Princess Twilight Sparkle collapsed upon her bed in the castle. It had been a very long week. It started out like most, a few documents to sign, and the occasional dispute, just your average day for a princess. Then at five in the morning, this Tuesday, Spike rushes into her room with a letter from the princess. Another threat had shown itself, and Celestia decided to not take any more risks and tasked her with handling it.
The next morning Twilight left her castle to travel north to The Crystal Empire, and deal with the issue. Apparently, Sombra wasn't completely destroyed, and was attempting to take the Empire once more, this time he was trying a more subversive approach. The fact that Celestia knew he was here was a mystery, but then again Celestia had sensed Tirek, so it wasn't an impossibility. Once she got there she was quickly able to find him, and captured him in a shield. He was clearly not fully recovered, so capturing and containing him was easy.
After using the Crystal heart to permanently seal him away, Twilight had gotten a message that Celestia and Luna had suddenly vanished. Not wasting a moment, the alicorn took off for Canterlot as fast as her wings could carry her, which she found out was really fast. She had to guess that she was moving around twice the speed of sound. If she wasn’t so focused on the thought of her mentor and close friend up and vanishing, she would have been surprised by her own abilities. When she made it back to Canterlot, thirty minutes later, it was utter chaos. Ponies were running through the streets in a panic. When she made it into the castle she found the nobility shouting and screaming in as much a panic as the citizens outside. She spent the next twelve hours attempting to bring some semblance of control to the situation.
Once things were under control, Twilight set out to find her fellow princesses. It turned out to be easier said than done, because a lot of the leads she got had conflicting information. Twilight was thankful that alicorns didn’t need as much sleep, because for the next thirty-two hours she searched for every lead she could find. It wasn’t until she found out that one of her informants was an unreformed changeling that she began to make progress. Over the course of the next hour, she had found and captured twelve changelings, and another two hours before she was able to get them to tell her where Celestia and Luna were.
Once again Twilight took off and headed south, this time towards the badlands. Twilight was fully prepared for a trap so decided to take a more brute force approach when she found what she was looking for. It was a cave in the side of a large mountain in the middle of the wasteland. Following through with her plan of a more brute force approach, she battered the mountain with a single blast of magic sending the top third into thousands of shards and sending deep cracks along the rest of the mountain’s remaining upper half. After she did that, she landed just outside the cave's entrance and demanded the return of her fellow alicorns. She didn’t have to wait long before a group of changelings came out carrying Celestia and Luna, and deposited them in front of the purple mare, and rushing back inside in fear.
Twilight had already thought her week had been stressful, but it got worse because both Celestia and Luna were very weak, and just barely strong enough to move the sun and moon. So for the next few days Twilight had to run Equestria on her own. It also turned out that was the day even more things decided to go to shit, because not ten minutes after returning to Canterlot, several cities tried to break away, thinking Celestia and Luna were gone, causing more panic across the country. Thankfully Twilight was able to quell their fears and bring back some stability.
That stability was almost immediately shattered when several griffin dutchies attempted to take some land, thinking Equestria was on the verge of collapse. Apparently thinking the same thing, Saddle Arabia did the same, though they claimed they were attempting to just protect the pony cities along their shared border. Twilight was inclined to believe them because after she explained the situation they returned all occupied territory. The Griffons, however, didn’t believe her, and attempted to strike her then and there while continuing their campaign.
Suffice to say, the Griffons wouldn't be attempting anything like that again. It seemed like everything was going smoothly for the next six hours, that is until Tartarus started to blow up. Apparently, all the creatures in Tartarus had planned a full-scale breakout and ended up overwhelming Cerberus, while Celestia and Luna had not fully recovered, leaving Twilight had to handle it herself. Calling upon a special contingent of the army who were trained to fight monsters, Twilight was able to seal all the creatures back where they belonged.
When Saturday finally rolled Celestia and Luna had recovered enough to return to their duties. Now Twilight was back in Ponyville, living in her castle home, just content to be able to lay down and do nothing for the next twenty-four hours. It was at that moment that Twilight concluded the universe was a sadist, as a loud boom shook Ponyville. She didn’t want to move and thought it was just Rainbow Dash practicing again, that is, until she heard screams of panic and terror filling the air. Forcing herself up, she walked out onto the balcony connected to her bedroom to see what was causing the screaming.
To say what she saw next was horrifying would be a mild understatement. A rift in reality—some kind of otherworldly 'gate'—seemed to have opened up just on the edge of the town, and from it, a variety of horrifying creatures were pouring out of it. The alicorn watched in horror as they started attacking and killing ponies without regard. At that moment Twilight felt something inside her snap.
Sombra, Tirek, Chrysalis and her changelings... even the monsters of Tartarus. Political disputes, attempted coups, panic in the streets, paperwork, villains cropping up everywhere she went...
...and now this unwanted, unprovoked attack on her home from creatures right out of a nightmare. She stood out on the balcony of her castle and looked on as they came, chasing ponies down, killing and eating them whether they resisted or not.
It didn't matter where they ran, it didn't matter where they hid, the creatures always found them and, when they did, there was no hope of survival.
Twilight stood out on her balcony, her expression completely unreadable to anyone who wasn't looking close enough.
If one looked closely enough, however, one would've seen the errant twitch of an ear, the slight quickening of breath, the dimming of the light in the eyes of the Princess of Friendship.
It was too much.
It was far too much to take, and Twilight had had enough. She had snapped, and now there was nothing left to do but vent.
There was no pain, there was no sadness, there was no despair, there was no neurotic breakdown of epic proportions... not this time.
This time there was only cold rage and the horrible, horrible retribution of a mare who was once known far and wide as the most powerful unicorn to ever grace Equestrian land in centuries.
Now she was more than that.
She was more than the Princess of Friendship, she was more than Celestia's former student, she was more than any unicorn, or indeed any normal alicorn.
Celestia had her Sun, Luna had the Moon and the remaining Stars, Cadance had the power of Love, but Twilight...
Twilight was the Element of Magic.
Her aspect, her life, her purpose, everything she knew, everything she was, everything she stood for outside the love she had for her friends and family... was magic itself.
Today, here in this town she called home, here, where all her friends were, she would show these monsters exactly what that meant.
Twilight's face betrayed no emotion as she watched a scaly black winged lizard-like creature chase after a screaming filly—the demon laughing and snapping its jaws all the while.
It was halted by a sudden flash of magenta, and when it passed, the filly was gone—whisked away to safety by a teleportation spell.
Not that the monster knew that.
No, the monster's only response was to simply float there, wondering where its prey had gone. It wasn't a particularly smart creature, and just from a glimpse, Twilight knew this.
She also knew what happened to a unicorn that was stupid enough to cast a semi-formed teleportation spell. The monster didn't know this, but Twilight was willing to oblige the creature.
Two more flashes of magenta later, and a red and black mass of throbbing flesh and scales fell at Twilight's hooves.
She didn't bother looking at the results, opting instead to teleport back to the room containing the cutie map. There would be a reckoning, but the fury had not clouded Twilight’s mind… not completely... not yet.
She still had friends to save.
As soon as she flashed into the room, the cutie map activated—almost as if sensing her intent. Five familiar cutie marks appeared over the map, all in different parts of Ponyville. After taking a moment to scan the map, she lit up her horn.
Several pops sounded around the room as five mares appeared together, each of them in various states of panic, confusion, and, to Twilight’s horror, condition.
Fluttershy had a large gash across one of her hind legs, and fell to the ground with a half whimper, half groan as soon as she appeared.
Rainbow Dash was in even worse shape, with three puncture wounds spread across her chest and barrel. She heaved and grunted in pain, struggling to remain standing, but slumped over in the end.
“Twilight!” Applejack cried, rushing over to the mare, “what in tarnation is goin’ on?”
Twilight was about to answer when the door to the room burst open and a fearful Spike and Starlight emerged.
“T-Twilight!” Spike shouted, tripping over himself in an effort to reach the mare, “the town, it’s… it’s being overrun! We need to—”
“Starlight.”
Twilight’s voice was no louder than Fluttershy’s normal speaking voice, but it carried and was enough to make everypony in the room flinch.
“Y-Yeah?” Starlight replied after a long moment of silence, “what do you need, Twilight?”
There was a loud, deep rumble, and the entire castle shook, causing the girls to scream and small bits of rubble to cascade from the ceiling.
Twilight ignored it and continued to speak, turning to fully towards the bewildered pink unicorn.
“How much do you know about healing magic?”
“What?” she asked, blinking in surprise, “I… I mean I know a bit—at least enough to heal flesh wounds and the like, but—”
“That’s more than I know,” Twilight interjected, “and it’s good enough for now. Heal Fluttershy and Rainbow,” she paused as another tremor rocked the castle, “I’m going to take care of these things, whatever they are.”
In truth, Twilight hadn’t thought to learn much about healing magic. She had always planned to get around to it, and had read a few books on the subject, but it had been low on her priority list for quite some time.
A mistake she’d rectify as soon as she got the chance.
“Wait, Twi,” came Applejack’s determined voice, “lemme come with ya. Mah family’s still back at the farm, an’ no one’s there ta protect em’.”
“Applejack, surely you can’t—” Rarity began before Applejack cut her off.
“No, Rarity,” the cowpony said, rapidly shaking her head, “ah need ta be there. If ah go down, ah’m goin’ down fightin’ ta protect mah family an’ the farm.”
Rarity went to speak, but instead hung her head and fell silent. After a few seconds, she raised her head once more and took a step forward.
“Then… then I’m coming with you, darling,” she replied with conviction, “Sweetie Belle is still back at the boutique, and I can’t let those… those brutes get ahold of her.”
“Wait,” Rainbow grunted, trying and failing to rise to her hooves, “lemme go too, I… I gotta make sure Scoots is okay.”
“No need,” Twilight replied, “Scootaloo is fine.”
“What?” Rainbow asked in bewilderment, “what are you—”
Rather than explain, Twilight grabbed the filly in question from where she was wandering around the castle, and teleported her into the room.
The pegasus filly looked around in bewilderment before her eyes settled on her wounded idol.
“Rainbow Dash!” she cried, her eyes wide with horror as she galloped over to Rainbow’s prone form, “ohmygosh, Rainbow! A-Are you okay? What did those things do to you?!”
“S-Scootaloo?” Rainbow cried in surprise before grunting in pain, “Twilight, w-where in Tartarus did you—”
“I saved her from one of the monsters trying to eat her,” Twilight interjected, “so you don’t need to go anywhere right this moment.”
Rainbow opened her mouth to argue, but caught Scootaloo’s worried gaze and relented with an unhappy growl.
“You and Fluttershy are in no condition to go anywhere,” Twilight continued, raising her eyes towards the ceiling, “Starlight, heal them, and make sure they stay put. Pinkie?”
While Starlight went to heal Rainbow and Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, who had remained silent up until now, raised her head to look at Twilight, her flat mane covering most of her somber features.
“Once Starlight’s finished healing the others, I want you to help her and Spike find out more about what these things are and how they got here.”
A loud boom shook the castle yet again, followed by another as something large and heavy broke from the structure and fell away.
“We’re running out of time,” Twilight continued, “Starlight, do you have enough power to get Rainbow, Pinkie, Spike, and Fluttershy to Canterlot through a long-range teleport?”
“Twilight, you know I don’t have that kind of power!” Starlight called back as she mended the cut on Fluttershy’s leg, “I could teleport myself and maybe one of them, but not all of them!”
Twilight nodded and her horn flared to life, wrapping Starlight in a bright magenta glow. Starlight gasped in surprised, and the glow of her own horn brightened considerably.
“W-What?” she cried, watching her own magic seal Fluttershy’s wound shut almost instantly, “what did you do? What is this?”
“Support magic,” Twilight replied, her horn blazing while casting both Rarity and Applejack in that same magenta glow, “I used my own magic to temporarily boost yours.”
“An’ just what the hay did ya do to us?” Applejack asked, checking herself and stomping a hoof against the ground, “ah feel like ah could buck an’ apple tree clear across Ponyville!”
“Increased strength and endurance, as well as a magic boost for Rarity,” Twilight replied, getting impatient by the delays, “go and save your families.”
Before anypony else could argue, Twilight acted. Both Rarity and Applejack disappeared with another pop, one to Sweet Apple Acres and the other to the Carousel Boutique.
The lavender alicorn herself followed soon after, appearing again just outside of, and above the castle.
Even with the amount of magic she had sacrificed to boost her friends' abilities, she still had plenty to spare, and even if she didn’t, she had no regrets if it meant a better chance of survival for Applejack and Rarity.
With Starlight sending them all to Canterlot, they could hopefully get a warning out to the Princesses in time.
But now that her friends were taken care of for the moment, it was time to finish what these things started.
Starting with the massive tentacled beast latched onto the side of her castle.
It was a grotesque thing—some kind of abominable starfish with crimson scales, countless writhing, flailing limbs and a mouth full of endless rows of razor sharp teeth in its middle.
Disgusting.
Twilight lit her horn and the creature let out a high pitched squeal of indignation. She pulled at it with her telekinesis, but the thing wouldn’t budge—its tentacles wrapped too tightly around the castle.
Twilight frowned slightly.
If simply pulling it off won’t work, then…
Immolation.
A single spark shot out of Twilight’s horn, vanishing as soon as it appeared, but the damage was done.
Another squeal erupted from the monster, this one filled with horrible pain. It dislodged itself from the castle and fell to the ground below with a resounding boom.
Twilight watched it for a moment as it thrashed about, its squeals turning into low gurgles as it was melted from the inside out. The heat was so intense that its scales bubbled and popped.
After a minute, she turned away and focused her attention on the Castle of Friendship. A simple detection spell was enough to indicate that Starlight and the others were gone and that there were no other beings in the castle—ponies or otherwise.
Satisfied, she landed in front of the castle’s entrance and stomped a hoof. Magic built up and she felt it flow through her. With a little effort, she directed that flow outwards and into the ground.
With a flick of her horn, a large sigil faded into existence around the giant crystal tree. The sigil continued to gain more complexity as Twilight poured more energy into the spell she was attempting to cast.
With the sigil in place, she fed the flow of magic into the sigil and a massive magenta barrier flashed to life around the castle. Now that the threats in the immediate area were gone, she could start sending ponies to the castle, keeping them out of harm’s way while she did her grim work.
Leaving the castle and the still burning, screaming creature to its fate, Twilight vanished and reappeared near Town Hall, where the bulk of the ponies and creatures were.
Several ponies had already been slaughtered, but many more were either wounded or running from their nightmarish pursuers.
Horrible monsters of all shapes and sizes ran rampant across Ponyville, things with deadly claws and razor-sharp teeth. Things with scales and fur and flesh.
Things that dripped and oozed unspeakable substances, things that had many eyes and mouths, and things that had none of these.
Some flew, some walked, some crawled, some slithered and skittered and scuttled and stomped. Some had many legs and some had none, but all moved with deadly purpose.
As Twilight looked on, she let her cold rage grow a little hotter. She’d need to if she was going to cast the magic she wanted to cast.
Emotion played a big part in magic, and Twilight knew this. Even through all the unfathomable pain, stress, and fury, she knew exactly what to do.
She closed her eyes.
She inhaled, then exhaled, and opened her eyes once more. The calm, intelligent amethyst was gone, replaced by the burning white glow of the Element of Magic unleashed.
Twilight, growing less and less aware of her actions as she let her rage burn hotter and hotter, took a step forward.
Violet flames blazed to life about her form like a shroud, and to those who saw her, it looked as though she had wreathed herself in the very fires of Celestia’s Sun.
This was no fire of Celestia’s however—indeed, this was no fire at all, but mana in its most volatile form.
Twilight took another step.
Every single pony that hadn’t already been evacuated, vanished with a loud crack and an explosion of magenta light.
The teleportation spell had honed in on the magic signature of everypony in and directly around Ponyville.
Applejack, her family, Rarity, Sweetie Belle, and even Zecora, who had made it out of the forest only to run into four of the beasts, all disappeared along with the others.
Twilight was running out of time and sanity and had no idea what she’d end up doing. She couldn’t risk their safety, not now.
Not anymore.
With everypony safely squirreled away in her castle, Twilight surrendered the last of her rational thought and let the magic do the rest.
Destruction magic.
It wasn’t something Twilight had wanted to learn initially, but it wasn’t particularly something she needed to learn to use.
In a sense, destruction magic was one of the easiest schools of magic to use when you were blinded by intense emotion, much like dark magic.
In the hooves of a powerful unicorn or the Element of Magic, it was something truly terrifying to behold.
Each and every monster stupid enough to charge Twilight Sparkle was made to experience this truth first hoof.
A roar ripped its way out of Twilight’s throat, and the veil of mana around her fanned out in a violet shockwave, knocking away the small army of giant spider-like beasts that were closing in.
The spiders hit the ground and shattered like glass, the destruction magic reducing the pieces to nothing.
The blatant display of power didn’t faze the others in the slightest—if anything, it only increased their ire and spurred them on.
A larger group of the same flying lizard creatures from earlier rushed in next, screeching and clicking their jaws.
Behind them was a massive lumbering beast with a thin body and almost comically thick limbs encased in a white armor-like hide.
It stomped after the smaller lizards, causing the earth beneath its stumpy legs to rumble and shake. A low, yet powerful groan sounded from its wide mouth—the rest of its rounded face completely featureless.
Of course, this was all just one side.
Assaulting Twilight on the other side were dozens of what could only be described as large boars covered in bristly black fur that shimmered and glinted like dark needles in the sun.
Telekinesis.
It was the first spell every unicorn learned as a foal, and every unicorn, no matter how weak, could use it to some degree. It was so common a spell that many took it for granted.
Ponies didn’t usually wind up fighting for their lives, so they never thought to use it for anything other than the most mundane tasks.
Ponies didn’t realize how effective raw telekinetic power could be as a tool of war, and Twilight was indeed waging a war.
Thankfully for Twilight, raw telekinesis was second nature, and snatching up every lizard in her magic and crushing the life out of them was as simple as crushing a pebble in-between her hooves.
Dropping the pulpy masses of flesh to the ground, she turned her attention to the lumbering giant.
Her first instinct was to crush the head, though why she had any instinct to do so in the first place was a mystery best left for later.
Maybe she was just angry.
Either way, she proceeded to do just that, but the creature didn’t seem to notice—a development that was enough to momentarily shock the alicorn out of her rage induced mania.
It was a momentary thing, and the rage soon took over once more, burning even brighter at being thwarted. In light of this new development, Twilight instead attempted to simply blast a hole through its middle with a concentrated beam of superheated magefire.
Judging by the way its top half toppled over backward and the lower half pitching forward, her new method had worked well.
No attention could be spared for the thing, however, as the boar-like monsters were still closing in with sharp tusks, heavy hooves, and thunderous roars that could be heard for miles.
Up until this point, Twilight had remained more or less in one place while letting the horde of otherworldly monsters come to her, but it seemed the crowd was thinning somewhat.
In truth, the invasion had been on the smaller side, only consisting of a few hundred creatures. Had Twilight been in any state to think rationally, she would realize this and may have been suspicious of such a small force.
What were these creatures?
Where did they come from and why were they invading?
Why attack Ponyville of all places?
Did it have something to do with all the other crises she’d had to deal with one after another, or was it all just a horrible, frustrating coincidence?
As it stood right now, Twilight neither knew nor cared. The only thing on her mind was removing these things from Ponyville by any means possible.
Then maybe... just maybe... she could get some well-deserved sleep.
All of these thoughts were pushed to the back of Twilight’s mind as she continued to vent her rage and frustration in the most violent ways imaginable.
She took to the sky, allowing the charging boars to pass harmlessly beneath her. From this vantage point, she had all manner of opportunities to rid herself and the town of these things.
Then, finally, like a siren’s call, she felt it.
Dark Magic.
Somewhere deep down, Twilight was surprised it had taken this long for the vile magic to feed on her rage, but in her state, she was in no position to fight it off.
So she used it instead.
The harder one fought against Dark Magic, the harder it fought back, leading to faster corruption. Thankfully, the enraged alicorn had no such problems and was all too happy to let the magic run its course.
There were no specific spells cast, no Necromancy, no summoning of Shades to do her bidding, no horrible Life Draining Aura to suck the creature’s souls away—assuming they even had souls, to begin with.
No, Twilight couldn’t muster the focus for such foul, yet complex spells. Instead, Twilight’s shroud of mana blackened, her eyes turned a horrifying shade of jade and crimson and became enveloped in violet mist.
There would be no fancy, complex spells here. There was only room in Twilight’s mind for Dark Magic in its most basic form.
With a shriek of unbridled fury, the mare flew over the stampede like a flaming ebony comet, leaving shining black crystals in her wake—crystals that erupted from the ground below the boars at a frightening pace.
More and more of the boars were impaled from below in quick succession as Twilight made pass after pass. In a matter of moments, every boar in the stampede was skewered atop countless crystals.
With its goal seemingly accomplished, the Dark Magic released Twilight from its grip and her mana once more brightened into a violet blaze, not that her fury had abated any.
It was a strange thing, this fury.
It felt as though it was consuming her. It felt like she was trying to tread water in a roiling, furious ocean and couldn’t keep above the waves.
Something was terribly wrong here.
This wasn’t the normal rage of somepony who’d had a long, frustrating day. This was something different, something far worse, but again, Twilight couldn’t fight it, nor could she bring herself to care about the implications.
There were yet more monsters to eradicate.
As Twilight cleared out the remaining creatures near Town Hall, another portal appeared further in the distance, this one much larger than the last.
From her position, Twilight could see that the portal had opened up outside of town and sat between Ponyville and Canterlot.
A lone creature—positively titanic in its stature—emerged quietly and suddenly, and beneath all the rage, Twilight was horrified by what she saw.
It was equine for the most part, though terribly thin, hideously twisted, and fleshy. It’s black skin looked as though it was stretched taut over its bones, and its face had no eyes.
Its mouth was pulled open in a perpetual silent scream, showing row upon row of needle-like teeth. It snorted once and gave a loud, ear-piercing wail that would’ve sent shivers down the spine of any pony that wasn’t Twilight at that moment.
Where the monster stood, the flora directly surrounding it withered and died, and the air around it carried a visibly dark aura that Twilight could see even from where she was.
This all paled in comparison to what atop the monstrous equine’s back, however.
Attached to the creature’s back, was what Twilight could only guess was a torso, thin, black, and fleshy like its equine counterpart.
The only thing Twilight could compare it to was the upper half of a human that had somehow fused itself to the thing below it, though it was certainly no kind of human Twilight had ever seen.
Humanoid would’ve been a better term, for this thing was far from an actual human. Its body was too thin, its arms long enough to drag across the ground. The limbs ended in three long, gleaming silver claws.
It looked around with the two gaping holes in its head that served as eyes—or rather, eye sockets. A jagged line was cut into its face, curling into a wide, uneven grin full of the same needle-like teeth as the equine below.
Its claws flexed and curled, and in one of the claws, Twilight could see some kind of instrument she couldn’t make any sense of.
It looked like some kind of gnarled ivory trumpet, its horn long and twisted upwards. As Twilight watched, the thing lifted the horn to its mouth and blew.
Twilight’s blazing white eyes narrowed slightly as the long, low, warbling note rang out, carrying across the entirety of Ponyville.
The ominous sound continued for a good minute or so before all fell silent once more. For a few heartbeats, nothing seemed to happen.
Then they emerged.
From beyond the dark portal came an army the likes of which Equestria hadn’t seen in many millennia, not since the War of the Sisters.
To Twilight’s horror and anger, the large equine creature led its army of monsters away from Ponyville, marching instead towards Mount Canterhorn.
Either these creatures thought Twilight was worth ignoring or had decided that taking Canterlot was more important.
Whatever the case, the alicorn wasn’t having any of it.
With a hard flap of her wings, a bright flare of her mana, and another howl of rage, Twilight took off after the army of monsters.
A bright flash was the only warning the monsters got before a massive pillar of magenta light slammed into their ranks.
The concentrated beam of superheated mana burned through the creatures, carving a path of destruction wherever it hit.
Shrieks of terror and indignation among the horde were drowned out by the roar of magic and those that hadn’t scattered fast enough were reduced to ash in an instant as Twilight continued to rain arcane retribution from above.
It had been enough for the grunts, but as the deadly beam reached the titanic equine abomination, the humanoid thing screeched and released a horrible black smog from its maw.
The smog seemed to have a mind of its own, wrapping around the creature in much the same way Twilight’s mana wrapped around her, and protecting it from the alicorn’s arcane blast.
The magical blast hit the smog head on and seemed to work at first glance. The smog gave slightly and it looked as though the beam had pushed through, but then the smog began to encroach upon the beam like a rapidly growing fungus.
Twilight cut off the blast and the smog fell back towards the creature where it remained. She couldn’t see the creature through the foul cloud, but she heard the deep, drawn-out note of the horn once more.
Upon hearing the signal, the few remaining stragglers that had survived Twilight’s onslaught began retreating back into the portal, much to Twilight’s frustration.
She fired another massive beam of magic, this time splitting it into countless smaller, thinner rays that sliced through scales, flesh, fur, and slime like razors.
Unfortunate she didn’t manage to get very far, as the giant terror blocked off her attack by extending its smog across the battlefield and covering the retreat of the grunts.
Fortunately, however, that left the monster’s body open to attack, and Twilight took that opportunity with no small amount of relish.
Just as the thing returned its attention to the mare, it found its torso ensnared by a large violet tentacle of mana, then two more around the neck and barrel of the equine.
The burning violet aura around Twilight’s form had warped and twisted as it split off into several ethereal tentacles, giving the impression of some kind of wrathful cephalopod.
The horse-like portion of the creature let out a strangled whinny before it was cut off by the magical limb wrapped around its throat.
Twilight could feel her mana slowly deteriorating as it touched the creature, but mitigated the issue by pumping more mana into her spell.
Wasting no more time, she pulled the writhing, thrashing monster into the air. The humanoid portion tried once more to expel the magic eating smog, but Twilight was faster.
She grit her teeth, narrowed her eyes and pulled, wrenching the humanoid torso from its perch atop the equine. Black ooze spilled and splattered as the thing was ripped apart and smashed into the ground over and over again.
Those that hadn’t yet fled through the portal looked on as their leader was reduced to a slimy, fleshy black paste. It was nearly impossible to tell for one who wasn’t of their kind, but it wasn’t anger or bloodlust behind the grotesque, snarling, sneering faces.
It was fear.
They arrived, prepared for the bloody invasion of a peaceful pony race. It was supposed to be a laughably simple campaign, and then they would feast like they’d never feasted once everything was said and done.
But this… this wasn’t supposed to happen.
This mare… this monster had somehow become the bane of their existence, and if they stood any chance of surviving her onslaught, and taking this realm for their own, they’d need to send more forces.
A lot more.
In the meantime, however, they ran. As the remains of their commander were flung back into the still open portal, the onlookers snapped out of their horrified stupor and scrambled away, retreating back to the relative safety of their realm.
Twilight’s aura flared slightly and she gave a low frustrated growl before charging towards the portal. The mare in her berserked state fully intended to finish what they started, willing to fly into the unknown if she had to.
Luckily for the fleeing creatures, the portal snapped shut just as Twilight reached it, and she harmlessly passed through the air where it once stood.
She instead landed with a thunderous boom, cracking the earth and scorching the plant life as she skidded to a stop.
She recovered quickly and whipped around, scanning her surroundings for any more of the monsters. She found neither monster nor portal, however, and upon realizing her quarry had escaped, she gave one last roar of fury, the likes of which could be heard all the way in Canterlot.
Then, almost as if her own magic had sensed that the threat was gone, everything stopped. The cloak of mana dissipated, the white light faded from her eyes, and the rage finally settled.
The experience left Twilight suddenly and completely drained, her amethyst eyes clouding over from exhaustion and her stance becoming unsteady.
She’d never felt so weak.
The weakness wasn't a problem however, not now that the fighting was done. The mysterious creatures from beyond the 'gate' had been pushed back or wiped out and the infernal portal itself had vanished.
She could finally rest.
Without the fury to blind her now, Twilight idly wondered if Applejack and Rarity had made it out okay. She wondered if they'd been able to save their loved ones before she got everypony away from the danger and to the safety of her castle.
But such worries would have to wait.
With a low, tired groan she stumbled back and fell over, unconscious before she even hit the ground. With her gruesome task done, Twilight slept as she’d never slept before.
She slept peacefully amidst the death and destruction around her, knowing deep down that those things would never return, knowing that her friends at the very least, were safe and sound for the most part.
The complete inequinity of her actions were nothing more than a small hoofnote in the back of her mind.
Her eyes snapped open to find herself flowing in a grey, ethereal world. The reality around her was eerily still. Her senses felt extremely muddled and at the same time heightened to an excruciating level. It was the strangest sensation she had ever experienced. Her mind struggled to process all of these feelings and the simultaneous lack of feeling. Despite this, her mind was able to form a question. Where am I? She was answered.
“You are in reality,” a voice answered. The voice was both masculine and feminine at the same time. Twilight felt her confusion increase further. The voice wasn’t a blend of two genders, more like two voices simultaneously imposed upon each other. It felt impossible, wrong.
What kind of chaos is this?
“Not chaos, flawed harmony.”
What does that mean how can harmony be flawed?
“You are experiencing what happens when harmony and chaos are not blended together but are implemented simultaneously in full. That is what reality is currently and it’s broken.”
Broken? Reality is broken? Why? How?
“A story too long to tell with the limited time you have here. You will learn about it in the future on your path.”
Path? What do you mean?
“You have made the first step on your path to fix this.”
Fix reality?! How? I don’t understand and I’m so confused!
“I can not tell you how for even I do not know. I only know that you are the one who will restore harmony. You are here so I can tell you where to go next.”
Why me?
“Again I can not tell you for I do not know. I may seem like an omniscient being, but I am not, I am a creation that is only here to guide you on your path.”
… Okay… what do you want to tell me?
“Find the place on your world where light and darkness meet in broken harmony and correct it. There you will find your next clue. Be cautious because what you experienced today will not be the last. Your path is fraught with danger and perils. You must not lose your focus and you will fail, and if you fail… reality will soon destroy itself.”
I… I understand…
“Then my job is done. Goodbye…”
Twilight bolted upright wide awake and finally understood the things she was feeling.
“Twilight! Oh, thank goodness you are all right!” the voice of Twilight’s former mentor sounded to her right. Turning her head, Twilight was met with worry filled magenta eyes. Twilight continued to stare at her fellow princess for a moment as her mind began to process where she was. She was in what looked to be Canterlot Castle’s infirmary. Twilight continued to process where she was and what was going on when memories came flooding back. Twilight pressed her forehooves to her skull just below her horn and groaned.
“Celestia…” Twilight groaned.
“Yes, Twilight?”
“I need a vacation.”
To be continued?
