“I’m not going to give you what you want,” Sunny told him.

Grogar’s smile dipped. “You will,” he said in an equally calm and ancient voice. “You will see that there is nowhere else to run. I have been hunting you down for centuries, and you are not going to escape from my clutches again.”

“You’re right.”

The pony in front of him opened her eyes, and they blazed golden, shot through with rainbow light. Her wings spread and her horn ignited, and she radiated power. Magic rolled off her body and hissed as it vaporized in midair. The wolves around Grogar howled in pain and distress, shrinking back into the safety of the shadows; those who weren’t fast enough were vaporized. They were terrified, but Grogar stepped forward, his eyes widening, his desire growing. He wanted that magic, was drawn to it, as he had been since before the beginning of time. The little pony’s expression changed; she wasn’t Sunny Starscout, not anymore…

Sunny really had no idea what was happening. All she knew was that as soon as she saw what Grogar had shown her in the secret chamber beneath Skyros, something had unlocked inside of her: something old, ancient, and more powerful than anything she had ever felt in her life.

Whatever it was seemed a stranger, and yet so familiar. Whatever it was knew exactly what was happening, and it knew exactly how to finish it.

Whatever it was inside of her was what was talking to Grogar; Sunny was just watching. But she knew that this was no evil spell or mind link - whatever this was had been with her for her entire life, whether she knew it or not.

It’s time to end this.

“I have been hiding from you for centuries, but do not think that I have been hiding,” said the pony who used to be Sunny Starscout. “Did you think that I would not recognize the evil that you set upon this world? The shadows and the sorrows that you have plagued it with? You may have been banished into the stars for as long as this world has grown, but I knew that your malice would not be restrained. But neither have I been idle. I was there when you were first overthrown-”

“Yes!” Grogar snarled, his patience ebbing away. “And it was then that I knew you to be one who would try to stand in my way! who would try to keep what is rightfully mine! I have been hunting you down ever since. It was folly to stand against me that day!”

She looked at him with ancient power in her eyes - far greater than his. “Yes. I knew you would discover me. But I was there to aid those who fought against every evil you sent to this world. I maintained that the light of the realm never be blown out. I have been working to fight against those ancient evils you sent in ways that you have not yet realized. And before you could return, I hid myself from you.”

“And yet I found you. Your hopes were founded on nothing!”

“I wanted you to find me. This has gone on too long. The world has suffered enough. Let it end now.”

Grogar barked a laugh. “Yes, it shall end now. I shall make it end now!”

His horns blazed, and he aimed a blast of magic at Sunny. The pony cast a golden shield around her that reflected the blast back at the caster. Grogar ducked, and the magic collided with a building behind him, causing it to explode and crumble to the ground. Wolves cried out as they were crushed under the falling debris.

He snarled, “Your powers may be stronger, but you will not defeat my might!”

The pony smiled. It was calm, it was in control, it was peaceful and relaxed. She was in charge of this fight, whatever her opponent may believe.

The battle continued. Grogar poured all of his energy into attacking the little pony. He grew in size until he could crush her beneath his hoof, but she carefully evaded him, doing it with such ease that it made him furious. His rage blinded him to all but the tiny golden light that was soaring gracefully about the sky, weaving in and out of the magic he sent flying her way. Skyros crumbled around them as a result of the battle; the zeppelin, untethered, began to float away. But none of that mattered.

“You will bow!” Gorgar roared, his voice hoarse and straining. His eyes, once blazing with power, were exhausted and bloodshot. His breath came in heavy gasps, and his movements were slurred and clumsy. “You will bow to me! And all that you have will be mine!”

The pony’s eyes narrowed. She lit up her horn and sent a blast of her own that exploded at Grogar’s hooves and set him off balance. He let out a cry and toppled to the ground before he tried to regain his footing. Right as he did, Sunny conjured a rope of pure light and wrapped it around one of his horns and dragged him to the ground again. Over and over, she knocked him down, until the only building left standing in the immediate area was Starswirl’s study. Every time he fell, his size decreased, until he was scarcely the same size as the pony - perhaps even a little smaller.

Sunny alighted on a pile of rubble and glared down at the pitiful creature. “Behold,” she said, her voice dripping with venomous sarcasm, “the offspring of your might.”

Grogar looked around. Everything towered over him. He had never before felt so small and powerless. His wolves (or the few that remained) slowly crept out of the shadows, their sizes diminished as well. They looked weak and sniveling, their forms faint and fading, slowly, as if their essence was unraveling. All the ponies and creatures that they had been capturing and feeding off of were released; the wolves were no longer powerful enough to stop them. The creatures were all scrambling towards Starswirl’s building and disappearing inside, but Grogar couldn’t care about them any longer.

“I… I will…”

“Stop.” He looked up, his mouth shutting against his will at the commanding voice. The pony who used to be Sunny Starscout looked down on him with pity in her eyes. She took a deep breath and let it out. “This has gone on too long.”

Grogar slowly backed away, tears of shame welling in his eyes - and he hated himself for it. He hated that he felt this scared and alone. He was the powerful one! He was… truly…

She closed her eyes, and her whole body seemed to glow for a moment. Then all of the light poured itself into her hoof and took on the form of a floating orb, pulsing with a fiery light and a life of its own. She looked like Sunny Starscout once again, but her eyes were still the familiar gold that he knew so well.

It suddenly hit him like a lightning bolt; he knew exactly what she was trying to do.

And he wouldn’t do it.

“No.” He shook his head and stepped back, his panic hardening into anger and giving him back some of his power. His horns lit up once more.

Her golden eyes narrowed, and her horn blazed once more. Golden light latched on to Grogar’s hooves and rooted him to the ground. He growled and roared and struggled, fighting to free himself, but there was nothing he could do. A golden aura surrounded him, and he felt something inside of him get tugged. He shut his eyes and concentrated his entire soul and being on keeping his power, on holding it tight and not letting it go…

With a final tug, a bright light illuminated his skin and detached itself, clinging to his fur and his horns and his hooves with desperate tendrils like lightning bolts, but it was finally pulled away, forming another glowing orb, crackling like pure electricity, that was the same size as the one that Sunny had made. She let go of hers, and as soon as she did, its tendrils curling away from her hoof, her brilliant golden wings and horn were whisked away in the wind, joining with the magic. It floated up into the air between them to meet the other one.

“No!” Grogar cried out, lunging forward desperately. His commanding power and presence was gone, and the life in his eyes was dimming. The closer the orbs got to each other, the duller his coat seemed to be, and the weaker he was. “No, please… I’m begging you…” He fell to his knees in front of the pony

The two orbs met each other, and crackling electricity reached out from each one to the other and wrapped around each other. Ropes of pure light wrapped around the two of them, and they came together, shifting shape until they took on the form of a single, whole circle, pulsing with light so bright that neither of them could look at it.

With a resounding blast, the magic disappeared, sending a magical shockwave through the city of Skyros, reducing all the crumbled stone to dust and the shadow wolves to nothingness. Grogar let out a pitiful wail as his form crumbled into ash and was scattered far out of anyone’s reckoning, never to be seen in the world again. The clouds were vaporized, letting the stars shine in, brighter than they had ever seemed, for the aethereal light that emitted from Skyros was faint and flickering.

And as for Sunny, she felt herself getting pulled away, out of that place, somewhere familiar, though she knew she had never been there before…

Sunny gasped and opened her eyes. She looked around. She was standing on a path of glittering stars that wound through a glowing night sky, with no sign of land or cloud or anything. Skyros was gone. Grogar was gone. Her friends were gone. She had no idea where she was, or how she had gotten there, or how she might get back, and she was still very confused about what had happened, but she somehow knew that there, she was safe, and that she didn’t need to be scared.

“Hello?” she called out. “Is… is anyone there?”

Silence. Then:

“Hello, Sunny Starscout.”

A pony was walking towards her… but she wasn’t quite a pony. Her form was hazy and shifted, so that sometimes she looked like she had the wings of a dragon, or the claws of a griffin, or the pronged horn of a kirin. She was made of pure golden light, and her eyes were bright bottomless depths of magic and power and wisdom that had seen many ages pass by. She was… strangely familiar…

“You… you were the voice in my head,” Sunny said slowly. “You were who Grogar was talking to. You… I’m sorry, but I don’t actually know who you are, or what you have to do with me.”

The strange pony smiled, and her light grew brighter and warmer. “I am you, Sunny Starscout. Or, at least, I was part of you. Didn’t you ever wonder where your magic came from? Why your alicorn form was temporary and always disappeared, but somehow you were the most powerful pony to ever walk the earth? Why you were chosen to unite all of the separated tribes of the world and bring back the magic that had slumbered for ages?”

“I… what?”

“You were chosen, Sunny, from before you were even born. I chose you. I chose you to be my host. I chose you to bear my power and undo the many hurts and evils in the world. I chose you to help me finally set an ancient wrong right.”

Sunny blinked. “You mean… all of my magic… came from you?”

“Not all. You are still an earth pony, which means that you still have the magic of your tribe - which you awoke, by the way. But your alicorn form was me letting you use my magic, which is so powerful that it could only be temporary.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Other alicorns do not get their magic from me, nor any of us. They get them from other creatures. But where did other creatures get their magic?” The pony met Sunny’s eyes. “I gave it to them.”

Author's Note

I am SO SORRY that this one came so late! I got back after being in Germany for two weeks. Then I had to catch up on literally everything. And that was exhausting. And then I had to do a bunch of other stuff because apparently letting me rest for a few days is impossible. I only JUST finished getting all my work done, and THEN I got SICK.

Hooray for life making things impossible!

But anyway, here's this one. And I TRIPLE promise to have the next one done and out by next Friday.

Hopefully.

Seriously though, things are calming down, and now I can finally get back to this. I'm almost done! Expect the finale within a few weeks here.

Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you for reading!