The C̸̞̙̭̽̌̀̈́̽̕̕ȗ̵̧̨̢̻̩̞̘͙̉̋̊͂͘ŕ̷͖̦̍͝s̵̫̪̋̍͂̆̆͆̄é̶̡̧̺͖d̸͎͒̒̿̈̀ Apocalypse

We were getting close to Canterlot now. We'd all eaten and talked about my eye being fixed. The sun was up now and we believed it might be back to the time it really was before.

There was no doubt that all of us were thinking about the losses we had experienced. What really got to us was how we seemed to be losing one another day by day. It was all becoming too much, but we had to sustain our ground. Our emotions were being toyed with greatly, and fear of the situation and realization that any one of us could be next simply scared us.

It was too bad that Pinkie had to be the first to 'die', because I felt like she'd ease our stress and suffering, even in a time like this. It was a shame any of us had to be put through this. None of us had thought anything as severe as this would happen. How did it happen anyway?

The questions rolling around my mind prevented me from hearing Twi speak to me at first.

"Devan? Hello?" She shook her hoof in front of my face.

"Huh, wha?"

"I wanted to talk to you about Rarity and Spike. He's been having a rough time about it, and I thought you could maybe, you know, cheer him up or something. Give him reassurance that it'll be alright. It'd be better for someone like you to do it."

She did have a point. He was riding on Dash's back right now, staring intensely at the sky. Maybe he thinks she's up there?

"I guess I could, yeah. I don't know how much reassurance I'll be able to get to him, but yeah ... I'll try."

"Thanks Devan."

I walked forwards, ahead of the guards and Snow. She nodded to me when I passed her. I skipped Spike at the moment, who didn't seem to notice me anyways, and met Dash.

"Hey Devan. What's up?"

I leaned forward and whispered, "I'm gonna speak to Spike about Rarity."

"Oh," she whispered, "You want me to get him off?"

"No, that's okay. Thanks."

I looked back at the guards, and they nodded. I backtracked a bit to stand side by side with Spike.

"Hey bro, what's up? Literally." I nudged him.

Okay ... so I'm not a good joker. Whatever.

He eyed me. Usually he'd be the only one to crack up at a joke as bad as that, but without Rarity, it probably wasn't worth the effort.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Nothing ... nothing ... I know the whole Rarity thing is difficult to get over, but just think for a second ... Celestia took me out of another universe, and put me in this one. If she can do that, she can easily bring Rarity back. This whole deal is probably just a test on all of us and friendship and stuff. Just, don't worry about it too much. Soon enough, we'll be in Canterlot schmoozing with Princess Celestia and Luna with all these troubles behind us."

My reward for that short speech was a lot of quietness and one unseeing dragon. He seemed totally disconnected from real life. I glanced back at Twi. She gestured for me to keep going.

"Spike? Did you hear me?"

He moved his eyes slowly to meet mine.

"I heard you." He turned on his side and curled up. I looked back at Twi and shrugged.

"At least you tried," Snow whispered.

Now Canterlot was within our reach. We could see it shine in the sun. It had taken days for us to get this close to it, and now we were finally starting to climb the final hills to Canterlot. Twi nudged me out of my thoughts.

"Devan, we're going to start running. Are you well enough to run?"

"Oh, yeah ... definitely."

So we began sprinting. It was the first time I'd ran freely since running from Zecora's hut. But let's be honest ... we weren't running simply because we wanted to. We were very close to Canterlot now. We had trekked upwards for half an hour or so, and we were running over the hills now. It was in our grasp, and we all knew it. We could see it plainly sooner than we had expected to. The towers stood tall ahead of us, and the gate, however raggedy and broken it looked, stood like a gateway to heaven.

"Keep in mind what Devan said. Luna said there was a human in Canterlot just recently," Twi reminded.

So much for 'gateway to heaven'.

"Don't be a let-down Twi. If Celestia can handle Nightmare Moon and Discord, she can handle a little human or two."

"I'm not so sure she's doing alright."

"A chest wound is pretty deadly, Dash," I added.

"Don't say dead. We've seen enough dead as it is."

"Just reality."

We came closer to the gate when we all stopped. Canterlot had looked good from afar, but now it didn't look quite right. The flags on the gate were clearly burnt yet somehow still waving. The bridge over the river was up, which would be reasonable to see if there wasn't graffiti sprayed all over the gate itself. Instead of the big painted flowers, they were drawn on to look like pitchforks. Chain Gang was written on the left side of the gate and Summer Shivers on the right. In one window on the left tower of the gate was a noticeable human head that looked up to see us. There was another guy in the right tower that noticed us before we even walked over the ridge in the hill. It was just moments until he pulled up a sniper rifle.

"Run back over the ridge!" Twi shouted.

A speaker boomed on as we jumped over the ridge in the road. No shots were fired at us as we sprung to cover.

"Oh come on!" Dash yelled.

"I know," Twi said while unpacking some clips of ammo.

"Come back over the ridge and no one will get hurt! We saw a human with you, and that must mean you're allowed to enter!" A voice boomed on the speakers.

"Like hell we are," I said.

All of us were loading and checking the guns we had taken from the brothers. It was nice knowing I could use something rather than my Beretta in a possible long range shoot-out.

"You want me to?" Blaze asked the other guard.

"Sure."

"We aren't coming out!" he shouted.

"That's alright," the voice boomed in the speakers, "We'll let Pete have a word with you."

Pete?

"Pete?" Twi asked confusingly. We exchanged glances. The creak of metal chains sounded. Twi and I took a slight look over the ridge to find the bridge collapsing slowly over the river.

When it was all the way down, we saw a boy strapped with ammo come out. When he got closer, I saw something crazy. I was staring at the Pete who broke my eye.