Angel of Justice: Blood Moon

Everything was a blur as Blue Bolt clung on the very precipice of consciousness. His head was ringing, as was his hearing, though now it wasn't caused by overtaxing himself with his powers. How long had he been out? Had he even been out? It was hard to tell either way.

Spotting some faint silhouettes in the distance, the pegasus tried to clarify his hazy vision enough to see what was going on. He couldn’t make out details, but the color differences were enough for him to roughly determine that he was seeing Rainbow Dash and Raincloud fighting Dusk by themselves.

The cyan blur zipped overhead, firing down multicolored balls of light onto the taller brown shape below. In turn, a wriggling red line shot up, narrowly missing the blur. Another blotch of gray coloring flew the opposite way, occasionally firing off bursts of green light in between avoiding the crimson onslaught.

Blue placed a hoof beside his head and pushed himself up. He shook himself to his senses, blinking hard until his vision was at least somewhat clear. The ringing faded until he could finally hear the cracks, zaps, and frantic wings.

Suddenly, his eyes widened as he watched Raincloud get swatted out of the air by a fast-moving tendril. She barely made a sound, which only made the noise and sight more unsettling.

“Raincloud!” Rainbow Dash shouted, her voice sounding faint this far away. Both she and Blue watched as the gray mare flew several feet away before striking ground near a rock and bouncing before rolling to a motionless stop.

Rainbow Dash started to fly after their reluctant companion when she was abruptly swatted to the ground by another tendril. She grunted as the wind got knocked out of her, and then made a sucking noise of pain as she smacked to the ground on her back.

Then, she let out a sharp cry as a set of crimson spears came down and pierced through her shoulders, pinning her to the ground.

Blue Bolt widened his eyes in alarm and stumbled to all fours. “Rainbow!” He yelled, determined to reach her before the alicorn could hurt her any further.

He made it about three steps before he was knocked off his hooves and shoved back into the tree behind him by his throat. A band of blood was pressing into him, connected by a single line leading over to the pale alicorn.

Dusk leveled his gaze at the pegasus against the tree a few feet away. He glanced over to the cyan mare wriggling and shouting, trying to free herself from the agonizing pain, before turning back towards Blue and starting to walk forward.

Seeing death incarnate walking towards him, Blue Bolt raced to retaliate. He swiped his foreleg across the tendril holding him while summoning one of his blades. The weapon formed through glowing embers just in time to cleanly slice through the crimson rope, freeing him.

Not one to allow his enemies to escape easily, Dusk fired a pointed tendril from his neck that speared forward and pierced into Blue Bolt’s stomach with a wet squelch and a pained yell, pinning the pegasus to the tree again.

Then, when Blue tried to slash this tendril, another crimson lash zipped out of the alicorn’s wrist wound. It flew forward in a blur, and before the stallion even knew it, his weapon was halted and even pulled back. Much to his surprise, Blue looked over to see a sizzling tendril wrapped around his blade, not only holding its shape against the burning material, but also pulling with immense strength.

“You… have been a thorn in my side for far too long, Blue Bolt,” Dusk growled as he drew closer.

A renewed yell of pain came from behind the alicorn as Rainbow Dash lurched upwards, a fresh spray of blood flying out from one of the tendrils in her shoulder pulling itself out before stabbing itself back down into her abdomen.

“NO!” Blue Bolt widened his eyes. Gritting his teeth angrily, he summoned his other blade, only to have Dusk send another tendril, this time piercing his foreleg and pinning it to the tree. “Ack!”

“I’ve been thinking about how best to punish you for making a mockery of me back in Canterlot.” Dusk mused, a quiet sort of anger behind his voice that sent a chill down the stallion’s back. “I was thinking of ripping your wings off, and then breaking each of your bones one by one before flaying you alive… but then I realized that death holds no sway over one like yourself. At least… your death.” He smirked as he glanced behind him.

Blue tried to lunge forward at the alicorn, ignoring the crimson spear piercing into him. He would headbutt or bite if he had to. Unfortunately, Dusk merely sent another tendril shooting forward, piercing his abdomen and forcibly pushing his body back against the tree.

“Gah!” Blue yelped, cringing and dealing with his pain for a moment before panting heavily and opening his eyes. He looked over Dusk’s shoulder to see Rainbow Dash writhing in pain and trying in vain to free herself. His face only paled further as he watched the second tendril piercing her rip itself free before shooting back down into her side.

“Please…” Blue said, tears beginning to fill his eyes as he listened to his friend’s diminishing cries of pain. While he didn’t notice it at first, Dusk lifted a brow and then smiled as he saw a bright orange crack form in the pegasus’ blades. “Please, let her go. You wanted to fight me, so here I am… Just leave her alone!”

“Look at her,” Dusk said, stepping closer and bringing a hoof up to grab Blue’s muzzle so he could force the pegasus’ head to turn. “LOOK AT HER! I want you to watch me carve the flesh from her bones… and when she is crying for you to save her, I want the last thing she sees to be your pitiful face!”

More cracks appeared in Blue’s seemingly impervious weapons, spidering out along the blades’ surface like brittle glass. The blade being held by Dusk’s tendril started to shake, either from the metal starting to give way or from Blue Bolt’s foreleg shaking.

Enjoying the look of helplessness in the stallion’s eyes, Dusk leaned in closer, practically breathing down Blue’s neck and staring right into his face. “And after she’s dead… I’m going to bring her back, and force you to watch as she rips out the throat of that foalish yellow pegasus you two seem so fond of. Can you imagine the look on her face? The delicious fear and shock as one of her dear friends sinks their teeth into her neck?”

Hearing this, Blue Bolt froze and stiffened up. No matter how much he didn’t want to, he couldn’t stop himself from picturing Fluttershy and all the others dying horribly in various ways. The mere thought made his heart sink.

Then, he started to tense his jaw amid his labored breathing. With tears still staining his face, his eyes shifted from despairing and fragile, to intense and determined. His foreleg, the one being impaled into the tree, flexed and trembled from exertion.

Much to Dusk’s surprise, the cracks on Blue’s blades started disappearing. In fact, one of the blades started slowly glowing a vibrant shade of orange.

Then, as he glanced up toward the cyan mare bleeding out into the snow in the background, Blue’s eyes started glowing as well.

“I… won’t… let you… hurt them…” Blue growled through clenched teeth. He shifted forward with a slight squelch, causing the tendrils piercing him to dig further in and causing Dusk to flinch slightly in surprise. “I… won’t… LET YOU!”

Without so much as a pained cringe, Blue Bolt pushed past his exhaustion and the tendril impaling his foreleg to punch forward with great force.

Dusk started to dodge the glowing blade, but the pegasus didn’t seem to be entirely aiming to hit him with the blade. Blue’s hoof shot toward his face much faster than he could react to. A loud ‘thwack’ sounded out, followed by an even louder burst of air as all of the energy accumulated in the stallion’s blade shifted and flowed out through the punch, sending Dusk flying away like their first battle back in Canterlot.

Almost immediately, all of the tendrils under Dusk’s control lost their form and collapsed. Blue Bolt fell forward onto all fours roughly. He stood there for a moment, panting heavily and watching the alicorn flying away, before quickly shifting his attention to his wounded friend.

“Rainbow!” He rushed forward as fast as his battered form would allow.

Even before he reached her, he could see the ring of red snow around her as she slowly writhed and loosely clutched her chest and stomach. There were around three or four holes in her form. Almost all of them seemed deep enough to hit vital organs, and they were all pouring blood out onto her vest and fur.

Rainbow Dash shakily lifted her head as the stallion knelt down beside her. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing but a few wet coughs came out at first. “Blue…?” She croaked.

Blue Bolt took her by the hoof as he sized up her wounds before looking her in the face and flashing a weak smile. “Don’t worry… You’re gonna be… just fine.” He said in between breaths, starting to level his other hoof to her form until she reached up and stopped him.

“Blue… s-save… your strength…” Rainbow pleaded, barely able to make herself audible. “Just… just f-finish… Dusk off… Don’t wh… worry about m-me…”

Blue Bolt made an effort to stop his foreleg from shaking that didn’t quite stick. Still, he couldn’t just sit back and let her die. Gently pushing her hoof aside, he lowered his hoof to be just above her largest wound and held it as steady as he could before starting to project his healing light.

Rainbow Dash immediately felt all of her pain melting away as a familiar warmth washed over her. She could even feel her missing strength slowly returning as her wounds sealed up all over her body, allowing her to take a deep, relaxed breath as her lungs unpierced themselves.

Then, perhaps sooner than the stallion intended, the light faded, leaving the frigid air around them to chill Rainbow Dash once again. She looked up, only to find her friend breathing heavily, much like she was. They were both still exhausted, and her sore body seemed to indicate that he hadn’t healed her completely back to normal.

Blue Bolt smiled briefly in spite of the fatigue as he looked down at her. However, his expression fell as he turned to the side and noticed a brown figure standing up in the snow several feet away.

Rainbow Dash noticed him starting to turn and walk away on unsteady limbs. She tried to lift up to follow, only to cringe slightly and hold a hoof to her side. Her wounds were mostly gone, but her body was still battered and bruised as ever.

“Blue, wait… what are you doing?!” Rainbow asked, to which he didn’t provide an answer for several seconds.

The stallion turned to see his friend still on the ground where he left her. He tried and failed to hide a stumble before giving her a sad sort of smile. “Finishing the job.” He stated plainly as he turned back ahead.

To their credit, Dusk was also showing signs of weakness and fatigue. The alicorn’s gait wasn't quite as smooth and powerful anymore, and his body had a slight shake to it, though this could have also been from rage, judging by his expression.

The pair walked toward each other silently until they stopped about a dozen feet apart.

“Do you really think that a mere pony such as yourself can beat me?” Dusk growled, allowing a few smaller tendrils to float out of his neck. “I could crush you right now!”

Blue Bolt gave the alicorn a weary stare, and it wasn't just because of his exhaustion. “Then shut up and do it!” He shouted before lifting his hoof and jutting it forward, putting everything he had into projecting his beam of light.

Almost immediately, Dusk’s form vanished, completely eclipsed by the surge of radiant blue and white. A faint sizzling sound could be heard beneath a slight yell of pain.

However, Dusk didn’t seem to be making any attempts to move out of the way, if he even could. Instead, the alicorn’s retaliation came in another way.

All at once, Blue Bolt flinched as several tendrils surged forward through his light, holding their form just long enough to strike him and pierce through his body. His yelp of pain was stifled as his lungs were pierced, sending a gush of blood out of his mouth. He lurched forward and his foreleg threatened to buckle under his weight, but he grit his teeth and kept himself steady as he focused on maintaining his light.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash watched in stunned shock as this brutal struggle happened right before her eyes. She could just barely see the crimson spears shooting out of the cone of light and ripping into her friend’s body all over, tearing through flesh and bone and sending fountains of blood spraying out on their path.

“Blue!” She rolled onto her stomach and cringed as she started to get up. She had to do something to help before there was nothing left for Blue to even regenerate, if he could regenerate such extensive damage in his state.

Despite the protests of the cyan mare, neither the pegasus nor the alicorn seemed willing to budge an inch. They were locked into this struggle until one of them died, and they both knew that. They weren’t even sure if either of them could move if they wanted to.

Blue Bolt could feel each and every stream of blood punching through him. To say that any mortal pony would be dead by now was an understatement. He was certain that most of his organs were damaged beyond function by now, and that he was only persisting by whatever supernatural power flowed through him.

Still, he kept his trembling hoof outstretched and kept projecting his light. If anything, he was certain that he was doing just as much damage to the pale alicorn.

He had to keep going. No matter how much it hurt, no matter how tired he was. If he failed here, it meant everypony he ever knew dying at the hooves of this alicorn, this monster. Not even that, he was certain that the whole world would soon fall victim to Dusk’s sadistic campaign.

The merciless tendrils kept coming, being shot like pressurized jets out of Dusk’s neck so that he didn’t even have to control them very much. They tore past the only obstacle in their way before joining the rain of blood falling to the ground, creating a pool that had since stopped soaking into the snow and was slowly spreading out.

Then, with one final yell of defiance from both of them fading into silence, the light faded, and the tendrils stopped coming.

Rainbow Dash was left speechless as she stared at two figures in the snow. One was still dripping with blood from near every square inch of his body, while the other was still partially obscured by a cover of steam.

And then, they saw him.

Somehow, Dusk was still standing. Or, perhaps standing wasn't a good word for it, as the muscles and tendons needed to maintain such a stance had been reduced to ash. No, Dusk was simply not falling over.

His form was mostly skeletal, with sparse patches of smoldering fur and flesh clinging to his body. One of his eyes was missing, and his jawbone was half exposed, along with most of his ribs. Even despite his lungs being long gone, he stood there and went through the motions of panting and heaving for air.

Blue Bolt looked worse, if only for the fact that he still had blood and organs to expose. Entire patches of his flesh had been torn away, and numerous holes of varying size had been punched through his body. One of his eyes was bloodied and clenched shut, and one of his ears was missing. Still, he remained standing, his foreleg still outstretched despite the rivers of blood oozing and falling off of him.

Both of them just stood there, whole bodies shaking and taking small, labored breaths. Blue Bolt coughed and fell forward as he let his foreleg drop, while Dusk remained stiff as a board.

Then, both of them started healing.

It was a slow process to be sure, and it almost seemed to be the inverse of what they had just done to each other, with Blue Bolt’s form awash with burning embers and flame, and Dusk’s missing flesh filling out from a thin covering of blood that seemed to apparate out of nowhere.

Both of them seemed to be in immense pain, even as the process finished, as they just remained still and stared at each other.

Blue Bolt fought tooth and nail to just stand up. His legs felt like jelly underneath him, and he barely had the strength to push himself back up. His heart was pounding, and his lungs were on fire. He wasn't even sure if he could walk anymore, let alone use his powers again.

He looked up toward the alicorn, a slight grimace forming on his exhausted features. Just how stubborn was Dusk to survive something like that?

Meanwhile, Dusk stared back at the frail pegasus, a begrudging sort of respect on his otherwise fatigued expression. He couldn’t believe that the stallion was still alive, let alone standing.

Then, without so much as a word between them, the alicorn lifted his foreleg up, and sent two small blood streams shooting out.

The streams were barely a fraction as fast or as large as most of the attacks Dusk had used thus far, but they still had enough power behind them to punch through Blue Bolt’s chest and send him falling backward.

Rainbow Dash gasped as she watched the stallion go to the ground. “No!”

She rushed, or rather, walked forward, nearly stumbling once or twice as she moved toward him. As she reached him, she could already see the sickening pool of blood that had been left behind from the stallion’s intense struggle.

Blue Bolt was barely conscious, and he seemed to be struggling to breathe. Even though he had just survived far worse injuries, Rainbow was afraid that this might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Seeing Dusk starting to approach, Rainbow shot up in alarm and fumbled a hoof to her vest. She got out the first weapon she came across, her crossbow, and pulled it out before unfolding it and loading in a bolt.

Dusk lifted a foreleg toward her and silently willed his blood to impale her. Strangely, however, nothing came out. He looked down to the dry wound on his wrist, a slight mortifying shimmer behind his eyes as he noted how weak he felt.

Ignoring the feeling of dread and horror washing over him, the alicorn shifted his attention to the very ponies that had pushed him this far.

Rainbow Dash nearly tripped over herself as she struggled to load the silver bolt in and pull the string back. Finally, she started to level it toward the alicorn, when the familiar tingle of a magical aura wrapped around her body. She just barely noted hints of a silver glow around her, before her connection with the ground was severed as she was flung away, dropping her crossbow.

“AH!” Rainbow yelped as she hurtled through the air. She tried to spread her wings and break her fall, but she was so exhausted that she barely got one flap in before she impacted and bounced roughly to a stop amid the snow and ice.

She groaned softly in pain and shakily lifted her head, only to widen her eyes as she saw Dusk walking toward her. Her heart started to race, and she desperately reached to her vest for something to defend herself. The only thing she found was her silver dagger.

“Get away from me, you creep!” She threatened, brandishing her dagger and starting to push herself up, when the magical tug from before suddenly wrenched her foreleg to the side, causing a painful squeak and causing her to drop her blade as she was sprawled out onto her back.

Dusk stumbled as he stepped over to the cyan mare, his horn sputtering and sparking as his body trembled and shook. He looked almost more out of sorts than she had been when he almost killed her.

Rainbow Dash tried to squirm free or kick at the alicorn until he abruptly planted a hoof on her neck and pressed down. She croaked with pain and raced her hooves to his wrist, but with her own fading strength, she was powerless to stop him.

“Do you… have any idea… the spectacular depth… of my hatred for you?” Dusk panted, a chilling glint of malice in his unfocused stare. “You… you and your… stupid friends.” He spat out at the mere word, a hint of red still present in his saliva.

Rainbow Dash darted her timid eyes over to her dagger. She reached over toward it while meeting his gaze, her brash and brave exterior cracking under those intense red orbs boring into her soul. It was just out of her reach.

The pressure on her neck intensified, causing her to make more strangled croaks and sputters. She couldn’t breathe.

“I didn’t want… to rush things along… quite so much… but I’m afraid that you leave me no choice,” Dusk said, the slightest of smiles forming even despite how angry and exhausted he was. “Rest assured, Loyalty… You will be the first of your group… to have the honor of joining me, once I drain you of every last drop of blood.”

Under the vampiric alicorn’s immense strength, Rainbow Dash could feel her windpipe being crushed. Her hoof could only feel the tip of the handle to her dagger. There was nothing she could do. She was going to die here.

As they did the last time she neared death, her thoughts drifted to her friends. She could still picture their bright and smiling faces looking at her. However, that image changed as she pictured herself being changed into a bloodthirsty creature of the night and slaughtering them. The thought of their fearful screams and pleas for mercy made a few tears fall down her face.

Girls… I’m sorry…

Then, a click sounded out.

Rainbow Dash was half-convinced that it was the sound of her neck breaking under Dusk’s hoof, but she was still conscious, so this couldn’t have been the case.

Strangely, the pressure on her throat lessened as Dusk let up on her. She squinted open her eyes, only to find him staring ahead with a shocked expression plastered on his face. Then, that expression quickly shifted to pain as he lifted his head back and yelled.

Dusk raced a hoof to the back of his neck, where a burning pain was slowly washing out across his skin.

Rainbow Dash briefly lifted her head to see Blue Bolt standing in the distance, her fallen crossbow held in his outstretched hoof. She barely even wasted a moment on a joyful reaction before darting her hoof to the side and picking up her dagger.

With all the strength she could muster, and a yell full of so much pent-up rage and frustration toward the alicorn, she stabbed her weapon up and into the side of Dusk’s chest, just behind his foreleg.

“Just die!” She shouted, the weight of everything she had lost and stood to lose at his hooves helping her to drive the blade all the way to the handle.

Dusk made a sucking noise of pain as his eyes went wide. He stumbled back away from the cyan mare and fell to his haunches. With his whole foreleg trembling, he brought a hoof up toward the dagger sticking into his heart. A searing pain was working its way through him, and a wave of glowing ash started spreading out from both of the silver objects pierced into him.

Around this time, his unnatural power should have been stopping the spreading destruction of his body. His stores of blood should have been regenerating his damaged tissue and restoring his strength. However, a look of horror slowly washed over his face as he realized that that wasn't happening.

“No…” He muttered, voice faint and frantic with panicked emotion. “It… cannot be…”

Rainbow Dash was surprised to see the alicorn showing genuine fear and terror through his face. She didn’t think that he could feel such emotions, let alone to such intensity. She almost felt bad. Almost.

“No… NO!” Dusk cried in denial as the ashes started to overtake him. His limb closest to the dagger collapsed away into dust and embers scattering into the wind, and he tilted his head up as the burning wave started climbing up his neck.

“NOOOO!”

The alicorn’s scream faded alongside the rest of his body as he crumbled into ashes, much like all of his slain children. Soon after, nothing was left behind but a few floating embers on the wind, and those too faded and blinked out, leaving Rainbow Dash lying in the snow, staring ahead in stunned silence.

She blinked once, and then twice. The full weight of what she had just done hadn’t quite sunk in just yet. She stared down at her hoof, and then at the silver dagger lying in the snow a few feet away.

“We… we did it…” She muttered. A half chuckle forced its way free from her still burning lungs. Her throat was still sore, but she didn’t care as she looked over at her stallion friend still standing there in the distance. Finally, a wide grin formed and she shot her hooves up victoriously. “WE DID IT!!”

Up ahead, Blue Bolt smiled as he watched the cyan mare celebrating their triumph. A slight huff of air came out, mimicking the beginnings of a laugh that couldn’t go any further.

Then, however, he dropped the crossbow from his hoof and fell to the side as his legs gave out.

Seeing this, all of the joy immediately vanished from Rainbow’s eyes.

“BLUE BOLT!”

She raced to her hooves and rushed forward, stumbling and faltering as she went as she pushed her exhausted limbs to move faster. She had to reach him.

The cyan mare nearly fell to her haunches as she came upon the stallion. She sidled down next to him and gently rolled him over. Two gruesome holes were still left in his chest and stomach, and his face had lost a lot of its color.

“Blue, talk to me!” She said, propping his head up under a foreleg and gently trying to rouse him. “Say something!”

A weak cough came as Blue Bolt tensed his face. Even as he slowly opened his eyes, Rainbow Dash shrank back at the sheer lack of energy in them.

“Hhh… heh… n-not bad… for my first few days as a… s-slayer, huh?” He muttered, his voice barely there.

“No… no, no, no! You can’t do this… not again!” Rainbow shook her head, a sense of desperation in her eyes. She looked down to the wounds marring his form, framing the largest one with her free hoof. “Come on, Blue! Heal yourself!”

Blue Bolt cringed and shifted slightly as he brought a hoof up to his stomach. The bloody holes had a faint glow of embers appear around their edges, but this quickly faded as the stallion let out an exhausted huff.

“Sorry… R-Rainbow… I-I… don’t think I… can…” He explained, a softer shimmer in his otherwise sluggish stare. “I… think I’m… gonna have to… m-miss that… dinner.”

Rainbow Dash grabbed his hoof with her own and lowered her head, nuzzling the side of his face as tears fell freely from hers. “No… please…” She choked, “You… y-you can do this! It’s all a matter of willpower! So… quit messing around a-and get up!”

Hearing a faint noise, Rainbow lifted her head and looked down, only to widen her eyes. A flurry of glowing embers was slowly floating free of the stallion’s hind legs, and they were starting to take his body with them as they spread.

“NO!” She looked to the stallion and clutched him tightly. “Blue! Please… don’t leave me!” She cried, her tears falling down and hitting his chest.

Blue Bolt smiled softly as he lay in her grasp and slowly breathed. “You… stay out of trouble… a-and… t-take care of… F-Fluttershy… ok?” He said, struggling to bring his other hoof up to rest on her cheek.

Rainbow Dash reached up to hold the stallion’s hoof against her face. Still, she couldn’t stop her shallow, frantic breathing as she watched more and more of his body disappearing before her. She could feel the slight warmth of the embers as they tickled her form on their way up, not enough to burn her, but enough to provide a slight respite to the frigid wilderness around them.

“No… please…” She whimpered, tightening her grip on his hoof even as it started to emit embers and vanish. “You can’t leave again… Th… t-there’s so much I want to tell you… I… I think I-”

She paused, her mouth agape mid-sentence as she watched him close his eyes peacefully and vanish. The last of the embers floated up, taking any semblance of his touch she still had with them. She lifted her trembling eyes up and watched the last few dots of orange fly up into the air before they blinked out, leaving her cold and alone in the snow.

“Love you…” Rainbow finished, letting her hoof fall limply to her side. She sat there, stiff as a statue, and silently let her tears fall to the ground as she stared at the sky.
.
..
…
A few moments later, Raincloud grunted softly as her senses came back to her. She lifted her head up and creaked her eyes open, only to find herself staring at a rock.

Her body still hurt, especially her head, and she quickly surmised how her sudden bout of unconsciousness came to be as she clutched a hoof to a stinging, tendril-shaped welt across her body.

As she worked her way to a sitting position, rubbing a hoof to her neck and confirming that she still couldn’t speak, she scanned her eyes around to see how screwed they were. She half expected to find Rainbow Dash’s mangled corpse somewhere while Blue Bolt was still off fighting Dusk.

Strangely, however, she found no sign of the alicorn anywhere. She couldn’t find the pegasus stallion either. What she could find was a lone cyan shape sitting in the snow in the distance.

Raincloud softened her expression. She had a feeling she knew exactly what had happened, even if she didn’t believe they could ever win. Still, it was hard to celebrate with the cyan mare sitting there looking so distraught.

After a few moments of sitting by herself, Rainbow Dash’s ears twitched at the sound of hooves crunching in the snow behind her. She turned just in time for a gray hoof to land on her shoulder, only to find Raincloud standing there, looking down at her with a surprisingly sympathetic expression.

Rainbow didn’t much care who it was. Having another pony contact her so gingerly made the wave of emotions she was struggling to process spring forth like a shattering dam. Her eyes flooded with tears, and she quickly reached forward and buried her face into the gray mare’s shoulder as she hugged her tightly.

Raincloud stood there, hoof still outstretched as the cyan mare sobbed openly and squeezed her like a teddy bear. She was visibly uncomfortable with the situation, even if she couldn’t voice it. Still, she eventually decided to just let it happen, and patted the mare’s back awkwardly.

After all, Rainbow had earned a moment to let her emotions out. They had won, and even if it had come at a great cost, they had saved Equestria from a bloody fate.
.
..
…

-A few minutes later-

Twilight and all of her friends waited on the cliff outside the castle, tense and full of worry as they wondered what had become of the three pegasi.

Many of them had blankets from the nearby carriages wrapped around them and were resting as much as they could. If they did still have a fight on their hooves, they wanted to at least be able to move five steps before collapsing.

No matter how battered or exhausted they were, a gnawing feeling of guilt was still eating at most everyone present. They should have been down there with their friends fighting to the bitter end. They could try to justify it or convince themselves all they wanted, but deep down, they all knew it to be true.

Twilight sat next to Fluttershy close to the cliff’s edge, keeping a foreleg around the shy mare as they both stared down at the clearing below. From this distance, they couldn’t see their friends through the haze and snow, but that didn’t stop them from worrying.

Behind them, Luna watched the group somberly as they all dealt with this agonizing stretch of time in their own ways. She herself felt a burning need to do something, anything to help Rainbow Dash and the others.

The blue alicorn winced as she tried to stretch her wings. She had been contemplating forcing herself to lower the moon and go up to clear the clouds herself. And as she looked over to her sister, she figured that the older mare was thinking the same thing despite her own exhaustion.

Then, however, Fluttershy perked up as she noticed a hint of movement ahead. She strained her eyes to see, only to find the familiar shade of cyan of her rainbow-haired friend coasting up from the clearing below.

“Look!” She announced, pointing ahead for all to see.

Twilight and the others turned their attention ahead, only to find two winged figures ascending toward them slowly. Judging from their flight patterns, they were barely able to stay airborne by this point, but the fact that they were alive at all was miraculous.

Pinkie Pie rushed over alongside her friends, leaving just enough room for the two pegasi to land before they swarmed around the cyan mare. “What happened?! Are you ok?! Did we win?!” She asked frantically.

Rainbow Dash was uncharacteristically quiet and somber, which immediately made her friends uneasy. Still, she nodded anyway. “Yeah… we won.”

“What…?” Twilight asked, stunned and in mild disbelief. “You mean, Dusk is… gone?!” She asked. However, Rainbow’s continued lack of energy caused her forming grin to stop dead in its tracks.

“Yeah… Dusk is dead. For real this time.” Rainbow Dash answered before walking past the group toward the carriages.

Twilight and the others glanced between each other, the cyan mare, and the cliffside below. No further winged figures were anywhere in sight, and the feeling of dread building within them was starting to bubble to the surface.

Fluttershy broke free of the crowd and looked to her friend with desperate eyes. “Rainbow Dash…” She started, causing the cyan mare to stop. “Where’s Blue?”

Rainbow Dash had been dreading that single question ever since she started the trip back up the cliff. She had especially been hoping that the yellow mare wouldn’t be the one to ask it.

She slowly turned around, only to pause as she saw Fluttershy there, tears starting to build in her big blue orbs. Rainbow figured that she must have already suspected what she had to say, even if she didn’t have the strength to say it.

Even so, the sight of the yellow mare starting to break down was more than she could take. She bit her trembling lip and sniffed before rushing over and wrapping Fluttershy up into a hug, whereupon they both started crying anew.

A wave of sadness spread out from the pair, infecting the others and causing them to tear up as well. They should have been celebrating their nigh impossible victory, but somehow they only felt a sense of emptiness inside.

Celestia watched as the other bearers of harmony closed together and embraced their pegasi friends. Soon after, Glitterball and Sparkplug joined in before Sunspot and Glimmer Shine did as well. Cadence and Shining Armor mostly stuck near Twilight as they too joined the conglomerate of ponies.

As tears of her own began to shed, Celestia looked over as a hoof was placed on her back. She noticed Luna wearing an understanding expression, a few tears welling up in her eyes as well. The two sisters leaned against each other and silently wept alongside their friends.

There was a time not too long ago that both of them thought that they were going to die. They had thrown everything they had at Dusk, even prepared to add their lives to the pile just to stop him. It had been one of the most grueling and exhausting battles of their lives, and it was the closest they had come to losing everything they held dear.

And once again, there was one individual that had given more than they had in the fight. Another slayer had come to aid them in their time of need, only to be slain as well. Even as they shivered, bled, and panted in the cold, they were still alive, and they had Blue Bolt to thank for that.

A new day could wash over the kingdom of Equestria, letting its inhabitants know that the night had been won. The bloody prince of death was no more, and they were safe once again.