The stars shine brightest on the darkest nights.

by Herokiller111

Rating: teen
Tags: Gore, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Rainbow Dash, Spike, Horror, Violence, Twilight Sparkle, Main 6
Length: 17804

The stars will always shine on forever. And in these darkest of times, they shine the brightest, as Harmony manifests itself the strongest.

Equestria has fallen. Not by an invading force or an ancient bent rising from the pages of history or a brand new foe from nowhere.
No, on this particular Nightmare Night, the Sun has not appeared at its appointed time, the darkness is not lifted… and nightmarish horrors beyond understanding are twisting and altering everything and everypony in new and terrifying ways.

Yet even now, in this dark and fallen world, a few brave souls stand together regardless of what they have paid or must pay, both for their own lives and the survival and salvation of the world.
They will suffer, they will cry, they will bear terrible burdens nopony should ever have to.
But they will NEVER give up, and they will NOT lose! Not now, not ever!

For even in a world gone mad with sickness and madness… Friendship is still Magic.

Published 2024-10-28 05:40:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-12-14 06:52:44 UTC

Survive and be found

The beast screamed.

The little dragon rapidly and fearfully drew in another deep breath and case it out with as much strength as he could, and another wave of magical thermal energy erupted from his mouth and engulfed his attacker in another flood of dragon fire.
The horrific screeching and howling that emanated from its throat pierced the air and the poor dragon’s ears again, but it could not advance any closer and instead collapsed onto the ground and thrashed and convulsed as it tried to smother the flames currently burning away at its haggard shape.

Spike did not wait to see if it succeeded.
He simply dodged past it and sprinted off down the street again as fast as he could push himself to, dashing into any shadows he could and desperately panting as deeply as possible to catch his breath ASAP while he kept his wide eyes darting everywhere to avoid the possibility of missing anymore of those THINGS that might be trying to sneak up on him.

All around him, the young but surprisingly strong dragon could hear far-off and nearby sounds that came from the same kind of creature that had just attacked him. Glass was shattered in nearly every building’s window, and several doors were broken down.
One he could even see just a few yards from his current position in the street, broken in several large pieces.
And on more than one wall of any building around at all, he could see dark reddish-brown stains.

He ducked down again behind a small barrel as the shadow of another pony fled past him in terror, escaping seemingly into another alleyway, before the tall gaunt form of another terrifying beast sped past as well and dashed down the same alley, it’s guttural cries echoing in the street.

“Why? Why is this happening? HOW is this happening!? Where did it even come from?!?”
Poor Spike breathed out in his fearful and confused voice as memories of the horrid things he had just been witness to both tonight and much earlier suddenly flashed through his mind.

But as soon as he did so, the young dragon covered his mouth with one hand/paw and ducked down behind the nearest tree, his immediate location being on the outskirts of Ponyville.
Because around the corner of one of the last shops a pony could enter before leaving the town completely, a horrid creature suddenly LANDED on the ground with a shockwave, cracking the ground beneath its hooves as it immediately sniffed the air and turned its horribly mutated head towards Spike’s direction.

The latter didn’t need to wait and get jump-scared in order to already realize that his new foe could tell where he was.
He jumped up and dashed from the tree, narrowly avoiding the two front legs/arms as they hugged around the tree and viciously slashed the spot where he had just been, normal pony hooves replaced with claw-like ones instead.

He sped down between the two former sweet shops to his right and turned right, slowing his pace just a bit dangerously as he prepared his inner fire for another blast for WHEN the monstrous creature would catch up to him.
If only he could get back to the Castle of Friendship eventually, or just the Golden Oak Library for now… he needed to find Twilight!

He narrowly avoided getting bitten in two by a pair frightfully large jaws as the pursuing creature darted at him suddenly from the side as he rolled past the last building near to himself, and he finally got a good look at his foe.

It was a Pegasus, a grayish one.
Its tattered mane was a pale yellow color along with its tail, and its wings were tattered and partially de-feathered, blood being visible on both the appendages.
Its body was horridly thin and the skin looked twisted and stretched out, while its eyes were burning within its hollowed sockets, with the head being disgustingly long and the jaws now large enough to hold a creature like Spike within them and still have room for more.
And on each hip, looking quite as withered and sickly as the rest of its, or rather HER, body… were seven bubbles.

Spike groaned internally as he realized who this poor monstrous creature was, his fire breath still more or less ready for usage at least.
The deformed, mutated mailmare let out a howling screech as she opened her unnaturally wide jaws filled with rows of sharp flesh-tearing fangs and prepared to lunge at him again.

But just as she was about to spring forward and Spike was THIS CLOSE to blasting again… a bright blur from out of nowhere suddenly slammed into the creature and a trail of bluish white lightning was suddenly right in front of the young dragon, followed by a point-blank thunderclap which sent him flying!
The little dragon skidded and bounced along the ground for several seconds before he lay still, his head spinning and his ears ringing from the audio overload.
But his adrenaline and sense of alarm quickly kicked in again and he managed to pull himself to his feet and look around with rapidly clearing eyes, bright flashes in the sky causing him to look up and around his current location.

Several lightning bolts were striking the ground and buildings, and a number of the nearby shrieks of monsters were suddenly silenced.
It was as if the very sky itself had come alive and was striking down the horrors in these dark, blood-stained streets.

He slowly crept through the few dozen yards of open grass around the city itself, his sharp eyes seeing what looked like electric bolts speeding back and forth across the clouds and seemingly summoning more lightning.
The flashing was so intense and consistent it was resembling daylight more and more as the storm picked up in power, and the wind was suddenly appearing and now already getting strong.
Whatever this mysterious entity was, it seemed to be helping him escape, but Spike honestly didn’t want to get its attention. How could he be sure that it wasn’t just another unknown creature that was simply removing the competition or something?

Making his way past another former cake shop, the slowly crawled on all fours to in the direction of his current destination. He could not try to escape out into the open, Twilight’s letter had told him that she’d warded off the Library to anything not a pony or griffen or Spike himself, and that would be the only safe spot he could stay at for the time being.
He has almost died more times than he could count at this point, and he didn’t want to take his chances if another ridiculously strong entity like the mysterious lightning beast showed up.

As he made his way steadily closer and closer to the Gold Oaks Library, he passed by what looked several spots where lightning had struck judging by the black burn marks on the ground and several walls… but the bodies of the presumably dead creatures were nowhere to be seen.

Good grief. Is that weird storm thing actually transporting them somewhere else? Is this some sort of freaky hunting activity, or are the Wonderbolts turning into the “Thunderbolts”?*

Speaking of which, Spike was also sure he’d not seen or heard ANYTHING about the famed Pegasi athletes and part-time defenders of Equestria.
Since this nightmare has first started, all he’d done was try to hide and fight only when necessary.

(Flashback to when this first started, “one day” ago at most…)

He’d been trying to make a last-moment delivery to Rarity when he suddenly had heard a sudden cry of panic and pain mixed with the breaking of glass.
Dropping the bag down, he had run around the corner of the building and saw the horrendous sight of an extremely large and SCRAWNY pony-like creature with its bones visible in its withered skin and with horribly disproportionate limbs, head, and jaws biting a screaming Unicorn mare who was a turquoise-green color and who had just been pulled down from the shattered window she had evidently been trying to climb through in horror to escape before it had caught her, her left leg already dark with her own blood as those horrid jaws ripped into her.

“What th-Lyra, no! Hey you, stop it!”
Spike shouted, shocked and disgusted by what he was seeing.

The young dragon felt his instincts take over and he immediately summoned forth his dragon fire, charging forward blindly and letting loose a hasty burst of flames at the mutated abomination at point-blank range.
His blast hit it dead-on, but the beast was in too much of a crazed feeding frenzy to withdraw from it’s prey, it’s terrible massive jaws and dozens of vicious fangs only hesitating for a moment before crunching again into the tender bloodied flesh of the poor agonized Lyra, who could only scream and scream as tears poured down her face and her horn blasted beams of tragically unfocused magic as her pain was too great to properly focus the spell.
The sound of her skin and muscle tissue being tore from her body and the crunch of leg bones were the kind of sickening and terrible sounds that would never leave Spike’s memory.

“I said bucking STOP!”

Now consumed by desperation and growing primal rage, the little dragon hurled himself upon the savage monster, his own fangs and claws tearing into the deformed face.
Even as the monster successfully ripped the entirety of the pony’s left leg from its proper place, blood spurting from the severed veins and the screaming mare being driven nearly to madness and immediate unconsciousness from the agony, Spike fiercely clawed his way atop the base of it’s head and sucked in his breathe in furious focus with even more fierce intent as his eyes blazed, then he savagely clawed and bit at the base of the skull, a dark instinct suddenly telling him what to do and how to do it.

The mutant-zombie-monster snapped its jaws and thrashed around now even as it soon swallowed the leg before diving down to to finish the job of devouring Lyra entirely, but suddenly it’s head was completely engulfed and erupting in green flames, Spike biting furiously down onto the place he chose and unleashing his power.
Dragon fire quickly poured from the eyeholes and nostrils of the beast, and its mouth even burst forth with fire as there was a brief and terrible scream of torment and some thrashing before the body of the creature simply collapsed to the ground, now truly lifeless as it’s head burnt and the flesh began to more or less flake away or outright melt.

Quickly getting off the body of his dead foe, pushing away the feelings he was starting to feel from having actually taken a life, Spike was instantly concerned and confused as he approached the badly mauled body of Lyra, the mare letting out small sobs as she struggled to breathe and cling to her alertness, even as her body paled and the loss of her leg and so much blood making her shudder increasingly.

Spike did not have any real experience when it came to dealing with, and fixing, wounds in a physical way that doesn’t require Magic and he was lost at what he could do.
So instead, he simply walked up to her and sat down near to her face, gently patting her head and holding one of her hooves as she continued to shake slightly and mutter, providing what comfort he could to one of his dying friends.
The shock was still here, so he wasn’t freaking out as much as he probably would soon enough.

“I’m sorry, Bon Bon. Please don’t… don’t leave me, love…”

Lyra’s broken voice managed to force out as blood trickled from her open mouth.

“I’m so, so sorry…”

And then, as she say there crying and whispering all these heartbreaking words to herself, Lyra went still.
Then Spike suddenly had to recoil and fast… because the formerly dying and lifeless mare suddenly began to contort and grow larger. Her limbs extended , violently so, and her head and neck stretched sickeningly, her torso growing and bleeding even as skin was stretched to its limits, all the while her body was making these awful cracking and ripping sounds like she was being torn apart and fitted back together!

“Oh Celestia, no..!”
Spike cried out as he turned and fled in terror with tears stinging his eyes, Lyra mutating in seconds into the same type of disgusting monster that had nearly eaten her alive.

The newly-born undead mutant raised she horrific body and looked with her hollowed eyes and ghastly head to the ground at its claw-like hooves, the Unicorn horn that was once perfectly formed and beautiful was now long and brutally curved like a cruel sword, sparking and crackling with magic barely that could barely be restrained. Those brightly burning eyes slowly looked up, and a frightful sniffing sound was heard.

“Bon… Bon Bon.”

A voice gurgled from that gaunt throat as her head was raised to look to the pale light of the stars above, her jaws opening wider.

Then she screamed.

(Presently…)

It had been shortly after that traumatizing experience with Lyra that Spike soon had seen and heard of other similar attacks and grisly transformations all over Ponyville and apparently was happening across Equestria itself at an alarming rate.
He had no idea what was happening, but had also noticed that that the Sun was not rising either, leaving the world in perpetual darkness.

Then, he had recieved a magic letter from Twilight, telling him to meet her if possible in the Golden Oaks Library and that she’d try to gather the Mane Six there as well if she could manage to contact them.
They’d discuss the best on what to do there, or anywhere they could after gathering and putting their minds together.

And that was how he was here now, having managed to survive by himself so far with little help as other Equestrians were, understandably, trying to look after themselves and the other ponies and creatures dear to them, thus not being able to fully help him out that much. But anyway…

Alternating between crawling sneakily through the shadows and running for very short distances, Spike finally got in sight of the massive library, the several enormous trees making up the main body of the structure itself dominating the view of the night sky quite easily as the great flora was taller than virtually anything else in the city.
He needed to get to the doors and through them no matter what. He’d be safe in there and could figure out what to do next, ESPECIALLY if Twilight was holed up in there safely!
But as he did so, he could feel that the mighty flashes of power were seemingly starting to gather more strongly in the direction he was headed, as if the unknown storm entity was aware of him and his plan.
He could only hoe that it was a mere coincidence.

Spike snuck as close as he could. He had into one chance at this.
“Ok Spike,” he whispered aloud, “Here you go, to the Library. Everything you got, into this one sprint.”

He breathed in and out several times, prepping himself for what he was about to do.
And then he leapt out and sprinted as fast as he could ever remember running. He crossed the open ground at a speed that would leave most any pony quite impressed, and reached the doors!
He forced them open with every ounce of strength he could gather into his small arms and flung himself inside, gasping and falling to the floor just as an explosion of electrical energy struck the ground practically where he’d been standing less than a second before.
Laying there and breathing heavily for a couple of moments with his back facing the open door, Spike slowly got to his hands and knees.
He was safe, he could still feel the magical wards active, meaning they would keep out those horrid things.

The young dragon finally realized that he’d probably be better off over if he closed the doors, albeit leave them unlocked for potentially other ponies who might seek refuge here. In his rush to avoid death(or worse), he had practically shoved them WIDE OPEN, so he got to his feet and turned around… and he couldn’t help his shocked gasp as he saw what and WHO was standing there in the entrance of the doorway, watching him.

It had not been a bolt of lightning that struck the ground just as he had managed to get inside the safety of the library. It was a pony… or rather it HAD been a pony.

The body was a sort of… light blue color, and its wild mane was of all the colors of the rainbow, but more jaded to a degree.
It’s limbs and body were quite thin(and disturbingly long, in the case of the legs) like it was with all the other monsters out there, and it’s eyes were a pinkish strawberry hue, only lacking any discerning features like a normal pony would have.

The eyes… dear Celestia, there were no longer just two eyes. Instead, now there were FOUR of them peering at him with that terrible gaze.
Along with the original pair was now another set of them that were just a bit higher up on the head, and the fact that this monster’s head was thinner and now more streamlined compared to how a normal pony’s head was(and the eyes were now smaller) somehow allowed for this to be without the head looking like it was too crowded with eyes.

And the eyes themselves weren’t even like normal anymore, anyway.
Instead, they were shining brightly like lamps of pinkish fire burning within… along with the same supernatural light burning from its gaping maw, the corners turned upwards in a sort of monstrous expression of bestial joy as the jaws hung wide open and allowed the same horrifying spectral light to emanate outward, while dozens of dark and sharp needle-knife-like fangs were clearly visible.
It wasn’t just from the throat, it was like the inside of the mouth itself was burning brightly with a haunting, unnatural light, both fully visible in the open space and small bits of it peering between the fangs themselves.

Due to the doors being wide open, Spike could also see the powerful and frightening wings of the pegasus as well as its frontal body and face.
The main part of each wing itself had… glowing veins?
The wings each had numerous marks on them that looked like blood veins, like how they were pictured in medical books on Pegasi anatomy.
But each of these apparent “veins” were glowing with some kind of spectral energy, shining like metal rods that had been in the fire of a smithy’s forge for a good long while, and they were either bright blue or bright pink in color. And they seemed to be growing brighter or fading darker every moment.

And the wings themselves overall?
They were noticeably bigger than they had been, not just bigger because the Pegasus herself had grown, but larger even in comparison to her current size.
They were legitimately large, but weren’t like how they had been before the infection either. Now the feathers looked almost SHARP, like thin and shifting blades that were shaped like feathers, and there were more of them then there had been previously before this ghastly mutation-virus-curse had taken hold.
And along each feather, small sparks of electrical activity could be seen, with the currents running up along the length of the wings themselves and sparking off the edges, bright traces of raw power that crackled and flashed and writhed off at the tips of the feathers and into the air.

The creature that was standing there in front of the doorway and looking at him… she had once been the most devoted pony in the entire world, as far as Spike had known.
She was the fastest one, always up for a new adventure, joyful of life and friendship.
She had set a record for flight that none except an Alicorn Princess had been able to even remotely match, and had been responsible for those who had ultimately become the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony getting their Cutie Marks.

She had been the one and only Rainbow Dash!

And now here she was, one of the greatest heroes Equestria and perhaps the entire world had EVER known, trapped outside of her dear friend’s Library and home by a magical barrier, because she had somehow been infected with some cursed disease that had twisted and warped her into a horrific, demonic entity, staring at him with two pairs of monstrous burning eyes.
Spike could have cried right here and now at the sheer tragic injustice of it all, had things not been so dire.

Instead, he simply spoke with a pained and heavy tone of voice as he sat on the floor, all thoughts of shutting them momentarily forgotten.
She wouldn’t be able to understand him, but maybe he could talk just a bit while she, or rather the demon she had become, would stay there and stare at him for a period before getting fed up and vanishing back into the storm she had created and go elsewhere.

“Rainbow Dash…” he sighed.

“Yes?”
A raspy reply, and it echoed with the voice of his friend.

Spike nearly jumped out of his skin, and stared with wide eyes at the creature still standing outside of the doorway… and her head had titled to one side, as if amused by his reaction.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Author's Note

Note: both the non-infected and infected characters are heavily based/modeled after the appearances shown in The Immortality Virus and The Versepetilio Virus, two different TikTok AU’s.
Look them up on YouTube, the art for the infected Immortality Virus monsters and the non-infected Versepetilio characters overall there are perhaps my FAV of them all!

And yes, this IS basically my own take on the “Infection AU” trend and all, but I wanted to do… something a little different compared to how many I’ve seen intend to be, so… just bear with me, ok? Let’s see where this takes us!

What it means to be a friend.

The very air shuddered.

The five ponies stood still, barely able to move for the moment, as they gawked in shocked horror at the sight that was before them, standing behind a mystical spell barrier that stretched from wall to wall of the room they were all standing in.

The creature was an Alicorn, they could tell by the wings and horn… but just what kind of Alicorn was anypony’s guess.

It was the most horrifying thing that any of them had ever seen or even imagined!
It was tall, very tall, similar to Celestia in that regard, but its body was just monstrous and haggard. The legs were all thin and the hooves were disturbingly replaced by some sort of thick frightful black claws, while the body itself was a sort of faded light grayish-brown color which also looked incredibly gaunt and withered, with numerous small crack-like scars appearing across the body and lightly shimmering.

Her wings were also heavily altered and the feathery endings were replaced with what looked like sharp edges, almost like each wing was some sort of leather with dried blades or something similar at the ends.

Her mane and tail were both longer and a bright pink color, but also were more wild and unkept and tattered in appearance, and there even seemed to be some sort of slightly glowing type of liquid-fire on them both, shimmering faintly and falling off of her body even and either hitting the ground softly and disappearing or outright vanishing in midair, almost like she was bleeding.
It was the same color as the disturbing cracks that seemingly were across a bit of her body, shining just as brightly.

Her horn was quite a bit longer too, but more curled and vicious looking like the horn of Queen Chrysalis, and it was crackling just a bit with magical power that seemed to be laying just beneath the surface and was aching to be let out.
And lastly, she had two extra eyes placed just above her normal two as well, all four of them burning with the same intense pink fiery energy.

“Twi-Twilight… YOU can’t be our darling friend! What have you done with her!?”
Rarity first stuttered and then shrieked in fury, her own horn lighting up as she prepared to battle with this eldritch horror that had clearly mimicked the Alicorn’s voice and drew the five of them here as a trap.

“Yeah!”
Rainbow Dash loudly growled, her body tending as she prepared to lunge forward and attack the monster who clearly had harmed her dear friend!

But before the others could voice their own angry thoughts, the creature simply let out a sigh, its voice odd and unnerving at first, but ending with a sort of echoing effect at the end.
An echo that was that of Twilight’s voice!

“Relax girls, it’s me… or rather, what’s left of me.”

This FROZE them all in their spots. How… when did… what just… HOW!?!

“As I’m sure you’ve all heard, there is some kind of horrific viral infection that’s spread far and wide across all Equestria. From what I can gather with what research I’ve done, it came through a portal between different realms that MIGHT or MIGHT NOT have been opened by a number of Unicorn criminals who performed a forbidden ritual to some dark and forgotten part of the Cosmos… someplace that was never meant to be accessed or even known of by ponies.”

She magically created a series of visions that appeared in front of her and played out in front of her friends like a movie, the scenes showing everything in detail and changing slowly to match what Twilight spoke about.

“I know this because I just heard of them two nights ago, but thought that I myself and maybe Spike could deal with it, because they were into a few and were known as being minor criminals typically. They somehow managed to sneak into my lab when I left the door open and stole several of my latest experiments on curing diseases and other stronger healing spells. By the time I had arrived at their area when I tracked them down, they’d already completed their final ritual and… something, came through the portal.”

The THING that now appeared for the dark swirling door between dimensions was just, well, shapeless. It was like a valid fog and a gust of smoke, like the tendrils of an octopus and yet also a cloud of falling dust.
The mere sight of this shapeless, formless entity caused virtually ALL of the five ponies watching it to instinctively take a step back, or several in poor Fluttershy’s case.

“The next thing I knew, it had completely infected every single part of the poor idiots who had summoned it, turning them into mindless horrible monsters, and then it was already infecting my body and mind before I could properly keep it blocked out. But somehow, I still retain my own mind and sanity, even if this is what I have become now.”

The illusionary flashback ended, and the horribly altered Alicorn, The Princess of Friendship, stood before them again.

“And the reason why I am now here with the Elements of Harmony… is because I need you all to help me to save our home, likely the entire world, from this terrible accursed disease.”

“Anythin’ ya need, sugar cube!”
Applejack said immediately.

“Likewise, Twi! Just name it!”
Rainbow Dash immediately joined in.

“That goes for me as well, darling!”

“Yes, me too Twilight!”

“I’ll go whatever I can to help you.”

“Thank you all. Now just let please, stand there.”

There was a round of silence or confused “hah?” and “what?” and then Twilight moved her head… and a sudden fresh border seemingly appeared inside of the current one.
It was around 5 or 6 hoofsteps from them, and was as an orange electrical fire on the ground, rising up to a pony’s ankles. All in all, it didn’t look like something anypony would want to touch, and the heat it radiated was helping with that effect.

“What the-what’s this!?”

“Did you just, separate yourself from us even more?”

“I’m sorry, my friends. But I cannot allow you to interfere with this. It’s something I must do.”

Twilight, what in Equestria are you taking about?”
Rarity asked and stepped forward, getting dangerously close to the border.

“Get back!”
Twilight suddenly let out an alarmed-sounding growl, making everypony flinch back. She cleared her throat, but her voice was still firm and a bit intimidating, more-so than it was so far.

“I’m sorry again, but none of you can cross that newly separation spell I just cast. It’s a Hellfire Barrier now, and if anypony crosses over… let’s just that the results might just be worse than what I look like right now.”

“Twilight, what are you trying to do!? You are infected with a horrendously inconvenient disease from another world that is terrorizing the whole of Equestria and possibly the entire continent, you have all the Elements of Harmony gathered together and they are with you, and now you’ve erected a lethal barrier between us and yourself! What-what is wrong with you!? This does not make any sense!”
Rarity cried out in confused dismay, and the others sounded off in agreements. It was right, it DIDN’T make sense for her to do this!

Then Pinkie said the unimaginable.
“For Faust’s sake, Twilight, your acting like you intend to use the power of The Elements of Harmony themselves to pull all of the virus across the world into yourself and are counting on either dying fast and destroying the virus too or on your Princess status to keep you sane!”

The mutated Alicorn didn’t act surprised or try to argue against the statement, she could not even say a word in response to that: she simply couldn’t.
The others were about to either say something in accordance with Pinkie’s short angry rant or something else, but suddenly… they all went quiet. Twilight’s slight shift in demeanor, as subtle as it was, was not missed by a single pony. They knew her too well to miss it, after everything they’d all been through together.

Then…

“NO!!!”

Their voices screamed as one!

“No, you can’t!”

“This is a fools choice!”

“Don’t you BUCKING dare!”

“Don’t ya’ even THINK bout’ it!”

“You just CANT!”

Twilight stood as they desperately ranted and screamed at her, and she said nothing for a long while.
But eventually, when she saw them not yelling together in confusion, she started to speak, forcing her words out even as her vast power within kept surging and bubbling and trying to escape.

“You all just don’t understand this.”

Dash immediately responded with her characteristic passion.
“And thank Celestia we don’t! How can you possibly come up with such an insanely idiotic idea, Twilight!? I am supposed to be the stupid one who doesn’t think these things through!”

“Don’t say that abou-“

“Dontcha’ change the bucking subject, Twi!”
Applejack interrupted furiously, but then the infected Alicorn in question suddenly took on a darker tone and voice.

“If you all are simply going to yell and curse at me, then just turn around and leave right now. I don’t need this on top of what I’m going through in this condition!”

“…”
Suddenly, the other five lost their words. They quickly realized that they hadn’t even thought about what it must FEEL like, to be altered so horribly so as to appear unrecognizable to the extent that their dear friend now was.

“But… but Twilight, why? Why must you do this to yourself?”
Fluttershy’s soft voice finally came out, her eyes glimmering with tears.

With a softer voice then any of them had heard her use since they arrived at The Castle of Friendship and found her like this, Twilight answered with a sigh.

“For you all. For everypony. For every country and empire and territory. And… for the sake of Harmony itself.”

Fluttershy was, understandably, a bit confused by the last reason.
“Wh…huh?”

Twilight now took a deep breath and began to speak in a clear voice, or as clear as she could make her voice sound at this point.

“Harmony is not just being nice to others in a number of ways, or some kind of on-the-spot kind of occurrence or… or some sort of special weapon to be used against a disharmonious enemy. It is very much a way of life in itself, you know? It is something that is meant to last forever, if possible.”

The creature that was Twilight looked up at the ceiling with a raspy sigh, before turning her eyes back down at the other Bearers of Harmony.

“When something like this happens, a plague that threatens to destroy everything we’ve ever fought for, then we must overcome it by any means necessary, but not in a way that leads to us destroying innocent lives. We cannot simply sacrifice a few for the sake of the rest… not when there is another alternative.”

Applejack voiced her protests. There had to be another way than this!
“But ain’t there somethin’ else ya can do? Ah’ mean, yer’ smart n’ all! You can figure it aht’!”

“Indeed,” Rarity spoke up as well.
“Turning yourself even further into… this, and taking all of these terrible, horrible diseases onto yourself… it can’t be the only way to save Equestria!”

Twilight simply shook her monstrous, unrecognizable head and raised a long, claw-tipped limb.

“And indeed, that is why I must do this. And, if you are all really willing, it is also why I ask you all to not interfere, and simply allow me perform this greatest and most important act of sacrifice and duty. Not just to Equestria, of course, but to this whole endangered WORLD. I know indeed that I simply can’t do it with my own power alone.”

Twilight’s voice was solemn now, more than it had been before.

“I have read so many books where something of a similar nature happens. Some horrific occurrence happens where “friendship cannot solve this problem” or “this is reality, and reality doesn’t care about friendship” and so many other sad, tragically wrong, and utterly depressing ideas from the minds of unhappy and miserable ponies who believe that hardship and pain is the truest form of life and will actively try to tear down the ideals and values of those who DO know the truth, because it simply doesn’t fit with this nihilistic ideology of life being meaningless and hopeless.”

The mutated Alicorn’s eyes seemed to take a slightly darker, more sombre shade as she spoke of this, and the others were taken aback that such books existed, apparently, as n such quantity.

“I’ve even read a number of… I don’t really know what it can be called, “satire” or something? But anyway, I’ve seen some of those really dark and foolish stories that have been written in the darker corners of the market in cities and places far from Ponyville and Catnterlot.
Books where WE ALL get infected with a bunch of horrible viruses and demon-like infections that warp our bodies and minds… stories where even our magical status as The Bearers of The Elements of Harmony means nothing, and we still all either die or become horrific monsters who lose our sanities, and it would be the same with the Princesses as well.”

Rainbow Dash had seen similar books herself, but Twilight had convinced her to let go of her anger and disgust and that it would be dealt with soon enough.
The Pegasus blanched a bit as she remembered it all now, and the others gasped again and looked offended and shocked (and sickened, in Fluttershy’s case) that such vile tales actually were in circulation in Equestria.

“In virtually ALL of those books and stories, we’d ALWAYS lose one way or another.
Any attempts to use scientific studies or our various Magics to stop the infections would only increase our suffering often times or would just kill us and many others at best, and the pessimistic nihilism that continually preaches that nothing matters and that we are all trapped in a vast uncaring cosmos where only death and suffering are the truest forms of existence… it would be so prevalent in each of those tales…”

She sighed heavily as she concluded this lecture, or speech.

“But that is only fiction. THIS is the reality of the situation.
And even though there are innocent ponies out there who are suffering and dying, either from getting infected or being killed by those who are, even as the world has fallen into darkness and everypony is struggling not to despair… my rationality is still my own.
I am The Princess of Friendship, an Alicorn, The Bearer of the Element of Magic, and so my soul and morality have not been consumed by this accursed plague, even if my body has been twisted and corrupted and destroyed by it.”

Her long curved horn, continually glowing just a bit and crackling with sparks and wisps of raw magical energy, now unleashed a small pulse of fiery light that swirled around in the air above her mutated form.

“In fact, this strange virus, or whatever it really is… seems to be the kind of alteration that is trying to build me into the ultimate form that I can become, but in the process is tearing apart my body with the Magic overload and fast-paced physical mutation.”

Her aura was now visible to them, like a sort of uneven bubble of thin pink miasma all around her body and partially hovering over her as well, with some thicker parts taking on the appearance of fire with lightning at its very center.

“I can feel the enormous amount of Magic flooding my body and mind, almost like an entire ocean that is thrashing about in the midst of a storm and only being held back by a small dam from overrunning a coastal city. It’s… kind of frightful in a way.”

The other ponies in the room could FEEL the gargantuan amount of mystical power radiating from the infected Alicorn and trying to smother them, and thin wisps of raw Magic even came forth and randomly disappeared and reformed along the floor and walls and ceiling, slithering like serpents.

“Uh, Twi?”
Applejack said nervously.

“Could you, like, tone down the scary aspect about 20%?”
Rainbow said next. And surprisingly, the frightful Magic coming from the creature in question suddenly began to fade away, some of it pouring back into her like water flowing down a stream.

“Sorry guys, I was just trying to show you what I mean. But believe me: there is no other option, there never was. I cannot simply whip up a cure after studying the infected blood of other ponies or myself, nor can I try to look over the frequencies in the mind or the magical signature of somepony infected and figure out a way to counter it.
I’m not going to experiment with other’s lives, and what research I have done shows absolutely no way to somehow stop this dark virus before it consumes all of Equestria and possibly even the world itself. This is the one conclusion I have been able to come to that might just work for real, and I-“

“No!”
Fluttershy was now louder and stronger, her ever-increasing concern and desperation clear in her tone and on her face.

“Twilight, you can’t do this! Please, you mustn’t! There has to be… Discord! HE can find a way! He’s the Lord of all Chaos Magic itself and has already seen and done so much across this and countless other worlds, he must know-!”

“Fluttershy, no! Discord certainly can help out and it may go a long way, but we can’t force him to go against his very nature to this extent! Remember when he started fading away from reality because he attempted to stop causing chaos? What do you think will happen to him if he attempts to reverse something at THIS level of deadliness and potency!?”

Twilight’s voice was now suddenly so strong and vicious that the others either shrunk back or, in AJ’s and RD’s cases, instinctively stood in front of their other friends defensively even as their faces shown with just a bit of concern and uncertainty.
At this sight, Twilight lowered her tone and spoke more calmly.

“This isn’t some random flu or something, this is a dimension-crossing virus that affects the bodies, minds, and MAGIC of a creatures body, ok? It is something entirely unheard of, and even my own attempts to use a variety of advanced spells to keep it from infecting me haven’t worked at all, even when I used the Element of Magic itself to the very best of my ability.”

The others faces showed increasing alarm and concern as she revealed this to them.

“Remember when we went to Earth, the human realm which had no magic at all, and my Element quite literally altered reality itself and made Magic a reality over there? That same power couldn’t even slow down this heinous infection, ok? Heck, if anything it only made my own mutation become more complex and much stronger.”

She sighed tiredly as she continued.

“If we tried to recruit Discord to stop this curse or whatever it is, it could very likely backfire on him. This infection is so fast spreading it may have already gotten past The Crystal Empire and who knows where else, ok?”

She put an altered hoof/set of claws to her chest in sincerity as she spoke now, and her friends couldn’t find anything to say to try disproving her words.

“We’d essentially be asking him to RESTORE safety and order to multiple countries, and doing that is the very opposite of chaos. He would likely be risking his own existence for a chance that we can MAYBE trap or erase something dangerous that we don’t understand one bit and have no idea of how it even works.”

She started pacing back and forth from side to side of the room as she confined her rant.

“I mean, if one of the Elements of Harmony failed to do anything to this curse, just what could Chaos Magic do? For all we know, it might just cause an even greater mutation to develop and appear right after Discord has to leave or outright dematerializes or something, and it would wreak untold havoc by the time he can return! We can’t do that, guys. We can’t ask him to do something this dangerous for a mere chance it may be successful, a chance that has more ways to go wrong than right. We just can’t.”

Everypony else in the room were silent. Even if they didn’t agree with Twilight’s own idea, they simply could not argue with her reasoning. She was right, they had no right to risk the life of another creature in a gamble of this magnitude.

Pinkie suddenly spoke up.
“But cmon now, Twilight. Cant we just try to use The Elements themselves right now to purge you and maybe even the virus itself? I mean, we are all here right now, aren’t we? How about we give it a shot?”

Theoretically we could, but-”

“But nothing, Twi! Pinkie is right, The Elements of Harmony can do anything if we really believe in them and don’t give up! Cmon, we can stop this thing and save you too in the process!”
Rainbow Dash said as she got close to Twilight, her voice confident and filled to the brim with all the charisma she could muster to try changing Twilight’s mind.
The infected Alicorn merely looked at her sadly.

“… that’s just the thing, guys. Remember? Magic is the most powerful and elusive Element of them all. Scholarly ponies who know quite a bit about the Elements themselves still wonder to this day why Magic is included in Harmony, but it simply is. And yet, when I used my own knowledge and the Element itself against this virus as it infected me, it was as if this inter-dimensional contagion somehow adapted itself to the conceptual framework that I arrayed against it and rapidly became stronger.”

She sighed as her friend’s faces became fraught with even more dismay.
“I simply don’t think it can work out this time. If this virus grows stronger from having The Element of Magic attacking it, I shudder to think about how it would react to the five other Elements being added in next. And how can we say that we’ll be using them harmoniously when I myself don’t properly believe in that plan? The potential horrors of what can happen to you all in the event of a backfiring are something I don’t want to think about.”

“But… it can’t have come to this.”
Fluttershy spoke in a broken voice, her eyes now starting to fill with tears. Applejack put a hoof on her shoulder to comfort her as best she could.

“Twilight, you can’t…”
Dash said painfully, not even trying to hold back her own tears.

“I’m afraid it has come to this, girls. That is ultimately why I need you all to stay back and not interfere as I can do this. It’s the only way I have figured that I will be able to draw all of this plague from Equestria and Celestia knows where else it has spread to and still keep myself sane enough to direct my plan and keep it in motion.
This thing cannot overpower the Elements themselves, even if they cannot drive it away. If you all allow me to harness the power and stability of your individual Elements of Harmony… I will be able to save countless lives and repair perhaps ALL of the damage done by the virus. It will very likely cost me my life, but between one pony’s life and the lives of everypony and everycreature in the world… I know none of you would hesitate to do this either, if you were in my hooves.”

The other girls were just lost. They couldn’t just sit back and allow their friend, their dear, sweet, kind, selfless, and terribly suffering friend do this.
To take on every last bit of the nightmarish virus that was twisting and slaughtering and destroying their homeland and a very clear threat to the entire world.
She was already in a truly horrible condition right now anyway with just HER own level of infection, what kind of torment would she be put through after she’d taken the virus from the entire WORLD???

That was assuming she would even SURVIVE the spell, ritual, whatever it was called…

“Then I am.”

The sudden interruption the silence came from none other than The Element of Loyalty herself, and Twilight’s twin pairs of ethereal eyes noticeably brightened, as if in surprise, ever so slightly.

“… what?”

“I said that I am in this with you as well, Twilight. I’m not letting you do this alone.”
The Pegasus now stepped forward, and all eyes were on her. All in shock, all in fear, as she walked up far too close to the barrier.
The small flames there now seemed to grow more agitated as she got closer.

“Rainbow… please don’t...”

The Pegasus in question was… eerily focused, unlike how she usually was. There was no passionate ranting or reckless passion in her behavior, none of that fiery excitement or usual hyper energy.

“You can’t do two alone, Twi. I already know that. None of us could do this. And… and that’s why we are friends. To help each other, remember?”

The Alicorn creature seemed to be getting more agitated, her horn sparking crazier and the wave of magical pressure going forth and slamming into the others.
But somehow, Rainbow Dash didn’t stumble back, even as she narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth to keep from giving in to the temptation to get away from the source of potential danger.

“Rainbow, get back! Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve just said!? None of you will be able to handle this, ok!? I’m only able to hold on because of my status as an Alicorn and my own unique Element, the same can’t just be automatically assumed for you as well!”

“You don’t know that, Twilight! Heck, nopony even knew this curse existed until it appeared!”
Some of the familiar energy had entered the Pegasus’s voice, but it immediately seemed to disappear as she panted a bit and sighed again.

“See? This is why I tried to do this without you girls knowing about it. I KNEW that you’d all try to stop me somehow, even as this thing continues to infect and kill ponies everywhere across Equestria!”

But now Rainbow stepped forward again, and her voice was strong. Filled with conviction.

“Twilight, listen to me, ok? You want to do something good, something totally awesome and great. But you’re forgetting one thing.”
And here she now was almost touching the sizzling barrier, the flames now crackling viciously.

“We are your friends. I am your friend.”

Her purplish eyes shone now. Fear there was, just a bit of fear about what she was doing.
But that was completely overshadowed by the complete and genuine conviction that poured from her two shimmering orbs into Twilight’s four burning ones, the Alicorn looking more and more tense and almost afraid herself somehow.

“Twilight, you… your my most important friend, in some way that I can’t explain very well, ok? Please, I just… I need you.”

Applejack was the first to step forward from the others, her mind coming to the realization of what Rainbow Dash was saying. And what needed to be done.

The rainbow Pegasus sucked in a hasty breath, her voice strained with emotion.
“Twilight, you may think that I and our friends taught YOU all about the magic of friendship. But you’ve helped me understand it in so many more ways than you could ever possibly imagine.”

She now stood mere inches from the blazing line on the ground, and it crackled and hissed and cast up sparks with an ever-increasing intensity.

“The Elements of Harmony aren’t just small necklaces and a crown with Magic. I remember how once you had a theory that the jewels themselves are really just, what’s the word..?”

“Physical embodiments.”
Twilight said almost automatically, her voice carrying a subtle and surprising sadness to it.

“Yeah, that’s it. Physical embodiments of all the parts of harmony itself. But they aren’t the REAL power, so to speak.”

The voice of Rarity now made itself heard, as she and the others were standing together just behind Dash, and Applejack was the first to step forward among them and now stand by her side.
“It is the unity and harmony of those who bear them, that truly matters.”

“And now all uh’ us are here together with ya, sugar cube. And ya’ know darned well that we ain’t gonna leave ya.”

Twilight did not say a word, but her Magic seemed to be bubbling up further and deeper within her, and her breathing was starting to get a bit faster.

“We are your friends, Twilight! And now this time, more than any other, it’s time for us to prove it to you. And we will!”
Pinkie said, her voice uncharacteristically serious, the way it was so very rarely when she was truly serious a subject.

“Friendship might as well not even exist, if there’s no Loyalty shared between friends. Our devotion to each other and to doing the right thing is one of the strongest things we can have.”
Dash said, her eyes and voice more genuine and sincere than any of them had ever seen or heard her be before.

“How can ponies be friends if they don’t know how to keep each other’s spirits up? If they don’t help each other look at all the ugly parts of life and still smile no matter what, are they even real friends at all?”
Pinkie said, her eyes strong and her voice genuine.

“What worth is Harmony, and Friendship itself, without the ability of bein’ honest tuh’ each other, without the integrity tuh’ do what’s right regardless of wether it’s east or it ain’t?”
The strong farm pony spoke her wisdom.

Now Rarity stepped forward and looked Twilight softly in the eye.
“How can Harmony be complete without the Generosity to willingly give to a cause, even if it were to cost you everything you have?”

Twilight could not deny that fact, either.
And lastly, Fluttershy came forward.
“I know, we all know, that you cannot ask us to join you in doing something as utterly painful and horrible as this.”

The little Pegasus stood shoulder to shoulder with her friends, her sweet and strong owlish eyes gazing up at the infected Alicorn with compassion and conviction.

“But you cannot simply expect us to sit back and allow you to do this to yourself, either! Because no friendship can hope to hold true if there is no kindness to be shared between friends, if there is no compassion that allows us to help each other carry truly unbearable burdens.”

“This here, Twi, is what it truly means tuh’ be a friend.”
Applejack said, standing tall and strong as she ever did, her voice firm and yet gentle at the same time. And as one, the five ponies reached their hooves out… and stepped over the barrier.

And as they did so, immediately they were enduring some of the most terrible pain they’d ever had imagined possible.
Their manes and tails smoking already, their eyes tearing up fast, her nostrils and throats getting dry rapidly.
But it didn’t matter at all. For they were walking through fire, literally, for their beloved friend and for their homeland.

“So if you are really gonna do this then…”
Rainbow Dash said, her voice somehow still clear enough to allow her sincerity and love for her dear companion shine through, even as Twilight seemed to be starting to shake slightly and thickly swallowed.

They all pushed through the torment and reached her.

“Then you’re going to have to…”
Fluttershy struggled.

“To take us with you then, darling…”
Rarity finished, her voice cracking and pained.

Twilight finally couldn’t take it anymore, and the horribly mutated Alicorn’s blade-like horn flashed brightly, the inferno they were trapped in instantly faded away and her horn glowed and covered them each in a faint aura that seemed to neutralize the pain they were all in, at least a bit.

“If… if this is what you all really have decided to do…”
And the monstrous creature now was starting to leak a familiar transparent liquid from her eyes, and she grabbed them all in a group hug, using her longer limbs and magical telekinesis to pull them in.

No pony said anything or true to resist, and all tearfully embraced each other as they all knew this could very well be the last time they would get the chance.
No non-infected pony complained about how Twilight’s body was hotter than usual and gave off a bit more heat than was expected or comfortable really, and none of the six tried to pull away first.

Until at last, they all knew that they couldn’t linger here forever, and slowly the friends ended their hug and stood apart, The Elements of Harmony now all glowing together and flirting through the air to their respective pony bearers.
And already, the five of the non-infected ones could feel their bodies starting to hurt anew from deep within.

“That was the reason I had the initial barrier spell in place before I reinforced it with Hellfire,” Twilight explained.
“I knew that being in merely the same room as me would infect anypony, or creature for that matter. You all are already in the process of becoming the same as me now.”

“Well, it definitely can’t be all bad! I mean, if we are even slightly as strong as you clearly are, then I’m fine with it! Plus, we can have our own really secret hideout that only WE know about!”
Pinkie’s ridiculously happy voice sung through the group, and none could help it and cracked a small smile each.

“Nothing ever really dampens your spirits, eh Pinkie?”

“Nope! And after this, nothing ever could even get close to doing that!”

They all shared a small laugh and chuckle, but then Twilight sighed and cleared her throat, making a sound more akin to a growl.

“What if we all do die here, doing this? And rather than being greeted with something amazing and wonderful, there’s no peace or anything like that? Just… darkness?”

The others were silent for a moment. But Pinkie Pie spoke up again.
“Then we’ll all face it together...”
And she swallowed her tears.

They turned to look at her, but Fluttershy looked at Twilight instead, her eyes and voice as gentle and comforting as she had always been as she finished for Pinkie.
“… like always.”

And with that, the six friends smiled one last time together like this as their tears streaked down their faces.
Then they closed their eyes and focused, and the mystical jewels that embodies Harmony itself began to shine with power as they all began to float into the air, the bright and majestic colors of the rainbow appeared….

And the room exploded with magical light.

-

Spike slowly blinked a few times, his vision steadily clearing up as he awoke. The memories of what he’d just seen still echoing in his head and… wait a minute, did he just see…
The young dragon quickly sat up and looked around. He was still in Golden Oaks Library, on the floor. His eyes darted forward…

And the heavily mutated equine creature that was Rainbow Dash stared right back at him, that unnerving expression still lingering on her monstrous face.
Her head was now tilted slightly to one side, looking almost like she was teasingly/mockingly asking him what was wrong. The young dragon had to breathe in several times over and shake his head before he could stand and try to speak. But then…

“In case you were wondering, it’s true. That’s what happened to me and led to me becoming this… well, “thing” that I am right now.”

Now her face seemed to shift slightly, her gaping maw closed and she seemed to almost look… somewhat apologetic?
“Sorry if it was a bit much. I’m not really good at this sort of stuff. But those were my memories.”

Spike closed his eyes and took in another few breaths before talking.
“So basically, Twilight stopped some jerks who summoned a demon disease from across space and time, got infected by it as it spread everywhere else, and then you all stopped her from trying to take it all within herself and are now infected yourselves?”

She shrugged.
“That’s about it. Thankfully we are still sane.”

“…I could use a dozen diamonds melted down into a carbonated drink right about now, maybe with a half dozen rubies for good measure.”

“The feeling is mutual. Just add some cider and it’ll be about 20% more awesome.”

The two just stood there after saying that. Not moving, not saying another word.

Finally Spike broke the ice anew.

“So… are you gonna do something else, or… what?”

At this, Rainbow Dash began to laugh. It was a sort of hissing, guttural sound. Not very pleasant, to be perfectly honest.

“Well, I guess I gotta get going now. We couldn’t pull infection stuff out from everypony, but we took care of the Crystal Empire all good and cured the virus from all of them. From what Twilight told us, she also was able to do something weird healing spell, so everycreature hurt or worse also gets magically cured and ate as good as new. Pretty awesome, right?”

“Uh yeah, it really is. It’s just, uh… kinda a lot to have to take in at the moment.”
Spike was trying to process it all, he really was. But to say that things were kind of overwhelming and confusing was putting it VERY mildly.

“And in case you were wondering, no, I wasn’t killing anypony with my lightning storm or when saved you directly from Derpy. I simply knocked them all out so we could extract the virus-curse-thing from them when the time is available.”

She then turned her head a little to one side, then talked to Spike again as she seemed to be studying her surroundings.
“I’ll be finished with Ponyville pretty soon. I’ve already cleaned up main roads all leading here, and Applejack is at Apple Acres, at least last time I checked.”

“Ok then,” Spike nodded, scratching his head as he began wondering what to do next.
“Any idea what I should do until… I dunno, everything rolls over?”

“Ahh, just camp out here and wait for one of us to give you the OK that it’s safe to come out now. We may be able to keep our minds and stuff because we bear, or we ARE, The Elements of Harmony themselves, but I doubt it’s the same with you. Just stay safe, ok?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll do that.”
Spike replied, and he blew out a breath a few moments later.
“So, uhhh… are you girls gonna-?”

But before he could finish his question, Rainbow Dash had already disappeared in a flash of lightning.
And echoing “Talk to you later!” completed her exit.

Author's Note

Sorry if this seemed rushed in certain areas. But I was in a hurry, and I hope y’all like it!

I hope they’re alright.

The Sun has returned to the sky, and the night is no longer so dark as the Moon and stars are returned as well in their full brightness.
Ponyville, Apple Acres, Canterlot, Cloudsdale, etc. have all recovered well enough from the horrific damage done by the The Curse Plague, as it had been officially named, and thankfully the other nations on the borders have been peaceful and not trying to take advantage of Equestria’s weakened state.

Indeed, all nations were hit by the rapid spread of this mysterious and dangerous disease, although they were thankfully spared from the main brunt of it.
Yayakistan has carefully strengthened its borders and is currently doing through a very careful combined series of studies to see if they could find some way to improve its security and preparation for any future viral outbreaks, as well as trying to learn just a bit more about the complex nature of Magic and how to operate it in a simple, yet reliable way in order to better defend itself.

The Griffen Kingdom has been far more active in its own pursuit of better internal security and is currently going through a bit of a reform in society, aiming to apparently help itself become more functional in the case of another terrible event like this so that nothing falls into disarray and anarchy.

The Changeling Hive… not much can be said so far, but all that is known is that they’ve come out of this near-apocalypse surprisingly hardy and resilient, and what information which has been gained about them seems to indicate that they are doing very well and are not at all hurt by this cataclysmic event.

Those last bits of information are the most worrying. If something like THIS could not cripple the Hive, then what can?

But regardless…

Across Equestria, where The Curse Plague hit the strongest and longest, many ponies have been seeking out harder and longer amounts of work as a form of coping, and have also started forming new friend groups and a number of talk groups as well, discussing their understandable traumas and helping others cope better with it. For even though the PHYSICAL aspects of the disease are all gone forever, the horrid memories of what occurred those few days of darkness cannot simply fade away with wishful thinking.

The number of psychologists and therapists has thus increased dramatically since The Curing, many of whom have actually come from The Crystal Empire, using their own shared understandings of trauma from their experiences under the late King Sombra’s tyrannical regime to better be able to connect with those who need somepony to be able to just listen and understand, even if only a little bit.

Ponyville is completely rebuilt and has even had a number of new buildings erected or are in the process of being erected, including a much larger and stronger Mayors Office Building which also can be used as a fortress in case something bad happens in the future.

And Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie themselves? Well… not much can be said about them now. They disappeared shortly after The Curing and haven’t been seen or heard from since.

A number of statues have been built or are in the process of being built in honor of them, in honor of these greatest of heroes who truly gave everything to stop this terrible plague, and there is currently a special celebration in the final preparation stages to be held.
This will be the first one truly being held since The Curse Plague and it will be held in their honor, as the kingdom has been very busy for a while with rebuilding its infrastructure and reorganizing the economy and population, as well as reestablishing ties to other realms, understandably so.

Wherever they are, I just hope my friends are happy.
That was what they all really wanted deep down within their hearts, to truly do the right thing and have a good time while doing it. I hope they are able to enjoy the fruits of their labors.
They deserve it after everything they’ve done.

Not just for Equestria, but for the whole darn world itself.

What I DO know for sure is that they aren’t alone. They are together now. They have each other’s backs, like always, and while I can’t prove anything, I know that they will be okay and will always take care of each other.

Because real happiness, real friends and family, those are the things that are worth living for.

Worth fighting for.

-

Twilight slowly made her way up the ragged stony cliff, her altered hooves hooking into the crag like fishhooks into flesh.
The sheer size of this mountain was not much of a bother for her, anyway. She just felt that… she needed to climb it rather than fly up it or teleport.

Past the clouds, ignoring the winds, and not even really feeling when the air had gotten progressively thinner, the mutated Alicorn finally emerged at the top of the mountain, walking silently to the pinnacle and looking out over the world beneath her.
It was barren mountainous terrain for as far as most eyes could see, with a sort of heavy foggy cloud hanging low to the ground and also being scattered across the sky itself, with this mountain she stood upon being the only one that wasn’t itself immersed in at least some of the fog.

She wasn’t alone, either.

By her side or hovering above her were five other ponies, altered and mutated by the horrible infectious diseases that they had absorbed with her after she’d cast that super spell and saved Equestria from the cataclysm.
They all had arrived here a bit earlier, waiting for Twilight to climb at her own pace and join them after she had told them to go in ahead, as she had some things she wanted to think about before rejoining the group.

Now they stood by her, like always, and none said a word.
The countryside that lay before them was not the kind that promised peace and comfort. But then again, considering the current state everypony was currently in, they preferred it that way, rather than have to face the near-certainty of infecting other innocent creatures and potentially destroying their lives forever.

Nothing was said, and now even Rainbow Dash stopped flying overhead and landed on the surface, standing silently with them all, just watching.

Finally, a voice broke the silence.
“I wonder how Ponyville and Apple Acres and all the other places in Equestria are doing...”

Applejack’s voice spoke up and answered Twilight’s musing.
“Ah’d say ther’ doin’ fine, sugar cube. I’m certain ah’ it.”

There were a few hums of agreement, and a “yup” from Pinkie.

“Indeed, darling. Our parents and siblings and grandparents and friends will be able to take care of themselves. There’s no way the Princesses will ever be lax or anything, now that we aren’t there to fight any new threats anymore.”
Rarity said.

Twilight nodded slightly at this, but decided to say all she had on her mind.
“Not trying to be a wet blanket… but do you girls think we’ll ever be able to see them again? At all?”

“I think we will, Twi. I think we will.”
Rainbow said, turning her head to look up at her friend and leader.

Twilight smiled.
“Girls?”

They all looked at her, and she turned to look at them as well.
“I’m glad you are all with me.”

(A little bit of time later…)

In the barren wastes of dusty lands, with very small flattish hills and dying trees, six horrific equine entities from the darkest of nightmares steadily walked, staggered, or flew in a hovering and disjointed manner.
They were, like just mentioned, absolutely altered to the extreme that flesh and bone can be before potentially falling apart sooner or later, terribly twisted and rather disgusting forms of mutated bio matter, several types of strange energies, and numerous tainted colors.

/

The one who flew above the rest was a sort of light faded blue fur which was rather withered along with her skin, and seemed to be crackling along many parts of her body with electrical power, particularly her wings.
Her rainbow mane seemed almost to be glistening with blood and other liquids, drops either falling to the ground or fading into wisps of mist that seemed to crackle and ignite when small bolts of electricity from her body struck it.
Her rainbow tail was the same, but the end of it was burnt as if by fire, and the tips were always dissolving into ash and floating away behind her, touching any ground that was not already lifeless and making it turn black.
Yet her tail never grew any shorter, and the ashes never stopped coming.

Her wings were like a mix of wings from some great bat and a Pegasus, but larger. The edges of the wings were of sharpened feathers that seemed more like crude yet were incredibly keen knife blades of blackness, and lightnings of red and blue hue emanated from them, with the underside of the wings having numerous scar-like steaks in them where the same energy seemed to glow from within… and several pairs of reptile-like eyes were frightfully visible as they would open and see everything before them, far and near.
Small purely blue electrical bolts streaked along her ravaged body, and her ribs were both easily visible and yet seemed to be constantly SHIFTING under her skin, almost like they were alive themselves and waiting for the chance to escape.

Her legs were longer than they’d once been and very thin with small hooked spike in their almost like thorns, and her hooves were replaced with some sort of vicious dark claws whilst her horrific head was longer than a normal pony’s head and her gaping maw was filled with numerous long thin sharp teeth and a haunting blue light emanating from it deep inside, the entirety of her mouth inside also shining with this mystical light.

Her lower jaw was no longer a regular jaw, not anymore. Now, it was a split jaw, more akin to an insect than a mammal or any other creature with blood.
And lastly, on her long and mutated head and face, were two pairs of bluish pink eyes, being only like glowing orbs of supernatural light and no Iris or sclera to be seen.

/

The largest creature among this pack was a sort of brownish shade overall, but was nearly twice the size of the others and was not gaunt at all. She was actually quite buff and stocky, but was also missing a portion of her skin.
The visible portion of her muscles were a greenish brown in color and seemed to also have very thin streaks of some kind of container energy within them, judging by the fiery orange that was faintly visible coming from within.

On her head was a faded brown tattered ranch hat, and her head itself was also longer and such that it had once been, the now-wider-then-before jaws were also filled with sharp fangs, and there were even several rows of them as well.
She had two large fully green glowing eyes similar how the eyes of the Pegasus and all the others were, and half the skin was gone from her face while the scarred burnt tissue beneath was a reddish-black color with some lighter shades of pink that seemed horribly raw and sickly.

Her four legs were decently thick and muscled, but they also had a level of rot and burn damage to the skin and tissue, along with with several black bony spikes protruding from them while her hooves were still technically “hooves”.
Said hooves were black and solid and were constantly leaking a watery dark liquid that let off a toxic steam, and her ribs were exposed to view, fiery cracks and liquid that looked almost like a mix of blood and ink was always present on them.
Her wild mane and tail were dropping a few hairs off almost constantly even though they barely grew any thinner at all, and were forever streaked with blood that never dried.

/

The Pegasus that chose to walk on her own hooves was a sickly shade of yellow, her unkept mane and tail being a light shade of pink… at least mostly, with dried blood coating parts of them and other fluids mixed in as well.

On her back were a number of black tree-like spiky branches, and a number of thin black spiky roots protruded from her barrel and claw-like hooves which themselves were a brown color.
These branches were subtly spreading small amounts of fog-like spores into the air, trailing behind her.

She had two pairs of eyes/eye sockets, one of which were empty of any eyeballs and had viny roots growing out from them and going down her horribly mutated face, the other pair had blue eyes/orbs that shined like fire.
Her mouth was mostly closed, but the icy hue of slight mystical chemical brightness still was faintly visible between her long needle-like fangs.

Her long thin limbs were streaked with pure black lines, visible blood veins, that were slowly moving about like snakes or worms in a great group, whilst still remaining under her skin and in their places, to a degree. In some places, the skin was torn and these veins were exposed, growing little dead leaves of some unknown poisonous plant that constantly gave off small amounts of smoky spores.

Her wings were folded up at her sides, but were visibly covered with a black mold-like substance and occasionally dripping dark liquid and water, and some veins were visible as well.
If she were to stretch them out, her wings would reveal that the undersides of them were a pale yellow and orange color and were steaming an orange toxic gas that she left in a wake behind her.
Bluntly put, she was leaking poison quite easily.

/

A unicorn-like creature was among them all too, identifiable by her horn. Said twisted, knife-like, wicked looking, crystalline horn that constantly sparked and crackled with little hints of the immense power lurking beneath.

The unicorn herself was… not really all flesh and blood anymore.
Nearly every single inch of her body was covered by/composed of a sort of crystalline substance, her main body a whitish gray and her “mane” a deep purple mass of numerous small crystal strings that moved around like real hair.
Her eyes were literal orbs of diamond that seemed to be on fire, and her tail was the same as her mane.

However, her body was also lined inside with dozens of thin red glowing lines within, seeming to be blood veins.
And either at the base of her legs and along their length, blood trickled down to her rugged hooves, which were a bit sharp and looked like they were short and crude knife blades.
She left a blood trail wherever she went, and small crystals could be seen starting to grow from this blood as well if one looked at them long enough.

Blood and other fluids also were coating her back and shoulders as well and trickled down to join that at her legs.
The source of this? Her mane, as more red liquid was revealed to be slowly seeping from the tips of the crystal hairs themselves.

Her open jaws were filled with rows and rows of small razor-sharp crystalline fangs, and the light in her mouth and throat was perhaps the brightest, literally shining forth and bursting from her maw as spurts of burning plasma. Bursts of flame, leaping out before her.

/

Hopping occasionally as she walked with the rest was another creature, similar to the muscled one as she had no horn or wings.
But she also had no skin either. At least, no skin on over half her body overall.

Much muscle and some bones were visible to view, her muscles themselves being in various stages of decomposition. Her skin looked like it had either rotted off or been torn off, while many of her visible bones were slightly cracked and seemed to be leaking pale fluids from within, which trickled down her barrel and limbs and dropped to the ground.

Her skin that still remained, along with her mane and tail, were sickly pink and yellow colors and had several visible scars that were swollen and darkened.
Her mutated head and face were skinless and the front half of the lengthened jaws were completely bare of any flesh, her fangs and jaws completely visible to all, and the pink light that was inside her was visible between her fangs and in her nostrils and all the other gapped parts of an equine’s skull that are not covered by skin or muscle tissue.

Her two eyes burned brightly and also were seemingly bleeding out pinkish liquid like tears and blood, and her mane and tail were raggedy messes that were also stained with dry blood and left numerous rotted hairs behind her.

Her hooves were cracked into numerous claws, her leg bones were also cracked partially and leaking with black blood, and a ridge of small spikes ran down along her back, looking like her spine had tried to escape from her body, but had given up suddenly.

/

And leading them all, at the front of the group, was the only one of her kind here. An Alicorn, albeit hardly recognizable at all.

Her body was a sort of brownish purplish gray, or something like that.
Her long limbs were covered in rows of very small thorny spikes that were black in color, and there was a ridge of black spike-like branches running along her spine as well, a few smaller ones even growing on her neck.
The spikes in her limbs especially were shifting around on and in her legs, continuously moving in a very slow circle along the limbs while never going up or down.

Her barrel was a little bit rotted too, but while her own slightly shifting set of ribs weren’t all visible, the bones in question that WERE visible had become black in color with a dark purple hue to them. And grafted into each of these bones, there were several large open eyes, blood red or bright gold in color… and they were constantly darting around and scanning everything in their line of sight.

Her long, horribly altered head and face was lined with several long scars that had a minor pinkish color emanating from within, and she possessed two rows of long needlelike fangs within her jaws.
She had a total of THREE pairs of eyes on her face that shined like fire, and her gaping mouth also had that same pink color that glows, her split jaw split and more like mandibles.
And while two pairs of eyes were of a very light pink color, the middle pair were in fact a menacing crimson color and at moments of great focus would have reptilian slits appear.

She had two monstrous wings at her sides, the feathers having the same nature as did the rainbow Pegasus, and these wings were in fact smoking and sparks of fire were leaping off them.

Her wings also looked to be a bit larger than the standard Pegasi or Alicorn wings would be expected of from how they would normally be for the types of creatures in question, and if she were to open those large appendages, the sight of a half-dozen gold or crimson glaring draconic eyes would be what was seen, and the dozens of crimson scars/veins that glowed ever so slightly along the underside of the wings, the mixture of blood-red electrical energy crackling along the tips of the feathers, the actual flames of endlessly ignited golden gases that licked up the feathers themselves and burnt upwards and outwards… all these would make the feeling of utter terror all the more intense.

Her horn was like a surprisingly long and slightly curved blade, and was it crackling with pink and purple electrical magic sparks that were jumping off it constantly.
There was even a bit of burning violet fire as well along its length. It was as if the ever-growing amount of magical power coursing through the infected Alicorn was truly so vast and endless that it could not be fully contained and was literally burning outwardly from her mutated horn!

Her mane and tail were both more pink than anything else and had a minor burning affect to them, a few hairs falling off every so often and immediately burning away to nothing in the air, falling like ashes onto the ground and killing all it touched.
Her hooves, like the others, were now more like large dark claws than actual equine hooves, and there were small violet and turquoise gems that were visible on her hips and partially going down her hind legs in steady lines… and every single little gem had an eye in it.

She was greater in stature than all the others, she had a bit of every different accursed disease that infected them each, and she left a trail of poisonous smoke and noxious gasses in her wake.
She was their leader, the one whom they followed, and it would always be so.

A burden terrible to be borne, the plagues that would have doomed an entire world to a fate indescribably worse than death itself.
But they bore it all, together as one, and would do so no matter how long it would take until the world and their people were all safe, until they could find some way, if possible, to get rid of these accursed viruses permanently. They would go wherever they needed to go and do whatever they needed to do in order to finish this.

And if it was simply not possible…

Well, if they needed to bear this most horrible of burdens FOREVER…
Then they would.

(Short) Confession and comfort.

Princess Luna, Mistress of the Night, Lady of dreams and nightmares, Mare of the Moon, and younger of The Two Sisters, did not say a word as she stood silently and surveyed what was before her. All those years of military struggle and royal etiquette in the previous centuries did not just go away naturally, and now they gave her the appropriate state of mind and self-control to keep from doing or saying anything that might make the situation worse than it already was.

She stood just outside of Canterlot Castle, in the large new grass field, or Courtyard, that now was added to Castle grounds.
Here, there had recently been a large new statue of the Mane Six, the heroes of the nation of Equestria and the entire continent of Equus. They were all together in their own iconic formation.
(Y’all know, the pic that Celestia smiles at during the ending of the opening credits of the first few seasons, where Dash is the highest and has her hoof in Twilight’s head, and Fluttershy is sitting on her legs like the adorable little pony she is)

And in front of the statue was her older sister. Celestia had been here for over an hour now, either standing or sitting silently and maybe shedding a tear or two before regaining her composure, or saying a few personal things to the statue, referring to the six ponies themselves.

But now, though, she was talking more openly, and Luna could tell that her sister’s resolve to stay any longer was waning and that she wanted to get it ALL off her chest. Her voice was low and pained, like Luna hadn’t heard it in so very long.

“I saw this all coming, you see,” she said heavily, looking mostly at the part of the statue that was Twilight.
“I’ve had visions and dreams about the future, I still do, and can see when something is about to happen and… and who will do it. Especially after I exiled my sister, I gained that ability.”

She swallowed thickly, taking a few moments to breath before starting to speak again.

“I’ve always been able to clearly see things some time before they arrive or occur, since then. Every single foe you’ve ever faced, every single challenge you’ve overcome… I saw it beforehoof, and I…”

She seemed to have trouble saying anything for a little while.
The Princess of the Sun’s voice was getting heavier, and Luna could practically hear and SMELL the tears.

“… I MOVED things and ponies into the places where I knew they’d be the most efficient to achieve the best outcome. I treated you all like pieces on a stupid game board!”
She cried out those words, and then her legs seemed to collapse under her own weight and she crumpled down, just staying there like a nervous filly at the foot of the cold, silent, un-answering stone. Luna felt the urge to go right now and comfort her poor sister, but her logical side held her back.
She knew that Celestia needed this. To get it all out and stop holding anything else inside anymore.

“I… I always have had faith in you. In ALL of you, after you all came together and… did what I could not. And so I… knew that one day something would happen. Something terrible, that neither myself nor my fellow princesses nor anypony else would ever be able to overcome. And so I did all of this.”
She spoke, her words gaining a bit of clarity back.

“I pretended to be weaker then so many of the threats that came up, old and new. Sure, I could have lost had I faced them alone. But I also had chances to win as well, and I KNOW that I could have kept Equestria safe without you all needing… without needing to get involved so often.”

This was not news to Luna. She may not have been as mighty as her older sister, but she was not that far off from her level either. And Celestia was not bragging about her strength or being delusional, Luna knew.
She had ruled and kept this land safe alone for 10 centuries, after all.

“But I knew that I and the others couldn’t keep this up forever. And so I cruelly played this long game, without telling any of you why I did this. I trained you and prepared you, so that you, Twilight, could one day take my place as the chief ruler of this great land and I myself could work from the shadows…”

Luna didn’t smile at the irony of the Mistress of the Day choosing to “work from the shadows”. This wasn’t the time to smile.

“But at last, the day that I dreaded the most, finally arrived. THAT DAY, the one thing that neither I nor Luna nor Cadence nor Starswirl not ANYCREATURE could ever hope to stop, either together or alone. The day that this… this CURSE came. All this time I trained you, increase your experience and your knowledge, built you into the very best you could be. I could have taken a more direct role in your lives, I know, but from what I learned and observed… the way I did, while not perfect, was the best I could have done.”

She breathed heavily, her voice increasingly pained and thick.

“It is the one of the worst things to ever go through, to cursed with knowledge. To know that, even if only a little, something so horribly wrong is going to happen to everypony around you, to those you love… and to be trapped unable to do a single thing to stop it. None at all.”

Celestia’s head was low, hanging heavily on her shoulders as if it wear a great burden that she was struggling to keep aloft.
Her wings, normally glorious and lovely, were hanging just a little loosely out at her sides, as if she didn’t even have the energy to tuck them in properly.

Her mane and tail, normally so naturally vibrant and so alive, seemed to have lost their color almost entirely, the colors faded significantly. Her normally silvery coat was now a more dull shade of white, the faintest hint of gray instead appearing, and her voice… her voice sounded like a mother who’d lost her children/foals. She sat there on the ground, all her legs folded under herself, her eyes weary and her voice even more-so.
It would be virtually impossible for anycreature who might see her to believe that THIS was immortal, wise, powerful ruler of the grand pony nation of Equestria. This sad, broken, lonely mare who knelt out here on the ground before the statue of six very special ponies on this night under the light of the moon, and spoke to the statue like it was a dear friend.

“But I will not pretend to… to even have the slightest idea of the torment that you all… must carry with you now…”

And now she could not say anymore, as she choked up and began to sob.

Luna stepped forward now, crossing the soft grass swiftly and reaching her sister.
The Alicorn reached her arms forward, and wrapped the larger one in a hug, tight and soft simultaneously, gently stroking her mane and hold her close.

And there, on the cool grass under the moon and in front of the statue of the greatest heroes to ever live in Equestria’s history,
in the arms of her loving sister… Celestia of the Sun lifted up her voice, and wept.

A fateful meeting gone better then expected.

Days and months and soon several years passed after The Night of Plague incident, when Equestria had been suddenly beset by horrific and unnatural viruses from other worlds and even other dimensions entirely across the vastness of the Cosmos.
Countless ponies and other creatures had been infected and/or had died, but then ALL magically been resurrected by the heroic (and tragic) sacrifice of The Mane Six, who had performed an extremely powerful and almost unimaginable Magic Spell which combined each of The Elements of Harmony and utilized the very souls of the six themselves as the final tool to accomplish their ultimate goal, which was to draw in the entirety of the many plagues from every corner of the entire continent before any could spread out any further or doom anymore innocents… and absorb each one into their own bodies.

In that time, the princesses all worked together tirelessly to truly help and rebuild the realm, strengthening it whenever and wherever they could.
Celestia herself was extremely busy now, burying herself in the work and doing every single thing that she could to improve the lives of her subjects. She seemed to be obsessed with improving Equestria after the plagues, and indeed, progress was moving along at a much faster rate than it had a long time.

But Princess Luna knew what was really going on with her older sister, and her heart broke a little more each day and night as she saw Celestia forcing herself into every bit of work and study she could do to learn and relearn everything she could about Magic and history and the economy and so on.
The Princess of the Sun was being eaten alive by her guilt and regret, and was doing whatever she could to try and honor the legacy and memory of Equestria’s greatest heroes by keeping their home safe and making it truly strong, something to be proud of.
Her obsessive behavior had ultimately resulted in Luna getting involved, and a brief, yet deep, conversation between them both had resulted in Celestia agreeing to come with her sister into the Dream World and face her fears and problems head on, rather than letting them endlessly terrorize her day in, day out.

And now they stood together in the midst of the Dream World, before a great and terrible cloud of gray fog which, despite this realm being technically unreal, gave off a chilling aura.
Luna’s voice was just a little tense and nervous.
“She… THEY, are there, sister. Just beyond our sight.”

Celestia didn’t like that tone, it unnerved her as well. But this was it: she needed this.
And so she stepped forward through the mist, and stopped dead in her tracks as her wide eyes took in the sight of the THING that awaited her.

She and Luna stood in a wide area of black ground, smooth and hard. And in the very center… was Twilight. And the others.

“T-T-Twi…Twilight…?”
She spoke, her voice one of unveiled horror and grief as her shocked and rapidly tearful eyes beheld the singular twisted, nightmarish, hellish eldritch horror that had once been her beloved student, along with all her friends.

It was larger than Celestia herself, much larger, although she was almost a bit comparable in size to an Ursa Minor!
Her body was mostly rotted and partially spiked in places with sharp black branch-like protrusions, and there was a mix of blood and sweat thet strange fluids leaking down and falling off her giant form. She also was much huskier in shape(more like a real horse), and yet her body was horribly twisted and mutated now.

Her colors were faded, something of a dull brownish pink and purple, and her legs were scarred and a bit pale and, upon a brief closer look, no longer had any real hooves and instead had long broken claws akin to griffin talons and black in reddish color.
There also were apparently MULTIPLE pairs of legs, all of them faded deathly colors and having vicious claws, and a few were also in contact with the ground while others were tucked into the monster’s sides like a macabre idea of wings.
Her wings themselves were also tucked away, but even like this, anypony could see how they had no feathers at all and looked almost like wings of a huge mutated bat creature, the countless little spores and sparks of electrical energy coming off from them was also being cause for attention.

She now had several horns, and each was appropriately long for her greater size and similar to that of Chrysalis, in that it was gnarly and akin to a long curving twisted sword, and finally there was her head and face.
She no longer had any real lips on her much longer elongated head, and she had rows of large sharp knifelike fangs along her jaws and nonexistent lips that were practically all visible.
She also had a pair of bright, brining violet eyes and other pair dig different colors ones that were constantly appearing and disappearing on her head and neck.

From how she was positioned as she stood before them, the two sisters could see the horrifying sight of dozens of blood red and violet eyes, opening and closing and constantly fixed on the two Alicorns. The creature’s body was always bleeding and there seemed to be something like some kind of spectral entrails that were hanging and falling from the torso and fading away constantly, almost like they weren’t even real.
Those rows of eyes and legs, those horrific wings and the eyes that were arrayed on them as well and burning like fire…

Fear and grief were what the two sisters felt… but this was especially true for Celestia. She had pretty much manipulated their lives as best she could for them to come together and become friends, made them heroes and more, all for this one, singular, hellish purpose.

Celestia opened and closed her mouth several times, her words failing her at the sight of just what her beloved student and her friends had become after being stuck with these viruses for so long.
But at last, she managed to force them out.

“Twilight… it doesn’t mean anything now, not after… THIS. But I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

The big muster head nodded gently, and a magically clear voice answered.
“I know that you are, princess, and I forgive you. All of us do.”

“How? How can you just forgive me after all I’ve done to you, leading all of you on your whole lives and condemning you to this fate!? Especially you, Twilight?”

The towering monstrosity seemed to make a sort of chuckling sound, even though now it was a bit more strained and was like a sort of predatory clicking and deep gurgling.
“Princess Celestia, each of us six have already been changed so much. If none of us forgive you NOW, then when can we?”

“No, I mean-umm… it’s just…”
The princess sighed heavily.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Princess Celestia. Ultimately, regardless of what you’ve done, our choices were our own. It was the six of us who chose to take the plagues within ourselves, and through conversations with Discord we realized that The Night of Plague
was something that was going happen no matter what, eventually. Even though you did manipulate events so that we became best friends and grew into the mares we were, and still are deep down inside, we were the only ones who could do this.”

“But it was still I who lead you all on this path, you-you just said so yourself… Yourselves… oh, whatever!”
Celestia said painfully, almost crying out.

“And? So what if you did? Who else would have been able to save Equestria, and then the wider world? Who else would have been strong enough and willing enough to make this sacrifice? The Elements of Harmony pretty much bonded to us in a way that they never have before, we all know this because we’ve looked into the past and into the history of this power. Ask Luna, she also knew this as well as you yourself, Princess. We were pretty much born for our roles.”

Twilight’s voice was now in its famous egghead form as she explained her reasoning.
“We all got our Cutie Marks at the same time from the same method on the same day, we perfectly matched our individual Elements, despite our personal flaws, to such a degree that we could utilize the pure power of Harmony itself without having access to the the physical gems after they were destroyed, and we somehow refined our sanities even after becoming the bearers of each of these horrid diseases and mutations.”

The huge mutated entity now leaned its frightful head forward, even as its own great horns were burning/glowing brightly and creating a mystical barrier of orange light that separated it/them from the princesses, lest they somehow be infected in some mysterious manner.

“This is simply our lot in life, Princess Celestia. And in our travels and experiences, we’ve realized that ultimately we have nothing to be upset about, even if we DO look rather ghastly and all that obvious stuff, hehe…”
The fact that the six horrifically MERGED ponies were somehow able to still chuckle at their nightmarish appearance and situation was both worrying, and yet simultaneously also relieving.

“Besides, we embody Harmony itself like this far better than in any other way. We are in perfect harmony with ourselves and each other. If we weren’t, we’d have all lost our collective individuality and become nothing more a raging monster of endless pain and suffering.”

The creature was speaking in a gentle tone.
“And we have you to thank as well, Princess Celestia, for doing why you did and becoming the pony you were meant to be.”

“What? How? I concealed so much valuable information from you. I pushed you more than once into stressful situations that caused you unneeded anguish, I even forced you into the role of leadership without even so much as a heads up!”
The elder Princess said sadly with emotion thick in her voice, her regret for all the unnecessarily complex choices she made on full display.

“Princess, I didn’t say you were perfect, ok?”
Twilight chuckled a bit as she said that, and somehow she seemed to be smiling, even if her monstrous face didn’t show it very well.

“The most important thing about this whole messed up event as how much you’ve changed for the better.”
The Twilight-hybrid creature shifted its immense body just a bit as its voice became softer somehow.

“You learned to truly refine your way of ruling Equestria, and have done so for the better. You have become so much more open with the knowledge you hold and the ability to share it effectively.”
The giant entity spoke with pride now, gazing down upon the Princess, and now more eyes seemed to open up or appear outright on the head as it spoke.
“You have grown so much more in Integrity and Compassion, Generosity and Devotion, and Knowledge. And finally you have become the transparent, deeply involved, and just wonderfully awesome ruler you have always been able to be, especially now that the worst is finally passed and you have no need to fear it coming anymore.”

Celestia could barely speak, and behind her, Luna smiled. It was true, every word, and she wasn’t so petty as to feel left out again or anything else like that. The Princess of the Moon had learned not to let those evil thoughts make any headway into her heart anymore.

“But yeah, you could DEFINITELY work on your Optimism, though.”

A pair of light blue eyes shined brightly, and it was clear whose voice this was.

“Come now, Pinkie. We agreed on who would do the talking here, ok?”

“Sorry! I just needed to say that!”
And with that, the eyes closed as did all the other pairs, and only Twilight’s purple ones were visible again.

“But truly Princess, do not be so sad, ok? We are fine, even if we don’t look it. We’ve also been able to see across the borders of worlds and beyond. We are so very happy to be seeing that you princesses have all been so very active in helping the lands, both in day and night, since we did this and had to leave.”

Luna stepped forward as well now and stood next to her big sister.
“Are… are any of you lonely, in a manner of speaking?”

The great infected amalgamation shook its head.
“No, we receive regular visits here Discord. And also… we are traveling a bit and looking for new places to go to without needing to worry about infecting others with our viruses.”

The two sisters sighed at that, but it wasn’t too bad, after all. Discord loved them, especially little Fluttershy, and would not let anything worse happen to them. He’d be doing everything he could to make them all feel more comfortable with their horrifying and ever-mutating conditions, for example.
Suddenly, those vast wings, complete with branch-like spikes and several massive fiery red eyes on each wing, stretched upwards.

“I’m sure-we all are-that we’ll be able to see you all again, Princesses. And not just in dreams like this, but in real life face to face, and not have to worry about infecting anypony.”

Luna nodded along with her sister, but now could feel a certain strain.
“Sister, we must leave now. The barrier between the worlds due to Twil-their presence is weakening the barrier between our realities. If we stay longer, it will collapse and they may be summoned to our world physically and spread their contagions.”

“What? Oh dear… but fine.

“It has been frightfully tragic to see how horribly the plagues have warped your bodies, my fiends. But the fact that your minds and very souls have survived this is… such a wonderfully welcome surprise after all this hardship.”

“Farewell Princesses, take care of Equestria and each other. Oh, and Princess Celestia?”

The Alicorn in question turned to look back.

“Just… please give our families a “Love You” from each of us, ok?”

The Princess smiled.
“I will. And goodbye, Champions of Harmony.”

“Until next time, Celestia and Luna!”

And with that, the portal to the Dream Realm closed, and the two princesses awoke in Celestia’s bedroom.

THE END