A World Forged at Midnight

Time was running out. I could feel it. I sensed their return drawing ever closer. Yes, soon... soon they would rejoin us here, in Holy Equestria, and lead us anew. The regal sisters would bring about our great salvation, and they would see all that we have done.

But not enough had been done yet.

Still many hurdles stood to oppose friendship, harmony and our unnegotiable drive for peace. Wars were waged throughout the world for petty goals, dictatorships oppressed the masses... and some regimes were outright despicable with no right to call themselves anything more than pests.

Something had to be done about these obstacles. If friendship was to endure, they would need to be dealt with, and fast. Luckily, I now have all the power in the world to take on that charge myself.

"Spike!" I cried out as I trotted through the castle. There were small, neon discharges of magic whenever I placed a hoof on the floor, looking similar to small lightning. "Spike!"

Much had to be done still. And with so little time now before the return of the Princesses, it was sure to be a close call. So many loose ends, so many opponents to our ideals still... and yet, my number one assistant was nowhere to be found.

"Sorry, Twilight!" I heard, my head snapping towards the set of doors to the map room as the little dragon came barging in carrying several scrolls. "I was just making sure that-"

"You're late!" I barked back, a stomp of my hoof sending a shockwave through the room which sent my prior friend tumbling onto his rear.

"T-Twi, I was just-"

"You are meant to be my number one assistant, and yet you would let someone like me wait!? Is your best friend, the mare who raised you from birth, not worth the effort!?"

I watched the dragon cower as he grabbed several scrolls - now spread out all around him after being knocked over - and hiding under them until only his eyes were visible.

"Being tardy... a dreadful crime against friendship!" I decried. "But from you!? Whatever happened to your loyalty! Your honesty! When friends make an appointment and need one another, they arrive on time, because anything else is an immediate show of neglect!" I raised a hoof at the dragon, causing him to cover his eyes as my neon-glowing hoof pointed straight at him. "You have failed friendship when I most needed it!"

"T-T-Twilight, wait!" came the reply from the purple creature. "This isn't right! I grew up with you... you can't-"

"Oh, I can. And I will!"

My former companion's eyes grew double their normal size as my brightly lit horn began to emit an ominous sound as I poured energy into it for what was to come.

"Twi, remember who you really are! Please!" begged the traitor. "Remember true loyalty! True friendship! Remember Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and all the rest of the girls!"

The glow and sound coming from my horn subsided as I stared at Spike for a few seconds. He seemed frozen in place, perhaps hoping he had struck a nerve of some sort.

I cocked my head to the side, the energy flowing back into my horn.

"Who?"

His mouth opened in seeming shock and disbelief. Perhaps he meant to say something but didn't find the words. It was irrelevant.

He gasped as he was grasped by a magical aura, lifted up from underneath his hoard of scrolls. His feet wiggled back and forth as if trying to find a footing.

"T-Twi, I'm begging you! Snap out of it!"

I took a heavy step forward, the ground fizzling as if electricity had just discharged. My eyes were sternly upon him, my horn beginning to glow as I scoffed.

"And to think I kept you so close for so many years. I trusted you, Spike. You were my prized assistant."

"I still- argh!"

He gasped and choked as my magical aura visibly tightened. Like a noose, it closed in around his neck, his two claws grasping at it helplessly, but there was nothing material there for him to get rid of.

"You betrayed me. You betrayed friendship. Was 30 seconds of your time too much to ask, Spike? Was I not worth your time, after all? A true friend is generous and donates whatever time is asked to their friends, and he doesn't selfishly spend that time only on his own affairs."

"T-Twi... gah!" struggled the treacherous creature.

The magical noose tightened. I stared at him with the same stern, unwavering determination as before. My objective was clear, even to him, but only now did I realise he was so vividly opposed to it. Opposed to harmony and friendship, opposed to even the royal sisters.

"If you would betray the friend of a lifetime, then you truly are not meant for friendship."

The scaled beast briefly stretched an arm out towards me, as if trying to signal something to me. And it did, as I tightened my grasp around him further. Immediately the hand shot back to his throat. He gasped, but eventually even his gasps failed him. His pupils grew wide as he choked.

"If you are not a friend, then I bid you farewell at long last."

His movements grew sluggish and minimal as his strength gave out.

"Traitor."

There was only silence as his arms dropped down to his sides, limp like the rest of his body. His head slowly dipped forward as the dragon's fire was finally put out.

I stood defiantly in front of him, unmoving. A part of me was deeply hurt. Watching his form like this, still airborne and in my grasp, I wondered where things had gone wrong.

When had Spike decided to turn his back on me? How deep did his treacherous line of thought go? Why did he do this to me, the Princesses, to everypony? Was he really such an ungrateful creature, in the end?

Perhaps. Maybe I didn't know him as well as I thought, in the end. I should have kept a closer eye on him, and shouldn't have trusted him so carelessly. That was the old me, though. The me from before I rose to the challenge of ruling in the Princesses' name over all of Equestria. Before I chose to defend Harmony and Friendship by all means necessary, and uphold Equestrian values to the end.

I was a fool then. But now I was enlightened and ready. Ready to go to the ends of the world, to breach the very gates of Tartarus, in the name of our holy principles and majesties. Nothing and nopony would stand in my way until the task was done.

I let go of my treacherous, former assistant and averted my eyes before I heard his small form hit the cold floor. He had cost me precious time with his deceit and treason. The time to act was at hoof.

It was time to shroud the world in Midnight, so that the return of the sisters could bring about a new dawn and new world for them to marvel at. The end of the old, and the beginning of the new.

So let them come. Let them try to defy the indomitable power of friendship, and watch them suffer and fail in their fallacy. The fools among them would reveal their true ideals, and the traitors to peace, harmony and friendship would be found out with one swift stroke.

Time was of the essence. There was much to be done.