunder and mists. "Sorry it was a mite bit noggin'-bustin', mofo, but rather you have a migraine than become angry griffon food."

    "That last spell took the strength out of our remaining cannon," one warrior said. He turned to face Bard. "We are no longer of use to our brothers and sisters. I suggest we take you back to the platform so you can join W'ynlppa yln H'luun upon her return."

    "Righto." Bard nodded. He turned towards the upper platform and its rudder wheel. "We've done all we can here. Let's water-mosey on back to—" Something sharp and metal whizzed by his skull.

Thwifffffft! THUNK! One of the sarosians doubled over; a crossbolt was embedded quiver-deep in his throat.

    The other warrior shrieked loudly.

    "!!!" Bard spun about, eyes stabbing the heavens. Shadows circled closer through the mists.

    "Damn..." Brye Chandler snarled. Dangling in the grip of two griffons, he loaded another barb into his crossbow and pointed it at the Stardust a dozen meters below. "I was aiming for the ugly one."

    "You hit a midnighter, sir!" one bodyguard shouted.

    "Well, what are you waiting for?!" Chandler barked, aiming. "Avenge your comrades in arms!"

    Schiiiing! Swords and spears lit the wet air.

    "Soldiers of Rohbredden...!"

    While two griffons continued carrying the Defense Minister aloft, four remaining members of Chandler's squadron sailed down at the Stardust with weapons drawn.

"...slay in the name of Verlaxionnn!"

"Aaaaaaaaugh!"

"Deatttth!"

    Chandler fired a second shot—

    —that ricocheted off the bow of Flynn's ship. After a spray of sparks, the arrow rolled to a stop against the meaty body of the dying sarosian. He collapsed and gargled blood while his nightblooded companion shook his shoulder frantically.

    "S'ymlythym! S'ymlythym!" His slitted eyes teared. "Hy'symy syln lys'lym thym hy'lym, S'ymylthym!"

    "Eyes up!" Bard sputtered, jerking about and gazing skyward. "We've got company—"

Th-Th-Th-Thump! Four sets of limbs—two pegasi and two griffons—landed on the Stardust's deck. "Midnighter seafoam filth—!"

    "Rrrrrrrrrgh—" Spinning from his slain friend, the other sarosian flew straight at the intruders with twin whalebone scimitars. Schhhing! "Hreeeee-eeee-eeeee-eeeessssh!"

    "Wait!" Bard reached towards his bandolier. "Don't—"

    The sarosian clashed with a pegasus, then knocked a griffon onto his flank. As he tried to pounce the second Frostknifer, a third came from the side—cleaving the sarosian's shoulder in two with a gold-glinting sword. Schlunkkk!

    "Dammit!" Bard extended his bo-staff in a silver flash. Cl-Clakkka! "Dammit to Hell—!"

    "Aaaaaaaaugh!" A griffon and a pegasus rushed him.

    Sneering, Bard charged them on stomp-stomp-stomping hooves. He slid halfway across the Stardust, twirling his staff low.

    The pegasus flew up to avoid the weapon. The griffon—however—charged on through with his sword. Schiiing!

    Bard blocked the blade in reverse—CLANK!—and then spun his staff up to throw the griffon's weight off. Shadows shifted, and the Desperado sensed the pegasus diving from behind. He twirled to the side just in time to avoid a spear jab. THUNK! As sparks danced across the deck, Bard spun about, knocked the spear away, then uppercutted the pegasus with his staff. "Rrrrgh!" WHACK!

    The second pegasus and griffon leapt over the dead sarosian and charged Bard. "Son of Blight—"

    Bard silenced the pegasus with a staff-jab to the chest.

    The griffon swung his sword into Bard's skull.

    Bard barely dodged, losing a lock of mane-hair. He tripped the griffon to the ground, twirled his staff, and crushed the griffon's break into eggshell fragments against the deckplate.

    As the griffon screamed into a fountain of blood, Bard cartwheeled over him then held his staff high in time to block an attack from three separate foes. CL-CL-CLANK! With a deep-bellied yell, he shoved the weight of two pegasi and one griffon off. The air whizzed again—and he hopped back in time to avoid another crossbolt from Chandler above.

Clank!

    Bard's eyes darted towards the impact that the projectile made with the hull... and he ignored the blood of his companions beneath him. "...shit!" He slipped, falling wetly on his back.

    "Yaaaaaaaaaaugh—!" A pegasus leapt down at him, spear first.

    Bard swung his staff up in two hooves—knocking aside the thrust and embedding the blade of the polearm into the Stardust's cabin doorframe behind him. In the next breath, Bard kicked a loose whalebone scimitar closer towards his own torso, grasped it in his fetlock, and shoved it deep into the pegasus' ribs.

    "Grkkk!" The pegasus' eyes rolled back. He fell aside... and his two companions rushed through him.

    "Yaaaaaaaugh—!"

    Sword.

    "Aaaaaaaa—!"

    Spear.

    Bard rolled away from them. He stumbled to his hooves, gripping his staff between his teeth. Pivoting his neck from side to side, he parried the multiple thrusts and attacks of his two advancing enemies while backtrotting. Once he found enough open space, he spat the staff out, spun around, jumped to his rear hooves, and caught the weapon in his front fetlocks. Twirling the weapon, he succeeded in deflecting the next flurry of attacks, followed by—

    "Rrrraaaugh!"

    —a savage lengthwise thrust, knocking the two Frostknifers onto their backsides.

    Panting... stained in blood, Bard looked back up to the sky. He saw lightning. Stars. Color. Something warm and awesome flickered in the distance. "Rainbow..." Catching his breath, he spread his wings to do the smart thing and take off—

Thwissssssssh!

    —which was precisely when a crossbolt ripped through his left wing. Schliiink!

"Aaaaaaugh!" Bard fell flat on his belly. His feathers dangled uselessly by his side, drenched in his own juices. He struggled to push himself up by the grip of his staff.

    "Hold him!" Chandler's voice shouted from above as he loaded another arrow. "For Verlaxion's sake, hold the maniac still—!"

    "I got him—!" The last remaining pegasus charged with his spear once again.

    Hissing through his teeth, Bard lifted his staff in time to catch the guardian in the chest. He vaulted the flailing pegasus over him—forcing the soldier to drop his spear.

    "Grnnngh..." Pushing against the pain, Bard picked up the enemy spear in his free hoof, stood up, spun, and flung it skyward with all his might. "Rrrrr-aaaaugh!"

    Chandler was aiming down his sight when he saw the blade of the spear flying at him. "...!" He jerked back in the grip of his bodyguards, yelping. "Goddess—!"

CHTINKKK! The spear found a resting spot between the seams of his shoulderplates, vibrating to a stop.

    "Minister!" one of the griffons carrying him gasped.

    "Shhhhhhhh—!" Brye Chandler writhed in his rattling gear. "Fly us up! Get this damned thing out of me!"

    "But sir..." The other guard glanced closely at the spear. "I don't think the blade has pierced any—"

    "I said fly me away! Do you understand how important I am to Verlaxion's cause?!"

    "Yes, sir! Right away—!"

    And both guards ascended, carrying Chandler away from the Stardust. Away from the bloodbath.

    Bard watched them, heaving... bleeding... turning—

    "Aaaaaaaugh!" The last griffon plowed into him.

    Bard shrieked in pain. As the griffon's talons raked his flesh, he spun in a circle, knocking the guardian off.

Wh-Wham! The griffon slammed into the railing of the Stardust. With a frown, he came barreling back at Bard with a dagger drawn.

    "Aaaaaaa—!" Bard shoved the full length of his pole forward and—with incredible finesse

    "Grllggggkkkt!"

    —shoved it pulp-deep into the griffon's gullet. Blood vomited from the attacker's beak for a brief instant. Then...

Crk-CRKKK!** Bard fiercely jerked his staff at a sixty-degree angle.

    The griffon's neck snapped. As his throat spat out Bard's staff, his carcass fell like a wet sack of bricks.

    Bard exhaled. He felt like collapsing too—

Schlunkkkkk!

    —the Desperado jerked in place. He looked down, observing the bloodied sword tip protruding out through his belly.

    The last pegasus behind him held the hilt, having impaled Bard from behind. Twisting the blade, he leaned forward to whisper a curse in Bard's ear.

    Bard snorted, fighting to keep the pathway to his lungs and stomach close. With adept fetlocks, he slid his staff behind him, caught the pegasus, and hoisted upwards in reverse.

    "Whoah—!" The pegasus flailed, somersaulting against his will. In a wet second, he fell belly-first against the Stardust's railing. His muzzle stopped mere centimeters from the ocean water. He was about to move when a massive, bleeding weight pressed into him from behind. Bard locked his staff under the pegasus' neck and shoved his cranium below the water. "Grllglgggght!"

    Bard stared past the waves. He held his breath... his blood... his everything.

    The pegasus attempted to as well... but wasn't nearly as successful. His lower body shook and thrashed against his impaled foe... but to no avail. Within a minute, the pegasus' figure lay limp... fully and thoroughly drowned.

    And with that accomplished...

Cl-Clank!

    Bard dropped his crimson-stained staff to the Stardust's deck. He then slumped down onto his knees... lingering in place. Quivering.

    At last—between the pain and desperation—his chest muscles gave in. He was almost horrorified that he could—in fact—still breathe. His sinuses filled with the raw scent of his insides, and it was then that he realized how cold the metal was running through his abdomen.

    Nausea erupted like a fountain. He drew it away with his eyes, scraping the horizon... discovering in bitter irony that he was facing west.

    Stormclouds flickered. A melee raged high overhead. Flames billowed amongst the rocks and shoals. Somewhere in the distance—faint and nebulous—a glow lingered against the waves.

    Bard thought for a moment that he saw it, but he knew better. His breaths were steadying now, although the pain hadn't left. Not yet.

    Colder. Wetter.

    He inhaled and exhaled... wheezing this time. His eyes searched and searched...

"Wy'sylym wylyn lyss!" voices rang through the chambers of Bleak's Plummet.

    Echo hollered back. Several other sarosians rushed past him, carrying bundles of medical supplies towards the topmost level.

    With a calm breath, Echo trotted back to the translucent window where others stood as sentries. "Good news! It's Enix! She's alive!" He bore a fanged smirk. "She's sliced-and-diced to high Hell, but the crazy bitch is alive! What's more, she says that Rainbow and the others are past the second and third phase of the plan!"

    There was dead, dreadful silence.

    Echo's eyeslits narrowed. He looked at the dainty silhouette seated before the runic field. "Nicole?" He cocked his head to the side. "Nicole, what is it?"

    She said nothing. She couldn't.

    She sat at the window, gazing east.

    Her lips pursed open... though she didn't know why. A mere whimper escaped her lips... lonesome and melodic.

    Bard exhaled. Gazing back. The world's horizon. Dull and dim and dying.

    "... ... ...no more sunsets."

    He tilted his muzzle up. Searching for color... spotting it for only a moment... but then seeing more and more darkness instead.

    Wildcard's goggles reflected the same.

    And perhaps it was that which woke him... which got him moving.

    That... and the dormant speck occupying the distant waters between his fragile cloud bed and the edge of the world. A speck that was no longer moving... but merely stranded beneath a curtain of dark mists.

    And he shifted... wincing against his still-fresh wounds.

    His metal claws groaned and clattered with each attempt that his battered prosthetic made to move them. But that wasn't the limb that mattered at the moment.

    Holding his breath, the feathered Desperado stretched his wings... and glided due east. Descending.

    Towards the Stardust.

    "Harrk!" Kepler shouted into the thunder at the edge of the world. "It arrrives!"

    Flynn did a double-take at the deluge, glancing past their mana equipment. "It does?"

    "I estimate a few minutes now!" the wyvern exclaimed.

    "Good enough!" Logan marched over towards a stack of lunar rune stones. "Let's fire this bitch up!"

    "Isn't that a tad bit premature?" Flynn remarked.

    "Balls to you, baldy!" Logan spat. "Or has your eggheaded ass forgottenforgotted to calculate for the time and distance needed for Rainbow Dash to fly her petite butt back here?" An obese smirk. "See? I'm not all sex and sass!"

    Flynn sighed, then smiled at Kepler. "We should fire the signal."

    "Affirrmative!" Kepler enchanted a series of moon rocks and tossed them to Logan and Flynn. "The illumination spell! Be surre to aim it high so that—"

    "Yeah, yeah... we got it!" Logan nodded and slapped the ammunition into the cannon. "Gonna need an extra set of hooves with this one!"

    "Axan!" Flynn hollered across the wet platform as lightning strobed overhead. "The Gondola's almost here and we have to fire the signal!" There was no response. "Yoohoo?! End of the world to Remna???"

    "Wherre is she?" Kepler asked.

    "Who cares?" Logan fitted the last rune into the boomstick and propped it over his broad figure. "Let's end this slumber party!"

    "Right..." Flynn propped himself up behind the larger stallion, took a deep breath, and shouted into the cannon's runic aura: "Y'lynwyn! Y'ynlppa!"

    After the first word was whinnied, the runes burned with flame. As the projectile exited the cannon, the second word caught up with it—and the rocks frothed to a crimson red hue. It left a scarlet trail behind it as it arced west, soaring high into the tempestuous air.

    The two exhausted forces wrestled with one another high in the stormclouds.

    Rainbow's group fought and knocked back various members of the Central Guard as they desperately trickled in.

    Frostknifers fell—pummeled to the point of blacking out. Injured sarosians leaned on their companions as they were carried away from the front line.

    And just as the battle looked as though it couldn't get more chaotic...

    ...a brilliant explosion of red light billowed directly overhead. The illumination was spread by reactionary branches of lightning that forked every which way, spreading the crimson enchantment around until it occupied the better part of the atmosphere above the melee.

    "Looky!" Pinkie Pie pointed upwards, beaming. "Looky looky!"

    "Oh thank Celestia!" Rarity whimpered.

    Breathless, Rainbow Dash shoved a guardian off of Ariel and punched another griffon. "Grnnngh..." She flung a sweaty look at her friends. "Twilight?!"

    The ghostly unicorn was already nodding. "It's the real deal, Rainbow! The Gondola's practically there!"

    "Time for Dark-Side-a-go-go!" Pinkie Pie warbled. "Go-go-go-go-go!"

    "The enemy's weak!" Fluttershy squeaked. "But they're not letting up—!"

    "Doesn't matter!" Rainbow yanked Ariel closer and pointed skyward. "We're leaving! Everypony—!"

    Ariel whistled shrilly and gestured at the sarosians hovering high above the battle.

    Several slitted eyes bobbed as the midnighters nodded back. Following Ariel's signal, they flew behind a massive stormcloud and bucked its summit with all their might.

KRAKKKK!

    Lightning ribboned through the battle scene, aimed squarely at the line of Frostknifers. It didn't strike any pegasus or griffon, but the electrical discharge was enough to throw their attention off—blinding a few of them.

    "Now!" Rainbow Dash hollered, gesturing emphatically as she pierced the heavens in an eastward glide. "Back to the edge! Heraldites, form up! Sarosians, regroup... gain air... and rejoin Xarchellus!"

    "H'ywllsa ly'mymy!" a nightblooded warrior hollered into the air as velvety bodies followed Rainbow Dash's orders, abandoning the battle and soaring east. Several bat ponies picked up their fallen comrades and flew in tight groups, disappearing behind the stormclouds. "W'ynlppa yln H'luun syl wy'lsyna thym!"

    The battered, bruised members of the Central Guard found themselves hovering alone in the red-tinted air. As the lightning faded, the bodies of their enemies disappeared. In their place, a precipitous fountain of red flares rained down thickly, bathing the twilight with a blood-colored malaise.

    Windburst panted and panted. He shared the same incredulous look as his comrades. "Sir..." He leaned against Keris, wincing from multiple whelts and cuts. "...I'd suggest we do something to hold the troops back, but... th-they don't appear to be chasing Rainbow's friends..."

    Keris didn't respond. His beak clenched as he stared ahead.

    Countless red flares ribboned seaward like bloodied moss. Soon, the waters below reflected their pulsating hue.

    At last, the Commander of the Talon murmured: "Sailor take warning..."

    Windburst glanced aside. "Sir?"

    "We... are to regroup," Keris managed. His eyes darted across each descending flare. "Rejoin the armada. Find Chandler."

    "And if Chandler yells at us for abandoning the enemy?"

    "It's a bit late for that, Sergeant."

    Windburst shuddered, squinting east. "You really think Rainbow Dash made it, Commander?"

    "... ... ...we can only hope."

    "Blood of Luna!" A sarosian flew closer to Rainbow Dash as they blurred towards the source of the runic flare. "We have joined formation just like you asked! What now?"

    "What else?" Rainbow Dash's eyes remained locked on the golden line fluctuating ahead of her. A bulbous spot grew with intensity in the very center, chilling her to the core. "Get to a high altitude—out of sight—and return to Bleak's Plummet!"

    "But—"

    "Just as we planned!"

    "They might yet send a final counter-offensive!" the warrior exclaimed, fangs glinting. "Please! Let us join you! We will gladly give our lives to—"

    "No!" Rainbow Dash glared at her. "Enough lives have been given today! By both sides!" She gulped, shivering in the wet winds. "Go. Join Bleak's Plummet and do the one thing I'd give both my wings to do right now." The hint of a devilish smirk, bitter and sweet. "Go home."

    The sarosians stared back at her. Then—at last—they nodded with conviction.

    "W'ynlppa yln H'luun..." Fangs. Eyeslits glimmering in the twilight. "It has been an honor."

    "Save it for the Matriarch back in Equestria," Rainbow Dash said. "And Celestia." She saluted. "She's cool too."

    "H'wlynym!"

    "S'lyppa thrym syln hy'lynywym!"

    "Eee-Eee-Eee-Eee!"

    With that, the massive flock of velvet and leather banked up and out of sight. An echoing squeak, then blurred wings, and the entire group disappeared with the shadows of endless night. They were lost in the next strobe of lightning.

    "That's it, then?" Ariel stammered, shivering slightly.

    "Let's not worry about them," Rainbow said, flapping her wings harder. "We've got a Gondola to catch." She blinked, then squinted at her side. "Why are you shivering so much?"

    "Rainbow... when..." Ariel grimaced. "...when was the last time either of us saw Wildcard?"

    Rainbow blinked. She looked at her friends. "Fluttershy?"

    There was no response. A glazed pair of turquoise eyes reflected clouds and gray miasma.

    "... ... ...Fluttershy?"

    Red flares were falling to the ocean's surface by the time Wildcard reached the Stardust.

    He landed softly on a bloodsoaked deck. Paws and talons stepped gingerly over corpses and dropped weapons.

    At last—with a scraping shuffle—Wildcard came to a stop. He stood still and grim, his dark feathers unmoving. As the red flares fell all around the ship, a wheezing voice pierced the silence. A ragged reflection tilted its head up in the griffon's goggles, and a grizzled muzzle curved ever so slightly.

    "Heh... well I'll be damned." One healthy wing twitched while the other draped against the deck, soaking in his own blood. "Finally got ya to shut up."

    Wildcard said nothing.

    "Shoulda... shoulda seen it, Dubya-Cee. A real slobberknocker. Took... grnngh... took 'em all to the woodshed. Problem is..." Bard tried to get up. The blade exiting his belly glinted in the red light, and he fell back to his flank with a wince. "Ghhh!"

    Wildcard rushed forward, gripping the pegasus' shoulders.

    "Hrfff..." Bard's eyes were thin—just like his smile. "Reckon I got stuck on the way out..."

    A flesh talon covered Bard's muzzle. Taking a deep breath, Wildcard reached behind him and grasped the hilt of the sword.

    "Don't..."

    Wildcard clenched his beak as he began to tug—

    "Grkkkk!" Bard hissed, then overpowered Wildcard's arm with two shaking fetlocks. "Don't!" He wheezed, bile trickling from his muzzle. "I'll... grggh... go even faster with it out..."

    The griffon leaned back. He breathed and breathed, goggles full of blood and rust.

    "Dubya..."

    Reluctantly, he looked up.

    "I... f-failed Melody... and Amber..." Bard kept his gaze steady, although his voice wasn't. "But I didn't fail her." A trilling sound, and he fought the urge to fall over on his impalement. "Nicole... she's goin' to brighter pastures. Hrmmm..." A hard-edged smirk. "...t'ain't no failure in a second life if you spend it doin' what's right."

    Wildcard listened.

    Metal scraped.

    Bard used all his strength to raise his bo-staff between them. Without hesitation, Wildcard gripped it. The air between them was clear of rain and thunder.

    "Dun you fail Rainbow Dash, y'hear?" Bard wheezed. His stubble was now a frown, warm and sincere. "I know how much she means to ya, so you do all you damned well can to get her to where she needs to go." A shudder. "Make yer second life an encore to remember. It's all that matters now. It's all that's ever mattered."

    Wildcard exhaled with a shudder. He held the staff under one wing and used his one good talon to gesture something.

    "Hmmmm..." Bard nodded back with a smile. "Alright, mofo. Almost all..." His ears drooped.

    Wildcard smiled back. He rested his hand on Bard's shoulder.

    The red flares fell all around the Stardust as the Desperadoes leaned their foreheads together, sharing the shivers of the moment. A few breaths—some warm, others ragged.

    "Ain't no gettin' off this train we're on," Bard whispered. His smile squeezed out through a sob, and his grip of Wildcard's shoulder tightened for one final time.

    Wildcard nodded against Bard's head. At last—as the redness began to dissipate—he felt a strong hoof pushing him back.

    "Now... skedaddle." Bard gulped, bracing himself against the bloodied deckplates. "Them bastards will be comin' back any second now. Dun worry. I got 'em covered." A piercing glare. "Time for yer solo."

    Wildcard stood up, gripping the metal staff. He lingered on the east end of the Stardust, fidgeting.

    "Go, dammit! Git!" Bard calmly peeled off his belt and bandolier. "While I still got a spotlight to shine in..."

    Wildcard breathed and breathed and—

FWOOOOSH!

    —murked off in a black streak, piercing the final heavens.

    Bard gazed after him. A slight mist touched his eyes...

    At least until he closed them.

    "Nnnrgh... d-dammit!" Brye Chandler fidgeted and fussed, pressing himself into the embrace of one griffon while the other bodyguard struggled to dislodge the spear from his armor. "Careful! You'll cut my flesh!"

    "Defense Minister..." The griffon's hawkeyes narrowed as he focused on his task. The three were positioned on a cloud high above the last known sighting of the Stardust. "...if you simply stop squirming, I can more carefully assist you—"

    "I'm the one stallion entrusted by Verlaxion to avenge her legacy!" Chandler barked. "I do not 'squirm'!"

    "Hrmmm..." The griffon gripping the stuck spear clenched his beak. "...then surely you can weather this."

    "What was that—?" CHTUNKKK! "—aaaaaaugh!" Chandler clutched the dented armor where the spear was removed. "Are you mad?!"

    "But it barely grazed you—"

    "Never mind!" Chandler shoved against him and then gestured at the other bodyguard holding him. "Take us down immediately! There's no telling where those Blighted fiends went!"

    "Sir, you ordered us to ascend in the first place—"

    "Silence and do as I say!" Chandler tightened his helmet as the bodyguards took wing, carrying him off the cloud and descending once again. "If that vessel full of black magic gets away, then we will have sacrificed this entire flanking move for nothing!"

    "I... I think I see it, sir!" One griffon pointed with a free talon. "It's right where we left it!"

    "Then take us down already!" Chandler cocked his crossbow. "I need to know if our soldiers finished that cretin off!"

    A gentle melody wafted through the air.

    Acoustic strings and harmonic chords.

Th-Th-Thump! Chandler and his two bodyguards landed heavily on the bow of the Stardust. They gawked at the bloody carnage strewn all across the deckplates.

    But that wasn't all.

    "What... in blazes...?" Chandler murmured.

    His bodyguards grimaced upon seeing the lifeless remains of their former comrades. But that wasn't all...

    "Hey!" Chandler craned his neck, helmet rattling. "Hey you!"

    There was no response from the source of the music. A pegasus sat near the cabin door, hunched over. There was an instrument in his hooves.

    Frowning, Chandler marched towards him in his bulky armor. "I am Defense Minister Brye Chandler of Rohbredden. In the name of Goddess Verlaxion, I order you to stand down and tell me the plans of the Rainbow Rogue!"

    Bard's response was to hum in tune to the gentle guitar riff he was playing. He squatted on the corpse of a Frostknifer, plucking the strings with one fetlock and his surviving wing.

    "Did you hear me, Blighted one?!" Chandler aimed his crossbow. "I said that I am Defense Minister Brye..." His lips trailed, as did his gaze. "...Chandler of Rohbredden..." His eyes fell on the sword-tip impaling Bard's figured. "...good Goddess."

    "Hmmmmmmm..." Bard plucked the strings of his guitar, staining the wooden finish red. "...time it was... and what a time it was... it was..."

    The two bodyguards blinked incredulously at one another.

    "Funny..." Bard chuckled. Blood squeezed through the seams of his front teeth. "...the sweetest songs are somehow always the shortest."

    At this point, Brye Chandler was ignoring him. With a gaping expression, he trotted past the wounded musician and gazed at the cabin door...

    ...a cabin door that had been slid wide open, revealing an entire glowing stockpile of enchanted runestones.

    A melodic sigh. Bard smiled into the reddened heavens as he plucked a final chord. "Well, Amber, it took dayum near forever, but here we are.”

    Chandler spun around, eyes wide.

    Bard gazed back. Unflinching. "H'rhnum..."

Vrmmmmmmmmmmmmmm— Every single rock inside the belly of the Stardust glowed to the point of blinding.

    "Get o-out!" Chandler's voice cracked. His helmet flew into the mists as he scrambled to gallop off the ship's bloody deck. "Get out before it—" He had no more words, for he had no more lungs. Billowing lunar plasma engulfed him, Bard, the two griffons and—

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

    The red sky was drowned in a rising plume of orange and silver flame.

    Keris, Windburst, and the rest of their company jerked in place. Gasping. Squinting.

    They hovered to a stop just above the last remaining ship of Chandler's armada. As other Frostknifers carried water-logged survivors back on board, the east horizon behind them erupted in runic wrath.

    The shockwave reached Rainbow Dash and Ariel—nearly throwing them off balance.

    "Augh!"

    "Guhhh!"

    Rainbow Dash and Ariel spun around, squinting down and towards the west. The twilight faded for a brief moment, as if kissed by a second sun for the first time in epochs.

    The explosion ended as dramatically as it began, and despitedespit having produced monumental thunder...

    ...Rainbow Dash was acutely aware of a shocked gasp to her side. She looked at Fluttershy.

    Fluttershy looked back at her. Ears drooped and a yellow muzzle quivered.

    Rainbow Dash gawked. "Wildcard?"

    Fluttershy slowly shook her head.

    Rainbow blinked. Then her pupils shrank. "... ... ...Bard."

    A sniffle. Fluttershy's eyes filled up with tears.

    "Rainbow...?" Twilight looked at Pinkie Pie—who was rubbing a shivering shoulder. She looked back at their anchor. "Rainbow, what is—?"

    "Look!" Rarity pointed at the western sky.

    The ghostly mares gazed in one accord. As the lasting glow of the explosion faded, a dark figure glided ever closer. Wildcard flew east. His metal arm dangled limply. His other talon gripped a bloodied staff.

    "Wildcard..." Ariel murmured. "There you are! We lost you when..." She blinked. "What are you doing with Bard's—?"

Fwoooosh! Wildcard glided past him. His expression was stoic and nothing else. He decelerated slightly—but without turning back. He kept his flight slow for as long as he was within Rainbow's gaze.

    "... ... ..." Ariel gazed after him. At last, as the twilight returned, her eyes turned glossy above a weak frown. "No..." Wings blurred. She muscled herself west. "No!"

    A petite hoof yanked her back with remarkable strength. "Ariel—"

    "No! We can't just leave him back there—"

    "Rrrrgh!" Rainbow practically threw Ariel after Wildcard. She glared at her. Through her. "He gave hisus all! Now it's time we gave ours! Or do you really want to shame him that badly?!"

    Ariel pouted. She heaved... shook... and caved under a fountain of tears. She shook them dry the only way she knew how—by flying into the stormy winds, making a bitter bee-line for the edge of the world.

    Rainbow Dash followed her with no less speed. A cold frown sliced the air in front of her.

    And yet... on a softer plane...

    ...the quiet, sobbing voices of her friends joined her.

    "Rainbow Dash..." Twilight glided alongside her. Her face was a lavender bowl of grimacing sympathy. "Rainbow Dash, I am so... so sorry..." She reached a vaporous limb through her friend's wings. "Please... if th-there's anything we can do—"

    "We move."

    "Rainbow, please—"

    "We head east!" Rainbow Dash grunted into the cosmos and the hazy line of gold separating them. "Until there is no east left." At last, she caught up with Wildcard. She looked at him.

    Wildcard said nothing. Gripping the other Desperado's weapon like a spear, he cut a windy pathst towards the end of all things.

    Rainbow exhaled, ears drooping. She flew close to the griffon, and the two accelerated to catch up with Ariel.

    "W'yllsa! W'yllsa! S'ylywym wysll thym!"

    "Alright! Alright!" Echo hollered towards the upper chambers. There was a final rush of salty air through Bleak's Plummet, and the walls rang with stomping hooves. "Seal it up! The others will join us when we resurface again!"

    "What?" Nicole breathily managed. "Did... did we—?"

    "That red signal just now!" Echo's fangs glinted in the runelight. "Rainbow's done it! Our brothers and sisters are flocking west! Keeping a high cover!"

    "Are we abandoning them—?"

    "Pfft! Hardly! A good bunch of them are already on board—along with Enix! The rest will keep high in the clouds and rendezvous once Bleak's Plummet breaches the waves!"

    "Then... then we made it," Nicole managed with a shudder. "Rainbow... Johnny... we—"

    "Hold on tight, bae." Echo steadied her shoulders as the entire ship shifted with a jolt. "Dive time."

    Nicole's eyeslits reflected a wave of bubbles from beyond the magic window. "I... I can hardly believe—"

    "Believe what?" Echo smiled at her. "Relax, girl. I know it's sappy'n'shiet, but..." He gazed out at the dimming east waters as the entire structure drew away. "...we're going home."

    Nicole pursed her lips. "Home." The word was only half-melodic. The shadow of the ocean fell over Bard's hat, then her, then everything.

    "Commander!" Windburst shouted, wincing in mid-flight as he struggled to follow his superior. "Commander! Hold up!"

    Keris said nothing. He flew over the wall of fire... the wrecked privateer ship and the rocks and shoals surrounding it. As the last few survivors of the wreck were being carried to the remaining vessel west of them, he found a group of pegasi circling a burning patch of debris due east.

    "Commander..." At last, Windburst caught up with him. He panted. "What are we doing out here? The troops are gathered above Chandler's ship like you ordered—"

    "That explosion, Sergeant..."

    "Yeah? What about it? It was loud, stupid, and noisy—"

    "Shhhh!" Keris hissed aside as a quartet of armored pegasi approached. "I just need to know..."

    "Know what?"

    "Commander?" one pegasus stammered, a pale expression spread over her features. "Commander Keris? Is that you?"

    "Report, soldier," Keris firmly said.

    "It... it's the Defense Minister, sir," the pegasus said. Her three partners fidgeted nervously in mid-air with their backs to the explosion's epicenter. "While we were fishing survivors out of the waters surrounding the second ship, we spotted him flying east with a contingent of bodyguards to engage the enemy artillery vessel and—"

    "And what?" Keris' magenta eyes narrowed. "It exploded?"

    "I... I'm afraid so, Commander."

    "And the Defense Minister?" Windburst leaned forward. "Brye Chandler? Did you find him?"

    "We..." The pegasus looked at the others. "We... uhm..."

    "Well?"

    Gulping, the soldier nervously looked back at the Talon members. "We found his head."

    Silence.

    "But... we c-couldn't find the rest of him... Commander... s-sir..."

    Keris exhaled. He looked at the wreckage... then at the lightning and cosmic nebulae beyond.

    "Commander Keris?" The pegasus hovered higher. "With the Defense Minister gone and Seraphimus unaccounted for... that puts you in charge of our offensive."

    Windburst took a deep breath and delivered into the thunderous air: "What are your orders..." He glanced stealthily aside. "Commander, sir?"

    Keris closed his eyes. His headcrest settled—as did the edge in his voice. "Retreat."

    The pegasus soldiers gaped at him. "S-sir?"

    "We are to fall back and retreat safely to Frostknife. The Rainbow Rogue's forces have us outsmarted and outgunned here and it would be a tragic folly to waste the most elite of the late Verlaxion's foals in a futile act of vengeancevegeance that even she didn't mandate when she was alive." Keris' eyes reopened and they were glaring. "Do you have a problem with that, soldier?"

    Silence.

    Keris looked around. "Does anypony have a problem with that?"

    Dead winds.

    Rain.

    And...

    "N-no, sir!"

    "Not at all sir!"

    "T-take us back to Frostknife... Commander... s-sir..."

    Windburst sighed with relief.

    "Good." Commander Keris sliced his claws west in a dramatic motion. "Fall back. Regather the troops. Tell them... we're heading back home... to protect our loved ones!"

    Bodies swiftly, eagerly glided past him, carving a path westward over the rock formations and shipwrecks.

    "Fall back!"

    "Sound retreat!""

    "Move! Move! Move!"

    "Listen...!" Raptr tilted his head up from where he and Starstorm squatted on a low-hanging cloud. "Do you hear that?"

    Starstorm paused in wrapping a length of metal wire around Seraphimus' wings. The former Commander's talons and paws were already tightly bound, and her silver feathers fluttered in the noisy breeze.

    "It... it..." Starstorm cocked her avian head aside. Sure enough—between the thunder and wind—she and the rookie could make out the distant hollering of Central Guardians. "It sounds like they're sounding a retreat."

    "Then... then Keris did it!" Raptr exclaimed, smiling jubilantly. "He and Windburst have forced Chandler to change his mind!"

    "I wonder if it has anything to do with that brilliant explosion just now," Starstorm muttered.

    "Maybe... although..." Raptr gulped, squinting into the rain. "Now you've got me worried."

    "What for?" Starstorm returned to wrapping the cord around Seraphimus' wings. "We got what we came here for."

    "Did we? How do we know that Rainbow Dash made it?"

    "Remember that red flare from earlier?"

    "Uhm... yeah?"

    Starstorm leaned in over Seraphimus. "If you ask me, that was the signal."

    "Signal?"

    "For Rainbow's gang to split up. The midnighters are going away for good." Starstorm smirked, tying the cord into complex knots. "And Rainbow's group? They're probably halfway to the Dark Side by now..."

    Silver feathers shifted. Muscles tightened. And when Starstorm's last words were spoken...

    ...a pair of charcoal eyes flew open.

    "Come on..." Flynn jittered and jittered. Jittered and jittered. "Come onnnnn..." His mechanical eye glinted in a gold aura as he hoofy-kicked into the deluge's rising mists. "Come on come on come on come on—"

    Then... at last...

It arose.

    A blindingly smooth crown of gold pierced the eternally-falling waters. When it surfaced, it was with a brilliant splash. Moisture flew in every direction, splattering the golden spokes, the Emeraldinian granite, and the billowing waves surrounding the platforms. Then—as the last of the cold curtains of moisture receded—the Gondola was revealed in all its shimmering glory. It resembled a translucent geodesic sphere, with each portion of the shell separated by vertices of golden spokes plated in between with immaculate, crystal-clear glass. The spotlessness of the transport device was haunting—despite its age—with the alicorn metal seeming to glow in fierce platinum defiance of the twilight that had enshrouded it on its lengthy approach to the world's precipice. From afar, the huddled Heraldites could spot a criss-crossing set of support beams—six in all—reinforcing the shell of the otherwise hollow sphere from the inside. The "vehicle" was braced by two extending "wings" on the outer hemispheres that served as the shafts through which the endless chains drew the thing towards the surface. The group was—however—incapable of making out a door... that is until the sphere moved itself quite magically towards the very edge of the platforms built expertly eons ago by Whitemane's forbearers. There was a whirring noise as the entrance fluctuated with a harmonic hue. Then—as the last layer of moisture was shaken off—a glass lid to the ancient elevator yawned open, accompanied with a timelessly playful melody:

D-Ding-a-Ding!

    "It's here!" Flynn shouted, already dragging his equipment and tool bagstoolbags over his shoulder. "It's here! Everypony get in! Get in!"

    Logan was waving at three figures flying towards them from the distant west. "All board! Come on! Come on! We gotta go!"

    "My my..." Kepler perched on the platform. His tusked mouth hung open as his spectacled eyes dazzled at the sight of the magnificent structure in all its glory. "What a most rravishing geodesic polyhedrron!" He hummed beneath his furry chest as Flynn hopped first into the hollow of the vehicle ahead of him. "And just look at the spatialspacial grandeurr! Surrely you could fit an entirre battalionbattallion of Emerraldinian soldierrs inside this—"

    "Dammit!" Logan kicked Kepler in the tail. "Get your nerdy ass inside, four-eyes!"

    "Ha—" Thunk! "—H-Haaa..."

    Flynn whistled, standing on a plate of gold and staring up at the support beams and rippling windows surrounding them. Beyond the crystalline sheets of glass, the storm raged and galactic eddies swirled forever and ever. "Look at how wonderfully crafted this all is!" His mechanical eye focused on the nexus of criss-crossing support beams. A large rectangular block with square door panels rested in the center. "That must be where the settlers of Darkreach placed their building supplies." He turned—lenses circling—and looked at a curved stretch of tiny pony-sized seat restraints lining the entire inner equator of the vessel. "And those are the passenger seats."

    "How currious," Kepler murmured against the dull roar of thunder beyond the ancient shell. "Why arre they built in a perrfect cirrcle?"

    Flynn gulped. "Because gravity must fail at some point along the trip." He pointed. "Notice the harnesses."

    "Ah!" Kepler nodded, adjusting his glasses. "But of courrse!"

    "Now... where are the controls?"

    Kepler tapped his furry chin, searching and searching and—"Ah!" He pointed a winged claw at a spot along the sphere just a few glass panels away from the open door. "A leverr! See?"

    "Great! Perfect!" Flynn levitated his equipment towards the rectangular compartment in the middle. All the while, he shouted over his shoulder: "Big Show! I found the controls—!"

    "Right! More power to ya, popcorn fart!" Logan faced away from the sphere's entrance, cupping his fetlocks around his muzzle and hollering: "Get your flanks over here already! Show's over! Time to drop!"

Fw-Fw-Fwooosh! All three stragglers arrived in one accord. Wildcard passed on through the entrance first. He was silent as stone, and his goggles reflected nothing.

    Logan blinked at that. "Hey... h-hey, where's Bard?" Ariel approached, so Logan gestured dramatically at her. "Yo! Where the Hell is Bard?"

    Ariel stumbled. Her muzzle scrunched. She looked up at Logan—and as soon as she made eye-contact, the tears redoubled. Sniffling, she rubbed her cheek and dove inside the Gondola.

    Logan blinked. His expression of shock lasted scarcely a second, replaced entirely with a snarl as hot as furnace. He swiped his axe up off the ground and made to gallop towards the western edge of the platform—

    Rainbow Dash blocked his way. "Get inside."

    "Buck you, I'm getting inside," Logan growled. "After what those bastards did—" He stomped a hoof. "Who was it?! Tell me! Did you even see—?!"

    Rainbow Dash was in his face in a blink. "Either you go over the edge with us or I'm kicking your butt off on your lonesome."

    Logan opened his muzzle to protest—

    "Big Show. Logan." Flynn stuck his head out of the sphere's entrance. "The Austraeoh needs you. We all do."

    Logan fumed and fumed and—

    "Rrrrrgh!"

    —he turned tail and thudded his way inside the Gondola.

    Rainbow Dash took a step or two. Then...

    She lingered.

    Her gaze fell from the angry sight of Logan settling inside the sphere. She stared at the rain-slicked stone beneath her. Ancient granite. Built by nameless bodies from a nameless time.

    And another nameless soul had just joined it.

    She clenched her eyes shut as the first of several sobs fought their way out of her lungs—

    "Rainbow Dash..." Soft. Loving.

    Rainbow squinted one eye open.

    It was Fluttershy. "Most of us are still alive. Thanks to you."

    Rainbow sucked in her breath... but could barely squeak it back out.

    Fluttershy nodded past her. "Remna."

    "... ... ...?" Rainbow spun around.

    A body was trotting away from the swinging chalices.

    "Axan?" Rainbow stammered. She frowned. "Dang it, Axan—let's go already!"

    Remna marched calmly towards her, fussing with the right bangs of her mane. "A thousand pardons, Austraeoh. I was merely—"

    "The time for buckin' sight-seeing is over!" Rainbow pointed at the sphere. "Now get into the sphere! Move! Everypony inside!"

    "Hrmmm..." Remna squinted as she climbed in. "...we appear to be short on company—"

    "Shut up," Rainbow grunted, pushing her along. "For once in your immortal life, Axan, girl, could you just friggin' can it?" She braced herself against the harmonic metal of the door's opening. A moment's hesitation. She looked back at the Light Side... and the storms and the tempest that both defined and contrasted it all at once. Then—a tight exhale. "Zoop." And she removed her hoof from the earth and dashed inside.

    "Is that everyone?" Keris asked.

    "Uhm... uh..." A bruised soldier in battered armor shifted among the wounded and dazed Frostknifers lined up all along the top deck of the Rohbreddenites' remaining vessel. "We've... gathered all we could find from... the wreck and the two engagements to the west—"

    "Is it everyone who is left?" Keris insisted, pressing the guardian.

    The subordinate gulped, pointing off the ship's port side as it slowly turned around to face west. "We th-think that there might still be stragglers in the lower clouds... from when the second salvo of Blighted magic hit us."

    "Then send out two detachments," Keris ordered. "Search the waves and mists from top to bottom!" He raised his voice, gesturing to the exhausted crew of the ship as a whole. "I want every living survivor on board this vessel for the trip back to Frostknife! We'll need all the forces we can manage to help the Council fend off the windigoes back home!"

    Windburst shuffled up, leaning on a bulkhead. "Commander. What of Rainbow Dash?"

    "Hmmm? Yes?"

    "Don't..." Windburst shifted a bit where he stood. "I mean... maybe we should... erm..." He cleared his throat. "...go check on her? Make sure she and the Herald depart safely—"

    "Sergeant, we've done all we can for Rainbow Dash," Keris said. "Just as she's done all she can for us. Trust me." He pivoted about, squinting along the tempestuous western horizon. "We'd be failing her if we didn't put all our energy into... returning home and..." His magenta eyes narrowed quizzically. "...protecting our loved ones."

    "Sir?" Windburst—for the first time in as long as he could remember—failed to spot something before his commanding officer. So he stepped up behind Keris to crane his neck and gaze over his shoulder.

    That's when he finally saw it... saw them. Two haggard shapes flying towards the vessel from the west. Their path was zig-zagged. Sickly. Desperate.

    "Commander, it's... I think it's—"

    "Sergeant!" Keris was already taking off. He flew west to meet the two figures. His headcrest lifted in alarm. "Starstorm... Raptr..." He hovered to a stop, grimacing. "What in the Spring Havens...?"

    "Grrkkk..." Starstorm coughed, gargling blood. Her face was badly lacerated, and she clutched a deep wound in her shoulder. The Sergeant had to lean against Raptr for support. "Commander... grnngh... I am... I am so sorry..."

    "What happened?" Keris insisted, his voice raising. "Come on! Out with it!"

    "Only... only sp-spared us because... because..." Starstorm's eyelids grew heavy as she fought unconsciousness and blood-loss. "...once... once comrades..."

    "Once comrades?!" Windburst stammered. "What do you mean?"

    "Sergeant... Commander... we tried everything we could," Raptr said, holding Starstorm steady. "I mean—just short of throwing ourselves in the way. But... as you can see, by the time we tried..." He grimaced, looking all around in a feverish tremor. Tears formed in his eyes. "So fast. She... she was just s-so fast and... and Starstorm..." He choked. "Starstorm and I..."

    Keris was no longer listening. His feathers paled. In a stupor, he slowly turned around... facing east.

    Windburst gaped at him. "Commander—"

FWOOOOOOOSH! Keris streaked east in an imperceivable blur.

    "Dammit..." Windburst clenched his beak. "Goddess dammit—Raptr!" He soared after Keris. "Take wing—!"

    "Go... grkkk..." Starstorm patted Raptr's shoulder as she was lowered briskly to the deck. "Without m-me..."

    "Shit shit shit shit *shit!***" Raptr shot skyward, swiftly surpassing Windburst in a desperate chase after Keris.

    Starstorm collapsed on the deck, surrounded by countless wounded and battered defenders of Rohbredden. As crew ponies rushed to her aid, she covered a talon over her bloodied beak... tears streaming...

    "Okay!" Applejack hollered, gazing all around the sphere's interior. "That's everypony!"

    "This structure's positively amazing!" Rarity found the strength to coo, her eyes glittering from the spherical exoskeleton. "And it's remained pristine like a gold encrusted diamond for countless generations—!"

    "Save it, Rarity," Twilight said in a curt tone. She turned towards their anchor. "Rainbow Dash! There must be some way to operate this thing!"

    "You tell me, egghead!" Rainbow snapped, then faced the rest of the Herald. "Guys! Stomach's growling for an update right about now..."

    "Still... strruggling..." Kepler wheezed, gripping the gold lever with both claws and attempting to pull it. "...to ascerrtain the functionality herre..."

    "Well stop yanking on it!" Flynn's voice cracked. "We didn't summon this baby through the double-crust of the earth just to snap it in two!"

    "Well, somepony figure out something!" Logan exclaimed, struggling to hop over the glass plates of the Gondola—setting hoof on only the gold spokes. To his misfortune, he stared straight down, spotting an endless "horizon" of rushing water and sporadic vortices stretching into blackening cosmos. "Wooooooooo Susan, I hope this place has a lavatory—"

    Just then, Wildcard's talon shoved him in the chest. Logan gasped as he was pushed into a plush seat. He felt the last Desperado fastening the passenger restraints around him.

    "Now hold up! Until we get this damn thing moving, I really don't think I should be—" Logan protested.

    His words were cut short by a firm claw held directly in front of his nose. Logan watched—beady-eyed—as Wildcard coldly and authoritatively continued fastening him to his seat. Within the space of a minute, Wildcard finished, then awkwardly hobbled over to Ariel.

    The mare had already seated herself in her harness. When the griffon came to strap the belts around her, she didn't protest. Ariel kept her melancholic gaze plastered to Wildcard's forehead. Then—at one strategic moment—she leaned forward and kissed him softly through his feathers.

    For the first time, Wildcard lingered in place. His goggles fell to the harmonic metal between them. If it weren't for his grip of Bard's staff, he would likely have collapsed completely—

    "Rrrrrgh!" Kepler's growling tone echoed against the support beams overhead as the wyvern fussed and fussed with the lever. "Confound this ancient machinerry!" He leaned back, adjusting his spectacles as he exhaled in a huff. "Mountain Matrron, give me strrength..."

    "Rainbow Dash?" Applejack leaned in. "Can't you help them?"

    "Hmmmm..." Twilight gazed at the lever mechanism. "It's not like somepony activated it from inside the Gondola to begin with..."

    "You're right, Twilight," Rainbow said, nodding. "I did."

    Remna finished fastening herself in a seat. She looked over and spoke firmly: "Why not let the Austraeoh touch it?"

    Flynn and Kepler looked at one another. They then glanced at Rainbow Dash.

    "Rrainbow One...?"

    "It's worth a shot, Dash," Flynn added.

    Holding her breath, Rainbow fluttered over... and placed her fetlock against the handle of the lever.

Vrmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Almost instantly, the mechanism hummed to life. A gold glow emanated from deep within the base of the lever.

    "OooOooOooh!" Rarity cupped her squishy cheeks. "So delightful!" Her eyes darted to Rainbow's Loyalty pendant—which was also pulsating with a ruby aura. "Heehee! Even better!"

    "Well, will you look at that?" Flynn beamed at Rainbow. "I knew we weren't escorting you for nothing, girl!"

    "Rein it in, shiny," Rainbow droned. "LestUnless you forget where we're headed."

    Flynn gulped. "Right." He spoke over his shoulder. "Strap in, Kepler. As close to the controls as possible."

    "Rrainbow gets the closest seat, I trrust."

    "Absolutely. Rainbow?"

    "Just one second..." Rainbow licked her lips, grasping the handle. "Now that it's glowing... how exactly do I work this thing?"

    "Look for the way the sheath is positioned, Rainbow," Twilight suggested.

    "Therre!" Kepler—while fastening himself to his seat—pointed at an open space aimed towards the base of the sphere. "I trrust if you move it in that dirrection..."

    Ch-Chtunnng! Rainbow threw the lever down towards the lower cosmos.

D-Ding-a-Ding!

Vrmmmmm! The whole Gondola shook, wobbled... then began an eerily glacial descent.

    "Yes!" Twilight Sparkle cheered. "Rainbow, you did it!"

    "Whew-wee!" Applejack tilted her hat forward. "Dark Side or bust, y'all!"

    "Hmmmmm..." Flynn managed a smile as he sat into his harness, pulling at the belts. "Has a nice smell to it."

    "Brace yourselves, darlings," Rarity said, gazing down... down at the obsidian horizon drenched in water. "It's a long... long way to our destination."

    "Guhhh-uhhh-uhhh-uhhhh!" Pinkie Pie clutched her skull, eyes wide. "My ear lobes are going crazy!"

    "Take it easy, Pinkie." Rainbow spoke over the rattling of golden chains as the sphere began its descent. Water frothed around the lower window panes, drowning out the thunder beyond. "You heard Rarity. We're going to be chugging away like this for a longgggg—"

    "It's n-not th-that!" Pinkie Vibrated all over. "Something else—"

    "RAINBOW!!!" Fluttershy suddenly shrieked.

    All ghostly eyes flew to her.

    "Fluttershy?! What—"

"Close the door!" Fluttershy screamed. "Close the door!"

    Twilight Sparkle gasped. "Rainbow Dash! The ocean water—!"

    Fluttershy curled up into a yellow ball. "It's not the ocean water!"

    "...?" Rainbow Dash let go of the lever. Her wings flapped until she hovered in the center of the Gondola, on level with the door. As the platforms... the waves... the entire world raised out of view, she caught sight of a pale figure... a comet of bloodstained feathers burning towards them—carried by a scream. "Close the door..."

    "...?!" Wildcard jerked her a look.

    Rainbow's eyes flashed at him. "Close the door! Close the friggin'—!"

    "What?!" Ariel and Logan craned their necks. "What is it—?"

    Wildcard reached the frame, and he saw it too. "!!!" Headcrest quivering, he yanked at the door with all his might.

Creaaaaak! Thud! The glass lid slammed shut. Within seconds—

CRASSSSSH!

    A wave of crystalline shards fluttered the compartment, propelled by a razor-clawed figure plowing through at full force...

    ...and contacting squarely with Rainbow Dash.

    "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!" Seraphimus tackled the petite pegasus, slamming her into the cross-section of support beams. She sneered, snapped metal cords dangling from her talons and legs. Eyes flaring, she stabbed her beak right into Rainbow's neck.

    "Httt!" Rainbow somehow managed to grip Seraphimus' mouth in both fetlocks, stopping her by an inch.

    But the former Talon Commander expected this, and with Rainbow's forelimbs free, she jabbed both sets of claws into the mare's ribcage. Sl-Sliiink!

    "Aaaaaaaaaaugh—!" Rainbow began screaming, but she didn't finish.

    "Hrrrrrrrrrgh—!" Charcoal eyes caught aflame as Seraphimus threw Rainbow like a dead weight across the inner space of the Gondola.

    "Holy—!" Flynn spat.

    "Sonuva—" Logan gnashed his teeth. Anchored in his seat, he flung a hoof out to catch Rainbow.

    He missed, and Rainbow's body went sailing violently into the golden vehicle's controls. WHUD! "Ooomf!" she grunted, eyes tearing from the pain. Bruised and bleeding, she looked up—

    —and straight into Seraphimus' dive-kick. "Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!!"

    Seraphimus' weight collided with Rainbow's weight and—

CRACKKKK!

    —the golden lever shattered completely. The broken remains of its alicorn metal jerked to the maximum depth of its sheathe. VRMMMMMM! The Gondola jerked violently...

    "No!" Kepler hollered, flailing in his restraint as the entire sphere plunged. "That's too fast! We're going to—"

    His words trailed after him—as did everypony's screams. The golden chains loosened like spiderwebs in a wild breeze, and the Gondola dropped, plowing through water and lightning as it followed its arcane course over the edge of the world and beyond.

    "Commander?!" Windburst hollered after Raptr and Keris. He grimaced from his wounds, fighting to keep up with the other two Talon members as they soared over platforms, granite, and a forest of dangling chalices. "Commander!"

    Keris said nothing. Did nothing. Until he reached the very edge.

    At last—with limp wings—he glided to a slow stop, perched on the last piece of earth.

    The deluge roared. Water barreled into starlight and cosmic storms. Chains rattled, rolling at an incalculable rate, until they too disappeared amidst the moisture and miss.

    The Gondola was gone. The precipice was barren.

    "We..." Windburst huddled over, wheezing for breath beside his commanding officer and the gaping rookie. "...we are too late..." He gulped, standing up and squinting into the otherworldly miasma. "Rainbow...? Seraphimus...?"

    Keris's headcrest drooped. There was a slight tremble to his talons.

    Raptr grimaced. "It's... it's our fault..." He fell to his knees. "We had her... one moment and then the next..." A whimper. "It's our fault. If only we—"

"No."

    Raptr looked up.

    So did Windburst.

    Keris exhaled into the heavens: "It's my fault. I... I failed Seraphimus. I failed Rainbow Dash." A cold breath. Thunder. "And now... I've failed the world."

    Windburst blinked... then gazed into the swirling eddies once more.

    "What... what do we do now...?" Raptr shrugged wildly. "I mean... hell... forget the windigoes! How long does everypony on this plane have left if Rainbow Dash doesn't... d-doesn't..." His words failed.

    For Keris was staring at him. "You didn't see Rainbow Dash at Red Barge, Raptr," he said. He looked at Windburst. "It takes more than death incarnate to stop her."

    "Death is one thing..." Windburst droned, shivering slightly. "But our former boss?"

    Raptr sucked his breath in.

    Keris gazed at the chaos beyond... the darkness and the noise and the piercing flickers of lightning. "We just donated the Dark Side the two most righteous souls to ever live on our plane. Have a little hope, my friends."

    His wingmates said nothing.

    So Keris did. He closed his magenta eyes to the madness and murmured under his breath. "Please, Jordan, brother. Help her... help them *both*..."

    Wildcard steadied himself against a golden beam. Twin black lenses reflected lightning, stars, and water spouts beyond the sea of glass panels.

THOOOM!

KRAKKKK!

FLASSSH!

    Swirling tempests—blinding and bold—fluctuated all around the Gondola's free-fall. And yet—with his loyal gaze—the Desperado soon made out the bodies of the two combatants.

    With a mute snarl, he twirled Bard's staff, kicked off the glass plates beneath him, and flew towards his targets.

    Ariel gasped through the thunder as he whizzed by. "Wildcard—!"

    "Raaaaaaugh!" Seraphimus lifted Rainbow by a talon grip to her throat. She raised her other claws to strike—

Swooooosh! CLANG! Bard's staff contacted heavily with her shoulder.

    "Oooomf!" Seraphimus jolted in mid-hover, but she did not let go of Rainbow. Turning around, she met Wildcard's next swing with her opposite talon. "Rrrrrrghh—!"

    Wildcard snarled back, tightening his muscles to thrust the staff into Seraphimus' skull.

    Rainbow was gasping for breath when she felt the Gondola sway around them, followed by Rarity's yelp: "Look out!"

    "Incomiiiiing!" Pinkie Pie hollered, mane billowing.

    Rainbow's eyes rolled back. She saw the shattered glass entrance to the Gondola... and the wave of water rushing into it.

    "Hold on!!!" Flynn shouted, erecting a force field around himself and as many Heraldites as he could muster.

SPLOOOOOOSH! Ocean water jetted in like a fountain, dousing everypony inside. Ariel screamed until she was gargling brine. When the wave hit the three combatants—accompanied with a crack—of thunder, it knocked them hard to the bottom of the sphere.

    WHUD! Wh-Wham!

    Rainbow Dash rolled and tumbled through the shallow pool collecting rapidly at the bottom of the sphere. She tried to get up when—

    "Another, darling!"

    "Rainbow—!" Applejack's voice, then nothing... for Rainbow Dash was doused once more. She felt herself cartwheeling head over heel, spotting refracted images of the universe blurring around her through crystalline windows. At last, she surfaced, rolling onto a curved stretch of dry glass and gold.

    "Damn crazy bitch!" Logan hollered from above, writhing in his restraint. "Gonna get us all killed—!"

    "Rainbow!" Ariel sputtered, her eyes flashing from high above the support beams. "Behind you! Coming in fast—!"

    "Move—!" Fluttershy insisted.

    "Gnnngh!" Rainbow found the strength to hop up. She swung both front limbs behind her, blocking blindly. She miraculously deflected Seraphimus's attack, but suffered deep cuts in her fetlocks as a show of it. Wasting no time, Rainbow spun around, yanked Seraphimus by her wing, and flung her against the side of the sphere. WHAM!

    "Ooomf!" Seraphimus quivered all over. She struggled to get up—

WHUMP! Rainbow straddled her and—Whack! Thwack! Smack!—pummeled her repeatedly with left hooks and right hooks. Blood and saliva splattered against the glass, blotting out the distant shine of blurring stars and nebulae. But before Rainbow could get a fourth hit in, Seraphimus snaked her prehensile tail down between them and wrapped it around Rainbow's lower fetlock.

    "Urrrgh!" Rainbow gasped as she was yanked down.

    "Haaaah!" Seraphimus raked the mare's chest. Sliiiiiit!

    "Aaaa-aaah!" Rainbow shrieked into her own blood before being dunked into the rising water. She gurgled and struggled as Seraphimus pressed her weight down into her. Seraphimus raised another talon to rip straight through to Rainbow's brain-stem from behind.

WHACK! Bard's staff uppercutted her.

    Seraphimus jerked back. Scowling, she crossed both forelimbs to block Wildcard's second attack.

    As Wildcard angrily shoved the enraged griffon back, Rainbow dove out of the water and flew into her in a violent spear. "Aaaaaaah!"

WHUD! Soon, all three were tangling together in a tight bundle of hooves, claws, and metal. But before any of them could make any headway—

    "Blessed Goddess!" Kepler hollered, leaning closer to Flynn and his glowing horn. "Brrace yourrselves—!"

    "Ah jeez...!" Ariel tensed up as her eyes reflecting a cyclone of cement-thick water.

THUDDDDD! A waterspout billowing from the world's edge knocked hard into the shell of the Gondola. Everypony flailed, jerked violently inside their harnesses.

    Rainbow, Seraphimus, and Wildcard—SWOOOSH—were thrown clear across the hollow the Gondola. Their bodies pinballed off the support struts. Wh-Wh-Wham! Wildcard took the brunt of it. Bard's staff rolled in one direction while Wildcard's body ragdolled in the other.

    "Ooomf!" Rainbow Dash landed awkwardly on her belly. Straight through the glass below, she could see the obsidian black edge of the plane shifting away. Her eyesight filled with lightning and galaxies. And then—just as swiftly—the Gondola swung back. Along with it came the water—SPLOOOSH!—thoroughly dousing Rainbow in a wave. She collapsed out the other side, rolling up to face the top of the vehicle.

    She saw Seraphimus gliding down towards her.

    "Rainbow!"

    Rainbow flashed a look to her left.

    Rarity—frenzied—was pointing at a tell-tale rod. "Staff!"

    "Httt!" Rainbow yanked Bard's weapon up length-wise and held it out in front of her. CLANK! She connected with both of Seraphimus' claws, and the two wrestled over dominance of the staff. "Rrrrgh—Haaaugh!" She kicked off the floor and flew up into Seraphimus. Seraphimus flew into her. Spinning like airborne tops, the two formed the frenetic nucleui of the runaway Gondola.

    On the opposite side, Remna huffed. With violet hooves, she ripped the belts free that were restraining her.

    Logan flashed her a wild look as the Gondola spun and swayed amidst the lightning. "What in the blue Hell are you doing?!"

    "The Austraeoh must not die." Remna detached completely from her seat and leaned herself forward. "Nothing else matters."

    Logan eyeballed her, muzzle agape. With a growl, he started messing with his thick restraints as well. "I'll be damned if she gets to be crazier than me!"

    "Rainbow!" Ariel hollered as Remna was the first to drop. She fought with her harness but couldn't get the belt loose. "Hold on! You're getting help—!"

Swoooosh! Remna dropped like a violet anvil, landing in front of Wildcard's collapsed body. THUDDD! Cracks formed in the glass panels below her... before the sloshing water covered them up. Remna charged forward, undaunted, eyeing the two flying combatants above.

    Rainbow and Seraphimus spun before the heavens, struggling for dominance of the staff.

    "Austraeoh!" Remna shouted. "Down here!"

    It was Seraphimus who looked down first, and Rainbow capitalized.

    "Httt!" She head-butted the griffon and then followed the stunning impact with a massive kick to the midsection.

    "Grrrgh!" Seraphimus sailed down... down...

Thwump!

    —and into Remna's vice-like grip.

    "Guhh—!" Seraphimus fought and struggled against the draconian limbs.

    "Now, Wildcard!" Flynn shouted from up above. His glowing horn illuminated his wide muzzle. "Now! Take her out—!"

    Scrambling, Wildcard leapt out of the water and sprinted towards Remna and Seraphimus.

    Remna clutched Seraphimus' skull in both fetlocks. "Die."

    Seraphimus eyed Wildcard's charge carefully. "Way ahead of you." With one savage muscle movement, she spread both wings into Remna's chest.

    "Oomf—!" The violet mare was lifted up on her hindquarters.

    Wildcard came in, flinging his metal fist.

    "Hnngh!" Seraphimus caught his momentum and flung him so that his metal talons grasped around Remna's throat.

    Wildcard gasped. He tried to release—

    "Yaaaugh!" Seraphimus flipped in place and came down with a savage drop-kick to the base of Wildcard's prosthetic.

CRAKKKK! Finally, after so much damnable punishment, the base of the limb shattered completely, leaving the Desperado's metal fingers strangling Remna's throat in a death grip.

    "Hrkkk!" Remna stumbled back on her hind-quarters, teetering.

    "Rrrrr—" Seraphimus followed it up by grasping Wildcard's body and flinging him like a battering ram into Remna's chest. WHUDDD!

    Both Heraldites fell back, slamming hard into the fractured glass from Remna's landing earlier.

    And the glass gave way.

SHATTTTTTERRR!!!

    The ocean water was immediately sucked out—rocketing towards the edge of the world froorm which the Gondola plunged. Soon after went Remna and Wildcard, plummeting into the chaotic heavens.

    "No—!" Ariel shrieked.

    "Hhhttt!" Flynn aimed his skull at the distant panel below. His horn glowed brilliantly, projecting a telekinetic stream.

    Miraculously, Remna and Wildcard both jerked in place, hovering in a dead glow two-thirds of the way beyond the panel's shattered frame. The forces pulling at the Gondola's interior ripped Wildcard's prosthetic from Remna's throat. The mare sputtered, her draconian eyeslits watching the metal arm as it sailed off like an onyx comet—only to be consumed by vortices of burning lightning.

    In the meantime, Rainbow had plunged into Seraphimus again. She spun the staff into her twice, but Seraphimus blocked both times. As Rainbow raised the staff for another strike, Seraphimus punched her in the gut, spun them both around, and shoved her across the Gondola.

    While wrestling, the two inadvertently crossed Flynn's telekinetic stream.

    Gasping, Wildcard and Remna plunged once more into outer space—

    Kepler hollered. "Brrotherr—!"

    Flynn jerked his head again, eyes bulging and teeth clenched as he focused the telekinetic beam as hard as he could. Sparks shot from the edges of his horn as he slowly—agonizingly pulled the two Heraldites back into the heart of the sphere. "Rrrrrrr—" Blood trickled out of his ears as he tilted his head back at the burning apex of his leylines. "—raaaaaaaaaaaaugh!"

    At last, Remna and Wildcard slumped onto the intact panes of glass. While above them, Seraphimus and Rainbow Dash traded blows. And above them—

    "There!" Logan belched victoriously as he finally ripped his tight restraints free. Schiiiing! The stallion unsheathed his axe and jumped out of his seat. "Time to remove her head—!" He blinked as his body refused to fall. Instead, he floated goofily forward in the starlight. "...the buck is this?"

    Dizzy, Remna and Wildcard regarded themselves as their bodies slowly lifted off the fractured panels below.

    "What..." Ariel gazed up at her wildly flailing mane. She looked to her left. "What's going...?!"

    "We've rreached the centerr of both planes!" Kepler sputtered, watching his spectacles fly off his nose. "The Gondola has slowed! We arre losing grravity—!"

    The golden mechanism with the broken lever shot sparks in random, nebulous directions.

    Rainbow Dash's last punch against Seraphimus sent her flying backwards. She gasped, feeling bile and fluids rise up her throat. Her inner organs shifted, and her hair went everywhere. She flapped her feathers in desperation.

    "Rainbow!" Twilight stammered, hyperventilating. "It's no use! Your wings won't work in this environment!"

    "T-t-t-tell h-h-h-her th-th-that!" Pinkie Pie pointed across the Gondola, convulsing all over.

    Rainbow Dash jerked her neck to see—

    "Haaaaaugh!" Seraphimus kicked off the outer edge of the gondola, propelling herself at her opponent.

    "Watch yourself, sugarcube!" Applejack floated upside down, trailing ghostly vapors. "She won't stop until you—!"

    "Seraphimus—!!!" Rainbow shouted, but to no avail. Seraphimus impacted her, and the two figures went flying weightlessly across the Gondola. They barreled off a golden spoke, pivoted, then braced themselves against another cross-beam. Rainbow steadied herself as well as she could with the aid of Bard's staff. "Dang it to Tartarus! Stop this!" She gnashed her teeth from where she perched. "Don't you see what you're doing?!"

    Seraphimus panted, bracing herself on a beam across from her. "If it means the end of you, Rogue, then it's worth it."

    "For Pete's sake, you idiot!" Rainbow waved at the cosmos swirling all around them. "Can't you see that there's more to this than Verlaxion and—"

    "Say her name!" Charcoal eyes flickered as Seraphimus pushed off her bar, sailing claws-first. "Say her name and perish!"

    "Dashie—!" Pinkie yelped.

    But Rainbow Dash was way ahead of her. She blocked with the staff. Seraphimus' claws connected, spilling sparks about that mimicked the lightning beyond. Seraphimus met another golden spoke and kicked off of it. Rainbow leapt backwards, deflecting the advancing blows—being propelled backwards by each vengeful strike. She wrapped her short tail around another golden beam and spun herself around. Seraphimus followed her perfectly, and soon the two were weaving in and around the web of support struts, trading staff-swings and claw-strikes.

    At one point, Seraphimus caught Rainbow by a wing and flung her sideways. Rainbow slammed off a beam with a grunt, twirled around, and landed on another beam above Seraphimus. She aimed Bard's staff straight up and twirled it to the best of her ability. Seraphimus aimed up from her position, striking and parrying from where she perched. The clattering bedlam of their impacts rivaled the thunder outside.

    Logan—meanwhile—flailed uselessly in the air several feet from the heart of the scuffle. He gnashed his teeth, looking at his axe levitating just out of reach. "Rrrnngh... damn it..." He hollered at the Heraldites still fastened to their seats across from the battle. "Flynn! You damn baldy! Give me a boost! The Austraeoh's in—"

    "I'm afrraid he's out cold, frriend!" Kepler shouted back, shaking his unicorn companion's shoulder. "And we appearr to be stuck out herre—!"

    "Well... grnnth..." Logan snarled and flailed. "Somepony... spit on the crazy chicken or something—!"

FLASH! In the next strobe of thunder, Logan felt a body shoving him from behind. He gasped, looking to see that Remna had kicked off the panels below and was giving him a boost. SWOOOSH! They barreled through the starlight, approaching Logan's axe with rapid speed. "Your blade, mortal..." Remna wheezed.

    "Hell yeah..." Logan snatched the floating hilt in mid-air. Still being propelled by Remna's draconian figure, he raised the weapon high and shouted. "Rainbow! Neck down!"

    Rainbow gasped and twirled her body away from Seraphimus. Seraphimus blinked. She turned, her reflection spotting the two Heraldites incoming.

    "Aaaaaaaaugh—!" Logan swung the axe towards her as hard as he could.

    In a calm breath, Seraphimus kicked off a support beam, and Logan's blade struck nothing but.

CLANKKK!

    "Aw shit—!" Logan yelped as he and Remna flew past their embedded blade. Remna slipped—sailing off—but Logan maintained his grip. Although not for long. She pulled herself back by the length of the blade, kicked him savagely in the face, and wrenched the blade free.

    One second later, she heard the ruffle of feathers. She turned to see Rainbow Dash flying towards her, staff swinging. "Yaaaah!"

    Seraphimus ducked, twirled aside, and shoved Rainbow past her.

    Rainbow flailed, then slammed lengthwise into the central storage compartment in the heart of the Gondola. She regained her vision in time to see Seraphimus kicking off a beam and sailing at her with Logan's sword.

    "Bleed into eternity—!" Seraphimus shouted.

    Rainbow took a breath. "Nope." She casually stuck Bard's staff down and opened a golden storage panel into Seraphimus' beak. WHACK!

    "Ooomf!" Seraphimus started to fly back from the impact—

Thwppp! Rainbow caught her in mid-air, locking her shoulders in place with the length of the staff. "This ends." She rubbed a hoof over her pendant as her ghostly friends looked on. "Now."

    Seraphimus was barely squinting when—Flaaaaaaaaaash!—a steady beam of harmonic energy burned into her eyes. "Grnnnnnnngh—!" She suddenly let go of the axe and placed both of her bleeding palms over the glowing lightning bolt.

    Rainbow gasped.

    Seraphimus sneered into her face. "No. More. Blight." Then—with an angry grunt—she yanked Rainbow's pendant clean off and flung it towards the stars and lightning.

    "Rainbow, she's—!" Twilight spoke... then vanished completely. The colorful shapes of Fluttershy, Pinkie, Rarity, and Applejack fizzled into nothingness as well.

    "Grkk...!" Rainbow whimpered. In a cold panic, she dropped Bard's staff completely and twirled towards the pendant. It sailed away from her, its ruby edges glinting in the cosmos until the image turned hazy under a curtain of fresh crimson. Rainbow sweated and hyperventilated. Two spots bled from her forehead as she licked her fangs and dog-paddled in futility.

Thwump! Seraphimus gripped her from behind, dragging claws to the nape of her neck. "Death becomes you, monster."

    "Hrshhhh..." Rainbow anchored Seraphimus' claws in place with unshorn fetlocks. "Shhhh-not the firssssssht to call me 'monster.'" Red-and-yellow eyes flickered, dancing with the lightning. "Not the lasssssht!" She stretched both wings out in a blue blur.

    "Oomf!" Seraphimus was propelled back.

    Rainbow kicked off her, sailing towards the pendant as it reached the glass panes above... below. "Hrghlkkg.... scrkk..."

    Her hoof graced the necklace... tapped it... and finally grabbed ahold.

Whump! Rainbow's mutating body struck the glass.

    Wheezing, she rolled over, wincing into the trickle of blood. She slapped the pendant back around her neck.

    Fl-Flasssh! Twilight, Applejack and the rest materialized.

    And they were shrieking:

    "Move!"

    "Move!"

    "Go, Dashie—"

    "—she's coming!"

    Seraphimus screaming beak phased through them, along with the rest of her body as she came straight for Rainbow Dash, axe swinging. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!"

    Rainbow blocked the weapon's swing—but not Seraphimus' momentum. Or her weight.

CRASSSSSSSSH!

    Both bodies flew out into the ether, their mortal ears subjected to the nonstop roar of the firmaments broiling against eternity. Glass flew past them like meteorites. The alicorn shards disappeared into the gaping maw of glittering galaxies beyond. Wind and moisture and lightning. TH-THOOOM! It was with miraculous reflexes that Rainbow Dash caught a hoof-hold of a golden spoke of metal bordering the frame of the shattered window.

    Seraphimus was no stranger to miracles herself, and she clung to the Gondola's frame adjacent to Rainbow. Charcoal eyes squinted. Silver feathers were plucked from their quills—only to shoot past her whipping tail into the everything. She looked aside at Rainbow Dash.

    Rainbow looked back. She wasn't certain how she summoned the strength to shout it, but: "Don't—!"

    Seraphimus lunged. Breathless motion, and she found her target. Claws dug into Rainbow's backside, digging deeper and deeper as she tugged and pulled at her bleeding anchor.

    Rainbow didn't have time to scream. She struggled with her wings, her limbs, her every inch to knock the griffon off of her. The Firmaments tugged and tugged. The chaos of the universe hungered, beckoned. And just when she thought her ears couldn't pop any more—

    "Rainbow!" Rarity and Fluttershy pointed both at once.

    Rainbow squinted her tearing eyes opened.

    Wildcard's goggles glinted from the opposite side of the Gondola. He was perched against a golden stretch of metal, and with his one good hand he tossed a familiar staff back towards Rainbow from where it had bounced.

    "Rainbow!" Ariel shrieked in desperation. "Catch it—!"

    Rainbow did more than that. When she freed a hoof to grip Bard's weapon, she used its thrown momentum to slam Seraphimus squarely between the eyes.

Whump! Seraphimus took it. Whap! That one too. WHACK! But then—

    "Httt!"

    She slipped.

    Spinning, she flew out into the cosmos...

    Then something else happened. The former Commander of the Talon jerked in place. Her bloody beak gasped, and her eyes widened—as if she was more surprised than anyone. She looked down along the length of her flailing body.

    Rainbow Dash had her gripped by the tail. Bard's staff had been thrown back into the heart of the Gondola—to be caught by Wildcard. And the look on Rainbow's face was pained... yet earnest. She fumbled for words...

    ...and Seraphimus found them first. "End it."

    "You... d-don't understand..." Rainbow hissed, gripping to the shattered frame.

    "I understand enough!" Seraphimus hyperventilated, tied by her tail in Rainbow's grip. "You came to end Verlaxion! To end Rohbredden! To end me!"

    Rainbow clenched her teeth. Around the mare, her friends floated. Phantoms from the past. Alive and yet not.

    "Dashie..."

    "She's... she's mad..."

    "Darling..."

    "There's only one way to stop someone like that, sugarcube."

    "We..." Twilight Sparkle floated the closest. "...we won't hate you for it... Seraphimus... this poor creature is beyond help."

    Rainbow Dash gulped. Her next breath came through a murmur, scarcely audible beneath the thunder. "I too have been beyond..." Her brow furrowed.

    "You coward..." Seraphimus spat, sobbing, vomiting. Her charcoal eyes reflected only a hint of color, and it was almost drowned in tears. "...why won't you end it?! Don't you see?" Her claws raked at the emptiness surrounding both of them. "You've taken everything from me! My station! My Goddess! My husband and child!" She hollered. "I've got nothing to live for! Nothing!"

    Rainbow Dash breathed. "I know." And she did.

WHAM!

    Rainbow's friends winced... and then they gasped...

    ...for following the savage kick to the skull, Rainbow Dash dragged Seraphimus' body back into the Gondola. From the dazed flutter of the griffon's eyecrests, it was evident that she had been knocked cold. Her raging body was still and limp as a bag of bricks, aside from subtle, ragged breathing.

    "Mrmmmf!" Rainbow Dash pushed herself—and Seraphimus—as far away from the gaping hole as possible. "Okay. Get us moving again."

    "What the Hell are you d-doing?" Logan sputtered, cleaning to a golden beam.

Whump! Rainbow shoved Seraphimus to a stop beside Remna and Wildcard. "We're taking her with us."

    "Taking her with us?!?" Ariel yelped.

    "Have you finally lost your marbles?!" Logan hollered. He reached out in time to catch his drifting axe and glided down to meet them. "The cosmos have sucked the sense out of you! Here..." He spat on his blade and crawled over. "I'll just make it quick—!"

    "NO!" Rainbow bucked him hard before he could approach the griffon.

    "Guhhh!" Logan flailed—only to be caught and anchored in place by Wildcard. Incredulous, the stallion snarled at Rainbow. "Dammit, Rainbow—"

    "She's coming with us to the Dark Side and that's final!"

    "She's the reason everything went to shit just now!" Logan hollered back. "The only right thing to do is slit her throat while you still have the chance and you know it—"

    "No, it's what Verlaxion would want me to do!" Rainbow shouted back. "And you're right. I do know it." She fumed, glaring down at Seraphimus' figure. "I knew it back in the Quade and I knew it in Lerris. And yet I still danced to her stupid frozen tune in Frostknife!." Her ears drooped as the menace faded from her petite face. "Not again. Not any more..."

    The Heraldites were silent.

    Fluttershy took a shuddering breath. Rarity and Twilight leaned in to comfort her while Pinkie and Applejack gazed at Rainbow.

    Rainbow swallowed. "So... like I said..." She waved a hoof as she floated in the air. "Get us moving."

    "We cannot move, Rrainbow One..."

    "Dang it, Kepler!" Rainbow spun around with a frown. "I said we're not killing Seraphimus and that's—"

    "No... I mean we simply cannot move, dearr frriend," the wyvern gravely said, gesturing a claw at the sparking mechanism a few spaces away from where he was harnessed. "When the Talon memberr's assault firrst began, I'm afrraid it shatterred the device that prropels this vehicle completely... hence the violent plunge that we all experrienced..."

    "Shattered it?" Logan grimaced. "You mean... that crazy turkey broke the alicorn machine?"

    "We..." Ariel shivered, still strapped in her seat. "We're stuck out here?"

    Kepler cleared his throat, then spoke in a grave tone. "'Strranded' is the morre apprroprriate terrm forr it, but... yes... essentially..." He pointed at the thunderous cosmos outside the battered sphere. "...we arre caught between two separrate grravitational eddies... empowerred—no doubt—by the technology that Urrohrringrr thrrives on... a technology that we still scarrcely underrstand..."

    Dreadful silence overtook the sphere.

    Wildcard looked around nervously. He held Bard's staff close to his chest.

    "Can... can you fix it?" Rainbow murmured. Her eyes traveled aside to the limp unicorn fastened besides Kepler. "Can Flynn fix it?"

    "I'm afrraid that is quite doubtful..." Kepler adjusted his spectacles, gazing aside at his unconscious companion. "...by the time ourr herroic frriend herre wakes up... if he wakes up frrom such agonizing mental exertion... I do not think he will be capable of rrepairring the apparratus any morre than me." He gulped. "And... by then, most likely... the Firrfmaments' chill will have overrwhelmed the fading harrmonic enerrgy of this damaged Gondola, frreezing us and casting ourr brrittle rremains into outerr space."

    Ariel sniffled. She looked down at Wildcard and Logan.

    The male Job Squadders stared squarely at the glass panels beneath them. The Gondola swayed gently in an unknown breeze. The gold glow from its epicenter was fading gradually with each blink.

    Pinkie Pie whimpered inwardly, hovering close to Fluttershy and Twilight.

    Twilight fidgeted in mid-air, panting. "Maybe... Rainbow... m-m-maybe if you were to contact it with the powers of Austraeoh and—!"

    Rainbow was already kicking off the glass panels. She floated through a debris cloud of glass and metal shards. At last, she reached the mechanism. In the shadow of Kepler and Flynn, she gripped the shell in both fetlocks, squeezing and shaking it. "Rrrrgh... gnnngh...!"

    Errant sparks flew out of the mouth of the thing. There was a slight flicker of harmonic light... and then everything faded. The Gondola was dead in the gravitational water.

    "Mrmmfff... rrr—" Rainbow angrily kicked the broken machine with all her might. Clanggg! The impact propelled her backwards, and in mid-flip she took the moment to scream at the universe twirling all around her. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaa-aaaaaaaaahhhh!"

    Wildcard and Logan winced.

    Rarity and Fluttershy hung their heads.

    Rainbow Dash flipped and flipped and flipped, growling to the cosmos: "We were soooooo close!!!" She floated upside-down over Seraphimus' body before gently coming to a stop. Resting on her flank against a stretch of glass, she gripped her skull and hissed into the twinkling air. "I swear to Luna... I did not come all this friggin' way—soaring over wars and continents and religions and grilled cheese sandwiches—just to end it all stuck in a Goddess-dang *fish bowl!***"

    Her voice echoed against the harmonic gold beams... then fell silent.

    Even the thunder had dissipated—to a degree.

    Rainbow lowered her hooves, hugging herself. She was still fuming. "I never... ever would have wished this on anypony but myself. Never... not... n-not..." She clenched her jaw. Her eyes shut. She shook... and then finally blurted: "That's why... I left the Jury when I did. Because I understood the cost. I didn't need to share it."

    "You had to share it," Ariel said from afar, remarkably composed. "And share it again. If you didn't realize that before... well... we did."

    Kepler nodded calmly. Flynn shifted slightly in unconsciousness, and the wyvern rested a claw on his shoulder.

    Rainbow gazed at her. She tried to keep her eyes firm. She tried. But as she rocked back and forth against the glass, hugging herself, the tears squeezed out. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry that I brought you all to this. I actually believed that we could have gotten... at least a little bit further. And..." She bit her lip, struggling against the pain of what came next. At last—after a torturous effort—she brought herself to look at her ghostly companions. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry. You all deserved so much more. You... you h-had so m-much hope in me, and now..."

    "Shhhhh..." Rarity smiled in spite of her tears. "It's quite alright, darling."

    "Yeah..." Pinkie sniffed, rubbing one eye and managing a crooked smile. "You gave us lots of laughs."

    "We saw whole parts of the world... entire sights and cultures that Princess Celestia never..." Twilight sucked her breath in, sniffling. "That I never knew about. But... then you showed us more... you showed us the friend we never knew about."

    Applejack floated closer. She held a hoof around Rainbow's shoulder, even if the gesture was air-thin. "I'm sorry to learn that Granny's left us back home... but I'm plum happy as a peach to know that Apple Bloom and Big Mac and the rest of our friends are doin' mighty fine." She smiled. Freckles in starlight. "You gave us a chance to see that, Rainbow. You gave us a second life."

    Rainbow whimpered. "AJ..."

    "We ain't complainin'."

    A tear ran down Rainbow's cheek. She looked Applejack in the eyes. "This isn't the second life that I wanted."

    Applejack merely gazed at her.

    Choking on a sob, Rainbow turned to look at Fluttershy.

    Fluttershy looked back. "Remna."

    Rainbow blinked. As did her friends. "Flutters...?"

    Fluttershy kept looking at her. As it turned out, it was beyond her. Curious, Rainbow turned her head swiftly to the side.

    Wildcard and Logan also looked up, suddenly realizing how alone they all were.

    A violet figure was perched on a beam of gold right before the large gaping hole in the glass. Upon noticing the many heads turning, she looked back. Ears twitched against constellations, cold yet firm. Like scales.

    "Axan?" Rainbow Dash gulped. Pawing against the glass behind her, she pushed herself until she was floating higher. "Axan...? What...?"

    Without a wasted breath, Remna reached up to the right bangs of her mane... just behind her ear.

    "The Hell...?" Logan spat. Wildcard craned his neck.

    "Axan—" Rainbow hummed.

    "There's something in her possession, darling," Rarity said, squinting. "Hidden in her hair—"

    Just as the ghostly fashionista said this, Remna produced a slender object in her grasp. It was an ancient chalice, and something sloshing inside blotted out the starlight beyond.

    "Wait..." Pinkie pointed. "...is that?"

    "Guh!" Twilight clutched her suddenly-glowing horn. "Such energy! It's... it's—"

    But it was already apparent to Rainbow Dash. Her eyes locked on the vial, and she was encumbered by a very familiar pulse of gold energy.

FLASH!

Whitemane squinted into the wet winds at the end of the world, her ears ringing with the chimes of countless dangling vials.

**“Do not discredit your own potential, my child,”* Onyxxus said, strolling closer to a last line of crumbled marble columns. “There is rich alicorn magic in your veins. As such, your foalhood will last several decades. But your adulthood? That will last millennia. And in that time, you will gain more wisdom and more understanding than you can even dream of.”*

Onyxxus looked to his left.

Whitemane's gaze followed his line of sight.

She saw Mortuana at a distance, reaching into her velvet vest and retrieving a glowing vial of luminescent fluid.

The older alicorn let loose a long sigh, kissed the vial, then approached the platform's extreme edge.

FLASH!

    Rainbow's Dash breath left her along with the golden vision. Her eyes were locked on the very same vial... and then Remna's face. "Axan..."

    Remna glared back at her. Eyeslits flickered. Then—

    —in a bounding leap—

    —she plunged herself out of the Gondola altogether.

    "Axan, no—!" Rainbow Dash lunged forward. "Don't—!" Wildcard's strong arm reached forward and yanked her back. Rainbow struggled, gnashing her teeth, but it didn't last long.

    Remna's figure flew off, becoming one with the dark malaise of the universe. Then—off in the distance—there was the shattering of a small glass. This was followed immediately by a brilliant flash of burning red light. ASshen flame spread outward in every direction, enlarging at an alarming rate, until—stretching majestically from side to side—a monumental set of wings blotted out the galaxies beyond. A tail and snout formed soon after, accompanied by a ferocious burning roarrrrrrrr that scraped the very foundation of the Firmaments.

    Rainbow, her friends, and the Herald all watched in a horrorified stupor. Not long after, their bodies jolted—for a gigantic pair of draconian claws was gripping the Gondola from both sides. Glass shards exploded inwards as each knifing talon found its hold, bending the alicorn metal slightly until the Gondola wasn't going anywhere.

    Anywhere but forward.

    Sulfur fumed, filling the stale cold air with the unmistakable stench of brimstone. Snarling nostrils flickered with flame, and the Herald craned their necks to see a massive snout reaching up and biting into solid black rock. The dual rows of teeth were joined by two massive sets of claws that dug in and pulled at the skin of Urohringr.

CRKKKKK!

    Axan's body propelled herself forward. She did not go alone.

SN-SNAPPP!!! The golden chains ripped completely out of the Gondola's hemispheres. Golden links flew off into starry emptiness. Then—gasping—Rainbow felt herself swaying in Wildcard's grip as the entire Gondola was pulled towards the black, black zenith. Logan reached out, steadying Seraphimus' limp figure as he gazed up at the madness. The bodies of Ariel, Flynn, and Kepler shook and swayed in their seats.

    The passage was far from a gentle one... and it was about to grow even more turbulent. As Axan's raking claws tugged and pulled the Gondola out of the gravity well, she reached the other edge of the collapsing Firmament. Thunder and lightning returned—along with billowing cyclones of chaotic energy. Her body took every impact, but she powered her massive self through it. Flames erupted out the sides of her cheek as she spread her massive wings, finding drag and accelerating the Herald even further to their destination. The obsidian layers of the world blurred by. The lightning and thunder intensified. Kepler hollered something, but Rainbow was no longer paying attention—

CRAKKKKK!

    Lightning struck Axan's backside.

    She staggered.

    The ponies inside the Gondola shifted.

    Snorting, Axan flapped her wings and continued. There was another crack of lightning. Scaley layers of flesh peeled off Axan's frame, and she leaked burning dragon blood into the heavens. She did not relent.

THOOOM!

CRACKKKK!

    Rivers of lightning found Axan's body, and they carved through her. The electricity ran deathly rivers down her spine, exploding out her tail. Blood, pulp, and vertebrae littered the edge of the world. The heavens sang with calcified mayhem, only to vanish behind her battered figure.

    Rainbow Dash screamed into Wildcard's feathers. They tumbled. The entire Gondola tumbled. Ghostly screams phased through Harmonic metal, twist and bent and buckling—but surviving.

    A final roar. Pained. Yet powerful. There was a knifing edge to the twilight—an end to the blackness—and Axan sailed towards it. At long last, the Divine of Flame reached the precipice. No water. No life. Only rock... and bones.

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

    She skirted the edge...

    ...and that's when her wings gave out—what was left of them, at least. And the rest simply plummeted... with the Gondola following.

CL-CLAKKKK! The sphere—now a squished, deflated shell of a thing—scarcely landed with its occupants in tact. But they were intact. Lightning strobed as the alicorn vessel rolled, tumbled, and came to a long scraping stop against a dead flat stretch of midnight blue stone. When it ended, all was thunder and noise... so that it nearly masked the wet meaty thump of draconian flesh just a few dozen yards away.

    It was not masked from Rainbow Dash.

    She was the first to crawl out... but only the second to reach the Dark Side. Stumbling on bruised, bleeding hooves... she twirled to face the remains of the one who brought them there. "Axan!" Ignoring the pleas of her friends, she galloped away from the wreck—towards the very precipice of nothingness—where the disfigured carcass of a dragon lay against the stars.

    Wildcard and Logan crawled out after. Looking on with worry, they helped Ariel and Logan drag the bodies of Flynn and Seraphimus into a new bleakness. There was no sun or moon overhead—only a dazzling band of never endingneverending stardust. But they weren't paying attention to this.

    All eyes fell on Rainbow Dash as she galloped to a stop—nearly slipping on a fresh layer of scalding hot dragon's blood.

    She grimaced, panting and heaving. On trembling limbs, she knelt down by the only part of Axan she could still recognize. And when her breaths touched violet scales, a single eyeslit opened... followed eventually by a weak rumbling noise.

"Hrmmmmfffghhlll..." The battered Divine squirmed slightly... then shuddered into a soggy exhale. "Hrmmffffhhlll... carry on... Austraeoh..."

    "Dang it... dang it dang it dang it!" Rainbow Dash gnashed her teeth, fighting the urge to weep. Failing. "Why did you do that, Axan?! Why?! We... we could have f-found another way, dang it! You didn't have to do that! We could have found another way!"

"Hrmmmmfff..." The first of two sets of teeth parted, exhaling vaporous hot breath. "Do you ever..." An eyecrest waggled weakly. "...ever stop being so stupid, mortal...?"

    Rainbow spat. "Shut up! I mean it! You... you didn't..." She shook her head, bracing herself against the edge of Axan's scaley jaw-line. "Why?! Why, Axan?! Why did you—?"

"Hskkkkkkt..." Trembling, a massive hand lifted... and a single claw found its way to the tip of Rainbow's fuzzy nose. "Shhhhhhhh..." The sulfur faded, as did the flame behind the slitted eyed. "Like Mortuana, I once... grkkkk... caught a glimpssssse of hope. I thought... rrppghhh... that I had cr-crushed it... but..." She exhaled, the heat curling the hairs of Rainbow's mane. "I had only set it free. Like a hatchling... from its shell..."

    Rainbow Dash gaped and gaped. Her friends hovered close, silent as stone.

    The one eye narrowed. Burning. "You mussssst set the world free, Austraeoh. In all the ways that I couldn't. The scale of the eyelid lowered. The heat dwindled. "Hsssskkkt.... So many Divines... all demented and dying." One last breath. Vaporous and true, and the eye locked on something beyond. "...I only ever had one sister."

    The light went out.

    All was thunder and shadow.

    Rainbow Dash hung her head. And as the rest of the Herald surrounded her in a halo, she wept quietly into a brand new darkness.