Twilight was certainly not prepared for this.
To recap, she was recently getting ready for her coronation with her six best friends: Spike, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie all supporting her. However, something was clearly amiss when ponies started being more cold and distant, she was even more concerned when Discord approached them on FOOT.
Discord had revealed that he had recently been spying on three old villains who had been summoned by Grogar to cause Equestria’s downfall. Those villains were Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow, they had recently betrayed and overpowered Grogar with his own bell and before Discord could escape, he too was drained of his magic.
When questioned why he let this all go on for as long as it did, Discord explained that he wanted to shape Twilight into the perfect ruler Equestria could be, so he let this go on, feeling he could use this to give Twilight the confidence she needed while seeing himself as a failsafe in case things went wrong.
After that, Twilight and her friends narrowly avoided capture from the Legion Of Doom and were at a final standoff in the fields of Canterlot, Windigos howling above. The battle was intense and everyone was contributing to the fight, this was all on them now, the ponies were divided, the school was abandoned and any backup friends were currently captured or in Shining Armor and Cadence’s case, looking after Flurry Heart.
Twilight looked on as her friends were battling the rest of the villains to get the bell, it was being heavily guarded by Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis as she and her friends tried feebly to get past them. By the looks of it, things were looking bleak and they might not get the bell before the villains overpower them.
But unknown to Twilight’s friends, she did have a backup plan, and she was hoping she wouldn’t have to use it but…
What else could she do?
She super charged her horn and blasted the villains to the ground, and grabbed the bell. The blast took a bit out of Twilight but she still had enough energy to grab the bell and fly past the Legion Of Doom. She ignored her friends’ cries of concern and continued flying away.
“Come back here you ignorant alicorn!” She heard Chrysalis demand furiously, just what she was hoping for.
“If you want it, you’ll have to catch me first!” Twilight smirked mockingly before zipping off, leaving the three villains to chase her.
It wasn’t too long before they sent a blast towards Twilight’s way but she prepared for that and stuck Grogar’s bell in front of her. The blast hit the bell and much to Twilight’s joy, it began cracking.
Twilight had done some thinking when she was in the Crystal Empire, Grogar’s bell was pretty formidable but it also was fragile, and if her studies on the artifact taught her anything, dark magic could destroy an evil artifact.
Including the magic it came from.
Twilight continued to fly away as Tirek jumped in front of her, sending a laser her way, but Twilight held the bell out again, causing it to crack again. She then teleported away from Tirek’s firing range and soon found Chrysalis and Cozy Glow chasing her from a distance, they fired their own combination of magic which Twilight had effortlessly blocked with the bell before teleporting away again.
Twilight was twenty feet away from the villains at this point, she looked at the bell and saw how unstable the bell was getting, just one more blast should do the trick.
Finally the three villains made a beeline for Twilight, all of them powering their combined magic and soon sending a gigantic laser her way.
Twilight held the bell in front of her one last time, once the bell broke, all the magic it stole would go back to their original users, meaning Celestia, Luna, and Discord would get their magic back.
Though with the amount of power put into the laser the Legion Of Doom fired, Twilight knew a massive explosion was inevitable. There would be no time to teleport before it hit her and she knew it. She would likely die from this deed.
The laser inched closer to Twilight as she gathered her last thoughts.
’But if this is the way I end up dying.’
The laser made contact with the bell.
’I don’t regret a thing.’
“What is Twilight doing fighting those three alone?” Rainbow Dash asked incredulously.
“Yeah! Doesn’t she know that one versus three are really bad odds?” Pinkie Pie said in confusion.
The rest of her friends all seemed confused too, except for one dragon.
Spike knew Twilight wouldn’t just rush into this sort of thing without reason.
Spike knew Twilight wouldn’t leave behind her friends if she didn’t have a plan in mind.
Spike also knew Twilight would do anything to protect her friends.
Before he could voice that out, a loud explosion rang in the distance.
“TWILIGHT!” Rarity and Fluttershy shouted out in horror.
‘No… I was right…’ Spike thought in horror.
Twilight laid on her back, facing towards the cloudy sky above, she looked to see how the villains were doing and was relieved to see that Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis were all rendered powerless and unconscious, just as Twilight wanted. She saw they were breathing, but it would be a long while before they woke up.
However, their condition was practically heaven compared to Twilight’s. Her left wing was bent out of proportion, her right cheek had a gash, and her torso was pierced by some pieces of Grogar’s bell. It didn’t help that she was bleeding.
“Twilight! Guys! I found her!” She heard Rainbow Dash’s voice in the distance.
Twilight’s friends stopped near her in horror at seeing the alicorn’s condition, Fluttershy even covered Spike’s eyes at first but that was quickly stopped by Spike prying the hooves away from him, which Fluttershy seemed to understand, she probably knew what was coming.
“Girls… you came back for me.” Twilight lightly smiled despite the pain.
“What the hay were you thinking jumping into danger like that?! Don’t you realize the state you’re in now?!” Applejack lectured furiously but Twilight caught the tears in her eyes.
“Applejack… I knew there was a chance something like this would happen.” Twilight laughed hoarsely.
“What in Equestria are you talking about?” Rarity said incredulously.
“I knew Grogar’s bell could only be destroyed by dark magic, especially from the magic that created it, so I baited the trio into destroying it… even if it takes my life.” Twilight explained, frowning in sorrow as she spoke, she knew this was the end, there was nothing they could do to stop this.
“But we’re here Twilight, you’re going to be okay now that we’re together.” Fluttershy smiled reassuringly, if only Twilight believed those words.
“I wish I could say you were right Fluttershy, this looks like the end of my story.” Twilight sighed sadly before looking fondly at the ponies and dragon before her, “Thank you all for being my best friends and teaching me the magic of friendship. I’ll always love you, even when I’m gone.”
The girls felt themselves saddened at what Twilight was implying, and Pinkie’s mane even deflated at knowing Twilight would most definitely die from this and they would never see her again.
However, Spike could not accept this, he felt as if everything he ever cared about was being taken away from him in an instant. He ran over to Twilight immediately in desperation, “Twilight! Please don’t say that! We can figure something out! A magic spell or something, just please, you can’t die on me! You’re my family, I don’t know what I’ll do without you!”
“Spike, you’ll survive without me. I swear, you have the friends surrounding you, Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Shining Armor, and even Starlight and Discord. It’ll be tough I know, but you’ll persevere without me. Just knowing all of you are safe is enough to let me go in peace.” Twilight found herself grabbing onto Spike’s back, letting tears fall out her eyes, before turning to the rest of her friends, “Before I die, I just want to say that I love you all… it was an honor to be your friend. And tell Starlight, Discord, and my family that applies to them too.”
Twilight looked at the sky one more time, the clouds were starting to clear up, and the Windigoes were finally gone. She smiled softly as she took her last breath and closed her eyes, that was all she needed to know what she always knew before.
Friendship Is Magic.
Spike put his hand on Twilight’s chest and gasped in horror when he felt no pulse, and began tearing up, as did the rest of Twilight’s friends when they realized she was truly gone.
Even though Twilight was at peace with her life, the Mane Five and Spike were all devastated at the death of their friend and they all started crying. The pony that had brought them all together was now dead right before their eyes, Equestria may have been saved but at what cost.
What they did not see was that every pony, changeling, dragon, griffon, hippogriff, and yak were all standing atop a mountain in shock, since they were expecting to see an epic battle between the heroes of Equestria and the legion of villains, they were not able to see the entire scene but noticed that the villains were defeated and drained of their power but the heroes were all crying for some reason.
Neighsay was the first to act and spoke to some nearby castle guards, “Hurry up and deal with the villains, and find out what is going on down there.”
Sunburst adjusted his glasses to see that Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Spike were all crying but he caught a glimpse of what they were crying over and gasped at what they saw, “I think I know what happened.” He said in horror.
Celestia, Luna, Discord, and Starlight had finally made it to the scene and ran over towards to where the Mane Five and Spike were all grieving, clearly concerned but then they saw Twilight’s body and the concern grew into horror but out of all of them, Starlight was the first to react.
“TWILIGHT!” Starlight cried out as she immediately rushed over to the unmoving body of Twilight.
“Twilight?” Starlight squeaked out, she was just worn out, there was no other possible explanation, “Twilight, get up.”
But Twilight did not respond, she was unconscious, her fur had lost some of its bright purple color, and her mane was dropped limp across her face. There was no doubt about it, Twilight was gone.
Starlight could not believe this, she wouldn’t believe it.
“Twilight, this isn’t funny. You can’t be gone, I know you aren’t. Just open your eyes and wake up, please Twilight, PLEASE TWILIGHT!” Starlight cried out miserably,
Everyone witnessing this felt indescribable amount of sympathy for Starlight, Twilight had been her rock, the one who saved her from becoming a monster she could have become, the one who showed her the light of friendship, and now she was torn away from Starlight in an instant.
“This can’t be.” Celestia whispered in horror, she too, beginning to tear up at losing her most precious student.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Luna cried softly, also feeling saddened at Twilight’s passing.
“Twilight, I could handle you leaving Ponyville, but you can’t die on me, I don’t think I could ever bare losing you!” Starlight begged fruitlessly before remembering something, “You-You promised me that whatever we went through you’d always be there for me, no matter what comes next. I always believed you when you said that, I always remembered that Twilight. You’re the one I always needed in my life! Please don’t leave me!”
Starlight sniffed before smiling in hope, “I-I can fix this. I just need to heal her!”
Starlight lit her horn for a spell, only for it to fail, she tried again and again, but no matter how much she tried to heal her, it wouldn’t work. Healing spells could only do so much, and it had no effect on the dead.
“Twilight…” Starlight‘s lip quivered before letting herself sob on the ground, just as everyone else was doing at the moment, except for Celestia and Luna who kept themselves composed as they cried.
One creature remained standing despite all of the pain and sorrow happening before their eyes, and it was Discord, but then he couldn’t prevent tears from falling.
“Oh Twilight… I shouldn’t have let this go on for as long as I did.” Discord silently cried, “I’m so sorry.”
Author's Note
So I may have tweaked the whole Grogar plot a slight bit to make it so Discord wasn’t totally responsible for Twilight’s death. I feel this change was warranted as I had no plans to kick him while he was down so I made him slightly responsible for thing getting out of hand for story’s sake.
Things have not been easy for Twilight’s friends ever since the alicorn died.
Pinkie Pie had pretty much lost her cheery attitude and bouncy nature, her mane deflated and her pink fur took a dimmer shade of grey. She still did her job at SugarCube Corner like she always did, but everypony noticed that Pinkie’s flair for comedy was practically gone.
Rarity was no better, as always when it came to tragedies, she went through cartons of ice cream to try and heal the pain. She still ran her Boutique the best she could, but it was clear her heart wasn’t in it as it used to be. Customers noticed but they could hardly complain, she still got the job done at the end of the day and she lost her friend, all they could do was hope the fashionista returned to normal.
Rainbow Dash wasn’t a big fan of super intense emotions and Twilight’s death certainly caused a lot of them, most of them were negative and had to do with grief. Of course Rainbow Dash took it upon herself to train more for the Wonderbolts to distract herself from the pain of losing her friend. While she definitely was improving more on her stunts and tricks, Spitfire could tell Rainbow Dash lost the flame she usually had.
Applejack definitely handled her emotions a little better than Rainbow Dash, but to her, losing Twilight was basically like losing another family member and she already lost her parents so this didn’t exactly help the farm pony’s grief. Like Rainbow Dash, she was distracting herself by doing extra chores around the farm even to the point of exhaustion. Granny Smith had to force Applejack to stop working as she had done quite enough to help on the days Applejack went too far. She was better at controlling her emotions and did vent to Big Mac about how the loss of Twilight affected her.
If Fluttershy wasn’t shut-in before, she definitely was now. The death of Twilight really hurt the pegasus a lot. Ever since the battle, she had hardly spoken to anypony, and if she did, it was usually for animal reasons. Most of the time, she just confided in her animal buddies, especially Angel. She had occasionally run into her friends, but the conversations were usually brief. However, she hadn’t seen Discord ever since the battle with the villains, likely due to his own guilt at what happened to Twilight. That probably hurt her the most, Discord was one of her best friends and she just wanted to see him again but she knew she couldn’t force him to speak to her. Not now.
The castle never felt more empty in Starlight’s opinion.
Ever since Twilight’s death, she got full ownership of the Castle Of Friendship and her role as Headmare of the School Of Friendship was effective immediately. While Starlight was definitely honored for the positions she was given, there was a definite hole in her heart ever since Twilight left.
However, despite the hard times, Starlight was not willing to let herself crumble to despair as Twilight would never have wanted her to do that so she kept it upon herself to keep the peace despite the rough times.
The students at the School Of Friendship definitely missed their old Headmare, but despite that, they were largely accepting of Starlight taking her place, especially with Sandbar, Yona, Silverstream, Ocellus, Smolder, and Gallus helping to keep spirits up.
Starlight made a point to visit Twilight’s friends as much as she possibly could and over the past few weeks, things haven’t been looking so good. She had noticed Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy’s more secluded nature and Rainbow Dash trying to block out all mentions of Twilight. Applejack and Rarity were definitely taking the loss better than the other three but Starlight knew they were still a shell of their former selves.
She then felt the door to the kitchen open, as Spike flew to the table with a sigh. Starlight gave Spike a sympathetic glance, honestly he had taken the loss of Twilight the worst and Starlight really made sure to look after him ever since the battle. Spike didn’t really leave his room much except out of boredom or if he needed to eat something.
“Morning Spike.” Starlight politely greeted, “I-I made us some pancakes if you want any.”
“Oh… thanks Starlight.” Spike smiled kindly at Starlight but it was definitely half-hearted as he lightly dug into the pancakes.
Starlight didn’t like seeing Spike like this, she was honestly getting really tired of the depressing atmosphere around the castle. She wanted to give Spike some time before they could talk about Twilight, and it’s been a few weeks, now would be a good time as any.
“Spike… I think we should address what’s been going on lately…” Starlight said softly causing Spike to raise an eyebrow.
“We know we have to talk about Twilight eventually.” Starlight told the dragon.
“C-Can we not talk about this… I don’t like to think about it.” Spike said awkwardly, clearly upset about remembering what happened.
“But you clearly are upset about it. Spike, you haven’t been the same since Twilight passed.” Starlight argued, “Come on Spike, you know you can tell me what’s on your mind.”
Spike twiddled his fingers a bit in consideration before looking at Starlight and tearing up, “Okay fine! I miss her so much that you have no idea! Ever since Twilight hatched me we were inseparable! I was never really close with the rest of her family but me and Twilight just clicked once I was old enough to speak! Despite her lack of experience in friendship, she always cared about me and just recently we were finally able to define our relationship as siblings! I was looking forward to spending the rest of my life with her as my sister but the Legion Of Doom threw all that away! Now I’ll never see her again!”
Spike immediately burrowed his head into Starlight’s coat as he bawled his eyes out. Starlight said nothing, yet held the back of his head as he cried. This was painful and she knew it, but at least he was finally letting it out.
“I understand Spike. I-I really miss her too.” Starlight let some tears fall from her eyes, the words causing Spike to stop crying for a moment and wonder what Starlight meant.
“Our relationship may not have started as happy and fun as yours’ did but ever since she took me in as her pupil, we became more than just that arrangement. She genuinely became one of my first friends in a long time, it gave me a light in my life that somepony finally was willing to be my friend despite our differences and disregarding my twisted ideologies about equality. When I graduated our bond only increased and she became one of my best friends and while I love Sunburst and Trixie a lot, I never had the type of bond with them that I had for Twilight. My biggest regret is that I never got to say goodbye.” Starlight ranted before wiping her eyes sadly.
Starlight then pulled Spike into an embrace, “But just because she’s gone doesn’t mean everything we experienced with her was in vain, the magic of friendship will always be with us no matter if our friends are gone and like Twilight told me, I will always be here for you no matter what happens next.”
Spike quickly returned the hug Starlight offered him, they may not be healed from the pain of losing Twilight but it was definitely a start.
Author's Note
So yeah, I touched upon the lives of the Mane Five this chapter but for now, the focus was on Spike and Starlight. I felt the focus needed to be shifted to those who really needed it and who better to focus on than the ones who live with Twilight?
