Twilight ran down the corridor with her friends, eager to stop the unicorn that stole her brother's magic and just attacked Cadence.

She still was having a hard time believing what just happened. Clover the Clever, THE Clover the Clever had been living in her house for the better part of the last week. But still, why was he doing all this? Wasn't he supposed to be one of Equestria's biggest heroes? Was he an imposter? Luna said he was the real thing? He couldn't be a changeling could he? A long dead unicorn would be a really poor disguise.

"Could he be an evil zombie?!" Proclaimed a Pinkie Pie who was shuddering all over.

"Huh?" Twilight train of thought was derailed as she turned to look at her twitching friend.

"Darling, we're worried you're overanalyze everything," said a concerned Rarity. "You do have that look on your face."

"Gosh darn it, Ah'm more worried about this Ret gal we're chasin," said Applejack. "If she's anything like that Smokey fella."

"I'm more worried bout Pinkie's twitchin," said Rainbow Dash. "That's not usually a good sign."

"I don't know D-D-Dashie," Pinkie was still shuddering quite violently. "It started right before Cadence screamed. Whatever happened, it was a d-d-doozy. And I don't think we've seen the last of it."

They ran down the hallway until they spotted Ret sitting at a balcony overlooking the city. She had her back turned as she sat there levitating an open book in front of her. She didn't really seem to notice them approaching as she starred at the book, chewing at the end of a red quill.

"She's distracted Twilight," said an enthusiastic Rainbow. "I'm gonna get the jump on her."

"No Rainbow. Wait!" Twilight shouted after her friend.

Her shouting seemed to catch Ret's attention as she looked back at them. She gently floated the red quill to the page in front of her as she watched Rainbow fly in to tackle her. At that moment, Rainbow Dash's wings seemed to be no longer able to catch the air as she tumbled to the ground and rolled to a stop in front of her.

Pinkie stopped on the spot and started to shake more violently than before. "What was that?!" She cried out.

"I didn't even see her magic touch her, what happened?!" Twilight said in a panic.

"Ah got her," said Applejack as she lassoed a rope around Ret, eliciting an adorable squeak as the rope tightened around her.

Ret braced herself as Applejack tried to pull her in. She calmly glanced at the rest of them as she placed quill to parchment again.

Applejack held the rope taut as she braced herself on the ground, giving one last pull to bring the unicorn to the ground. That was the plan, but at that moment, gravity decided to go on vacation in regards to a certain apple farmer.

Applejack's eyes went wide when she suddenly found her hooves no longer on the ground as she started to drift upward. "Whoa nelly!" The only thing that kept her from flying away was the rope she now desperately held between her teeth.

"There it was again?!" Screamed Pinkie Pie. "Do you girls seriously not see that?!"

Rarity had managed to sneak up behind Ret in the confusion and was getting ready to pounce on her. And then she turned orange.

"AAHHHHH!!" Rarity high pitched scream broke any silence that remained as she ran away crying.

Pinkie looked up to the empty space above her, "I know what I saw, I'm not crazy!" She shouted to no one in particular.

Rainbow Dash managed to pick herself back up off the ground and after shaking the cobwebs from her head, leapt at the unicorn in front of her and managed to wrap her forelegs around her this time.

Ret buckled under the added weight and gave her new passenger an annoyed look as she tried to buck her off. However in the middle of trying to get free, the rope that was still wrapped around her proceeded to get tangled around both her and Rainbow Dash.

Eventually the struggle bore fruit as it found both of them on the ground and tangled up in the rope, leaving two very annoyed ponies laying there.

"It's ok girls, I think I got her," proclaimed Rainbow from her hogtied position.

Ret rolled her eyes before teleporting out of the mess of rope, leaving Rainbow to be dragged away by the Applejack shaped kite that was still on the other end of the rope. "Nevermind! I don't got her!"

Ret surveyed the remaining ponies on her battlefield, her eyes locking on Fluttershy as she slid to a stop in front of her once she had been spotted. "Eep!" She cried out before collapsing due to a sudden caress of the

SPLAT!!!

Ret dropped her book as she found her concentration broken. Her vision filling with...Banana cream pie?

"No more red letters!" Shouted Pinkie Pie before pelting her with another pie.

Ret staggered backward when the second pie hit her, a look of confusion on her face as she wiped away the desert. She steadied herself as her red magic scooped her book up from where it had fallen. She pressed her red quill to the pages and Pinkie found herself having

KERBLAM!!!

She suddenly found herself surrounded by an explosion of confetti, causing her to tumbled backward as her book flew away from her again.

"Twilight! Fluttershy!" Shouted Pinkie Pie, snapping her two remaining friends out of their reverie. "Quit staring and keep that book away from her!"

Fluttershy was the first to spot the book laying abandoned on the ground as she ran over and picked it up in her mouth. She only made it a few steps before a red bolt of magic came tearing through the air and sent her flying back down the hallway they came from.

The book flew through the air towards Ret as she whipped her magic back up in an attempt to catch it. However, she soon found herself on unsteady hooves as a mattress of balloons came up underneath her. Ret scowled at the balloons as she popped them one by one, her book forgotten for the moment.

Twilight saw the book fly through the air and dove after it, her wings catching the air as she jumped. She caught the book with her outstretched hooves and held the strange tome against her chest. Panic overtook her for a moment when she realized she was airborne under her own power. She looked back down to see Ret standing there with a look of fury on her face while Pinkie floated there strangled by a ribbon of magic fastened around her neck.

Ret's angry red eyes met Twilight's as she spoke the first thing they had ever heard her say since she appeared.

Four simple words were spoken by a soft singsong voice.

Whatever meaning those words carried however were lost as pain rushed through Twilight like a tidal wave and set every nerve ending on fire. She limply fell from her airborne perch, her body screaming out in agony just before she impacted the ground and lost consciousness.

"Twilight!"

Who am I? The consciousness barely scraping her thoughts together over the river of agony that surged through her. Everything she was seemed to burn as if someone had set a torch to her.

"Twilight!"

Was someone saying something? All six of her limbs burned and ached. Six limbs? That's right. She had wings didn't she? Why did she hurt so much?

"Twilight!"

Her eyes shot open as she starred at the cloud covered sky above her, a blurry orange form hovering over her.

"Applejack?" She said weakly.

"Hrmph," the current speaker said sardonically. "Normally I'd be offended if you mixed us up, but given current circumstances I'll make an exception just this once."

Twilight's eyes came into focus as she looked at the orange unicorn crouched over her. "Rarity?" She pulled the name from her addled mind. "Why are you orange?"

"I'll...I'll be alright darling, but you should really be more worried about yourself," said Rarity with deep concern in her voice. "You were bleeding pretty badly."

"Blood?!" Twilight jumped with a start, only to noticed the cloth wrapped around her midsection with splotches of red fluid bleeding through it. "What happened?"

"Ret lost her temper is what happened," came a very familiar voice from dozen feet away. "There's a good reason why she doesn't speak."

Twilight slowly sat up with some assistance from Rarity, the muscles in her back burning as she got all four of her hooves back under herself. She looked over to see Fluttershy bandaging...Twilight?

There was another Twilight a dozen feet away from her, similarly wrapped in bandages marred with dark splotches. However this version of herself, was a unicorn and thus was missing a set of wings adorning their back.

"Spectrum?" Twilight guessed. "What do you mean? What exactly happened? And how are you hurt?"

"You ponies never make things easy, do you?" The fake Twilight said between wet coughs. "In her anger, Ret tried to remove your wings and if I hadn't acted quickly, that would have been your reality...in the messiest way possible. Pinkie's randomness got her so worked up that she lost her self control and tried to tear your wings off. I strongly advise you don't try to fly for a while, that kind of damage doesn't heal quickly.

Twilight wrapped her forelegs around herself as she shuddered, the implications of what he just said sinking in. She looked up to her twin's battered body, "What happened to you then? Why are you hurt?"

"Reality doesn't like it when you create a paradox," she coughed up some green and red mucus that splashed on the ground. "I'm paying the price for that."

"What?!" The gears in Twilight's head were catching on something that didn't want to click.

"Don't try to understand it, you'll only hurt yourself," Spectrum said weakly. "Other than Ret herself, Clover's the only one who even remotely understands the magic she uses. But even he'll admit it give him a headache."

They looked over to find Ret sitting against the balcony with terrified stare on her face. She shook violently while desperately hugging her book protectively against her chest as if were the only thing in the world that mattered.

"Finish the spell, Ret," Spectrum wheezed out as he stood up, Fluttershy catching him as he staggered.

Ret slowly climbed back to her hooves, glaring daggers at Pinkie who slowly retreated to stand by Twilight. She took a few deep breaths before reopening her book and floating her red quill over to touch the pages.

As Ret stood there on the balcony overlooking the Crystal Empire, she knew that this kingdom, if it ever existed in the first place, fell because a great evil was unleashed upon it. The kingdom itself was banished to keep that evil contained and even though the palace at the center of the city had returned from that banishment, the city and its ponies had not.

Ret staggered forward, her book tumbling to the ground as she struggled to keep herself upright. The air around her rippled as everyone else felt a wave of warm air rush over them. Arcs of power rippled up her body as her horn lit up as bright as the sun. She staggered a few times as tears of blood poured from her eyes, her fur starting to take on the red glow of her horn as cracks began to appear all over her body.

With one last push, she arced her back and a pylon of power shot into the sky, eliciting a scream of agony from the unfortunate unicorn. She sounded like a banshee as she cried out her pain to the world, the sky turning red as her power filled it.

Twilight and her friends looked on in fear as the light from Ret grew brighter and brighter. The whole world reflecting the light as it glowed as bright as an inferno, washing out their vision from being able to see anything.

When it looked like the light would never die down, the world came back into focus. As Twilight looked upon the unicorn that the spell had originated from, all she found there was a statue of red crystal. Steam poured off the sculpture as it started to rapidly cool, cracks forming as the hot crystal fizzled against the cold air.

Ret's body soon met the same fate Storm Chaser as pieces of the crystal started to rapidly break and fall away. As the last of the crystal collected in a pile, Twilight saw her brother's cutiemark of shield and stars rise up from the pieces before dissipating into nothingness.

"Shining Armor..." Twilight gasped as her thoughts finally caught up with her. What did Ret releasing his cutiemark mean? Was he going to be alright?

"This isn't funny," said Pinkie Pie from the edge of the balcony, her voice absent of its normal joy. "Twilight, you need to see this."

Rarity helped Twilight over to where Pinkie stood, the pain in her back and wings causing her to wince with every step. As she followed Pinkie's gaze, she felt her breath catch in her throat.

All she could see was a frozen wasteland as far as the eye could see.

It was gone.

The Crystal Empire was gone.

Author's Note

Ponies are editing my story while I'm trying to write it!
Next time this happens I'm gonna sing a happy song about sunshine and rainbows.
Damn it all!

Day 2 of the finale.
Tune in tomorrow.