Sombra’s words hung in the air ominously, as Sunset helped her friends to their feet, her magic thrumming under skin and passing into them. Their own magic flared brighter, and Pony-ups that had started to fade came back with a vengeance. Rainbow flexed her repaired wing. “Army? We’ll show you an army,” she snarled at Sombra, right before the doors to the school exploded outwards in a shrieking, shattering cacophony of glass and metal being torn asunder.

The six of them ducked in reflex as an absolute behemoth came flying out through the shrapnel and landed on top of the battered door like a surfboard, even as the door itself landed across three of the Fearlings. His added weight made the shadow-spawn pop with a gross squelching noise as his booted feet drove it all the way to kiss the concrete at the bottom of the steps. “Oh YEAH!” Coach Iron Will roared, hefting a massive sledgehammer over his head. “Do not FUCK with Iron Will’s students!”

In his wake Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna, Cadence, and Indigo led the way as dozens of armed Canterlot High students poured out of the school. “Her army is right here, Sombra!” Principal Celestia declared, pointing a sword at him. “She may have challenged you, but to the last, we all defy you!”

“We have the coolest principals,” Rainbow crowed, pumping her fists in the air. “Nice armor, VP!”

Luna saluted her with the glaive. “We are here to help take down the loathsome beast and his slavering horde! She brandished the weapon at a group of Fearlings. “Come then, abominations! Taste the wrath of Nightmare Moon If you but dare!”

Beside her, Cady slotted a new clip into the gun in her hand. “You’ll regret targeting my sisters, you jerk!” Her eyes flicked to Sunset. “I’m so glad you're alive, Sunset—we…we thought the worst.”

Just what had gone on while she was putting her psyche back together?

—Beginning to think we missed a lot of important stuff while we were talking, horn-head.—

Me too.

Still, Sunset wasn't one to turn down help in this case—they couldn't fight an army without help, and help had arrived in spades. “My army, False King,” she called, spreading her hands, and letting the magic fill her until it flowed out in flames and rainbows. “And my power.”

Harmonic magic sang in the air, and her friends began to glow. Rainbow Dash flexed her wings and leapt into the air just as the heavens finally opened up. Fat raindrops began spattering the stone, leaving dark spots on clothing and hair, metal and stone, and thunder boomed above. Lightning crackled and then came down, drawn to the lone figure twenty feet overhead. Sunset raised her hand, called out in warning, but sound would never be faster than light.

Or lightning.

The bolt slammed into Rainbow Dash, but rather than cooking her like a piece of meat, it crackled across her skin as she arched her back, wings spread wide. Her eyes blazed with blue light, and she snapped forward, her hands thrown wide and fingers splayed, and all the electrical energy bounded down her arms to launch itself out of her fingertips in a crackling burst of blue-white brilliance.

Lightning struck the Fearlings and Nightmares, arc’ing from one body to another, dozens of them seizing and exploding in black gore in a single blow. It was absolutely devastating to a large swath of enemies closest to the girls.

It also served as the signal for the student body of Canterlot High to surge forward, with Coach Will and Miss Luna leading the charge.

Celestia flicked her sword deftly, the sparkling edge parting a bestial head from shadowy shoulders like a hot knife cutting through butter. It seemed that the enchanted, glowing nimbus meant that even a sword meant for piercing rather than slicing was extremely effective against the monsters they faced…which was good, because there were just so many of them.

Several more fell to her blade and then she was facing an opponent that she almost didn't expect. Clad in armor of crystal void, wielding a wicked sword of darkness, the figure spoke with the voice of Abacus Cinch. “Celestia Solaire,” she—it?—growled. “I suppose I should not be surprised it has come to this. Your family has long been a thorn in my side.”

“And it turns out my ancestor was right—your facility was a horrible, hellish place. So I’d say it's rather fitting that we end this today, you and I.”

Cinch hissed something that sounded like a curse. “I should have destroyed your line ages ago with my own hands, instead of wasting my time and power on a bloodline curse to do it for me!”

The words hit her like a physical blow, and under them, she could hear the echo of a lifetime of tragedy and generations of bad news, the painful, untimely, and awful deaths that had plagued her family for generations… It clicked, and her brows pinched. “Grandmother always said our family had run afoul of the Devil…but it was you? You were behind all of it?”

“Consequences for challenging a Lord in their domain,” Cinch responded with the sneer evident in her voice. “I have no idea how you broke it, but it is of no matter. I will finish it here and now!”

Rage like she hadn't felt in years seethed under the surface, and Celestia took a deep breath, channeling that inner fire into energy for the fight, into the ability to ignore pain and demand more from her body than she would normally believe possible. This…wretch…had taken almost everyone she loved from her. Had been the cause of the accident somehow, had almost cost her Luna a few years later…had likely been behind—

She growled, and lunged, her rapier flashing golden as it moved.

Cadence was torn. She was deathly afraid for Twilight’s well being. Her little sister was being used like a puppet for whatever evil they were staring down, and she still couldn't figure out why the being, who Sunset had named ‘Sombra’ would want to use a teen girl’s body anyway; the voice sounded like a gravelly voiced man, which was as far from teen girl as it got. She was worried about Sunset’s health—she could see the blood on the back of her jeans and tshirt, crimson tears where glass and sharp bits of wood had cut into her flesh. The glance of those eyes her way, black sclera with glowing irises and catlike pupils, and the way her nails were black and far too sharp…something they hadn't been earlier…it made her afraid for Sunset, and a part of her just kept hearing Lu’s warning from before.

And then there was Luna, who had been defending her sister’s back and had just heard the exchange between Celestia and Abacus Cinch. Cady immediately turned her attention to her best friend, and saw the second the words hit home. Gray-green eyes met hers, old pain and grief threatening to spill over. It was an unintended blow on Cinch’s part, meant for Celestia, but it stabbed Luna just as deeply for different reasons… Reasons Cadence knew, reasons that had been behind a dark and worrying spiral that had led her to reach out to her dorm mate years ago, reasons that had been wept into her shoulder like black poison more than once when Lu was at her lowest.

She stepped into Luna’s space without thinking, a hand coming to rest on her forearm, feeling leather and metal under her touch rather than warm, dark skin. It served its purpose, and the pink skinned woman watched Luna…swallow her pain, for lack of another term, and she tipped her head in a nod, eyes now shuttered and focused. Her arm moved, and a gauntleted hand squeezed Cadence’s in gratitude. “Cover me?” she asked tightly.

“Always,” Cady responded, her decision made. Sunset was surrounded by friends, and they were all trying to help her and Twilight…but Luna needed her now. “Give them hell, dreamer. I’ve got your back.”

A faint smile, more smirk than anything, and Luna twisted away, diving into the fray. Her polearm moved with surprising alacrity, and her grief had become fuel for her vicious assault on the shadows. It was no longer enough to cut them down; now that weapon tore them apart in gruesome violence, its owner making the phrase ‘twisting the knife’ into a very literal action as she waded through the enemy.

Her own face set into a grim expression, Cady brought her gun up and began picking off the creatures that decided it was a good idea to go at Lu’s back.

Iron Will was in his element. He had not enjoyed himself this much since that time he and his squad were stranded in the Carpathian Mountains for six weeks before an evac could be arranged without triggering an international incident. Or World War III. Swinging his great-great-grandpappy’s old steel driving hammer, he was singing cadence to time the overhead swings that were reminiscent of one of those ‘whack-a-mole’ carnival games.

“Wake up to a mortar attack!”

SPLAT! Went something that looked like a giant squid mated with an alligator.

“Hit the ground, outta my rack!”

CRUNCH! Said the black carapace of a bug-like thing.

“Sergeant rushes me off to chow!”

SQUISH! Was the reply of something with too many eyes.

“But I don't eat it anyhow!”

SPLORTCH! That one ruptured like a zit and left foul tar on his boots.

It was good to be alive! He grinned through the mask of his helmet at something that stared back, chittering and hissing. Red eyes bored into him, and he felt something scrabbling at the surface of his mind, like a horde of giant spiders skittering across glass. It wanted something. Looking for a weakness, maybe.

“Good luck!” Will bellowed in its face. “Uncle Sam got rid of all that decades ago! Weakness gets a soldier killed!!”

The nasty thing recoiled from him, and its form rippled as it tried to become something that would give him pause. It settled on some kind of massive eldritch horror with too many eyes and tentacles and claws.

“Is that what you call a game face? Iron Will thinks his bunny slippers wouldn't even run for cover!”

Adjusting his grip, the former soldier began to sing again—it confused his rather dim witted enemies.

“Oh hail, oh hail, oh infantry!

Queen of battle, follow me…”

Diamond shields snapped into existence, causing one of the shadows to splatter against it, wailing as the defensive barrier made of Rarity’s magic burned. “Be more mindful, dearest,” the tailor called to her partner.

Green eyes twinkled with affection as Applejack tossed her braid over one shoulder. “Thank ya kindly, darlin’!” Unspoken was the trust that Rarity would always watch her back in all things.

That was just how it was.

Rarity let the confident smile play over her lips even as she controlled more than a dozen barriers at once, her focus having no difficulty popping them in and out of existence anywhere they were needed nearby. She recognized the defensive application of her powers, and stood at a distance among the students with ranged weaponry, assisting and defending the close quarters combatants from deadly injury.

As always though, one thread of her capable, multitasking mind was always on her other half. When Applejack was caught between a half dozen shadows, and one of them managed to catch her eyes, before morphing into a dark replica of Bright Mac, causing her to jerk back and almost onto shadow talons behind her, Rarity twitched a hand, spawning a glimmering barrier behind and a simple, saw-blade-like disc in the front that bisected the mockery of the sweet, gentle giant of a man from whom Applejack had inherited her quiet displays of affection, powerful capacity for love, and enough physical features that she was already haunted by her reflection. She would not allow these things to sully his memory or bring her beloved more grief.

They had always looked out for each other, and they would until forever. This was just one more way they did so.

That was just how it was.

And when the dark tide threatened to overwhelm Rarity’s group of students on the steps of the school, rolling over the diamond dome in a desperate attempt to overwhelm her magic before it burned them all up, orange energy raced to her aid. Applejack was an unstoppable juggernaut, clearing the enemies with powerful punches and kicks, even going so far as to reach up and drag the higher shadows off the dome by ankles and tentacles and other nameless appendages, hurling them into the sky where Rainbow was gleefully darting around at Mach Two. First a small area cleared, then a ring around the dome, and then a gesture for a step up to clear the top, which Rarity happily provided.

Once the area was clear, she flashed the tailor a thumbs up, before turning back to the melee. It was a promise, that just as much as blue eyes kept tabs on her, the farmer was keeping tabs on Rarity. As she turned her fists on something that tried to form into a giant bear shadow, knocking it in the jaw with extreme prejudice, the tailor caught a glimpse of the edge of faded fabric sticking up out of one jean pocket. It made the pale skinned girl’s smile soften into one of love, and with that love, her magic rose to the challenge, filling her from her head to her toes, spilling out of her fingertips as brilliant diamond shards that she commanded like bullets to shred the oncoming ranks of a jungle’s worth of shadow beasts.

It was incredibly satisfying to know her knight still carried her favor after all these years, after all. Some might have seen it as cheesy or silly, but the simple act and deep attachment to the tattered fabric that had once been part of a child’s costume was a gesture of love and devotion that touched Rarity to her core, and communicated more than any words Applejack might’ve uttered, how much and how deeply she was loved.

“From always to forever, my dearest treasure,” she whispered. Even though the words could never, would never, carry, her magic would, and she let it reach out, shades of rich indigo curling around brilliant autumn orange, communicating her love with it.

No words were necessary, as green eyes met blue across the distance, and knowing passed between them.

That was just how it was, after all.

Flash had managed to find a spot on a big rock that had been uncovered during the reconstruction of the front walk of the school and left on the grass for the art students to paint for school pride. He had enough of a vantage point to be able to peg shadows with nails from his new toy. It certainly wasn't a standard off-the-shelf nail-gun anymore—if it ever was—and the youth wasn't sure he wanted to know exactly what his gym coach had done to modify it to make it spit inch long nails at high speed for at least sixty feet—something about plausible deniability seemed pretty healthy to him in this case. It didn't mean he didn't enjoy it, the ability to hit a shadow beast in the eye from a considerable distance meant he didn't have to deal with what some of his classmates were.

The shadows seemed to twist themselves into the things people were afraid of. Spiders, snakes, and things with too many squid tentacles to be comforting were pretty common, but just as many became people or objects that made little sense to anyone but the intended victim. Flash made it his mission to take out the ones that affected his classmates enough to make them freeze. Whatever Trixie had done to their weapons meant they only needed one good hit on the monsters, but they seemed endless, and judging by the nasty cuts that had already made a few people drop back to get first aid from the med station set up in the rotunda, they could deal a lot of damage quickly. So far no one had been too injured, but they couldn't count on their luck lasting forever. Or their energy. So Flash did what he could to strategically strike to minimize CHS casualties.

“Flash! Behind you!”

Twisting on his foot, he stuck the nail-gun to the skin of the shadow that had almost crept up on him, and fired into it before it could finish turning into a broken bodied form that he knew was his deepest fear: the violent demise of those he cared about. It squealed in pain and shock, falling off the stone with a grotesque, wet sound, before shriveling up into dust. Flash threw Sunset the high sign to let her know he was okay. “Thanks, pony-girl!”

Then he set his shoulders to keep picking off monsters. His friends were counting on him.

Things were absolutely insane, Indigo decided. This was nuts. Completely and totally loco.

The Canterlot students had broken into teams for the most part, and were moving in groups, confusing the shapeshifting shadows into being unable to settle on a single target. They defended each other and employed tactics usually applied to online video games like her little brother loved…and it was working. They were carving large swathes through the ranks of shades, almost faster than…whatever Twilight had become could conjure them.

Indigo found herself moving from group to group, always on the fringes, assisting where she could and trying to find others who needed her help. It was a good thing that she did as much strength and stamina training as she did, because after just a few minutes, she determined that dual wielding iron rods was a grueling exercise. Her arms were starting to feel leaden and numb, but she did what she had done for years when she hit the wall: just kept going, refusing to give in. She would hit the ‘runner’s high’ soon enough, and find that second wind, and when that faltered, she’d find a third. A fourth. As many as she needed to see the day won.

Sure, she’d pay for it tomorrow, but days of agony were better than no days at all. Death and Armageddon were kind of permanent.

Somehow, impossibly, she wound up fighting back to back with Sunset, iron and flames keeping the enemy at a healthy distance and letting them both catch a breath. The athletic teen waffled on whether or not she should apologize for her failure in protecting Twilight, but before she could work up the courage, Sunset was already talking.

“…thank you.” Those unsettling eyes, glowing against a black field where it should be white, met hers briefly before a ball of fire flicked out to engulf another shadow. “…for sticking by Twilight when I couldn't.”

She flinched. “But…I failed. I couldn't keep her safe, and I couldn't get her to you before Cinch’s goons caught up to us.” Honey colored eyes glanced at the warped shape that used to be Twilight Sparkle. “I couldn't stop that from happening.”

Claw tipped fingers squeezed her shoulder, and Indigo felt warmth flowing into her—the crimson flames felt…revitalizing instead of painful. “You got hurt trying to help Twilight; you didn't have to put yourself at risk, but you did. You stood by her, when I wasn't there.”

A deep breath in, and out. “You are a good friend, Indigo, one she needs. You are loyal and true, and I thank you for doing your best. It matters, Indigo, more than I can ever say…to her…and to me. So thank you.”

Indigo couldn't manage to form any kind of response before the tide of battle swept them apart. “Sunset!” she called just at the edge of being heard. “She was the friend I needed too! We’ve got to get her back, okay? Because I’m not ready to say goodbye!”

The answering smile was faint and melancholy. “Neither am I.”

Sunset Shimmer disappeared into the writhing mass of dark bodies.

Pinkie Pie did not like what she was seeing. The mean shadow monsters were getting into people’s heads just to scare them, and it was making everyone upset. That was not okay.

Which meant it was up to Pinkie to fix it, since Sun-Shim was too busy…and she didn't know she could fix it yet. That was okay. Pinkie would fill in! “Cover me, Pinkie!” she called to three other Pinkies. “I’m going in!”

“Okidokey-loki!” they chorused.

Pinkie’s gaze swept the area until she found what she was looking for…

It understood its purpose, why it was here…as did all of its ilk on the battlefield. A Master had called them all from the places they had existed in forever—the shadows, the dark cracks and crevices of the world. Those like it were born in the black places where prey cowered in terror, where breath was stolen, where the depths crushed all under its oppressive weight. They were given existence in the place thoughts, ideas, and memories went to die. Like all those before and all those after, it did not feel. It did not have a name, or a sense of self. It simply was, and a Master had called. It could not refuse, any more than it could be something it wasn't.

That was its nature.

In accordance with its nature it understood its Master’s command: Destroy the fleshlings. Make them cower and submit to the Master.

Something that should have been easy; fleshlings feared the places it came from. Whispered around bright lights in the dark their fears, trembled when confronted with darkness and terror and the echoes of the places where death stalked unchallenged. Why then did these fleshlings fight? How could they destroy its kind so swiftly?

Why were they not afraid?

It knew a way to bring out the fear—all fleshlings feared something, but sometimes a fleshling needed a specific fear to know their place. To bend them as a Master wished. It looked at the fleshlings defying its Master and picked one at random, sinking into its thoughts.

What was this fleshling truly afraid of?

The experience was akin to rising up through mists, the fog slowly thinning and parting to reveal the inner terrors… It waited, looking for what it sought.

“Hi!”

The voice came from beside it, a bright colored, alien blur of colors that did not belong, and the sheer audacity of the situation knocked it back into the physical realm. Had it felt emotions, it would have felt shock.

Shaking off the strange events, it picked a different fleshling and tried again. This time the pink presence did not even have the courtesy to wait before it was there again. “You don't have to be so rude! I just want to talk to you!”

Once more it recoiled, and once more it tried again…yet there was the pink thing again. It…could not explain the sensation inside its core—a cold creeping sensation that left it…unsure.

It was a growing sensation that swelled with every new attempt on a different fleshling mind to draw out fear, as the gleeful pinkness followed, addressing it with a pleased voice.

What was this Pink Thing? How could it follow it?!

What was this sensation like being stabbed with ice in its center?

(Had it asked, a fleshling would have been happy to inform it that that was the feeling of dread, the anticipation of something one fears…but it did not think to ask. That wasn't its nature.)

Hissing to itself, it searched for the source. There must be something behind the Pink Thing. It found it, a fleshling as bright and bouncy as the Pink, and the fleshling was staring back at it. Cold was replaced with bubbling heat, and it decided that if that fleshling desired to interrupt its work, it would seek that fleshling’s fears instead!

There was no resistance as it found itself in the fleshling’s mind…but this was not the familiar mist. It was…pink. And clingy, sticking to it in gobs and strands. A giggle echoed as it struggled to free itself. “I was going to go with cotton candy,” the Pink Thing giggled, “but I decided Bubblegum would work better!”

Each word, each laugh, was anathema, and it burned. “Cease!” it growled.

“Can’t! See, you were being super mean and hurting my friends…” Bright blue lights gleamed from the pink everywhere around. “…and I don't like it when meanies hurt my friends.” Pink strands dissolved but it found itself at a table, a long one, with set for some kind of fleshling fluid consumption. It could not leave the seat it was bent into, and around the table there were dozens of its ilk in the same position.

“Releassssse ussss!” It demanded.

Pink became a fleshling form at one end of the table. “But you wanted to be here,” the Pink said. “You came in here…and I let you. So we can have a talk about what you are doing…and why it's wrong. You should use powers like that for making laughter, not fear! I’ll teach you how to really party!”

It struggled, the cold sensation returning with a vengeance, and the icy numbness becoming so sharp it burned almost as badly as the Pink speaking did. Yet nothing worked as the Pink kept talking…

That was when it discovered that its kind could feel something after all…

How appropriate that it was fear.

Pinkie blinked, and looked around. The meanie shadows had frozen all over, and she could see streaks of pink flowing and rippling across the surfaces of many of them. It was so nice when a plan worked!

Bon-Bon stopped, stared, and then looked over. “Pinkie…what did you do?”

She grinned and lifted the hat off her head to scratch one ear. “They were being mean, so I made them stop that.” A pause as something occurred to her, and she looked at the hat in her hands, a big tag on it that read “10/6.” “Huh. This isn't my hat.”

“It's mine!” called a pony Pinkie, trotting up. “Discord got it for me as an Unbirthday present!” She took it from Pinkie and tossed it onto her own head.

“Oh! Thanks for letting me borrow it!”

Bon-Bon blinked, then shook her head. “You know what? Never mind. I do not want to know what just happened. All that matters is that we can PRESS THE ATTACK!” She yelled the last bit and made a motion at the students. “Pinkie’s weakened them! Go for the kill!”

Giggling, Pinkie bounced away to go help Applejack with some of the mean old shadows.

In the months since she’d gained her powers, Rainbow Dash had learned a lot about herself…and about the world around her. It wasn't just that she was super fast, physically.

She totally was, but it wasn't just her body that was fast.

Her mind had gotten faster too…not smarter…but it had to keep up with how fast she was moving. Sunset had explained it as something to do with reflexes and reaction time, but the TL;DR was “brain is also super speed when body is.” It was useful when she was flying and had to dodge things like birds—Fluttershy would never forgive her if she vaporized a pigeon or something by flying into it. Not to mention that it would be totally gross to be covered in bird guts.

Right now though, seeing the world while going fast meant something else.

For her, the world around her was moving in slow motion, a veritable crawl, while very little moved at normal speed besides herself. It meant she could survey the battle from above and see everything that was going on…what was about to happen…and what she could do to change how things played out. Rainbow could see the angles, see the impending blows that would hurt her classmates—or worse, kill them—and she had the ability to do something about it.

So she did.

Where everyone else fought the shadows directly, with weapons or magic, Dash roved the field and changed the outcome of a thousand fights. A hand moved here, a nudge to a weapon there, shifting the position of a student, or even outright moving them out of the way…she did it all, and when a student did get injured, she carried them to the building, where there was a first aid station set up in the rotunda.

Rainbow Dash wasn't sure how many times she prevented death or disaster—after a while, it all blurred together in this numb haze of ‘gotta keep them safe’ and ‘I can't stop yet.’ Everything ached, and she’d hit the runner’s high ages ago, when her magic flickered and flared inside her approvingly. This was what she was here for. Not to kick monster ass…but to make sure her team won, however she could, and that everyone lived to see the sun come up the next day.

She wasn't alone in her efforts, at least. While Shy could never be as fast, her powers made her durable—she had become some kind of behemoth rhino, blocking the way and protecting a group of injured trying to retreat. Dash took the opportunity to ferry them out, then came back into regular time just long enough to tap Shy on the shoulder. “They’re clear!” she told her, and then was off again, to knock a shadow off course from where it was trying to impale her Vice Principal.

It might not have been the lion’s share of the glory, and she would have rather been kicking shadow monster ass…but this was where Rainbow Dash was needed right now. It was what her magic was calling her to do…

And she wasn't one for letting her friends down.

Author's Note

Yup.

The whole plot line about the Canterlot students prepping to fight magic?

Entirely because back when we first conceptually developed the idea of Cinch working for a demon, I had this hilarious and brilliant image in my head of Iron Will exploding through the front doors of the school like the goddamned Kool-Aid Man, followed by Luna in LARP armor, and Celestia with a sword.

It was such an epic image I HAD to follow through some how.

We are getting close to the end, ladies and gents. I'm actually in the process of writing the very last chapter for Cross the Rubicon: Choices as we speak. The plan here is that one way or another, you guys will be able to read the story to its end by Christmas and subsequently the 5 year anniversary of the story being posted.

(Edit: It seems people might have misunderstood part of my earlier statement about working on the last chapter--you've still got about 12 chapters of story left, gang. Where I'm writing is usually 12-20 chapters ahead of the current posted chapter. What I'm planning on doing is finishing it all, doing the editing, and then posting normally until december, at which point, I will be posting in a way that finishes out the story by Christmas. As a Christmas present to all of you! :P )

In the meantime, time for some ass kicking! Bruhahah. And some emotions.

(I also apologize for anyone who I've inadvertently given nightmares starting Pinkie Pie.)