Defiler: Apocalypse.

WARNING:

A very bad writer's first pony story(Thing). GRIMDARK, SAD, SHIPPING.

Author's notes:

My little ponies are the trademarks of HASBRO and so forth.

Characters from the series: Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie pie, Rainbow Dash, Spike, Celestia, Luna.

Characters not from the series:

'Dezarum', 'Kitsy', 'Nameless'.

Prologue:

In the deepest of darkness in whole realm another than Equestria, eyes opened from their usual slumber as a presence was felt nearby.

"It is you, isn't it Kitsy?", came a growl out of nowhere in particular, the voice was disembodied, but the speaker's voice was masculine.

There was no answer, only silent touch upon the scales of the now fully awake shape in the darkness. "The realms need you once again, or have you forgotten those that you swore to protect so long ago? Have you abandoned your most sacred duty as the shadow flame guardian? Something is about to go seriously wrong and here I find you sleeping!", the voice was filled with anger, almost if challenging the being that'd been slumbering for long now.

The huge presence lifted itself and now it was fully awake, both of its pitch black eyes opened, the red dragon irises focusing to stare at the feline standing before her. "It must be a matter grave that you've awaken me this way Kitsy.", the growl had died down to a murmuring voice.

"It'll be quite different than the other worlds were, you might even find something there Dezarum... This world baffles me, but it is called Equestria."

"Equestria?", the presence was now paying attention.

The feline sighed quietly, "The pony sisters, remember?".

"They promised me they could handle it, what happened?"

"It seems Celestia has failed to keep it contained, Luna's however dealing with it much better. Probably due her darker

specializations in past."

"I'm heading to Equestria immediately."

During the night break that same evening:

Celestia returned from her royal duties, checking the midnight black obsidian box she'd held under tight wards. It was open, which made Celestia take a few steps back, looking quickly around to see the whereabouts of the thing that had been restrained in the box...

There it stood, a shape reminding of a young filly, but its shape horribly twisted, its guts hanging from the open wounds around its belly and groin, covered in surgical scars all over. "'Mother'... It is so good to see you after all these years.", it wailed with a eerie screeching voice, it was a raspy sound. "You should've killed me when you had the chance.", it added, as if mocking the princess standing before it. It began to fade into the night, the horrifying stench of blood around it nearly strong enough to knock the princess of sun back, if only to escape the awful stench.

Celestia tried to stop it, wrapping it in her magic to hold it down, to banish it, but she was far too late and alone, powerless against this creature. Looking for a while terrified, out of her usual calm manners, she took the scroll and quill, hastily scribbling a message to send to her star pupil Twilight Sparkle. It was a warning, but would it reach them in time?

The letter:

To Twilight Sparkle.

I'm so sorry, prepare yourselves.

I can only hope to see you again alive.

-Celestia.

That was all she had time to write, before sending the letter forward to Twilight, then dashing to where her sister usually gazed at the stars and moon to enjoy the night. She would find Luna looking up at the stars, with a tear falling from her eyes before she turned to face her sister's gaze.

"Is something wrong?", Luna asked before she fully took in the outlook of her sister, she'd never seen her this messy. Before she could react on what she saw, Celestia was by her side, "It has fled and I fear it's after Twilight and her friends...", came the quick response from the pony Luna had always thought the last to fear. "H-how...", the question barely left Luna's lips. "I don't know Luna, I don't know!", Celestia replied, her voice faltering along the way, her form shaking with unspoken terror.

However their grief was well justified, they could only hold the thing that'd fled down together for so long... Now it had to be destroyed, or all of the Equestria would fall. Powerless to do naught, but observe their world the two held each other close, desperate for even a little comfort by being close to each other... After all the horror would just begin.

In Ponyville a few minutes later:

Twilight's vivid dream's of what was happening were quite suddenly disrupted by her baby dragon assistant Spike. "Wake up Twi, hurry!", the voice was panicked, sure enough that got Twilight up, groaning, but up and awake. She'd open her eyes only to see a hastily scribbled letter infront of her, and as she read its short message, she grew pale, now sharing Spike's fears. What was happening, why... Princess Celestia had sent the letter, that much was clear, but prepare for what, and how? In a hurry Twilight got up from her bed and rushed downstairs, not answering the worried questions Spike posed to her about what was happening, instead she told Spike to wait there in the library as she rushed out of the door to check on her friends.

The royal palace, only a few moments later:

A tear opened into the air, then it grew bigger, until the gaping wound in the fabric of the world was big enough to let the entity intrude upon the realm again. It shouldn't be here, but it had to exist now, it had to have a form and it didn't like the only option it had. After the black smoke had vanished, there he was a pony quite huge to be a pony, but atleast the shape was right. He was a black furred pony, midnight black, yet on the spot where a pony had a mane, he had a trail of red scales starting from his horn and ending where a normal mane would, crimson red flames erupting from them, his eyes were pitch black except the strange turquoise irises.

"Still binding me into a form of a pony, after all these years, this place hardly changes... Now where did it run? where did it hide, for time is nigh.", the strange pony asked with his eerie voice. In reply only one of the royal sisters answered, "Ponyville, it knows that it can't harm us, but it can destroy them. Through them, us.", the voice belonged to Luna, darker of the two. "Well then, pardon me. Time to see if I can correct this yet without a tragedy.", came a response as the presence lifted itself into air, its wings skeletal, without flesh or feathers upon them as it set towards the place he sensed it now to be at...

However it was once that he'd arrived to Ponyville that he realized having come there too late to stop all of the events... The whole place was silent, the stench of death hanging everywhere. He wouldn't have a lot of time if it had gone this far already. He had to act fast, only choosing the one spell that could save the ponies that the horror was after.

"Sleep, sleep tight and do not wake..."

"Play, play the game and win."

"For your lives."

However, they were awake and the events that would happen that night would change their lives, maybe forever...

Chapter 1: Confusion.

The day had been quite interesting for Twilight Sparkle, they'd just gotten out of helping Pinkie Pie throw another of her trademark parties for all of Ponyville to enjoy. It hadn't been as hard as it had been fun though, after all Twilight was always more than ready to help her friends when they needed any help at all, even thou' Pinkie had made sure it was as fun as the party itself was going to be. It had been the evening they arrived from princess Cadence's wedding, which had in the end been quite the happy occasion, after the imposter was taken care of.

Setting up the party at Pinkie's usual place was quite much easier than it would have been to drag the equipment elsewhere, Twilight had been amazed once again how much of the party equipment Pinkie could hide in such small places, but it was Pinkie she was thinking about, so she decided not to get her brains hurting. Twilight had only needed to do her usual thing, organize where the things were put for the evening, she'd even had a chance to check on the DJ's table, however Vinyl Scratch was quite hellbent on keeping her tools of the trade together, leading into a rather heated discussion between the scholar and the DJ.

”It's for learning purposes!”, declared Twilight, while trying to figure how to best pick apart the device for her most important research on musical advances of the age.

Vinyl stepped in the way protectively and scowled at Twilight's attempts, ”You can't be seriously thinking of this Twilight!”

However Twilight was quite promptly ignoring her at the moment as she undid the first screw, which in  exchange prompted Vinyl into tackling Twilight away from her mixer table. The two unicorns proceeded to wrestle, while they both tried to tie the other down with their magic, that was until they fell of the stage that had been put together for the evening, ending up on the floor in a heap of lavender and white fur. It was not long until they heard a familiar voice coming from the stage, ”Oh you two, making out before the party's even started!”, and as they looked up they saw Pinkie bouncing up and down excitedly. The two combatants got up with a brief grumble and exchange of some very deadly stares the two went to the separate sides of the place. Pinkie's only reply, ”Was it something I said?”, being left unanswered in the embarrassed silence until the pink earth pony only shrugged, ”Oh well still plenty of cupcakes to bake!”, hopping off to kitchen.

Neither of the unicorns were too excited to get close to each other again for a while and the rest of the preparations went quite smoothly. Soon it was time for the party to start proper, first of the guests of the night were the rainbow maned aqua coloured pegasus, with a remarkable grin on her face, and walking along with her was a pink maned yellow pegasus, who looked none too eager to attend with all of ponyville coming, her wings clamped tightly against her sides. ”C'moon Fluttershy it'll be fun, I promise.”, Rainbow Dash tried to convince Fluttershy, this seemingly having worked a little as the yellow pegasus seemed to be a bit more relaxed after hearing her foalhood friend's assuring words. However this relief seemed only temporary as the ever elegant passed them by with a grand entry, dressed in her usual party clothing, ”But be a dear and lay off the punch this time, the last fiasco was quite the... Shocker.”. Remembering back to the last time Fluttershy had attended a party of this scale, having ended up throwing up in one of Rarity's fashionable hats, Fluttershy squeaked in terror and hid under the very table with the punch she'd been warned of. Rainbow held a hoof to her forehead and went to try and coax her foalhood friend away from under the table, only after having shot a certain unicorn quite the glare. ”Well I'd never!”

Meanwhile Twilight had managed to shift the last things to their places with Pinkie and everything seemed ready, however as she took notion of the happenings that were already going on, she couldn't help grinning slightly, the last party was quite hard to forget indeed. She'd even thought of the situation as humourable, if it wouldn't have been for Rarity's screaming... She could only shake her head at the memories, before noticing the last of her friends missing, where was Applejack? As she looked around she could see her friends busy, two of them having a trust issue that she would interpret as a relationship struggle between the two pegasi, Rarity was occupied talking to a very excited pink earth pony about the dress she'd promised to make from candy no less. Twilight thought that Rarity would need all the luck in Equestria not to lose her mind, seeing the request was after all from Pinkie Pie.

With these sights to be seen she shook her head again as to get her head off the clouds, she'd need to go get Applejack after all. Soon she was out of the front door that led to the Sugarcubecorner in her quest to find her missing friend, it was not like her to be late after all and she'd promised to come. She had a gut wrenching feeling of something being wrong as she galloped towards Sweet Apple Acres, she'd felt the feeling all day, but she'd been able to forget about it, thinking it had to be the breakfast Spike'd cooked her earlier. This was not however the case now, she knew something was up and she would get to the bottom of it...

As Twilight arrived to Sweet Apple Acres, she'd stop in her tracks, staring at what she saw in disbelief, there clear as day, orange pony with a blonde mane tied up was bucking trees like no tomorrow. ”Applejack!”, Twilight called out to get the other pony's attention. Applejack kept bucking the trees, gathering the apples that fell. ”How'dy Twi' what brings ya here?”, she asked as Twilight slowly walked closer, still recovering from her run. ”You're going to miss Pinkie Pie's party if you don't make haste, that's what. You know what she's like once you break a pinkie promise...”, Twilight calmly explained, the thought of what had happened last time made Applejack shiver and sure enough she packed up her work in a jiffy, getting ready to go to Pinkie's party. ”Alright, 'gess ya hafta have yer point Twi.”, she replied to the lavender unicorn, who seemed quite proud of herself for some reason as they headed back to the party.

That was then, however the letter that had arrived to her now, in the middle of the night, it had changed everything. As she raced to the Sugar Cube Corner, where the party was still probably going on, it was her hope now that it was. She felt exhausted as she reached her destination, her body trembling of the exertion. As soon as she was infront of the door she stumbled in and fell to her side... Her friends gathered around her looking concerned as the darkness fell upon her eyes.

As Twilight opened her eyes, she was laying on a bed in Pinkie Pie's room, that was as usual, quite festive as one could imagine of the pink party pony. She'd hear the excited pink pony yell, ”She's awake! This calls for a wake up cake!”, before she could properly react to her surroundings.

Meanwhile above the place called Ponyville, two spells of a greater scale clashed together in the night sky, the effects altering themselves due to the interruption. While the horrifying alicorn's spell would have simply killed them all, it became a disease and the one opposing spell set to defend Ponyville started drawing out the darkest emotions of the ponies below... And everywhere else as well as the effect of the spells became quite visible, flashing over whole Equestria in a white and red flash on the night sky. Time seemed to stop for a while, before both of the combatants disappeared from the night sky. In their palace the sisters felt their insides grasped with a most unnerving feeling, the reek of death reached everything... They could only hope to try and guide the happenings to a safer end, their own magic hindered by the presence of the two other beings, along with the spells the two outsiders had already put into play. Luna looked up to Celestia, before finding the correct words, ”They'll survive right? Even if we are denied to... To aid them personally....”. Celestia's voice was uncharacteristically cold as she responded, ”It is not within my power to say so Luna.”, causing them both to go quiet once more as they thought of indirect ways to help their subjects. They both however knew what they had to do, they had called the captain of royal guard to seal up the palace grounds and magical wards were in place, providing a safe shelter for those yet unaffected by the happenings outside. All they could do now was wait and hope for this to be over soon.

The two battling alicorns had appeared elsewhere to continue their struggle for power, this time black and red clashing against each other as they traded spells, physical and mental attacks in rapid succession.

The red scale maned pony was on the losing side, as his powers had been severally restricted upon entering Equestria, while his opponent was more or less naturally a part of Equestria. With these thoughts he kept slashing out with all he had, altering the air around his opponent to start burning her. This was countered soon as he felt his wounds suddenly burst with blood as it was drawn out of him and absorbed into his opponent.

He couldn't keep this up for long, not with all his blood getting drained so rapidly out of him, he had to forfeit the match, for now... With a single powerful blast of raw energy he knocked the alicorn opposing him back, feeling a grim satisfaction in the back of his mind as he vanished into the night again.

His spell had managed to severally injure the being so concentrated on her offence not to bother with defence. He appeared in his personal safe haven, but he could only observe from his far away place as he needed time to recover. His wings were pretty badly torn and one of his eyes wouldn't be coming back as long as he remained in Equestria.

He saw the alicorn he'd battled slowly finish getting all his blood that she'd drained during the battle into herself, to his horror however, it seemed to repair his opponent... He would have to be more careful when he'd oppose her the next time, but the next time he'd be ready, underestimating her had been childish of him aside from costing lives of some ponies.

The last thing he heard clearly was, ”Now to take care of those other pests. I wonder if they'll make me bleed too~”, said by the femine, but still screeching eerie voice that made him want to vomit. With that he passed out into his recovery state.

”He was no fun, too quickly done with, mommy will be so happy... TO CUT ME UP~ Again and again mommy~ Like we used to~”, the being muttered to herself, looking over the new cuts with delight. ”Oh I should really name myself, perhaps I'm Cutty the cut up alicorn? Too fancy... I'll go with the name I already have, 'Nameless' hrehheh...”, she monologued for a moment, before snapping out of it, her eyes going tiny as she looked about, something was there, something always was there...

If only to hurt her more, to carve her flesh more with a delightfully sharp blade, to put something in, to remove something. It had been way too long! Nameless smiled to herself, for a moment missing half of her face in her mind as she headed to the palace.

Shortly after arriving she was already bleeding profusedly as she magically hammered at the shields of the palace, while the unicorn protectors were doing their best to take her down, only making her bleed more. Far below on the ground where her blood seeped into the soil a ominous mark appeared, spinning under her, the blood put into it ready for her use.

The ponies on the wall fell flat as a large explosion went off right next to the wall, cracking a hole where the magic didn't protect. In only a moments notice she was inside, battling the ground forces of the royal guards, while being bombarded by the pegasi using spears.

Most of the unicorns spread the shield around the new hole to keep her from escaping while the others started a spell to hold down the intruder. Nameless was briefly stopped by this unexpected spell, it was strong as it was, made by the desperate unicorns in unison. She felt that despair and delighted so deeply in it, even as her wounds burned, she fed on the negative emotions without remorse, seeking only to cause more.

Her next attack took the unicorns by surprise as the spears the pegasi had thrown at her changed their trajectory, guided by her blood magic, accurately piercing the unicorns she saw using magic at her. She didn't manage to kill all of them ofcourse, but their agony only brought her pleasure as she drew the blood from their wounds, charging back into battle and biting down on a blade made out of solidified liquid, slashing around at the enemies around her like a maniac.

Many of the royal guard got wounded, but they kept pushing her back towards the wall, they had to hold on as the pegasi got a new set of spears to use. It wasn't long until the intruder found herself pierced by a bunch of weapons that should by all sense have killed her by now, but she kept relishing in all this, suddenly drawing out all of the blood in those wounded by her, leaving only the  ones with no wounds left as she laughed, "Tear me up, shred me more, I want to feel how it feels eating my own flesh!", as she saw the rest of the royal guard turn fully to her, even the unicorns now had to tie down the defending spell to turn at her and prepare for the final assault.

With all this delightful blood swirling around her feet she felt more than satisfied as she saw the remaining part of the royal guard charge at her from all directions, even from the air. She waited until they got close enough... Just close enough for her spell to be released as she had prepared it, her torn cloak   revealing her cutiemark as the pressure hit it and her hat nearly flew off her head as she finally released the spell.

The skies grew dark above them, the stars disappeared as the spell came to life. A whirling black and red tornado of blood and razor sharp bits of bone exploded from her location, expanding rapidly and slicing through the remaining royal guard just as the first of them could have landed a solid hit on her. She heard them scream, beg... She wouldn't even flinch, not a single spec of emotion remaining on her face as she watched them all get sucked in and torn to shreds as the explosion hit them, colouring the walls red, the grass was stained with mutilated pieces of flesh, everything was. She just stood there for a moment, looking around herself as if waking up from something, first her face was distorted with a fearful expression, before it suddenly became a twisted grin and blood flowed from her eyes in the place of tears as she started laughing. It hurt so much, but it felt so good, good enough to make her laugh from the bottom of her twisted core, the blood slowly seeping back towards her. The bood of everypony involved eventually was drained into her and she felt even more powerful and complete than she had felt in a long time.

With each single drop of blood she felt more and more power flow through her, she would eventually explode if she didn't let it out, so the simplest? She let out a blast of red energy at the palace doors, it went fairly slowly, but as it hit the door it spread and detonated the whole door like it was made from explosives, shattering the shield the princesses had set up for themselves as well.

After that she walked into the palace, reeking of blood more than ever, but seeming as if nothing had happened just now, floating the guard captain's head in the air next to her. The head flew in from the door before her and rolled on the floor, stopping before the sisters of sun and moon.

”I'm home dearest mother~”, Nameless giggled ever so happily, this time sounding like a little filly, some blood still dripping from her cloak as she settled before the two sisters, wearing her twisted grin on her face for such a beautiful family reunion.

Celestia stood firm, so did Luna by her side, their expressions dark as they stared at the being before themselves. ”You never had a home, you shouldn't even exist.”, came from the princess of sun calmly as ever, only her tone was full of venom. Celestia felt that she needed to protect her sister Luna, she was the only one that could, but it made her no less terrified inside.

”Oh, but you are so wrong dear mother~ You created me here, did you not?”, she questioned ever so light-heartedly as her eyes remained fixed on Celestia only. ”And you released me, you did know that didn't you? The moment you put your dearest sister into moon for a little vacation that lasted for a thousand years, no?”

Luna stepped forward and stared at the being before them furiously, how dare she tear open the old wounds so lightly? How dare she make fun of her sister for what she had to do? She however felt hurt deep down, but that she would never let show as she circled slowly around the being. ”I hate you, she hates you... IT'S ONLY RIGHT FOR YOU NOT TO HAVE A HOME HERE!”

Celestia remained quiet for a moment, seeing her sister acting up like this brought up memories that she did wish leave forgotten. She only remembered her sister as a timid being, not this... Being full of hatred, it was Nightmare Moon that had been so hateful towards anything at all, so she was rightfully upset herself, if not for the deaths of many then for making her see her sister like this. She looked at the being, no the thing before her and spoke, ”You truly are lost Nameless, killing like that, like they were your toys to play with? You will never truly have a home here, you should not exist... And as you said I should have done this before, I'll end it here before you destroy anything more.”, her voice without any emotion as she prepared to confront the being before herself. Meanwhile her sister followed her example, preparing for it as well, but they never got the chance.

The nameless alicorn had heard enough, she simply picked the weakened princesses up from the ground and slammed the back to the ground, then forcefully bashing them to the walls in opposite directions, then proceeding to throw them onto their thrones, using their own blood to tie them down magically onto the thrones. Surrounding them in the magic she so preciously knew, forcing them to fall asleep and dream only nightmares as she sat between them. She promised, "Everything you have, I'll take away, I'll kill them all!", even if nobody heard her, looking up in thought, everything was going so well that she should be pleased, but she felt so hollow... She never knew why she felt the way she did, she just usually thought she hadn't hurt beings near her enough, but this was different. ”Well no matter what you are, I'll tear you out of myself for feeling like this... However we have a game to play, I can't wait to see their suffering.”, she'd mutter to herself, as a single drop of blood flowed from her eyes.

Celestia and Luna both felt their bodies burn with pain after pain as they got tossed around the walls and the floors, unable to come up with a swift response as they had been taken completely by surprise. By now they both knew that it would be a lost cause to resist, it would only make the crazed alicorn hurt them more, possibly kill them. However as they were sat on their thrones Celestia saw Luna pass out first into the restless world of nightmares she knew now awaited them. Celestia looked upon their captor once again, to hear her mumble something and saw the tear of blood that flowed to her cheek. Atleast the fact that they couldn't truly kill each other had stood, ofcourse they could be subdued however. Then the world around her went dark and she was none less confused about her predicament, why would a being so intent on enjoying seeing them all suffer even bother to express herself...

Coming back to his senses the otherworldly presence stood up and viewed the situation, soon deciding that he had not the power to confront Nameless, as he'd taken calling it, in full out frontal combat, but even here he wielded the means for a end. He would remain here and tug at the strings of fate to affect the events indirectly, hopefully to the favor of the princess' protege. Again he felt great delight as he noticed Nameless frown, but on the other side it made him feel a bit worried, had the strange alicorn caught up to his little plans. However he was quite certain that the alicorn could do nothing to hinder his weaving now that it had begun, just as he couldn't affect the alicorn.

In Ponyville Twilight Sparkle had just finished telling everyone about the situation and they were headed to the library, there had to be some clues there as to what was going on, perhaps the princess would have sent her a new message about all this. She felt as if she'd have a fever, maybe it was just all the sudden tension getting to her.

Her friends seemed fine, but where was Fluttershy? Twilight would ask only to hear the response that she'd gone home earlier from one of her friends. That had the gears in Twilight's mind connecting and they made a hasty sprint towards where Fluttershy lived in her cottage, near Everfree.

Everfree Forest of all things and it was so near the cottage, why hadn't she figured it out earlier? It was as if something was trying to cloud her mind from noticing these small, yet notable changes, the danger might come from Everfree Forest.

Moments earlier inside Fluttershy's cottage:

Fluttershy was preparing for sleep as it started, the low rumbling noises coming from the forest... She would lift her head and perk her ears to listen to it more carefully, the rumbling kept intensifying, but now it sounded more like a lot of massive snakes? As she looked out of the window, she saw she couldn't be more wrong. A writhing mass of shadow was making its way towards her home, it seemed to hold no specific shape at all, just endless maws and claws. Fluttershy felt terror strike her fully now, they never came out of the Everfree, well not usually, but she knew what that one was. How it was able to make its way towards her however, it only seemed to have one objective and it was her cottage. She could suddenly not move at all, she saw Angel standing alone out there, her dear Angel bunny, she felt her protective instinct kick in, flying out to get Angel out of the way.

The rumbling was very close now and she could hear the wails as the shadows reached to her, she wouldn't make it out of the way in time, she wasn't fast enough. If only Dash was here now, if only any ofher friends were there... And with those thoughts the shadows consumed her. The feeling of thousands of sharp spikes burying into her and it was all over, she never stood a chance.

When Twilight and her friends finally arrived, they were too late to stop anything, they all saw it so clear, too clear... Tears rushed down Twilight's face as she saw the shadow mass retreating back to Everfree Forest. She rushed to see if there was anything she could do to save Fluttershy's life, but she was cold, no sign of life left in her glassy eyes, only the expression of despair. Twilight fell to her knees dulled to everything around her.

She heard Rainbow Dash just screaming, barely managing to mouth her swear of vengeance as she tried to take after the shadows by herself, only to be stopped by Applejack and the others, holding her down. ”There's nothing you could do... Not anymore.”, she heard someone say in the background as she just stared at the sight before her, unable to discern if this was true or not. This all had to be a horrible nightmare, but it was real, it was so very real... She could feel the heart crushing despair, but for now she had to bear it, to force it into back of her mind. ”Twilight?”, she looked up, looking for the voice, it came again, ”Twilight?”, louder this time until someone eventually pulled her up and made her look at her friends, those that were still alive. She couldn't afford to lose more of her beloved friends, friends that meant the world to her, after all she'd already lost one.

As she saw her friends, they were crying too, Rainbow Dash had calmed down, broken into a sobbing pile of fur and feathers, while Applejack tried to comfort Rainbow Dash to the best of her ability. As soon as Rainbow Dash managed to get up she spoke with a stutter and hollow voice, ”We need to get away, just anywhere, but here... Please!”, a tone of panic still present in her voice. Fluttershy had been her best friend, she could never find another, she couldn't just stand this, so she looked pleadingly to Twilight and the others... She had to get away, she had to.

”Let's get to the library, I'm sure there'll be some answers there...”, Twilight spoke, her voice shaky, but she managed to start walking away, away from the beloved friend they had all cherished. Back towards the library, where it was quiet, where she could think this over.

They all headed to the library, finally after putting Fluttershy's body somewhere to wait until they could give it the proper burial it deserved. They were all confused as they couldn't just forget what they had just witnessed, the death of the kindest pegasus ever to grace Equestria with her warmth... She was gone.

Somewhere the nameless alicorn smiled, everything was going according to her plans, it would be soon that the game could begin proper, but already, something was there, afraid in her presence...

It was time for another play.... Emotions had already began to stir in tue unexpected heroes of Equestria, rising from the depths... What would come next?