“It's not much further, come on,” Twilight urged, the black-clad mare tugging at a despondent Fluttershy laying sprawled out on the ground.
“What's the point?” Fluttershy muttered, tears streaming down her face. “Everyone else we know is gone.”
“We’re not gone,” Rainbow Dash offered. “We can keep going, right girls?”
The others all nodded to varying degrees of enthusiasm, be it Pinkie Pie’s rapid-fire bobbing of her head, or Applejack’s solemn nod. Rarity fell somewhere between, the pony simply smiling painfully, hiding the loneliness and loss that burned at her soul. Each and every one of the small group was clad in a thick, pitch-black suit that covered everything but their head. Though they all had hoods dangling from their bodies, ready to be affixed so as to complete the blackout.
Visible only in the dull light of the faint magical lamps that hung from the walls of the endless tunnel, their expressions were difficult to see. Even still, Fluttershy could make out enough confidence, and bravado in the faces that she felt her own courage stir. It wasn't a lot, barely enough to get her standing, but all they needed was the strength to keep moving.
“It's going to be alright,” Twilight Sparkle declared. “I’ve been talking to Celestia and she said that she has a plan to change everything back, to fix everyone.”
“We know Twilight, we were there,” Rainbow Dash whined.
“I think Fluttershy needed to hear that again,” Applejack remarked.
Fluttershy sniffed and wiped her face. “I think… I think if Celestia says there's a way then there is, and we should keep going.”
“Good, because I really don't want to carry you,” Rainbow Dash declared.
“And everyone back in the shelter is counting on us!” Pinkie Pie piped up.
“Yeah them folk don't have a lot of time left so we gotta keep going,” Applejack added.
“You don't think we’ll run into any of those things, do you?” Fluttershy whispered.
“It's not likely, but still possible,” Twilight admitted. “These old tunnels were built at the start of the war but weren't well maintained. No one thought that the fighting would reach Canterlot.”
“Guess it finally has, in a way,” Applejack murmured.
“Let's just keep going,” Twilight urged.
The group continued on, trotting down the long winding stone passage, their padded hooves tapping quietly on the floor. For a long, while no one said anything, the party members focused inward, their minds going back to those they had lost and who they had left. Rainbow Dash, however, couldn't stay quiet, the pegasus constantly twitching and scratching at the binding that kept her wings against her back.
“So, do you think it was the changelings who did it?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“We’ve talked about it a thousand darn times. It don't matter who did it. The changelings, the minotaurs, the griffons, the bloody breezies coulda done it and it don't change nothin',” Applejack complained.
“Look I’m just saying they seem like the type, right?” Rainbow Dash pressed. “Chrysalis always struck me as the person who would flip the table if they started losing at chess.”
Twilight chuckled mirthlessly. “That does seem like a fairly accurate assumption, but I don't think that's the case.”
“Why is that?” Rarity asked.
“Well, it's the sun,” Twilight answered. “No matter how powerful they are, changelings can't manipulate the heavenly bodies.”
“Only Celestia and Luna, can, and Luna…” Applejack muttered.
“You don't think Celestia-” Pinkie Pie began.
“No,” Twilight interrupted. “She couldn't have, wouldn't have done this. It's antithetical to everything we’ve stood for. There must be an explanation for this, some reason as to why it all happened, and a way to reverse it.”
“I’d settle for a way to stop it. Not being able to see the sun has been dreadful for my skin,” Rarity declared.
The group shared a dry chuckle, everyone present a little relieved for the bit of humor interrupting their dark thoughts. Laughter buoyed their morale for a few quiet minutes, that was until they came to a turn and glanced around the corner.
“Get back,” Twilight whispered.
Silently as possible, the group backtracked none daring to argue with the unicorn, their gazes never leaving the distant orange shape. The mass appeared to be jello on first glance, and about the width of several ponies standing next to one another. Sitting beneath a hole in the ceiling which lay to the left side of the tunnel, it sat pulsing and spasming under the lone beam of bright red light coming from above it.
After shooing everyone back away from the corner, Twilight peaked back around and was glad to find that the mass hadn't moved. It just sat there, twitching, the odd shape appearing to bulge beneath its surface only to vanish a moment later, swallowed by the greater whole. It remained that way, the faces of animals, as well as ponies briefly forming before disappearing not long after.
“Alright,” Twilight whispered. “It didn't see us.”
“How are we going to get past?” Rarity asked. “I don't think it's just going to leave, not when there is no other light around.”
“I’ll teleport past it, then distract it with as many freeze spells as I can muster,” Twilight answered.
“Then we run past in the chaos,” Rainbow Dash declared.
“Exactly,” Twilight stated.
“I still don't like this,” Fluttershy whispered.
“We’ll be okay so long as we stick to the plan,” Applejack added.
“Too bad we can't just kill it,” Rainbow Dash offered.
“We can't kill it. We might be able to save them,” Fluttershy retorted.
“I mean is that really possible? We know it just kinda eats your memories, and stuff so its not like there's anything left to save,” Rainbow Dash replied.
“Through the power of magic, and friendship, anything is possible,” Twilight interjected.
“Listen to Twilight darlings, she knows what she's doing,” Rarity encouraged.
Twilight smiled. “Thank you Rarity. Now is everyone ready? Do you remember the plan?”
The various ponies all nodded in affirmation.
“Good then let's go,” Twilight declared.
The unicorn sprinted out around the corner, her horn already glowing with an incredible amount of magic. When the creature turned and extended a long pseudopod from its main body in an effort to grab Twilight, the pony disappeared in a flash. In an instant she appeared on the other side of the gelatinous monster, her horn already firing off a flash of icy magic.
The sphere of ice hit the undulating mass and flash froze half of the thing, causing it to twist around in confusion. While this happened, the rest of Twilight's friends sprinted down the hallway in a tight single-file line with Rainbow Dash at the head. Behind her ran Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and finally at the back was Applejack, the dour mare’s face a mask of concentration.
The icy mass didn't last long, as the creature simply pulled its frozen bulk under itself, and extended several more limbs. The grasping tentacles never reached their target, however, as Twilight hit them with another spinning ice orb. Though it could not drive back the frost-covered limbs, it could at least stop them, allowing nearly everyone to slip past.
Rainbow Dash skidded to a stop next to Twilight, while Pinkie Pie and Rarity were eager to put more distance between them. Fluttershy however, hesitated a moment, the mare glancing out of the corner of her eye at the wriggling mass of orange goop. The moment she did, an unfortunately familiar bunny rabbit emerged from the main bulk and extended a slippery paw.
“Angel?” Fluttershy muttered.
“What are you doing, go!” Rainbow Dash shouted.
It was too late, ice shattered, and the frozen limbs lurched forward, eager to grab the hesitating pegasus. Applejack wouldn't let that happen and shoved the other mare forward as hard as she possibly could. Fluttershy, already light from malnutrition, flew all the way to her friends before landing in a confused heap.
“No, Applejack!” Twilight shouted, readying another spell.
“Don't worry about me. There ain't nothing left for me out there,” Applejack called, her hooves scraping across the ground as she was dragged toward the light. “Just go on now and don't look back!”
Twilight bit back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes, and altered the flow of magic. Her friends remained silent, none moving, even as Applejack neared the crimson illumination pouring in from above. The creature’s limbs dug into the fabric protecting the farm pony’s body, tearing them away until there was nothing left.
A moment later her back legs fell beneath the angry red glow of the sun, and began to melt, turning a bright orange color. A look of agony crossed the pony’s face as the wave of goo reached her midsection and started to alter her insides. By then her back hooves had fused with the main creature whose limbs had already become a part of Applejack.
It was about to reach her head when suddenly a wall of ice grew from the ground, cutting them off. The moment this happened Twilight collapsed, breathing heavily, a hoof touching her smoking horn. Her friends were quick to help her up, supporting the mare as she struggled to regain the ability to stand on her own.
“Are you okay?” Pinkie Pie whispered.
“I’m fine,” Twilight muttered. “That's the last spell I’ll be able to cast for a while though.”
“I’m amazed you managed that much,” Rarity offered. “I haven't been able to do much more than telekinesis ever since… well, you know.”
“I was hoping I didn't have to, but maybe I should have from the start. If I had, Applejack would still be alive,” Twilight whispered.
“No, don't blame yourself Twilight. If anyone should be blamed it's me!” cried Fluttershy, hot tears running down her face. “I just missed my animal friends so much that seeing one…”
The pegasus broke down sobbing, her chest heaving.
The five friends hugged Fluttershy but said nothing, none able to muster a word that had any hope of alleviating the suffering the mare felt. Their moment of quiet was suddenly shattered when something large and heavy slammed against the frozen wall. Bits of ice hit the ground and skittered across the floor, coming to rest only a few inches away from the group.
“Come on girls. Don't be like that. It's beautiful, I tell ya. Beautiful,” called Applejack’s voice from beyond the barrier. “There is no more pain, no more suffering and soon I’ll rejoin my family.”
“Applejack?” Fluttershy whispered.
“That's not her, not anymore,” Twilight whispered.
“Come on,” Rainbow Dash urged. “We gotta get to Celestia. People are counting on us.”
“We’ll have to find another way back, but that's a problem for later I suppose,” Rarity added.
“One thing at a time, one hoof in front of the other,” Pinkie Pie remarked.
Together the remaining ponies trotted hastily down the passageway, ignoring the calls of what had once been their friend. Within a few minutes they were no longer audible, and a light could be seen from somewhere further down the hallway. The end of which they were only able to glimpse after a few more seconds of hurried trotting.
“It's her,” Twilight whispered.
The group screeched to a halt as they all beheld the distant sight of Celestia sitting in the crimson sunlight. Seated on the edge of a rocky cliff, the alicorn stared out over Canterlot, though the five were too far away to see any details. Twilight immediately started to sprint toward her mentor but stopped when her shoulder was grabbed by a pink hoof.
“Wait a second, we should talk about this,” Pinkie Pie whispered.
“What's there to talk about? She’s right there,” Twilight declared, gesturing toward the end of the hallway.
“Yeah, but how do we know it's her?” Rarity asked.
“She's not orange, or a blob,” Twilight retorted.
“I mean yeah but-”
“I can still use magic,” Celestia called, the alicorn glancing over her shoulder. “Would you like me to demonstrate?”
“That's not necessary,” Twilight stated.
“It kind of is,” Rarity retorted.
Celestia smiled and lit her horn, conjuring a teacup filled with bubbling liquid. She then took a sip, her smile blooming until it covered her face.
“Ahh, chamomile. There is so little of you left in this world,” Celestia muttered just loud enough for the others to hear.
“Satisfied?” Twilight asked.
“Yuppers,” Pinkie Pie answered.
The five remaining ponies all trotted forward, stopping only a few feet back from where the red light of the sun ended a few feet in front of them. There, they could see clearly the strangely intact ruins of Canterlot as well as the treeless void of earth beyond. Within that broken city several orange blobs of various sizes moved randomly amongst the metropolis's bleached bones. The largest two were easily larger than even Canterlot castle, its form sporting hundreds of different creatures. Beloved pets, trees that had dotted the streets, and the people which had maintained them, all were one within the great spheroid masses.
“There's… nothing left,” Twilight whispered to herself.
“There is so much left,” Celestia countered, gesturing a hoof out over the wasteland. “The land is not scarred, the homes merely empty. Here at least, the great war did not have a chance to extend its reach.”
“But everyone’s dead,” Rainbow Dash pointed out.
Celestia sighed. “No, not dead. Merely… changed. Like with any change, it can be put back to the way it was.”
“Oh thank goodness,” Rarity whispered. “It is such a relief to hear you say that.”
“What's the plan then? Do you have a spell, or perhaps you know of some artifact that may reverse all this?” Twilight pressed.
“Before we get to all that I must commend you Twilight. I knew you had redundancies to keep you and your friends safe but even I did not think you had enough to protect against… everything,” Celestia remarked, gesturing toward the distant crimson orb burning on the horizon.
“Unfortunately I couldn't save everyone,” Twilight replied.
“True,” Celestia agreed while glancing across the group of five. “Though to answer your question Twilight, I do indeed have a spell in mind, though I am curious. How did you build this place in such secrecy that not even I knew about it?”
“It was a project I started working on ever since we got word on how powerful the zebrican mega spells are,” Twilight began. “I had hoped that they wouldn't be needed, and only planned on revealing them after I figured out how to construct a closed ecosystem capable of maintaining a large population indefinitely.”
“We ponies require a smaller than normal pool of genetic variance but you must still have a few thousand ponies hidden away down there,” Celestia clicked her tongue. “The poor souls.”
“Yes, unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete my work. They’ll survive a few more weeks at the most, but that doesn't matter now,” Twilight smiled, and gestured toward the alicorn. “You’ve figured out how to protect yourself from the sun, and have some way of reversing the goofication process.”
“I do,” Celestia admitted. “But you’ll need to come closer.”
“Okay!” Pinkie Pie proclaimed.
“Wait,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, holding Pinkie back. “Why don't you come here?”
“As soon as you leave the sun then the spell has to be redone, and it takes a dreadful amount of power,” Celestia answered. “If you all just stand at the point where your forelegs are illuminated then I can cast it without having to spend too much.”
“That… doesn't quite make sense,” Twilight murmured.
“Look, it would if you saw the full matrix but I don't have a scroll on me at the moment,” Celestia retorted. “Now would you please hurry? You wouldn't wish to end up like Applejack now would you?”
“How do you know about that?” Rainbow Dash demanded.
Celestia rolled her eyes. “You go everywhere together, and she is not here. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out something happened to her.”
“But we didn't confirm she would be coming along,” Fluttershy added.
“Why would the other five of you go somewhere, and not bring her along?” Celestia stated. “Now, are we don't with the twenty questions? I’d rather like to get back to the whole saving the world business.”
“Just one last one,” Twilight interjected.
Celestia sighed and turned back to Canterlot. “Go ahead, Twilight.”
“How… how did this all happen?” Twilight asked.
“Discord, most likely,” Celestia answered. “Or a zebrican mega spell gone wrong. Regardless of how exactly it occurred, we must instead focus on how to end it.”
“It couldn't have been Discord, he got caught by the light same as most everyone else, and we know that whatever did this has altered the sun itself somehow,” Twilight pointed out.
Celestia sat quietly for several seconds before sighing. “Look, I don't know alright? This whole thing hasn't exactly left me with a lot of opportunities to research into the how it all occurred.”
“Come on Twilight. Let's do as the princess asked,” Rainbow Dash encouraged.
“Yes I am rather enthused to get my sister back, and return to our parents,” Rarity added.
Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy nodded, with the four of them walking until their forehooves were bathed in crimson light. Twilight hesitated a moment, her gaze drawn to Celestia as she stood back up and turned around, a faint smile on her face. That small, almost imperceptible twist of the edge of her lips quickly bloomed into a wolfish grin of horrific proportions.
Before Twilight had a chance to call out, Celestia’s horn flashed, and a long mirror appeared in the alicorn’s hooves. The well-polished surface reflected the sun’s malignant light upon the row of ponies, turning all exposed flesh a deep orange. They barely had a chance to scream before they fell to the ground twisting and spasming as their bodies were forcibly altered.
Twilight alone managed to scramble backward and pull the hood over her head, having hidden in Fluttershy’s shadow until then. The moment her body was enclosed completely in thick black coverings, the pony took off back down the tunnel. Behind her she could hear her friends as they were altered, their forms flopping across the cold ground in pursuit.
“You can't run, Twilight. Where would you even go?” Celestia called.
Twilight ignored her, and continued on, mind awhirl with possibilities. Her panicked plans vanished the moment she felt her body suddenly lifted off the ground by an unseen force.
“Come now. Did you really think you could just… run away?” Celestia asked.
Twilight conjured her magic and tried to cast a teleportation spell but Celestia was faster. A flick of telekinesis was enough to disrupt the unicorn's focus and leave her stunned for a moment. Which was all the time the alicorn needed to drag Twilight down the tunnel and into the light.
“Please don't kill me, I swear I’ll do anything you ask!” Twilight pleaded, her forehooves holding her hood down over her head.
“Oh Twilight you know I’d never kill anyone,” Celestia remarked. “I will, however, bring you into the fold, but first I must answer your question.”
“W-what question?” Twilight muttered.
“How this all happened of course,” Celestia answered. “The answer is simple really. The changelings were intent on bioengineering a pony that produced an immense amount of love but were utterly docile and could consist on sunlight. The zebras were intent on bombing their enemies into dust using mega spells, while the griffons created numerous flying machines. I simply took all of their greatest creations, all of their cutting-edge technology, and combined it.”
“How could you kill everyone? How could you kill Spike?” Twilight muttered.
“He's not dead,” Celestia angrily retorted. “In fact, no one has died since I changed things. Even the ponies who perished during the war have been brought back and made a part of our glorious unity.”
“That's not true. The effect, it doesn't replace the body, it destroys it, and absorbs the memories. It just thinks that it's the person it consumed,” Twilight exclaimed.
“Oh, Twilight. You have such a narrow view of things,” Celestia remarked aloud in a disappointed tone. “They are very much alive. Only now they do not desire to make war, cause suffering or inflict pain on anyone. They know the joy that comes with true harmony.”
“But-”
“Butts are for sitting on,” Celestia interjected with a chuckle. “It's time you stopped struggling and helped me save all those poor ponies trapped in that little bunker of yours.”
Twilight thrashed and tried to punch her mentor, but her hoof connected with only thin air. Worse still, she could feel several appendages grabbing at her suit and tugging at the seams. Despite her struggles, she felt the release get triggered, and her hood begin to slowly slip away.
“No, noooo!” Twilight screamed one final time.
Celestia smiled as her student was forced into the light, her body turning orange, and quickly melting away. Slipping forward out of the black suit, the former mare gathered into a pulsating mass surrounded by five others. Then it solidified and was joined by the others, becoming a writhing blob of hooves and wings.
“Applejack,” called Twilight's voice.
“We need Applejack,” added Rarity’s soft tone.
Celestia smiled. “Go to her. She isn't far.”
The orange mass grew a multitude of hooves and other appendages, which it used to awkwardly trundle down the hall and out of sight. Celestia watched it go for several seconds before finally turning back around and turning her attention to Canterlot. Where the two largest orbs had begun to near one another, hundreds of limbs extending towards one another in a yearning embrace.
“Soon,” Celestia muttered. “Soon the final holdouts will be gone, and peace will reign… forever.”
Author's Note
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