There was another loud rumble and the entire castle of Canterlot shook. Celestia fell over, knocking Luna over and in a domino effect a line of guards standing nearby. There was no time to find this funny; they needed to move. Both alicorns picked themselves up and made for the spiraling stairs of the castle.
They followed the stairs all the way down as far as they could go before coming to a stop in front of a metal door. Celestia simply kicked the door open, not bothering with the lock, and the royal sisters ran into the dungeon-like room beyond.
“Princesses!” Twilight Sparkle gasped. She and her friends were standing in a half-circle pointed at the wall, all wearing the elements of harmony. “We’ve been waiting, have you decided?”
The two princesses exchanged sad glances. “I’m afraid we have not.” Celestia said.
“You have to decide soon, the end is near.” Twilight shouted over another loud rumble. There was a shatter from above and Celestia guessed one of the large windows had broken.
“This is a heavy weight fer the princess to bear, Twi.” Applejack said. “Choosing one pony ta survive while the others die must be hard.”
Another tremor shook the ground beneath their hooves. Fluttershy let out a squeal of fear and covered her eyes. Rarity placed a comforting hoof on her shoulder and whispered kindly. Rainbow Dash flew up into the air and started a sort of pacing, but with flying. Pinkie’s hair had gone flat and she bounced up and down halfheartedly, every once in awhile saying things like, “Please smile, everypony…” and “Death can’t stop the happies… can it?”
“It doesn’t matter how hard it is; we have half an hour before this earthquake shakes Equestria to a pile of rubble!” Twilight snapped. Instantly she wore a look of regret. “I’m sorry Applejack, I’m just…” she trailed off.
“Ah know.” The farm pony said. She wrapped one of her forelegs around Twilight’s shoulders as the unicorn gave into the stress of the situation and a few tears slid down her cheeks.
“My family… all of them will die and I won’t have time to say goodbye.” Twilight cried softly.
Suddenly, Pinkie’s bouncing stopped and she fell to the stone floor of the room. She rolled over onto her back and stared at the cobweb-covered ceiling. “Inky and Blinkie,” she whispered, “I never even saw you after I moved to Ponyville. I never even knew if you got your cutie marks. Now it’s too late and we’re all going to be gone.”
“My animals are all going to be gone.” Fluttershy said in a hoarse voice. “I’ve cared for Angel since right after I got my cutie mark, and I took good care of all my animals and loved them so much… now they’re going to die and they won’t even know why.”
“Mah family are scattered all over Equestria.” Applejack stated. “They might not even know what’s goin’ on before they die ‘cause some are so far away they don’t even get recent news.”
Rarity remained silent, slow tears falling from her face. Rainbow was similar; they were keeping their pain inside. Celestia and Luna looked at each other, blinked away tears, then sat on the cold, stone floor of the room. They all sat in silence for several minutes, Celestia staring around the room in hopes of some inspiration that could save her beloved kingdom. All she saw was the stone walls, the flickering torches, a large circle drawn on the wall, and the dust floating in the air that was upset by the rumbling.
Each rumble counted another minute on the ticking clock that was Equestria’s life. “I wish it didn’t have to end like this.” Celestia whispered to her sister. “After thousands of years, Equestria is defeated by an earthquake.”
Luna looked over at Celestia, her eyes wet but the night princess refused to cry. “I can’t believe that merely six years after my release, Equestria is to come to an end… Can’t you stop it sister?”
Celestia felt a ball of lead in her stomach. Her sister had such sorrow in her eyes; sorrow that she wished she could cure. “You know that if I could, I would.”
Several more minutes of silence proceeded, interrupted only by soft sobs and rumbles from the earthquake. Suddenly, the silence was broken by a much louder sound. “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!”
Everypony turned to see Rainbow Dash with her forelegs crossed, hovering in midair. “We have the Elements of Harmony, we have to two most powerful ponies in the world, and we have a city of unicorns right above our heads! We have so much magic, but we can’t stop one measly earthquake?”
“Rainbow…” Twlight started, stepping forward. “We’ve tried everything.”
“Can’t we just move to the moon until the earthquake is over?” Rainbow asked. “Luna survived a thousand years up there!”
“That’s because Luna wasn’t on the moon; she was in the moon. And she’s an almost immortal being.” Twilight explained. “Anypony else would suffocate.”
“Well, there has to be something. What if we get everypony up into the clouds with your cloudwalking spell or something?”
“There’s no way we can cast a spell on everypony in Equestria, let alone get to everypony in Equestria in the few minutes left.” Luna spoke up.
“But… but… we can’t die like this…” Rainbow landed, her wings drooping and her head hanging.
Suddenly there was a crash upstairs. It sounded like a wall had collapsed. There were muffled screams of panic and the sounds of running hooves.
“The flood will come soon.” Rarity stated. “Then we’ll all drown.”
All six mares turned expectantly to Celestia. “Please, princess, you have to choose.” Twilight said.
Celestia held her head in her hooves, finally giving in to the stress. “I-I can’t.” she said. There was shocked silence until Celestia felt a tug on her mane. She looked up and saw Twilight smiling sadly at her.
“Princess, if it helps, I won’t go. Only one pony can get through and I’m not leaving my friends to die alone.”
“Me either.” Rainbow Dash said.
“Ne neither either.” Pinkie whispered, unable to speak as loudly as normal from the shock of death approaching.
“Neither shall I.”
“Ah won’t either.”
“Me either…”
Then Celestia knew what she had to do. There was only one pony she would send to survive, the one that she had been afraid to send because… she just didn’t want to let her go. She stood and walked over to the kicked-open door.
“I’ll be back.” She said. “There’s only about five minutes left; get started on opening the portal.”
Twilight nodded to her friends. Each nodded glumly back to her, and they formed the half-circle in front of the circle drawn on the wall again. Twilight stood at the center point that was directly in front of the circle. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and concentrated. All her friends did the same.
Luna watched as all six mares floated up into the air, necklaces and in Twilight’s case tiara glowing. Last time I saw this was when I was Nightmare Moon. she thought.
The symbols of the different elements shot out of the necklaces over to the circle, each sticking to the wall and creating a glowing part of the drawn shape. Soon all the glowing element-beams had formed a complete circle on the wall. Twilight opened her eyes and they were glowing bright white with power. A bright rainbow shot out of the group into the center of the portal.
All six collapsed to the floor. Twilight kept her eyes opened as they faded to their normal purple and watched the circle absorb the rainbow of light. It swirled inside until it finally stopped and created a picture of a waving field of green. The place on the other side of the portal seemed much more peaceful than Equestria currently was.
Suddenly, there was a flash and Celestia reappeared. With her was a small, white alicorn filly with a red mane and tail. She clutched Celestia’s foreleg. “M-mommy, what’s going on?” she asked.
Luna looked questioningly at her sister, who nodded confirmation. “Good choice, sister.” Luna said.
The mane six nodded their approval as well. They had moved away from the portal and were sitting in sort of a group hug for comfort. As each looked at each other, they realized they had made the right choice to stay and die with their friends instead of leaving them behind.
“Lauren, there’s a lot to explain and mommy doesn’t have much time.” Celestia told her daughter, picking up the filly with her magic and hugging her. “You have to go. It’s safe on the other side; I promise.”
“But mommy-” Lauren’s eyes filled with tears at the thought of leaving her mother.
Celestia, looking at the fearful eyes of her daughter, wished more than anything she could fix this. But there was nothing to do. She took a deep breath as another rumble shook the ground. The end is so near…
“You can’t stay here anymore, Lauren. I wish I could let you, but I can’t. But you get to go to a place called ‘Earth’. There are these monkey creatures there, and when you go there you can be one too. I just need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Remember that your mommy loves you.” Celestia set the filly down and nudged her towards the portal. “And tell everyone on Earth about us. Spread the story of Equestria, and spread the magic of friendship.”
“But mommy…” tears poured down Lauren’s face.
There was another great rumble and chunks of the stone ceiling fell out. “Goodbye, Lauren.” Celestia pushed the filly into the portal. “I’m so sorry…” Just as the filly passed through the portal, screaming that she didn’t want to go and wanted to stay with ‘mommy’, water rushed down the stairs and into the room. Another rumble and the dungeon room collapsed, closing off the portal.
The last thought Celestia had before getting knocked unconscious by a chunk of stone from the ceiling was, I just sent my only daughter into a barely known world of cruel beings… but it was the only way…
Lauren sat in the field of grass, looking around frantically for the portal she had just come through, but it had disappeared. She was all alone in this place without her mother. But her mother had asked her to do something, and by Faust Lauren would do it. She was already feeling confident as she calmed down and thought about it. I have a mission, just like those books about the pegasus!
Wait… Faust? Lauren liked that name.
