Blinding light grew only brighter around me, filtered only more intensely by the pink around me. Arkon was preparing to explode around me, and I was powerless to do anything but brace myself. From every plausible direction, two words scorched across my mind in Arkon’s haunting voice, which shifted itself up and down constantly. “Hell’s Singularity!”

I slammed my eyes shut as I felt indescribable heat erupt from all around me, the sound of glass shattering exploded in my ears twice and the sickening noise of cracking filled my ears. I opened my eyes, only to see white greet me. I felt my fur burning away, and my blood beneath it boil. I crumbled onto my only remaining, cracking barrier and waited for death.

***

“‘Ey, Trix’, yous mind comin’ o’er ‘ere a second?” Paid Tab called from behind the service counter adjacent to the bar and overlooking the many tables. The lights were their usual dim, and the band played its familiar casual tune. There weren’t many customers today, as some opera I couldn’t pronounce the name of had just come to the opera house. Anypony who was anypony, or at least wanted to be somepony, was watching it. Still, the band was paid to play, and so they did. Sometimes, a stray saxophone melody would play as I stepped out into the dining room, the band liked to have fun that way.

It was an easy night, the kind I loved to work and Sabrina detested. She always loved talking to the patrons about her drawings or what she learned that day. Anything to keep their attention, really. Paid Tab wasn’t paying me much, or above the table either, but it was something. Enough to amass a small savings, and in time I would be able to get an apartment on the lower end of the city. It wouldn’t be enough for furniture, or a fridge full of food, but it would be a roof. More than that, it would be dignified.

I met Tab in the kitchen, which was lit brightly like a warehouse would be, as opposed to the dim moody lighting of the dining room. I leaned my mop against one of the stainless steel counters and jerked my head up at him. “Whaddya need, Tab? Gutters cleaned? Sidewalk swept? Grease trap cleared out?” All were met with him shaking his head. “Oh, I get it, you want me to rough somepony up. I was waitin’ for the day you’d ask me, oh, who is it?” I clapped my hooves together slowly. “Is it that Paper Trail? Or that Zesty Gourmand, let me at 'em!”

He slapped a hoof on my shoulder, snapping me from my train of thought. My face dropped with my stomach. There was a glassiness in his eyes, whatever he was about to say, and I could figure out what it was. He wasn’t going to like telling me. “Trixie, I gots to lay yous off.”

“Why? Purse running tight? I can work for cheaper, honest!” I tried to keep my lip from quivering, unsuccessfully. He couldn’t do this, not when I was so close.

“That ain’t it, Trixie. I’ve been runnin’ in the red fer a while nows. An’ look, if it were up to me, you an’ your sis wouldn’t just be on Bridleway, I’d put you up on Madison Mare Garden.” He raised his hooves up, as though reaching for the ceiling. “But you knows I ain’t got that power.” He dropped them.

I shook my head. “I don’t understan’, Tab. Why is it when things go wrong, they always break on me and my sis? Why can’t you lay off one of those waitresses from Manehattan? I’m sure that Ginger Root doesn’t have a filly to feed!” I felt my anger rise with my volume.

Tab quickly glanced over both his shoulders before leaning into me. “Look, Trix. You know I don’t wanna do this, don’t twist the knife, dig? I can’t fire them cause, well, cause they ain’t unsightly.”

My eyes snapped open wide. “Excuse me?”

Paid gulped. “Look, that ain’t what I meant. What I mean is that yous have a filly sittin’ at the bar, that kills the mood for most folk comin’ in ‘ere. You understan’ dontcha?”

I wiped my eye. “No, Tab. I don’t. I’m this close to gettin’ a place, and you’re takin’ the rug out from under me.” I squeezed my eyes and shook my head. “No Tab, I don’t understand why you have to do this to me.”

He wiped his eyes. “I know. I don’t understan’ why it’s gotta be this way. The best I can do is what I usually do, and for you, it’s laying you off and gettin’ you back when things are better, capiche?”

I felt my emotions hollow out, then anger bubbled in their stead. In one motion, I pushed him away and picked up the mop from the counter, snapping it promptly. I stomped out of the kitchen, grabbing Sabrina from her kid’s menu that she was happily coloring in. “C'mon, Sabrina, we’re not welcome here.” The band ceased playing and looked on in curiosity. To them, this was drama as usual from that homeless mare. Even though they were paid to entertain, I was their show.

Pad Tab came from behind the bar, as I looked down and saw Sabrina’s eyes filling with tears. “Look, Trixie, it won’t be long. I promise.”

“Your word ain’t shit to me, Tab. It will be when you got work for me.” I was at the door when Sabrina said something about crayons.
Tab called from behind his counter.“This ain’t personal Trixie, don’t make it.”

I only huffed. I didn’t want to make it worse, and I knew that saying something would only pick at the wound. I already wasn’t taking the high road, and I knew I could go lower. It would feel good to put him in his place, but that would only make it worse. A chance at work was better than a chance I lost.

We sat in the alleyway. To Sabrina, it was always familiar. This was what home looked like since the fire, after all. But to me, it looked like disappointment and it was going to stay that way for however long Tab took to get me back. Anger coursed through me, only magnifying when I looked to my shoddy belongings and the rundown lowlife in the puddle looking back at me.

“I left my crayons in there you know?” Sabrina pouted, kicking a pebble into the other side of the brick alley. She said it as though it was an inconvenience, that her crayons would return to her eventually.

I broke my stare from the bum in the puddle and looked at Sabrina. A simple blonde and pink filly, unlike any of the other Lulamoons. Her hair was matted, flecks of dirt clinging to split ends. I sighed. Paid Tab was right, we were unsightly. I looked back to the unkempt mare in the puddle, whose image now rippled. He was right.

“I’m sorry, Sabrina. We’ll do better.” I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see her anymore, that rippling mare.

“I know, but you always say that.” She said matter-of-factly. “It has gotten better, you know?”

“What?” I opened my eyes again. It was still an alley, still had rats wander in as though they were roommates. It still didn’t have any protection from the rain save for an umbrella with holes. Though I could manage a forcefield spell strong enough to keep out the rain, I wasn’t able to do so overnight.

“I mean, it could be worse. We could have no money. You could have no library card instead of just me not having one. We could be hungry right now, but I’m not and I don’t think you are.”

She was right. Even if we were still living in a gutter, it wasn’t completely a wreck. And though it looked like rock bottom, there was still a lower life to live somewhere beneath us. As for hunger, I was happy to hear she wasn’t, and I’d let her keep thinking I wasn’t. “Yeah, I guess so, Sabrina. I just want it to be better than this, you know?”

“I know.” She plainly said, levitating a book I recently checked out for her. Sabrina couldn’t care less about today, and I admired that. Even though I lost my job, however unstable it was, and even if we were in an alley together, she still was perfectly fine with everything. It must be that undying optimism she has. Long live that filly’s hope.

“Well.” I started, leaning my head in front of her, breaking her view of the book. “I think somepony needs an éclair.” Her face lit up.

“Can I? Can I, sis, you mean it?” She tossed the small blue book on the faded blankets beneath her.

I put my hoof to my chin. “I don’t know… I think I need to hear some magic words.”

“Oh! Ple-e-ease!” She bounced with glee.

“Did you say something?” I tilted my head, feigning confusion.

“PLEASE BIG SIS!” She closed her eyes and giddily shouted in my ear.

“Yeah, I think I can do something. Wait right here, okay?” I slyly said, walking out of the alley with a few bits in tow.

It wasn’t much for her, but it was enough to keep her happy. More than happy, really. Sabrina was nearly obsessed with pastries like this, and luckily for her, the baker down the street knew me and my situation and threw a discount my way. If only he had work for me too...

Though Canterlot always tested us, it was her optimism that always pulled us through. The world could throw us its worst and we’d prevail, cause no matter what, we’d have each other. The one thing the world couldn’t take away was all that we needed. Though, I couldn’t shake that determination to do better for her. Even if all we needed was each other, I wanted more for her. I breathed a small laugh. It was nice to know that if I shot for the stars, Sabrina would be okay with the planets.

I returned with a small paper bag with a pastry for each of us. Sabrina was… coloring in the same kid’s menu she was before. That Paid Tab had apparently found his heart. As we both sank our teeth into the flaky sweet, it was nice to know that we weren’t alone. It was at that moment that my anger for Paid Tab subsided. He meant it and he cared. It was while I licked the remaining bits of chocolate from my hooves that I realized, Sabrina and I didn't have to brave the world on our own.

***

A disorienting ringing blared in my ears as I stepped out from Tartarus. With Arkon gone, I could, and did, finally heal my wounds both internal and external. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. My sides hurt, my stomach ached, and my mouth hurt. I laughed as I strode out of Hell’s very own mouth, and I laughed as I looked to my body which has singed hair in patchy portions and burnt flesh everywhere else. And I laughed when the dust finally settled, and there was a single Solar Team swordsman glaring daggers at me.

“Trixie assumes the crowns sent you to kill her.” I couldn’t keep from giggling. I couldn’t believe it. After everything, here I was. General Concrete couldn’t stop me, Hell couldn’t stop me, and the EUP as a whole couldn’t stop me, though they still tried. I was invincible, there was no other reason for it. How could I have survived a fire as a child, the streets growing up on them, the Amulet disintegrating me, and the Harbinger of the Cataclysm himself. If there was a higher power, it was looking out for me.

No. I was that higher power. I was a god walking among Equestria now with Arkon’s power. Tens of thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of ponies power, now at my hooves. That possible higher power wasn’t looking out for me, they were appeasing me. They feared me, as should this insolent welp before me. His eyes cast no fear and that sword… I’d seen that sword before.

No! I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head. I hadn’t, Arkon had. He’d slain the previous wielder of that sword as I’d slain him. How funny. I shook my head once more, harder this time. This wasn’t me, this wasn’t how I thought! Could it be that absorbing Arkon had made me this way? No, that wasn’t possible. I’d killed Paper Trail and knew his memories, sure, but my way of thinking remained the same.

Sterling Glint as well, upon killing him I had inherited his memories and muscle memory too. But I didn’t think anything like a soldier or a cook. Solar Team 12 had compounded this too. So what more could it be…? Did Arkon have some kind of connection with the Amulet that he hadn't told me about? No, if that was the case, I’d be able to look into his memories and find it.

My eyes shot wide open. There were no memories of Arkon’s life because Arkon was never alive. Memories of the previous Amulet bearers swam back to me. King Sombra, who used its power to enslave a nation to war with Celestia. Emperor Skeleton Key, who used it to conquer all of the known lands at the time, from sea to sea. Then there was Black Ice. The one Celestia called that Harbinger of the Cataclysm.

A cold, sadistic stallion with bloodlust to burn the entire world. I understood him because I felt him. Within the mass of bandages wasn’t just Black Ice, it was every pony who had ever worn the Amulet, dare I speculate that it was everypony in Tartarus. A small nation’s worth of ponies wasn’t enough for Black Ice, he had to take the lives of every pony in Hell itself. I blinked, seeing my last barrier barely remain intact.

Indeed, Arkon wasn’t one pony. It was everypony who wore the Amulet and came in contact with it, save for Celestia. And even in multiple deaths, Black Ice remained to claw at their psyche and mine. He won. He had taken me over, however briefly. If I was going to survive and revive Sabrina, I would not only have to defeat the most powerful swordsman in the world, but also the most powerful threat to all worlds within me. No, I would defeat them.

Celestia’s barriers had saved me, though I doubted she had wanted them to do so. No, that couldn’t be. Celestia’s thousands of years old, and wise even beyond those years. Her tactical acumen is peerless, and her knowledge of things magical is second to only her sister and maybe Starswirl the Bearded. She would have known the barriers would survive. To her, I was a massive threat who took out the worse one. And in killing me, Arkon would die too.

I underestimated her, that sly goddess. She played me for her own interests, she gambled her entire nation and won. Even then, she’s the princess, she could rebuild it and remain in power regardless. Nopony challenges her, and I don’t blame them. If somepony could lift the sun itself, I’d avoid their bad side. Even I didn’t want to cross the sun. Hell, her using me like this is a bargaining chip for me.

I could absolutely spin this in my favor, that there was no threat in Equestria beyond me. I had killed every threat in Tartarus, and from that I could ask for my pardoning and permission to revive my sister. I could convince the sun, but first I’d need to convince her sword.

The swordsman leaned his sword further forward, it was a glowing arrow pointed at me, begging to be loosed. “The crowns did send for me, yes. But it was General Concrete before that. You knew her didn’t you?”

I snorted. “Knew her? She was put here by her. If she predicted Trixie to break out of Tartarus, then give her a third star.”

“She already has her third. She’s brilliant, I’ll give her that, but she’s been without tact recently.” He leered. “Regardless, she isn’t here to face you. I am. I’m Colonel Glass River, the Infinite Swordsman. I usually don’t care for introductions, but I figured it would be the historical thing to do here.”

I nearly laughed. How chivalrous this one was! I glanced behind me and found that Hell’s door was now a gaping maw. “Look, if you want history to remember you well, help Trixie close this up.” I jerked my head at the blown apart entrance.

“You’re serious?” The sword withdrew upward, only slightly. His guard wavered but remained. “You expect me to trust you?”

“No, she doesn’t. But she does trust you to think about this: It was only her and this thing, Arkon, in there. But Trixie doesn’t wanna take the chance that whatever might be left in there could get out. It’d be bad for both of us.”

“Fine. But I’m keeping my sword on you. You seal it up. I won’t strike.” His face still remained an intimidating glare. Or it would if I had been intimidated. I knew that if this ended with diplomacy or a bloodbath, I’d be the one winning both.

“On your honor?” I mocked, smiling with all the faux friendliness I could manage. His eyes narrowed. “Fine! Trixie won’t push her luck.”

I grasped every piece of rubble from the blast and reassembled it in the chasm of a cliff crater, a blizzard of sand and stone all fitted into one place. Anti-arcane runes scorched across the wall in a blazing red, the signature of the Amulet.

My barrier shattered and a sword grazed my cheek, instantly cauterizing the shallow scrape, and embedding itself into the newly created cliff face. I jumped, instantly turning to face my now combatant. He still had his sword despite it being in the wall at the same time. Two swords? Then the memory of it surfaced again: It could multiply itself, and did so to near-infinite amounts when striking something. The sword and its user had no issue sending a duplicate wherever. It was the illusion that it could cut anything, but it was really a rather simple, but clever optical trick. The scarier part was that each of those swords could also duplicate to strike.

“So much for your honor!” I laughed. “You really should treat her better, don’t you know what Trixie has just done?”

“Enlighten me.” I could swear I saw a stripe of confusion on his face. “What will I tell the history books?”

“Oh, how bold! You think you’ll be the one writing it. May Trixie remind you that it’s the victors that write history?”

“I’m aware.” A hoofful of swords circled above him in an iridescent halo.

“Then she’ll be writing that she had just killed Arkon and sealed Tartarus behind her.” I looked skyward, pride practically dripping from my face.

“I’ll be writing that but what’s your point?” The circle of swords doubled, picking up speed as they spun. I felt a shock of anxiety spark through me. I know I could just teleport away from any other combatant, but this wasn’t just anypony. He’d be prepared for anything I’d do, except maybe….

I placed a hoof on my chest. “Trixie saved Equestria. The princess knows what she did in there, and likely sent her in there for that express purpose.”

“To kill a prisoner that wouldn’t have broken out?” The number of blades was getting uncomfortable; he was definitely planning something, and I was letting him build towards it.

“Yes, but Trixie takes it you have no idea just who that prisoner was?” His look didn’t change and the number behind him only grew larger. I tugged at my collar. “He was Arkon, the amalgamation of every evil in there. Killing him was in Celestia’s interest, wouldn’t you speculate?”

“No. You’ve become stronger than him, so you’ve only increased the danger.” A few swords shot towards me, I barely had time to react. Luckily I could slow it to allow me to nimbly dodge each one. “If what you say is true, and I expect you to lie to me, Celestia would want all evil she’s previously contained to be wrapped up in one neat package? And in killing you, would end all of them?”

I nodded. “Killing Trixie would be her order, but forgiving her would be her will.”

“What!?” There it was! Genuine confusion across that violet face of his! I could seize on this doubt to weasel a pardon out of him, at least for a certain time. Maybe even an audience before Celestia herself!

“Listen to Trixie.” This would be a pitch for the angels, but I was a showpony before I was the conquering hero. “The princess imprisoned them, showed them mercy, would you agree?”

“No, I wouldn’t. She put them there because killing them was too kind a mercy.” His voice returned to the usual unchanging low it had started at. Sand buffeted both of us, and though it stuck to our manes and coat, I was the only one to shake it loose. His voice refused to move even a single octave. “Even if Celestia forgave you, Equestria wouldn’t. We buried Solar Team 12 just recently. You made an enemy of the nation. Hating you is not only normal, but it’s looked upon as a favor to the nation itself. Before them, though, I’d have to forgive you. At this moment, I’m the judge, the jury, and the executioner.”

I sighed. “So, Trixie’s the villain? Again?”

He let out a single note of amusement. “That would make me a hero on top of that then. Again.” A smirk found its way across a small corner of his mouth, just barely noticeable. “I can tell that diplomacy isn’t your forte, and truth be told I’d love to smite you.”

“You couldn’t.” I scoffed.

“However.” He emphasized, taking a few steps towards me. Each crunch in the sand was deafening, as though Equestria itself took a step when he did. “Concrete’s report lays it out like she trusted you. Your intentions aren’t evil, but your methods are. Here in the EUP, the means make the ends, and your means are unjustifiable.”

He launched a volley of swords in my direction, each one missing and peppering the earth around me. Glass took a few more thundering steps towards me, his figure backlit by the sun stood center in between two canyon walls. I backed away, my tail hitting the dull side of a sword. I gulped.

“History will remember this, Trixie, as the Second Battle Beneath Heaven’s Fissure. The day that evil died, and you’ll take your place as the bloody ink that writes that chapter in history!” His aura spread across the hilts of every sword, the ring of swords behind him lit with a new red glow to their cobalt.

“Trixie… can make it worth your while… she swears!” I wished I could sneer. That I could smile the widest grin I could manage. He was falling right into my trap.

“Not interested.” The swords all shot forward through the sand, like a shark’s dorsal fin through the ocean. Within the same moment that they were about to connect, I created a wormhole dome around me, and around the Colonel. He could never see this coming.

I was expecting the sound of muscle tearing from sinew, bones being shattered, anything. I peeked from my rippling navy dome and saw no swords but one poised to pierce my head. Impossible! He could make them all vanish! That wasn’t in any memory! The idea to even do this came from Black Ice doing this very same thing to the last user of that…. sword…

No. I’d have to use the wormholes around me and him.

I shot a magic bolt into the wormhole and I heard it connect with bloody success. A sword fell to the sand with its master, who hadn't thought to do this to me before I did it to him. The next sword user would have the jump on this technique, however. In fact, the next user would’ve invented that technique!

I threw off the wormholes to find a swordsman with a bleeding hole in either cheek crumpled in the sand, coagulated with his own blood, he flung himself upward, throwing his sword to one end of my face and his iron-shoed hoof to the other. I lurched my head backward, narrowly dodging his attack, only for his other free hoof to sweep me off my hooves as soon as his other landed.

Instinctually, I threw a firestorm below me, instantly fusing all the sand into glass, to put distance between him and me. The Colonel saw straight through me and charged through the fire, swords in every direction he wasn’t. The look in his eyes was murderous and focused, he was determined to walk away from this the hero. I was determined to walk away as Sabrina’s. I teleported above him, stealing a sword from his grip and multiplying it myself. I sent a storm of blades down at him, only for each one to vanish before it hit the ground.

Though I knew how to fight with his equipment, he was still far more experienced in combat than I. He’d seen every trick I could possibly throw at him multiple times. This was Equestria’s best, truly. My hooves hit the sand, only to be instantly swept upward. I collided into the scorched glass. Hard. A series of swords rushed straight towards me, each one drawing lines in the sand as they grew nearer.

I sprang up, kicking off one of the sword hilts and launching myself into the air. If fighting defensively always ended up with me on my back, I needed to force him to go on the defensive. Several swords shot out at me, I slowed time to nimbly kick off each one, only gaining more height.

Tossing a quick glance to the sky. My fissure was still there. Perfect. I shot as many tiny bolts of magic as I could manage, I needed to throw him off balance. I needed a clean, decisive strike. He dodged each one with impossible agility, tossing a sword back to counter each bolt. I noticed he was slowing, sputtering blood with every few movements which left a trail behind him.

If I could just stall him out a little longer, I could dodge his assault easily. I could turn this narrow victory into a mockery of the EUP. How dare he try to assault a god! My vision dripped with red, as I shot myself towards him, my hoof outstretched.

I screamed as my hoof connected directly with one of his swords, splitting it cleanly down the middle. I spat the blood bubbling in my mouth in his face. It was black. That couldn’t be... No, it could and it was. Blood was for mortals, but the onyx ichor was for gods like myself.

His face was one of unfocused rage. He still maintained his wrath, but his body couldn’t maintain its ability to enact it. I sent the black blood from my halved hoof directly onto his face and proceeded to boil it. His guttural, gurgling scream was music to my ears. I wasn’t done though. I closed each half of my hoof around the sword, regenerating it just enough to…!

He began wildly slashing his sword, blades dropping from the sky at random locations and intervals. Some blinked into existence only to hurl themselves forward. It was a blizzard and I was caught directly in it, trying to dodge each infinitely sharpened snowflake, all the while my split hoof spilled blood.

Blades had carved up the canyon, nearly decimating it. Cliffs were barely being held together, and with each new addition, threatened to collapse. A fan of swords snapped me from my thinking, catching my left foreleg and disconnecting it from my body. It fell to the ground limply, draining all of its blood in an inky puddle.

Glass’ screams turned to a deafening roar, which reverberated across the landscape. The cliffs barely clung together, but there was no way they’d hold for much longer. A blue aura overcame my amputated appendage. Glass cackled, turning into a ferocious snarl. My leg instantly incinerated.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t going to patiently wait for an opening to launch a perfect attack. A poetic end wasn’t fitting for this bastard. I pulled the sword from my remaining foreleg, doubled it, and plunged it into each of Glass’ forelegs. He was sent into a coughing fit, each burst of air sending with it a mass of blood. I magically gripped my hoof, and struck directly into the hole in the side of his face, knocking every tooth from his mouth along with clumps of crimson.

He would’ve been flung had I not anchored him telekinetically to the ground. He took the full force of my blow. I struck him over and over, turning his face to a pulp and reforging it only to return it to a pulp again. I struck my last blow, his face unrecognizable. He fell limply to the ground with a weak laugh.

“What’s funny? That your blood is writing this chapter of history instead?” I sneered.

“No.” He said, nearly devoid of any energy. “Infinite… Tsunami…” His voice was barely above a whisper. It was my turn to laugh. What could he possibly do to me with his face utterly boiled away, and most of his blood lost? He was waiting to die, for me to kill him more accurately.

I laughed as the first sword skewered through my back, pinning me. I laughed as a swarm descended on me, as it pierced every part of my body, and I laughed as I saw Glass River cling to his last breath. Though it was my final breath to administer, his last breath was mine. I turned my mass of blood on his face into a wall of thorny tendrils that shot into his head.

Every sword vanished from my body, my wounds immediately filling themselves in, save for the lost foreleg. I incinerated his body, along with the sand nearby, fusing it into blackened glass. I shaped it into an ornate urn, and gingerly placed his ashes inside. I took the scale armor, and crunched it down into a false leg, connecting most of it with my stump, and using the rest to line the inside of my cloak. This was my souvenir; the EUP would have theirs shortly. I materialized a piece of paper and a quill with ink and began writing.

My head shot up, my head began to flood with memories, too many at once! I tumbled into the sand, the void in the sky staring back at me as I blacked out.

***

“You mean it, really you will!?”

“Of course I’ll marry you, Glass! You goofball! You and your awful cooking!”

Glass fidgeted in a hospital chair, florescent lights buzzing above him in a hallway of polite blue walls and dull white tile. He was reminiscing about the day he proposed to Strawberry Cream. It was a hot summer’s day, the kind that there wasn’t enough sweet tea in the world to cool one off. Still, Glass and Cream tried their damndest to drain every last drop on her family’s farm.

He’d tried cooking for the first time, packing all of his creations in a small wicker basket his mother gave him. It was one of the only things left to him in the will. He thought a picnic would impress his belle, and it would’ve worked too, if he could only cook.

He’d gotten better since then, but no matter how skilled he got, he’d always remember the taste of burnt hay in his mouth as he gave her his grandmother’s ring. It came all the way from the Crystal Empire, and he’d made sure not a single scratch came across any of its transparent surfaces. He felt safe giving it to her, he knew she’d feel the same way he did about it.

They’d been married for years at this point and had been trying for a foal just slightly longer than that. Though, the first few attempts early on weren’t intentional. They’d finally succeeded, and Glass had been told to wait outside until the doctor came to him. This wasn’t the usual way of doing things, and he knew that. If it was within his power, he’d be right there with her, but the powers that be decided to keep him outside her room until it was over.

The door to her room unlatched and the doctor emerged, closing the door behind her. She did not look happy. Glass River hung his head, there wasn’t anything that needed to be said. They had warned them both about this possibility being likely, but they were both young. They thought they were invincible. That always happens to some other couple, but not us. Cream had died delivering a stillborn foal. A large piece of Glass died in that hallway, and the remains left in that chair.

As Glass River walked out of the hospital, he remembered an offer from Brigadier General Stellar Solstice. Maybe he could avenge his wife and child if he climbed through the ranks, but if he did, he’d have to tell no one and trust no one as he rose.

***

A glowing blade snapped into existence above Stellar Solstice’s desk, its point piercing through the thick cherry wood and was stopped by its intricate handle just shy of cutting the cyan carpet below. The sun was setting outside the office windows, casting a warm apricot orange shade over everything the light touched. Within the next instant, an ornate black urn snapped beside the sword, a letter affixed to it.

The greying Field Marshall knew this could be one of two things, but surveying the items on his punctured desk, the Amulet was not one of them. He closed his eyes, which grew heavy with sorrow. He remembered drilling a promising Private back when he was younger, a violet pony with an indomitable spirit. Solstice had been impressed with the stallion’s natural swordsman abilities from a stray fencing performance and had offered him a position in the EUP.

Of all the places he expected that stallion to go, the very top was not one of them. Then again, when he was a private, he never expected to be Field Marshall. He let out a weighty breath, a single solemn note of amusement tucked somewhere within. They were similar like that: Both climbing the ranks, both climbing together, and both starting from the very bottom. Of all the places he expected that stallion to go, the grave was not one.

Solstice didn’t need to read the letter, he knew what it said without having to look at it. It could be one of two things, an apology for his death, or an invitation to war. Of them both, the answer was the same. He shook his head. Declaring war on a single pony wasn’t unlike the princess, Sombra was proof of that in recent history. He just didn’t believe that the nation would have to do so again so soon.

Nor did he want to oversee a war that would likely end in Equestria’s elimination. If this mare had not only broken out of Tartarus but killed what was within the escape, there would be no amount of power the princess could throw at her that could stop her. Except for the six in Ponyville.

He shook his head. That was the very last line of defense, and Equestria wasn’t on its last legs, nor is Trixie only stoppable by them. He hunched over with the weight of the knowledge that Equestria’s final lines of defenses were being eroded away one by one. Soon they’d have to be deployed, but that time was not now.

The Field Marshall knew that when you start a war, you don’t send the calvary in first. You send in the scouts first. He’d have to order Solar Team 8 to follow General Concrete to intercept Trixie wherever she might be. If the General’s reports were accurate, and they seldom were off by even a single degree, she’d be headed for Canterlot. Now with all the power in the world, she’d want to try and resurrect her sister.

The distance between Tartarus’ gate and Caterlot was vast, it would take even an athletic pony two weeks to accomplish this on foot. If the items on his desk were any indication, Trixie could simply appear in the graveyard, and could already be there now. Concrete laid out though in her contingency plan, that Trixie would walk, attempting to gain as much power as she could before attempting.

If there was anypony who could remove Trixie as a threat, it would be Concrete. She was close to an agreement in their last interaction before unforeseen events altered their arrangement. If the General was to undoubtedly convince Trixie that she could be forgiven, she would need a pardon. It would require Solstice’s own signature or the crowns’. If it were to be foolproof, he would need their signatures and his.

A pardon in ink, with the most powerful ponies in the land agreeing to it would be impossible to reject. She would get what she wanted, and Equestria would get what it wants. A sister and peace respectively. A document like this, in the hands of Concrete and Solar Team 8, both who are known for their absolute discretion, would see to executing the operation with integrity. Nothing could go wrong because all of them would know the stakes, and would not impede.

Solstice removed his cap, placing it gently on his desk before slamming his hoof down. He was going to make reparations to a threat to tranquility after they killed the nation’s hero. He didn’t know whether to explode or weep. This was the corner he was backed into. This was the corner that the crowns were backed into. And this was the corner the nation was pinned into.

This meant that he’d have to tell Celestia about the death of her prized swordsman, where he was and why. The right hoof of the sun would have to be incinerated by it, and it would endure for the fate of the world.

Author's Note

One of my more longer chapters, huh?
How did you like the chapter? The fight scene? Let me know below!
Thank you, dear readers!
This chapter was proofread by the great Krixwell! Go give their work a read!