XIX:
The greatest sacrifice of a Great Master

Four days earlier:

The dark alicorn looked annoyed at her lover.

“What are you doing Night Terror? Why did you stop?” asked Midnight. “You know I don’t like when we stop halfway through our especial moments.”

Night Terror separated from her, and showed the message he just intercepted with a smirk.

Midnight raised an eyebrow when she recognized her mentor’s writing, and started laughing. The other five undeads turned their heads to her.

“What’s up with you?” asked Undash.

Midnight showed her the scroll. “The Great Master have been captured, and her trial would be on the Crystal Empire. They would transport her in four days to face justice.”

“So… this is a trap for us?” asked Gothic.

“Considering they already know what we would do, I think on this more like an invitation.” grinned Midnight. “Who wants to take a train? We have lots of fun ahead of us!”

“I’m in!” giggled Pin-Kill-Die. “Fun, fun, fun! I live for fun! Or I die for it? Anyway, I am ready to join the game.

“And whose gonna join us?” asked Jack the Reaper.

“Everypony would come! Our other selves, the Princesses and even our silent friends!” said Night Terror.

“I guess they want to stop us for good.” said Midnight thoughtful. “I really don’t know what they think they can do to us, but I’m curious!”

“We’re all curious darling, but if we’re going we need a plan!” said Gothic.

“Why?!” protested Undash. “Is not like they are able to do anything with us!”

“Maybe not but we have to make sure we are able to kill the Great Master before they try anything.” said Midnight.

“Not only her but all the Knights who are on that train.” corrected Fleshy Smile.

“We have four days to plan our strategy, let’s relax and prepare our weapons. You know how we enjoy the preparations before carnage!”

Midnight nodded. “Just remember that the Great Master is our priority, if the others survive we’ll kill them later. It doesn’t matter. As for the Great Master, she would be a difficult target since she’ll be protected by everypony. We have to think the way to lure her to us.”

“Considering how she is, she’ll do it on her own. She won’t risk any other life but hers. And the idiots who follow her would do everything in their power to protect her. Idiots protecting idiots, so we will have the chance to kill them on the spot!” grinned Fleshy Smile.

“Yes but our other selves would do anything to prevent us from happening, this is why we have to plan our move carefully!” said Midnight. “This is a trap designed for us.”

They began to argue the best way to approach the train. Finally after what it looked like non-stopping arguing for four days straight, it was time for carnage.

Night Terror extended his wings, as Jack the Reaper, Gothic and Pin-Kill-Die climbed his back. Undash, Fleshy Smile and Midnight all had wings.

They went into a mountain right between Canterlot and the Crystal Empire knowing that on their spot they would see the train any minute now. They finally saw it coming at moderate speed like waiting for them to attack.

“Undash and Fleshy Smile, do your thing!” commanded the dark alicorn.

The two undead charged against a large boulder that dropped on the trail for the impact. The train stopped almost immediately as the undeads jumped over the roof and began to walk on the roof searching for the Great Master’s aura.

They stopped over a wagon on the middle of the train, and at Midnight’s sign, Night Terror ripped off the wagon’s roof allowing the six undeads to jump inside.

“Hey! Did somepony invited us to a trap? Because we are dying to assist!” laughed Pin-Kill-Die.

The Great Master East Wind faced them.

“I’m glad you accepted our invitation, Undead Knights.”

“A great detail on your behalf!” smiled Midnight analyzing the surroundings.

This would be fun. She started to analyze her potential targets. She recognized the second Great master, who she killed on her timeline. An unknown unicorn and…

“Wait a minute, Spike?”

The door opened suddenly, letting pass the rest of the Bearers, the Princesses and the rulers of the Crystal Empire. They all looked at the tallest of the Knights of Silence in awe.

Spike made a quick nod looking at Midnight to the eye.

“Is like Night Terror says. Being useless it’s a sin.”

Midnight grinded her teeth.

“Night Terror! New mission, keep Spike as far as possible from the fight! I don’t want him here!”

The adult dragon nodded. “By your command, Midnight!”

He looked at Spike. “I warned you, remember? You decided to play a dangerous game.”

Spike charged the power of shadows on his claws as he looked at Night Terror. “I’ll cross any line to protect the ponies I love.”

The undead dragon tried to catch Spike with his large claw, but the smaller dragon fused with his shadow to escape. With that the fight had begun.

The Undead Knights charged against the rest of the Knights of Silence, who bravely charged against them too. The four alicorns shot a powerful magic beam to them, making the creatures explode. The pieces of dead meat were through everywhere on the wagon, only for the undead to regenerate.

“Seriously, you trying to destroy us is getting old! You know we are already dead, right’”

“Yer’ right but don’t stops from tryin!” shouted Applejack tackling Jack the Reaper.

But it was like hitting a wall of bricks. Applejack was very strong and muscular mare, so the rigor mortis had hardened her muscles beyond imagination.

“Ya’ think ya’ can stop me like that?” laughed the Reaper before grabbing Applejack by her braid and threw her over Rarity.

Rarity had to push her friend away with her magic, and shot several weak magic beams against Midnight. The dark alicorn received a couple on the flank, and turned to Rarity.

With a shrug the dark alicorn fused in the shadows and appeared right behind the white unicorn and proceeded to kick her on the gut. Rainbow Dash noticed this, and charged against Midnight.

Midnight noticed and smiled, ready to receive the impact when Dash turned at the last second and instead what she received was an attack from Shining Armor at full power.

The attack sent Midnight all the way back to another wagon where several guards received her with their spears to embed her on the wooden floor as they ran to backup the Knights of Silence.

In the last wagon of the military train, the undead dragon Night Terror was fighting with his living counterpart. At first he thought he could dominate the smaller dragon with ease, but he was way stronger than he imagined. He was fast and agile, disappearing inside his shadow over and over and reappearing randomly and shooting powerful beams to the older dragon.

Finally Spike appeared right in front of the bigger dragon, and charged his power on his claws as an unicorns would do in their horns, and shot the most powerful beam he could cast. It caused a huge explosion that sent Night Terror all the way back to the wagon where the rest of the ponies were fighting the Undead Knights.

The impact left everypony silent and turned to Spike in awe.

Night Terror laughed, amused. “Whoa, you are strong kid!”

“I owe it to your advice, Night Terror. I am at the level of an A-Class unicorn. Not even Starlight Glimmer would have a chance against the new me.”

Night Terror got up as large as he was, looking at the huge hole in his chest with a smile.

“I believe you.” said the dragon as he regenerated.

One more time Night Terror jumped over Spike, who disappeared inside the shadows and materialized behind Gothic and blasted her so hard that he destroyed all her body except for the head.

“Hey I thought you liked me!” said the head.

“Not a kid anymore, sorry!” said Spike as he threw the head out of the window.

The rest of the Undeads looked at Spike between surprised and amused of the audacity of the dragon. After looking at Midnight they jumped over the little dragon. Not to kill him but to put him out of combat so they could continue with their mission.

East Wind and the rest of the Knights created a wall of shadows to keep the monsters away from Spike, as each of them created a small dagger of shadows with their magic. Including Spike.

“Spike what are you doing?! Drop that knife now!” shouted Twilight.

“Twi, as a Knight of Silence I am trained in both magical and physical combat. I know how to use it, and I’ll help to finish this!” assured the dragon.

The lavender alicorn looked at Spike as not knowing what to think, but he smiled at her. “Twilight I joined because I wanted to become strong to stay at your side and protect you. We will defeat the Undead Knights.”

“Defeat them or die trying. But at least you don’t have to worry about the last part buddy!” joked Irish smiling. But her eyes reflected how scared she was.

The Undead got up and attacked the Knights of Silence. Each of them responded by stabbing them with their knives, and released a magic blast sealed inside that sent them away right to Celestia’s and Luna’s hooves.

The two Princesses send a magic blast on their own that turned them into ashes.

But as expected, the creatures regenerated.

“Seriously, do you actually have a plan or what?” asked Midnight. “This is nothing we haven’t been through before.”

“And is extremely unfair dears!” said Gothic. “We gave everything to protect Equestria! Why are you treating us like this?”

Twilight faced the creatures. “You know why we are doing this! You may had been us in the past, but now you are nothing but soulless killing machines! Something that shouldn’t exist!”

“Soulless?” asked Fleshy-Smile offended. “Oh my! You are misjudging us Twilight! Our souls are right here inside our dead flesh, and sees everything we do. And how we do it.”

“What?!” asked Twilight horrified.

Pin-Kill-Die sighed sadly.

“When you make a pact with the Devil your soul is supposed to descend to hell directly, as your body turns into this unkillable creature. But the Elements of Harmony protected us, and instead of going to hell we must stay inside our bodies. We have to find a balance between who we were, and our new dark nature.”

“These bodies force us to give in to our darkest desires, like our inner bloodlust. Is not that bad, we could be burning in hell.” said Gothic jumping through the window with body completely regenerated.

Night Terror shrugged, as he slapped Shining Armor away. “Either if its because of the Elements or the Power of Love, we are stuck. We cannot go back or go forward. We are out choices.”

Undash grinned sadly. “You didn’t hear this from me, okay? But if I’m completely honest, if it was for us, we would had gone to hell a long time ago.”

The Princess of the Night looked at the creatures.

“We do feel pity for you, Undead Knights. No pony deserves a fate as yours, but you must understand you cannot prevail! We must stop you one way or another.”

Princesses Luna, Celestia, Cadence and Twilight combined a powerful attack that made the entire train blow up completely, as part of their plan. They knew the creatures would regenerate immediately but everypony needed the fight to end in the open to make their final move.

But as soon as they found themselves in the open, they realized they were surrounded by the undead.

Dozens of undead creatures held by chains and shackles, trying to get them with all their power. When the train was destroyed, the monsters roared and tried to jump over the living to kill them. Because that was what the undead did. They had no capability to think or to feel anymore. They were must unkillable creatures guided by the dark desire of murder, murder, and more murder.

The members of the Royal Guard were terrified looking at the creatures. They raised their spears but were shacking in fear.

The six Bearers, the Princesses and Shining Armor raised a shield, and looked at the Undead Knights who have finished regenerating.

Midnight smiled at them, but her smile fainted.

“Sorry we had to do this, but since you prepared a trap for us the least we could do was to prepare a trap on our own.”

Undash looked at the Knights of Silence, and grinned at them. “We have some unfinished business with the Knights of Silence, and we couldn’t let you interrupt us!”

“Yeah, you should had let us kill her.”

Gothic and Midnight shot a beam to the chains and shackles, releasing the undead monsters who started to attack every living thing they could find. The Princesses shouted and started to shot magical attacks trying to keep the creatures in line. The soldiers did their best to keep up as well, but they were terrified. Some of them started to use Magic of Silence to defend themselves, making the undeads’ shadows to turn against their owners and slowed them down.

In the meantime the Undead Knights charged against the Knights of Silence, each of them generating a dagger of shadows only to tease their rivals.

The Great Master decided to take on Midnight. Midnight laughed at them and opened her hooves to receive all the attacks from the Great Master.

East Wind’s knife went through Midnight’s chest, and released an attack at full power that destroyed everything. Organs, flesh and bones.

As expected, Midnight regenerated, and she lifted the earth pony with her magic. East Wind tried to break the hold, but Midnight was too powerful for her.

“It’s useless Great Master. You are stronger than me back when I was your age, and a unicorn. But I am an alicorn now and a corpse. I cannot feel tired. But you will eventually. Just let me end your misery.”

Midnight release a magic attack over the defenseless East Wind, who cried in pain.

“You know? I prefer physical torture but I think this would be enough for you. I know you’re not evil but your carelessness have brought enough problems to Equestria already. So I would finish you as fast as possible.”

She sent a new attack to East Wind, who cried in pain again.

“Great Master!” shouted Spike sending a shadow beam to Midnight.

But the attack was intercepted by Night Terror, who grabbed him with his tail.

“Enough is enough kid!”

Spike tried to release his aura. “You told me, remember? Being useless it’s a sin! I’ll protect my loved ones, including my Great Master!”

Night Terror rolled his eyes. “Noble but stupid. Wanna fight the undead? Okay, fine. Be my guest!”

Night Terror threw Spike in the middle of the main fight. When noticed a new life force, the real undead ran toward Spike who barely had time to create a magic shield.

“Dang it!”

Twilight flew to the rescue destroying the undead monsters and landing aside Spike. “You and I will have a very serious talk when this ends, understood Spike?”

“Figured as much!” said Spike sending his own magic beams to the creatures.

On the sky, Cadence was flying in circles trying to get the full picture of the battle.

“Do not destroy them! Hold them back!”

Shining nodded and used a chain spell he had been developing after the fight with Night Terror four years ago. The chains wrapped around the creatures’ legs and made them fell. They tried to squirm and to get to the creatures but could not think how to freed themselves.

The others understood the strategy and started to wrap the creatures in chains, or creating craters and push the creatures inside and then cover the crater with heavy rocks. It wouldn’t work forever but would buy them some time.

“Dealing with those seven made me forget how stupid these things actually are!” sighed Luna in relief.

Celestia nodded and turned to the Knights of Silence and the Great Master.

“No!”

East Wind looked at Midnight walking toward her, raising her knife.

“You fought well, both for your cause and against me.”

“I never intended for this to happen; you know it right?” asked East Wind weakly.

“I know, this is why this would be quick and relatively painless. Undeads!”

Undash immobilized Emerald and forced his eyes open. Fleshy Smile did the same with Irish Coffee.

“Any last words East Wind?” asked Midnight.

The earth pony looked down. “I hate myself for doing this. NOW!”

Emerald and Irish fused with their shadows to get off the undeads, and materialized right in time to sent a combined spell to Midnight.

The dark alicorn laughed and used the Great Master as a living shield. East Wind had a small grin on her face as the spell impacted her fully.

The two Knights fell on their knees as they have used all their remaining power.

East Wind was surrounded by a white light that caught everypony’s attention. They could feel the Great Master’s power increase exponentially.

“Shit!” said Midnight.

Celestia’s eyes widened when she recognized the spell.

“YOU HAD NO RIGHT! WHO GAVE YOU THIS KNOWLEDGE?”

Luna was surprised too as she looked at Celestia with fear. “How did they…?”

A horn appeared on East’s forehead as two wings sprouted from her sides and landed in front of Midnight.

Midnight roared in anger and charged against the new alicorn, who moved her hoof and the monster was cut in half. Then with her new horn she shot a new magic attack that took care of Undash, Fleshy Smile and Midnight at the same time.

“Wow… I am stronger than I expected!”

Emerald smiled weakly. “I knew that the only pony worthy of getting this power was you, Great Master.”

“Emerald…”

The green unicorn smiled at her. “East, if we make it alive I wanted to tell you that I like you. Not as a Great Master but as a mare. Please go out with me when we rgo back home!”

And then he fainted, the Alicorn Spell had taken everything from him

Irish giggled. “What a cliché scene! But it was funny.”

Then she fainted as well.

East Wind hugged her two Knights of Silence, and why not? She kissed Emerald, who smiled, before facing the undeads.

Midnight was not amused. “How did you got that spell? You never figured this in our timeline!”

“You are the ones who came to alter history, you tell me!” said East charging her power on her hooves and horn.

Midnight shrugged. “You may be right, but one more alicorn doesn’t change anything!”

Spike overheard this and smiled. “Hey Midnight!”

The undead alicorn turned to him.

“WHAT?”

“What about two alicorns?”

Twilight looked at Spike in awe, as he charged the spell on his claws. “SHINING!”

The spell hit the older of the Sparkle siblings, as Spike fell on his knees as the spell drained him completely.

Shining Armor looked at himself as two wings sprouted from his sides, and his muscles gained the strength and consistency of an Earth Pony. He looked at his younger brother, who smiled before fainting as well.

Midnight sighed, this battle had been going for far too long. “Night Terror, let’s finish this!”

The enormous dragon sent a powerful stream of fire to the Great Master, who blocked with with a shield, but it was enough to distract her since he actually wanted to smash the mare under his body.

Shining flew to create a shield just in time. But the impact over the protective sphere was so strong that it created a huge crater.

East Wind was intact, but Night Terror was angry. It wasn’t time to hesitate, she sent a new magic beam to the creature’s belly. The new attack only made Night Terror to lose his balance half of a second, but it didn’t matter since the rest of the undead jumped over the crater to get the Great Master.

She flew away to escape from them, but then she looked at Twilight and waved her hoof.

“Do it.”

Twilight gulped but nodded when she saw the resolution in East Wind’s eyes.

East Wind turned her attention to the Undeads, and raised her hooves. The creatures’ shadows separated from them and turned against their owners immobilizing them against the ground. They struggled against their own shadows’ hold, but with her new alicorn powers East Wind was more than a match for them.

Night Terror and Midnight were their strongest elements, and they were able to fight the Great Master as an alicorn, but they were immobilized by Celestia, Luna, Cadence and Shining Armor. They could not move.

Twilight and her friends approached as the creatures struggled to get free.

East Wind took a look at her surroundings and smiled. It was a beautiful place to be buried.

She landed in the middle of the Undead Knights creating chains made of shadows to keep them down as the Elements of Harmony prepared their move.

“ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TRYING TO MAKE US SLEEP AGAIN?” shouted Undash.

“Yes, and this time we’ll make sure you stay that way!” declared Twilight revealing her secret weapon.

A branch from the Tree of Harmony.

“Great Master!”

Twilight threw the branch to East Wind who grabbed with her hoof and raised it over her head. She was smiling but crying at the same time. Still she did not hesitate, she knew this had to be done.

“Hey! Tell Emerald I liked him too, okay?”

“We will!” said Twilight waving a hoof. She did not know the Great Master for too long but she liked this pony. Noble until the very end.

Twilight and the girls cleared their tears as they concentrated their power over the branch…that created a huge rainbow explosion as the branch absorbed the power slowly turning into a sprout of the Tree of Harmony.

Its roots began to expand all over the Undead Knights, and also the regular undead. The Harmonic effect was almost instant. All the undead creates yawned and stopped struggling from their temporary holds as they surrendered themselves to the bliss of sleep. A pleasure only for the living.

“Harmony created you, Harmony will keep you under control!” declared Twilight looking how the roots of Harmony swallowed all the monsters in the area.

Midnight looked at her to the eye, before she fall asleep with the rest of the undead monsters. “We’ll be back and you know it. We are the shadow of Harmony… this only bought you tiiiimmm…"

The last of the Undead Knights was foever trapped under the roots of the new Sprout of Harmony. It was over.

Author's Note

Ooff! This chapter was a mess to make in the original, and a mess to translate as well. Anyway, the Undead Knights have been finally sealed but with a cost.

But we still have one more chapter and two epilogues.

Thank you so much for following this story. I’ll try to upload the third part of this trilogy a bit faster.

Read ya’ later!!