Shadow was just... standing there. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn't moving. That was the only thing that gave the ponies hope, that something good was happening inside. The sky had been darkening ever since Shadow drew the full power of her magic to herself, and it began to rain, the sky soaking everything, the city, Shadow, the ships. It made it hard to see what was going on, and it didn't really help the moody atmosphere on each ship and in the tiny growing settlement of ponies in the distance.

And inside, Polaris gasped. His final trick before the magic overwhelmed him was a desperate attempt to take control of it, and everything went black before he woke up in a black void. Floating in front of him was a cute looking unicorn, an image of a cute little brook on her flank, with a little bridge and everything. "W-Who are you!?" The mare said, looking at him with fear in her eyes. She had lost control of her magic, her body, and now she was trapped in this strange, dark place, with a Blue pony that she hadn't seen before. She didn't realize it was him who ripped her magic from her grip, but only enough to prevent her from controlling it while there was another pony inside. "Wuughh... huh? Who're you...? I uh, I'm Polaris?" He said, looking confused.

The anger that twisted the mare's face alarmed him, as she said, "Y-You! You did this to me! Give me back my powers!" She hissed, as the magic began to shift and broil around them. Polaris began to look nervous, and he looked to her as he said, "Y-You think I know how? This is more magic than I've used in centuries of living!" He said, gesturing at her. Now, his emotions were getting the better of him. "And hey, now that I have you here, what is it with you? Batpony genocide, really? What did they do to you? You've enslaved an entire country! You've betrayed one of the princesses! You've terrorized all of Equestria after we came here because our home was destroyed, and now you think you can ruin our new home, too!?" He yelled, the magic growing even more energized around them.

"Yes!" She yelled, and tears began to stream down her face as she began to realize what she had become. "They took everything from me! I... I had to! I don't need to explain myself to you! You're not welcome in here!" She yelled, as her horn began to glow. She was trying to retake control of her magic, refusing to face the mountain of guilt that had been boiling within her for years. But Polaris wasn't going to let it go. "You can't hide from yourself!" He yelled, into the howling storm of magic that was forming. And she let out a sob, saying, "They killed him! I loved him!"

And that struck a nerve. "What's what this is about!?" Polaris barked. His horn glowed brighteer as he dragged the mare close to him, and he grabbed onto her. In an oddly calm voice, he spoke. "It's been decades and decades since I watched the mare of my life, the pony I've loved more than anypony I'll ever love again, die in front of my very eyes, and while I might have killed the pony responsible, I was not weak like you" he hissed. Tears ran from his own eyes, and he shook her as he said, "You think I don't know loss!? I'm not stupid enough to think that every stallion with a cigarette in their mouth is responsible for what happened to her!" He yelled.

Brook was sagging beneath the weight of her own guilt by now. For the first time, she could think without the oppressive nature of her magic, and tried to squirm away as she gave up on the magic, her horn flickering out. "I... I've killed so many... were it not for the princess, I would have seen every batpony alive to their graves..." She said, "And then I came here, and I waited for the right time to trap all of them..." she said. After so long of hunting down batponies so she could kill them, Brook had become distant from her past. She barely saw batponies as ponies, and it made it easier for her to kill them. But Polaris was a normal pony, a pony who had seen the same sorrow as her, at least somewhat.

Brook wanted it to stop. Somewhere inside of herself, she knew that she had become a monster, and she was terrified of everything she had done. She didn't want to be saved, though. Ponies were forgiving, maybe, but Brook held a death toll that stretched far beyond what any other single pony could have accomplished.

She met Polaris' gaze, saying, "I... please, you can't let me keep going..." She said, her voice breaking up. Polaris was angry, but he understood. After he had destroyed the town of TreeVale, he had wanted his own life to stop, but his magic wouldn't let him. However, he also felt that the mare deserved punishment, though wasn't the horrible realization of what she had done an awful punishment in itself? Polaris growled, struggling to process the emotions, the magic, the deep ocean of power below him, the emotions within him, and he let go of Brook, shoving her away from him.

"I don't want to go back!" Screamed Brook, as she tumbled into the magic surging around them, disappearing inside of it. To the ponies outside, the mare began to change, the form hazing between what resembled Polaris, then the mare again, and back to Polaris. Inside of it, Polaris was shaking as he tried to direct the incomprehensible flow of magic, but he could barely interact with it. There was just so much of it, stretching at the binds of the pony form it was taking.

A pair of hooves touched his face. Polaris opened his eyes, and he focused them on Lunimere. Wait. Lunimere? Suddenly, the magic began to calm around him, and while he could now hear Brook sobbing in the magic she was half-buried in, he didn't care. "Luni... I..." He said softly, but she shushed him. "Polaris..." The mare said, smiling at him. "You can hear me?" She asked. He found it hard to talk, but Polaris felt tears run down his face once more as he quietly said "Lunimere...?"

She nodded quickly, saying, "I... I've been following you ever since that day, sweetie... I just... I dove in after you, I needed to try to help" She said. Now that was a revelation to him. "Y-You have? Really? I... I guess this magic is powerful enough to... to let you talk to me..." he said. She nodded, saying, "Yeah, it... it let me form a body, kind of, but I can't do much more with it". Lunimere looked around with a worried expression, saying, "W-What do we do about this? Can you control it?" He shook his head, saying, "I... no! I don't know what to do! I-I can't try to take hold of it, or it's just gonna take the first thing I feel and run with it! I can't even think of a spell that would put a dent into it, and... and..." he said, though his thoughts ground to a halt as he thought of one spell.

Lunimere smiled knowingly, and she nuzzled him as she said "Remember when you figured out a spell to generate a body? And bind a soul to it? By the way, none of those methods actually worked, I was pretty much screaming into the EMF detector..." Polaris put on a nervous grin, saying, "There's no way... I know this is a lot of magic, but Twilight told me that spell was impossible. Hell, it took a ton of magic just for us to grow back this guy's leg" he said. She smiled, saying, "I know, like I said, I've been here the whole time".

"Well..." Polaris said softly, "I'll try it. Best case scenario, I manage to do the impossible and bring you back... worst case, I join you" He said, smiling at her. She frowned for a moment, but she knew what the third option would be, and she wasn't so selfish as to put herself or her husband above the lives of all the ponies outside. She nodded, saying, "Go ahead", and he pulled the etheral mare close, putting together the spell. It took a while, and throughout, Lunimere held herself close to him. Calling out to the magic, Polaris guided some of it into a spell, and he set it into motion. It trickled at first, but the magic began to flow into the spell at exponentially faster speeds, making him shudder at the exchanges of power at work. Everything went white for both of the ponies, and it was then that they lost their grip on the world.

Brook looked up as she felt the magic moving, and she stared at the blue stallion as the power coursed into him. She noticed a second pony, and it confused her slightly, but she lost focus as the magic began to tumble and thrash around her. The screaming in her head went silent, along with the howling in her ears, and the pain filling her body.

✩｡:*•.──────────.•*:｡✩

To the ponies on the outside, it was only minutes since Polaris disappeared that the monster began to resemble him, and it began to move as his body became more detailed. It seemed like he was somehow taking control of it, but only at first. The pony took one step, then it collapsed, shaking the ground. And as it knelt there, it began to glow and shrink, the living well of magic draining rapidly into a spell. The glow became brighter and brighter, until even Fluttershy couldn't see into it with her eyes nearly shut off entirely. The glow began to fade, but it was still too bright for all but the robotic mare to see. Floating inside of the webs of magic were three forms. One of them was most likely Polaris, as it was bigger than the others, and the brightness was the brightest around him. One of them was almost transparent to begin with, but it became solid like Polaris was as she watched.

The third pony, it convulsed a little bit, then it disentigrated to Fluttershy's surprise. Even more light poured from its body as the spell entered its final stages, consuming the soul and body of the pony as fuel for its fire. Suddenly, the magic in the air split in two. The bigger portion of it came rushing into Polaris, and he fell to the grass. The smaller portion disappeared inside of the other pony, and it fell to the grass next to him.

✩｡:*•.──────────.•*:｡✩

Brook whimpered as she felt a hoof poke her. Then it slapped her. With a yelp, she opened her eyes, flinching in preperation of another strike. But it didn't come. Instead, she found herself looking up into a set of eyes that she hadn't seen in a long, long time. "R-Ri..." She stammered weakly, before the stallion grabbed her, and gently lifted her up. The mare shrunk down as she realized where they were- in a ghostly, yet beautiful batpony city, high in trees that didn't seem to ever reach the ground, if there was one. River smiled a little bit, and he nuzzled her as he said "You have a lot of apologies to make, but I'm glad that you made it here, my love".

Brook latched onto him, and tears of sorrow and happiness mixed together as she started to cry into his arms. Brook was not a pony with genuine evil in her heart, and with time, she would not only make amends, but she would become a far better pony than she ever was before.

✩｡:*•.──────────.•*:｡✩

The first pony to teleport outside was Luna, and she looked down at the two bodies with a worried frown. One was Polaris, of course, and the other one she didn't recognise. As they both began to stir, Luna glared down at the mare, and her magic wrapped around her, picking her up. At the same time, both of them woke up. They locked eyes, though the look on their faces confused her. "Is this the mare responsible for this?" She asked, turning her gaze to Polaris. To her surprise, he waved his hooves at her in a panic, getting up as he said "P-Put her down!"

She was very confused, but she let go of the mare, and Polaris tackled her out of the air into a tight hug, both ponies laughing giddily and rolling around in the grass. Celestia joined Luna in the rain with a flash of her own magic, and she quickly joined her sister in looking confused. Finally, Polaris was the one to flash a wide, but nervous smile up at them. "I... you ever hear of ghosts?" He asked, which made Lunimere bust out in giggles.

Next up was Northern, and unlike the sisters, he could recognise the mare that Polaris only ever described while sobbing into a pillow. The princesses met his expression of shock with their own confused looks, and he met eyes with Polaris as he said, "How did you... Lunimere, right?" He asked, looking to the mare. "Yeah..." She said softly, "I didn't really have a choice, I dove in after him, and with all that magic I was actually able to talk to him for the first time since, well..." Northern turned to the princesses, saying, "Well, this would be Polaris' wife, in the flesh for the first time since 1948".

"Wait, wait, wait, you get trapped inside of an even more powerful version of the pony of shadows, and you come out of it with your wife?" Celestia asked. "I remember you telling me about... well... about her dying, in like, the fifties, when I came to you with that bunker plan!"

"And I was there!" Lunimere said. "I've been watching him since the day after I died, following him everywhere he went, even into that monstrous pony, and boy, I... I can't believe that worked..." She said, letting herself collapse into Polaris' arms with a weary smile. "I thought I was dead..." Polaris said. "Oh, I uh... boy, I wish twilight was here for me to tell her, but it took the full power of that magic, and the soul of the mare who was controlling it to recreate Lunimere's body and bind her to it"

"That's got to be the costliest spell in Equestria..." Northern said. "Bringing a pony back to life..." Celestia said, her unfocused gaze stretching out into the rain. Northern shuddered, and he said "Imagine if she had used the souls of all those batponies as-" He started to say, but he was interrupted by Luna suddenly yelling "MY BATPONIES!" into the rain, and he stumbled to the side as the blue mare took off, whapping both himself and Celestia in the face with her wings. The blue mare took off for the city, flying directly for the crystal structure that Shadow had trapped all of her former slaves in.

"You know, I was blown away by how unlikely the entire series of events with Silver was, and yet, he pulled it all off, and yet, you pulled all of this off" Celestia said. Polaris and Lunimere grunted as they picked each other off of the ground, and right about then, Cadence teleported herself in. "You don't need to tell me, I already know!" She said, squeezing the two ponies in a tight hug. Then, she turned to Celestia, saying, "Okay, auntie, are you finally ready to admit that Love is the strongest magic? It's saved the flanks of everypony on that ship twice now!" She said, only growing more excited as a defeated look took over Celestia's face. But there was a smile hidden behind it, and her words were drawn out as she said, "Well, I don't know..." to the bouncing pink mare, whose excitement reminded her somewhat of the late Pinkie Pie.

"Well, we have missed time to catch up on" Lunimere said, before she nipped Polaris, then took off running towards the giant purple ship. The blue stallion grinned as he started chasing her, and Cadence trotted in place with a happy giggle at the sight. Celestia smiled again, since it did make her happy to see Cady so happy. "What a day... week... have I even slept since we landed?" She asked, taking a moment to look up into the falling rain. "Tia, again!?" Cadence huffed, making the white mare break out in giggles of her own.

Author's Note

sorry dis one got a bit heavy

at least nobody touched sasha