The Mane 6 surfaced from under the water, their manes dripping wet. After a couple of coughs they made their way onto solid ground again. The general mood of the group was a unanimous disappointment. The creature Luna sent them to find had the one item that could have helped save Equestria, and it had been just within Twilight’s reach. Only a few seconds more was all she needed to nab what was necessary. Instead she was caught trying to steal the pearl and subsequently got her and her friends thrown out with no hope of saving Equestria.
A brief silence fell over the group, the only sound being the lapping of the waves on the beach. Applejack finally broke the silence with an accusatory tone in her voice.
“What were you thinkin'? I mean, stealin' their pearl?”
Twilight Sparkle could only sigh in disappointment.
“It was the only way to save Equestria.”
Before Applejack could respond, Pinkie Pie interjected.
“'Cept it wasn't! The Queen was going to say yes! We did what you told us and that's what made her realize we were ponies worth saving! Unless...” There was a slight pause followed by a loud gasp of realization. “You didn't really want us to show her the best time ever! You just wanted us to distract her!”
This revelation caused the rest of the ponies to gasp in shock. Twilight wouldn’t have done that! Not the Twilight they knew!
Twilight Sparkle tried to justify herself. “I never would have done it, but this isn't Equestria!” she exclaimed, hints of annoyance in her voice. “We can't just dance around with con artists, make rainbooms in the sky and expect everything to work out! It's not enough! We are not enough!”
Pinkie Pie could only shake her head, her tone getting angry. “No, Twilight! We stuck together! We were gonna get the help we needed! The only thing that stopped us…” Pinkie briefly paused and pointed a hoof at Twilight accusingly, “was you!”
Twilight Sparkle became angry as well from her frustration. ”Well, I'm doing the best I can! It's all on me.” Twilight’s tone rose due to her frustration. “I'm the one Tempest wants. I'm the last Princess!”
“You're also the only one who doesn't trust her friends!” retorted Pinkie.
Twilight Sparkle could only growl, shutting her eyes and finally letting out her frustrations. “Well, maybe, I would've been better off without friends like you!!!”
There was a collective gasp from her friends before things went completely silent. Along with the sounds of the water lapping at the shore, there was something more: an odd sizzling sound. Slowly Twilight opened her eyes and looked downward. Where her friend once stood there was instead a small smoldering pile of ash surrounded by a glass replica of Twilight’s own cutie mark. It took her a minute to process but she realized two truths. First, in her anger and frustration her horn had sparked toward Pinkie Pie. No, not sparked; she had cast a spell. She had blasted Pinkie Pie, fused the sand around her to glass, and now she was gone. And secondly, it felt good... It felt right.
“What in the hay, Twilight?” Applejack asked when she could finally find her voice. “What have you done!? You’ve vaporized Pinkie!”
The next thing she felt was hot magic wrapping around her neck. Applejack was stoic in the angry alicorn’s magical grip now tinged with green, but the rest of Twilight’s friends gasped and stepped back. They had never seen Twilight act this way before. The magic shifted and tightened around Applejack’s neck, cutting off any more words she might have wanted to say.
“What I’ve done,” Twilight spat out in anger, “is eliminated a single link in a long line of failures on this whole journey!” Applejack began to wince in pain and gasp for air she could barely get. In a panic, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy lept into action to rescue Applejack from being choked by their friend. They didn’t get very far, though, as the four were caught up in Twilight’s magic hold. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash found themselves shoved down to their necks in the beach’s sand, while Rarity was still being held in the air. All the while, Twilight was increasing the pressure on Applejack’s neck.
“You want to know my honest opinion?” spat Twilight, watching as Applejack twitched and gasped for air that was becoming increasingly difficult for her to get. “I think my friends should have stayed home. Because Luna told ME to find the hippogriffs. This was my journey to save Equestria! And because of my friends, Equestria is doomed!”
Suddenly, in the midst of her ranting, Twilight felt a shift in her magic hold and heard the unmistakable sound of a bone breaking. She glanced up at Applejack and immediately realized what had happened, which caused an evil grin to grow on her face. In her anger she had not only choked Applejack to the point she couldn’t breathe, she had gone a bit too far and ended up breaking her neck!
“Pathetic,” she said with a disgusted grunt. She then dropped Applejack’s limp body onto the sandy beach before turning to Rarity.
Rarity saw a predatory look in Twilight’s eyes. A look that was enough to scare Rarity. Yet despite her fear, she was unable to overpower the alicorn’s magic that quickly drew her right in front of Twilight. As soon as she was positioned properly, Twilight focused her magical aura on Rarity’s horn. Rarity began to wince in pain and writhe about, trying to break free of the cloying magic. Only seconds later did small sparks of Rarity’s aura intermingle with Twilight’s.
Rainbow Dash scowled as she struggled to free herself from the sand. Unfortunately she was buried too deep to do so. “Twilight stop! What did Rarity do?!” screamed Rainbow as she struggled, only managing to get herself trapped deeper in the sand. “Let me out of here!”
“She didn’t really do anything to hurt my mission,” responded Twilight. “But with the magic I’ve been expending, I’m in need of a recharge.” With those words, Twilight stretched and elongated Rarity’s blue aura until it wrapped around Twilight’s horn.
Twilight’s eyes flashed briefly with a tinge of green before taking on the same blue hue of Rarity’s magic. Rarity could feel her magic being drawn out of her, a process not at all pleasant for her. It felt as if Twilight was trying to rip her horn right from her skull. Pain coursed through her head as she began to grow weak.
Twilight watched as Rarity’s legs began to shake. Obviously she was growing weak, but Twilight didn’t seem to care. All she cared about was the feeling of Rarity’s magic flowing through her horn and into her reserves. She was becoming magically stronger again. Twilight took a step toward the white unicorn and stared down at her. Rarity flopped to the floor as her color slightly drained and her eyes turned dull.
Rarity began to feel like she had spent several days casting magic without ever stopping to rest. She was already at the limit she would normally expend in a day yet, despite that, she felt her magic reserve continuing to drain. Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy watched as Rarity’s cutie mark began to fade away.
“Please, Twilight, Stop!” Fluttershy managed to squeak out. “You’ll kill her if you keep drawing out her magic!”
But Twilight either wasn’t listening or she didn’t care. She was too concentrated on fully recharging her own magic pool that everything else was ignored. Rarity’s aura began to glow softer and softer as she became weaker and weaker until her mark faded completely away. Rarity’s breathing slowed and she felt the last of her strength fade. Her eyes grew fully dim and she fell limp to the ground. Twilight picked up Rarity’s body in her magic and unceremoniously chucked it next to Applejack’s on the sand.
Now fully recharged, Twilight turned her attention to Rainbow Dash. She wrapped Rainbow’s body in her magical aura, now a bluish purple, and yanked her out from the sand. Rainbow Dash, now able to stand and open her wings, shook herself to clean off the sand stuck in her wings, mane, tail and coat. But as soon as her wings were open, Rainbow found Twilight’s aura enveloping both her wings and pulling them outwards.
“And you, Rainbow Dash! Your showboating has gotten us into trouble in the past,” Twilight growled as her magic aura slowly began to split along Rainbow’s back. Each wing was now covered in a portion of the aura instead of both her wings in a single aura. Rainbow felt the tugging on her wings get stronger as she was forced to full wingspan. Slightly more than full wingspan, as she started to feel some pain at her joints.
“You all think it was wrong for me to try and get what was needed to save Equestria? What about the stunt you pulled with the pirates?! Don’t you think THAT was wrong?” accused Twilight. “Not only did you alert Tempest to our position, but you put their lives in danger as well! As far as we know they’ve been captured or worse!”
As if to punctuate those words, Twilight began to compress her auras around the wings. Slowly Twilight’s magic squeezed on the wings and only caused minor discomfort. However, the squeezing didn’t let up. Bones began to shift and dislocate from the pressure which caused Rainbow to let out a small whine mixed with whimpers of pain.
“Twilight please!” Fluttershy cried out. “You’re hurting her!”
Fluttershy’s protest went unacknowledged again. The magic aura squeezing and crushing down on the wings shifted from the bluish purple to more of a green hue again. Dark magic overtook her as she began to actually feel the individual bones of the wings in her magic. They strained against her squeezing before they splintered and broke in multiple places.
Rainbows’ soft whimpers turned into an outright scream as pain coursed through her wings. The overwhelming pain caused her to collapse to the ground as soon as Twilight let go of her wings. The damage was extensive. One wing was a completely mangled mess with exposed bones and portions bent in ways Rainbow knew she would never physically be able to bend them, while the other just hung limply at her side. From shock, she passed out.
Barely seconds later, Rainbow was enveloped in Twilight’s magical aura again. This time she was being lifted upwards. And not just up off the ground, no. Twilight was lifting her up into the air. High into the air. Higher than Rainbow and Twilight had ever flown before.
Rainbow only came to when she felt herself jerked about due to a sudden stop. But as soon as she was conscious again, she was immediately flooded with pain in her wings. Screaming and crying, all she could do was glance up at Twilight’s, noting her angered expression.
“Twi… light? What.. what are you… doing…” she choked out through her tears and screams.
“You like making rainbooms?” Twilight growled through gritted teeth, seemingly ignoring Rainbow’s question. Her eyes flashed a deep tinge of green, the color overpowering her own bluish purple in an instant. Rainbow realized what Twilight was planning and she shook her head slowly.
“Please… don’t….” she pleaded weakly. Twilight ignored her.
“Let’s make a rainboom.”
The next thing Rainbow knew, Twilight lifted her a tiny bit higher in her magic. Twilight let out a grunt as she tossed Rainbow Dash towards the ground. With how hard Twilight had thrown, a sonic rainboom almost immediately followed. The loud sound and bright flash of color no doubt alerted Tempest Shadow to Twilight’s position, but by that point she didn’t really care.
Rainbow Dash hurtled through the air toward the ground below. Well past her normal terminal velocity, she approached the ground quickly. She had to do something, anything to slow her fall, and fast, but the pain from her wings made it difficult for her to think clearly . Her solution was one she had used time and again when she was going too fast: spread her wings to slow her fall. Had she been of sound mind she would have realized that plan was a dud from the start, but she forgot her wings were broken; they only flapped about uselessly and caused her more pain. With nothing to slow her down, the beach rose up quickly to meet her. A loud boom sounded and a crater formed, the broken, battered body of Rainbow Dash right in the middle. Somehow she survived the fall.
Twilight, on the other hoof, had teleported down immediately to watch both the rainboom and her former friend as she plummeted downwards. She took a single step back just as Rainbow impacted the sand, a loud boom echoing out. There, in the middle of the beach, was a new, deep crater. And in the middle of the crater was Rainbow Dash, barely breathing. She couldn’t even stand up, most of her bones shattered from the impact.
Twilight only stared down at Rainbow before an evil grin spread over her face. She could see that Rainbow Dash had survived the impact though with how she was moving, it was obvious she wasn’t going anywhere. Not that Rainbow would have anywhere to go when Twilight was done. She used her magic to scoop up some sand from around the edges of the crater before plopping it directly on the Rainbow’s head. Slowly Rainbow weakly raised her head to see what had landed on her.
Another scoop of sand landed on her head, followed by another. Darkness filled Rainbow’s eyes as the sand piled on top of her. The small particles of the sand got inside her nose and mouth which only caused her to sneeze and cough to try and clear her airway. But more sand was piled on her in increasingly sized scoops. Weakly she tried to dig herself out, but it was useless.
The sand weighed her down, pinning her broken wings down in such a way they felt eternal pain. Soon not just her head and wings, but her whole body was covered. It became harder for her to draw a breath, her breathing labored and difficult until finally, the weight alone kept her from drawing any breath at all.
Satisfied with her work, Twilight turned to Fluttershy and stared down at the mare still buried to her neck in sand along the water’s edge. Fear washed over Fluttershy’s face and she turned white. What was Twilight planning for her?
“Oh, Fluttershy, don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you,” is all she said as she glanced up at an approaching airship. “Seems I was right that the rainboom would alert Tempest. I think she’ll need an ally to dispose of the Storm King permanently then we can both rule over Equestria. As for you,” Twilight explained, “You’re free to go.” Fluttershy sighed in relief. “IF you can free yourself from the sand. Better hurry, though, I think the tide is coming in!”
With a maniacal laugh, Twilight turned and approached the landing airship. She was already signaling to Tempest that she was giving herself up. Fluttershy watched as Twilight approached the now docked airship. SHe couldn’t hear what was being discussed, but there were a few motions toward the trapped mare. Fluttershy saw Tempest give a slight nod to Twilight, then leaned in to whisper to Twilight. Twilight in turn gave a nod back to Tempest, then turned back and approached Fluttershy. Twilight lit up her horn. At first Fluttershy thought Twilight and Tempest had discussed taking her as a prisoner but when a lightning bolt sparked out from the horn aimed at herself, she screamed in terror. However it was only a slight tingle on her. The spell wasn’t intended to kill, just fuse the sand holding Fluttershy in place into glass. Fluttershy was completely trapped!
“Tempest changed my mind,” is all she said to Fluttershy. “Looks like you drown.”
The pair of unicorns boarded the airship and took off, leaving Fluttershy trapped. Soon the waves of the lake were lapping at her mane, then up to her snout. She tried her hardest to hold her breath when underwater and take a breath when she was able. But with how quickly the tide was coming in, it didn’t take long for her whole head to be underwater. Still she held her breath until her lungs burned for air. Her body forced her to take in a breath. Water flooded into her lungs from the deep breath. Still she tried to breathe, only taking in more and more water. Slowly her vision began to fade to black as the last of her air bubbled out of her mouth. The last thing Fluttershy saw through the clear water of the lake was the airship aloft and headed for Canterlot before she passed out, never to take another breath.
