Reaper: Requiem's Reflection

Chapters

Visitor
Warped Reflection
Cast Shadows
Powerless
Shatter
Inferno
Darkness
Monsters
Hell
Futility
Grief
Unease
Fear
Lost Souls
Madness
Climax
Arrival
Regrets
Clarity
Epilogue

Visitor

The ponies wandering the outskirts of the now clear Ponyville turned to look at the figures approaching from the Everfree Forest. Their first reaction upon seeing these ponies was relief and joy at the site of the group of friends who had saved them time and time again, and who had supposedly saved them now. These feelings were quickly replaced with anger and irritation, however, as they turned their eyes to Discord, the supposed cause of their recent suffering. Finally, they turned to the last figure...and were shocked to see a human boy standing in the land of Equestria.

The group hadn't managed to get much out of the boy. He had been drained considerably by the Plundervines before he could regain consciousness, and a ruined castle in a forest full of monsters was no place to interrogate anyone, let alone someone in that state. All they knew was that he came from another world. The only other thing he revealed was his name: Daniel Hayes. A peculiar name, Twilight thought, very unlike the names of ponies. Perhaps his world was far more distant than the other worlds she was familiar with.

Rainbow was, of course, rather suspicious of this newcomer. With what little information she had, she couldn't tell if Daniel was really as evil as his nightmare counterpart, Death. However, his encounter with the Plundervines gave her some startling insight. Given the duration of the attack, Daniel was being drained for quite some time, yet he still had more than enough power to effortlessly crush his captors once he had recovered from crossing dimensions. Even more troubling was that he seemed perfectly fine, like the drain on his power was insignificant to him. Come to think of it, the nature of his power had its own implications. Previously, the Plundervines seemed impervious to all but the restored power of the Tree of Harmony...and he just swatted them aside. And it was clear that the power he wielded, the power the vines sought, was far from harmonious in nature. While Daniel's moral standing was still in the air, it was clear that he was quite dangerous. If he was truly Death, then blood would certainly be shed.

Daniel, himself, was taking in the sights of this new world. The ponies had led him to a quaint rural village, the houses topped with straw roofs that somehow didn't clash with the more elaborate walls. At the other edge of town rose a crystal palace that gleamed in the sun, and shattered the quiet feeling of the town with its very presence. The sheer contrast of it hurt his eyes. Even worse, this palace seemed to be the tour's destination. Rather than look at the towering structure, Daniel instead looked down at the numerous pairs of pony eyes glued to him, filled with wonder, as he proceeded down the street with his escorts. Finally, some positive emotions, Daniel thought. Maybe I can get a fresh start here.

Suddenly, a dust cloud started to gather at the end of the road, and slowly got closer, revealing the form of a pony in front of it. She was a pale green unicorn, with a mane and tale of two different shades of white, and eyes of golden yellow, much like his hair. A picture of what looked like a harp from this distance adorned her flanks. Come to think of it, a lot of ponies have marks like that, Daniel thought. I wonder why. Only then did he look at his escorts' reactions. Discord seemed as clueless as he was, though the draconequus almost didn't show it. Clearly, he hadn't met this pony before either, or at least didn't know her well enough to recognize her. Pinkie, by contrast, had lit up, eyes and smile wide, having apparently recognized a friend. Twilight...had a hoof in her face. Rainbow, Applejack, and Rarity's faces seemed to reflect her feelings. Fluttershy was starting to back a way. Oh dear God, Daniel suddenly realized. Who could this possibly be!?

Suddenly, the mare stopped just short of Daniel, an amazing feat considering the ponies surrounding him should have acted as a wall. "Ohmygosh, you're real!" She started blurting out. "A real live human! What's your name? I'm Lyra Heartstrings, human enthusiast. Know everything about 'em. Say, why don't you come over to my house and we can..." Her constant talking slowed to a crawl as she reached for Daniel's hands. She was...drooling.

"Nope." Daniel jumped upward, landing on the roof of a nearby house. He had seen that many of these ponies had wings, and he was so glad at this moment that that crazy green horse did not, as he looked down at a dazed and confused Lyra. He turned around to leave.

"Found ya!" Daniel tumbled off the building from the sheer shock, hitting his head on the ground. But this injury, rather minor to him, was not the reason for his newfound headache, as he tried to comprehend how a pony he had left behind on the ground ended up on that rooftop with him. Shaken by the encounter, he was now more than happy to head to the palace; anywhere to get away from Lyra.

"Sorry, sugarcube," Applejack apologized as she and her friends closed the gates to the Palace of Friendship. "We shoulda warned ya. Figured she'd do somethin' like that."

Daniel was going to respond, but then he saw something in the other room. Sitting by itself in the middle of this room was a mirror, set in a purple frame adorned with jewels, with a six-pointed star at the top, like the ones on Twilight's flank. "Say, why is that mirror just sitting there?" he asked, pointing.

"Oh, that? That's a magic mirror, a gateway to another dimension," Twilight answered. "That goes to a world that's very special to me."

"I see. Just like my world," Daniel replied. When Twilight looked at him quizzically, he continued, "My world was connected to three others like this. Heck, it was more like four parts of the same world."

"Interesting," Twilight's reply had a hint of curiosity in it. Her friends assumed this one comment would lead to a long session of extradimensional research, likely involving regular interrogation sessions asking their new guest about his world. They knew their friend well.

"Well, if you don't need me anymore, I'll be off," Discord suddenly remarked before poofing out of existence. The ponies kind of wondered why he had stuck around as long as he did. Perhaps he was also curious about the new arrival.

"So that guy was chaos incarnate," Daniel mentioned to himself. "Seems like a real piece of work."

At this point, Rainbow decided it was best to tell Twilight about her fears. She directed the purple alicorn into a nearby room, the proceeded to tell her everything about her dream the night before, about how the boy in the next room would supposedly destroy Equestria. Twilight seemed to take the information in stride. Normally, she would be more panicked, but perhaps the fact that this all came from a dream calmed her down. It could all be a coincidence after all.

Finally, she spoke. "We should bring him before Celestia and Luna. Either way, they need to know about this. And Luna might be able to tell you more about your dream."

"What if decides to just turn around and say, 'Hey, I was evil the whole time!' the moment we take him to our leaders?" Rainbow asked. She wasn't going to take chances with someone that dangerous.

"There's one of him, and there'll be eight of us, plus all the guards in the castle," Twilight pointed out.

"They don't count," Rainbow said bluntly, a flat expression covering her face.

"Even so, he can't beat all of us," Twilight replied.

The train ride seemed like it would be much more eventful than usual. As in Ponyville, all the ponies stared in amazement at Daniel. Twilight found this kind of funny, considering her past experiences with crowds. Alicorn princess coming through? Eh, no big deal. Human walking by? Stop everything. She couldn't help but giggle a little at the simple contrast of it. Even so, she was fine with falling under the radar. Unless she had something especially important to do, she was happy to live her life as she always had. As Princess of Friendship, she was happy her role had not changed her relationship with her friends.

In reality, not much was different about the short ride to Canterlot. Daniel got a number of stares, but that was it. Except...Daniel himself seemed to be thinking rather deeply about something. Whatever it was, it was troubling him, and he soon went out to the caboose for air. Rainbow, impatient and wanting answers, followed him, and a worried Twilight followed her. They exited the train car, and stepped into a dark red room, with a bed in the back. An image of buffalo flashed through Rainbow's mind. To the left, Daniel was standing with his face sticking out an open window. Nopony else was in the room.

"Okay, spill it. Why are you here?" Rainbow asked.

"Don't know," Daniel replied, turning to face the cyan mare. "Don't even know how I got here." He could see the distrust and disdain that Rainbow was bottling up in her eyes. And there it is, he thought.

"Oh, cut the act!" Rainbow snapped, causing Daniel to jump and bump his head on the window frame. "I know why you're here, Death!"

"Rainbow!" Twilight snapped.

Daniel, on the other hand, was at a loss for words. Death. She had called him Death. Just like the people of his world called him... Just like his father had called him. With that one word, the rainbow pegasus showed that she knew far too much about him. Not that there was anything wrong with that, just... The other ponies had no idea who he was. Of course they didn't; he had only just arrived in Equestria. So why did she?

"Alright, let me offer you a deal," he asserted, a cocky smile spreading over his face. Whatever the answer to this mystery, it thoroughly intrigued him. "You tell me what you know about me, and I'll fill in the blanks."

"You don't have a problem with me being here?" Twilight asked, feeling cut out of the conversation.

"Hey, you followed your friend here. I'm assuming she told you what she knows." Twilight nodded in response.

Daniel leaned back and closed his eyes as Rainbow recounted her nightmare to him. When she had finished, he reopened his eyes, a mix of determination and puzzlement swirling behind them. "Geez, the 'Death' part's right, but that guy's just...out there," he replied. "If that's your first impression of me, then I really do need to tell you my story."

Daniel's tale was somehow even more implausible than what they had all already been through. He told a story about how the leaders of his world's four dimensions planned to fuse their planes together with a tower, and how the monster that sprung from the result killed those leaders and subjugated the land. He told them of how he was hated for the dark power he was born with, and how he used that power to defeat the monster...supposedly at the cost of his own life.

"...except instead of going to Paradise, I ended up here somehow," he finished. "That's the gist of it." Twilight was skeptical. Parts of his story seemed vague, like he was leaving the most important part out.

"Okay, so you have dark powers," Rainbow started. "Why does that make you Death?"

Daniel's expression turned somber. "My powers aren't fully developed, but...they can do more than just kill," he replied.

"Wait. Do you mean...necromancy?" Twilight asked.

"Can't be certain right now, but something along those lines. See, Death isn't just some title," Daniel explained. "It's who I was born to be." He straightened up, and cast the two ponies a look of deathly seriousness.

"You are looking at the genuine Grim Reaper."

Canterlot was far different from Ponyville. All the buildings were regal and elegant, making the giant castle in the distance seem much more at home here than the Palace of Friendship was in its hometown. It would have all seemed normal if the whole city wasn't built into the side of a mountain. On the other hand, the ponies here were far different than those in Ponyville. They all seemed to be wearing frilly outfits that obviously cost a pretty penny, as if to mimic the regal state of the buildings around them. They shot looks of disdain not just at him, but at the whole group, even at the alicorn princess leading them. Make no doubt about it, Canterlot was the city of the one percent.

I already hate this place, Daniel thought, rolling his eyes as he approached the castle with the ponies.

"I'm afraid I won't be able to make the meeting," Rarity said suddenly. "I've got to check up mon the boutique while I'm here." With that, she left.

One down, five to go.

The group soon approached the castle gates. Before they could enter the large doors, a couple of armored stallions, a gray pegasus and a white unicorn, barred their path. "State your business, one of the guards barked, giving Daniel the evil eye.

Of of course, Daniel thought. What's better than people treating you like crap? People who get PAID to treat you like crap! On closer inspection, however, he could feel how the guards' strength paled in comparison not just to his...but to all the other ponies'. Even Fluttershy was just the tiniest bit stronger than these armed guards. Daniel could blow on them and they'd pass out.

Twilight explained the situation to the guards, and they were all let through. She then led Daniel to the throne room, where a tall white alicorn mare stood waiting for them. Her mane and tail shimmered with hues of blue, green, and pink, and seemed to move with magic energy. Her purple eyes showed, despite her serious expression, that she was far kinder than the rich snobs in the city below.

"I have heard about you, Daniel Hayes," she greeted him, before letting her expression soften into a smile. "I am Celestia, the ruler of this land, along with my sister."

"Speaking of Luna, where is she?" Twilight asked. "Rainbow has some questions about a nightmare she had. Frankly, so do I."

"Unfortunately, my sister is sleeping right now," Celestia replied. "Your queries will have to wait. In the meantime, perhaps I could speak to you and Daniel in private?" Daniel shrugged, as if to say, "Sure, why not?"

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Rainbow asked, her patience at an end.

"Simmer down, sugarcube," Applejack answered. "If we hafta wait, we hafta wait. Let's go ckeck on Rarity, 'kay?" Rainbow huffed, but left the castle with the others.

Celestia guided Daniel and Twilight into a vacant room, then asked her guards to leave. The room was simple, with a black and white tile floor. The walls were a bland white, with yellow panels near the floor. At the other end was a balcony, with a stunning view of Equestria.

"Now, if you would, could you please tell me who you are?" Celestia requested.

Daniel recounted his story for the princess of the sun, but as he finished, he noticed something in the corner of the room: a tree, with a shard of glass hanging from it. Curiosity got the better of him, and he walked toward the tree. Celestia almost jumped.

"So, uh, why's there glass hanging here?" he asked.

"That..." Celestia's mood turned somber. "That is what's left of a world that was very special to me. Even if I could go back, there is nothing there for me now."

"So this is another one of those dimensional mirrors," Daniel remarked, reaching for the shard. "Fascinating."

The moment he touched it, all hell broke loose.

His body started to glow, and the wind started whipping violently around him. The light steadily got brighter, and the wind got steadily more turbulent. The process was just slow enough...that Daniel was able to realize, dread rising up within him, what exactly was going on.

"Daniel! What is this?" Twilight shouted, coming up next to him, perhaps hoping to pull the boy away from whatever he had caused.

"No! Stay back!" Daniel warned.

Too late. In a final flash of light, the two were gone, leaving Celestia alone in the room.

Warped Reflection

Slowly, Twilight's muscles began to come to. She groggily opened her eyes, hoping to see what effects that burst of magic may have had. If she had an idea of what the magic had done, perhaps she could reverse the effects. Unfortunately, she hadn't woken up fully, and what little she could see was a blur. All she could make out was Daniel, lying beside her, slowly waking up as well. Finally, her vision cleared. She got up, and looked around...and was left speechless.

They were standing by a lone statue in a ruined garden. Much like Canterlot, the entire area was on a massive terrace set into the side of a mountain. However, there was no beautiful view of Equestria, only the soul-crushing image of desolated wasteland for miles all around, a dead orange sky looming above. A large castle stood where the Everfree Forest should have been, seemingly the only patch of land that had remained untouched. Looming above them was a much darker, much more sinister castle, reeking of evil. But that wasn't what had startled Twilight. Much had changed...but she had been here once before, when Celestia had asked for her aid fixing her interdimensional mess.

This was the other Equestria, where King Sombra had been good. The world that should have been forever separated from her own.

Before she could ask Daniel how this was possible, guards flooded out of every entrance the garden had, zeroing in on the two visitors. The guards looked much more menacing than the ones Twilight had seen, with armor that seemed to radiate the same evil energy that the castle did. It seemed this world's Sombra truly had given in to evil.

So many thoughts swirled through Twilight's head as the guards pushed her toward the dungeon. Daniel, on the other hand, was completely calm. He knew that he could have fought his way out of this situation if he so chose. However, the whole situation was rather intriguing to him. This world was so different from the peaceful Equestria, he couldn't help but get curious. Let's just see how this plays out, he thought.

The two were unceremoniously dumped into a cold dungeon cell. They were surrounded on almost all sides by dark, thick stone, the only exit blocked by strong steel bars. Little light was allowed to enter the cramped cell. Twilight realized that this was the same cell she was kept in once before. Does Sombra only use this one cell? she thought.

She figured now was as good a time as any for answers. "Okay, what was all that?" she asked Daniel. "How in the hoof did we end up here?"

Daniel's curiosity fell away at that as he realized he had trapped Twilight in this world. "I told you that my world was four dimensions in one," he started, turning to face the floor. "That flash of light was what would happen when someone switched planes. If I had to guess, I'd say I've become...'interdimensionally sensitive,' for lack of a better term, as a result of living in that world. That's why the mirror shard reacted to me."

Twilight said nothing, but she was trying to stifle her inner nerd. If repeated dimensional travel could lead to a result like this, then Daniel could help make so much progress in the world of interdimensional research. However, that would mean nothing if the two of them didn't get out of this alive. For now, she just had to calm down and think up a plan to bust out. What she didn't know was that Daniel already had a plan in mind, and it wasn't exactly subtle. Or well thought out.

Before Twilight could come up with anything, the guards returned, and opened the cell doors. "King Sombra has requested an audience with you," one guard stated. Suddenly, all of Daniel's previous enthusiasm came back to him, a wry smile cracking on his face as he and Twilight were escorted out of the cell.

Is he bipolar!? Twilight thought to herself.

The two were escorted down a familiar hall. In Equestria, Daniel remembered seeing numerous stained glass windows in the hall's Equestrian equivalent, many of which portrayed Twilight and her friends in their feats of heroism. Looking at the jagged holes in the walls, it seemed like similar windows once lined this hall, but had been destroyed, save for the few pieces of shattered glass that still clung to the window frames. The hall seemed to get progressively darker as it stretched on; apparently this Sombra hadn't heard of lighting. Finally, the escort came to a large door, its dark color causing it to disappear in the thick darkness. The guards opened the door, and pushed their prisoners through.

Through the door was a large throne room. At each corner, a small waterfall finally broke the monotony of the cold dark stone of the castle. The walls to either side had large windows, revealing that the desolate orange sky had turned red with the coming of the night. A dull red carpet led up to a throne, upon which sat a dark gray stallion with a pitch black mane and tail. His dark purple robe signified his noble status. His horn was stained red and curved upward by evil power. The whites of his red eyes were not white, but a sick green, and purple mist radiated from them.

Daniel's smile grew wider with sick glee. This was the big shot evil master of the castle. To be fair, the pony's dark power was significantly stronger than the little power all other ponies seemed to possess, and it was based in the darkness like his own. Even so, it wasn't nearly enough. He had half a mind to just blast the dark king right there, just to show him how powerful the dark arts can truly be. He held back this urge, trying to milk some more answers out of the situation, but a cocky chuckle managed to pass his lips.

Sombra stared hard at the Grim Reaper, clearly angered by this chuckle and what it implied. Instead of letting loose, however, he turned to Twilight. "Why and how did you come back here?" he inquired forcefully.

"Oh, whoops. My bad," Daniel replied casually, as if he was as chummy with Sombra as Twilight was with Celestia. No, the tone was off. It was more like he was mocking the dark unicorn. Twilight's eyes grew wide, her pupils shrank to their smallest level, and her mouth seemed to droop off her muzzle. She was trying to escape, and Daniel was going to get them both killed. "We'll just go back and-"

"SILENCE!!" Sombra boomed. On cue, all of the guards pointed their spears at their prisoners...and Daniel summoned his scythe at that exact same moment.

"Ah-ah-ah," Daniel chided, his mocking tone now laced with malice. "Please don't do anything rash. I'd rather not kill anyone tonight."

"You insolent little brat!" Sombra scolded. "What makes you think you have any right to defy me!?"

"What right?" Daniel repeated. "Uh, how about the small fact that I was born with far more dark power than you could ever hope to have." A wicked grin spread across his face. He was enjoying this way too much.

"Seize him!"

Two guards charged forward with their spears. Rather than cut them down, Daniel let them approach before letting out a burst of dark power. The guards were thrown into the far wall, and fell to the ground, battered and unconscious.

"Like I said, didn't wanna kill anyone today," Daniel mentioned, shrugging innocently. "So, can we go home now? I promise I'll come back and play with you another time."

Sombra quickly rose, his body convulsing with rage. He stared down Daniel with the intent to kill, and summoned his own scythe, its dark blade fused to a skewed pole.

"Well, now I've done it," Daniel noticed. The cocky smile had finally left his face, but the change came more from boredom than worry. Screwing with this dark lord wannabe was fun, but it was growing old. The guy was too predictable. At that moment, Sombra lunged forward to strike Daniel down himself, swinging his scythe with his dark magic.

In a single swing, Daniel cut Sombra's scythe in two, the blade keeping its momentum and lodging itself in the back wall.

"You little..." Sombra muttered through his teeth, clearly enraged, but realizing he couldn't win. He straightened his posture. "Both of you go back to your own world. Never come back here again."

"Fine by me," Daniel replied. "We'll just head back and-"

Suddenly, the room was filled with a sickly green glow. Everyone turned toward the windows to get a glimpse of the light's source. Daniel was rather confused by what he saw, but Twilight and Sombra filled with dread.

The sky itself had turned green.

"So, what's this about?" Daniel asked as he rushed back to the garden with Twilight. His curiosity now spawned from genuine concern, rather than a need for entertainment.

"My Celestia once travelled back and forth between our world and this one to meet with Sombra," Twilight replied.

"Seriously? That guy's her type?" Daniel asked bluntly. "Never would have guessed."

"He was a much better pony back then," Twilight mentioned, surprising Daniel.

Seriously!? It was a joke!

"The point is, her constnt travel between their worlds broke down the boundary between them. By the time my friends and I got involved, it was ready to shatter entirely...and the sky looked just like this."

"Oh crap. What did I do?" Daniel asked rhetorically, dread rising within him as well.

They reached the garden, and made a beeline for the statue where they woke up. If Daniel touched that statue, they could return to Equestria the same way they came. Unfortunately, they didn't make it very far. A bolt of green energy shot forth from the sky above, smashing the statue to smithereens.

"And there goes our ride," Daniel noted irritably.

When the dust cleared, there was little left of the statue. In its place was a lime green wolf, its eyes a similar green. It had long, large, jagged whiskers, flowing with green energy and twitching as if they were appendages preparing to strike. Similar "whiskers" adorned its flanks, along with a similar tail. Twilight suddenly recognized the description: this was the silhouette from Rainbow's dream.

"I'm guessing these are new?" Daniel asked, sensing Twilight's shock. She nodded absently. The wolf turned toward them, and its eyes narrowed. It pounced...and was met with the business end of Daniel's blade, dissolving into nothing immediately upon its death. Just then, Sombra emerged from the castle to check on the situation, only to find his unwanted guests still around, and their sole exit in ruins.

"What is the meaning of this!?" the dark king inquired.

"Had a fun time with you, Sombra," Daniel replied, "but it looks like playtime's over." Just then, five more wolves beamed into the garden.

"Twilight, get out of here," Daniel ordered. "Make your way to the city gates, and wait for me there."

"What about you?" Twilight asked.

Daniel stepped forward to face the eldritch abominations. "You still don't get what I'm capable of, do you?" he asked. "These things are nothing before me.

The wolves all pounced at once, and Daniel sliced through all five in one strike. More immediately came down from the heavens.

"Go!" Twilight flew away towards the city gates.

As Daniel looked up to see her go, he saw something that would have terrified lesser men...or ponies. Beams of sickly green light rained down from the heavens across all of this warped Equestria, as far as he could see. Each one was an abomination, touching down on this already desolate world, certain to kill more people. "Well, this should be fun," Daniel noted sarcastically, grimacing.

The new wolves pounced. Rather than stand his ground, he lunged forward as well, destroying them all as he rushed forward. Again, wolves spawned in the garden, turning to tail him as he raced through the castle halls. Without stopping, he leaped forward, spun around in midair, and threw his scythe, nailing all of the wolves behind him. He turned back around just as he hit the ground, continuing his stride as before. He gathered his wispy shadow power in his right hand, rematerializing his scythe. As he continued on, more wolves appeared to bar his path. He swatted each one aside, but the numbers were getting ridiculous. It was clear by now that there would be no end to these beasts.

Eventually, he found his way out of the castle and into the city...the decrepit city. There was no trace of the regal and elite air put off by its Equestrian counterpart. In fact, it looked like no one had lived here for quite a while. The buildings, once elegant, were now falling apart. The city was deserted. It seemed the population fled once their ruler turned to dark power. So this was the reward for tyranny: isolation and desolation.

Suddenly, a large green bolt blasted the deserted street. From the light emerged a green titan, covered in lime armor, carrying a massive shield and a claymore that shone withe green energy. The helmet visor opened to a black void, within which were set the same malicious green eyes as the wolves.

"So there are big ones," Daniel noted. "Alright. Let's see what you've got!"

He rushed forward, seeking to take the behemoth down with one strike. Instead, his scythe was blocked by the titan's shield. The monster reacted immediately, bringing down his giant sword. Daniel barely had time to jump out of the way. Hey, an actual challenge, he thought. Let's have some fun, shall we?

He rushed forward once more. This time, he noticed the titan lowered its shield. Rather than strike it again, Daniel, swiftly moved to the behemoth's back, striking before it had a chance to react. He made sure to put enough power into this strike to cut right through the beast's armor. Sure enough, it died on the spot.

That's it? he thought, disappointed. So much for that.

He proceeded down the deserted road, quickly catching site of the city gates. Twilight was waiting for him there. She appeared to be unharmed, despite the chaos around her.

"Good to see you're alright," Daniel mentioned, relieved. "How'd you avoid those things?"

"Turns out I didn't have to," Twilight replied. She explained further when she saw Daniel's quizzical look. "They didn't attack me. Some of them looked right at me and did nothing. Looked like some of the guards noticed that, too."

"So they're after me," Daniel realized, slumping against the city wall. "Dammit!" He pounded his fist against the wall. "I screwed up your worlds, and now they're trying to kill me. Great. Just great." Pleadingly, he looked to Twilight. "You said the boundary got this bad before. How did you fix it?"

"Well, my friends and I were trying to stop the evil Celestia and Luna, but-"

"Oh, it's one of those worlds," Daniel interrupted, facepalming.

"Well, in order to restore the balance between our worlds, Sombra had to absorb the evil of this world's Celestia and Luna," Twilight finished.

"So that's how he ended up like that," Daniel noted. "Sadly, that's not gonna help us this time." He paused. "At the very least, any idea where we can lay low while we're here?"

"Well, the Celestia and Luna here should be good now," Twilight mentioned. "We should see if they can help." She pointed a hoof toward the castle in the distance.

"Then that's where we're going," Daniel decided, getting up. He paused, then shot Twilight an apologetic look. "Hey, sorry for dragging you into all this."

Twilight closed her eyes, as if to show understanding. The two then left the city.

A swirling mix of anger, worry, and hatred raged inside of Sombra as he walked along one of his numerous dark hallways. He had taken on the evil energy to prevent this exact occurrence, and this one boy managed to break the boundary anyway. To make matters worse, he had brought an endless horde of monsters with him. In one fell swoop, Daniel had destroyed the peace he had fought so hard to protect.

"Yes, that boy is a real piece of work, isn't he?" Sombra stopped. The voice had come from the darkness ahead. He squinted, but was only able to make out a small patch of shadow that was thicker than the rest.

"I am in no mood to deal with you, intruder," Sombra asserted. "State your business, and get out of my sight!"

"Ah, see, there's the problem," the voice started casually. "I was just going to sit back and watch from the shadows, see how things unfolded. However, the situation changed rather quickly, so I'm going to have to take an active role in these matters. To do that-"

"Get to the point," Sombra barked, his patience reaching its end.

"I'm going to have to...borrow you," the voice stated. Dread and realization suddenly rose in the dark king, but as he backed away, the shadows crept toward him, engulfing him.

"I'll make sure to take good care of you."

And everything went black.

Author's Note

Yeah, I'm trying to explain the necessary bits, but it does help if you've read the Reflections comic arc. As for Daniel's backstory, I plan on writing a couple of other stories explaining that in full. Here's hoping they don't get taken off the site for lack of pony.

Cast Shadows

"It appears we cannot destroy the monsters, my lord," one of Sombra's guards reported to his master. "For every one we defeat, two more take its place. Thankfully, they appear to be docile. Even the ones we've attacked haven't so much as harmed a single soldier."

"Is that so?" Sombra asked, his expression calm. "In that case, there is no point in wasting any more energy on them. Return to your duties."

"Yes, my lord." The guard left the room, closing the door behind him. Without the light of the hall, the edges of the throne room fell into darkness. Sitting in solitude, a wicked grin spread across the dark ruler's face. Suddenly, a vortex of dark energy spawned in the room, then quickly dissolved away, leaving a vaguely human figure in its place.

"Things didn't quite go as planned, I take it?" the figure asked.

Sombra wiped the grin off his face, and rest his muzzle on a hoof. "I'm afraid not," he replied. "I'll need you to head back to Equestria."

"As you command," the figure replied, a sick glee filling his voice, "master Lucifer."

A cyan hoof rose from the edge of a snow covered cliff, pulling a frozen Rainbow Dash up with it. The howling northern winds had chilled her to the bone, and her wings were practically frozen to her back. As she struggled against the harsh snow and ice of the northern Equestrian mountains, she looked back in irritation on the events leading to this unenviable climb.

The day before was a very big contender for the worst day of her life. As if the nightmare and the Plundervines weren't bad enough, Celestia had burst into Canterlot Boutique to tell her that Daniel had run off to some other dimension with one of her best friends. Almost immediately after she had finished, the shy turned lime green in Equestria, and the creatures from Rainbow's nightmare, no longer hidden by silhouettes, rained from the heavens. It didn't matter that they were harmless; the mere fact that they existed unnerved her. And of course the world would give her no time whatsoever to worry about Twilight, or look for a way to get her back. No, her butt tattoo had to start flashing at that exact moment. So she flew all the way back to Ponyville to see what was going on, and what did she find? The magical friendship map was now overlapped by another Equestria, the new image pulsing and fading, as if the map couldn't decide which version of Equestria was correct. The new map, when it was visible, was a barren brown, reeking of desolation, a stark contrast to the original's crystal blue. Rainbow saw her cutie mark floating above the map. Just hers. It was floating somewhere far to the north of the Crystal Empire...

...which was why shy was now freezing her tail off at the top of a mountain. The longer she was on this quest, the more she questioned it. For one thing, the map had called on only her, a single one of her group of friends, for the first time ever. That was strange enough, but to have it send her to an isolated frozen wasteland, where there was nopony to even have a friendship problem in the first place? Okay, the yaks were up here somewhere, but Rainbow was pretty sure they were much farther west in the mountains than her destination. She was starting to think that somepony had screwed with the map. After all, if Starlight Glimmer could link a spell to it, who was to say it couldn't be tampered with? If this was a prank, it certainly wasn't very funny. With her wings frozen, Rainbow had no quick way off the mountain if she decided to call it quits. And if she didn't leave soon, or find some sort of shelter, she could very well freeze to death.

Just a little more, she told herself. If this was a joke, it was at a far greater risk to her than could have possibly been intended...but if it wasn't, then somepony else was stuck in these mountains. Rainbow wasn't going to make any assumptions if it meant somepony's life, so she decided to keep going, see how far she could go before reaching her limit. She hooked a hoof onto the next piece of jagged rock, and slowly hauled herself up. Why didn't the map call Applejack again? she thought. Her natural sturdiness would have made the orange farmpony a much better candidate for this journey, but if the map called on Rainbow, then there must be something only she can do.

As she pulled herself over the next rock wall, she couldn't believe what lay in front of her. Cut into the rock face was the entrance to an ancient ruin, the stone of the structure a harsh gray that seemed to radiate cold. A set of hoofprints led into the gaping maw of the entrance, implying that somepony else was already inside. The footprints of some other creature also stood out in the snow. Rainbow barely noticed these as she added her own set of tracks to the list, searching for shelter and warmth in the foreboding ruins.

Oddly enough, the ruins really were much warmer than the frozen peaks outside. After going a few feet in, Rainbow lay down by the wall and began to shiver, relief coming to her as her body began to warm. Her wings thawed out, and she stretched them out, more than happy to see them mobile again. She wasn't quite as warm as she would have liked, but she had thawed out enough to consider exploring the ruins. It looked like the ancient hall stood right where the map had led her. She got on her hooves, stretched her wings one last time, and proceeded deeper into the decrepit temple. As she went forward, she encountered numerous death traps...most of which had already been sprung. Darts protruded from the walls in several places, having apparently missed their targets, and swinging axe traps had lost their momentum, leaving them as pointless obstructions hanging from the ceiling. Many of the pits contained the skeletons of multiple species, implying that whatever ferocious beasts were meant to be below had long since passed on with their hapless prey.

This all looks like something straight out of- As Rainbow contemplated her surroundings, she bumped into a familiar mare. She wore a green explorer's vest over her dark tan coat. Her mane and tail were a spectrum of black, and a large rimmed hat covered her head. Her cutie mark was a compass. As she turned around, her light red eyes, the same color as Rainbow's, reflected the cyan pony's surprise. Daring Do was standing in front of her. After trekking all over the world just to meet her the first time, Rainbow had run into her idol again by mere chance.

"Stalking me again?" Daring asked, her surprise covered over by a stern demeanor.

"N-n-no, nothing like that," Rainbow answered, flustered. "I'm here on, uh, business." Even though she was telling the truth, in her state, anything she said sounded suspicious.

"So your 'business' required you to risk your life climbing a thousand-foot-high freezing mountain range?"

"Well, so does yours," Rainbow retorted. Daring cracked a quick smile. "Uh, since I'm here and all, could you, maybe, tell me why you're here? Please?"

"You know what? Why not?" Daring answered after some contemplation. "But in return, you have to tell me why you're really here."

"I'm fine with that." Rainbow was starting to calm down. She'd had an adventure with Daring Do once before. She could make it through another without nerdgasming.

"The treasure deep within these halls is the Chalice of Reflections," Daring started, walking forward. Rainbow quickly realized that she planned to keep progressing through the temple as she talked, and trotted forward to keep up. "Apparently, the ponies who lived here made it by enchanting a cup with water from a Mirror Pool."

"Wait, A Mirror Pool!?" Rainbow nearly shouted. "You mean there's more than one!?" She filled with dread as her vision went pink.

"The whole area froze over long ago," Daring answered. "Good luck trying to find it now." Rainbow had sighed with relief and moved quite a ways ahead before the full impact of her words hit Daring.

"Anyway, the effects of the chalice are far different than those of the pool...s," Daring continued. "Supposedly, if it is filled with water, the surface becomes a window to another dimension." Rainbow stopped. Until then, the shock of meeting Daring again had practically made her forget why she was there in the first place. Now it was all coming back, because things suddenly made sense. Perhaps the chalice could allow her to pull Twilight back from the other Equestria. Perhaps this whole trip was the map's idea of a rescue mission.

"Alright, your turn," Daring demanded, breaking Rainbow out of her thoughts. Remembering their deal, she told Daring about everything that had happened the day before, and how the map had led her here.

"Wait. You mean your new friend's the reason the sky's messed up and there are monsters everywhere?"

"Seems like it, yeah."

"You've got some taste in friends." As Daring Do said this, she looked ahead, and saw another set of traps that neither pony had activated. Panic spread throughout her face. "Oh horse apples!" she cursed, unfolding her wings and zipping ahead. Rainbow quickly followed suit, and asked what was wrong.

"Ahuizotl's here too," Daring answered. "Argh, I was so busy talking to you that I completely forgot!"

That makes two of us, Rainbow thought, suddenly glad they hadn't run into any traps during their conversation.

At the end of the hall sat a square room, with a small dais at the rear. A pedestal sat on this dais, upon which was the Chalice of Reflections. Oddly enough, it was just a gold cup, fancy, but not very valuable or easily recognized as special. A large shadow fell over the chalice, cast by an odd dark blue monster. His belly, muzzle, and forepaws were a lighter blue, as well as the paw-like appendage at the end of his slim tail. Red and yellow bands stretched across his forelegs. His teeth were sharp, much more menacing than the coward behind them. Ahuizotl picked up the chalice, and began to laugh maniacally.

"Yeah, sorry to spoil your day, but I'm gonna have to ask you to hand that over," a voice in the shadows demanded. Ahuizotl turned around, hoping to catch site of this mysterious figure, but he saw nothing.

"I won't be doing anything of the sort!" Ahuizotl retorted. "Why don't you come out and try to take it from me?"

"Well, if you're not going to give it up," the voice started, "I suppose it can't be helped."

A dark portal opened up behind Ahuizotl, revealing what looked to be the same room on the other side. Before he could react, he was suddenly kicked in the crotch out of nowhere. He fell to the ground, writhing in pain, trying to process what just happened. The voice chuckled, as if the shot was just for his own amusement, before another portal opened directly in front of Ahuizotl's chest, this one much smaller than the first. Ahuizotl felt the figure's foot connect through the portal, and he was pushed through the one behind him. Then both portals were gone, and Ahuizotl and the treasure with them.

Rainbow and Daring arrived just in time to see the figure emerge from the shadows. They stopped short, though Rainbow, taking longer to stop, ended up fully inside the room. The being before them was human, wearing a suit of a dark midnight blue, a dark purple cloak draped down his back to waist level. He had blond hair, longer and flatter than Daniel's, a few strands sticking upright off of his forehead. His deep purple eyes gleamed with insanity and malicious intent.

"Rainbow Dash, I presume?" he asked nonchalantly. "For the fastest pony alive, you sure are slow. I'm afraid my work's all done here."

"What!?" Rainbow shot back, steam blowing out her nostrils. Not only had this guy insulted her, but he had just taken away the one thing that could have brought Twilight back. He needed to pay.

"Oh? You want to take me on?" the man asked, his eyes gleaming with sick delight as he raised his right arm. "Fortunately, I've got all the time in the world to play with you." A gray blur sprang forth from his sleeve and embedded itself in the door frame behind Rainbow. Once it had stopped, she could see that it was a long chain of knives, shaped like diamonds, with a hole in the center of each to allow them to link together. The chain retracted back just as suddenly, causing the entrance to collapse before Daring could react. Rainbow was trapped in that room with a psychopath.

"Well, now that you're about to die, you should at least know the name of your killer," the man began, bowing in a sarcastic mockery of respect. "My name is Faris Elfriede. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Rainbow's rage boiled over, and she lunged at Faris...but then she jerked to the left reflexively, narrowly avoiding a knife chain that somehow came out of the floor. Looking down at its base, she saw that some sort of portal had opened, through which the chain had emerged. She looked at Faris. A knife chain extended from his right sleeve into the floor at his feet, where another portal lay. It appeared this mysterious human had the power to punch holes in space...and a weapon designed to use this power to its maximum effectiveness.

"You get it, don't you?" Faris taunted, a sick smile cracking on his face. "Where will my next attack come from, I wonder?"

Rainbow found herself dodging knife chains from all different angles, only managing to avoid them because of her quick reflexes. Hoping to end the chaos, she rushed at her assailant. In response, Faris pulled back one of his knife chains, and put his first two fingers in one of the knife holes when the chain was short enough, holding the remaining chain, slightly longer than arm's length, like a flail. He slashed the air in front of him, forcing Rainbow to pull back. Once she had, he shot another knife chain well above the pony's head. With a flick of his wrist, the chain broke, raining knives upon the cyan pony. She barely managed to avoid the knife storm. What she failed to notice was that more portals had opened where some of the stray knives fell, as well as portals above those spots, keeping the knives falling in an endless loop. Rainbow rushed forward one more time, only to feel a sharp pain in her stomach, as one of the falling knives, accelerated by the constant fall to bullet speeds, was sent through the ground under her. She fell to the ground in pain.

"Aw, looks like I broke it," Faris mocked, Rainbow writhing at his feet. "And I was starting to enjoy this."

In anger, Rainbow rose quickly from that spot, delivering a vicious uppercut to Faris. Angered, the man forced her back once more. She didn't have time to stick around as she landed, narrowly avoiding several knife chains-or rather, one knife chain sent through several portals at once-sent to skewer her like an iron maiden. The fight was much fiercer now. Having actually been hit by this lowly pony, Faris' fun had ended, and he was now doing everything he could to take her down. The ceiling ultimately took the punishment for this, getting punctured again and again as Rainbow avoided the never-ending onslaught. Eventually, it gave way, opening the room to the freezing cold winds of the mountains. Rainbow managed to dodge all of the falling debris, while Faris just teleported over it. In fact, he seemed to hover where he came out. Faris shot multiple chains upward, forcing Rainbow higher and higher in the frigid air, until they apparently reached their limit.

"Running away, are we?" Faris taunted from below, although a hint of irritation had entered his voice.

Rainbow took the bait, and flew down toward him. Faris looked up, and cracked a smile, as he opened a portal behind her, hoping to kill her with this last shot. He shot a knife chain out of his sleeve and through an entrance portal, near enough to his arm that his end of the chain was nearly invisible. The other end flew through the sky, down toward its clueless target...but at the last second, Rainbow dodged out of the way. To Faris' horror, the chain continued further, and before he could react, the chain skewered him. Painfully, he pulled the knife chain out of his chest. The large wound it left behind gushed out not blood, but wispy dark shadows. He grimaced, half in pain, half in anger.

Now! Rainbow thought. Ignoring the freezing cold, she flew down as fast as she could. A mach cone began forming around her, getting narrower and narrower. Finally, a blast of rainbow light shook the frigid peaks as she broke the sound barrier, a rainbow now streaking from her body. As she approached her target, she put out her hooves, started spinning...and landed right on Faris' wound. Her body acted as a drill, pushing deeper and deeper into the hole, until she finally broke through to the other side. She landed in the remains of the treasure room with enough force to crush the rubble, reopening the door frame with Daring Do behind it. Faris fell to the ground, yet he somehow managed to get back up, despite the pony sized hole through his body that was leaking dark energy. This energy seemed to be leaking from all of his body at this point, as if his own strength was abandoning him.

"Guess you're stronger than you look. And smarter," Faris congratulated the rainbow-maned pony. "But it doesn't matter. I did what I came here to do, and I'm afraid your world's going to end."

"What was that!?" Rainbow demanded, angered.

"What, you didn't notice the ominous sky of green ominousness?" Faris taunted, though talking was obviously painful. "Enjoy the time you have left, because pretty soon, this whole world will cease to exist."

With that, Faris' body disappeared into the dark energy and evaporated. Only then did Rainbow let herself feel the pain of that knife Faris had shot into her gut, which had disappeared along with its owner. Then she noticed her cutie mark. Normally, her mark would flash again to signify a job well done.

This time, it had gone dull.

"Rainbow, what's wrong with your cutie mark?" Daring asked, concerned.

"I...I think I failed," Rainbow answered. She had just noticed it now, but thinking back, her mark had gone dull the moment Ahuizotl was pushed through that portal, and the Chalice of Reflection with him. That was obviously the goal of her mission, but...aside from getting Twilight back, what did any of this have to do with friendship? She shook her head. She'd have time to think about these things later. For now, she moved to leave the ruins, to do the one thing she knew she had to.

"Where are you going?" Daring asked. She was a little miffed that her expedition had just been sabotaged, but the only people she could be mad at were both long gone.

"Back to Canterlot," Rainbow replied. "Celestia needs to know there are more humans in Equestria...and that they're not nearly as friendly as the first."

Wispy black smoke began to form within Sombra's throne room, witnessed only by the dark king himself. The smoke coalesced, reforming Faris' body with his chest intact. He breathed heavily, having just come back to life.

"You were defeated," Sombra noted.

"Forgive me, my lord," Faris apologized. "The pony was a much better fighter than I had anticipated. I let my guard down."

"And your mission?"

A wicked grin spread across Faris' face. "A complete success, my lord."

"Very good," Sombra replied, the same grin stretching across his muzzle. Two more bursts of magic power, one of fire, one of ice, appeared as two more human figures entered the room. "It won't be long now. Soon this pathetic world shall cease to be."

The fire figure joined Sombra and Faris in maniacal laughter...while the ice figure just stood somberly in the shadows.

Author's Note

Sorry this chapter's so long.

Powerless

BAM!

Another apple tree shook violently in response to Applejack's powerful buck, dropping apple after apple into the baskets below. Applejack wiped sweat off her brow with a hoof, feeling more exhausted than usual. She supposed that she was just feeling down. One of her best friends was whisked away to another dimension, the sky had turned green, monsters prowled all over the place, and one of her other best friends had been nearly killed in the freezing mountains. Anypony would have been expected to feel depressed under those conditions. However, work still needed to be done, so she just had to work through her pain. She was strong; she could do it.

As she worked, a dark figure watched her from the edge of the Everfree Forest, hiding in the shadows while viewing her through a rifle scope. The entire time, a malicious grin spread across his face. Finally, Applejack's work day ended, she went inside, and the figure lowered his rifle.

Oh, I think I could have fun with you, the figure thought. Still, just hunting you down would be boring. He looked through the scope again, and noticed Fluttershy approaching Sweet Apple Acres. His brow rose at the sight of the pale yellow pegasus, and he made a motion with his face, seemingly to the rifle. As if on that cue, the scope burst into flame. The flames quickly died out, leaving the scope intact...and with highly advanced scanning abilities. He turned its view to Fluttershy once more...and learned many fascinating things about her.

Oh yes, you'll do nicely, he thought. Just one little push, and you can cause the suffering I crave.

A hand poked up from the edge of the snowy cliffside, pulling Daniel up along with it. He turned around and reached out his hand, grabbing Twilight's hoof to pull her up. Rainbow Dash wasn't kidding when she said this place was cold. Daniel could see frost forming between the feathers of Twilight's wings, freezing them to her body. He, himself, was freezing, despite his devil blood granting him resistance to cold. Strange, though, how this place was so similar to its Equestrian counterpart. It seemed there was a limit to how different two worlds could be.

"Are you alright?" Daniel asked.

"I-I can k-keep g-going," Twilight chattered. She wasn't going to last much longer.

Daniel sighed. "I've never done this before, but...here." He reached out to the purple alicorn, and dozens of shadow shreds raced out of his hands, covering her body. Twilight panicked at first, but then realized the dark energy was warming her. Her wings thawed out, and she stretched them, thankful to regain their mobility. By the time the darkness left, she was as warm as she was before climbing the mountain.

"Thanks," Twilight said graciously. "I thought dark magic could only hurt people."

"It's a little different when you're born with it," Daniel replied. "I kinda just tested it out, just to see what it could do. It's still mainly a weapon, but it's got a few other uses."

"Well, we should keep going," Twilight mentioned, turning to climb the next cliff.

Daniel paused for a time, then pulled something out of his pocket. It was a dark blue disk, a black splotch with a white crescent moon adorning the center of each side. He opened the disk, revealing a mirror. As a parting gift, Luna had given him this mirror, and taught him the communication spell. This was his lifeline, his continuous link to the one pony he trusted.

He stopped. The one pony he trusted. Why? He had known the blue princess of the night for barely a day. He had more reason to trust Twilight; she had been with him since he'd arrived in Equestria. And while Luna shared a hint of his pain, so did her older sister. He ruminated on the issue, and finally reached a conclusion. While the other ponies he had met still valued him, they had approached him first as a curiosity: as a human in Equestria, as the Grim Reaper, as an intruder, as a means to an end. To an extent, they all still saw those things in him. When Luna had approached him on that balcony, she had approached Daniel Hayes, the person; not the son of Lucifer, not the cause of her problems, not the way for Twilight to return home. To her, he was just Daniel. So he trusted her. He closed the mirror and tightened his grip on it, as if pulling it closer to his heart.

I will find a way back to you, he thought to himself. I promise.

He put the mirror back in his pocket and looked up...only to see Twilight fly back down from the cliff she just climbed.

"Dead end?" Daniel wondered.

"Worse: Riftspawn," Twilight reported. "A big one. It looked angry. I think it knows you're here."

Sure enough, the monster emerged from the top of the cliff at that moment, its eyes set squarely on Daniel. It's form was half human, half...what was that? The bottom half didn't seem to resemble any creature either of them had seen. Instead, it had a long body with numerous legs jutting off it, tipped with massive spikes that it drove into the ice and rock to keep steady. In its right hand was a bow. Out of nowhere, a sickly green arrow formed within it, which the centaur drill spider beast...thing drew back.

"No, you don't." Daniel threw his scythe at the monster, splitting it in two before it could fire. He relaxed...

Pain shot through his body as a green arrow tore through his right chest. He turned and looked down. Another Riftspawn had its sights on him, anchored to the rock wall below. He rematerialized his scythe, preparing to strike again, but before he could do anything, the monster was vaporized in a blast of white light. Twilight had flown down and destroyed the beast before it could deal the killing blow.

Daniel collapsed on the ground, writhing in pain. He moved to pull the arrow out of his chest, only to find that it had disappeared with the monster who shot it. Relieved, he let his face fall into the snow. For a normal person, his injury would have been severe, but he could take a good deal more than any normal person, as his devil side made him more resilient to just about everything. As much as he hated his father, being half-devil had its uses.

Suddenly, the wind picked up, and the air was filled with flurries of snow, violently whipping around in the storm. The blizzard almost completely cut off Daniel's cliff perch from the one below, where Twilight was struggling just to hold her ground. She lost that battle, and the winds tore her away from the cliff and threw her off the mountain. Daniel wanted to do something, anything, to save her, but with his injuries, he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Angry that he couldn't do anything, he fought against his pain. His reward was a blackout.

I'm sorry, Luna, he thought as his consciousness drifted away.

The first sense to come back to Twilight was the feeling of sheer cold. The agonizing chill quickly brought back the rest of her senses. A pained grimace formed on her face as she slowly got to her hooves, before finally opening her eyes. Though she had fallen quite a ways, the scenery had hardly changed: snow and ice as far as the eye could see, broken only by steep, unforgiving walls of solid rock. The cliff she had landed on was much larger than the one she came from, roughly the size of Ponyville town square. She checked herself for injuries, and was surprised to find herself unharmed. She quickly turned to fly back up the mountain. She was worried about Daniel...so worried that she didn't notice the figure in the snow until it spoke.

"I can't let you go back."

Startled, Twilight turned toward the cliff edge, where the voice had come from. Standing there was a human in a black suit, a crest of his silver hair covering the left side of his head. He held his katana hilt firmly in his right hand. His cold blue eyes showed only an unbreakable resolve.

"Let me ask you a question," Alex demanded. "That boy, Daniel Hayes. Do you really understand what he is?"

"I know who he is, and I know who you are," Twilight replied, her horn glowing in preparation for a fight.

"That wasn't my question," Alex chided. "Do you know WHAT he is? Do you truly understand the destructive power within the boy you've let drag you all across Equestria? Do you understand MY true might?"

"Well..." Twilight stuttered, her resolve faltering slightly. She didn't know much about these humans, but Rainbow was able to beat one, so...

"I don't think you do," Alex continued. "I doubt you understand how different our worlds are, how much more powerful we all are compared to you peaceful little ponies. We're all out of your league. So I suggest you leave your new friend now, because my comrades and I will be coming for him, and if you get caught in the middle...whatever god you ponies pray to have mercy on your soul."

"Is that a threat!?" Twilight asked rhetorically, her horn glowing brighter, her rage boiling over.

"It's a warning," Alex replied. "No matter what happens from here on, there will be bloodshed. I'm telling you to run. Run far away, where the chaos cannot touch you."

Twilight stopped for a second, weighing her options. It didn't take her long to reach a decision. "If I don't stay with him," she started, "I won't be able to go home. I'll be stuck in this warped alternate reality forever. I can't run, not now."

"I see," Alex answered disapprovingly, his stare gaining a sharp edge. "It seems you don't quite understand the powers at work here. Allow me to demonstrate!" He pointed his sword hilt at the purple alicorn princess. Snow flurries began to form, whisking tiny ice crystals to the hilt. More and more gathered, until they fused together into a blade of ice, gleaming a cold light blue.

He rushed at Twilight with insane speed, giving her less than a second to put up a ward spell. He began slashing wildly at the magical shield, forcing the purple mare to concentrate entirely on keeping her protective dome intact. As a result, she didn't notice that the snow beneath her had started forming into a set if icicle spikes...until it was too late. Her magic bubble burst as she was pierced by numerous shards of ice, somehow managing to keep her vital organs intact.

In desperation, she took to the air, narrowly avoiding another swing of Alex's katana. Flying felt so much harder now, as each flap of her wings agitated her wounds, and caused blood to spurt from what little space there was between the wound edges and the icicles still lodged withing them. She was tempted to pull the ice out, but figured she'd bleed out if she did. Looking for some sort of advantage in the battle, she eyed Alex's ice katana. She shot a quick bolt from her horn, aiming to shatter the blade. The blade did indeed fall to pieces upon contact, but before Twilight could congratulate herself, she noticed, just in time to dodge, the fragments flying towards her, seeking to lodge themselves in her head. By the time she had collected herself and looked back, Alex had already reformed his blade. Twilight instictively dodged again, barely avoiding a sharp ice spire as it formed and rose out of the ground to make good friends with her insides.

She was starting to see the pattern with this odd cryomancer. To make up for the fragility of his element, he had based his fighting style around traps and set-ups. He let himself be a decoy, holding his opponent's attention while his ice spells formed and struck their unsuspecting targets. Even his weapon of choice played into his mind games. It kind of reminded her of Trixie, though the blue showmare's magic tricks weren't nearly this deadly. No, Alex's fighting style was more a perversion of that attention grabbing. Enjoy the show...so I can stab you in the back.

And yet, none of this conniving nature could be seen in the man himself. Just looking at him, looking into his eyes, she could tell. His were not the eyes of a conniver or a trickster. Rather, they were the eyes of a person who was dead set on their goal. It was clear he had a reason to remove Twilight from the equation, and he would do whatever he had to to make it happen.

Still, if his arsenal was based on tricks, perhaps Twilight could work with that. She flew down at Alex, who raised his blade as he prepared his next assault. She let loose a powerful magic blast from her horn, aimed directly at the cryomancer. In response, a huge chunk of ice formed in front of him, shards chipping off as it absorbed the blow. Alex sent the shards flying back down the path of the beam, back to Twilight...except she wasn't there. While the blast and ice wall obscured Alex's vision, Twilight teleported behind him, and let loose another blast. It connected, knocking him to his knees...for all of two seconds.

"If that was your best, then I've already won," Alex boasted, though not in arrogance. Rather, he said this as a continuation of his warning, that Twilight had no hope of surviving what was to come if she stayed involved.

Suddenly, Alex disappeared, teleporting right beside Twilight and kicking her through the air. She coughed up blood during the flight, as the impact had caused the icicles to dig further into her, some of them breaking and leaving sharp shards of ice floating around her insides. Struggling to stay conscious, she straightened out, preparing herself to act again. Only when she had regained her balance did she realize, too late, that she was headed straight for a flurry of Alex's creation. She soared right through the cloud of white, and fell to the ground upon exiting it, her entire body torn to shreds by the thousands of tiny ice particles in that one gale.

Alex teleported in front of the broken, bloody mare. "You've had enough," he stated definitively.

Just then, mustering the last of her strength, she blasted Alex with her horn. Caught by surprise, he took the full force of the blow, and flew off the cliff. Only, he didn't fall. As he went over the edge, he curled into a crouching position in midair, his right hand placed where the ground should have been. Using his powers, he formed a large icicle, upon which he landed upright. As he slid along the new mass of ice, he made it bigger and bigger to ensure he had room to slide, ultimately forming a mass of ice the size of a Canterlot castle spire, jutting out from the side of the cliff. Once he had stopped, he ran forward. As he reached the base of the ice, he moved down to the mass' underside, and sliced it off the cliff face with one strike. He gave the falling mass one powerful kick upward, thrusting it into the sky. Finally, he teleported into the sky, and gave the giant ice block one last slice. It split into several pieces, smaller but still massive, and fell toward Twilight. She tried to escape, but her injuries protested, shooting searing pain through her body, and the ice shards within her shifted and sliced her open. Ultimately, she was helpless as a falling ice block pinned her in place, breaking her back and knocking the air out of her lungs. Her wounds oozed blood, turning the snow around her and ice above her dark red. Her eyes were bloodshot from the exertion of just trying to stay alive. She stopped everything, however, as the cold blue blade was put to her muzzle. Wearily, barely staying conscious, she looked up at the cold eyes of her killer.

Except...his eyes weren't cold. The determination Alex had held in his eyes was gone, replaced with hesitation and regret. His blade wavered in front of her nose, before finally disappearing into the ether. He looked away somberly.

"I hope you learned something, for your sake," he told the dying mare. "Next time, you won't be allowed to just walk away. Run, while you still can."

He disappeared from sight, leaving Twilight helpless, fighting for her life, on that frigid plateau. The ice had left with Alex, preventing further injury, but that just caused her wounds to bleed out faster, not that they were no longer clogged with ice. She took one final look up, just in time to see Daniel drop down to the plateau. Relieved, her strength left her, and she lost consciousness.

A small campfire crackled quietly at the base of the snowy mountain range. Nearby were two tents, shoddily crafted and pitched in haste. Within one tent, sleeping soundly, lay Twilight Sparkle, her body covered in bandages. What fur could be seen underneath the mummy wrap was tinted dark red by her dried blood. Her breathing was stable, but slow. She was alive, but barely.

In the other tent, his back resting against the rock face that passed for a back wall, lay Daniel Hayes, contemplating the events of the day. He had a small hole in his shirt, ringed with dark red, where the arrow had pierced him, but the skin underneath had completely healed. It made him feel sick. He managed to walk off a bolt to the chest, while Twilight was just barely managing to stay alive. He'd done all he could for her, but still.... It wasn't right.

He pulled out his mirror, and thought about Luna. Now's as good a time as any. He cast the spell, and the pocket mirror fogged up, before clearing to reveal the blue princess of the night.

"Oh! Good evening, Daniel," Luna greeted him, before noticing the somber expression on his face. "Did something happen?"

"We ran into some trouble in the mountains," Daniel explained, grimacing painfully. "Twilight's.... Twilight's in bad shape."

Silence filled the encampment. "Will...will she be all right?" Luna finally asked tentatively.

"I think I can fix her up," Daniel answered. "Gonna take a long while, though. She was practically dead when I got to her."

"I see..." Luna noted, obviously uncomfortable about the subject. She decided to change it. "Um, about your world...."

"Hmm?"

"You said you didn't think anyone would miss you...when you went to die," Luna started. "Do you really believe that?"

"I doubt they even care that I'm gone," Daniel answered without a second thought. "I was just a nuisance to them, a freak. Better that I'm outta their hair."

"Not one person reached out to you?"

"They saw a monster. They reached out to me all right...with swords and pikes."

"Then why would you sacrifice yourself for their sake?"

"Because Dad's worse," Daniel replied. "Trust me, I don't give a crap about the people of my world, and I couldn't care less what happens to it from here on out. But Dad.... No one deserves him, no matter what they've done. I didn't risk my life to save my world. I risked my life to kill my father."

"Your father.... Is he truly as bad as you say?"

"His idea of "recruiting" me was destroying a village and killing everyone in it looking for me. Yeah, he's that bad."

Luna fell silent for some time before speaking again. "You've lived a harsh life," she noted, "never knowing kindness or happiness. But you can start again here. Once you've cleared up all of this, I'd...I'd like to offer you a permanent place with us."

Daniel went silent, stunned.

"You deserve happiness," Luna continued. "I'd like to give you the life you should have had."

"I...I'd like that," Daniel replied, touched by the offer.

Luna gave him one last smile, a gentle, warm smile, before the mirror returned to its original state. A similar smile spread across Daniel's face as he closed the mirror and put it away. Strange, he thought. This is the first time I've felt this way. I guess...this is happiness. He glanced over to the tent wall, where Twilight's tent was, as he lay down to sleep.

Get some rest, Twilight. We've got a lot of work to do.

Author's Note

Well, the gore's finally here. :twilightsheepish: (Best I could do; there's no "smiling cringe" emoticon.)

Shatter

Deep within her hollow tree home, Fluttershy was caring for her animals. Well, more like comforting them. Angel Bunny didn't care much about the situation at hand, but the rest of her animal friends were terrified of the sickly green sky and the monsters that had invaded the land. In truth, so was she. If she could have her way, she would be hiding under her bed, stricken with terror, waiting for the world to end around her. But she knew she wasn't the only one who was afraid. Right now, her little friends needed her to be their pillar of strength, and she would at least try to be strong, for their sake. It was rather difficult, though, constantly resisting the urge to scream and cower away. Had this happened over a year ago, before Twilight had arrived, she would have certainly cracked.

Feeling a light tap on her back, she turned to see Angel Bunny directing her to a specific animal. For as cruel as the small white rabbit could be, he always helped out when it mattered. Maybe a bit too much. She had a quick flashback to the last Nightmare Night, and the looks of pure terror in her friends' eyes as she.... She dismissed the thought, and moved to the animal Angel had singled out, a weasel that had somehow gotten a big gash on its back. Fluttershy's pupils shrank in shock as she rushed to the injured weasel. Examining his injury, she was relieved to see that the wound wasn't deep or serious. He just needed a certain herb and he'd be better in no time. But Fluttershy had run out of that herb, and the only place she could find it nearby was in the Everfree Forest. It wasn't that far in, but still....

Pillar of strength, Fluttershy, pillar of strength, she thought to herself to boost her confidence. Right now this little weasel needs your help. Brave face on the outside, screaming on the inside, she walked off into the Everfree.

The forbidden forest got dark fast. The green sky blocked the sun's rays to a certain extent, and the thick concentration of trees in the forest blotted out the light anyway. It wasn't long before the pale yellow pegasus found herself in complete darkness. Her defenses started to break down. Her pupils shrank in terror as they darted toward every little noise she heard, frantically searching for the source. She imagined ferocious beasts all around her, waiting to pounce. The pressure of it all froze her with fear where she stood.

"Aw, are you lost, little girl?" Fluttershy whimpered, stricken alert by the mysterious voice in the darkness. It carried a sadistic tone, bringing malicious implications to the otherwise tame question.

As her blue green eyes adjusted to the darkness, Fluttershy noticed the outline of a tall figure, just barely visible against the pitch black. "You know, I think we can help each other out," the figure mentioned. Again, his voice implied malicious intent. Fluttershy backed away one step, then another, and then she turned around and flew for the exit.

The world spun around as she crashed head first into the figure, who had somehow teleported in front of her to bar her path. She crashed to the ground, disoriented. The figure, still enveloped in darkness, knelt down and put a hand on her head, his fingers running through her pink mane, as she could do nothing but stare on in horror.

"Don't be scared. I promise this won't hurt," he told her in mock sympathy. And then the world went black.

Once again, Daniel struggled to climb his way up the cold, steep, unforgiving mountains of northern Equestria. He found the climb to be significantly harder this time than during his last attempt. He supposed that was to be expected, looking back at the makeshift backpact he now wore. Within the sack, shoddily made from his tent tarp, Twilight lay curled in a ball, still sleeping off her injuries.

Daniel had become a little impatient these past few days. He had seen firsthand what kind of damage his old adversaries could do to a pony. After seeing Twilight in that state, he had become that much more determined to see her home, so that she'd never have to experience that kind of pain again. Besides that, he was enticed by Luna's promise of happiness. Not only had she promised him the one thing he had ever wanted, but he knew she could actually deliver. That was why he decided to just carry Twilight up the mountain, once her injuries had healed enough for her to be safely moved. The faster he sorted through this whole mess, the sooner he could finally live his life in peace.

He grabbed onto the next rock ledge, and pulled the two of them up onto it. There, he saw the entrance to an ancient ruin, the stone bleached by the frozen air, much as it had been for Rainbow's version of the forsaken temple. As relief flowed through him, so did exhaustion. He fell face first into the snow. Twilight rolled out of Daniel's backpack, the cold waking her from her slumber.

"Uh, how did I get here?" Twilight asked groggily.

"You're welcome," Daniel grunted before going comatose himself.

Twilight's pupils dilated, and her mouth drooped off her muzzle, as she just noticed the human who had worked himself to his limit by trying to carry a live pony thousands of feet up a steep mountain range. Acting quickly, she grabbed him with her magic, and brought him into the temple. Once she laid him down on the warmer stone floor, she finally had time to think. The first thing she realized was that she was alive. She had almost forgotten in her groggy state, but she remembered now how that silver-haired sorcerer had very nearly killed her. And yet, by some miracle, Daniel had managed to save her. The next thing she realized, however, was that he couldn't save her completely. She felt...different after that battle, though she couldn't put her hoof on how. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a blue object near Daniel: the pocket mirror. She picked it up, and opened it to see what had changed.

What hadn't changed? Twilight barely recognized herself. Having been marinated in her own blood, its red hue had mixed with her purple coat, leaving her a sickly dark red color. Her cutie mark, the symbol for harmony and magic, was similarly tainted, looking like a warped representation of its original meaning. Her mane and tail were also tinted dark red, or at least what was left of them after being shredded by ice. Her wings had been torn apart; maybe half of the feathers remained intact, and the rest were replaced by nauseating scars. Her once bright eyes had dimmed considerably, becoming two dark gray pits in the center of her dull red face. The way she looked, she wondered if she had actually died on that mountain, and if she had somehow been brought back as an animated corpse.

A chill ran down her spine at that thought. She looked at the darkling human sleeping beside her. He had told her that his dark powers had their basis in death. He also said he hadn't tried necromancy before, but...could he have "revived" her in what was left of her broken body? Her mind descended further down that line of thinking, dwelling on that possibility and the way she now looked. She made herself nauseous, and threw up in a dark corner of the ruined hall.

Having evacuated her final meal, her disgust turned to anger. She trotted over to Daniel and punched him hard across the face with her hoof. His head jerked from the force, shocking him awake. He slowly straightened his neck as he got up, one eye closed from the pain, the other swirling with irritation and confusion.

"What did you do to me?" Twilight demanded.

"What?" Daniel's irritation was replaced with more confusion.

"Answer me, honestly!" Twilight demanded with more force. "Did I die on that cliff?"

Daniel went to answer, but then stopped himself. A look of puzzlement spread over is face, before being replaced with dread.

"What's wrong?" Twilight asked, running out of patience.

"I...I don't know," Daniel replied. "I just tried to save you. It didn't even occur to me that you could..."

Twilight looked away in disgust, both for him and for herself. It was possible that she had truly survived the battle, but the damage, the pain, had been so great.... She couldn't even begin to imagine that miracle.

"So I'm just a zombie now, huh," she noted. "Celestia's gonna love this."

"Hey, we don't know that," Daniel corrected. "Look, no matter what happened, you're here now. You're alive in my books. So we've still got to get you home, okay?"

He pointed further into the ruin as he said this, and only then did he notice the figure approaching them. His body, colored different shades of blue, was nothing like any creature he was aware of. In a hand at the end of his tail, the beast held a gold chalice. Ahuizotl's eyes dilated as he noticed the pony and human standing in front of him, the first living beings he'd come across in days.

"I'm saved!" he cried out. "If I may ask, could you please direct me to a way off this Celestia-forsaken mountain?"

"Wait. Ms. Glowmane's the best you ponies can get to pass for a god?" Daniel asked, facepalming into a grimace. "Anyway, I'm guessing that's the Chalice of Reflections you've got there? Yeah, sorry, but we kinda need that."

"Oh, I see," Ahuizotl replied sternly, curling his tail to defend his prize. "Another pair of treasure hunters. I will not allow you to lay claim to my prize!" He turned around and ran further into the temple.

"I'm gonna kill him," Daniel said flatly, before giving chase.

Ahuizotl ran as fast as he could back down the empty stone halls of the temple. He looked back, and grimaced as he noticed Daniel giving chase. It wasn't quite clear why everyone seemed to be after his cup, but he didn't really care. This was his prize, and he wasn't going to just give it up for anyone or anything. He raced further and further into the ruin, taking every turn he came across, frantically looking for an exit. If he could just find a way out, he'd be home free.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks, and his thoughts cut out completely, as he was encased in a giant block of ice. Standing before him, Alex stared at the frozen beast coldly, eyeing his treasure. The chalice was held at his side, just barely through the doorway that was now sealed by Ahuizotl's icy prison. As he approached it, the ice around the chalice, and the tail hand that held it, melted away, allowing him to take it with ease.

"Sorry you had to be caught in this mess," he apologized to the frozen blue creature. "Thank you for playing your part."

As he turned to leave, he froze the chalice, and made the ice disappear with the treasure still in it. This was a little trick he used to store important objects for later. He walked off into the depths of the room...but was then hit hard in the back. The Ahuizotl iceberg pinned him to the wall, having been forced out of its spot in the doorway by a powerful blow from Daniel's scythe. He sighed as he telekinetically removed the block from his back, knowing at this point that another confrontation was unavoidable. He got to his feet, and turned to face his adversary.

He stopped when he saw the dark red-violet alicorn standing next to him. "So you chose not to heed my advice," he noted. Suddenly, a chill went down his spine, and he looked at her again, really looked...and realized what he had done.

"Why would I ever listen to anything you said?" Twilight queried, her eyes and voice filling with rage. "You killed me!"

The ice mage turned away, guilt flowing into his eyes. "You gave me no choice...," he responded somberly. "Had you run like I asked you to, or given up the fight earlier, you would still be alive."

"Yeah, about that," Daniel queried, raising his scythe. "Why did you attack Twilight to begin with? Why did you need to separate us?"

"Because she's the only reason you have to leave this place," Alex answered, turning to the grim reaper, determination once again filling his eyes and voice. "I am truly sorry for what I did, but my guilt changes nothing. I cannot allow you to cross back over to Equestria!" He pulled out his katana hilt, and formed the blade.

"Stay back, Twilight," Daniel cautioned the bloodstained alicorn. "I'm not risking your life again."

He rushed toward Alex with blinding speed, bringing down his blade as he closed the distance between them. The blade sank into a wall of ice, hastily raised to protect its caster from certain death. It wasn't long before the wall shattered from the force, but by then Alex had moved behind his opponent, ready to end things right there. As he thrust his katana forward, Daniel twisted his body, just barely dodging the blow. Seeing his chance, he untwisted his body right there, stretching out his scythe arm to take advantage of the momentum. Too slow, Alex jumped back as the curved blade split his right cheek in two, cold white magic bleeding out from the new gash. In desperation, he formed ice on the wall behind Daniel, which quickly grew into a spike and stretched forward to impale its target. Daniel simply grabbed the end of the spike, stopping it in its tracks, before breaking it off.

Their battle continued for quite some time. The room began to fill with ice as Alex sprang trap after cunning trap. Had his opponent been anyone else, they would have been dead long ago. Daniel, however, knew his enemy well, and seemed to anticipate each trick that was thrown at him. The result was an epic stalemate, at the two countered each blow in turn. Yet, as evenly matched as they were, a winner began to emerge. Daniel managed to land a hit on his chilly foe every so often, and the small cuts and gashes were beginning to wear on Alex. Finally, he began to pant heavily. His body felt heavy, as his minor injuries still leaked a large amount of his power. At this rate, he would surely lose the fight.

"What's the matter?" Daniel mocked, a cocky grin plastered on his face as he shrugged. "Had enough?"

Alex looked up at his opponent with the fiery determination of a man who had nothing to lose, who would go to any extreme to reach his goal. He began to scream, as he let loose all of the power he had left. All of the ice in the room became denser, and expanded further into the room...until, all of a sudden and all at once, the ice grew into spikes that filled the room, turning it into a chilly iron maiden. The spikes completely blocked Twilight's view of the room. She ran up to them, and started to bash them with her hooves and magic, hoping, against all odds, that her one ticket home was still alive. A few seconds later, the ice disappeared...

There, in the center of the room, stood Daniel, very much alive, with his scythe run straight through Alex' body.

Alex looked down at the pole in his gut with shock, then looked up at the grim reaper in pain. "You don't...understand...," he muttered painfully, white power leaking off of him. He appeared to have more to say, but before he could finish, his body turned to ice, and shattered. A gold chalice took his place, and fell to the ground around the remaining wisps of cold magic.

As Daniel looked down at the Chalice of Reflections, Twilight walked up to him. "Stay close to me," he reminded her, before reaching down to pick up his prize. As he held the chalice, he could feel a mysterious power latching onto them. The two began to glow, and the wind picked up around them. The glow got brighter, and the wind got faster....

Suddenly, a tremor hit, forcing the two to flinch as they tried to keep their balance. The ruin seemed to fall away, to be replaced with the sickly green clouds that filled the sky. No, not quite. These clouds were darker, and they whipped violently around them like a storm.

"What the hay is going on!?" Twilight yelled over the cacophony of the magic storm.

"I don't know!" Daniel replied, closing his eyes to shield them from the violent winds. Dread filled him then, as he realized that Alex was right to try and stop him.

As the two disappeared, a ray of green light rose from where they had been, penetrating the roof and piercing the skies. Then all was quiet, leaving the still frozen Ahuizotl as the sole occupant of the room.

Sweat covered Trixie's forehead as she pulled her cart across the empty plains of Equestria. It had been so long since her show was popular that she had forgotten this little aspect of her work, the one aspect she had always hated. It was hard work lugging that entire traveling stage from town to town. It wasn't a unicorn's work, and it certainly wasn't a showmare's. Sadly, she could never get anypony to carry the stage for her, so she was always stuck carrying it herself. In time, it had become a part of the mask she put on to impress her audience. If the Great and Powerful Trixie can defeat a great Ursa Major, then surely such a small cart is nothing to her.

She froze in place as a tremor shook the planet. The force of it blew her hat off, and even ripped her cloak from her neck, leaving a frightened blue mare with pupils the size of peas. After overcoming the shock, she looked to the north, where the earthquake had come from, just in time to see a green pillar of light pierce the skies. As she got over her fear completely, it was replaced with irritation. She levitated her clothes off the ground, set her hat back on her head, and retied her cloak. When she looked up, she was annoyed to see another one of those green wolves blocking her path.

Her irritation was once again replaced with fear as she stared at the lone Riftspawn. It was...snarling at her, and baring its fangs. Its whip-like whiskers and tails seemed primed to strike. Its once green eyes were now blood red. Trixie wasn't sure what had changed the Riftspawn, but the beast that stood before her was now clearly hostile.

The wolf pounced. Trixie flinched and closed her eyes, waiting for death...

The silence of death, thankfully, never came. Realizing she was very much alive, Trixie opened her eyes to see what had happened. Standing just to her left was Alex, holding out his bladed katana. Apparently, he had just let the monster jump onto his blade.

"Alex? What just happened?" Trixie asked in confusion.

"Your friend...," Alex began. "I hurt her. I KILLED her. And it changed nothing." Guilt and sorrow swirled in his eyes as he turned toward the pillar of light, which had by now subsided, and stared blankly into the sky where it used to be.

"Daniel Hayes, know that what comes next is your own doing."

Author's Note

Sorry this one took so long. From here on out, things are going to get...messy.

Inferno

Groggily, Trixie rose from her slumber, sore from sleeping on the rocky floor of the cave Alex had brought her to for shelter. Normally, the Great and Powerful Trixie would never allow herself to rest her head in such an unbecoming and vile place as a cave, but even she could see that her traveling stage would have been nothing to the monsters outside. As her vision cleared, she saw Alex, sitting at the entrance of the cave, staring blankly into space. Trixie got to her hooves and approached her savior, as herself, not as her persona.

"Um, thanks...for yesterday," she told him, reluctant but grateful. Alex just kept staring into space.

Finally, he spoke. "About that free show...," he started. "I don't think I'll ever see it." Trixie looked at him in confusion.

"My boss...," he continued. "Calling him a horrible person would be an understatement. He's a true monster, and I've committed countless atrocities for him, against my will." Guilt had once again colored his face. Trixie finally began to understand where it came from.

"If your boss is so bad, why don't you just quit?" she asked.

"If it were that simple, I wouldn't be here," Alex replied somberly. "We were actually enemies at first. My boss, Lucifer.... I led the charge against him when he first emerged. My reward...was to have my soul forcefully taken from me, and to be stuck as the Devil's slave for all eternity. Even death can't free me from his grasp, and disobedience...well, you can forget punishment when the act is basically impossible. That monster truly owns me.

"Then we came to this world, and, by pure chance, the pieces aligned just right for my master to achieve his goal with minimal effort. Shift a piece or two, and let his son unwittingly bring this world to ruin. In his joy, he made what I believed to be a mistake: he gave me, and his other minions, free reign to do whatever we please here. I thought I could intercept his son, and throw the pieces out of alignment. I hoped to make Lucifer pay for giving me my first chance to rebel in centuries. In the end, however, I changed nothing. This world is still headed for destruction...."

He stood up, still staring blankly toward the horizon. "I'm going to go into hiding. Forever."

Trixie was stunned. "Why!?" She yelled. "Can't you fight back?"

"You've already forgotten that Lucifer has laid claim to my soul?" Alex asked rhetorically in response. "If I go back to him, for any reason at all, it would mean a fate worse than death, followed by the same miserable 'life' I've been living for the past millennium. No, I've had enough. He's given me some freedom, so I'll do what I can with it to end things here."

A crazy thought entered Trixie's mind. Before she could question the idea, she had already put it into words: "At least, let me keep you safe."

A bittersweet smile spread across Alex' face. "You truly believe you'd be able to protect me?"

Silence filled the small cave, before the ice mage finally walked away. "Sayonara," he said over his shoulder. "May we meet again someday."

Another Riftspawn stopped in its tracks as a thick lasso was pulled tight around its stomach. Applejack kept pulling on the rope, squeezing the monster tighter and tighter, until it finally disintegrated into green energy. Another wolf took that moment to pounce upon its orange prey, hoping to catch the cowpony off guard. Big mistake; a powerful buck to the jaw brought it down just as easily as its friend.

Applejack wiped some sweat off her brow. As the days went by, work grew farther and farther from her mind. After all, how could she harvest apples like normal when she was being attacked on all sides? And the Riftspawn were just the newest foes. The first creature to attack Sweet Apple Acres, and still the worst by far, was-

On instinct, the cowpony ducked, just barely avoiding the dark yellow streak that swooped down to chomp off her head. As it was, her stetson was still blown off her head by the resulting gale. She looked up at her assailant, a rather angry Flutterbat. No, this creature was far different from the beast her friend had once become. Back then, she had taken on the instincts of a vampire fruit bat, and feasted on the sweet fruit of the orchard. The dark red eyes that currently stared Applejack down revealed far different intentions. This Flutterbat had no interest in apple juice; she was clearly out for blood.

The vampire swooped down for another shot at her orange prey, but was knocked out of the sky by a rainbow bolt. Without Twilight, there was no way to save Fluttershy, especially with the current crisis occupying everypony else. Under the circumstances, Rainbow Dash had agreed to help fend off their warped friend. Unfortunately, the bouts were starting to take their toll. In anger, Flutterbat sunk her teeth into Rainbow's foreleg, adding two red dots to a small collection that had accumulated all over her body. For each bite that healed, Rainbow suffered two or three more, as well as the periodic reopening of her stab wound. At least she's not contagious, she thought, as if finding morbid relief from the absurd amount of times her vampiric friend had tasted her blood.

Rainbow punched Flutterbat square in the muzzle, forcing the vampiric pegasus to retreat. As she returned to the ground, she saw relief in Applejack's eyes...and dread. The rainbow pegasus could only take so much more abuse, and the situation was only getting worse. As much as they wanted to save Fluttershy, there was no way they could sustain their perpetual battle against the monster she'd become...and they both knew that. If some miracle solution didn't come soon, they'd have to....

Suddenly, Flutterbat swooped down from out of nowhere, catching Rainbow off guard. She tackled the rainbow-maned mare to the ground, sinking her teeth into the neck of her prey. As her blood was drained, Rainbow's vision grew dimmer and dimmer, until she finally lost consciousness. In that time, Applejack had rushed over to her fallen friend, and bucked Flutterbat hard. The force jerked the vamire pegasus' fangs out of Rainbow's neck, leaving considerable scars as they scraped through her flesh on the way out. Trails of pegasus blood followed the spinning vampire, until she finally stopped and regained balance. Before, she would have retreated after being bucked so hard. This time, she just got angry. Her eyes somehow got redder as she stared down the cowpony, preparing to kill.

She never got the chance. Out of nowhere, a mirror, held aloft by purple magic, floated between the two, catching her malicious gaze. She turned away, only to face another mirror, and another, and another. Trapped, with her own power reflected back at her, Flutterbat stopped where she was, cowering in fear from her own stare. Twilight emerged from behind one of the apple trees, and approached her warped friend with a glowing horn. As Daniel watched from behind another tree, she surrounded Flutterbat with her magic, cleansing her of her vampirism and bloodlust. White spectral bats flew from the limp form of the cured Fluttershy...only to burst into flames a second later. Daniel immediately went on edge upon seeing the bats combust. He emerged with scythe in hand, ready to protect these ponies if necessary.

"Impressive," he praised, amazed by how Twilight had handled the situation.

"We came back as fast as we could," Twilight informed Applejack. "I hope we weren't late."

"Just in time," Applejack replied, relieved. Though, now that Fluttershy was herself again, the farmpony had time to finally question the situation.

"Still, she was a mighty bit different from last time," she told her friend.

"Wait, this happened before?" Daniel noted. "Oh joy."

"She wasn't after the trees this time," Applejack told them. "She was after blood. Rainbow can tell you herself...once she wakes up."

"That...doesn't make any sense," Twilight concluded. "It's weird enough that she turned back into Flutterbat in the first place. What could make her go fully aggressive like that?"

"Aw, you broke my toy."

The orange and dull red ponies stood upright in shock, every hair on their bodies standing on end, as they heard the mysterious, malicious voice. Daniel, however, filled with a sickening dread that came from recognition.

"Get down!" he yelled, reacting to an assault that he knew was coming. Twilight reacted immediately, raising a magic shield over the three of them, and the unconscious pegasi, as a grenade flew into their midst.

The grenade went off, causing an explosion that engulfed the five completely. The conscious ones flinched as they withstood the massive firestorm underneath the barrier. Finally, the explosion ended...leaving Sweet Apple Acres in flames.

Having seen the trajectory of the grenade, Daniel looked out in the direction it had come from. There, standing on a branch in a now burning tree, was the figure who had turned Fluttershy into that monster, holding a grenade launcher. His ginger flat top and blue eyes radiated the fiery malice that seemed to define him. He wore a brown vest over a red shirt, with diamond patterns going down his blue pants. He had apparently survived the blast through an inherent power over fire. He demonstrated this power by mentally making his launcher burst into flame, reforming it into a sniper rifle within the blaze. A wicked smile spreading across his aim, he raised the sniper rifle and aimed for the first head he saw in the scope. He pulled the trigger, only for Daniel to react faster, and block the bullet with his blade.

"Can't you just let me have a little fun?" the sniper asked, the sadistic grin still plastered on his face.

"Jus' who in tarnation do you think you are!?" Applejack yelled, her rage boiling over after having everything she cared for violated.

"Silas Volkyrie, at your service," he answered in a sickly cheery manner, adjusting his aim right between her big green eyes. "Nothing personal 'bout all this, by the way. This was just for kicks." As Applejack charged in fury toward Silas, he pulled the trigger once more, only to again be denied his kill as Daniel blocked its path.

"Get your friends out of here and run," Daniel instructed the cowpony, as the orchard blazed around them.

"I'm not takin' this abuse lyin' down!" Applejack retorted. "You mess with the Apple family, you pay the price!"

"Oh, trust me, I'll make sure he does," Daniel reassured her, a wicked smile spreading over his face.

Applejack, understanding his intentions, turned back to save her friends from the inferno. Daniel, meanwhile, turned to face his sadistic opponent. His sick giddiness was now mixed with anger and disappointment at having lost most of his toys, and he intended to vent all of that in a single, clean headshot. Knowing his opponent, Daniel watched Silas until he moved to pull the trigger, then rushed for his burnt perch, narrowly avoiding the bullet as it soared above his head. Silas' irritation soon turned to fear as he realized what was about to happen. With just as much force as the orange cowpony, if not more, Daniel slammed his foot into the dead tree, knocking Silas of his branch. Before he could reach the ground, Daniel caught him in a powerful upward slash, sending the gunman flying into the sky. Daniel leaped upward to continue the punishment, but Silas reacted faster. He put his hands together as his rifle burst into flames again, reforming as twin revolvers. Just as the grim reaper reached him, he unloaded two slugs into his chest, forcing him to the ground.

Daniel quickly recovered from the blast, rolling away just in time to avoid a fiery drop kick that scorched the earth where he was lying. Silas wasted no time, pointing his left arm toward his enemy with lightning speed and firing with precision accuracy. Daniel's own speed just barely let him avoid each round, as he got closer and closer to the flaming gunslinger. Finally, he drew close enough to lop off Silas' head, but the firebrand had other plans. He converted his handguns into flame, setting his fists on fire as he swung at his assailant. Daniel dodged and prepared to attack again, only to be met with a gun muzzle as Silas instantly rematerialized one of his handguns. Though Daniel tried to dodge the shot, he was too close, and the bullet caught him in his shoulder. Angered, he whipped around, putting all of his strength into his swing. The scythe blade passed through the inferno surrounding the battle, setting the metal ablaze. The burning blade connected, causing Silas to immediately dissolve into flame. He reappeared in a ball of fire behind Daniel, and put two slugs right in his back. With his feet firmly on the ground, Daniel stayed upright. The wounds only fed his rage as he turned to face his dishonorable opponent.

Were anypony else there to witness the battle, they would have described a dance of flames. Daniel's scythe, now wreathed in flame, spread arcs of fire with each swing. Silas did much the same with his flaming fists and feet, while turning his blaze to metal and back at a moment's notice. As they fought, the inferno around them ate at the apple orchard, causing the once strong and healthy trees to crumble under their own weight as they helplessly turned to ash. The collective candescence was enough to blind anypony who dared to look.

Finally, Silas decided the battle had gone on long enough. Daniel had survived too long, and had worn him out too much. He teleported behind the grim reaper and materialized two machine guns, ready to fill him full of holes. Daniel was prepared for him, however. Upon rematerializing, Silas was hit with the full force of a roundhouse kick, and sent flying across the orchard. His fall was broken when he was impaled on the branch of a fallen tree. A second later, a large flaming scythe blade lodged itself in his chest after being thrown across the orchard like a boomerang. A couple of seconds after that, Daniel stood over his enemy, white hot flames leaking from his body, with his hands firmly gripping the pole of his blade. Silas struggled to look up at the reaper.

"Stay dead this time, will you?" Daniel advised. He ripped the blade out of Silas' chest, and the gunman burst into flames and disappeared, taking the inferno with him. Exhausted, Daniel slumped into the ashes below, just now paying mind to the five burnt holes in his body with blood dripping from them.

"You okay, sugarcube?" Applejack asked, arriving at the scene with Twilight. Accompanying the two was a stallion with a deep red coat and green eyes, and a young filly, with a bright red mane and tail, a bright yellow coat, and big golden eyes.

"A heck of a lot better than you're gonna be," Daniel replied, noting the cinders that remained of Sweet Apple Acres.

Everyone began talking about what to do in the aftermath of the battle. Lost in the conversation, no one noticed the tiny ember crackling on a tree branch at the edge of the Everfree Forest nearby...nor did anypony notice when that ember flared up, rematerializing a good as new Silas, complete with a sniper rifle. He looked into the scope, ready to make this reunion end in tears...

...and focused on Apple Bloom.

His concentration left him the moment he saw that red mane. He lowered his rifle and put a hand to his head, as he suddenly suffered a massive head-splitting migraine. The image of the little filly became fixed in his mind...and then it suddenly changed. The image he saw was a human girl, in a white dress, with a head of red hair very similar to Apple Bloom's. Her expression, and her dim blue eyes, seemed to only reflect emptiness. Once the image changed, Silas broke down completely, his entire body slumping in his tree perch as he gave up his game.

"Alice...," he mumbled to himself, before teleporting away.

Right at this time, Daniel's attention was called to the sickly green sky up above, as it darkened and began to storm. The air above grew violent, and bolts of green lightning fell from the sky one after another. The eye of this unholy storm...appeared to be right at the center of the Everfree Forest.

"Luna!" Daniel noted, as he rushed headlong into the Everfree to check on the situation.

Author's Note

Sorry this took so long. Took a while to think up exactly how that fight scene would go down.

Darkness

In a cloud of dark shadow, Faris materialized in Sombra's throne room. "It appears things have gone smoothly," he noted.

"Not smoothly enough," Sombra corrected with his back turned, giving a stern look to some point in the distance. "It appears Alex has overstepped his bounds."

"Oh, so that wuss has finally done it," Faris mentioned, a wry smile creeping over his face. "Shall I tear him apart for you, master?"

"Don't bother. He's in the wind," Sombra replied. "If he shows up again, I will deal with him personally...and shorten his leash to the point of nonexistance."

"I look forward to seeing that," Faris mentioned with a dark grin. His expression changed as his mind switched subjects. "If I may, master, I would like to make a request."

"Well spit it out, then," Sombra snapped.

"You see," Faris began, "while looking for something to do in this world, I caught wind of an artifact of extraordinary dark power. I would like permission to retrieve and use it."

"Let me guess," Sombra replied, rolling his eyes. "It's under lock and key in some godforsaken corner of the world."

"Quite the opposite, actually," Faris corrected, his smile turning mad.

"Well, no need to ask," Sombra answered, smiling for the first time in the conversation. "Go fetch your treasure."

Just then, two guards burst into the room. "Your Majesty, the barrier is-" Both guards froze in place, their pupils minimizing in response to the scene that lay before them.

"Leave us," Sombra ordered harshly, finally turning his head to the room.

"Y-your Majesty," one of the guards stuttered in fear, "what is the meaning of this?"

In a burst of dark power, that guard was thrown into the air, lingering a moment before crashing to the ground, dead. His comrade's ears drooped as he looked up at his ruler, who now wore a dark grin of sick sadistic pleasure.

"I said leave." The guard disappeared, finding speed to rival Rainbow Dash in his terror.

Sombra summoned his twisted scythe. "I shouldn't get myself down over minor setbacks," he noted. "Today is a glorious day! With just the smallest bit of effort, our plan has reached the point of no return. Now is the time to celebrate!"

He lowered his muzzle and scythe, darkening his face even further. "And what better place to start than by paying fellow royalty a little visit."

The violent winds whipped through the mighty trees of the Everfree Forest with enough force to make them bend. Daniel fought against these powerful gales as he rushed to the center of the forest. The princess of the night that he knew was still in the other world, but one look at the storm above, the violent spasms of the dimensional boundary, told him that little detail no longer mattered.

Sadly, he didn't make too much progress. The unholy storm spat out bolt after bolt of sickly green lightning, spawning a Riftspawn where each one touched down. As a pack of green wolves surrounded Daniel, they were accompanied by monsters of a different kind altogether, though they shared the eldritch abominations' bloodlust.

Guess these things are the natives, Daniel thought. They look pretty pissed to see me.

Daniel crouched into a fighting stance, summoning his scythe. As the green wolves pounced, he sliced through each one in turn. Right as the last Riftspawn fell, a manticore rushed him from behind, hoping to take him by surprise. Instead, Daniel whipped around, effortlessly separating the manticore's head and left foreleg from its body. He noticed another wolf, made entirely out of tree branches, pouncing at him, and responded with a powerful roundhouse kick that sent it flying. It crashed into a nearby tree and broke apart. He turned his attention to the last monster, another manticore, and sliced it in two. He relaxed and prepared to move forward, only to feel fangs sink into his leg. The timberwolf had reformed, and attacked him once more. Angered, Daniel sent a surge of dark power down his leg, reducing the branches in the timberwolf's head to splinters. The body fell apart, this time for good.

Daniel rushed forward again, dead set on his objective. Suddenly, he was nearly blown off his feet by a blast of magic power, forcing him to stop and brace himself against the force. Slowly, he fought against the power to look up at what was going on. What he saw was...strange. The dark forest blurred away, to be replaced with a beautiful garden that he knew well. The image before him kept alternating between the Everfree Forest and the garden that stood there in the other world...as if his eyes couldn't decide which one was correct. Not good. The worlds were starting to overlap. With great effort, he fought against the violent winds of the storm and the great magic force of this dimensional spasm to keep moving forward. Finally, the world settled on the dark shadow of the Everfree, leaving him in front of a large tree.

No.... He was left in front of a hut. The outside was decorated with tribal masks, all with deep gashes cut out of them, some split clean in two. Beyond the broken window panes was what appeared to be the remains of a witch's abode. A cauldron lay overturned on the floor, and hundreds of bottles lay shattered on the floor. Their contents had mixed on the floor, coating it in a dark purple liquid that was probably lethal. A small box lay broken in the corner of the room, its contents plundered. The door had been reduced to splinters, which now coated the disaster area. The candles that once lit the room had fallen to the floor, thankfully put out by the deadly liquid. A small ways away from the house lay a zebra, deep red gashes and trails of blood accompanying her black and white stripes.

Daniel rushed to the injured zebra, pulling her out of the pool of blood that had formed underneath her. She was still breathing, and appeared to be in better shape than Twilight was in after her fight with Alex. Good. Daniel could save her, for real this time. He called forth his dark powers to patch her up. As he was closing the wounds, Twilight arrived at the scene, her eyes widening at the horror that lay before her.

"Sweet Celestia!" she exclaimed. "What the hay happened here!?"

"We're about to find out," Daniel replied. He had finished healing the zebra, and she was starting to regain consciousness.

"Are you alright, Zecora?" Twilight asked out of concern, reaching a hoof out to the zebra. Zecora. So that was her name.

"I appear to be fine, as you can see," Zecora replied. "I would worry more about you than me."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Daniel inquired. "What happened here?"

"A visitor came to my home, to take a power that was not his own." Zecora pointed a hoof to the sorry-looking box in her wreck of a home. Daniel's face went flat with bemusement, his mind getting hung up as he realized this zebra was going to rhyme everything she said. Twilight, meanwhile, went wide-eyed with terror.

"The Alicorn Amulet!" she exclaimed, opening her wings to check on the box.

"Whoa now, don't go in there," Daniel advised, putting out a hand to stop her. "I don't trust that...stuff on the ground. Anyway, what's this amulet we were talking about?"

"It is an artifact of great dark power," Zecora answered. "I fear this may be our final hour."

"It grants the wearer tremendous dark power, but it corrupts them at the same time," Twilight explained. "A pony named Trixie tried to use it to get revenge on me, and went a little insane in the process. My friends and I managed to trick her into giving it up, and Zecora's been holding onto it ever since."

"Okay, hold up," Daniel requested, closing his eyes and putting a hand to his head as he grimaced. "You managed to get ahold of this ancient artifact of dark power, and artifact that's known to turn people evil...and you just held onto it. You didn't even have the excuse of getting corrupted yourselves. You just...kept it." Twilight and Zecora remained silent; they had no counter to that.

"Well, you were just asking for this," Daniel finished flatly, before speeding off deeper into the Everfree.

Daniel raced through the dark forest, cutting down any monsters that got in his way without even slowing down. Soon, he came across his destination, as the trees thinned out to make room for a great chasm, with a ruined castle on the other side. He ran to the rickety rope bridge that crossed the expanse, and sped across it. Just as he neared the other side, however, a bolt of red lightning tore through the air from the castle gate. It would have taken Daniel's head off if he hadn't had quick enough reflexes to duck in time. As it was, the shockwave from the bolt just going off near the bridge splintered it. Thinking fast, Daniel summoned his scythe and swung forward, burying the blade in the edge of the cliff. He climbed up the pole to see...basically what he expected at this point.

"You just won't lay down and die, will you?"

Standing in front of the castle was Faris, his right arm pointing ahead, his hand crackling with blood red energy. A black amulet, with features resembling wings and a unicorn's head, along with a blood red jewel, hung from his neck. It seemed to ooze sinister power. A crooked, sadistic smile darkened Faris' face. His purple eyes flashed red.

"Nice little trinket you got there," Daniel noted.

"You have no idea," Faris replied. "Unfortunately for you, we no longer need you anymore, so I'm free to use all of this new power to kill you."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Look above you," Faris answered, a sadistic smile still covering his face. "The worlds will begin to merge soon, and when they do, they will tear each other apart. What took my master centuries in our world is coming together in a single short week here, all thanks to you. And for your reward..." He loosed two knife chain flails, and sent sinister red energy running through them. "You get to suffer the most painful death I can give you!"
"Yeah, have fun with that," Daniel shot back coyly, before rushing at Faris.

Faris responded by shooting his chains toward Daniel like snakes. Familiar with his methods, Daniel weaved through the chains with ease, and continued his assault. Thinking he was safe for a few seconds, he didn't notice the Amulet's red power bend the chains back toward him. As he lifted his scythe to strike, the knives pierced his arm and torso, their angle of entry causing them to hook into his flesh. A feeling of dread spread through his body, and a sickening smile spread across Faris' face, before the chains were pulled back, throwing Daniel backward before violently ripping the knives from his body. He got back up, and rushed Faris once more, making sure to be more careful. Faris sent chain after power-filled chain at the grim reaper, but his heightened awareness allowed him to dodge most of them. Those chains he didn't dodge, he blocked with walls of dark power, letting the chain ends shatter into knives as they bounced off. As he approached Faris once more, he put all of his power into his swing, intending to end the fight with this one blow. In doing so, he left himself open. Pain shot through his body as a knife chain forced its way through his abdomen, free to pierce his flesh as he had concentrated on his own attack. Using the Amulet's power, Faris lifted him into the air on the chain, before releasing several more to skewer him in almost the exact same spot from numerous different angles.

"You don't understand the glorious power the Alicorn Amulet has given me," Faris taunted mockingly. "I have become suffering itself! I want to see you writhe in pure agony as you die a slow, painful death!"

With a single thought and a red flash of his eyes, Faris sent the dark power of the Amulet through his knife chains, directly into Daniel's body. His world turned blood red, and he coughed up a large puddle of blood from the sheer pain that was coursing through his body. A lesser being would have died right there from the sheer shock. Even for Daniel, this was the closest he'd come to dying himself. The pain was so great that he barely noticed when the knife chains were violently pulled from his torso, leaving him to fall to the ground with a massive bleeding hole in his torso. Slowly and painfully, he lifted his head from its prone position to stare once more at his enemy. He looked like little more than a series of black outlines in a sea of red. So did everything, actually.

"Still alive, are you?" Faris noted. "Hmph. You're harder to kill than we are. Oh well. That just makes this so much more fun."

The Amulet. Daniel had to destroy that Amulet, or Faris would kill him; if not here, then somewhere later down the line. He let his head fall back to the ground, half because he'd hit his pain threshold...half because he had a plan. As he expected, Faris moved to his bleeding body, wanting to make the finishing blows more...intimate.

"That's it. Let yourself drown in the pain," Faris..."reassured" him. "Just a bit more, and it will all go away...."

Now was his chance. Gripping his scythe, fighting against the searing pain that still coursed through his body, Daniel rose, swinging his scythe in an upward arc as he did so. He sliced right through Faris, "killing" him for certain, pulling the blade toward the Amulet to cleave it in two as well. Except...it didn't break. His scythe just stopped when it touched the black metal. As red wisps of shadow poured off Faris' body, the surprise in his eyes from Daniel's attack quickly reverted back to sick glee. His eyes flashed red once more as he let out a sick laugh.

"Sorry, but no dice," he taunted, before bursting into blood red petals of shadow, taking the Alicorn Amulet with him.

Broken and battered, Daniel fell to the ground, losing consciousness as he continued to bleed out.

Back at Canterlot Castle, Celestia-Equestria's Celestia-looked out upon her land with despair. The boundary between dimensions had been torn so badly that it would take a miracle to repair it again. In its pain, the rift between the dimensions had brought ferocious monsters to the land. Now the two worlds were overlapping once more, with far more violence than during the last crisis. Her people were going to pay the price for this disaster...and she could do nothing to help them.

"Do not look so depressed, dear sister." Celestia turned to see her sister Luna join her at the window. "There is still time. We may find a way to mitigate the damage of this catastrophe yet."

"Do you truly believe that?" Celestia asked somberly. "We were saved from this fate last time by nothing short of a miracle. As things stand now, I fear even that is too much to hope for."

"We have to hope," Luna replied. "If we abandon hope, our world will fall with us."

They turned toward the foreboding image of the green sky above, swirling in turmoil, as they contemplated their options and the bleakness of the situation. Suddenly, Celestia was blown backward, as if struck by a powerful invisible force. In a panic, Luna rushed to her older sister. Despite having no visible injuries, Celestia appeared to be struggling to remain conscious against the weight of a terrible pain. Luna's eyes widened even further than they already were, her being filling with dread as she realized what was happening. Something had happened to the other Celestia...and from the looks of the one before her, her injuries very quite serious indeed.

"T-the castle..." Celestia stuttered through her pain. "Take me to...our old castle...."

Author's Note

Things are starting to heat up. :pinkiecrazy: As a side note, I'm not sure I did all that well with Zecora's rhyming...all three lines of it. If it was okay, fine. If not...well, she doesn't show up again for the rest of the story.

Monsters

Luna slowly and painfully made her way through one of the many dark hallways of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters-what was left of it, anyway-supporting her older sister through the darkness. They'd been there a while now; whatever Celestia thought they'd find here, Luna was beginning to doubt they would. Dread filled her more and more with each slow step. Her sister had managed to remain conscious this whole time, but she was clearly getting weaker and weaker. Whatever fight her other self was in, it was clear she was losing. And if she died...

Suddenly, a burst of searing pain hit Luna out of nowhere, slamming her against the wall. The pain proved to be too much for her, and she blacked out. Though Celestia, having fallen to the ground without her sister's support, panicked on the inside, she was far too weak to show it. As she began to lose consciousness herself, she saw the vague form of a pony approach them from the darkness, heavily limping along. It got closer and closer, eventually revealing itself to be...her other self. Her helm was barely recognizable, and magic power seemed to flake off of her. She stopped in front of her twin...and fell to the ground beside her.

She was dying.

Panic filled Celestia's eyes, realizing that she might actually die, that there may be no hope of saving the two of them. Her other self put a hoof to her face with purpose, her eyes showing the sorrow that accompanies one's last requests.

"I'm sorry," the other Celestia apologized. "You shouldn't have to die...because I was too weak...."

The other Celestia glowed with magic power...and then dissolved into white petals of that power. Yet...the power didn't dissipate and dissolve, like the magic that broke apart when Lucifer's minions died. Rather, they flocked to the Celestia that remained, covering her now unconscious body, and letting themselves be absorbed into it. As the last petal submerged itself in Celestia's white coat, she opened her eyes once again. Her physical pain was gone, but a deep hole was left in her heart. Her other self had fused with her, sacrificing her already doomed life to make sure they didn't both die. With full awareness, she turned to her sister, and her similar fate.

No.... Whatever had happened to the other Luna was worse. Her Luna still lay unconscious on the cold stone floor, motionless...lifeless. True panic finally set in as Celestia rushed to her sister.

"NO, LUNA! STAY WITH ME! DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE!" she screamed hysterically, hoping beyond hope for the princess of the night to open her eyes.

"H...........y...u.........rig.......? Sp..........t......me......!"

A very muffled voice woke Daniel from his slumber. He opened his eyes to a deep haze, with a large blotch of red in the middle. At first, he believed the Alicorn Amulet was still messing with his vision. However, the image soon cleared, revealing the splotch to be the bloodstained Twilight, standing over him with a glowing horn. He looked at his injuries, only to find that the hole in his chest had completely healed, minus the gaping hole in his shirt rimmed with bloodstains.

"Thank Celestia you're alright," Twilight noted, relieved. "I thought you were dead for sure."

"Almost was," Daniel replied. "Your Amulet thief just had to be Mr. Sadism Incarnate." Twilight's eyes widened at Daniel's implication while he got to his feet. "I can see why you didn't destroy it now. I tried. Saved my life, but otherwise, didn't go so well."

"You need to rest," Twilight advised. "I helped your wounds heal, but you're still in no shape to keep going."

"So you don't feel that?" Daniel asked in reply, staring the alicorn down. Her confused stare back gave him his answer, and he sighed before elaborating. "There's a sense of...dread in the air. Like, if I don't hurry and do whatever it is I need to do, something terrible will happen."

"Well, yeah," Twilight replied snarkily. "Have you seen the sky? That other world's kind of coming down on our heads."

"Not what I meant." Not willing to waste any more time, Daniel rushed on ahead into the foreboding ruins where he had first emerged in Equestria.

He didn't go to far in before stopping. He had only been in this place once, twice if its well-maintained counterpart counted...which it didn't. He had very little idea of the castle's layout, and even less of an idea of what he was supposed to do here. So rather than race through the ruin blindly, he closed his eyes, and focused on the first goal to enter his mind: find Luna. Concentrating, he used his power to extend his consciousness throughout the castle, looking for the unique signature of Luna's...soul, he thought. This was the first time he'd used the ability, after all. After a while, he found Luna's presence, in the room where he first awoke. He sensed another presence there: not Celestia's, but still very familiar.

"Oh no," Daniel said to himself in response to this presence. "You touch her, you die."

He raced through the dark stone halls of the ruined castle with an increased sense of urgency. Now that he knew exactly what clock he was trying to beat, he was determined to make sure he did. Before long, he came across a set of large wooden doors. With a sense of purpose, he passed through the doors, into the exact scene he was expecting: Sombra holding his scythe to Luna's neck. The dark king turned as he noticed the door open, and smiled darkly at the sight of Daniel.

"You couldn't have picked a better time," he greeted, his voice dripping with malice.

"Hello, Father," Daniel shot back, his eyes filled with cold hatred.

"I really have to thank you, you know," Sombra-no, Lucifer mentioned, his voice filling with smugness. "Not only did you lead us to this peaceful world, you did all the work destroying it for us!"

"Wait, what?" Daniel asked, confused. "I get that I screwed up...but how did I 'lead you here'?"

"Oh, you couldn't feel it?" Lucifer asked back mockingly. "Did you ever wonder why you ended up here? You may have ruined my plans on our own world, and destroyed my body...but I wasn't going to let myself die so easily. So I latched onto you as you were floating in the abyss between worlds, having left yourself there to die after destroying the Tower of Babel, and the artificial dimension it generated. I used your thoughts to travel through the abyss...and your thoughts brought us here."

With a sharp realization, Daniel's confusion turned to feelings of rage and violation. "I thought I was dead. I thought I was going to Paradise.... You sick, demented-" Rather than finish his sentence, he summoned his scythe, planning to let that do the talking.

"You know what? Go ahead," Lucifer shot back. "It'll take a couple centuries or so to reform my physical body, but this...pony is making an excellent host at the moment. Go ahead. Kill him. Makes no difference to me. I'll find someone else to possess." He pushed his blade into Luna's neck, though not with murderous intent. No, it was more like he was caressing her. "Perhaps I'll take this lovely lady's body for a spin." Luna's eyes were wide with panic and violation.

"Every time you touch her makes your death more painful," Daniel warned.

"You know, I could just threaten this poor pony's life," Lucifer mentioned, "but I really don't have to." His horn flashed, and Daniel started to glow red. Before he could question anything, an all-too-familiar sensation of searing pain shot through him, forcing him to the ground. Immobile, he was left to question what the hell just happened.

"It appears Faris had a little backup plan," Lucifer explained. "Left a charge of the Alicorn Amulet's dark power within you, waiting to be set off at any moment. Rather shameful of you to not even notice it. No matter. I can shape you into a much better warrior once I kill you and claim your soul."

He removed his scythe from Luna's neck, and gathered dark power in its crooked blade. Not good. Immobilized by pain as he was, Daniel could do nothing to stop the incoming attack, or even to just get out of the way. Pitifully, he turned his eyes to Luna. It didn't take long for him to realize why she just stood there; even with his attention diverted, Lucifer would gladly kill her if she moved an inch. Dreading his final moments, Daniel looked straight into Luna's eyes, sharing his fear and his sorrow in a single glance. Luna took it all in, and closed her eyes somberly. Lucifer's attack finished charging, and he swung the scythe, sending a powerful arc of dark energy straight toward Daniel....

The attack never connected. In the split second Lucifer brought the scythe down, when his attention was fully diverted, Luna jumped in front of him, taking the full force of the blow. Her broken body was blown toward Daniel, who was finally able to recover slightly from the pain. Moving into a crouching position, he held Luna in his arms, noticing petals of blue magic rising from her body. He had seen this enough times to know what it meant, and this time, the evil mastermind wasn't bringing her back. She turned weakly to him, sorrow and regret filling her eyes.

"I'm...sorry I cannot...stay with you," she apologized weakly. "No matter what...you must live...."

"No, you have to live, too!" Daniel exclaimed, tears filling his eyes. "I have a place here, right? I can save you!"

"I fear...your powers will not...work on me..." Luna replied, steadily getting weaker. Daniel watched in horror as she closed her eyes, channeled magic through her horn...and made a small yellow sphere emerge from her chest. It was the first time he'd seen something like this, but Daniel knew exactly what it was. "I will always...be with you. So long as you have this...you will never be alone...." She pushed her soul into Daniel's chest, fusing it with his being. Upon doing so, the petals of blue magic congregated at the point where her soul had entered, following it into Daniel's body. Luna made one final bittersweet smile, before her body burst into magic petals and merged into Daniel's. The grim reaper was left holding empty air, tears flowing down his face.

"Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic," Lucifer responded. "I'm not sure what's worse: that she let herself care so much for some kid she just met that she'd trust him with her soul...or that you cared for her just as much, if not more. You've gone soft. But don't worry. I'll make sure you never care again."

As Lucifer talked on, practically spitting on Luna's corpse, Daniel's sorrow turned to anger, and he began to convulse with rage. Lucifer finally stopped himself, as he noticed black wisps of magic swirling around Daniel, accompanied by blood red magic petals. Twilight entered the room just then, and was immediately horrified by the spectacle. It felt different to what she remembered, but she had definitely seen this. Sure enough, the dark aura became more opaque, and the red petals multiplied into another layer of magic. Finally, Daniel opened his eyes, their blood red irises replaced by the lime green eyes of a serpent-no, of a Nightmare. The aura fell away to reveal armor similar to the set worn by Nightmare Moon; the same set, in fact, that Rainbow described from her nightmare. He bared a new set of fangs as he let out the intense fury behind his serpentine eyes:
"YOU SOULLESS LITTLE B!@#$#@$!!!!!!!!"

The enraged Nightmare knight lunged at Lucifer in fury. The twisted devil casually held up his blade to deflect the attack...but the scene changed the moment it connected. The ruined castle fell away, replaced with a silent lake as far as the eye could see. No...the surface underneath them looked like clear water, but it was in fact solid. Aside from a few ruined structures scattered around in the distance, nothing could be seen but a psychedelic sky of dark red and somber light blue, setting a disturbing tone for the place as a whole. Instead, Lucifer looked to himself. The pony host he had been inhabiting was gone, to be replaced with a human body. Long green hair flowed from his head, the ends just touching the suit of intimidating purple armor he wore. His scythe had been replaced with a bright orange katana, which he now physically held instead of levitating it with magic. In his left hand, he held a similar katana of a cold bright blue. This was the body of his first host, a body he had taken quite a liking to...and had assumed as his true form.

Panic shot through his mind for the first time ever, as he realized what had happened. He had heard that this land's "princess of the night" had the power to enter people's dreams. On pure instinct alone, Daniel had used and expanded that power, walking straight into the head of his host, and fighting him on a plane where he was actually vulnerable. As this sickening realization dawned on him, Daniel moved in for another attack, his scythe seemingly teleporting with the speed of his swing. Lucifer barely avoided the blow, and quickly raised a shield of darkness. If damage he took here actually mattered, then he couldn't take any chances. Almost immediately after the shield was raised, Daniel rushed it, hacking away with lightning speed and burning rage. Thinking he was safe, Lucifer prepared to counterattack...only to feel a sharp pain through his abdomen. Looking down, he saw that large energy spikes had risen up from the ground to skewer him. What looked like a starry night sky flowed through the spikes, reminiscent of the ethereal mane of that pony he killed.

Just a few minutes in, and Lucifer had already had enough. He jumped back, dislodging himself from the spikes, and filled his katanas with magic energy. The orange katana was set ablaze, while the blue one chilled the air around it. He swung at his son, but every blow simply bounced off one of Daniel's own lightning quick attacks. He hadn't even stopped his original assault; he just hacked away at his opponent like an animal. As his rage built up, more and more astral spikes formed to skewer Lucifer. The Devil had the bright idea to swat one aside. His blade simply went through the ethereal spike, and it reformed immediately, gouging his arm as it passed by.

It didn't take long for Lucifer to realize that nothing he was doing was working. He couldn't seem to get off the defensive against his Nightmare son, who was practically frothing at the mouth as he relentlessly threw himself at his father and the pathetic dark shield. That little spell was the only thing keeping him alive at this point. He needed to end things now...and thus resorted to his ultimate attack. He teleported a small ways away, and put his charged blades together. Without cover, it didn't take long for Daniel to find and rush him again. Meanwhile, the opposing forces of fire and ice were forming an odd dissonance between Lucifer's swords, amassing huge dark power as they grew more violent. As Daniel began hacking away again, the dark energy reached its limit.

"I can't allow this to go on any longer," Lucifer told Daniel, though it was unlikely the Nightmare knight could even here him. "Farewell!"

Lucifer pulled the blades apart, sending a massive dark shockwave outward. In the real world, this attack would have shook the earth. In the real world, everyone unlucky enough to cross its path would have died, and their corpses would have been blasted into the stratosphere.

In the real world, the shockwave wouldn't have stopped dead in its tracks and disappeared for a puny barrier of astral energy.

That was the last straw. All of Lucifer's feelings throughout the encounter, from malice to surprise to desperation, turned to wide-eyed horror as he looked upon his son. This power...it was unlike anything he'd ever seen. Was this the power that his pathetic pony friend had granted him? No, that was part of it, but it didn't explain what was happening. No, this power was fueled by Daniel's feral rage. His mind had gone blank, his sole thoughts had turned to killing him...and in response, Luna's magic had twisted, and granted him this extraordinary power. What stood before him now almost didn't deserve to be called human. It was an animal, a feral beast consumed by rage.

A monster, by every sense of the word.

A sharp pain shot through his being. In his intense fear, he had lost his concentration and let his shield down...and now a large scythe was lodged in his chest, where a normal human's heart would be. He looked into Daniel's lime green eyes, and stared into a bottomless pit of hatred and fury. Daniel let out a howl of rage as he wrenched at the scythe, violently pulling to the side. The pain in Lucifer's chest became greater and greater, until Daniel ripped his arm off. The arm dissolved into shadow as it fell, which in turn faded into nothingness. Lucifer's eyes widened with pain as he, too, dissolved into shadow.

Once Lucifer was gone, the rage disappeared from Daniel's eyes. He stood up straight, and took a deep breath. The Nightmare armor burst of of him into magic shreds, its power gone for now...but hidden deep within him, ready to be called upon again. Having calmed himself, he left Sombra's mind, returning to his body to find himself still holding his scythe over Sombra. He quickly put his scythe away and relaxed.

Only now did he notice Twilight, frozen in fear at the sight she just beheld. Behind her, Princess Celestia had also joined them at some point. Her face displayed her worry, but also a strong sense of sorrow. Finally, he looked back at Sombra, who was just regaining consciousness. This wasn't quite the Sombra he'd met, though. His blood red eyes were now a deep blue, with whites that were actually white. With just a look, Daniel could tell that the tyrant he'd met was gone, replaced with someone honorable, and rather dashing.

"It's over," Daniel noted, "but...I couldn't stop him in time." His expression turned sorrowful as he recalled the price of his new power.

"So Luna, the other Luna...she's..." Celestia started, though she couldn't bring herself to say it.

"Yeah. Is your Luna okay?" Daniel asked, trying to find an upside.

"About that...look outside," Celestia replied evasively, looking down in sorrow. Daniel moved to the large window in the back of the room, and looked up. Through the swirling green storm, he could just make out the moon...and a pattern resembling a unicorn's head upon it.

"Uh, was that there when I got here?" Daniel asked, confused.

"That...is Luna," Celestia explained, though it pained her to do so. "My sister and I had become linked to our other selves, suffering any damage inflicted upon them. If they were to die, so would we. So when Lucifer attacked them, the other me called out, hoping to find some way to save us. She managed to merge with me, and make sure I survived. Luna...wasn't so lucky."

"So you banished her to the moon again?" Twilight asked, confused.

Celestia nodded. "Within the moon, she is sealed as magic energy. In that form, she will remain dormant, but very much alive, until her sentence runs out. A thousand years.... We have a thousand years to find a way to save her."

"Hate to break it to you," Daniel started, "but I'm not sure if this world's gonna last another week."

"Indeed."

Everyone turned in horror to Sombra, and Sombra himself grew wide-eyed, at the sound of that sinister voice. Sombra's shadow grew slightly, and before anyone could react, or even process what was going on, the shadow jumped toward Celestia. It forced her to her knees, struggling to win a fight for her own mind. Sadly, it wasn't to be. Her cutie mark, a picture of the orange warm sun, turned blood red, and the colors of her mane and tail grew subtly darker. As a maniacal smile spread across the white alicorn's face, she opened her eyes, which had turned blood red.

"I told you before," Lucifer chided, disturbing everyone by projecting his own voice through Celestia's mouth. "I won't let myself die so easily."

"You little-" Daniel retorted, enraged. He didn't completely go Nightmare, but his eyes flashed that lime green serpentine. "There won't be anything left to send to Hell when I'm done with you!"

"Yeah, no. We're not doing this again," Lucifer refused flatly, taking to the sky. "Better luck next time." With that, he teleported away.

Danie looked out upon the Everfree Forest from one of the castle's high balconies, contemplating the events of the day. There was no victory here, only defeat. His father had continued to use him as a tool, he had brought ruin upon Equestria without meaning to, and the only pony with whom he felt he belonged just died in his arms. Even his victory against his father, the one good thing that had happened, had been twisted into a failure. Part of him just wanted to drown in his own darkness, disappear from the world. But he couldn't if he wanted to. The ponies of Equestria deserved far better. He turned to find that Sombra had joined him on the balcony. In response, he just turned back to the horizon, and reflected on his sorrows once more.

"You have your work cut out for you, Grim Reaper," Sombra mentioned.

Daniel sighed in reply. "You could say that again. My dad just psyched me out to possess the ruler of the world. ...I heard you two had a thing or something?"

"Yes," Sombra replied somberly. "We loved each other dearly, but fate wouldn't allow us to be together. We had to sacrifice our love to prevent it from tearing the boundary between our worlds apart."

"Like right now?"

"Indeed. And looking at things now, I wish our love had stayed dead. I still love her dearly, but no one is worth all of this."

"You can say that again," Daniel replied emptily. "You know, even if I defeat Lucifer, it won't solve the dimension problem. It's a very long shot, but didn't you absorb some evil energy or some crap like that to fix things last time?"

"Lucifer absorbed it."

Those three words brought the full reality of the situation down on Daniel's head. To be honest, that evil energy probably wouldn't have fixed things a second time, but Lucifer got rid of it anyway. He wouldn't allow the smallest glimmer of hope, even false hope, to persist in this despairing catastrophe. If there had actually been a way to stop this madness, he would have made sure to destroy it. This was his victory, the end of the world. There was no way he'd leave any chance of anyone interfering with that.

"We're screwed."

With this grim fate in mind, he turned his sites to the nearest town, Ponyville. What he saw was absolute chaos. Ponies were scrambling throughout the town, trying to run from the eldritch abominations that had infested it. And Daniel knew that this wasn't just in Ponyville, that this was happening everywhere.

Equestria was burning to the ground.

Author's Note

Yeah, from now on, just know that ponies (and griffons and zebras, basically everything alive) are going to be dying by the truckload in the background.

Hell

Rainbow slammed another green wolf with a hard right hook, and it immediately dissolved into nothing. Instinctually, she turned around, kicking another wolf in the muzzle as it pounced at her. A glance to the side told her that Applejack was holding out just as well, bucking the green monsters left and right. And yet they kept coming. No matter how many they took down, the sickly green storm above them kept spawning more. They couldn't keep fighting forever, and once their energy ran out.... Out of the corner of her eye, Rainbow saw a number of ponies fall prey to the beasts, eaten whole by the wolves. Would she end up like them? Would she...die here?

Just as she thought that, another Riftspawn approached her from behind, a hulking green bipedal bear. As Rainbow noticed, too late, it raised a massive claw. Rainbow began to dodge, but before she could actually move, the monster flinched, then dissolved. Floating behind it was...Fluttershy. Rainbow was shocked, both at having been saved by Fluttershy, and at the mere fact that such a timid pony had taken out such a behemoth in a single strike. Once she calmed down, however, she noticed that Fluttershy's eyes were red, and she was convulsing to hold back a flow of tears.

"Fluttershy...?"

"They...they took my friends from me," Fluttershy explained, dropping to the ground and finally letting out her sorrow. "Th-those poor, poor animals...."

Rainbow's mood fell from the sky, even further than at the thought of her own death. She too dropped down, and put a comforting hoof on her friend's shoulder. As Fluttershy cried into her chest, Rainbow began to realize just how bad the situation was. These monsters were killing ponies' friends, their families...until there was nopony left. And to think that they were so docile before. They had been allowed to spread throughout Equestria, throughout the world...and now they were going to end it.

Another wolf pounced on them in this time of sorrow, only to be bucked away and killed by Applejack. "Ah feel your pain, Fluttershy, but this maight not be the time, sugarcube," she warned the pegasi. "Git movin'!"

"Oh yeah? And go where?" Rainbow snapped back. "These things are everywhere!"

"The Crystal Empire." A purple beam disintegrated another monster behind them, as Twilight joined her friends, followed by Daniel and Sombra. "The Crystal Heart should be able to protect everypony there."

"Uh, Crystal Empire?" Daniel asked, confused.

"A city to the north, run by my sister-in-law Cadence," Twilight explained. "So long as her people don't give in to fear, she can use the Crystal Heart to keep the Riftspawn out."

"In this mess?" Daniel responded incredulously. "So our last bastion is only safe so long as ponies believe it's safe. Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts."

"I'll tell everypony to head to the Empire," Twilight explained. "You all try to save as many ponies as possible." Everypony and Daniel nodded, and went their separate ways. Rainbow went with Fluttershy, to make sure her shy tendencies didn't get her killed. Twilight flew into the air, and concentrated her magic power in her voice, before delivering her warning:

"ATTENTION, EVERYPONY! PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE! YOU WILL ALL BE SAFE THERE!"

Even as she gave her message, she could see ponies listening, brightening up at the prospect of hope. All over Ponyville, ponies began to converge on the train station. Satisfied, Twilight returned to the ground to help the rescue effort. She decided to start with her number one assistant, Spike, and headed to her castle.

As soon as she arrived, however, Twilight was filled with a sense of unease and dread. She tentatively opened the palace gates and looked around. Surprisingly, the palace halls looked exactly the same, the purple crystal structure and green windows completely intact. Yet that was exactly what made the scene unsettling. In contrast to the chaos outside, the palace was eerily quiet and empty. It just felt unsettling, like something could go wrong at any moment....

"Spike?" Twilight called, her voice echoing through the spacious hall. No answer. A chill ran down her spine, and she raced through the palace, frantically calling the baby dragon's name. No matter how hard she looked, he didn't seem to be anywhere. Had the monsters already taken him...? She rejected the thought outright. He had to be alive. She could just feel it...right?

Finally, her search led her to the upper floors of her castle, to places she had barely even set hoof in. She came to the door to the high balcony, overlooking the town outside. Without hesitation, she thrust it open and charged outside...only to immediately stop. Hovering in front of her was Faris, his eyes flashing red once again. Floating next to him was Spike, struggling in vain against the Alicorn Amulet's crimson hold.

"Looking for this kid?" Faris mocked, a crooked smile plastered on his face.

"Who...who are you!?" Twilight asked. "What are you doing to Spike!?"

"Who am I?" Faris repeated mockingly. "Why don't you ask your friends? As for your little pet here.... Seems you care for him dearly, don't you?" Twilight confirmed this by charging her horn and giving Faris the evil eye. "You want him back that bad?

"Then take him."

The glow around Spike intensified, and he cried out in agony. Twilight could do little more than watch. A few seconds later, Spike fell unconscious as the crimson glow cleared, dropping him several stories to the earth below.

"SPIKE!" Twilight yelled, galloping over to the railing where her assistant had plummeted. As she got there, however, the castle seemed to rumble. To her shock and awe, Spike rose up from the ground below. He had grown significantly, and was roughly the size of the palace itself. Several necks branched off of the massive torso below, ending at the balcony's level with the large, ferocious heads of adult dragons. Every pair of eyes Spike now had were reduced to glowing red sockets, all pointed squarely at Twilight with the intent to kill.

"Spike...?" Twilight asked one last time, out of disbelief at her situation.

"Have a nice day," Faris mocked one last time before teleporting away.

Immediately, Twilight took to the skies, narrowly avoiding the combined might of seven blasts of fire breath. Reluctantly, she fired a bolt of magic at the hydra Spike had become. It hit one of the heads, knocking it down. Six to go. Unfortunately, those six heads noticed her and changed tactics. They spewed green fire upward in several directions, filling the entire shy with their flames. In a panic, Twilight loosed another bolt into the inferno as she flew away from it, just barely avoiding incineration. A hole opened in the burning sky as her blind attack hit home. She set off another bolt, striking another head through the hole before her corrupted assistant could react. Spike was angry now, and shot a large green fireball at his caretaker. Twilight just barely dodged it, but lost her balance in the air while doing so, just barely moving forward enough to ensure she crashed back onto the balcony rather than plummeting several stories to the earth. Dazed, she looked up to see the remaining four heads preparing to incinerate her. Thinking fast, she let out a huge magic pulse, taking out three of the four heads right there. The final head was blown back a bit, giving her time to get to her hooves. As Spike turned his attention back to her, she grabbed the last head with her magic, and tried to tap into the Amulet's corruption. Perhaps now she could save Spike...except she couldn't. The corruption was too powerful for her; she couldn't remove it directly. Unless...

She looked into the burning red sockets of the raging dragon that used to be her friend. There was only one way left to get that friend back, but if it failed.... Twilight tried to think positive, but sorrow clung to her as she charged one last bolt. Reluctantly, she closed her eyes and fired at the last helpless head of Spike. It reeled and fell to the ground. Filled with sorrow, guilt, and dread, Twilight walked to the railing and looked over the edge. She saw Spike, returned to a baby dragon, lying on the ground motionless. Panicked, she flew down to her assistant and embraced his limp body. As worried as she was, she couldn't tell if he was unconscious or dead. Either way, she didn't know how to live with herself. She hugged him tighter and tried to cry...but the tears wouldn't come.

In a dark, secluded corner of the Everfree, Silas clutched his head as he wandered in the darkness. The image of that girl, the one who had emerged from his mind at the orchard, kept running back through his mind. Alice...he remembered. She was his sister. She was the one thing that had kept his world turning back home, his single ray of sunshine. She was so cheerful, she raised people's moods just by being near them. And she...died. An image of Alice, lying dead in a pool of her own blood, flashed through his mind.

Then who was that pony on the ranch!?

She was a different species, yes...but she looked just like her! That couldn't be coincidence, could it? Was that pony some sort of counterpart to Alice in this world? Was she...Alice?

Silas had to know. Lowering his hands from his forehead, he knew exactly what he had to do: find Alice, in her new pony form, so that the happy days of his past life could return.

Deep within Celestia's mindscape, surrounded by a sky of dull orange, Lucifer stood over the mental projection of the princess of the sun. He pointed the gaping hole where his left arm used to be at Celestia, and her magic power began to drain. A trail of multicolored magic flew from her body into the hole, and as she lost magic, her mane and tail lost their ethereal properties, and were reduced to simple pink clumps of hair. Her cutie mark disappeared from her flank as the last of her magic left her. Once it had all flowed into Lucifer, the hole in his side...grew a new arm. It was already covered in pure white armor as it formed. Where it met his body, the white armor looked like it was grafted to the existing dark armor. He flexed his new arm. It felt no different from the old one.

"Why?" Celestia asked, on the brink of tears after all that had happened. "Why do you hate us all so?"

"The people of my world thought they could create life, just like that," Lucifer explained. "I was their creation, a perfect success on the outside. What they failed to realize was that I was empty on the inside. Without the...complexities of natural life, I turned to destruction to fill the void inside me. Can't say it worked...but it became my purpose for existing. I don't hate you...but this is just what I do."

"You monster!"

"Oh, am I the monster now?" Lucifer asked rhetorically. "When your world is now overrun with thousands upon thousands of monsters? And who was responsible for that again?" Celestia was left at a loss for words, so Lucifer continued. "The truth is worse than you think, however. Ever wonder why the Riftspawn never appeared when you caused a similar mess? It's because they're linked to him. It seems being the son of the Devil doesn't make people like you very much, even if they don't realize who you are. When your worlds connected, they responded to the bottled up hatred he had for every single worthless life on our planet, as well as his repressed desire to end his own misery. And now, against his will, those monsters are giving vent to those emotions upon your people.

"It's a glorious sight to behold."

Futility

Trixie trudged through the wide open plains of Equestria, utterly alone. Since Alex had left her, she had been utterly lost in these empty fields, fending for herself against the hordes of bloodthirsty monsters. And without her travelling stage, she no longer had a place to call home. Exhausted, completely drained of all hope, she stopped at the edge of a cliff, overlooking more plains below. If the sky hadn't been green, the view would have surely been beautiful. She let her legs give way, and fell to the ground.

Just then, a tall white mare approached her silently from behind. Trixie looked behind her to see her monarch, Princess Celestia. She quickly got to her hooves and bowed before her ruler. Even she knew to show respect to someone in Celestia's position.

"There is no need for that, 'Great and Powerful Trixie,'" Celestia reassured her. "You may rise."

Trixie rose, and took a good look at her monarch for the first time in her life. Honestly, she was awed by her gleaming white coat, her magnificent ethereal mane, her...cold blood red eyes....

"I believe you've come in contact with a member of another species, a human," Celestia mentioned in a motherly tone that suddenly sounded sinister. "Do you know where he might be?"

"N-no...I don't..." Trixie replied, unnerved out of her usual act. She instinctively backed away from the princess of the sun. From her new angle, she got a glimpse of her cutie mark, the sun eclipsed in blood.

Lucifer realized how many warning bells were going off in the blue pony's head. "Heh. Never was that good at acting," he joked to himself, dropping Celestia's voice in favor of his own. "I think you know what I want. Where is Alex?"

"I don't know! I swear!" Trixie screamed in fear. She backed up further, until her hoof was met only with empty air. End of the line.

"Then I'll just take you instead," Lucifer threatened, moving closer to the helpless pony. "Who knows, he might come save you."

As if in reply, as massive snow flurry whipped up between them, separating them in a haze of white. When the flurry disappeared, Trixie was nowhere to be seen.

"Hmph. Guess I have my answer," Lucifer snarled in disgust, before disappearing himself.

Let me tell you a story...
There once were three friends,
who couldn't be any closer.
Until one fateful day,
when a great darkness attacked
and threatened their world.
The three friends were called upon
to face this great foe.
One was corrupted by the darkness,
and became evil himself.
Another lost someone dear to him,
and was consumed by grief.
The third fell to the darkness,
and was forced to serve it forever.
Their friendship is no more,
shattered by the malevolent darkness
that they all now serve.

Lyra ran for her life, bounding from rooftop to rooftop to escape the pack of green wolves hounding her. She already knew there was no point in fighting the monsters. Her friend Bon Bon had tried, thinking her expertise with monsters would keep her safe. Instead, those abominations had...had.... Lyra subconsciously squeezed her eyes shut at the thought of that horror. Her friend was gone. She did not intend to be next.

Unfortunately, she had no choice in the matter. She suddenly found herself at the edge of a normally busy street, with no other rooftops to jump to. She looked down at the street below, only to see the same murderous chaos that gripped the rest of town. Behind her, the wolves approached slowly, waiting to pounce on their helpless prey. Lyra closed her golden eyes for the last time, shaking in fear even as she gave in to death. Only that death didn't come. When her fear was met only with silence, she opened her eyes to see the new human standing over her, extending one of his marvelous hands to her for support, while the other held a massive scythe.

"You okay?" Daniel asked, concerned. "They're gone. You're safe now." Lyra was speechless as he helped her to her hooves. "Anyway, you have a train to catch." He turned his scythe into astral energy and dissipated it, then picked the mint mare up. "Let's get going." He vaulted from rooftop to rooftop, over all the chaos below, all the way to the train station. He skipped the entire line and got Lyra directly onto the train, without bothering to get her a ticket. Before he could leave, however, the doors closed and the train left.

"Whoops," Daniel noticed sheepishly. He looked around to see lots of other ponies in the car with them. "Looks like the others are doing well, though."

"Yes, you're all doing a very good job of corralling these pathetic ponies into one little pen."

Daniel immediately jumped into alertness as he heard Faris' disembodied voice. "The trip's going to be a long one. How about we play a game to pass the time?" On that cue, everypony's eyes became glowing red sockets, and they all turned menacingly to Daniel. "I'll be waiting at the front. Have fun."

Just as Daniel realized what was happening, he was buried in a sea of homicidal ponies. He quickly beat away the waves of possessed horses, making sure not to do them any serious harm. He expects me to kill these poor ponies, Daniel thought. Well too bad. I'm not giving that sick b@#$#@# what he wants. To that end, he broke one of the nearby windows, and vaulted through, hoping to use the rooftops to skip the whole train. As he flew out the window, however, a possessed Lyra clamped her teeth on his pants, and followed her "prey" out of the train.

Daniel grabbed onto the top of the window frame as he soared through it, using his momentum to swing upward onto the roof of the train car. Lyra's grip on his pant leg was too weak to take this force, and she was flung away. Daniel noticed this, and sent out a tendril of astral mist to break her fall. Looking back, he saw that the unharmed, but still possessed, Lyra was trying her hardest to keep up with the train. Knowing she was safe, Daniel started to move along the tops of the cars. Faris caught on, sending several possessed pegasi out of their train cars after him. He swatted each one aside as they rushed him, using his astral mist whenever their wings weren't enough to keep them airborne after the blow. Soon enough, he reached the roof of the engine car. Faris teleported in front of him to greet him.

"Well, aren't you the noble hero," Faris mocked. "The Grim Reaper, unwilling to do his job? You must think you're so selfless." His eyes flashed an ominous red. "Well here's your reward!"

Faris' whole body burst with dark red energy, which he sent through a portal along with dozens of knives. Suddenly, Daniel heard the sound of scraping metal behind him, and turned around. Everything that Faris had thrown through the portal was ripping the train apart, reducing the cars to massive scraps of twisted metal. The pegasi who had been hounding him were close enough to be caught in the blast. All of those ponies Daniel had made the effort to spare were just gone in the blink of an eye. As he took in the sight, Daniel convulsed with rage, and a black aura surrounded him, granting him the Nightmare armor once more.

"YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS WASTE OF LIFE WITH YOUR OWN!" he yelled as he rushed Faris with lightning speed.

Faris simply extended a knife chain in front of himself, blocking the blow. To his mild surprise, the chain broke apart a second later as Daniel plowed through it with sheer force. In response, he jumped backwards into the air, and opened a number of portals. He extended his knife chains into two portals, and they came out all the others, turning two chains into a dozen. They raced towards their target, only for Daniel to strike their ends as they converged with enough force to shatter all the chains into their individual knives.

"Rather impressive," Faris mock complimented. "It seems you've gotten quite powerful in the short time since we last fought. Unfortunately, that means I have to cut our skirmish short." He reached out and snapped his fingers...and nothing happened.

"Sorry, but your master already set off your bomb," Daniel informed Faris, before practically teleporting to him and smashing him onto the tracks. Before Faris could reach the ground, he was hit with the full force of the still-moving engine car, now moving faster without the weight of the other cars to carry. Daniel teleported in front of the train, and put the full force of his blade into Faris' back. This force actually derailed the train, causing it to tumble through the surrounding forest, killing every tree it plowed through. Eventually, the engine car, and its two superpowered passengers, barreled over the edge of Galloping Gorge. Faris hit the ground first, hard. Seeing his opportunity, Daniel used all his power to strike the engine car, sending it crashing down at hundreds of miles per hour, until it slammed into its target with full force.

Daniel landed on his feet, and stared hard at the wreck of the train, fire still burning in his lime green eyes. As he expected, the car exploded, the fires quickly giving way to the blood red magic of the Amulet. In the center of the aura was Faris, his eyes flashing red with the same furious fire. For once in his life, he was pissed. He sent out both chains, bursting with rage-filled magic. As the blast of dark magic and metal approached him, Daniel moved out of the way at lightning speed, appearing behind his adversary. He sliced at Faris with all his might, forcing him to the ground and leaving a giant gash that bled red darkness. Daniel moved again to where his enemy lay broken, and started hacking away at him.

"THIS! IS! FOR! EVERY! LIFE! YOU'VE! TAKEN! YOU! PIECE! OF! S@#$!" he screamed as he sliced Faris to ribbons. Eventually, he stopped, lowering his scythe while still breathing heavily with rage as he stood over his kill. Faris was leaking blood red petals of darkness from his whole body...and yet he laughed.

"Bravo, Daniel, simply bravo," he mocked, even as he lay dying. "But let me ask you: what does it matter? Death means absolutely nothing to me. I will keep coming back again and again. So walk away, knowing our battle, you're victory...was absolutely worthless!" He laughed maniacally as he dissolved into red darkness.

With him gone, Daniel finally calmed down enough to revert back to normal. Almost on instinct, he turned his body and scythe into astral mist, and floated back up to the edge of the gorge. There, he finally took the time to collect himself from the battle. He looked back the way the train had come, and saw a silhouette in the distance, coming closer. He walked toward it as it approached him, until it finally got close enough for him to tell what it was...a familiar mint-colored mare.

"Are you okay!?" Lyra asked, concerned. "I blacked out, and the next thing I know, I'm on the ground, and the train got torn up, and-"

"You're alive!?" Daniel asked back in disbelief. "Oh thank Luna!" He let his legs give way in relief. When Lyra asked what happened, though, his mood became somber. "I tried to save everypony...and it was all for nothing. I'm...I'm just glad somepony survived. I'm glad I wasn't completely worthless."

Daniel and Lyra just rested there for several minutes, mourning the ponies whose lives were needlessly ended.

Grief

"Aw, sis, do we hafta leave?" Apple Bloom stared at her big sister with wide, sorrowful eyes, along with her two friends.

"Relax, sugarcube," Applejack reassured the three fillies. "Y'all be safe in the Crystal Empire. We've got friends there who'll make mighty sure o' that. 'Sides, all your friends will be there with you. It'll be just like home."

"But it won't BE home," Sweetie Belle protested.

"Is that what's botherin' y'all?" Applejack inquired. "Well, y'all can come back once this mess gets sorted out." Even as she said this, the Element of Honesty could feel her own words ring hollow. This mess...it would take a miracle to fix things now. It was much more likely that they would all just be stuck in the Crystal Empire forever, trapped in a prison of their own making, in constant fear of the death that lay outside its walls.... Applejack swallowed that thought. These fillies were still full of hope, and she didn't dare say or do anything to snuff that out.

"What're we all waiting for?" Rainbow asked, impatiently tapping her hoof on the station floorboards. "Let's get going, before the train leaves without us!"

"But I don't wanna just run away!" Scootaloo protested, looking at her idol with a look of determination. "I wanna take 'em on with you!"

"Uh, listen, I get where you're coming from," Rainbow mentioned, her impatient glare replaced with a look of genuine concern, "but that might not be the best idea."

"Oh, come on! We can take 'em!"

"Rainbow Dash is right. Facing those beasts is nothing short of suicide."

All three fillies turned, terrified, to see that Sombra had come onto the platform with them. Rainbow and Applejack also turned to the once proud king. As she turned, she noticed Scootaloo race away to hide behind a nearby post. A small part of her couldn't help cracking a smile. As tough as she acted, her "little sister" still had a long way to go in terms of bravery.

"Uh, Mr. Sombra? Might wanna keep a low profile when we get to the Crystal Empire," Applejack warned. "The crystal ponies won't be too happy to see you. Best not to cause a panic."

"I understand," Sombra replied. "I have some spells that should help, so long as I stick to the shadows. In any case, we'd best board our train before it leaves without us."

"That's what I said!" Rainbow hovered over to Scootaloo, and put a comforting hoof in her purple mane. "C'mon, Scootaloo, we've got a train to catch." The young filly looked into her idol's eyes, before giving in and boarding the train. Her friends weren't far behind her, followed by the adults.

As Sombra stepped onto the train, a chill ran down his spine. He turned around, scanning the train platform for some sort of threat...but he found nothing. As the door closed, and the train sped off, he disregarded his feeling as paranoia, and took his place near his acquaintances.

As the train made its way through the vast plains of Equestria, Sombra couldn't shake the feeling he had before. It wasn't even that something might go wrong at any time, though that was indeed a factor. It was more like everypony on the train was his with a sense of somberness at the same time. Each pony he looked at, even the three fillies next to him, were left in a melancholy mood in the face of everything that was happening. And it felt like things were just going to get worse.

Of course, they did. As the train approached the forest surrounding Galloping Gorge, the tracks were suddenly surrounded by heaps of twisted metal. It didn't take everypony long to realize that the previous train had never reached its destination. Many ponies burst into tears, mourning the friends had family they had lost on that train. The rest squirmed with fear, wondering anxiously whether they'd even make it to the safety of the Crystal Empire. The train soon entered the forest, blocking out much of the light from the sickly storm above. The darkness left in its place was a pretty good representation of the collective mood in the train car. Sombra shrank into his seat and ruminated on everypony's collective fear, knowing full well he could do nothing to lift the mood.

Just then, as if just to make things that much worse, the screeching of brakes broke the heavy silence. The train stopped so hard that many ponies were forced back into their seats, while others were thrown out of them. As the train halted completely, panic began to spread among the hordes of ponies within, nearly reaching their breaking point before the train's intercom finally crackled to life:

"Hello, this is your conductor speaking. It appears a massive tree has fallen onto the tracks. If anypony would like to help, please come to the front of the train. Everypony else, just remain calm. We will be back on track shortly."

"I'd better go help out," Applejack decided, rising from her seat. "Y'all sit tight now, ya hear?" She made a beeline for the front of the train, disappearing into the sea of ponies.

"You don't think you should help, too?" Sombra asked Rainbow, who was still seated.

"Eh, Applejack's got it covered," Rainbow replied. "Besides, somepony's gotta keep an eye on these three troublemakers." She reached out a hoof beside her...into empty air. Panicked, she whipped around to see that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were indeed gone.

"How...? We were only talking for a second!" Sombra exclaimed, amazed and terrified.

"They didn't try to see if they could move the tree, did they?" Rainbow wondered. "They already got their cutie marks. They can't still be this stupid!" As the two ponies rose to search for the CMC, Sombra's sense of dread intensified, freezing him in place out of fear of the coming horror.

Oh no.... By Celestia, please, not now....

"Oof, stop pushing! Ow!"

When they heard that the tracks had been blocked off, the CMC unanimously felt that they needed to do their part to help out. That was proving far tougher than they expected, however, as the crowds of panicked ponies kept them from getting anywhere near the front of the train. They had managed to force their way through the crowd to the next car, only to find that the ponies there were even more hysterical. Ultimately, they were forced to the outer wall, and pinned there by a mass of panicked ponies. Apple Bloom's heart began to sink. They had no way of getting to the front to help out, nor could they return to their seats. If Applejack returned now, she'd be worried sick...

All of a sudden, the wall behind them opened, and the three fillies tumbled out of the train. Apparently, Sweetie Belle had noticed they had been pinned next to one of the doors, and took the liberty of forcing it open with her magic. "Now we can skip the whole train!" she exclaimed with delight.

Looking ahead, the fillies could see the fallen tree from where they stood. It was truly massive, easily as thick as the train. And they could clearly see one small detail that the conductor left out: the tree was ablaze. That's odd, Apple Bloom thought to herself. Why would it be on fire? Didn't it just fall over? And why isn't anything else on fire? She pondered these questions for a while...until it all clicked in her mind, and her eyes grew wide with terror.

"Uh, girls, why don't we all just get back on the train?"

She was about to race back into the crowd, and her friends were about to protest, but it was too late. A fire burst to life a short ways away from them, leaving Silas there as it died away. The sadism he had shown at Sweet Apple Acres seemed to be completely gone, replaced with a grim determination that was just as menacing, if not more so. In a panic, Sweetie Belle tried to reopen the train door, but her fear prevented her from producing anything more than a weak spark from her horn. The three fillies started backing away, as Silas moved toward them.

"Don't worry, Alice," Silas said reassuringly, his glare fixed on Apple Bloom. "I've come to take you home...where we can finally have our lives back."

"A-Alice?" Apple Bloom asked in fear and confusion. "My name's not Alice!"

As Silas took a step closer, Scootaloo stepped between him and Apple Bloom, poised to strike. She glared up at her adversary with a look that said everything. As cowardly as she was, she knew now was the time to throw that all away. No matter what happened, she would stand and protect her friend. Silas took all of this in...and looked back in disdain. To her everlasting sorrow, Rainbow Dash, still searching the train, looked outside to get a front row seat to what followed.

"How cute." Silas replied flatly, before kicking the poor filly into the air. As she flipped backward through the air, time seemed to stop as she was stunned by the force of the blow. As her senses came back to her, the first thing she noticed was the muzzle of a handgun pressed into her back. She was still too rattled to show anything other than mild surprise...

...and then Silas pulled the trigger.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle could do nothing but stand there, horrified, as their friend was blown away, a fountain of blood spurting from the new hole through her chest. Rainbow Dash was the most horrified of all, watching helplessly as the filly who had idolized her, who she had helped to grow and even come to respect, fell limp into a growing pool of her own blood. Quickly, her sorrow turned to rage, and then that rage boiled over.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Silas apologized. "Come home with me, and we can forget all of this."

Right then, the train door burst open, blown off its hinges by the bolt of rainbow fury that rammed Silas into a nearby tree. Utterly shocked, Silas overcame his surprise to see Rainbow pinning him to the tree, her eyes burning with murderous intent. She let out a scream of terrifying rage before pounding the pyromancer's face in, only letting up when she hit bark instead of flesh. She looked around, just in time to dodge a bullet to the back as Silas rematerialized behind her. She rushed him down, punching and bucking him all over as he struggled to get a lock on her position. Finally, ticked off by the rainbow nuisance beating him down, he set his arm on fire and swung away, sending Rainbow crashing to the ground with a lucky fiery backhand swing.

Rainbow quickly got up, as if the blow had been nothing. Her bright blue coat had been singed black where he had hit her, but she was so furious that she didn't even notice the pain. She rushed at the source of her rage once more, flying through his legs and knocking him over, before bucking him into the sky. As he soared high into the sky, Rainbow soared upward to greet him. However, he soon recovered from the buck, and pulled out his two handguns to fire barrage after barrage of bullets at the speeding rainbow missile. A few managed to hit her-first her flank, then he back, then her chest-but her rage killed any pain she could have felt. A mach cone formed around her, getting smaller and smaller, until she burst into a sonic rainboom. She became a shining rainbow bolt, speeding toward its target. Silas realized too late that his bullets were doing nothing, and the rainbow pony tore a hole through his abdomen.

The gunslinger's body began leaking fire as the attack brought him to his end, but Rainbow wasn't done with him. She immediately turned around to pummel Silas some more, only for him to grab her in his own rage. He set his body on fire, immolating them both, as he took the long nosedive to pile drive her into the forest floor below. The force of the impact blew the two standing fillies off their feet, and immobilized Rainbow with a pain that no fury could negate. With what strength she had left, she turned her bruised and blackened head to her adversary, expecting him to finish her off. Instead, he barely stood doubled over, just as weak as she was.

"Why...?" Silas asked in despair. "Why can't I just have my sister back?" Before he could elaborate, he burst into flames, and vanished.

Rainbow Dash was confused by these last words, but was in too much pain to ponder them. Now that she had calmed down, the full extent of her injuries assaulted her senses. Looking to the side, she noticed two figures, a pony and something taller, approaching the site of the battle. She finally succumbed to her wounds, and blacked out.

Rainbow struggled to move as her senses came to ever so slowly. Her eyelids were the first to respond, opening into blackness. No, not blackness, more like a thick black haze that covered her vision. She tried to protest, but only a muffled groan escaped her lips. Thankfully, that seemed to get the attention of someone nearby, who vaguely seemed taller than any pony. The figure knelt down beside her, and she could barely see a familiar strand of yellow hair through the haze.

"Oh crap! You're hurt worse than I thought!" Daniel noted, his voice sounding muffled. "Let's see if I can patch you up."

Rainbow felt a surge of magic energy wash over her, and the haze lifted from her sight. She was in a hospital bed, surrounded by walls made of pure crystal. As the magic washed over her, her muscles began to come to, and she took a look at herself. Under the green hospital gown, her coat had gotten much darker, just a hint of the original cyan showing through the outer layer of singed fur. Looking at a nearby mirror, she saw that her rainbow mane was still bright, but much shorter. No...more like it had been burned off entirely, and was growing back. Something told her that her eyes had also been badly damaged, and were only just healed. Then she noticed that she wasn't the only pony in the room. Off to the side stood her friends, along with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.

"Guess I made a bit of a mess, huh," she joked, reassuring her friends that she would be okay.

"We were all worried sick about you!" Twilight told her.

"You two were really messed up," Daniel mentioned. "You're lucky Lyra and I noticed the commotion and came running, or you wouldn't have survived."

That's when Rainbow finally noticed that a Cutie Mark Crusader was missing. "Where's...where's Scootaloo?" She asked, dread seeping into her tone. The room suddenly became somber the moment she popped the question. Without saying a word, Daniel pulled a nearby curtain away. Beyond it lay Scootaloo, sleeping comatose in the neighboring bed while IVs kept her alive.

"I was able to fix the physical damage," Danial explained, "but I couldn't do anything about the shock. She'll live, but she's stuck in a coma."

"When do you think she'll wake up?" Rainbow asked.

"I can't say for sure," Daniel replied bluntly. "There's a chance she never will." He paused to let her take the news in. "If you wish, I can use my new power to show you her dreams."

"I...I'd like that," Rainbow replied, drained of all her normal confidence and cheer.

Daniel closed his eyes and concentrated, and a magical light extended out of his body, first to Scootaloo, then to Rainbow. As the light washed over the technicolor mare, the world fell away, leaving the two standing on a solitary cloud. She looked out into the bright blue shy that surrounded them, and saw Scootaloo flying in the distance, together with a projection of herself. This was truly her dream, the one thing the young filly had always wished for. Watching her filled Rainbow with sorrow, knowing that she was as happy as she'd ever been in this dream world, not knowing that she may never return to reality.

It was too much. Rainbow finally broke down, and wept for hours as she watched Scootaloo live out her fantasy in ignorant bliss.

Unease

Leaving Rainbow to mourn within Scootaloo's dreamscape, Daniel quietly left the hospital room along with the other ponies. Sombra stepped out of the nearby shadows, suddenly becoming visible as he entered the light. With just a look, each of the ponies told the king of darkness the tragic condition of the pegasi in that room. He bowed his head, saddened by the news.

After a long pause, Daniel decided they'd mourned enough for now, and decided to change the subject. "This place seems kinda dull if you ask me," he blurted out bluntly. "I mean, it's called 'the Crystal Empire.' Everything should be bright and shiny, right?"

Twilight raised her head to reproach him...but then she saw what he meant. Compared to the bright and colorful Crystal Empire she remembered, the crystals here seemed slightly duller, darker. It was clear the crystal ponies' spirits weren't high enough to maintain the gems' luster. If the empire get too dark...if the ponies didn't have enough hope and cheer to activate the Crystal Heart...then all of this would be for naught.

"We should all have a chat with Cadence," Twilight suggested, throwing the first move that came to her out into the open. "She needs to know what's going on."

"Cadence?" Daniel asked.

"Why, none other than Princess Cadence, ruler of the Crystal Empire, my dear," Rarity answered. "And such a lovely place she rules over, too."

"And she's Twily's sister-in-law!" Pinkie burst out. "Oh my gosh, this is gonna be so much fun! I better go plan the "Happy-Reunion-slash-Thanks-for-Protecting-Everypony" party!" And with that, she bounced away, without a care in the world.

Daniel just stared blankly at the pink pony. "Uh, she does realize the crap that's going on, right?"

"Ooh, almost forgot!" Pinkie's head popped out from under a nearby plant, causing Daniel's brain to smoke as he wondered how she got there and how she fit in that pot. "I never gave you a welcome party! Oh no, so much planning to do, and the story might be over by then!" She bounced all over the hall, legitimately distressed by this turn of events.

"Uh, story?" Daniel asked. Not that he had the brainpower to do much else.

"Oh well," Pinkie blurted out, suddenly reverting back to full happy mode. "I'll just have to plan it all out by the end of the chapter." She bounced up to Daniel's eye level when telling him this, before once again bounding off down the hall, until she vanished from sight.

"WHAT!?" Daniel screamed after Pinkie had left, his brain practically shutting down.

"That's jus' Pinkie bein' Pinkie," Applejack informed him. "Don't question it. Much easier that way." The tip came a bit late. Daniel was already curled up on the floor, his mind burning as it tried in vain to comprehend what had just happened.

"Alright, that's enough," Twilight told him, grabbing his convulsing body with her magic. "I need you functioning when we talk to Cadence." She got only a pained moan back in reply. She rolled her eyes, and started heading to the Crystal Palace, dragging Daniel behind her the whole way.

As Twilight made her way to the Crystal Palace, the dullness Daniel had noticed became more and more apparent. The green sky above made the Empire look darker already, but it was clear that the bright blues and pinks of the crystal structures had indeed been dimmed considerably. As she reached the palace, she looked up at the giant statue the crystal ponies had made of Spike. Oh, Spike.... As if his fate wasn't sad enough, his statue appeared to have been hit the hardest, its blue color dulled so much that it was practically gray. Things were far worse than she had first realized. She hurried into the palace, hoping her sister-in-law could help fix things.

She quickly began to question that hope, however. The inside of the Crystal Palace had fared no better than the city outside. As she passed by the palace guards, she could see the unease in their eyes, and was even more worried when she noticed she was unnerving them further. Maybe it was because she was dragging an incapacitated alien being behind her...or maybe it was because of the way she had...changed. Hesitantly, she made her way into the throne room.

Cadence spotted her immediately from her throne, as did her brother, Shining Armor. The princess of love launched herself from her throne to greet her dear friend, but stopped as she got a better look. She was left speechless at the sight of Twilight's lifeless eyes and dull reddish-purple coat. "T...Twilight?" She asked, stunned and confused. "Is...is that really you?" Shining Armor was rendered completely speechless at the sight.

"Of course it's me," Twilight told her. To prove it, she immediately put down Daniel, who was still behind the door, and began their secret hoofshake. "Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake. Clap your hooves and do a little shake!" That was all Cadence needed, and the two sisters-in-law embraced. This time, Shining Armor joined in on the family hug.

"What. The hell. Was that?" Daniel walked in on the touching moment, apparently having come to his senses when his skull hit the floor.

"Oh, Daniel, you're awake," Twilight noticed. "I'd like you to meet Princess Cadence, the princess of love, and my brother, Shining Armor. Cadence, Shining, Daniel."

"Damn, you've got serious connections," Daniel noted.

"Twily...what happened to you?" Shining Armor asked his sister in concern. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Daniel look away, ashamed. He turned to the human, and pinned him to the wall with his magic. "What did you do to my sister!?"

"Calm down, Shining!" Cadence pleaded, surprised at the sudden change in tone.

"No, it's okay," Daniel told her. "I...I failed to protect her." He recounted Twilight's gruesome fate on the frozen mountains of the other world, at least from his perspective. Shining removed his grip in shock.

"Don't worry, I'm fine," Twilight reassured her family. Even as she said this, though, she suddenly realized that she had forgotten about her mutilation. For all she knew, she wasn't fine, and never would be again.

"So, uh, should a safe haven really be this dark?" Daniel asked. "I mean, the place is only safe so long as everypony feels safe, right?"

Cadence and Shining Armor went somber. "The crystals' luster is a reflection of our ponies' spirits," Cadence told him. "As you can see, we're having trouble keeping them up. Even under the protection of the Crystal Heart, they're still terrified of the monsters outside. Ponies have begun to disappear into thin air, too, only to be replaced by other ponies. I think these poor ponies are finding tears in the boundary between the two worlds, and are drifting over to the other side. And every time they do, everypony just gets more and more anxious."

"We can definitely shelter these ponies for now," Shining Armor continued, "but at this rate, the Crystal Heart will only be active for so much longer. We need to find some way to stop this disaster as soon as possible."

"And you believe such a solution exists?" The royal couple nearly jumped out of their skins as Sombra materialized from the shadows.

"Oh yeah, forgot to mention him," Twilight apologized. "This is the other world's Sombra. Don't worry, he's on our side."

"Unfortunately, he has a point," Daniel told them. "You don't seem to realize just how screwed we all are. If this is our last bastion, it might be time to throw in the towel."

"How dare you," Shining warned.

"You think I want this world to end?" Daniel asked the prince. "I want to save this world just as much as you do! It's just...I think we're out of options. We just...sit here and wait to die."

"No."

Everyone in the room turned toward Twilight, who stood with her head held high and a look of grim determination on her face. "This world has been my home all my life. I refuse to just give up and die along with it! There has to be a way to fix all of this! We just have to buckle down and find it!" Everypony's faces lit up as her speech filled them with hope. The room got slightly brighter as well. Daniel's demeanor, however, hadn't changed. The three royal ponies left to search for a solution, leaving Twilight in the room with Daniel.

"Thanks for giving them hope," he told the dull red mare, "but I doubt they'll find anything. Not before this world ends, at least."

"We have to try," Twilight rebutted. "I can't just let everypony die."

"I get where you're coming from." Turning away, Daniel pulled out the mirror Luna had given him, and stared blankly into it. Luna... I'm happy I met you...but you should have let me die.

Deep in the cellar of a crystal building, Pinkie was busy baking cake after cake for the massive three-in-one party she was planning. After all, all of Equestria was probably going to be there, and she needed to feed everypony. She giggled to herself as Gummy latched onto her tail. There was no way she was just gonna leave her little alligator friend behind.

"Are you excited, Gummy?" she asked, only to get the usual blank stare in reply. "I sure am! This'll be the greatest party EVER!"

Just then, she stopped what she was doing as her Pinkie sense started acting up. Her ears started flopping, followed by a tingle-no, a burst of pain down her spine, followed by some force causing her legs to give way beneath her. The combo ended with a massive sneeze that left her nostrils burning.

"Not sure what that combo is, Gummy," Pinkie told her scaly friend, looking him straight in his blank eyes, "but I don't like it."

Just then, her tail began twitching, signalling the fall of her mixing bowl, covering her head in batter. She rolled her eyes before licking it all up in one great motion of her tongue.

"Oh well, guess we'll find out soon enough."

Fear

Maybe this was a bad idea, Twilight thought.

The ponies' spirits were deteriorating faster than anypony had anticipated. Even within the safety of the Crystal Empire, ponies feared the unnatural monsters outside. Many outright panicked; it was all too common to see a pony running through the streets while screaming their head off, or cowering in a fetal position in an alley. Many more retreated into themselves as they mourned their less fortunate friends and family. All of this collective negativity was darkening the entire city...and as the crystals lost their luster, the populace fell further and further into panic. Twilight and her friends had tried their best to cheer everypony up, but they didn't even notice the efforts, trapped in the downward spiral of their fear. At this rate, the Crystal Heart would soon be little more than a pretty rock. These ponies needed professional help. They needed...

"Hi! Whatcha doing there, Twilight?" The bloodstained alicorn nearly jumped out of her skin as Pinkie seemed to pop into existence behind her.

"Pinkie, just the pony I needed," Twilight mentioned, smiling with relief. "We need your help to keep all these ponies in high spirits. How's that party of yours coming?"

"Not too well," Pinkie replied. "Ise wrapped up that last chapter early, so I didn't have time to prep for Daniel's Welcome-to-Equestria party. Oh well."

Twilight just stared at the eccentric ball of fluff bouncing next to her, before relaxing and letting the comment slide. It's Pinkie. Just smile and wave.... She tensed up again, however, as she watched her friend's ears violently slap her face. Suddenly, a visibly painful force shot through Pinkie's body, knocking her off her hooves. Finally, she let out a loud sneeze. When the spasm was done, the pink pony bounced upright again like nothing was wrong.

"That looked painful," Twilight told her, concerned.

"Yeah, that happened the other day, too," Pinkie mentioned. "Not sure what that combo means, though. Cupcake rain? A flood of chocolate?" Twilight rolled her eyes and kept walking as Pinkie bounced around her, spouting one ridiculous scenario after another.

As the two approached the Crystal Palace, Twilight stopped to look at the Crystal Heart, the one thing protecting everypony from the abominations outside the empire's walls. She saw her royal relatives standing near the artifact...backing away from a human in a dark purple cloak. She froze, her eyes fixed on the human. Even from the back, she recognized the one who had forced her to hurt Spike...Faris Elfriede.

"Oh, I know what it means now!" Pinkie blurted out, pleased with herself. "'A creepy guy will steal the Crystal Heart.'" She stood tall, proud that she had figured out her combo. When she realized what she had just said, her face twisted, practically breaking. Twilight ran ahead to help her family.

"...I'll just be taking that Heart now," she caught Faris saying. Cadence and Shining Armor readied themselves to protect the Crystal Heart...and Faris just laughed. "Come on, be honest: you really think that chunk of rock's worth anything anymore? Look at this place. Your little city has already grown dark with your people's fear. Trust me, you're screwed whether I take it or not."

"Even so, I can't allow you to take it!" Cadence retorted. "I will not allow these ponies to be robbed of their hope!"

"Hope? You mean these pathetic twigs really believe they can survive all this?" Faris asked, his eyes flashing red as he stifled a laugh. "Well then..." He rushed over to Cadence, and gently pushed the edge of a knife into her neck, not quite hard enough to break the skin. "...why don't we show them just how much their 'hope' amounts to." He was suddenly blown back a few steps, as Shining Armor formed a shield around his wife. Faris rolled his eyes, put a tiny bit of the Alicorn Amulet's power into his knife, and gave the shield a tiny prick. It popped like a bubble, much to the royal couple's horror. A sadistic smile spread across his face as he moved to pick up where he left off.

"Oh no you don't!" Faris stopped in his tracks, and turned to face the new lamb calling for the slaughter. Twilight's horn was glowing brightly, ready to blow her opponent out of the sky. Faris stared at her for a long while before shrugging, his body language telling Twilight he'd take a free hit. She screamed as she put all her magic power into a giant laser, engulfing Faris in purple light. When she finally stopped...he was completely unharmed.

"Feel better?" he mocked, before gleefully drawing a knife chain. "My turn now."

Cadence, Shining Armor, and Pinkie looked on in horror and sorrow. There was nothing they could do. Before they could retaliate, before Shining could raise a shield to protect his sister, Faris was on her. His blades tore her apart, staining the crystal ground red as her shredded chunks went flying. The worst part was that Faris stared her in the eyes as often as possible, making sure what light they had was still there, so that she felt every ounce pf pain as he ripped through her body. When he was done, he wasn't standing over a pony, but hundreds of dull red chunks of flesh floating in a sea of blood. He chucked maniacally to himself, before turning to the royal couple, his gaze outright telling them that they would share Twilight's fate. They backed away, Shining instinctively raising a shield over them. Faris walked deliberately toward them, swiping the Crystal Heart almost as a second though as he passed it.

Suddenly, a dark flash caught his eye, and his cowering victims turned their horrified attention to the source. He turned around to see...an utter defiance of the laws of nature. A shadowy power emerged from Twilight's remains, levitating them into the air in a swirling mass of body parts. As they spun around the center of the magic that held them, the parts fused back together, blood flowing into her veins as they were repaired. Before long, Twilight was once again standing before him, intact and very much alive...sort of.

"Wow. Who was the sick @#$# that experimented on you?" Faris asked, intrigued.

As her body was rebuilding itself, Twilight finally understood what she had become. She was dead, that much was now certain. She had died in those icy mountains, succumbing to the serious injuries Alex left her with. She couldn't die a second time. And the spell that had brought her back made sure of this. Her living corpse of a body was preserved in time, restoring itself and repairing any damage she might take. If only she had lost her ability to feel pain along with her life. What she had just experienced was one of the worst "deaths" a pony could experience, one so painful that a normal pony would have died of the sheer pain long before their injuries would have killed them. As she was, she had been forced to feel every ounce of that pain, denied the sweet release of death.

"You can no longer die, yet you still feel pain," Faris mused, his sadistic grin growing wider. "The perfect plaything." He used the Amulet's power, and waves of red energy ran down the spaces between the massive supports of the Crystal Palace. One wave passed right behind Twilight. She pushed a back hoof into the space where it was, and as she expected, it hit an invisible wall. Faris had turned the space below the palace into an inescapable cage.

She was trapped in there with a psychopath.

In terror, she dove to the side, anticipating another onslaught of torture. She wasn't fast enough; a knife chain tore through the air, ripping the skin on her right side clean off, along with the wing that was attached there. Even as the excruciating pain shot through her body, the dark magic had started the unholy healing process. She shot back a spread of purple bolts as the large flap of skin sewed itself back on her body, only for Faris to sidestep away from the whole spread effortlessly.

"Where are you aiming?" he taunted, before lashing out again with his razor sharp flails.

Again, Twilight tried in vain to dodge. One chain cut her clean in two, while the other split her rear half in two once more. The bloodstained alicorn's pieces flopped helplessly to the ground, her hind legs twitching as they waited to be reunited. The pain was...not as great as before. The continued mutilation was starting to numb her senses to pain. As her hind legs reattached themselves to her body, her fear and agony was replaced with cold anger. Even as the wounds continued to heal, she took to what air was enclosed under the palace, and blasted Faris once more with a beam of purple fury.

"What's this now?" Faris asked nonchalantly as the dust settled, completely unfazed. His eyes flashed red in response to his sick glee. "The princess of friendship, filled with so much hate? Such a pity. You're setting a bad example for your subjects."

"A monster like you doesn't deserve friendship or mercy!"

"Fair enough."

With that, he shot out a knife chain, faster than anything any living creature could possibly react to. It bored right through Twilight's head, right between her eyes, and lodged itself deep within her brain. Faris started to chuckle with sick sadism, but stopped when he looked Twilight in the eyes. Instead of shock or agony, her eyes stayed dark with the same cold, determined hatred she had just shown him. She stared through him, into the void where his soul should have been, as if looking for some trace of one to burn.

"Desensitized already?" Faris asked, disappointed. "That just won't do. I'll just have to find some other way to-"

Right then, Twilight fired a magic bolt at the monster's face. Much like the flail in her own head, the purple bolt was lodged in Faris' cranium, a look of mild surprise covering his face. As he stood there, taking in what had just happened, something came over him. The red jewel of the Alicorn Amulet flashed, and his eyes followed suit. The red flashes in his eyes were slow, and made their way around his irises, permanently replacing their purple color with a sickening blood red. As red shadow began leaking from his body, a broken smile spread across his face. He bent backward and let out a psychotic laugh, gradually getting louder and more insane, until he finally dissolved into dark red petals.

Once they had disappeared from view, the barriers that had been holding Twilight there fell. Immediately, Cadence and Shining Armor ran to Twilight and hugged her, simply overjoyed that she was okay. They barely cared about the horror they had just witnessed, or that they were getting Twilight's blood all over their own coats. The many crystal ponies who had also seen the battle felt very differently, however, and ran as far as they could from the palace. And Twilight herself...she could barely comprehend what she had become. She threw herself into her family's embrace to distract herself...and that's when she noticed something wrong.

"The Crystal Heart!" she realized. "He didn't drop it!"

Cadence's mood turned somber. "Look around you, Twilight," she told her sister-in-law, motioning to the crystal buildings that were now practically devoid of color. "Even if we still had the Heart...it's too late. It wouldn't work anymore." Twilight pushed herself away from her family, and turned terrified eyes to the sickly green sky above. The Crystal Empire had lost its barrier.

Ponykind's safe haven was no more.

Author's Note

Took a little while to write this one. Got bogged down by life and other projects.

Lost Souls

Trixie plodded along through the empty black roads of the Crystal Empire. The last week or so of her life had been an absolute spiral of hell. As the disaster got worse, and the monsters from above became more and more aggressive, she had slowly lost everything: her career, her traveling stage with all of her supplies, and even the one friend she'd ever had had broken off all contact for both their sakes. She'd almost lost her life on several occasions, and now she was even denied contact with other ponies-nay, other creatures in general. That point was hammered home as she trudged her way through the deserted city.

Odd. There weren't any monsters raining down on the city...

She turned a corner into the main road to the palace, and finally saw some sentient life. No, not just life, but someone she recognized. Her slow dragging plod burst into a gallop as she ran to Alex, who stood alone, staring up at the pitch black palace above. Surprised to hear hoofsteps, he turned around, only to be shocked again to see her of all ponies running toward him.

"Trixie? How did you get here?" Alex inquired.

"I- *ahem* The Great and Powerful Trixie...doesn't know," Trixie answered. "When you saved her, she just...wandered. She- I didn't know where I was going, or where to go, and I just ended up here. Is something wrong with this place?"

"This," Alex began, motioning not to the city, but to the world as a whole, "this isn't your world, merely a warped reflection of it that's been forced into contact with the one you know. If you just wandered into this world, than the boundary between them must already be in tatters."

"But, if this is a reflection of Equestria," Trixie began to ask, "then where are all the ponies? This is still a city, right? Where is everypony?"

Alex looked away, unable to make eye contact. "They're...they're all gone. The Riftspawn ate them all. Look upon this empty city, Trixie. This is the ultimate fate that now faces this world...and yours."

"A-all of them!?" Trixie stuttered, the sheer weight of what had taken place here shattering her act completely.

"All but three," Alex replied. "I can't say for sure what he's doing, but my master has decided to hole up here. Even with these worlds speeding toward their ends, he's still not satisfied."

"Of course not. That's just who I am."

"Well speak of the devil," Alex shot coldly as the possessed Celestia-Lucifer popped into existence behind him.

"Alex," Lucifer greeted him. "You've certainly made yourself difficult to find. And yet you still decided to crawl back to me. Come back to me, and I'll just forget your transgressions, give you a clean slate. What do you say?"

"Is that so?" Alex asked sarcastically, his back still turned to his master. "Doesn't sound like you."

"Look, I'm gonna be honest with you," Lucifer replied. "I've been having...difficulties with your old friends since you left. Faris has lost his marbles, and Silas went AWOL too. What's more, I can't feel his soul anymore. I think he went and got himself killed. So please, come back and be my sane servant again, and I'll make it worth your while."

"Oh, so Silas kicked the bucket for real this time?" Alex noted, a smile spreading across his face with an odd mix of pity and hope. "Well, that's too bad, because I'm not coming back."

"Excuse me?"

"Get out of here," Alex whispered to Trixie. As she fled into a nearby alley, Alex addressed his master once more. "You heard me. I'm not coming back. I've been your slave for long enough, and I'm sick of it. So if you want me back that badly..." He summoned his ice katana, and turned to point it right at Lucifer's nose. "...you'll just have to take me down."

Lucifer just laughed. "Really? Even if you could defeat me, you're willing to slaughter this world's last true monarch just to get to me? No matter how little good it actually does you? Now that's just priceless."

"Maybe," Alex replied, "but there's one thing I know that you don't." With that, he lunged at his master. He stepped back, using Celestia's wings to take to what air was under the palace, and retaliated with an orange bolt. Alex immediately raised an ice shield to block the attack. The shield was vaporized, but otherwise he was unharmed. At the same time, he channeled his magic through the crystal pillars around them to send out ice spikes, hoping to clip Celestia's wings. Lucifer was prepared for this, however, and teleported behind him. Alex noticed just in time to raise another ice shield as his master threw a bolt at his back, but this shield wasn't ready for the blast, and Alex was sent flying into a pillar.

The force of the blow nearly knocked him unconscious, and he could feel himself fading. To stay in the fight, he let out an explosion of his frigid power, freezing himself to the pillar in a large chunk of ice. While his body would be out of commission in this state, his mind was still very active, and that was all he needed. From his glacial coffin, he sent forth waves and waves of ice magic through the crystal ground, sending out long ice spires to skewer his master. In response, Lucifer took to the skies, dodging spike after spike as naturally as a trained pegasus. Occasionally, he would dive low enough to take a shot at Alex and his frigid shell. The cryomancer was prepared for this, however, and set up ice shields as the beams approached. Even when a beam did make it past Alex, his shell was thick enough to tank the blow...

...at least at first. After a while, the orange magic began to take its toll on the glacial coffin, leaving a large and rather damp dent that just got deeper and deeper with each shot Lucifer managed to land. Trixie, watching all of this from her little side alley, started to get worried. If Alex lost this fight, she would lose him forever. And though he was doing a good job of holding his master back, it clearly wasn't good enough. She had to do something, anything, to save her only friend. In desperation, she pulled out a pouch of what little magic supplies she had left, and came up with a plan.

Lucifer managed to land another blow on Alex's glacial shell, and took to the skies once more to dodge the frigid spires that were shooting out at him from all directions. He noticed one spire coming straight at him from the ground, and prepared to soar away to the side, when his wings were suddenly pushed together. With all the attacks he'd had to dodge, he hadn't noticed Trixie's rope floating its way through the sky to bind his wings together. With no way to move through the air, and no time to teleport, he plummeted into the spire below, the frigid spike going clear through his-Celestia's-abdomen. Realizing that he had actually hit his target, Alex quickly retracted the spike, slamming Lucifer into the hard ground below and causing the wound to bleed out.

As Lucifer lay there in Celestia's broken body, he just laughed a pitiful, maniacal laugh. "So, my little pony," he chuckled, addressing Trixie for the first time, "you want in on the action too? Perhaps you'd like to be my new host should this one actually kick the bucket. Or do you just want to die that badly? I'll gladly give it to you, if that's what you wish."

"DON'T YOU DARE HURT HER!" At that moment, Alex burst out of his frozen coffin and sped toward Lucifer with ice katana in hand, ready to lop Celestia's head right off. He reached his master and swung...only for Lucifer to put up a hot orange barrier by his neck, vaporizing the blade before it could reach its target and leaving Alex with nothing but a hilt. He was left speechless as he tried to process what happened.

"Word of advice, cryomancer," Lucifer mocked him. "Don't use ice against a sun goddess." With that, he blasted Alex backward, then immediately teleported behind him and bucked him high into the air. Finally, he teleported above his old servant, and obliterated him with a giant golden beam, sending him crashing to the ground near Trixie.

The blue pony ran to her friend as the power dissipated. He was in no state to fight anymore. "You have to run!" she pleaded. "I...I can't lose you!"

"It's okay..." Alex replied weakly. "It'll all be alright..."

Lucifer teleported back in front of the palace, ignoring his own wounds entirely. "Would you like to try again?"

"If you go back out there, he...she...it'll kill you for sure!" Trixie warned him. "Wait, what was that one thing he didn't know? Do you have an ace in the hole?"

"Oh, that..." Alex replied, getting painfully to his feet. He was too wounded to fully stand upright. "What he didn't know...was that I never intended to win."

Trixie's eyes widened with horror as his implication sank in. "Y-you intend to-"

"I've been Lucifer's pawn for so long," Alex explained. "I've been forced to commit far too many unforgivable atrocities to count, without even the sweet release of death to free me from my chains. It's time I was allowed to rest. But letting myself die won't break this cycle by itself." He brought his hand to his chest, and flecks of white magic filled the air around him. When he took his hand away, he was holding a glowing yellow orb: his very soul.

"If I give this to you, Lucifer won't be able to drag me back from the abyss if he kills me. And if you take it, you'll never lose me. I'll be right here, with you...forever." He bent down, and extended his hand out to the blue pony. On its own, his soul floated into her chest, and the white magic-his magic-flowed into her at that spot. She took it all in...and cried. She knew that Alex wasn't going back now.

"Remember, I'll always be with you," Alex reassured her. "Now, you need to go. If Lucifer kills you too, this will all have been for nothing." Using what little power he'd kept to himself, he opened a hole in the road beneath Trixie. As she plummeted into the abyss, she screamed out one final time for Alex to save himself. "I'm sorry, but I can't go with you. My time was up long ago. Now it's time for me to rest."

Cold determination filled his empty shell as he went to face Lucifer once more, knowing that the outcome was already set. His old master charged up a great golden beam, then shot it forth toward his servant. Alex closed his eyes, awaiting the sweet release of the impact, welcoming death as he was engulfed in the light.

Sayonara...

Madness

Groggily, Trixie woke up and took a look at her new surroundings. She was in some sort of crystal cave, the walls and floor just barely lighter than the crystals of the city above. She was lying on her back in a pile of snow, one last gift from Alex to ensure the fall didn't kill her. Looking up, she saw the hole Alex had opened in the crystal street...except that the hole seemed...off somehow. For some reason, staring up at it was starting to hurt her eyes. Finally, she noticed a dark passage, leading Celestia knows where. With no other options, she made her way down this passage, the cave getting darker and darker as she progressed. Eventually, she couldn't see her hoof in front of her face. She lit up her horn to see, only to be met with a solid wall.

In anger, Trixie cursed and punched the wall. It made an odd sound, as if there was something behind it. But how could she get through? There was nothing in her bag of tricks that could bring down a wall of solid crystal...except... Remembering that she now had Alex's soul and powers, she reached out for those powers, only for her horn to crackle and sputter. Maybe his magic didn't work like unicorn magic? She tried again, this time ignoring her horn and searching for the power within herself. She found that power, grasped it, and focused it on the wall. Ice started to force its way into the wall, cracking it, before finally shattering and bringing the wall down with it.

The Great and Powerful Trixie is back! she thought with delight, as she proceeded to the room beyond.

The new room was just as dark and dreary as the last. A door frame was embedded in the far wall, but there was no door or opening within it, just solid dark crystal. A long stairway wrapped around the edges of the room, going all the way up to a hole in the ceiling. That exit seemed so tiny from the floor, and very little of the light beyond it made it to the bottom of the shaft. Irritably, Trixie made her way up the outrageously long staircase. As she got closer to the exit, she started to hear voices...

"So we can't do anything about this?"

"As panicked as the ponies are, the castle's changed. This is the palace as Sombra had it, and we can't switch it back."

"So we'll just have to go about our business with a massive hole in the middle of the throne room."

"That's the least of our worries. What can we do to stop this disaster?"

"Nothing. Haven't I been telling you that? Things have come too far; we're all boned."

"And I told you that I'm not gonna give up on my home that easily!"

Wait. Trixie recognized that last voice... Twilight?

"Hold on. There's somepony down there!"

Finally, Trixie reached the top, and poked her head out. She was rather surprised at the gathering she saw: a human, an Alicorn princess, two unicorns who also looked distinctly like royalty, and...Twilight Sparkle...with wings....

"Trixie!?" Twilight asked, astonished. "How did you get down there!?"

"Trixie is...not entirely sure," Trixie replied.

"...and then Trixie ended up here," Trixie concluded, wrapping up her explanation of Alex's duel.

"Interesting," Daniel replied. "I'd heard that ponies were wandering through holes in the dimensional boundary, but to think there was one below the palace. Nice catch on Alex's part."

"Isn't that kind of a problem?" Shining asked, concerned for his ponies. "If that hole is still open, then Lucifer can come right in here and attack us directly."

"Not if I take him down first," Daniel corrected, summoning his scythe. "Maybe I can't stop the total apocalypse that's going on outside these walls, but I can stop my father from making things any worse than they already are. Besides, he's had this coming for a long time."

"I can't let you go alone!" Twilight blurted out. "Let me come with you. Strength in numbers, after all."

"Uh, yeah, remind me again how well you did the last two times you tried to fight this guy's goons?" Daniel shot back, before suddenly realized what he'd said. "Sorry. But you get my point."

"Then let Trixie accompany you," Trixie asserted smugly. "The Great and Powerful Trixie is certain her new powers will prove useful to you."

"And how long have you had these powers?"

"...about ten minutes..."

"Go home."

Without waiting for any further volunteers, he jumped into the pit, falling all the way to the bottom and taking it like it was nothing. Even in the darkness, it didn't take him long to find the hole Trixie had blown in the wall. He followed the passageway to its end, and looked up into the dimensional void above. Staring at it caused his eyes to sting, like they couldn't accept what they were seeing. Yep, that looks like a dimensional tear all right, he thought silently to himself, before effortlessly jumping through it.

He was greeted with a dark, empty city that...honestly wasn't too different from its parallel version at the time. He turned his attention to the nearby palace. In Twilight's world, the tower looming above him was their last bastion of defense against total annihilation. Here, it was the stronghold of his worst enemy. Filling with determination, he rushed headlong into the palace, his scythe at the ready.

The dark palace was depressing, to say the least. It was somehow emptier than the city outside, leaving Daniel wondering just where his father was as he ran through hallway after eerily still hallway. As he made his way through the palace, however, he felt a presence. A dark, powerful presence. Using that feeling as his guide, he once again raced through the halls, stopping in front of the throne room. At least, it should have been the throne room, from what he recalled of its counterpart's layout.

Why didn't I just come right here earlier? Of course he'd be here.

He burst through the door into a room that was indeed identical to the throne room of the light world palace, minus the massive hole in the middle of the floor. To Daniel's surprise, the one who greeted him, the dark presence he felt, was not Lucifer, but Faris. He sat motionless on the throne, his face propped up by his fist and covered in shadow. He didn't even seem to notice as the grim reaper barged in on him. Daniel wasn't all that disappointed to see Faris instead of his father; he knew going into this that he'd have to deal with the psycho.

"Ready for Round...Seven...teen...?" Daniel tried to get Faris' attention, but his taunt was muddled by confusion. "Sorry, how many times have we done this? I've kinda lost count."

He was met with eerie silence at first...but then Faris began laughing. His laugh got louder and louder, seamlessly changing as it did so from evil laughter to the howls of a madman. As the laugh reached its peak, he finally turned his face toward his adversary. His mouth, still wide open with laughter, spread so unnaturally over his face as to make it look broken, and his red eyes revealed little intelligence outside of his utter sadism, the full brunt of which was now directed at the poor fool who had somehow stumbled upon him. With a speed that would have made Rainbow Dash jealous, he crossed the room almost instantly, and began lashing out at Daniel. The grim reaper was put entirely on the defensive as he found himself trying to dodge a huge assortment of knife whips, chains, and blasts of magic pain simultaneously. Faris licked his lips as he continued to rain death on Death himself.

"KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL..." he started saying on repeat as his onslaught continued.

Oh damn. He really lost it, Daniel realized. Is this what that amulet does to people!?

The moment he thought about the Alicorn Amulet, Daniel remembered all the suffering Faris had caused with the thing: all the pain, all the suffering, all the death. With the Amulet's power, he had become far worse than his master, an abomination that had no right to exist. The mere thought of what Faris was, and what he had done, filled Daniel with justified rage. Black mist surrounded him, once again granting him the power of the Nightmare. With this power, he effortlessly deflected a number of attacks that were about to utterly destroy him.

"You're nothing more than a monster," he stated, raising his scythe to attack. "I cannot allow you to live!"

The two rushed at each other at blinding speeds. Daniel made a wide swing, catching the knife chain Faris threw at him and pulling the psychopath along with it. He tried to retaliate, but his maddened mind simply threw a dozen attacks at the grim reaper, all of which were easily deflected or dodged without altering his course toward the cold crystal floor. Daniel slammed him into the ground, shattering the chain into its knives on impact. Faris hit the floor so hard that it cracked around him, the sharp crystals ripping into him. He got to his feet almost instantly, and uttered a broken laugh as he stumbled around, seeming to get as much joy from his own pain as he got from the pain of others. With the same broken smile on his face, he lurched forward for another assault. Daniel beat back his chain flails, scattering knives as they broke off the chains, but Faris kept replacing them with the endless supply of knives he had hidden up his sleeves. Finally, Daniel saw an opening, and shoved the flat top of his blade into Faris' face.

Again, he let out a broken laugh of masochistic joy as he stumbled around from the force of the blow. "SO...MUCH...PAIN..." Faris rambled, laughing maniacally. "PAIN...AGONY...SO DELICIOUS..."

"You want pain? Here you go!" Daniel retorted, slicing right through Faris. The wound glowed red for several seconds...then closed itself up again.

Faris laughed like a wild hyena. "THIS..." He pointed to the Amulet. "...AND I...ARE ONE! SUCH POWER...SUCH PAIN...MUST...SLAUGHTER!"

A portal opened up behind the psychopath, but rather than throw an attack into it, he just let it get wider and wider. It completely engulfed the two fighters, drowning them in a world of utter blackness. Before Daniel could react, Faris drew a knife and...dropped it into the abyss below, an inky darkness that they themselves were somehow not plummeting into. Suddenly, a knife fell from the sky, barely missing Daniel. Then two. Then three. This bizarre pocket dimension was cloning that one knife as it looped for all eternity, turning that one blade into a massive knife storm.

Faris let out another broken laugh and released two massive bolts of the Amulet's magic, giving them the same treatment as the knives. "YOUR PAIN...YOUR AGONY...I MUST TASTE IT!" he called out, actually licking his lips.

Daniel rushed toward Faris, only to be stopped short as a red beam crossed in front of him. Once he stopped, he had to immediately dodge a couple of knives coming from his right...and then some more beams, then over a dozen knives, then an insane amount of both... He was caught. All of the simultaneous attacks were pinning him down, and it was only a matter of time before he was faced with something he couldn't dodge. And once he was hit, everything else would pile onto him. He kept dodging the metal and magic agony as he desperately looked for a window of opportunity he could use to save himself.

To his surprise, a window was forced open for him.

Out of nowhere, Faris was blasted in the chest by two silver blue beams. Once they hit, the pocket dimension faded away, letting the Amulet magic loose to blast the walls and leaving the knives to bounce pathetically off the floor. The beams sent Faris crashing into the back wall, where their magic turned to ice and froze him to the wall. Surprised, Daniel turned around...and saw Trixie standing in the doorway.

"What the HELL are you doing here!?" he asked.

"There's no time to explain," Trixie answered. "You have to destroy the Alicorn Amulet now!" Daniel turned back to Faris. Though his arms were completely encased in ice, the Amulet was fully exposed. "Trixie's magic won't hold him for long, and you won't get another chance!"

"I hear you," Daniel acknowledged, rushing forward. "Time to send this thing where it really belongs!"

He leaped into the air, and came down blade first on the Amulet. The dark artifact stopped his blow on the spot and left him hanging in midair. This time, however, he didn't stop there. He put his magic power into his scythe as he tried to cut through the Amulet, causing astral sparks to fly off the blade. Just then, the ice started to crack, as Faris struggled to break free so he could save his unholy trinket. Finally, with a roar of exertion, Daniel brought the full extent of his power down on the Alicorn Amulet. It cracked and shattered. The moment it was destroyed, Faris' eyes went milky white, and his body exploded into dark energy soon after. The energy blew Daniel back over toward Trixie, and completely obscured the room. In the utter blackness, Trixie didn't even notice Daniel revert to his normal form. When the energy finally disappeared, a large hole with a staircase to its bottom had opened in the center of the room, just as it had in the other palace.

"What was that!?" Trixie asked in disbelief.

"Faris said something about how he'd become one with the Amulet," Daniel mentioned. "I think it must have corrupted him so much that his soul became tied to it. So by destroying the Amulet, I shattered his soul. Good freaking riddance."

"Well then, has Trixie proven that she can come along on this mission?" Trixie asked, a smug smile on her face.

"...go home."

"You still don't trust the Great and Powerful Trixie to handle herself?"

"It's not that," Daniel explained. "With this fight, all of Lucifer's minions are gone for good. Now it's just him and me, this one final fight against my monster of a father. I appreciate that you want to help, but this is personal." Once again, he skipped the entire staircase and jumped all the way to the bottom of the shaft.

In the Crystal Palace's high tower, the opposite of the room where Twilight had found her world's Crystal Heart, Lucifer was making his final preparations. He had just finished healing the nasty stomach wound Alex had given him, and was finally ready to proceed with his plan. He reached out to levitate two objects: the Crystal Heart, stolen from the light world, and its red counterpart in this world. Slowly, deliberately, he brought the two closer together just over one of the edges of the room. Just as Daniel made his way into the room, having made his way up a crapton of stairs, the two Crystal Hearts reacted to each other, and the green sky above had a seizure.

Only then did Lucifer notice his son's presence. "Oh? Come to witness the end of the world?" he asked rhetorically.

For the first time since the two worlds touched, the sickly green sky finally parted. But what lay beyond was far from the peaceful blue sky everypony had missed for so long. No, beyond the schism was some holy force, a magic reactor of some kind, glowing that same sickly green. Lucifer laughed evilly, but then Celestia's body had a sudden spasm. A dark shadow left her body, and as it left, the blood red drained from her cutie mark and her mane reverted to pink. He had no use for her vessel anymore, and was leaving it behind. As the shadow approached the schism above, it became Lucifer's true physical form, complete with his new left arm coated in white armor.

He laughed maniacally as he looked upon his son and former host. "With this, I can end your worlds' misery in one fell swoop. Finally, this is what the entirety of my existence was leading up to! Look upon this world one last time, as you watch it crumble around you!" With that, he disappeared into the void.

Daniel stepped forward, only to be stopped by Celestia. "You truly think you can stop him?" she asked.

"He was right about one thing," Daniel replied. "Everything's built up to this. I've been chasing my father down for so long, watching as he hurt so many people. For better of for worse, the time has come for this whole thing to end." He jumped up and flew into the schism after his enemy.

Climax

Daniel trudged his way through the astral hall the tear in the dimensional fabric had led him to. The stars...each one felt so far away, yet each had a significance and power that seemed to weigh him down. Their pressure slowed his progress to a crawl as he tried to make his way to the sickly green pillar of light that connected the two closest stars up ahead. It felt so far, yet just within his reach...assuming spacial dimensions meant anything in this void.

As he finally drew near the green light, a surge of power shot through the area, forcing Daniel to his knees and giving him a massive migraine. He fought through the pain and tried to look around...only to be met with a myriad of images from his life. No, not just any images; images of pain and loss. He pulled his head down to the ground in agony as he was forced to relive his constant persecution on his home world, the death of his mother almost immediately upon their first meeting...the death of Luna. The images rushed by, and all the while, Daniel wished for the nightmare to end.

"Sorry, but you're not waking up from this nightmare," Lucifer told him, finally revealing himself. "It's a core part of who you are."

Daniel looked up and glared at his father, his agony immediately replaced with rage. Barely acknowledging his son, Lucifer turned to the green light. "Every star here is another land of pathetic ponies. This power...this is the power holding these two worlds together, the power pulling them toward oblivion. At one time, this would have been based on pure love, and the force would've been far tamer. Now...the force pulling the worlds together is based on your emotional state, your utter loathing for life...namely, your own." He turned to his son. "The Riftspawn exist because your heart commands it. And all of that pain is open to me right now. In this place, I can manipulate this destructive power, and end these pathetic worlds right now!"

Daniel just stood there, stone-faced. Eventually, he just burst into Nightmare form.

Lucifer laughed. "So we're going here right away? Gonna try to kill dear old dad yet again? You may have broken me last time we met..." A multicolored mist ushered forth from his hand, the same colors as Celestia's majestic mane. The cloud grew and grew as he brought his other hand over, both hands vaguely grasping the mist. Finally, the mist disappeared, leaving behind a massive two-handed katana with an orange blade. Lucifer smiled evilly as he took on an offensive stance. "This time, I came prepared."

With lightning speed, Daniel lunged at his father...only for his scythe to be instantly blocked by Lucifer's massive katana. "Really now, did you hear a word I just said?" he asked mockingly. He brushed Daniel's strike aside and stabbed toward his son's chest, only for the Nightmare knight to jump back. He stared down his father, the intense fires of hatred burning in his eyes.

"I'm not letting you go so easily this time!" Daniel growled. "This time, you die!"

"How typical of you," Lucifer scolded. "Even so...this has been coming for quite some time, hasn't it? I suppose my victory can wait...while I erase the mistake that refused to serve me."

With that, Daniel was reminded of what he meant to Lucifer as his "son." The son of a monster with no soul, no understanding of people other than objects, who saw him only as another tool to use. Because of this twisted mentality, Daniel had suffered so much at the hands of his own parent. Memories came flooding back of everything Lucifer had put him through, and his anger exploded. A dark black and green energy burst out into the air from his being, coming down in a rain of deadly lasers. Lucifer simply summoned a cloud of celestial mist above his head, an umbrella against the rain of death. One of the lasers hit the cloud directly and, while the celestial energy drained its power somewhat, it vaporized the cloud and struck Lucifer. He flinched, more out of surprise then pain, before cracking an evil smile.

"Looks like I struck a nerve," Lucifer chuckled.

"Yeah, not your best move," Daniel replied coldly, before lunging at him again. Lucifer blocked his scythe yet again, but this time astral sparks flew as the two blades remained locked together. Rather than find away around his father's massive blade, the enraged Daniel was instead trying to go through it. Lucifer chuckled at this, before sending out a celestial spike to end the pathetic fight right there.

He didn't get that outcome. His celestial mist was countered by Daniel's astral mist, the two cancelling out and disappearing. At the same time, a second astral spike skewed him in the shoulder, right where the white armor of his new left arm met his original dark armor. True pain shot through his body, and his mocking attitude was replaced with rage. He pulled back, freeing his shoulder from the spike, and brought his blade down on his son. Now it was Daniel's turn to block and counter. He pushed the katana aside and swung at his father, only for his blade to meet orange steel as Lucifer immediately attacked back. Once again, they struck at each other, this time sending out a plethora of magic spikes simultaneously. Their blades met yet again, and their magic cancelled each other out. This time, though, Daniel was quicker to react after their blades clashed, rushing forth at lightning speed to slice through Lucifer. He doubled over from the blow, his abdominal wound leaking dark energy, but he was far from done.

"Such a shame," he mentioned, done with his mocking. "You would have made a great servant." He swung behind him at Daniel, letting a wave of celestial mist burst forth from his being as he did so. He pulled himself into the air with an upward strike, the celestial spikes still sprouting from his blade and body, before coming crashing to the invisible ground. Daniel barely dodged this, as the initial burst of celestial energy blinded him. Still blinded after Lucifer had hit the ground, he took a leap of faith and threw his scythe. Lucifer just barely caught this, and turned to face the attack. He was too slow to block the scythe fully, however, and the tip of the blade sunk into his ivory-covered hand. Celestial energy poured from the wound, and rather than just dissipate, it traveled out of the odd space, as if returning to its original owner.

Daniel converted his scythe into astral mist remotely, summoning it back just in time to deflect Lucifer's counterattack. He pushed the katana away and struck back, only to be caught in another blade clash. The two slashed at each other over and over, only for their blades to constantly meet and bounce off each other. With each clash, astral sparks flew off the blades. For quite some time, the two continued in this stalemate. After several strikes, however...Lucifer's katana began to crack. With each blow, the crack grew and split, until the blade finally broke in two, leaving Lucifer with a short and sorry-looking blade.

It was then that Lucifer realized he was losing. Unwilling to accept defeat when his ultimate victory was so close at hand, he reached for the full extent of his power. Jumping back into the air, getting some distance from Daniel, he poured all of his power into his white arm. Daniel did the same, channeling his dark power in a similar manner as he jumped into the air. Lucifer fired a bright yellow beam, while Daniel fired a dark black and green laser. The two bolts met in midair, sparking furiously as they fought against each other. Lucifer held his ground for quite some time, but eventually Daniel's dark energy began to overpower him, the mere magical pressure causing his white arm to throb with pain.

With each throb, the dark beam got closer and closer. When it finally approached its target, Lucifer broke. His white arm cracked and shattered, releasing his celestial power to return to its former owner. The remains of his katana also disintegrated, releasing what magic it contained to add its power to Celestia's. Without that power, his beam sputtered and died, and the dark laser enveloped him. Its power was so great that it left him in a world without sound or feeling, where he was the only thing to see for miles. He looked down at his body, and watched in horror as it started cracking, the cracks releasing blue life energy as they expanded.

He let out one final silent scream as his being broke apart and disintegrated.

With a sigh of relief, Daniel let his Nightmare form slip away. This time, he could feel it for sure. After all the pain and misery he'd been through, he'd finally obliterated the main source. No more darkness, no more pain, no more suffering. His nightmare was finally over, for real this time.

Still, he was curious about that pillar of green light. He bought that it was the power binding the worlds together...but was it really spawned from him? He walked toward the like, hungry for answers. It didn't take him long to reach the pillar. He put his hand in the light...and pulled it back out as the power shocked his system. With that shock, Daniel understood everything: what the light was, what it was doing...and what he could do with it.

He pulled out the pocket mirror Luna had given him, and focused on the Crystal Palace. As he expected, this put him in contact with his acquaintances. Twilight was the first to notice the mirror, and was soon joined by Cadence, Shining Armor, Sombra, and even Celestia, who had somehow found her way back to that world. All of them looked rather concerned, eager for any news.

"Lucifer's dead, for sure this time," Daniel told them. "And...he may have given me a way to stop this mess." All the ponies were left speechless, having given up hope by this point. "This light...this is what's causing your worlds to merge. This is responsible for the Riftspawn. This power...is the end product of all the crap I've been through in my life. Lucifer wanted to screw with this to end your worlds immediately, but I can use it to fix things. I can't separate the worlds; the process has gone too far for that...but I can make them merge peacefully. And once the worlds have safely merged, this power and the Riftspawn will cease to exist."

"Are you sure?" Twilight asked. "I want this world to survive more than anything...but what will this do to you?"

"To be honest, that really doesn't matter," Daniel replied. "I've been through and caused more suffering than any living being should ever be allowed. I owe your world this, and I don't really care about any personal cost. If I live, fine. If I die...I'm ready." Before he could get a response, he flipped the mirror shut, and turned to the light.

Well Luna, this might be it, Daniel thought. I can't thank you enough for your kindness...and for being with me all this way.

His resolve steeled, Daniel disappeared into the pillar of light.

Arrival

The sound of hooves pounding on stone echoed through the empty halls of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. Twilight Sparkle galloped ahead, with her friends following not far behind. It wasn't long before they reached their destination. After passing a seemingly endless number of ornate stone pillars and windows filled with moonlight, the group finally stopped as the light's reach ended, and the hall before them was covered in pitch black darkness.

Out of this darkness shone a blue chest plate, emblazoned with a crescent moon...and above that, two sickly lime green, serpentine eyes, filled with malice.

"It's over, Nightmare Moon," Twilight defiantly proclaimed. The figure in the shadows remained silent...

"Nightmare Moon?" The figure suddenly spoke, surprising all of the ponies before it. Not because it had spoken, but because the voice was...male. "Sorry, never heard of her before," he replied, closing his eyes and putting a hand over his face. The hand, wrapped in a gauntlet of the same blue color as the chest plate, singled the mysterious being out as a human.

"Come to think of it, I don't believe we've met," the human mentioned, a malicious note leaking into his otherwise nonchalant tone. With that, he emerged from the shadows. He wore greaves that matched the same blue color as his gauntlets and chestplate, but otherwise his armor was as pitch black as the coat of Nightmare Moon herself. Being made of metal instead of flesh, the armor suit seemed that much colder and more intimidating. in his right hand, he held a massive scythe, the blade almost dragging on the floor. Where the blade met the pole, there was a lime green jewel with a black slit right down the middle, mimicking its owner's nightmarish eyes. Surprisingly, his head was bare, covered only by his golden hair, a large strand of which dropped down into his face. His eyes...the ponies suddenly realized why his eyes seemed more terrifying than those of Nightmare Moon. She had only wanted dominance over Equestria. Hers were the eyes of a tyrant. These were the eyes of a killer.

"I am Death," the human proclaimed, "and I have come for you all."

"Oh yeah!? Let's see you try!" Rainbow Dash shouted in retort.

At that, the others snapped back into focus. They may have misjudged who their opponent was, but that changed nothing. As one, they transformed into their Harmony forms, colors and cutie marks covering their bodies as they gathered in a bright ball of light. From this light shot a rainbow, aimed straight at this being called Death. As it approached, his mouth contorted into a sinister smile as he raised his free arm to protect himself. The rainbow bolt connected...

...and stopped.

"So this is the power to dispel evil," Death said, cockiness filling his voice. "Too bad the concept of evil doesn't apply to me."

With that, he pulled back his arm, as if brushing the harmony beam aside. Sure enough, the end of the rainbow shattered like glass at that instant, and a shadowy power swiftly made its way along the rest, covering the rainbow in darkness as it approached the ponies, who were now trapped by their own power. The darkness swallowed each pony in turn, ending with Rainbow Dash. As it covered her completely, the magic that held her in place gave way, and she fell into the abyss.

Before long, however, she landed hard on some surface. Slowly, she recovered from the fall, got on her hooves, and opened her eyes to look where she had landed. She immediately wished she hadn't bothered.

She was in Ponyville...or rather, what was left of it. The town looked like it had been hit by some sort of meteor storm. Every single building was destroyed, and most of the wrecks were ablaze. Those places where there was no fire were covered in ash, signifying that the flames had long since passed on. Few ponies could be seen, and those that were appeared to be long dead. Patches of blood stained the corpses and the rubble.

In the distance, behind what was left of a house, lay a familiar orange body.

"No... Oh please no," Rainbow mumbled to herself as she flew as fast as she could to the still bleeding body of Scootaloo. "Why!?" She screamed, tears filling her eyes. "Why did this have to happen!?"

"I told you, didn't I?" At the sound of Death's voice, the world fell away once more, leaving him and Rainbow in a sea of pitch black. "I came for you all, and I didn't mean just you and your friends."

With a snap of Death's fingers, the darkness fell away to reveal a barren wasteland, with no end in site. Nothing seemed to exist in this apocalyptic place, save for a single rock near Rainbow Dash.

"THIS is what I meant," Death gloated.

At that moment, a monstrous silhouette materialized on top of the rock, right next to Rainbow Dash. It was built like a timberwolf, but seemed far sturdier, and far more aggressive. Long whiskers, shaped like lightning bolts, extended forth from its face, and similar growths were attached to its flanks. They had an odd kind of movement, as if they were appendages instead of strands of hair. Malicious green eyes stared Rainbow Dash down, actually managing to make her freeze with fear.

"You see? Your world..."

The creatures eyes turned blood red.

"Shall die."

The creature pounced.

Rainbow jumped right out of her bed. Still in shock from the nightmare she just witnessed, she put a hoof on her chest, covered in her purple cloud bathrobe, to calm her spastic breathing. After a while, she calmed down, and looked around. She relaxed as she saw the familiar scene of her bedroom, the sides tinted teal, wispy lines flowing down the walls. Tank, in his own teal cloudy shell cover, lay, still sleeping, in one corner of the room. A crack of light shone through the purple blinds on the window. It must be early morning...far earlier than Rainbow was used to waking up by.

Just as Rainbow finally assured herself that the horror she had witnessed was just a dream, she heard a knock at her...window. Groggily, she took off her bathrobe and opened the blinds. There, hovering a few inches from her face, was her good friend Twilight Sparkle, looking rather panicked. Not that Rainbow was conscious enough to care.

"'sup, Twilight?" Rainbow remarked, almost yawning out the early morning greeting.

"There's no time for hellos!" Twilight yelled, sticking her face in Rainbow's, and grabbing ahold of the blue mare with her magic. "Come on!" With that, she dragged Rainbow out of her window as fast as she could.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing!?" Rainbow retorted, the shock of her friend's assault snapping her awake. Only then did she look down at the town below.

Ponyville was almost completely covered in black vines, piercing the buildings with strange aquamarine thorns. The vines seemed to have minds of their own, attacking anything and anypony they could wrap around. All throughout town, ponies fled from the black vines, or were their unfortunate victims, hanging off the ground.

"The Plundervines?" Rainbow inquired. Twilight had let her go by now. Though she could easily outpace the purple alicorn, she kept her leisurely speed to keep conversation with her...and hopefully get some answers. "I thought the Tree of Harmony destroyed them."

"Well, they're back now," Twilight answered. "We're gathering at Fluttershy's house to summon Discord. Hopefully, he can fix his mess."

The two mares arrived at Fluttershy's cottage to find the rest of their friends already there. It appeared Twilight had been busy while Rainbow was being tortured in her sleep. The four other ponies, conversing amongst themselves about the situation at hand, looked up in unison as their remaining two friends touched down nearby.

"Ah'm surprised you could get Rainbow up at this hour, Twilight," Applejack pointed out. Rainbow involuntarily cringed at that. She hoped she hadn't just gotten PTSD from a bucking nightmare, of all things.

"Um, I sent Discord a letter," Fluttershy whispered timidly. "He's on his way."

"A letter!?" Rainbow shouted. "That's gonna take forever!"

"Yoohoo!" The familiar voice shocked Rainbow into silence, as a long strip of bark peeled off of Fluttershy's hollow tree home. The bark then changed color, revealing its true form as the draconequus the ponies knew all too well. "Well, happy to see you too," he remarked bluntly, seeing that the shock in Rainbow's eyes had not been replaced with a feeling of annoyance that most of her friends shared. He had gotten used to that look; kind of brought it on himself.

"Well, Discord, now that you're here," Twilight started, giving the draconequus a stern look, "mind telling us why your Plundervines are all over Ponyville again?"

At that moment, the purple alicorn thought she caught the faintest glimpse of something, perhaps Discord's true reaction, before his chaotic personality took over again. It was only there for a fraction of a second, but she thought she saw...surprise? She shook her head to clear her mind. There was no way to be sure; she could just be imagining things. Even if she wasn't, Discord was a trickster. That hint of his "true feelings" could easily have been a ruse to make her drop her guard.

"Oh, I see," Discord replied, as a sentient tissue box popped into existence, hovering near his face. "Blame Discord, just because he made the things. How cruel." He burst into fake tears, waterfalls streaming from his eyes. An umbrella popped into existence to cover Fluttershy, but her five friends were soaked.

"Ok, look, you made these things, what do they want?" Rainbow asked, desperate for answers. The shower ended as Discord turned his attention to her inquiry.

"Oh, I believe you all know the answer to that," Discord replied smugly. "Well, if that's all you needed, I'm going home. Toodles!"

"No ya don't!" Applejack retorted, pulling out a lasso and roping the draconequus to the ground. "You're comin' with us, and you're makin' sure this never happens again."

"Ugh, fine," Discord muttered, separating his body in two at the lasso, then reforming it once he was free. "But only for Fluttershy." The yellow pegasus blushed and backed away.

The ponies-and draconequus-immediately made their way into the Everfree Forest nearby, searching for the Plundervines' target during their last appearance: the Tree of Harmony. Surprisingly, the trip through the forest was relatively uneventful. Yes, they were attacked by Plundervines, Plunder sleep gas venus fly traps, cragodiles, manticores, and other dezinens of the forest, but Discord sent these threats packing in hilarious ways before they could even reach the group. Pinkie Pie, fun-loving mare that she was, burst out laughing in response to most of these encounters. Rainbow, on the other hand, messed up as she was by her nightmare, thought about what these creatures were experiencing. Aside from removing some wings and horns, Discord had only messed with the ponies' personalities. As such, much was left to the imagination when thinking about the excruciating pain the creatures had to be going through in these otherwise silly experiences.

Eventually, the group reached a large gorge. On the other side, across a rickety bridge, was the ruined Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, overrun with black spiked vines. Rainbow gave a shudder when she laid eyes on the ruin, but quickly composed herself. Their goal, the Tree of Harmony, was in the gorge below, with a staircase leading right to it. For now, there was no need to enter the backdrop of her nightmare.

"Is something wrong, Rainbow?" Twilight asked, finally noticing that her friend was not her usual self.

"It's nothing," Rainbow replied. "Just a nightmare. I'll be fine by tomorrow." With that, she and her friends-and Discord-descended into the pit to save the Tree of Harmony.

Except...there was nothing to save. The Tree of Harmony stood there, in its brilliant crystal glory, five of the Elements of Harmony still fixed to its limbs, while the Element of Magic was fixed to its center. There were no Plundervines in sight. Twilight looked to Discord. This time, there was no mistake. He stood there, with his jaw open. He may have made the Plundervines, but it was clear now that the havoc they were currently causing had nothing to do with him. So then what was going on?

"Maybe they found something else to drain?" Rarity inquired, throwing an idea out there.

"Hmm. The castle above us was crawling with the things," Twilight considered. "I believe a thorough search is in order."

"Ooh, this'll be fun!" Pinkie exclaimed, somehow getting brighter and cheerier than usual. She immediately sped off at a speed that made Rainbow jealous.

The rest of them made the climb back up the gorge, and approached the gates of the ruined castle. "Be careful, everyone," Twilight warned. Everyone nodded, except for Discord, who just sort of huffed arrogantly.

The search lasted for hours. Each pony traversed the empty stone halls, the only colors being the black and aquamarine of the Plundervines, and the darkening blue of the sky. Rainbow was on edge the entire time, half expecting the boy from her dream to come around a corner and murder her. Hmph. If he shows up, I'll pound him, she thought to reassure herself.

As the moon rose in the sky, the group lost the energy to continue the search. Discord was getting more and more irritable, sometimes screwing with the ponies just to keep his interest, and even Pinkie had worn herself out. Rainbow thought to check one last room before quitting the search herself. It just so happened to be the room where she and her friends had defeated Nightmare Moon over a year before. It was much like the halls-gray, sterile, cold, featureless except for the pillars and windows at the edges of the room. At the end, however, was a short dais, perhaps where the thrones once were, and behind that the remains of a giant window, through which moonlight shone beautifully on the empty room.

However, Rainbow had none of these things on her mind, for she had found the new source of the Plundervines' energy. And she wished she had just left the door closed. There, on the dais, a large clump of Plundervines were sticking their thorns into a living being. The vines covered up his body, but the golden hair on his head was unmistakable, all the way down to that one large strand that fell over his sleeping face.

It was the boy who had made Rainbow's nightmare a living Hell.

She must have freaked out involuntarily, because all of her friends-and Discord-came running. They were all stunned by the sight, not just because the vines had targeted a living being, but because that being was a human in Equestria, most likely the first. Rainbow's friends started talking about how to free the poor boy, but Rainbow couldn't join in. She had seen this boy before, and wondered if he was truly the monster from her dreams. She wondered if they should even bother freeing him in the first place.

As it turned out, they didn't need too. The boy opened his eyes, and the clump of vines surrounding him were swallowed in a ball of purple light. As the boy jumped out of this light, eyes closed once more, the light dissipated to reveal that the vines restraining him had been severed. Now that he was free, Rainbow could see that this boy looked different from the one in her nightmare, though they were unmistakably the same. The nightmare armor was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he wore a brown leather jacket, the body of which stopped halfway to his waist, with a plain white shirt underneath. He wore regular blue jeans, leading down to brown shoes. A scarf of the same color brown decorated his neck, flapping in the drafty air of the ruin. He opened his eyes, and, while they were of normal shape, the irises were blood red. He held his right arm out to his side, and the same shadowy power from Rainbow's dream gathered around it, materializing his scythe in his hand. It was the same scythe Rainbow had seen, but instead of a nightmare eye, the jewel was dark purple, almost black.

"Well, this is certainly no Paradise," the boy said to himself. The voice lacked the hints of malice, but was otherwise the exact same as the voice of his Nightmare counterpart.

Right then, five Venus Plunder traps came in through the windows, apparently not so keen on letting their prey slip away. This time the ponies weren't given the chance to even think of helping. As the venus traps approached, the boy cut them all down in a single swing, wielding his massive scythe with one hand. Finally, a giant trap broke through the stone dais, preparing to finish him. Without hesitation, the boy turned around and jammed his scythe's blade right into the venus trap's mouth. It writhed, fell still, and disintegrated, bringing the rest of the Plundervines with it. The ponies and draconequus just stood there with their jaws on the floor...even Discord's. Finally, the boy turned around, and noticed his spectators.

"Who the hell are all of you?"

Author's Note

So, I was planning on making a comic version of this. Not sure how well it translates to a written form, especially since I suck at this medium of storytelling. Tell me what you think.

Regrets

Twilight and Daniel walked through a beautiful garden, filled with a wide assortment of colorful flowers. After coming all this way through a desolate wasteland, Twilight was more than glad to finally feel grass under her hooves again. She was happy to see that deep shades of red, blue, and an assortment of other colors had popped up where there had once been nothing but barren land and an overwhelming sense of evil. There was even a hedge maze further back...which reminded the purple alicorn a bit too much of a certain draconequus. All of this lush green could only mean one thing in this world: they were approaching their destination.

In front of the two stood a large palace of pure white. Gold columns jutted out from the marble surface periodically, and the window and door frames were lined with pink stone. The whole castle had a regal air about it, befitting its occupants. Although, Twilight did feel the design suited Celestia more than it did Luna. Maybe she was a bad architect?

"No way. This can't be the wreck I woke up in," Daniel mentioned in disbelief, staring in awe at the majesty before them.

"Quite a lot has changed since I was last here," Twilight noted. "Last time I saw it, this place looked dead."

"Not a lot of guards," Daniel realized. In fact, they hadn't seen a single pony since they left Sombra's castle. "Hell, are you sure anyone's even here?"

As if in response, the massive palace gates creaked open, seemingly of their own accord. After a brief pause to recover from the surprise, Daniel motioned to Twilight, as if he took the odd occurrence as an invitation. Twilight entered the palace, and her human friend followed her inside.

They entered into a large foyer, as grand and elegant as the palace exterior. The tiles were made of stunning white marble, as were the walls. A large circle of dark blue carpet sat in the middle, with two long branches heading off to connecting hallways at the sides of the room. While the color was dark, it was actually soothing and inviting, not cold like the entirety of Sombra's castle. Beyond that was a pink marble staircase, winding its way to the upper floors. Gold pillars stretched from the floor to the ceiling three stories up. Orange and blue banners lined the walls. Twilight was absolutely stunned. All of this had been built in the four months or so since all that craziness had gone down.

"It's been some time, hasn't it?" A familiar voice responded from somewhere. "I welcome you to our castle."

From a door on the upper balcony came Celestia. Only, this wasn't quite the pony Daniel met before things got crazy. Her head was covered with a blue helmet with white stripes along the sides, its design reminiscent of Egyptian culture. Oddly enough, her multicolored mane seemed to phase right through this helmet and flow freely beside her. Blue metal lined the back of her necklace, black stripes protruding off of it. Her golden slippers each extended a rod of gold up her leg to a clasp.

"Were you expecting us?" Daniel replied, a smarmy smile forming across his face.

"I'm sure you understand the severity of the situation," Celestia started her explanation. "We were hoping you could help us find a solution.

"Yeah, I understand," Daniel affirmed, "but do you? After all, do YOU know how those monsters factor into this?"

"You raise a good point," Celestia noted, her smile fading. "We know next to nothing about these Riftspawn, other than that they only attack you."

"Oh, is that what you're calling 'em?"

"They appear to be formed from the magical energy binding our worlds together, as if they were born in the rift between them. Hence the name."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Daniel responded, though he was still wrapping his head around it. Oddly enough, of all the questions he had, he never thought to ask how the white alicorn mare standing before him knew they were coming. After all the desolation he'd seen, he just took it for a lucky guess. Where else was there to go? Even so, there was one little question, a small hint of curiosity, that had been nagging at him almost since the conversation started.

"By the way, who's 'we'?"

"You do not appreciate the Royal Canterlot Voice?" Celestia answered, a wry smile cracking on her face. Daniel's expression went flat with unamused disbelief. "My sister is further inside, working to get you both home," she answered truthfully.

Her sister. Twilight's Celestia had mentioned a sister, but Daniel hadn't stayed in Equestria long enough to meet her. His eyes lit up with curiosity as he restraightened his posture, looking the tall alicorn monarch squarely in the eye.

"It seems you're eager to get going," Celestia noted, chuckling. "Luna's waiting for you upstairs."

Twilight and Daniel walked behind Celestia as she guided them through the empty hallways of the palace. Something about the quiet put Daniel on edge. True, the blue carpet and marble walls were beautiful, as was the view from the occasional window, but...there was no one here. Why was the palace so empty?

"Say, where is everyo- er, enerypony?" he asked. He was beginning to hate this world's vocabulary.

"Luna and I haven't been...benelovent for very long," Celestia explained. "For centuries, we've been a plague to this world. Now that we've switched places with Sombra, we're struggling to get ponies to trust us. And even if we could, our reign of terror was long. Aside from Sombra's guards, everypony is long gone."

"They still trust him?"

"They still believe their old master is in there somewhere. It gives them hope...false hope."

The white princess of the sun stopped as she stopped in front of a set of double doors. The doors were lined with gold, and were otherwise covered in a dark blue velvet, the color of midnight. Celestia grabbed both doors with her magic, and pushed them open.

The three entered into a regal bedroom. A round blue carpet covered the center of the room. This carpet was darker than the one outside, the same color as the door. The marble floor and walls were a lighter blue, and the ceiling was covered by a mural depicting the starry night sky. To the left was a bed, the sheets and the curtains hanging above all different shades of blue, the framework made of ebony. at the back was a door of that same ebony, glass panels placed in the frame, leading out to a balcony. To the right was a dark blue vanity, black splotches decorating the frame, with a rather large mirror, adorned with a crescent moon at the top.

In front of the mirror, her horn glowing, was another alicorn like Celestia. Her coat was a dark blue, almost dark gray, save for a black splotch along her flanks. Upon each flank, sitting upon the splotch, was a crescent moon. her mane was a deep blue, and her tail had a light blue streak through this same hue. She wore a headdress and scarf of the same light blue, and the scarf had a yellow and black pattern near its edges that was once again reminiscent of Egyptian culture. Her light blue hoof slippers clamped to her legs. She turned to the group, her blue-green eyes falling on each one as she smiled.

Daniel was speechless.

"Sister, is the spell ready?" Celestia asked.

"Not quite," Luna answered. "We need the boy."

"H-huh? Me?" Daniel asked, surprised and confused, as he was gently pulled toward the vanity.

"May I ask your name?" Luna queried as she let Daniel go.

"Daniel. Daniel Hayes," he replied. His composure had returned to him, and he responded in the same calm, serious manner as always.

"Well, Daniel," Luna began, turning both him and herself to the vanity's mirror, "we have a spell in this world that allows us to use a mirror to look in on our friends, and communicate with them from a long distance."

"That...would explain a lot," Twilight noted, only now wondering how Celestia had kept tabs on her pre-alicorn adventures. Her impression of her mentor suddenly darkened.

"We were hoping that," Luna continued, "since you were able to come here because of your dimensional sensitivity, your power could allow us to contact ponies from Twilight's world. Perhaps, if your sensitivity's strong enough, you could use the connection to bring Twilight home."

"Anypony you have in mind?" Daniel questioned in reply. "It's a communication spell, right? Somepony's gotta be on the receiving end."

"We should contact my Celestia," Twilight answered. "She needs to know what's going on over here. And...she needs to know we're safe."

"Very well," Luna responded, her horn still glowing. "I already have the spell prepared. Daniel, could you please touch the mirror?"

Daniel put his hand to the mirror's surface. A second later, he and the vanity began to glow, and then stopped, the light fading away. The mirror's surface turned cloudy, but soon cleared to reveal a room in a familiar castle. It was a bedroom, arranged similarly to the one they were currently in. The walls were white marble, and the floor was black and white tile. A red carpet lay on the floor, and a bed with sheets and drapes of similar colors sat over to the side. A window across from the vanity revealed that the green sky had invaded Equestria as well. Pacing around the room was the Celestia Twilight knew. Suddenly, she noticed the figures in the mirror, and sped to her own vanity.

"What!? But how?" Celestia asked, confused.

"Sorry, my bad," Daniel responded nonchalantly.

"Apparently he's sensitive to dimensional portals," Twilight explained. "Even though the mirror was broken, he was still able to cross through to this world."

"Can't get back, though," Daniel continued. "These freaking monsters smashed the exit statue."

"They're on your side, too!?" Celestia exclaimed, alarmed. She calmed down a bit. "No matter. They appear to be harmless."

"Not quite. They'll attack me," Daniel mentioned.

"What!? Why?" Celestia asked. "Well, don't worry. Once we fix things, you'll be safe."

"How?" Daniel replied flatly. As he paused, the room went still, as everypony realized the implication behind his question.

"The only reason the boundary between your worlds was fixed in the first place was because Sombra became evil to balance stuff out or some crap like that, right? Well, news flash! I'm not from any Equestria. There's no other me, so there's nothing TO balance out. That's why the Riftspawn are here: because both of your worlds realize that the only way to fix this mess...is to take me out of the equation entirely." At that, he moved to the back wall by the door, a cold and somber look spreading over his face as he leaned against it.

The alicorns were dumbstruck. Luna and both Celestias were busy trying to process what they just heard, trying to come up with a possible alternative. Twilight, however, was still struck dumb by the horror of Daniel's implication. He doesn't really have to...DIE, does he? she thought, trying to reassure herself, hoping in vain that, if she kept telling herself the answer was no, then it would be true. Finally, driven to her last nerve by the thought, she changed the subject.

"So, uh, how's everything going in our Equestria?" She had hoped Celestia would cheer up and break into small talk. Instead, she began to share her own grave news.

"Immediately after the sky turned green," she began, "the Cutie Map sent Rainbow Dash, alone, deep into the northern mountains. There, she encountered another human. Unfortunately, this one was hostile, and she barely survived the encounter."

Twilight's pupils minimized with the shock. "Is...is she okay?"

"She's at the hospital getting surgery," Celestia replied. "Her assailant stabbed her in the stomach. Apparently, he had the ability to open holes in the fabric of space, and he just thrust a knife through one of these into Rainbow. She said his name was-"

"Faris Elfriede."

Everypony turned to look at Daniel. His face was still cold and somber, but had shifted slightly to show that different emotions and reasons were behind it. "For give me, Your Highnesses. It appears that I've brought a far greater threat to Equestria than any of us had realized."

"Daniel...you know Rainbow's attacker?" Twilight asked tentatively.

"Know him?" Daniel replied. "I thought I killed him. He's one of the underlings of the monster that ravaged my world...of evil incarnate, Lucifer. And if he's alive, so is his master."

"You said you killed Lucifer," Twilight mentioned. "Maybe Faris was just here on his own. It could be just him."

"Not even him anymore," Celestia mentioned in reply. "Rainbow told me she killed Faris in the struggle."

"Uh, bullcrap," Daniel replied. "I wouldn't expect you to know this, but Lucifer's lackeys don't die. He's tied their souls to his, so they need him to survive...but as long as he lives, they can never truly die. I'll believe that your friend defeated him by some miracle...at which point he just rematerialized elsewhere."

"You seem to know a lot about these people," Luna noted.

"Well, yeah," Daniel responded. "I must have killed Faris and his friends at least three times each on my own world."

"Still, tied to his soul?" Twilight questioned. "That sounds like torture."

"Tell me about it," Daniel answered. "Lucifer is a monster. He sees others as nothing but meat or tools...even his own son." He moved to the ebony doors and walked onto the balcony as the room fell silent. After some time, Luna decided to follow him. Before Twilight and Celestia could do the same, the other Celestia spoke up.

"There's one more thing I think you should know."

Daniel stared out into the desolate wasteland, ruminating on the events of the last couple of days. Night had fallen, dimming the sky's glow to a dark green. Next to nothing else could be seen from the palace to the horizon. It really gave him a sense of how empty this part of the world had become. He was so lost in thought that he barely noticed Luna had joined him until she spoke.

"This evil that has followed you to Equestria, this Lucifer.... He's your father?" she asked.

"Yep." Daniel replied flatly. "What do you think? Son of the Devil himself, at your service." He chuckled slightly, more out of pain and disgust than amusement. "You must hate me."

"Why would you say that?" Luna wondered. "You haven't done anything wrong." She looked out at the glowing green sky. "...intentionally."

"Thanks," Daniel replied sarcastically, though he understood her intentions. This time, they both chuckled happily.

"You know, though I regret it, I was evil once," Luna mentioned. "Thinking back to what my sister and I used to be, I think I understand how you feel about your father."

"Thanks for trying," Daniel replied, "but whatever you were back then can't compare to what he is...and what I am." He looked down at his hand, wispy shreds of shadow emanating from it.

"I take it that being the 'son of the Devil himself' wasn't easy?" Luna queried.

"Tell me about it." Daniel paused, and then began his story. "As Lucifer's child, I was born with dark powers, and a purpose. I was intended to be the Grim Reaper. But my mother didn't want Dad's influence to warp me, so she abandoned me. Fair enough, I would have done the same thing in her situation...but it led to a rough childhood. Not only was I an orphan, but my dark powers were feared by everyone. For 18 years, I was ostracized everywhere I went. Fighting for my life was just Tuesday to me. And things got so much worse when Dad finally found me. He tried killing off a whole village just to get to me, and when he did.... I could see it in his eyes. He didn't want a son. He wanted another killing machine. Thinking back, those 18 years made my decision easier. Choosing to fight Lucifer was easy enough, but when I found out we were linked, that killing him would supposedly mean my death, too, I didn't hesitate at all. I'd be saving my world from evil, and if I died in the process, eh, no one'd miss me.

"But then I woke up in Equestria. I wasn't in Paradise. I was alive, in a place where no one knew me, where I could start fresh. I thought the world was giving me a clean slate, a chance to be happy for once in my life." He looked down and grimaced. "Now I know it was all just 'cause I didn't finish the job."

Luna put a comforting hoof around Daniel's waist. "Whatever trials may come, I'm sure you'll be able to overcome them."

Daniel paused. "Back on my world, I was willing to trade my life for peace. Oddly enough, now that people actually value me, I don't think I could make that commitment again. I don't want to die."

"We'll find another way," Luna reassured him. "You deserve to live just as much as any of us."

"Thank you," Daniel replied. "It means a lot to me."

Just then, Twilight walked onto the balcony. "We might have a way out of here," she blurted out.

"Seriously?" Daniel asked, part surprised, part hopeful...part disappointed.

"According to Rainbow," Twilight started, "Faris used his power to send an ancient treasure called the Chalice of Reflections to another dimension. That chalice's enchantment is based in dimensions, so you might be able to take us home if you touched it. And Celestia believes it was sent to this dimension."

"Wait, why? And how?" Daniel asked. "Last I checked, Faris' power didn't transcend dimensions. And remember, my world was four dimensions on top of each other. I think he would have used that power there if he had it."

"True," Twilight answered, "but your world's dimensions seem to have been linked, but separate. As things are, this dimension and my dimension are starting to overlap and merge. That's why Celestia thinks the chalice is here: given the extent of Faris' power, this is the ONLY other world he could have sent it to."

"Makes sense," Daniel noted, slightly worried about the implications behind that explanation. "So where is it?"

"Apparently, he just dumped the chalice in the room where it was found. Well, this world's version of that room."

"So we're gonna be freezing our butts off in the mountains," Daniel realized, a flat expression covering his face. "Can't wait."

"Wait." A dark blue hoof reached out to Daniel. "Once you return Twilight to her world...will you return here?"

"I'll see what I can do," Daniel answered. "My next priority after getting her home is finishing what I started with dear old Dad. I don't know what either of your worlds have been through, but I doubt they'll last long if he sticks around."

"Then I wish you luck," Luna replied. "Just know that there will always be a place for you here."

Fireworks flared from a little wooden cart, sitting in the center of the green Canterlot courtyards. Jutting out from the side of the cart was a small fold-up stage, around which a small crowd of ponies had gathered. Upon the stage, her horn glowing purple with magic exertion, was a light blue unicorn with a silver mane and tail. Her cutie mark depicted a wand swirling with magical energy, and arrogance swirled in a similar fashion behind her purple eyes. She wore a purple wizard hat and cloak, both speckled with stars of varying hues of blue and yellow.

Trixie was happy to be back in business. Her traveling magic show had taken a dip-well, more like a downward spiral-in popularity when an incident involving a certain purple unicorn and-more importantly, she now realized-a couple of overenthusiastic fans had ruined her Great and Powerful reputation. Months later, she had returned to Ponyville to punish Twilight with the Alicorn Amulet, a source of powerful dark magic. The fallout from that mistake brought her popularity to rock bottom, and this time, there was no one to blame. Now, however, fear had spread throughout Equestria, as the sickly green sky implied dark times for the world. Realizing that dark times would turn people toward entertainment, Trixie thought now would be a good time to restart her show. Sure enough, ponies once again flocked to her stage, eager to forget the madness above their heads.

The new monsters were rather interesting to her. Since they seemed to be harmless, Trixie thought that she could use them in her tricks. Maybe that could even reassure ponies that they had nothing to fear from these new arrivals. Unfortunately, that didn't quite go as planned. It wasn't just violence that the monsters didn't respond to; they ignored anything Trixie did. Before long, she realized that she wasn't the problem, that they ignored everypony. No, that was too simple an explanation. More like everypony physically didn't exist to them.

The crowd asked for more, and Trixie obliged. Lifting her hat with her horn, she transformed it into a bouquet of flowers. Standing on her hind legs, she pulled the bouquet in and embraced it, hiding the buds with her head. When she lifted her head, the buds were replaced by doves, which flew up into the air before landing on Trixie's head. After resting there as a flock for some time, the doves scattered, revealing that Trixie's hat was intact and now back on her head. The crowd gazed in awe, too stunned to applaud.

Finally, someone clapped, catching Trixie's attention before the rest of the crowd followed suit with hoof stomps. Normally, Trixie would have just lapped up the praise and adoration in her usual smug way, and she still did some of that...but that first applauder stayed in her mind...because he was human. She could only see his face through the crowd, but his face was clearly not that of a pony. She was fascinated by this chance encounter, and also confused as to how no one else had noticed this supposedly mythical creature just sitting in the back of the crowd.

Suddenly, after having apparently moved far enough away from the crowd to avoid notice, he got up and began to leave. Trixie took this as her cue to close up for the night, eager to meet this person. After she had finished packing her supplies and folding her stage, and after the crowd had cleared out, she headed down the hill in the direction the human had left.

She found him sitting on the side of the grassy hill, looking vacantly out to a horizon tinted dark green by the warped sky. He wore a black suit, the edges of the top half lined with gold trim. His silver hair flowed in the wind, a clump of it forming a crest in front of his face that stretched off to his left. The ends of his suit coat covered over a belt, with one loop attached to the outside on his right. Resting in that loop was the handle of a katana, though it bore no blade. His cold blue eyes were filled with bottled up sorrow and regret.

Trixie sat down next to him. "Like the show?" she asked quietly, seeing that the man was in no mood to be treated casually.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah," the man replied absently. "It was...nice."

"Nice?" Trixie asked, noting the pause. Was this human insulting her?

"Yeah, I liked it," the man answered. "Made me feel happy for a bit. I'd give anything for that feeling."

"Life is rough?"

"You could say that."

"I could give you a private show, if you want."

"Thanks, but I can't stay."

"Say, what are you doing here, anyway?"

"Stalling. Preparing myself. Either works."

"Whatever your job is, it sounds tough," Trixie mentioned. The man chuckled at this, but the laugh was obviously out of pain instead of amusement. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Alex. Alex LaFelle," the man replied.

"Well, Alex, you're welcome to stop by again anytime," Trixie told him. "The Great and Powerful Trixie shall make sure you get in for free." Easy enough. All of her shows were free. Suddenly, she started thinking about charging for admission for once.

"I'd like that," Alex replied with a smile, though his reply was tinged with sorrow. He got on his feet, and turned his gaze back to the horizon. After a long pause, he spoke again.

"I have to meet with a friend of yours soon," he mentioned. This confused Trixie. Trixie has friends?

"She doesn't know it, but she could bring ruin upon Equestria if she continues what she's doing," Alex continued. "I have to convince her to stop, but I doubt she'll listen." He looked to the ground in pain. "If she doesn't...I may have to hurt her."

Trixie reached out to Alex, his pain so great that even she could feel it. "Hey, if you think it's the right thing to do, then do what you have to. I understand."

Alex stared into her eyes for a second, before closing his own in understanding. A smile spread across his face, though sorrow still seeped through his expression. When he opened his eyes, his sorrow and guilt were mixed with determination.

"Thank you, Trixie," he said. "I needed to hear that." All of a sudden, he disappeared in a flash of cold white light. And just like that, he was gone.

Author's Note

Sorry this chapter took so long. Took forever to sort out the exact events at the palace in my mind. I'll be on track again soon. Also sorry this chapter is so long.

Clarity

Apple Bloom ran through the crowd, just as panicked as everypony around her. As soon as the Crystal Heart had truly left the Empire, waves upon waves of Riftspawn soared down from the sky and swarmed the city. What had been a safe haven for such a short and bittersweet time had now become a labyrinth of death and chaos. In their panic, ponies lost their way trying to escape the city, ultimately running straight into the monsters they were trying to flee from. Apple Bloom was no different. It didn't help that she had only been to the Crystal Empire once, and had no idea where she was going to begin with.

Right now, she was just trying to break free of the hordes of ponies who threatened to trample her in their own panic long before the eldritch abominations even reached her. Finally, she did find a hole in the stampede, and broke away into an empty alley. She ran as fast as she could...and quickly stopped. Towering over her was the dark wall of a building, like the ones on either side. A dead end. She turned around to run elsewhere, when a green bolt struck the exit behind her, spawning a glowing green wolf. She was trapped. She backed away from the monster until her rump was pressed against the wall, then shut her eyes tight, awaiting the inevitable...

Her death never came. She opened her eyes to see the wolf dissolve before her. Shining Armor stood at the entrance to the alley, his horn still glowing. Apple Bloom calmed down when she saw the prince, but the terror and fear refused to leave.

"Are you alright?" Shining asked. The filly could only barely muster a nod. "Good. Twily and your sister asked me to look out for you. Come on, we need to go."

"G-go where?" Apple Bloom asked. "Ah thought we weren't safe anymore!"

Shining averted his gaze in shame. "We may be able to close off the palace," he explained. "Everypony inside would be safe, but...we can't hold everypony." He turned back to her with a look of stern determination. "So if you want to live, we have to go now."

The prince held out a hoof to Apple Bloom. She took it, her whole body shaking with anxiety, and he helped her to her hooves. With a nod, Shining led the way back to the palace. Riftspawn assaulted them on all sides, but Shining was able to destroy all of them and erect shields to block their attacks. Eventually, the square where the Crystal Heart once rested came into view. Before the two could rush toward it, however, a massive green bolt struck the street, summoning a titan to block their path. Apple Bloom cowered behind Shining Armor, while the prince stared the monster down and raised a shield around them, bracing himself for the worst. The titan lifted its massive sword...

...and was suddenly split in two. As Shining dropped his shield in surprise, the behemoth dissolved away, revealing Daniel as its destroyer. He lowered his scythe and greeted the prince. "Need a hand there?"

"Daniel," Shining greeted him, relieved. Apple Bloom timidly popped out her head from behind her escort. "Can you show this filly inside? I need to go back and save everypony I can."

"Will do," Daniel obliged. Suddenly, something caught his eye. "Get down!"

The grim reaper ducked, and Shining put up his shield again, as a massive fireball soared over their heads and crashed right behind Daniel. As the fires began to die down, without completely disappearing, they revealed Silas, his limbs ablaze. His eyes were filled with so much blind rage that they too seemed to be on fire. As Daniel and Shining Armor prepared to fight the pyromancer, he slowly and deliberately stepped forward, his rage causing dark crystal spikes to rise around his feet.

"GIVE. ME. BACK. MY. SISTER!" he yelled, His burning body pulsing with flames. Daniel stood in Silas' way, readying himself for punishment. He knew how dangerous this kind of fury could be; he'd let himself be consumed by such rage twice already.

"I don't understand you. Any of you," Silas growled. "Why are you all trying so hard to keep Alice from me? I...I just want us to be happy!"

"Alice?" Daniel asked in confusion. Suddenly, it all clicked for him. "You think this pony's your sister, by some odd little miracle, don't you? News flash: your sister is long gone."

"LIES!" Silas roared. "She's standing right there! She may not remember me, but those memories...they're in there somewhere. I just need to help her remember. Buy you... You and all these ponies won't let her go. So I'm just going to burn anyone and anything that keeps her from me to ashes!" His fires flared with his rage. "And I'll burn your ashes to ashes! And I'll burn those ashes to ashes!"

He rushed at Daniel, his body disappearing into a great blaze. Daniel blocked the assault, but the force pushed him back as Silas tried to force his fist through the astral barrier. As the raging ball of fire approached the two terrified onlookers, Silas twisted his blow, propelling the two up into the air as the force of his attack was redirected upward. As the two soared high above the city, Daniel finally managed to break free of the power struggle, his own magic suspending him at that altitude. He lashed out at Silas, who nimbly dodged each swing from his massive scythe. He dodged above the grim reaper, and retaliated with a powerful burning punch, sending Daniel crashing down into one of the rooftops below. He rocketed down toward his victim, his body igniting as if it were re-entering the atmosphere, ready to finish off his adversary. Instead, as he entered the dust cloud, he was blindsided as a powerful slice tore into him and sent him hurtling away toward the palace. The dust settled, revealing that Daniel had donned his Nightmare armor.

"Fine. You wanna do this the hard way, we can do this the hard way!" Daniel growled, before speeding off after his adversary.

The two clashed in midair, darkness and fire battling for supremacy as they careened through the air toward the palace wall. Daniel reached the spire first, planting his feet on the crystal wall as he turned and raised an astral barrier. A second later, Silas crashed into the shield with full force, stopping in place while dissipating the astral mist on contact. In that split second, Daniel hooked Silas with a massive swing, pinning him to the wall, the proceeded to grind him all the way up the spire. Finally, they reached an open room at the top of the palace, where Twilight had found the Crystal Heart in the past. Without any more wall to grind Silas into, Daniel forcefully threw the pyromancer into the center of the room, cracking his skull on the hard crystal floor.

"You lost your chance at happiness long ago," Daniel stated. "I won't allow you to take happiness from anyone else just to satisfy yourself!"

As he heard those words, Silas' rage flared, his flames growing steadily hotter. As he got up, the air around the two heated up to the point where it distorted the room. He let out a long, loud roar, an explosion of his rage, as several large red crystal spikes shot out of the floor around him. As these spikes touched the air, they caught fire, spiking the temperature to levels rivaling lava. Instinctively, he channeled his rage into the crystal beneath his feet, shooting more flaming crystals out of the walls to skewer the Nightmare before him. Daniel dodged, and swung at the flaming spikes, effortlessly splitting them in two. As Silas lost his crystal defense, he once again attacked Daniel directly, throwing punch after flaming punch at the grim reaper while summoning flaming spires all the while. Daniel dodged all of this while brutally and continually rushing his foe, smashing the burning crystals into him when they got in the way. As the fight continued, the room just got hotter and hotter, and Silas got angrier and angrier. Eventually, his vision turned almost completely red, as his adversary simply refused to die. He blazed, building up his rage, before letting it all out in a massive roar. With this, the air in the room reached its temperature limit, and caught fire. The room exploded, throwing Daniel clear and sending him plummeting to the ground, where Shining Armor and Apple Bloom were still watching in disbelief.

He recovered just in time to dash out of the way as Silas came crashing down where he lay like a scorching meteor. With what clarity of mind he had, he summoned his pistols and fired repeatedly at the grim reaper, hoping the advantage of range would be enough to take the monster down. Daniel simply blocked the bullets with a shield of astral mist. He sent out a magic spike that caught Silas' arm, sending one of his pistols flying. He took this opportunity to take a big swing at his adversary, catching his other arm as he stepped back at sending his other pistol flying to the side. At this point, Silas' rage boiled over once more, and it consumed too much of his mind for him to do anything about his lost weapons. Pressed against a wall, he shot out a multitude of burning crystals around him, forcing Daniel back. The onslaught didn't stop there, as burning spires rose from the road beneath them, pushing the grim reaper back toward the palace plaza, while Silas moved slowly and deliberately toward him, waiting to let out the full force of his rage.

Eventually, a red crystal spire thrust right through Daniel's back, going straight through his Nightmare armor as his own rage was replaced with pain and surprise. This was the chance Silas had been waiting for, and Daniel suddenly noticed as he started to unleash his fury.

Well crap.

With another furious roar from Silas, the crystal spike burst into flames while still lodged in Daniel's torso. The pain burned through his body, shattering his concentration entirely as he roared in agony. Finally, as the flames died down, the Nightmare armor and powers faded off of the barely conscious Daniel. The spike retracted back into the ground, unceremoniously dropping his broken body onto the hard crystal road. As Silas approached the reaper, his right fist flared ablaze. He stood above his defeated enemy, the flames of rage still burning in his eyes, and prepared to thrust his blazing fist through Daniel's skull. As he was, Daniel was barely able to process what was happening, let alone dodge the attack. This was it for him...

A shot rang through the air.

Silas' rage, along with all of his other feelings, faded away as the bullet passed through him. Surprised, Daniel raised his head the few inches he could to see what had happened. One of Silas' guns had landed near Apple Bloom and, in fear and desperation, she had figured out how to pull the trigger. Even now she looked terrified, more than what she had just done than the monster she had shot.

White flames suddenly poured out of the bullet holes, as if they were purging Silas' very being.

"C'mon sleepyhead, wake up! You've been snoozing all day!"

"Mphh...? All right, Alice, I'm up. What do you want?"

"You promised to take me to the park today, remember?"

"...yeah, I did, didn't I? Come on, let's go."

"...you're leaving for the army tomorrow, aren't you?"

"You're still worried about that? The barracks are right here in town. I'm not going anywhere."

"Really?"

"Really. I'm not leaving you anytime soon."

"You're always gonna be here for me?"

"Always..."

Silas finally came to his senses, and turned to the filly he had been hounding this whole time. The sadism, the confusion, the rage, the sorrow, all of it had left his eyes, replaced with a final semblance of clarity and sanity. Still trembling, Apple Bloom lowered her gun, realizing as she looked into the pyromancer's eyes that he wouldn't hurt her anymore.

"I...I get it now," he told her. "You're not my sister. She's long gone...and until now, I could never accept that. I twisted myself, thought I'd feel better if the whole world could feel my pain, but...this isn't what she would have wanted." He turned fully to Apple Bloom, and looked her squarely in the eyes. "I...I'm truly sorry for what I did to you. And I thank you...for helping me to finally see the truth."

He stumbled forward as white embers flowed off his body, and looked up to the sky. "I'll see you soon, Alice..."

With that, he dissolved into a flurry of white embers, which floated away and lit the turbulent green sky like stars.

Apple Bloom stared blankly upon the chaos below from her room in the Crystal Palace. The doors behind were locked tight, ensuring that nopony would disturb her. This was starting to become the full extent of her new daily routine. After the battle, she was...different. She retreated deep within herself, haunted and confused by the trauma Silas had put her through. Even now, as she watched pony after pony fall to the Riftspawn, she felt nothing. She was incapable of feeling anything, at least not now...

"Got a lot on your mind?"

She jumped as Daniel somehow found a way into her room, and was leaning nonchalantly on the wall in the corner. As bad as his injury was, it appeared to have healed completely. He even got his clothes fixed. "H-how'd ya get in here!?" Apple Bloom inquired.

"Eh, I've been experimenting with my new powers," he answered, letting out small wisps of astral mist from his hand. "Just figured out how to use this stuff to teleport. That said...wanna tell me why I needed to teleport to get in here to begin with?"

"It's none of your business!"

"It's someone's, and since I'm the only one who can even get in here, it might as well be mine," he explained in a matter-of-fact manner. "Besides, I'm pretty sure I know what's bothering you."

Apple Bloom looked away, still struggling with her experiences. "What...what'd Ah do to him? Why'd he come after me?"

"I can only guess at most of this," Daniel began to explain, "but Silas did everything he did because he was traumatized by the loss of his sister. Knowing my father, he probably killed Alice with that outcome in mind. What he didn't expect was to have his new puppet come across someone, or somepony, who looked remarkably like Alice. He may have hurt you dearly because he thought you were his sister...but in doing so, he put you in a position to free him. That one shot was the best thing that could have happened to him. I doubt he could comprehend his "sister" intending to cause him harm, and as he tried to, he was forced to come to terms with the fact that his real sister was gone. Once he did that, he was free."

"So Ah...Ah killed 'im..." Apple Bloom concluded, tears welling up in her eyes.

"For once, that's nothing to feel bad about," Daniel replied. "He'd been suffering for so long, only able to cope by forcing others to suffer with him. Now he's finally at peace. So chin up. He's in a far better pace now."

Apple Bloom wiped away her tears, and though she could feel them welling up again, she cracked her first smile in the past three days. Seeing that his work was done, Daniel dissolved into astral mist and flowed through the crack under the door. Apple Bloom followed him to the door, and finally unlocked it, ready to face the world once more.

Author's Note

For the record, yes, Silas is out for the count.

Epilogue

Celestia sighed as she looked over the news her guards had given her. Another bunch of outlaws, just great.

Daniel had been true to his word. Once the worlds merged, the monsters disappeared, and everypony was allowed to return to their lives. However, the destruction left in the wake of the catastrophe left massive repercussions, irrevocably changing everypony's lives as they struggled to adapt to this new world. So many ponies had lost their lives, and even with the influx of ponies from Sombra's world, Equestria's population was reduced to a fraction of what it used to be. Almost every family was left mourning the loss of their loved ones, and as their ruler, it was Celestia's job to console the populace. To make matters worse, the ponies from Sombra's world weren't morally sound, and she was constantly getting news of another band of outlaws causing trouble in this delicate time. Even in all her years as the princess of the sun, Celestia had never had to deal with anything of this magnitude, and the pressure was getting to her.

"More bandits?" Sombra asked as he entered the throne room. "Allow my guards to take care of them."

Celestia looked up at her long lost love. For all the trouble this merging had caused, Sombra was a very big positive. His guards were far more capable than her own, having had to deal with outlaws on a regular basis. Even more than that, seeing him again after all this time was a joy Celestia thought she'd never experience again. She was happy...but this joy came at such a cost...

Sombra noticed her sorrow. "Why don't I take over the court for now?" he offered. "You should rest. You've been trying to clean up this mess for so long, but you shouldn't push yourself. You're suffering, too."

Celestia simply gave a sorrowful nod and left. As she left the room, she noticed it was almost time for sunset. Time to raise the moon. She looked out a hallway window, then closed her eyes as she reached out with her magic, lowering the sun below the horizon and raising the moon to take its place. When she opened her eyes, the Mare in the Moon stared back at her. That pattern...at one point, it was a prison for her sister after she'd gone off the deep end. Now it was the only thing keeping Luna alive...but to Celestia, her sister was still gone. A thousand years, she thought. We have a thousand years to find some way to save you. Will it be enough?

She silently bade her sister good night, and proceeded to her bedchambers. As she passed through the halls, however, she came across Twilight Sparkle. Her bloodstained coat still unnerved the princess of the sun. It marked her as one of the undead, yet another pony who was left to suffer in the wake of this disaster. She would never be allowed to die, as everypony she knew grew old and died around her. Celestia understood the feeling.

"Oh, there you are!" Twilight exclaimed. "You weren't in the throne room, so I thought I'd go looking for you."

"Is there something you need, Twilight?" Celestia asked, even her normal motherly tone weighed down by weariness.

"Well, I figured you and Sombra should know," Twilight began. "Daniel's been...off ever since the merging. Today I thought I'd ask him what was wrong, but I couldn't find him. Then I went to the council room. The mirror to Sunset Shimmer's world had been activated, and this letter was left nearby. I could've had Spike send this to you, but...I felt I should give you this personally." She reached into her saddle bag and pulled out a scroll. Celestia grabbed it with her magic, rolled it open, and began to read:

To everypony I've come to know,
I hope you can forgive me. My place in your world was lost long ago. All I've done since I came here was bring suffering down upon you all. And I have suffered dearly here, myself. As things are, staying in this world is far too painful for me to bear. I feel tht I'll only cause you more pain if I stay, and the longer I'm here, the longer my own wounds take to heal.
So I'm leaving Equestria. I'm off to search for some semblance of peace in another world. I have no right to do this after all I've done to hurt you, but I need to leave. Maybe one day, when I can finally look back on my life with something resembling happiness, I can return here. But for now, this is goodbye.
Daniel Hayes

Celestia brought the letter down from her face...and smiled.

"You're not worried about him?" Twilight asked.

"No, I'm not," Celestia answered, "because I'm sure that, one day, he'll finally find the peace he's looking for. And when he does, we'll see him again. For now, we focus on our new home. We will restore Equestria to its former glory, so that, when he finally returns...he will find true happiness. He fought so hard to keep our world alive. The least we can do is build a world where he doesn't have to fight any longer." She took one last look at the moon. Somehow, it looked even brighter than before. Celestia's smile widened slightly. Maybe things were looking bleak...but Equestria still had a future, and so long as it had that, everypony could persevere and flourish.

Here's to a new world, dear sister. Let's make the best of it.

-- THE END --

Author's Note

Thanks so much for seeing this through to the end. I had a lot of fun writing this, and for my first story on the site, I'm really proud of what I've made. As one last farewell, I'm giving this an...ending theme: