The Everlasting Drawback Of Immortality

“We are gathered here today, to honour our fellow guards that have fallen in their fight to protect the ones they have sworn to protect. Against all odds, they threw themselves sacrificially into battle to defend these ponies here, including me. They showed strength, determination, and originality.” Celestia said sadly while standing before seven graves. Three of them were night guards and four of them day guards.

Nearly every Element Of Harmony shed tears for every one of the deceased guards, except for Rarity who still was asleep in one tent. Raritys’ wounds were healing at an abnormal rate and a Pegasus guard with some knowledge in medicine told everypony that she will surely survive. Every earth-pony and Pegasi guard that survived the mighty swish of the Timberwolf Prime also looked down at the graves. One peculiar purple Pegasus looked down at one specific grave and muttered to himself.

“First-Lieutenant Red Strife. I would have never thought that you would leave the world before me.” He lowered his head and let one tear fall to the ground. “You were always there for me when I was new in the guards. You showed me how to fight and how to handle things. I will miss you.” He saluted once.

“You had a strong bond with First-Lieutenant Red Strife, am I right?” He heard a warm voice speaking from behind him. He knew whom it was.

“Yes, your majesty. He was a very important pony to me and also a fantastic officer. He was one of those who could have made it to the top… if they had the time.” He swished over his wet eyes and looked determined at Princess Celestia. “But this is no time to mourn over the dead, as a guard. We need to keep strong for the ones that have not yet seen much death.”

He saluted once and walked back over to the other guards while Celestia looked at him with a happy smile. ‘Yes he could have gotten to the top, just like you.’ She thought silently while she also walked away from the grave. She looked around and counted the ponies. Four healthy civilians, two badly injured civilians, one badly injured Pegasus night guard, two badly injured earth-pony day guards, one exhausted unicorn day guard and two Pegasi day guards, one injured the other one healthy and her sister.

She realized that apart from Rarity, one other being was amiss at the funeral. Aren was missing. If she remembered correctly, he wasn’t seen since he went into one of the tents three hours ago. ‘He should have attended the funeral since he trained four of them.’ Celestia thought quietly. Of course, she knew that he saw many deaths in his life, but that was no reason to stay away from a funeral.

“What happened?” She heard somepony asking. Turning around, Celestia saw Rarity standing outside her tent, looking at the graves.

“RARITY!” her friends nearly screamed and ran to her to engulf her in one giant group hug. Rarity just looked baffled.

“Girls, not that I have anything against a show of affection, but what prêt ell is the reason for this?” She asked in between giggles. Her friends just continued to embrace her.

“Oh Rarity. Ah thought ya were gone when that Timberwolf got ya. Ah am just so happy *sob* that ya’ll are still here.” When Applejack said that, Rarity remembered the bite of the Timberwolf and she touched her neck that was still bandaged. She winced a little when she touched her. This made her friends back away because they thought that they put her in pain with their hug.

“Oh I am so sorry, d-does it still hurt?” Fluttershy asked with saddened eyes. Her friends all looked at her with hopeful gazes and Rarity couldn’t feel warmer under all the affection she was receiving.

“Oh please girls, I am alright. It just hurts a little. *gasp* Applejack! How is your leg?” She asked quickly turning to Applejack who was just raising an eyebrow, but answered quickly.

“Mah Leg is fine, Rares. It’s just broken, nothing especially new for me.” Rarity sighed in relief and then she looked over at the graves and felt a pain in her stomach. Turning to her friends he asked.

“Who is buried there?” Her friends looked at each other with worried eyes. Finally, Twilight spoke up.

“You don’t remember?” Rarity just shook her head with shocked eyes. Has she forgotten something? What happened?

“No, Twilight. The last thing I remember is seeing Applejack being bitten in the leg. Then I turned around and then nothing. The next thing I remember is waking up in that tent.” The eyes were now genuinely worried. Rarity looked around them. “Could you please tell me, what happened after that?” They slowly nodded to each other and let Rainbow tell the tale since Pinkie speaks too much and Fluttershy doesn’t want attention directed to her.

“Well I could see everything pretty clearly from the skies. When you turned around, you were bitten by a Timberwolf at the neck.” Rarity touched her neck again and winced again. “Before he could drag you away to the forest, Princess Celestia smashed into him, and he fell into pieces. She then dragged you over to the last chariot.” She gestured at the utterly destroyed remains of the chariot.

“While this happened… something… on the other side of the clearing happened and one Timberwolf suddenly grew to like 100 hoofstrides. The guards fought the monster in an epic battle. Somewhere in the battle you ended up at some tree while the guards used the chariot to fight against him. It looked like we would win, but then he ate a tree and everything looked like, our last hour has arrived.”

“Then this hu-mehn-guy came and obliterated the wolf into million pieces. When we looked around and saw your body we-“ She couldn’t continue, because of the tears that now suddenly formed in her eyes. Rarity looked nervously at the teary eyes of her friends.

“It couldn’t have been that badly,” She asked with a forced happy tone while her friends still averted her gaze. “Right?” Fluttershy just turned around and ran away, since she didn’t want to hear the tale again. The remaining friends could understand her. None of them wanted to hear it again. Applejack was the first to speak again.

“When Ah saw you with all that blood, Ah thought you wouldn’t make it.” Rarity couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It couldn’t have been that bad, could it? “Ah just held ya in mah hooves and told ya’ll that everything would be fine, but Ah knew that ya wouldn’t make it. Ah looked in yer eyes and saw that ya have accepted to…” She couldn’t continue due to her breaking in tears. Rarity didn’t know how to feel. It just felt strange.

“So then how did I… you know… survive?” She asked the group. Twilight answered relatively quickly.

“The Princess said that apparently Aren healed you.” The human? Why would he do something like that even though she wasn’t exceedingly polite to him? “She told me that he started to scream fiercely and that he pulled something out of his head. He said that this was half of his soul and then he gave it to you so that you could survive.” Rarity looked down at her body and inspected it.

“So you mean he put his… soul into me?” Twilight nodded.

“Part of it, yes.” She still looked at her body, but then turned to her friends.

“So what does this mean to me? Could this have bad consequences?” She asked her friends who had confused stares on them. Twilight looked at the floor.

“Actually, we don’t know. I was unconscious at that time.” She answered, and Rarity looked at the rest of them who just shook their heads.

“We were just so happy to see ya survive that we totally forgot to ask him.” Rarity looked around the clearing.

“Say where it this hu- er Aren? I want to thank him for what he did to me.” The gathered friends looked around, but couldn’t spot him.

“The last time I saw him, he went into that tent over there.” Pinkie pointed her hoof at a pretty sizeable military tent.

“Thank you Pinkie. I’ll be back as soon as possible.” With that said she walked to the tent. When she stopped at the entrance, she realized that there was no door to knock.

“Helloho, Sir Aren?” No answer. “May I come in please? It’s Rarity.” Still no answer, but she waited a little longer. “Alright, I’ll come in if it’s ok.” Still not hearing an answer, Rarity went into the tent and saw the human sitting in a chair, clutching his head with both hands, backside turned to her.

“Sir Aren, there you are. I just wanted to… Sir Aren?” She got closer when he didn’t react. While walking closer, she asked. “Sir Aren? Are you alright?” Still no reaction. When she walked around him, she saw that his eyes were closed while holding onto his head. He seemed to be asleep.

“Sir Aren? Hello?” She said while being close to him. “Sir Aren, wake up!” Still nothing. Rarity held up one hoof and poke at one elbow of him. The elbow slipped to the side, and Aren lost his hold. He fell to his right. Rarity seeing the human falling on her, quickly moved back and saw how he impacted with the floor face first.

She looked down at the still not moving human and did the first thing that came to her mind. She screamed her lungs out. Suddenly the tent flaps opened and every pony in the clearing rushed in. When they saw him, they all gasped. There was blood coming out from under his head. Princess Celestia quickly walked over to him and gently turned him around to see where the blood was coming from.

They all gasped again when they saw the awkwardly bent nose. This was also the origin of all this blood. “He probably broke his nose, when he fell on the floor.” Celestia said analytically and turned to Rarity. “Did you see how he fell?” Rarity couldn’t react. There was just too much going on in her head.

‘Is he dead? Is it my fault? Why did I have to nudge his elbow?’ Such thoughts flew through her head at an amazing rate.

“RARITY!” Rarity winced and turned to Celestia. “Did you see how he fell?” she just asked gently. Rarity began to cry.

“I just wanted to thank him. I didn’t want this to happen. It was not my fault!” She said while hyperventilating. Celestia got to Rarity and placed one hoof at her shoulder.

“Rarity, you need to calm down. This is not your fault. Just tell us what happened.” She gently said to her while nuzzling her head. Rarity slowly calmed down and could form sentences again.

“Well I-I-I just came in here and wanted to-to thank him. Then I saw him sitting at a table while clutching his head. I walked over to him, but he wouldn’t react, so I just nudged him in the side, and he fell over to the *sniff* to the floor.” Celestia just continued to soothe Rarity.

“Shhh everything is alright. This is not your fault.” Then she turned to her sister. “Luna, can you look into his dreams?” Luna crooked her eyebrows to show that she didn’t want to. She couldn’t stand that arrogant human. “Luna please.” Celestia told her after some waiting. Luna looked at him and sighed silently. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem, sister.” Luna closed her eyes, and a soft glow surrounded her horn. This continued on for several seconds. Then the horn stopped glowing, and Luna opened her eyes. She looked at her sister and shook her head. “I am sorry Tia, but he doesn’t dream. I think he’s in a coma.” The eyes of Celestia widened and she began levitating the human gently.

“Then there is no time to waste. We must get him to Canterlot immediately.” She got stopped by her sister.

“But how? All of our chariots are destroyed.” Celestia cursed silently under her breath. How could she forget about the destroyed chariots?

“Then I need to fly him myself.” She moved around her sister.

“But Tia. You need to go to Queen Chrysalis!” Celestia turned around.

“Then you go.”

“But who looks after the camp with the many injured guards then?” She again cursed under her breath. She knew that second-lieutenant Purple Edge was a remarkable fighter, but he alone can’t defend a group of injured guards, but she also knew that he wouldn’t be strong enough to fly Aren to Canterlot. She needed to sacrifice one of the three things. Either Aren or the camp or the audience. She waited and pondered about this. It was no easy decision.

“Princess, Fluttershy said she has an idea.” Suddenly every eye turned to the shy yellow Pegasus. Rainbow pushed her to the front.

“Yes, Fluttershy?” Celestia asked warmly. The shy Pegasus just hid behind her mane and shivered, but then spoke in a quiet voice.

“Maybe Arens’ friend cou-could fly him to-to Canterlot.” His friend? What was she talking ab- and then Celestia knew what she meant. The Stormbreaker. It could carry Aren while the last remaining guard could accompany him. So Luna would be able to defend the camp while Celestia and the elements would meet Chrysalis. Celestia looked at Fluttershy with a maternal smile.

“That is a wonderful idea, Fluttershy.” Celestia levitated him out to the open and searched around for the animal, but it was nowhere to be seen.

“Is there a problem, your majesty?” Purple Edge asked just arriving at the tent.

“Yes, High-general Aren is in a deep coma, and we need him to get to Canterlot immediately. We will search for his pet, and you are to escort him and his pet to Canterlot to a hospital.” Purple Edge looked at Aren and nodded dutifully while saluting. They both searched around the clearing but couldn’t find it.

Suddenly they heard a loud whistle from behind their backs. It apparently came from Applejack. Before they could ask why she whistled, a sudden gust of wind made their heads turn to it. It was the Stormbreaker just hovering above the ground looking at its’ master. Suddenly it turned to Celestia, and she could feel anger in its’ eyes, but before it could do anything a yellow shy Pegasus flew to it.

“Shh, everything is alright.” The gaze of the Stormbreaker turned to Fluttershy. “We didn’t hurt him. The one who whistled is my friend Applejack because we need you to bring him to Canterlot. You know, he’s very sick, and we can not help him here.” The Stormbreaker looked back at its’ master and then back to Fluttershy. “Thank you and please be gentle.”

Fluttershy hovered down to Celestia. “You can lay him on his back. He will carry him.” Celestia sighed in relief and floated Arens’ body gently to the Stormbreakers’ back. Purple Edge readied himself to follow the animal, but it didn’t start. It just looked at the purple guard.

“He wants you to climb on his back, if that’s ok with you.” Fluttershy told him. The guard just looked at the animal, but decided to comply and climbed on its’ back behind Aren. The Stormbreaker then looked at Celestia expectantly. Celestia didn’t know what it wanted.

“Ehm Princess?” Celestia looked down at Fluttershy. “I don’t know why, bu-but he asks you to lend him some magic, if that’s alright.” Celestia raised an eyebrow at the animal. Maybe it was smarter than she thought. Nonetheless, she did it. She casted a little beam of magic that hit the Animal. When she used up the planned amount of magic, the bird let out a high-pitched screech, and suddenly, three different kinds of barriers were around Aren and Purple Edge.

‘It can use magic?’ Celestia thought impressed, but before she could ask, the Stormbreaker suddenly started off like it got shot out of a cannon. It instantly sped up even more and soon multiple booms were heard. It was unmistakably flying even faster than before. ‘Oh I just hope they will be alright.’

Purple Edge was totally frightened by the velocity he was moving, but somehow he didn’t feel any gravity pull or any wind passing by. ‘Maybe those barriers block that off.’ He thought. He looked down at the ground, and his heart made a stop. They were moving faster than he thought.

“If this keeps up, we are in Canterlot in not even five minutes.” He mostly talked to himself. After three minutes, they arrived at Canterlot, and the Stormbreaker gently landed on the platforms for chariots. The guards quickly rushed to it, not knowing what it is, but the guard spoke up.

“Second-Lieutenant Purple Edge. High-General Aren needs medical attention immediately. He currently has a broken nose and is in a deep coma.” He dutifully exclaimed. The guards complied and ran into the city to arrange a medical transport. Not long afterwards, a chariot in white, landed besides them, and Aren was levitated onto it. The Stormbreaker took off and flew back to the Everfree Forest to do whatever it wanted to do.

“We also need at least two medical transporters and two chariots to be sent to a clearing to area A-79 in the Everfree Forest. There has been an attack and many guards, and civilians are injured and deceased. I will guide the transporters to the area.”

“Yes sir!” The guards exclaimed with a salute and ran into the castle. Some minutes later, the wanted transporters came, and Purple Edge started away while they were following.

20 Minutes earlier.

The Stormbreaker bolted away, and Celestia looked after it. She just hoped that everything will be alright. Just when she turned around Twilight came out of the tent.

“Princess, we found something on the table.” She levitated a little red sphere to the princess. Celestia overtook the levitation and looked at the sphere.

“What is this?” She asked her student, who just levitated a little piece of parchment to her.

“I don’t know, but this was beside it.” Celestia looked at it and began to read.

Celestia,

Use this if you are not able to convince Chrysalis.

Aren

She looked over to the sphere again. ‘He still thought about us, even when he was this damaged.’ A small smile appeared on Celestias’ face. Determined she used a spell and a little black void appeared before her. Twilight looked at it with big eyes. She knew that spell, but she wasn’t able to use it because it was way too hard.

“Is that a pocket-dimension?” Celestia smirked at Twilight.

“I’m proud that you know what this is my most faithful student. Yes, this is a pocket-dimension. I am pretty sure that you also know exactly, what a pocket dimension is, right Twilight?” Twilight nodded with enthusiasm.

“A pocket-dimension is a little dimension a magician can create to store items so you can access them from everywhere in the world.” Twilight smiled once. “To open up a gateway to a pocket dimension is not difficult, but pocket dimensions are bound to a single entity. The reason why so few unicorns are able to use one is, because of the difficulty to create the dimension in the first place.”

Celestia smiled and nodded once to her student. “A wonderful explanation.” She exclaimed warmly while putting the two items into her pocket dimension. When they were safely stored, she closed the gateway and went back into the tent. She looked around and saw everypony staring down at the bloody stain at the floor.

It just looked out of place in the clean tent. When she entered the ponies looked up at Celestia. “Aren is in safe hooves and will make it back to Canterlot, but that does not mean that we should head back too.” She looked around the eyes of the relieved ponies. “We will continue our journey in around 20 minutes. High-general Aren placed the port-platform just outside the tent, and we should be able to use it to get to the Changeling Wastelands.

Everypony nodded while some of the guards, that were able to, saluted. “The injured guards will be staying here with my sister while the Elements Of Harmony and I continue on our journey. Any questions?” Nopony seems to have any. “Then I will wait at the platform in around 15 minutes.” She smiled warmly at the gathered ponies and went outside.

The next 15 minutes were not terribly eventful. Celestia talked with some guards, about how they are faring and if their injuries are hurting while the elements talked with each other, mainly with Rarity. Some of the guards made themselves comfortable in the tents and others helped Luna on the lookout for danger.

When the time passed, all of the six friends gathered around the platform. The friends looked at the platform and had some nervous glances on them.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Rarity asked the princess.

“Well I never heard of that spell, but I am pretty sure that Aren wouldn’t do anything to harm us. We should trust him.” Everypony slowly nodded, but no one wanted to be the first to enter.

“Well I trust Aren.” Said a motivated Twilight that stepped forward. When she stood on the platform nothing happened. She hopped around, but nothing changed. “It-“ And suddenly she was gone. The ponies got startled by the sudden vanishing of their favorite purple unicorn. They nervously glanced at the platform.
“I trust sir Aren, too.” Said Rarity and also stepped on the platform. Again nothing happened. “Why-“ and she also vanished. The ponies weren’t startled this time.

“I think the platform activates itself via voice. I think if I go on top of it and say something, I will teleport to the destination.” After saying this, she walked on the platform. “Port!” She said but nothing happened. The ponies lifted their eyebrows. Celestia began blushing, but before she walked out of the platform she vanished.

After this, the remaining ponies did the same and also vanished in the same manner. The last one who went through the portal was Rainbow Dash since she didn’t want to let Fluttershy have the opportunity to back out. When she was in the platform, she looked around and suddenly there was a light and the scenery changed to a desert.

Well it wasn’t entirely a desert. It looked more like a normal plane, just without the grass and with cracks going through the ground. Simply put, it looked like farmland while a drought. In front of her were the other ponies, but they were not alone. Some changelings were also present. Rainbow Dash saw them and instantly flew up to one.

“Hey, what are you doing to my friends?” she asked in a loud voice. The changeling she was screaming at, raised an eyebrow, but before it could answer, somepony else spoke up.

“Rainbow Dash! These are our escorts. They will bring us to Chrysalis.” Twilight said with an exhorting voice.

“That’s Queen Chrysalis for you.” Said one of the changelings. Twilight lowered her head a little in an apologetic bow.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect.” The changeling huffed once and looked around the group.

“Are these all of you?” He directed this question at Celestia.

“Yes, I think we are complete.” She said with a warm smile. The changeling nodded and gestured with one hoof to a direction. After some time, the ponies complied and began walking in that direction. They walked for about ten minutes until they came to a divide. It was rather deep and dark, and they couldn’t see the bottom.

“This way!” The changeling said and showed to a path that led down to the divide. Reluctantly they followed the changeling down the path. It took another five minutes until they arrived at the bottom. It was uncommonly dark, and they couldn’t actually see anything that was further away than two meters.

Suddenly something like an earthquake happened and the ponies felt the vibrations going through their bodies. And then they saw it. A wall moved up and behind the wall was a tunnel. It emanated a green glow, which pulsated in a tactful pulse. The changeling walked into it.

“Welcome to the hive.”