Twilight felt a stinging, aching pain in her head as she slowly, very slowly regained her consciousness. She quietly breathed in and out as she laid on the ground. It was cold, cold and hard. The purple mare gathered what strength she had and rolled over to her left side, biting her teeth together as to not scream out loud. Her eyes slowly opened, almost as if she had just awoken from a long slumber. Twilight’s vision was hazy, but even still she managed to make out that she was in trouble. Her heartbeat accelerated as Twilight looked around herself, spotting the hazy images of the steel bars trapping her in her cage. She looked around further, becoming nervous, breathing more heavily. She spotted the weird orange fields surrounding her in her cage. The helpless mare rubbed her eyes and looked again. Still she couldn’t make out what it truly was. All she knew was that it gave off enough heat to almost make her sweat just by thinking about it. The purple mare turned around frantically, looking for a possible way out, or perhaps a weakspot but... nothing. There was no way out. No escape.
Twilight breathed louder and quicker with every minute that passed. Already, minutes felt like hours for her. The Princess of Friendship was trapped, captured. She had failed. She had failed Equestria, herself and her...
...her friends.
Twilight suddenly remembered what had happened; how she and the others argued, how they left her and how she was eventually caught by Tempest. All of it, all of those memories suddenly flooded back into her brain, it seemed, almost too quick for Twilight to process.
Twilight’s ears flattened. Her heartbeat slowed down, and she herself sat down on the cold floor of her cage.
”They’re... gone,” she began to think to herself. ”Pinkie, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy... all of them,” she continued, ”gone. Just like that...”
Twilight’s previous almost panic-like state turned into a combination of regret and anger.
”It can’t be,” she said to herself out loud. ”It can’t be! My friends would never abandon me!”
The purple mare hammered a hoof against one of the solid bars of the cage in her fury.
”It can’t be...” she said to herself again, much quieter now. ”Please, it can’t be real!” she shouted loudly in desperation before tears overtook her.
Twilight’s sobbing became louder, her face wet from the tears that were now constantly streaming down her face. The poor, purple alicorn tried to speak up in between her sobbing, but her words would only turn into louder crying than before. Eventually, she was so invested in crying that she barely noticed that she had a visitor. An unpleasant one at that.
Twilight’s crying suddenly stopped as she took in the sound of hooves hitting the iron floor, followed by a self-assured laugh.
“The Princess of Friendship,” Tempest Shadow said as she approached Twilight, “all by herself. No way out, no rescue, no escape.” The scarred mare gave out another cackle as she put a hoof on the cage. Oh, how she enjoyed the sight; a completely helpless, powerless, broken princess. “-And all without her friends, too,” Tempest added.
Twilight looked away from Tempest, closing her eyes. She began to hear the sound of hooves hitting the hard iron floor again as Tempest began to circle her cage.
“Allow me the question, princess, but... whatever happened to your small, cute little group of best friends?” Tempest asked mockingly.
Twilight opened her eyes and looked up to see Tempest staring right into her eyes. The purple alicorn froze, giving out nothing but small, quiet stuttering.
“What was that?” Tempest asked in an overly joyful and nice voice. “I couldn’t hear you!” The wicked mare screamed, her broken horn giving off powerful lightning bolts. Twilight cringed and instinctively covered her face with her wings.
A broad smile formed on Tempest’s face, fueled by the sight of the helpless, scared princess that laid in front of her. “You ponies are such easy prey, weakened by your childish delusion of friendship and harmony.”
The imprisoned mare lowered her wings and looked back towards her captor. Tempest’s smile and words were like poison for the already weakened princess.
“Why?” Twilight asked with a weak voice. “Why are you doing this? You’re a pony, just like me. You don’t have to do this!”
Tempest’s smile disappeared, turning back into her usual monotone expression. “Oh, I don’t have to do this, alright,” she said, calmly spinning Twilight’s cage with one hoof, “but I chose to. I saw the true nature of so called ‘friendship’, the selfishness that hides in every friend.”
“W-what?” Twilight stuttered. “No! No, that isn’t true, at all!”
“Or is it?” Tempest snapped back. “My horn, my face...” she said as the remnant of her horn sparkled with blue energy, “they’re both more than enough evidence, I think, to show how friendships really end!”
Twilight gasped quietly. “No. Friends would never let this happen to you!” the princess exclaimed half-heartedly.
Tempest took a deep breath and began to circle the cage again. “When I was still a small filly, I wasn’t liked much in my village. Yet even then I had two ponies with me that I called friends. We would go on to play together every day.” Twilight continuously turned herself to face Tempest as she walked around her. “However,” she continued, “one fateful day, as we were playing in the forest, our ball ended up in a cave. We looked at each other for a moment, and the other promptly told me to go in and get it. So I did. What I didn’t know, however, was that within the cave lived a monster. It appeared from the shadows and I tried to fight it off but... I wasn’t fast enough.”
Tempest stopped. Once again her horn sparked, just before she gave out a low, bitter sigh.
“When I escaped the cave, I found that my friends had already fled after they heard my screaming. I had called for help, could have died right there, all by myself, and they ran away!” Tempest exclaimed, stomping a hoof on the ground.
“Oh but that isn’t where the story ends, my dear princess,” the scarred mare said as she looked back over to Twilight. “When I eventually came back home, I saw my friends playing together as if nothing had ever happened. I approached them, and they froze as they saw me, my horn, and this ugly scar on my face, all of which I had because of them and only them! And do you wanna know what they did, princess Twilight? Hm? Do you!?” Tempest shouted in anger, slamming her head against the bars of the cage. “My so called ‘friends’ turned tail and left me behind, abandoning me when I most needed them! Not only that, but they simply started playing together with a different kid! Is that what you call friendship, princess? Is it? Is it!?”
Twilight was silenced. At long last she knew why Tempest turned against her and all of Equestria. Yet... it was because of friendship. Friendship had failed her, her friends had failed her. Only because of this had Tempest become what she now was. Not once had her friends shown real friendship. Twilight, although caged and captured by her, couldn’t help but... feel an increasing amount of pity and empathy.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“What was that?” Tempest asked in disbelief.
“I said I’m sorry. Friends should stick together, no matter the cost but...”
“But that isn’t how reality works, princess” Tempest interrupted. “You might think of friendship as all-powerful and harmonic, but that is a delusion, a lie!”
Twilight remained silent as she took in her opponent’s words. They hurt. And as Twilight quickly realised, it was the truth that hurt her most.
“Do you really think I am the only pony in Equestria that was betrayed, abandoned or simply disappointed by her friends?” Tempest’s broken horn sparked once more, more powerful bolts escaping it this time. “You and your closest friends have for the longest time been the role model of any friendship in Equestria, because your friendship is the only one that ever endured!”
Tempest’s words echoed throughout Twilight’s mind. She couldn’t rid herself of them, of any of them. It only worsened as her opponent continued on...
“And yet... it seems like even this ‘perfect friendship’ of yours is... how do I say this... dead! Over!” Once again, Tempest threw herself against the cage. Her horn emitted powerful, light blue bolts, but luckily the enchanted cage deflected them from Twilight.
The princess didn’t cower this time, however, wasn’t scared at all. She sat there. Silently. Thinking to herself.
“Don’t worry, princess. I’m sure your friends will come rescue you soon and- oh wait. They won’t! Cause they’ve abandoned you!” Once again, the princess didn’t react, not even flinch, in reaction to Tempest’s anger. “Don’t you see? Don’t you see it, at last? Don’t you see how friends really behave? How they abandon you, just like that, when things go badly?”
Twilight lifted her head up to face Tempest. It was the face of a mare that was visibly beaten; defeated and lost.
“Your friends are no different than mine, and you,” Tempest said with a vicious smile, “you are just like me. Abandoned, alone, left behind...”
Twilight closed her eyes, squeezing them together as hard as she could as her mind was in conflict with itself. “No...” she mumbled, “No! I’m nothing like you!”
“You might say that, but we both know the truth, don’t we?” Tempest suddenly took hold of both of Twilight’s forehooves, pulling her against the bars of cage as she stared her in the eyes with a menacing look. “Oh, Twilight,” Tempest said quietly, almost as a whisper, “we’re just the same, you and I.”
Twilight watched as the broken horn in front of her spewed bolts once more. Tempest let go of Twilight’s hooves and broke out into a deep, triumphant laugh. Twilight watched from her cage as the mare turned and walked away. Was she really like her, after all? Had her friends abandoned her when she most needed them?
“Face it, Sparkle,” Tempest said as she walked up the stairs, “friendship has failed. Your friends have failed and betrayed you!”
Tempest stopped one last time, turning towards the defeated, imprisoned mare. “Open up your eyes, princess,” Tempest spoke down to Twilight. “It’s time to grow up, time to leave this childish delusion behind.”
The trapped alicorn watched as the wicked mare swiftly turned away. The last thing Twilight heard was a loud bang as the trapdoor to her prison was shut.
Twilight was alone, once more. Her heart seemingly stopped, and the purple mare collapsed. Her mind was split, her will broken, her world shattered. As her mind fought on, there was one continuous thought that echoed not just through her mind but her entire body.
Friendship had failed.
She had failed.
Author's Note
My second attempt at writing a story about Tempest Shadow.
Please do leave a like if you enjoyed the story, and a comment showing your criticism, especially if you disliked this story in one way or another.
Thank you 
