Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Applejack, and Little Ghost were gathered in front of the altar, on the terrace of the Treacherous Mansion of Equestria's Evershade Valley. With them were their friends and families, waiting anxiously as the five ghost hunters readied themselves for what was, hopefully, the final adventure against Thanatos which, obviously, will be the most dangerous.

By some miracle, Thanatos didn't start another of his "Death Games", leaving Apple Bloom to train with her new powers in the weeks that followed. And, ooh boy! She couldn't wait to use them on Thanatos and his army! She became powerful enough that she could rivalise with Eternal Rest! If only she wasn't limited at 30 seconds at a time...

She wasn't the only one who had developped some tricks with her ghost powers. Sweetie Belle had trained hard with her singing, Applejack could now create shockwaves by slamming her hooves on the ground, and Scootaloo could leave a trail of fire behind her when she rolled in her scooter form.

And so, here they were, finally.

Finally ready.

Prof E. Gadd, who was also present, then gave each of them a white boxy object.

"Those are batteries. It came to my mind that there probably won't be any outlet in Thanatos' castle for the Super Suction, so use them instead. But watch out, those batteries aren't illimited. They each will give you only one minute of power, so use them wisely."

"Thanks, prof," said Apple Bloom as she and the others put the batteries inside their Poltergusts, beside the crystals.

Twilight then came and gave Little Ghost something that looked like a white gun (made for hooves) but with a prod at the end. "We also developed this. I remembered that Thanatos could also open portals that he used to send everypony out of his castle and back here, so we worked on countering this. If he opens a portal, then simply fire at it with this Anti-Portal Gun, and it should close."

Little Ghost took it with a smirk. "Ah! Yeah! He won't be able to eject us from his castle! I can't wait to see his face when he will discover it."

Sweetie Belle looked at her. "He's probably watching us, so there will be no surprise."

"Actually..." began Discord who was also present.

Thanatos stared at his portal that he normally used to watch Apple Bloom. The portal was now full of statics, some of them forming Discord's best trollface.

"Discord..." he growled.

"Gotta keep some surprises against him," finished Discord with a big grin.

"Ah!" shouted Rainbow Dash as she gave him a hoof/fistbump.

Apple Bloom laughed, then asked "Anything else?"

In answer, she was hugged by Granny Smith and Big Mac who wished her good luck. They were worried sick, but they knew that they had no choice but to let the filly go. At least, Applejack will be with her. Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Little Ghost were also hugged by their loved ones present, each also receiving good lucks and other good words.

As this happened, the most powerful ghosts present worked together to open the portal to the Spiritual World on the altar. A ramp was then placed to lead into it.

With the portal open, the five ghost hunters began to walk/float toward it, waving goodbye to everyone else before they passed through it.

The portal led them on a floating stone platform like there were so many floating everywhere in the Spiritual World. Nothing had changed, it was exactly like the previous time Apple Bloom was there.

Then, a familiar organ began to play as some of the platforms moved to form a path. Like before, Thanatos' castle rose from the darkness at the end of the path, as huge as before. It dwarfed everything that Apple Bloom explored before, even Eternal Rest's hotel. Hundreds, thousands of ghosts could be seen flying around its towers. Many, many gargoyles lined the walls, seemingly staring at the team of ghost hunters as they began to approach.

Unlike before, however, the dragon skull forming the entrance didn't open, not even when the hunters reached it.

Instead, it chuckled.

"Poor fools who want to brave the domain of Death..." it then began as its eyes suddenly glowed purple. "Welcome to your new home."

Author's Note

To be continued.

I'm warning you, Apple Bloom's Mansion 4 will certainly take some time to come. Designing Thanatos' castle, room by room, will take a lot of time, without forgetting the ghosts that will be totally original.

I already have the basic planned: the end goal will be Thanatos' throne room. As you may remember from the end of Apple Bloom's Mansion 2, the throne room will be protected by a door with four keyholes, obviously guarded by four powerful ghosts who will be the main bosses. The particularity here will be that there won't be any specific order to get the keys, because there will be four paths already from the start. So it will be possible that the group will do the paths one at a time, or all four at once, finishing with the four bosses one after another.

Apple Bloom's Mansion 4 will probably be the darkest episode of the saga. I will try to avoid going into mature content, but no promise. This is Thanatos' castle after all. I already have some rooms and ghosts in mind, and it will be very ugly. To give you an exemple, some of the rooms will be torture rooms. Yes, rooms, in plurial. There will also be a trophee room, and you can guess what the 'trophees' will be.

Well, see you soon.