TWILIGHT POV

I watched as a giant sword exploded forth from his magic, causing shockwaves with its presence. I could see from the strained look on his face and the injuries on his body that he was already running on fumes and had to put everything he had into his attack. Tirek tried stomping on us yet again but Noire swung his sword and cut his leg. There was no physical damage left but Tirek was visibly terrified of the technique as I felt his magic power draining away "Anyone who can move, pick up the wounded and get out of here," he said calmly, never keeping his eye on the enemy. He made a downward slash, forcing Tirek to back away. This gave us enough time move back into the Everfree. Rainbow carried me while Applejack carried Tidal and Discord got Windy, who had regained consciousness, up. As soon as we were back in the cave, the others instantly started to berate Discord while lied against the while to support my injured back.

"You told him everything about us!" I heard Rainbow yell at the draconequus.

"How could you do such a thing!?" Rarity said. Discord didn't respond, seemingly lost in a void of guilt until a tug on his arm alerted him.

"Tell us what happened. Please," Fluttershy asked quietly, barely loud enough for all of us to hear. Discord sighed and sat down on a nearby rock.

"I was planning to stop him, I truly was, but I was scared. I had witnessed him take all of Equestria's magic in seconds and the princesses were gone without a traced. So when he appeared before me, I was shaking, and in my moment of vulnerability, he promised me something greater than friendship," He pulled out a pendant "However, I see that was a lie. I should have never agreed. He gave me this pendant as a symbol of our friendship," He stood up and walked over to me "However, when I give it to you, Princess Twilight Sparkle, I am telling the truth."

NOIRE POV

"Why can't I deplete his magic?" I thought as I dodged Tirek's energy blasts. I pierced him with Phantom Excalibur again but to no effect. His magic seemed to deplete entirely but reappeared just as quickly as it left. With a smirk, Tirek used his magic to levitate chunks of the earth off the ground and launch them at me. He knew Phantom Excalibur couldn't harm physical objects and was using this to his advantage. With a swipe of the blade, I launched a wide wave of magic and destroyed every single one of them. However, this caused the sword to shrink to half its original size "Dammit! I don't have much left in me after fighting Shining and now I have to deal with this crap!?"

"Looks like your sword isn't as mighty as it was before. It was a big mistake challenging me to a battle of endurance!" He said as he levitated the ground above me, launching me into the air.

"Wait. Endurance." That was when I felt what had been giving him the edge. thousands of tiny threads spreading throughout Equestria. I noticed specifically three which went even further "He hasn't stolen magic from anyone. He stole their connection to their pools of magic. Every time I deplete his magic, he just uses someone else's to fuel himself back up. I can't beat him in a marathon battle like this- I need to overwhelm him before I'm tapped out." I saw him preparing a massive beam, using the magic of hundreds of ponies. That was my time to smirk.

"You're challenging me to a battle of power!? I'll be happy to oblige!" I yelled at the centaur. As soon as I reached the peak of my ascent, I focused my magic into the blade, causing the Phantom Excalibur to disappear and leaving the Decode Sword shrouded in a royal blue glow. I was reminded of my humble beginnings at that moment. Dropping out of a princess' ceiling, bumbling through fights and all the new friends I had made on my journey. All these things built what I was in that moment. As well as what I am today. "One final attack to put you down! Final Decode!" The magic aura around my sword burned brightly and spread to the rest of my body. Even bits of my hair turned the same shade of blue "Blazing Excode!" I descended to meet my foe, who was just as desperate to finish this. It seemed like he noticed who he was dealing with finally.

"DIE HUMAN!" Tirek fired the most powerful beam I had ever seen, burning away most of the area around him. Once my blade made contact with the attack, the power the beam had carried threatened to push me back and overwhelm me. This was a battle of who's magic was more potent. That was why I was not going to lose to him. The blue flames burned even brighter and started to erase the beam. Tirek noticed his attack crumbling away and gritted his teeth in anger. With a mighty roar, he sapped even more magic, pushing me back. However, it was too late. The attack had already started to crumble away like ash and in one final swing, I had cut the attack clean in two. As the magic began to dissipate, Tirek's mouth was on the floor as I, still descending towards him, made one more attack, making several magic slashes at the magic threads, cutting most of them. The rest was up to the others.

"That should be enough," I said as I fell to the ground, losing consciousness.

I felt something soft and warm like a pillow below my head, rousing me from my slumber. I sat up to find myself in the void once again. "Congratulations on your awakening. It seems that you didn't need much of my help after all." I turned to face Faust, who was sitting beside me "I wanted to congratulate you when you were asleep, but you fell in here so early so I had to take the opportunity. I never got to experience motherhood in a traditional sense." We stood up and the goddess embraced me tightly. I welcomed the embrace wholeheartedly "You have grown so much in so little time."

"I have to if I want to catch up to Grim. He has thousands of years of experience on me."

"That is true, and I will be helping you master these powers you've been granted, however, I wasn't talking about that. When I found you, you were nothing more than an insecure, shy child who gave up before giving the world a chance. Now you have grown into the confident, young man I had always hoped you would become. I just want you to know that in the 23 years that I have watched over you, I have never been more proud of you than I am now," She said, smiling at me warmly.

"Wait. 23 years? But I'm only twenty-" The void around us started to shake and i was consumed by a feeling of falling.

"Happy Birthday, Noire."

When I woke up a second time, I found myself in a town square, surrounded by several ponies. When my ears had adjusted, I began to hear cheering from them. My eyes immediately noticed Windy and Tidal in the foreground.

"Nice work, buddy!" Windy cheered, lifting me up and patting me on the back "If it wasn't for you, we'd all be screwed. If you're wondering about Twilight and the others, they're still healing everypony in Equestria, giving them their magic and whatnot. Though it would have been better if Tidal had joined in, seeing as she was the only one in Equestria with magic, right? Tidal?" Tidal silently walked up to me, punching Windy hard on the arm on her way, and as soon as she was in front of me, I could feel her arms strangling the rest of my body. Both I and Windy, still holding his arm in pain, were shocked.

"You scared the crap out of me, asshole. Never leave me like that again." She whispered this to me in a not weak, but caring tone. I smiled and stroked her blue locks of hair from her face.

"No promises." Tidal immediately recoiled from our hug and punched me so hard, it felt like my arm was going to fall off. While everyone was laughing at this, I noticed something was up "Where's the princesses?" Both generals went silent at this. I began to get worried as I looked back and forth between them, searching for an answer. However, it came from a flashing sound and another pair of arms wrapping around me. I could feel the wet tears streaming from the stranger's face as sobbing could be heard throughout the square.

"Cadance?" I asked.

"How could a couple of days go wrong so fantastically?"

"Cadance?"

"I thought a break was what we needed but now I just don't want to let go."

"Cadance."

"I was praying for you to come save me from Tartarus the whole time I was there-"

"Cadance!"

"-wondering if you were even going to come at all." I couldn't take any more of this. I turned around, freeing myself from her, and kissed her on the lips. That shut her up real quick as she sank into my act of passion. I shut out the cheering and 'woop's from Windy as I just held her. As we kissed, I thought about how I had gone a month without even kissing her and mentally berating myself for being so stupid. We let ourselves go and I looked back to Tidal, who looked a tad jealous, but also happy.

"Don't forget," she silently mouthed to me, to which I nodded.

To top off the moment, a rainbow appeared and from it, the elements appeared, looking a lot more... colourful. However, they all went back to their normal forms. Twilight quickly ran over to the other princesses, hugging her mentor tightly. No words were shared as they held each other. Everything was as it was supposed to be. Except for one thing, poking at the side of my head ever since I woke up.

"What is that?" I said, pointing to the giant, crystalline castle, sitting in the distance.

"A sweet, new place to throw your birthday party!" Pinkie cheered.

"...Oh yeah. That's today. Wait, how'd you know!?" I asked incredulously.

"Don't question it," the rest of the main 6 said.

Night had fallen and the stars shone brightly on the castle, creating a soft glow that made the castle seem like a gift from the heavens. As I stood out on the balcony of the new castle, my mind wandered to all the things that had changed. Due to her courage in fighting Tirek, who was back in his prison in Tartarus where he belonged, she had fully ascended into an alicorn and gifted the title of Princess of Friendship. Fitting. As for the birthday party.

"WINDY! GET OFF THE TABLE!" I heard Twilight yell with her new Royal Canterlot Voice, shaking the castle. I was glad I made the excuse of being tired to step out of that mayhem.

"NOW THE FUN HAS BEEN TRIPLED!" I heard Luna cheer merrily.

"What are they doing down there?" I asked myself. Fortunately, someone answered. Cadance walked up from behind me and leaned on the railing, looking out into the starry beyond.

"Windy, Rainbow and Luna are drunk as all tartarus and Twilight just fell into your birthday cake trying to stop them from painting the walls of her new castle green with their vomit." I laughed at the thought of it "I also got to talk to Twilight about the whole Shining Armour thing and we seem to be on the same page now."

"And that would be?" I asked curiously.

"Do whatever we can to save him," she said simply "He may be better off without me but anything's better than with Grim." We went silent once again. She was right. I still remember when I saw his letter to Cadance before he went off the deep end. He still had his sanity somewhere. It was just clouded by his love and dedication. However, there still was a chance that we would need to kill him if it came to it. Cadance knew that very well so I didn't bring it up. "So, about that talk?" she said out of nowhere. I was not surprised she was going to bring it up. I finally turned to meet her gaze.

"Yeah," I said anxiously. No amount of power-ups was going to make this not awkward "Now that I recall our fight, I can see that we were more telling each other our feelings while angry than actually 'fighting'," Cadance laughed at that. We were acting like children, yelling at each other but never listening to the other enough to realise we wanted the same thing "However, I can't help but feel guilty for ignoring you for weeks. I was just so determined to prove myself that I ended up pushing you and the other generals away and doing such pointless things outside my skillset. I was still damaged from my time on Earth, from my mother." Cadance looked at me in confusion "I'll tell you about that later." She sighed and sat on the railing, looking up at the sky.

"I feel a bit guilty as well. I was so demanding of both you and Shining to satisfy what it meant to be a lover that I was blind to how both of you were feeling and I ended up hurting a lot of ponies. That isn't a redeeming quality of a princess at all. So this time, I'll do better. I'll be more patient and understanding with you," she said with a determined look on her face. That was good. It made the next bit of news a bit easier to tell.

"Good, good. So... I have something to confess." Cadance turned to face me "So on that little excursion. I had a lot of time to reflect, bond with my party, shared some fun times. Wait, has Seahoof even gotten home yet?" I said to myself.

"Safe and sound. Now get to the point."

I gulped "Well, I had an 'incident' and Tidal was there to support me. We ended up falling off a cliff..."

"Noire..." Cadance leered.

"TidalandIkissed!" Silence, the scariest torture technique known to man, reared its ugly head and polluted the moment with its presence. I was left only to wait for Cadance's face to change, let alone say something. Was she going to dump me immediately after we resolved our situation? Was she going to confront Tidal and Windy and I were going to settle our bet on who would win in a fight? These thoughts circulated in my head until a chuckle broke through the cycle. Then more. The she bellowed, laughing so hard I stretched my arm out to prevent her from falling. This went on for what felt like hours until she gained her composure.

"Finally! I was wondering when you two were going to realise you were made for each other!" She said, still clutching her stomach and drying her tears.

"You knew?"

"I may have been doing a crap job at it but I'm still the Princess of fucking Love! I knew you two were going to band from the moment you two walked out of her bedroom, insisting it wasn't what it looked like. It would take a blind man to not to see the sexual tension between you two, but it wouldn't matter because your flirting would immediately tip them off!" Her cheeks puffed up adorably, threatening to burst with her laughter while I was left in shock, embarrassment, relief, and a bit of disappointment that I would see that catfight "Anyway, If you're wondering about the herd thing, of course she can join but first-" she hopped off her seat and closed the distance between us "-we need to finally go on a date. Just the three of us~" I was a bit blank faced until I realised that I've been dating Cadance for almost three months, with her heat fast approaching, and I had never even taken her out on a date.

No lunch date. No fine dining. Not even a trip to the coffee shop.

I was still a newbie to love after all.

I silently whispered "Idiot," to myself and kissed her back "Of course! I'll just tell Tidal about it and we'll be golden!" I began to walk back into the castle when Cadance magically dragged me back to where I was. I stood there confused as Cadance looked at me like a piece of meat.

"Let's not forget that you haven't made sweet, sweet love to me in over a month now darling," she said, wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist "What are you waiting for, love? Saddle up~"

"Uh oh."

Author's Note

With the first part of this arc out of the way, I can finally put my feet up for a bit, rest my tired bones... and begin working on the second part. Wear you're sunday best, people and ponies alike! We're going dancing!

As for this part, tell me your thoughts. I would love to hear all you've got to say. My legion of 25 followers help me become the best I can be!
Hope you all enjoyed this little journey!

Stay dizzy. Wuzzy out
P.S. Noire's offical birthday is July 16th