Rise of the High Bloods

....................(((...))).....................

("""" In the Citadel Castle..."""")

(Flashback)

They did not have time to move the Sun and the Moon on that day. The Moon was rising in the East and the Sun was setting in the West, but they just hovered in their respective poles, unmoving completely. To Celestia's right, the setting evening sky was painted a somber amber and tangerine color as the Sun stayed there, frozen in place. To her left, the night was rising with an empty, dark navy blue hue as the Moon, too, simply hovered in place, frozen.

Her sister, Luna, was also to her left. The girl's hair was messy, matted, and unruly. The magic had long left their hair, leaving them in their natural state, Celestia's pink hair and Luna's turquoise hair now short and naturally fibrous. Their war dresses were battered and torn, their golden blood was seeping from deep cuts and lacerations from the titanic fights that occurred only moments ago. But now that was over. Finished.

There was no more war.

It had ended.

The world around them filled with an unnatural silence unlike anything that any lonely night or any lazy day could bring. There was simply a vacancy in the air. Something was just, plain wrong with the way the world was now.

Maybe it was the fact that the wind was slowly dying. Not like "the wind is settling down" dying, but as if the breeze itself was dying because Nebula was no longer there to stir it back up again to it's normal, vibrant, free self again.

Maybe it was because the plants' flora was a slightly more grey tone than it was earlier. Terra always did like her plants to look as beautiful as they possibly could. Now that she, too, was gone, the plants looked as if they were simply living for the sake of existing, as if they had simply forsaken the beauty that they once held in protest to what the two remaining gods had just done.

But Celestia didn't care. Or, at least, she didn't at the time. The war was won, Luna was safe, and so was humanity.

That was all that mattered.

That was all that ever mattered.

Luna made a sudden movement to Celestia's left and she whipped around to see what it was. Luna was raising her right arm and looking at it, the Elements of Harmony forming the golden armor that covered it. Luna was carrying the Elements of Generosity, Loyalty, and Honesty; while, on Celestia's left arm, Celestia carried the Elements of Laughter, Kindness, and the most powerful and elusive of all six: Magic.

The smell of ozone still emanated from the place where Stella and her army, The Collective, had once stood. After ten long years, there was finally a time to rest and take in everything that's gone on since the war's inception.

But when Celestia tried to, she couldn't remember anything that was worth remembering. She felt as empty as the new world before her now.

She felt a void where she should've been feeling victory. This drink, she realized, had no taste to her.

"It's over. Finally it's over," Celestia said, trying her best to put up a sincere smile as Luna ignored her and continued to look at her Elements as she took the armor off of her arm. Her sister seemed to be in deep thought as she gazed at the artifacts.

"Luna...?" Celestia asked, now starting to get visibly worried. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

Luna clenched her teeth and hurled the armor with all her might, screaming a bloodcurdling scream of anger and sadness as she fell to her knees, burying her face into her fists and bawling her eyes out.

"Luna!" Celestia cried out as she dove to the ground, cradling her weeping sister as she struggled beneath her grip, her entire body convulsing with repressed emotions. "What's wrong?!"

"They're gone, Celestia!" She sobbed, still looking at the empty spot where the army once stood, their march forward halted by two of their siblings who had stayed in the blast in order to ensure the trap. "They're gone... All gone..."

Then, reality dawned upon Celestia.

They were all gone.

Every.

Last.

One.

They were the only ones left. The sisters Sun and Moon.

The realization made her hug her sister even tighter, holding back her tears so as to try and calm down her distraught sister.

"Shhhhhhhhh... Shhhhhhhhhhhhh.... It's okay..." She said as her sister continued heaving out her tears beneath her. " I'm here... so is Cadance... We're both here for you..."

"I miss them, Cel. I miss Mom. I miss... Dad." She wept, holding onto Celestia's arm with a fierce grip as she held her arm close. Those two sentences proverbially broke the dam as tears leaked down Celestia's cheeks.

"I know, Luna. I know." She choked as she slid down to the ground behind Luna and held her to her chest, rocking her back and forth as Celestia dug her head into her shoulder. "I miss them too. More than you can possibly imagine."

As Celestia was embracing her sister, she felt her fingers run over a cut on her back. Luna did not flinch, but Celestia raised her hand from around Luna's back so as to not cause her any more pain than what she was already feeling.

However, as she raised it from her trembling sister's back, she couldn't help but see what was on her hand. Ichor. The golden blood that ran through the veins of every High Blood. She saw that her hand was covered with her sister's own blood.

It was Luna who had given it that name, so many years ago when they were young and the world around them was so very large and strange. She, like a few of her siblings, could listen to the Echoes of the Universe and hear their vague teachings of the world around them. One day, she ran to Light and Dark and told them of her discovery, their parents so proud to discover that their first Observer had interpreted her very first encounter with the Echoes.

But that was in the past, when siblings didn't shed the Ichor of their fellow siblings.

That was when she was innocent.

As she looked at her hand now, covered in the blood of her weeping sister, she felt only one word come to mind when she thought about herself.

Tainted.

She could no longer pretend to be fearless.

The tears flowed like waterfalls.

This was not how things were supposed to happen. This is not how Light and Dark wanted things to be. This war was far too horrible, to costly for anyone to possibly wish something like this to happen.

No brother should try to kill their sister.

No sister should try to kill their brother.

And yet it happened. Which left Celestia feeling just as guilty as the others.

She spent so much time crying, that she didn't even realize that Luna had lifted her head and saw her elder sister crying, and took her and pushed her close to her chest, just as Celestia had not moments ago. Celestia returned the gesture with a hug.

After all of this, Luna still loved her sister.

After all of this, she still remained pure of heart and soul.

Celestia felt a twinge of something that she hadn't felt in a long time tug at her soul.

Hope.

"Thank you, Luna." Celestia hiccuped as she pulled herself out of the hug and put her hands on Luna's shoulders, looking straight into her sapphire eyes. "I swear on Mother and Father's names that I will protect you until my absolute final breath leaves my body. I swear it. I don't ever want to see you hurt ever again. I swear it, Luna, I swear it."

She took her little sister's hands and held them between her own.

"This world is what we make it to be, now. It is what our parents had entrusted us to do when we were created, and it still hasn't changed. We owe them that much." Celestia said, her amethyst eyes now red from the tears. “They believed that the humans had purpose, and I'll be damned if I let their work go unfinished. We will build an empire for the humans, we will provide them with knowledge, and we will guide them as best as we can for them to be the best that they can be."

Suddenly, Luna's smile slightly faded as she took her hands from Celestia's; turning her head slightly away in shame.

"Luna?" Celestia whispered.

"Do you really believe that we deserve to rule? Do you really believe that we deserve such responsibility and power after all of the sin that we have experienced?" Luna sniffed as her sapphire eyes gazed into Celestia's. She desperately scratched her mind to look for an immediate answer to her question, but could not find one.

Luna was right.

They had experienced such maddening amounts of sin...

... and they, too, had sinned...

"I don't know, Luna." Celestia finally answered with a raspy voice. "I truly do not know, but I know that we must try."

With that, she pulled her sister once more into another long embrace, both still lightly shedding what little tears that they still had left as they cradled each other and rocked back and forth on their knees. It is unknown how long exactly that they stayed in that embrace.

Because on that day, the Sun and the Moon did not move.

It was The Longest Day.

"We must try."

...............................................................

"Luna..."

"Luna!" Celestia cried out as she sat herself upright in her bed, her flowing hair of pink, turquoise, and cobalt covered with beads of cold sweat, most likely because of her vivid recalling of that horrible, horrible day.

The Longest Day...

"What was that...?" She whispered to herself as she stroked her head with her hands, trying to slow down her hyperventilating and calm down.

"Did I just... dream?"

Indeed, ever since she was forced to banish her sister to the Moon with the Elements, she had found herself completely incapable of experiencing dreams. Not even nightmares. A sort of side effect that also went as a punishment for her.

So, what had she just experienced?

She took in a shaky breath as she stood herself up and walked over to the washroom, her tall six-foot nine frame just barely making it between the archway and to the sink. As she turned on the cold water within the sink, she lifted her head and looked in the mirror at her reflection.

So much time has passed since The Longest Day. She still retained the beauty that she had when she was young, one of the few perks of immortality, but her eyes...

She could see her age radiate from her eyes which looked as if they were carved from raw amethyst. It was as if she could physically see the cracks and scars in the irises of her eyes.

Her hair was no longer just a vibrant pink color, but also that of turquoise and light cobalt, possibly a side effect of when she had to manipulate both the day and the night in her sister's absence. Yet another tell-tale sign of how ancient she was. She  cupped her hands into the cold, clear liquid and splashed it onto her face, snapping her into full alertness as she walked back into her resting quarters.

As she stretched out her massive white wings, she looked up at the ceiling and admired the intricate carvings of the constellations that traced all along the painted night sky.

Orion.

Sirus.

Ursa Major.

The breathtaking mural showed them all.

"Maybe some stargazing will do me some good." Celestia sighed, straightening out her silk nightgown as she walked over to the panoramic window opposite to her bed. "Clear the mind a little bit."

She leaned herself on the marble windowsill as she began to admire this night which Luna had graced the land with. Looking at the night and how beautifully created it was, it reminded her of those thousand years where she managed both the day and the night. She remembers how very lost she felt then, not knowing how to raise the Moon quite like Luna did.

Oh, the loneliness. No mortal could comprehend, much less understand, what one thousand years of solitude could do to a person. She remembered waking in the middle of the night once and walking to the window, looking through it to see the Moon beyond.

She remembered how she began to wonder who the prisoner actually was.

The world was not the same without another one just like her with whom to talk and converse with, and that was punishment in itself.

But as she gazed at the Moon now, that hope that she had felt so very long ago resurfaced instead of that longing sense of regret that she was so very used to.

Luna was finally safe, once again.

This realization brought a warm smile to her face as she crossed her arms on the windowsill and slid down to her knees, resting her chin upon her crossed arms.

'I'm feeling too lazy to go back to my bed.' She groaned in her head as she looked at the Moon for one last time. 'I think I'll just admire your handiwork until I sleep.'

She closed her eyes and fell back asleep.

...

((((((( The First One. Celestia of the Sun.)))))))

No.

((((((( The time is nigh.)))))))

Impossible.

((((((( They are returning.))))))

You shouldn't be able to speak to me.

((((((( The First Race has awakened once more.)))))))

I am not an Observer.

((((((( Listen to us, High Blood. We are losing our grip on your mind quicker than the others. You have long been aware of our existence, this has made your mind harder to grasp. So please listen to us.)))))))

O-okay...

((((((( Many years ago, you had a notion that the humans were destined to wield the Elements for their true purpose, that the High Bloods were never meant to use it correctly.)))))))

Yes. I do remember. And I still believe that.

((((((( You know what must be done then, what the Bearers must do to fight the oncoming storm.)))))))

I... Believe so...

((((((( The Elements of Harmony will find their last reason of being, after eons, the time has come. The story will come full circle.)))))))

I... I understand...

((((((( Good, now go. The Last One has already passed by the realm of the Moon-)))))))

What?

Passed by the Moon?

Oh no.

Luna.

((((((( Please, do not panic, she is perf-))))))

Luna.

Luna!

...

Celestia once again woke with a gasp as she shot up her head, immediately bolting her gaze to the Moon, as the voices said.

The first thing that she saw was a bright orange object glowing from behind the clouds, careening straight down in the direction of Ponyville.

A High Blood.

From the back of her mind, there scratched an old feeling of familiarity about this particular High Blood.

Old memories of a brother.

A long lost brother.

She pushed those thoughts to the side as she summoned her Solar Staff; a magnificent golden staff which was the embodiment of her magical power; and her white and gold Royal Dress with it, which held the royal symbol of the Sun upon it's golden breastplate.

"Luna." She whispered to herself as she walked with great pace out of the room, the sound of her heavy staff echoing across the halls with an audible clack each time she stepped forward.

"Please be okay."

.....................

(Luna's POV)

"Please let me not be too late." She muttered with great anxiety as she streaked through the night sky to the Citadel Castle, beating her great wings as hard as she possibly could.

A minute or two ago, she had gripped the night with her magic and casted a spell over the town of Ponyville. It was a powerful spell, but not the most powerful one that she could've used. She had done this on purpose.

She hoped that the Echoes would catch on to what she was trying to do.

She flew straight through a herd of cumulonimbus clouds as the Citadel appeared before her, in all of it's marbled glory. Carved into the side of a mountain, the Castle loomed above the rest of the sleeping world, vastly beautiful, vastly intricate.

And yet, the towering marble pillars and the expertly crafted watchtowers were still younger than she was.

Zooming closer and closer, she identified the massive archways atop the castle which led to the Throne Room beyond.

'There.' She thought to herself. Beating her wings once more to catch one final burst of speed, she dove into into the archway and hit the ground at an angle, sliding across the smooth stone floor as she slowed her momentum and broke into a quick walk towards the great ebony doors.

Summoning her black Lunar Staff into her hand, she struck the ground with it as she walked forward, sending strands of bright navy blue energy racing through the intricate carvings in the marble and up the great black doors, undoing the many enchantments that kept the doors sealed from any but she and her sister.

She reached the doors and raised her arm to open them, but they flew open before she could touch them.

Before her stood Celestia, in full dress and crown.

For the longest moment, they only looked into each other's eyes.

The look on Luna's face confirmed Celestia's fears, as did Celestia's face confirm Luna's.

'They have returned.' Celestia thought.

'She knows already.' Luna shivered.

Celestia broke the moment first as she harshly walked past Luna and summoned her Staff to her hand, the heat from the energies within clearly emanating on it's golden surface.

"Celestia, wait-" Luna begged.

"Stay in the Castle, Luna." Celestia harshly ordered as she stuck the ground with her staff, summoning the energies within the staff to solidify into it's combat form: an axe-like construct of energy in the shape of the Sun. "I'll handle this alone."

"No, Celestia, wait." Luna said sternly as she ran to catch up with her sister. "Please listen to me."

"You need to stay inside and wait until I say that it's safe, do you understand me?"

"Celestia. Stop."

"Luna. Go into the Castle. Now."

"Celestia, would you stop and just liste-"

"Did you not hear me?!" Celestia bellowed as she whipped around to face her little sister, who was now staring at her with wide eyes filled with fear. "Stay in the castle until I return! Do you understand me?”

Celestia then turned on her heel as she continued walking, unfurling her great white wings as she prepared to take off.

"Celestia, I think it might be Prometheus!" Luna yelled after her.

She froze in place when she heard the name, her wings still outstretched.

"I think that it's him, Cel." She yelled again, more assertively this time as she saw that her sister was finally listening to her. "I think he's finally returned."

A moment of silence passed with neither sister moving. Just as Luna began to think that Celestia was going to take off anyway, she saw her wings begin to slowly curl back behind her.

"That's not possible." Celestia muttered, her back still turned away from her sister. "He couldn't possibly be strong enough on his own, you know that."

"I know what I felt, Cel." Luna replied. "I know it sounds impossible, but I knew, right as it flew past me, I knew that it had to be him. The energy it gave off, Celestia..."

Celestia turned back around to face Luna, an expression between fear and anxiety clear on her face.

"... It felt like warm fire."

Celestia continued to silently read her sister's face as her thoughts ran up a hurricane in her head.

To her right, she saw a bright light rising from the middle of the Everfree forest. No doubt the High Blood had finally crash landed deep within the thick confines of the Everfree.

"Come here, Luna." She called to her sister without looking at her. "You should see this." Nervously, Luna walked to Celestia as she looked in the direction of Ponyville and saw the fireball rising from within the forest, letting out a small breath of relief from discovering that the little town was okay.

"This sleeping spell is not your strongest, Luna." Celestia noted as Luna felt her heart drop into her stomach. "The Bearers know, don't they?"

"Y-yes." Luna whispered, afraid of what her sister would do now that she knew. To her surprise, Celestia did nothing but look to her Solar Staff with a look of deep thought as the white hot heat of the weapon construct at its top hummed with power.

"You really think it's him, don't you?" Celestia asked as she rolled the staff around in her hand, still looking at the wildfire in the making.

"His body was shedding power, I think it's a side effect to what Stella... did to him." Luna explained as she looked into Celestia's eyes. "I've never seen a meteorite explode into flames on impact."

Celestia looked for a long time at the growing inferno in the distance, and then back to the staff in her left hand.

'Please don't let me be wrong. Not again.' Celestia thought to herself as the staff dematerialized into a bright light which then dissipated into the magical white markings all along her arm.

"Thank you." Luna whispered.

As she began to unfurl her wings to go with Celestia, her sister's arm shot in front of her.

"Stay in the Castle. Please." Celestia ordered as she shot her wings out to their full span. "I don't want you to go with me. It's too dangerous."

"What if I'm right, Celestia?" Luna protested. "What if it is Prometheus?"

"And what if I'm right, Luna?" Celestia retorted. "What if it isn't him? I don't want to put you in harm's way again, not after only a year."

Luna considered going against her sister's will briefly, but then tucked her wings back in, the sincere expression on Celestia's face pleading her to obey at least this little precaution.

"Okay, Celestia." Luna said. "I'll stay."

"But if I'm right..." Celestia warned coldly, "... I will not give it a second thought."

A shiver crawled up Luna's spine as those words escaped her mouth. With a powerful leap off of the ground and a great beat of wings, Celestia flew up into the night sky as she made with all haste in the direction of the sleeping town. Luna simply looked into the distance as her sister's words echoed in her head.

"If I'm right... I won't give it a second thought."

"Please, let me be right." Luna whispered into the night.

"Please. Let it be him."

:Reunion:

"Oh my..." Applejack gasped as she took in the sight before her eyes. What was once her standard wildfire had exploded into a certifiable inferno within the span of time it took to run into the town down the hill and back again.

"Applejack, what's wro-" Twilight began to ask, but as she stepped up to the top of the hill, the waves of heat that emanated from the flames took her completely by surprise. Raising her right arm to shield herself from the heat, she walked forward and stood next to Applejack.

"Ah've never seen a wildfire spread so quickly in my entire life!" Applejack shouted above the raging noise of burning wood, the heat tossing about the girls' loose hair. "Somethin's real wrong about this fire, Twi! It just ain't normal!"

"Applejack's right!" Shouted Rainbow Dash as she walked up next to Twilight. "The Weather Crew scheduled a rain above it not two days ago! There's no way it could possibly spread so fast!"

"Y-y-you want us t-to go in t-there?" They heard Fluttershy meekly ask as she looked on in fear at the writhing mass of flames before her, with Big Mac, Spike, and Rarity doing the same thing as they caught up with the group.

Twilight summoned her gloves and  ran her fingers through the heat emanating from the forest, trying to identify if the energies inside of the heat were natural or not.

What she discovered puzzled her, and caused her to jerk her hand back to her chest in surprise.

"Twilight! Are you alright?" Rarity gasped as she ran over to see if she had been harmed. Twilight gave her a reassuring look as she slowly reached her hand outward once again to see if she had not mistaken about what she felt.

"What is it, Twi?" Applejack asked. "Is it somethin to do with the fire?"

"Yeah, but that's just the thing." Twilight began, trying to find the words with which to explain her discovery with. "It is fire, but at the same time, it's... not."

"Which makes it...?" Rainbow shouted, waiting for the caramel-skinned sorceress to give the group  a straight answer.

Looking down at her gloves, pulsing with bright, lavender magic, she developed a theory.

Once again, the quickest way to explain herself had boiled down to just showing them.

With a quickness in her step, she walked straight towards the burning forest.

"Twilight!" Spike yelled out as he began to follow her, "What in the name of Celestia are you doing?!"

"Fire that spreads on moist plants is completely impossible naturally, so it's automatically unnatural," Twilight began as she felt the magic from her gloves twirl around her fingers, the great waves of heat growing as she walked ever closer. "But it also feels so real, incredibly real, in fact. Enchanted fire unlike any pyromancer should be physically capable of producing with such detail and reality..."

She stopped just close enough to the writhing mass of fire to where her pink and violet striped, dark blue hair tossed around behind her as Spike rushed to catch up with her.

"Then I remembered. The Echoes said something about the spell over this town being caused by Luna manipulating the night."

She gripped the magic within her hands as it created a visible halo of energy around them.

"This is High Blood magic, but magic nonetheless."

She horizontally cupped her hands as the halos of energy around her hands shot into the empty space between them, creating a small ball of bright purple magical energies in between her palms. She then shot her arms outwards, creating a massive bubble of translucent lavender energy. Spreading to a diameter of about thirty feet, Twilight then proceeded to walk forward, her hands still outstretched in order to continue the spell as she walked into the pyre. When the edges of the translucent bubble met the burning trees, the fire disintegrated into small mists of tiny orange lights before disappearing into the night sky.

"Come on guys! It works! Ha ha, it works!" Twilight yelled behind her in excitement. Sharing her excitement, the group ran forward and joined her in the bubble, quickly noting how cool the interior was as they gathered around her.

"Amazing, Twilight! What kind of spell is this?" Rarity accidentally shouted, unaware of the bubble's insulation of the sounds outside.

"An air conditioning spell!" Twilight giddily replied.

The entire group looked at her with a weirded out look.

"How... does an air conditioning spell... put out flames?" Spike asked, trying to recall in recent memory exactly when she had learned such a strange spell.

"Celestia trained me in spells that might be useful in dry conditions by manipulating the heat around her." Twilight explained proudly. "Apparently, what she didn't know, was that she also trained me how to counteract High Blood magic in the process. All I needed to do was tweak the spell so it dispersed magical heat and fire, and it looks to me like my logic was sound."

"But, if you're blocking out fire, then what does that mean about the High Blood in there...?" Fluttershy shakily asked, hiding her face behind her flowing pink hair like she always did when she was worried about something. Right as she asked that, a great tree within the forest came crashing down with a great noise, frightening her into scurrying backwards; accidentally running into Big Mac. Instead of being surprised, he caught her as she stumbled backwards, giving her a comforting smile as she looked up and blushed.

"T-t-thanks, Big Mac." Fluttershy said with flushed cheeks.

"Don't thank me just yet, Miss Fluttershy," Big Mac replied with a serious tone as he looked on into the direction of the fallen tree, "We ain't safe yet. Not 'till we find whatever started this here fire."

"Big Mac's right, Fluttershy," Twilight said from over her shoulder, "right now, all we need to focus on is finding that High Blood. When we find the source, we'll have a better chance of staunching the fire before it takes the entire forest."

"Do you even have an idea as to how you're gonna do that, exactly?" Spike asked.

"No. But we've gotta try." Twilight firmly replied. "Everybody huddle together, as close as you can!"

The group complied quickly, squeezing in closely around Twilight as they slowly walked forward into the blaze. Before anyone knew it, they were completely engulfed by the powerful flames surrounding them.

"Look! The trees!" Applejack pointed into the distance where along line of trees had been completely smashed through by the High Blood's crash landing. "I reckon it'll lead us straight to the source!"

"Good thinking, let's-" Twilight grimaced as the magic within her gloves burned with a bright light, an audible hissing sound emanating from them as the bubble's energy slightly weakened.

"Twi!" Spike cried out. "Are you okay?!"

"This spell wasn't meant for fire, much less magic this powerful." Twilight strained to rein the power back into her control, grasping the thin air with her gloves as the symbol in the middle of her glove burned with a hot white light. Sweat began building up on her forehead from the sheer effort and concentration needed to keep the spell alive. "We need to quicken our pace. I won't be able to keep it over us for very much longer. We need to find it, and fast."

Without further input from the party, they continued along the long trail of destroyed trees with a renewed quickness in their steps, the pained strains of Twilight ever so quietly being able to be heard as they made their way further and further into the inferno...

................................................

(Prometheus' POV)

I feel so

Cold.

The warmth. Has left me. It is leaving me.

I feel like I'm

Bleeding.

My birthright. My past. My very being. I feel it. Slipping. Away.

I am here, though.

The Cradle.

The ground beneath me is soft and strong. I can feel it. It is so old. But kind and cool to the touch.

I wish that I could just lie here and

Rest.

I wish that I could give up. Truly. I wish I could let slip my thoughts and sleep.

Maybe I should do that. Maybe I should just

Slumber.

I am so very, very tired. Yes. I think...I will do that.

I think...

I'll just lie here...

And sleep...

...

"No!"

The High Blood hit the ground with his hand, closing his hand into a fist, scrunching the dirt below his hand.

" I need to stay awake."

Gritting his teeth, some dirt still in his teeth from the crash, he slowly raised his head ever so slightly above the ground. From within the crater, he could see a bright orange hue emanating all around him from beyond the crevice of the crater. He immediately identified the lights as something that he hadn't seen in thousands of years.

Fire.

He weakly smiled to himself.

"So I am bleeding." He quietly chuckled. "After all these years, I had thought I had run dry."

His other hand snaked along the dirt near his head as he searched for something that he hoped that he had not lost. He was bleeding magic, and it was setting the forest around him aflame as it escaped his body. His only hope of reclaiming it was to find that which he was so desperately looking for, but he remembers letting it slip from his grip as he crashed into the dirt, causing a colossal discharge of his energy to exit his body as it knocked him out.

If he could not find it before the last drop of magic exited his body, the Continuity would close around him and take his life.

His hand brushed against something cold as he quickly stopped his search. As he slid his fingers further, he found that the cold object was wooden, intricately engraved, and was relatively heavy against the ground it rested on. When he picked it up, though, he found that it was as light as a feather. At first, the object felt alien in his grasp, but slowly, the textures beneath his grasp began to speak to him in waves. Memories of times long past returned to him as the realization awakened him from the sleepy haze of his mind.

"Found you."

As he tightened his grip on it, a small spark of energy jolted from the broken staff as it lit up the markings along his arms with an amber light.

"My instrument."

His eyes slowly opened, a spark of amber illuminating his tired eyes as he looked up to the fires beyond without lifting his head.

"I can't die." He muttered. "Not yet."

..............................................

(Twilight's POV)

Dripping with sweat, the sorceress cringed once again as another wave of white hot pain seared through her arms, this time causing her to briefly stumble as Applejack caught her before she could fall.

"Just a lil' farther, sugarcube." Applejack reassured her. "Just beyond that hill and we'll be alright."

"I know." Twilight shuddered. "I'll be okay."

The deeper they went, the more viciously the flames buffeted against the already flimsy barrier of the translucent bubble. Trees fell in the distance, washing torrents of flame and debris over the bubble as it caused the sphere to shudder and buckle under the aggressiveness of the flames. It was as if the flames were alive. It was as if they wanted to consume every last thing within the forest.

Including the group.

"Quickly." Twilight ordered as she looked desperately in the direction of the destroyed hill. "I can see a clearing from beyond that hill over there, that's where we need to go."

"Is that where the High Blood is supposed to be?" Rainbow Dash asked as she quickened her pace along with the others.

"I don't know, but it's the only safe place where I can release the spell without the flames decimating us." Twilight groaned as they inched ever closer to the obliterated hill.

To her left, Pinkie was looking ahead with an expression of fear unlike any that they had ever imagined the young girl to wear in her lifetime. Her mouth was moving a million miles an hour, but no words were leaving her lips; creating a haunting spectacle that was unnerving everyone around her.

"Pinkie?" Rarity quietly asked, "What's wrong? Do you see something?" Pinkie jolted at Rarity's touch, scaring them both as Pinkie now stared at Rarity with an utterly shocked expression on her face.

"Pinkie...?" Rarity asked with a concerned tone. Pinkie still ignored her as she blinked, took in a few deep breaths, and proceeded to turn back to the hill and stare. After a couple of seconds of silence, Pinkie spoke.

"Do you see the fire?" She asked in a sharp whisper, in a tone that no one had ever heard her speak in once in her life.

"Y-yes." Fluttershy replied from the other side of Twilight, still trying to keep as close to the middle as she possibly could.

"How would you describe the flames, Fluttershy?" Pinkie asked again in a sharp whisper. Fluttershy cocked her head to the side, at first taken aback by such a strange question coming from such a strange person. However, once she looked to her side once again to look at the flames, her eyes widened in realization.

"They f-feel..." Fluttershy answered as she moved her hand near the barrier, the flames licking hungrily as her arm moved closer. "... angry."

"Wrong. There is another emotion that sparks stronger desire than one born from fear." Pinkie hissed, the expression of worry still clear on her face as she tried to explain her logic, drawing in her comments into herself as she continued ranting. "What is stronger than fear? What is stronger than being trapped in it's grasp?"

"Pinkie, are you alri-" Applejack asked.

"Why is the fire so strong?" Pinkie asked fiercely, whipping around to meet Applejack's scared eyes.

All the while, Twilight walked between them, still straining to fight through the pain as the flames continued to roar past her outside.

"Ah'm sorry, Pinkie, but ah'm afraid ah don't understand a word you're sayin'." Applejack said, flinching back at Pinkie's manic behavior. "The fire ain't normal, I don't think we're supposed to understand why it's so darn powerful."

The fire continued to rush and stretch across the exterior of the barrier, washing over and past them in a rhythmic pattern of ferocity as it continued to thrive with vivid intensity. Twilight continued to only look ahead to the distant decimated hill where the High Blood had blasted through. However, as she continued to stare at the landmark, she began to notice the flames from the corner of her vision acting... strangely.

"ARGH! Why does NOBODY ELSE notice what's right in front of them?" Pinkie groaned in frustration as she clawed at her head, not knowing how else to phrase herself. "The fire isn't normal! It isn't conjured either! It's... It's..."

As Twilight kept staring, the truth ever so slowly began to dawn upon her as she, too, began to see a pattern.

The fire was spreading past them.

The fire was spreading away from the crash.

As if it was, in itself, alive.

As if it was trying desperately to thrive and flourish for the first time.

As if...

"It's..."

As if...

"Ooh, how do I say it?"

As if it's...

"Free."

"Free."

  Pinkie's eyes widened as the entire group fell silent. Twilight, with her arms still outstretched, turned slightly to look at Pinkie with wide-eyed realization at solving her riddle.

"It's as if it's free." Twilight repeated. "As if it's living free for the very first time."

Nobody said a word, but they all turned their heads to the wildfire surrounding them, each silently realizing the pattern within the roaring world of flames before them. Fluttershy reached out to the barrier once again, the flames outside dancing and twisting across the lavender bubble as she waved her hand back and forth to her side. At first, she flinched a little, but as it continued on it's way, she held her hand back to her chest and gasped.

"Oh my," Fluttershy gasped, "I-I think Twilight and Pinkie are right..."

"Don't worry," Spike said with his head upturned to the blazing canopy above him, also seeing the pattern within the writhing flames, "I think I'm starting to see it too."

Pinkie let out an audible sigh of relief as she stroked her head, as if she had just made a life or death decision and she had chosen correctly.

"Heh heh, that means I'm not crazy," Pinkie chuckled to herself, "I heard what the Echoes said to me, and they were right about the flames..."

"Pinkie?" Twilight asked in a scared tone. "What do you mean the Echoes are still speaking to you?"

"That means that if we're quick, we'll be safe." Pinkie said quickly as she turned and looked into Twilight's deep purple eyes with her own bright blue ones. "We have to run."

The entire group stared at her.

"Uhhhh, Pinkie? How many crazy pills did you eat today?" Rainbow Dash asked with a scared look on her face. "You're still in your PJ's and you wanna run in there? Into that inferno? That enchanted inferno?"

"If we run quickly, it won't catch us." Pinkie answered, her words betraying her scared eyes. "It's trying to move past us. If we run quickly, it will ignore us."

"Pinkie, we need to stick together. We're almost there- AAAGGGHH!!!" Twilight cried out in pain as she lost strength in her legs and fell to the ground. A tree had fallen outside, knocking another down with it as they both crashed to the ground next to the barrier, shooting forth a massive wave of flames over the bubble's frail frame. The force hammered the construct, causing it to crack along the exterior and bring Twilight to her knees in pain. Immediately, Pinkie bolted to her side and grabbed her by the arms, pulling her up.

"Twilight, if we don't move, the fire will consume us!" Pinkie said desperately as the cracks spread all across the exterior of the barrier. "We have to run. Now."

All around her, she heard the noise of shattering glass as the construct continued to deteriorate. The noise from the outside slowly growing louder and louder as it seeped through the cracks. Beyond was the hill, just a ways ahead of them.

Maybe it is possible, she thought.

"Twilight..." Spike said as he watched the barrier deteriorate before his eyes. "... what do we do?"

Maybe.

"We run." Twilight ordered as she looked back to the group. "It's our only option now."

She waited for somebody to protest, namely Rarity, on how such a hair-brained scheme could actually work. But, surprisingly, the only response that she got from the group were looks of determination and focus, as if they had made up their minds years ago. Even Fluttershy was wearing a defiant look on her face, even though she could see her lovely yellow wings snapped tight behind her back in fear.

"Well, we're kinda lackin' the luxury of options right now." Applejack shook out her arms, shaking herself up for the moment where they had to make a beeline to the hill. "You ain't got no complaints from me, sugarcube."

"Nor I. I can just wash our clothes after all of this." Rarity chuckled, also silently readying herself for the sprint. "On the house, girls."

"All we have to do is run?" Rainbow Dash said. "Pft, easier than breathing for me, just hope you guys can keep up."

Everybody shot her a dark look.

"Fine, I'll try and stay with you guys." Rainbow Dash said holding up her hands. "Besides, if you guys keep a steady pace, you'll be okay, right? I mean, when was the last time Pinkie Pie was wrong? Honestly?"

Again, nobody protested against the fact. Past all of the quirkiness, strangeness, nonsense, and just down-right pinkieness of Pinkie Pie, they had long learned to trust her intuition on things. She was almost always right in the end about things, and as Twilight looked to Pinkie and nodded to her, she was reminded of this fact as she nodded back and grabbed onto her left hand. Spike walked over to Twilight's right as he took her gloved right hand into his left hand.

"Fireproof." Spike said as he squeezed her hand. "Gotta stay next to you if something happens."

To Spike's right, Rarity strode up and took his right hand, squeezing it as she gave him a warm smile. Behind her, Applejack had grabbed onto Fluttershy's left hand with a firm grip, as Big Mac took her right hand at the rear of the group.

"Everybody ready?!" Twilight hollered as she slowly started to release the magic burning in her hands.

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash yelled from between Rarity and Applejack.

"Let's do this!" Rarity answered.

"Better now than never!" Applejack psyched herself.

"Y-yeah, what she said." Fluttershy meekly replied.

"Eeyup!" Big Mac yelled from the rear, squeezing Fluttershy's hand in reassurance. "Do it now!"

Twilight released the spell, her gloves and necklace dematerializing as a cool air rushed through the smoking markings along her arms and collarbone, causing her to briefly sigh in relief.

Right after this, the noise and roar of the inferno rushed up to meet their ears with a ferocious intensity as the world turned in slow motion and the flames rushed to engulf them.

"Run!"

They rushed forward, closing their eyes as they ran headfirst into the wall of fire before them. It brushed past their skin and tickled at their nerves, making them think that the flames were catching onto their skin and that their plan had failed. As soon as the flames touched their skin, though, it simply glided along the surface and continued to move along on its way past them. One by one, they made it through to the other side of the flames as they kept on running for the hill beyond the trees.

Every step that they took landed in flames, every breath they took singed their throats, but they pressed on as fast as their legs could take them as they got closer and closer to the clearing beyond the hill.

"Almost there!" Pinkie hollered over her shoulder as she continued to support Twilight, who was running as best as she could with her burnt arms.

A great snap resonated in their ears as they saw a tree next to Applejack break in half and begin to fall. Rainbow Dash acted quickly and yanked Applejack out of the way, but the force of the pull caused her to lose her grip on Fluttershy, making the pink-haired girl stumble right into the path of the falling tree.

"Fluttershy, run!" Applejack screamed as she saw the young girl look up in horror at the mass of flaming wood falling towards her.

At the last moment, Big Macintosh came from behind her and used his momentum to shove her violently forward; propelling them both out of harm's way as the tree crashed onto the forest floor, kicking up another cloud of benign flames in their direction. Out of the cloud of flames hobbled Big Mac with Fluttershy cradled in his large embrace as they continued onward as fast as they could.

"Keep movin'!" Big Mac bellowed to the group as he and Fluttershy both broke back into a quick stride. "Don't let the flames catch you! We're almost there!"

His powerful voice snapped Rainbow Dash out of her shock as she sprinted back to Fluttershy and Big Mac, forgetting how Applejack wasn't used to running at the speed of a nephilim as she dragged her along with a vice grip. When she got close enough to the two, she used her momentum to spin around Applejack towards her brother.

"Grab him now!" She ordered in a split-second. "Grab him, and don't let go!" Understanding Rainbow Dash's fear of the fire catching, she clamped onto her big brother's large hand, as he tightened his own hold around Fluttershy. Instantly, Rainbow Dash turned heel and sprinted in the direction of Twilight and the others, making sure to always keep her legs moving regardless of the stragglers behind her holding onto her hand for dear life as she sprinted with all of the power that she could muster.

"Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash screamed under the stress of dragging her friends through the flames. "Hold out your hand!" Pinkie's eyes widened as she realized what Rainbow Dash was going to do.

"Everybody hold onto something! Tightly!" Pinkie yelled to Twilight, Spike and Rarity as they all prepared themselves for the imminent force of Rainbow Dash.

What happened next was simply a blur to all but Rainbow Dash.

She shot right next to the hobbling group and snatched at Pinkie's hand, almost dislocating both of her arms as she rocketed forward like a meteorite through the night sky. Both Applejack and Pinkie tried their best, along with the rest of the group, to run and try to lessen the amount of strain on Rainbow Dash's willowy arms; however, this did little to help except to aid them in keeping their balance as they streaked towards the hill at such an impossible speed.

With a heavy beat of her wings and a scream of effort, she and the rest of the group finally crossed that last little bit of distance between them and the decimated hill. Rainbow Dash wasted no time in disregarding the incredible straining pain in her shoulders as she took Applejack and thrust her forward along with Big Mac and Fluttershy through the trench in the hill created by the High Blood's crash landing.

"Go! Go!" She yelled as she then took Pinkie's arm and thrust her forward next after Big Mac, pushing everybody forward before following herself from the rear of the line. Instantly, they could feel the heat of the inferno being left behind them as they made their way closer and closer to the crater on the other side of the hill.

"Whew, thank goodness that we made it out of all that dreadful fire!" Rarity chimed as she fanned herself.

"Yeah, we got out of the fire. Now we're going to find out what caused it." Twilight said truthfully, instantly bringing down Rarity's positive outlook as her eyes widened in silent realization of this fact.

"Twilight? Ah think you'll wanna be seein' this..." Applejack gasped as she made her way out to the other side of the hill along with Big Mac and Fluttershy.

"What is it? Wha-" Twilight couldn't finish her sentence.

What she saw left her speechless.

Nothing but ash laid before them in a seven hundred diameter clearing that the crashing High Blood created. The trees had simply vaporized, leaving behind only the black snow of ash and smoke.

And in the middle of the unnatural clearing, in the crater at the epicenter, was the source.

And he was awake.

His massive black wings covered his entire back, looking withered, ancient, and unhealthy by normal standards. He slowly tried to raise himself from all-fours onto his feet, but stumbled sideways and fell to his hands, the sudden movement causing some of the ash-colored feathers in his great wings to shake loose and fall softly onto the ground, as if watching a great mountain slowly being weathered away by the force of time. The light from the surrounding fire illuminated his extremely toned and lean arms along with the scarred markings that traced all up and down them as he raised his head to look towards the fire, the eerie orange light shining on his face for the first time.

He looked very young and very beautiful, indeed, almost like a twenty-five year old man, but something was amiss...

His body seemed... Incomplete. As if his appearance was as it should have been, but more of a grey and deathly tone than what he should have looked like.

"The Last One..."

Pinkie's voice came from Twilight's left as she shot around to see the girl looking in absolute fear at the god before them.

"Prometheus."

Twilight turned back around just as she saw the High Blood's teeth grit, clenching something in his right hand that none of them could see well enough to identify what it was. He then reared back his right arm and thrust it out forward, revealing the object in his hand to be what Twilight recognized to be a royal staff, similar to the ones Celestia and Luna both carried, but this one was visibly different from theirs. This one didn't look like it was made of metal, like the royal sisters' staffs. Instead, this one looked as though it was made out of some beautifully intricate ebony branch, devoid of any power or magical energy, giving off a sickly and craggy air around the staff.

Also, it seemed that, according to what Twilight knew about the royal sisters' staffs, he was only holding one half of what should've been the full staff...

All of a sudden, the flames that he was pointing at began to funnel into a horizontal tornado of flames as it shot into the tip of the craggy staff, causing the markings along the staff to illuminate with an amber energy. He appeared to tug at the flames, as one might test the strength of a rope, as he twisted around and gave a great pull over his shoulder, launching the now concentrated stream of fire high into the air. With this one swift move, all of the flames surrounding them and beyond began to twist and mesh with the writhing entanglement of flames that floated vicariously in the skies above the party of eight, leaving them gazing in complete and utter awe at what they were witnessing.

"By Celestia..." Twilight heard Spike gasp as he looked all around him to find that there was no longer any fire in the forest that wasn't in the snaking mass of flames above them. In one swift movement, he had cleansed the forest of fire.

The High Blood once again reared his arm back as far as he could, and then hurled it back forward, causing the stream of flames to rush forward and crack in the air, like a great flaming thunderclap. He did this over and over again, the group covering their ears from the colossal sound as they counted twelve cracks, each one refining the stream of flames more and more. Finally, once the long stream had condensed into a fine burning whip of pure, amber-colored energy, he raised the staff above his head, and grabbed it with both of his hands. This caused the writhing stream of energy to freeze in thin air as all of the noise that once filled the air disappeared into silence.

All at once, in the span of a millisecond, the energies in the whip shot down into the staff with an impossibly loud noise.

As the group was covering their ears, they watched as they saw the amber energies streak all across the markings of the broken staff, metamorphosing the material from ebony into a beautifully engraved metal unlike any that they ever thought existed. Twisting out of the staff, the amber energy then proceeded down his arms, the energies rejuvenating the skin around the markings into a healthy complexion a little lighter than Twilight's own skin tone. The energy snaked behind his shoulders and into his weary black wings, flooding the ash-black feathers with a vibrant and beautiful amber color, making them appear to catch on fire. Finally, the energies snaked around his bare body, creating two ribbons of energy that twisted around his chest; then down his torso, exposing his extremely toned, lean stomach, and then coming together to create a cloak which covered his legs.

The remainder of the magical energies rose up to his chest and created an impossibly bright light. Lowering his hands, the light slowly died down until his body became visible from the bright light again.

Across his upper torso was a magnificent formation of what appeared to be light pure amber armor with an insignia of a flame directly in the middle of the chest plate. From the chest plate ran two crimson strands of fabric which ran around his toned body in the same way the princess' royal garments did, also coming together at the lower torso, but this time in an amber belt piece from which the bottom part flowed down like a cloak.

The group was left completely speechless at what they had just witnessed. All except for Pinkie, who was still glaring at him through a lowered head and crossed arms.

All of a sudden, they heard a wild crackling of energy emanate from the bottom half of the broken staff in his hand as he cried out in pain and fell to his knees.

"Wait, what's wrong with him?" Rainbow Dash asked Twilight in a frantic voice, obviously becoming scared from the sudden show of agony from the High Blood. "Is that supposed to be... His staff..?"

Twilight didn't respond. Instead, she ran forward to the suffering High Blood.

"Twilight! Wait for us!" Spike yelled as he and the others followed her in suit to the middle of the clearing to the High Blood named Prometheus. When Twilight got there, she immediately slid on her knees to catch him before he fell back onto the ground, but he was far heavier than what she'd expected him to be, and she strained to keep his head up.

"Big Macintosh...! Help! He's pretty heavy!" She groaned through gritted teeth as Big Mac ran to the other side of his head and slid to his knees, propping up Prometheus' head on his knee. When she looked to the staff in his right hand, she saw that it was, indeed, missing what should've been the lower half. The staff had rejuvenated only what it could, leaving the end broken and jagged. Slowly, the vibrant colors of his armor began to die down as his eyes began to slowly open.

"Are you alright?" Twilight quietly asked as she became fixated on his eyes which looked as if they were carved from raw amber. A moment of silence went by as the rest of the group crowded around, waiting eagerly for the High Blood to respond. He simply looked up wearily to the girl with purple eyes before him as a warm smile began to spread across his face.

"You are human..." He whispered. "Celestia... succeeded, then..." He began to lightly chuckle as he closed his eyes again and continued to wear his warm smile.

"Is your name Prometheus?" Twilight pressed, disregarding for the moment what he had just said.

"Who... told you..?" He answered. "Did... Celestia send you..? Or Luna..?" He began to slip back out of consciousness again as Twilight began to smack his cheek in a bid to keep him awake.

"Come on, stay with me!" Twilight said desperately as she continued to try and keep him awake. His broken staff dematerialized into flame and disappeared in an amber flash of energy as he reached his hand up and grabbed Twilight's hand, making her gasp in surprise from his sudden movement.

"I need to get somewhere with fire..." He told her as he looked straight into her eyes. "Better yet, I need to see Celestia. Or Luna. Just... somebody... I need to tell them... something... vital." His grip went limp as he once again fell into unconsciousness, his eyes fluttering into sleep as his head rolled to the side.

"The Cradle..." He smiled wearily as he closed his eyes. "I'm finally home..."

Silence filled the forest again as the speechless group watched Prometheus sleep contently, his chest peacefully rising and falling with the rhythm of his breathing.

"What'dya reckon we do now, Twilight?" Applejack asked with crossed arms. "We can't just leave him."

Twilight racked her brain, trying to grab one solid plan out of the hurricane of thoughts swirling in her head. Why did he crash land to Earth? How did he get banished? Where was he banished? Did Celestia banish him? Why is his staff broken? How was it even possible to break a staff like Celestia's and Luna's? Was his broken staff the reason he was bleeding magic? Does he still have his full strength?

Is he a threat?

Twilight snapped herself out of it. 'Get a grip.' She mentally scolded herself. 'There's only one thing we can do right now, and that's to get him to Celestia. But first...'

"We take him to Fluttershy's house." She replied after a moment of brief silence. "He needs fire, right? We need to get him indoors and let him rest for now."

"What if he's dangerous?" Rainbow Dash argued quickly.

"He's too weak right now to do anything. You saw his staff, right?" Twilight grunted as she got up and, with the help of Big Mac, began hoisting the unconscious High Blood to his feet. "I think his staff might be the reason that he was bleeding magic. I think that might've started the fire on accident."

Upon the sight of Big Mac straining to hold up Prometheus, Applejack quickly ran forward and shared her big brother's weight upon her own shoulders.

"Do you think I should send Celestia a letter?" Spike asked timidly. "Or do you thi-"

"I think you should get the heck over here and help me!" Twilight yelled through her teeth as she struggled to hold up the weight of the High Blood. Spike bolted over and shifted some of the weight over to his own shoulder as they continued on their way out of the dead forest.

"If Luna knows, Spike, then Celestia probably more than likely knows by now." Twilight answered. "She might even be on her way over here, so we need to get him back to the cottage before she gets here."

The group hobbled to the entrance of the hill, making good progress with carrying the unconscious Prometheus when Rarity noticed Pinkie Pie staring up into the night sky above them, watching something. Rarity craned her neck to try and see what the pink-haired girl was looking at, but only saw clouds and stars in the canvas of the night sky above.

"Rarity! Pinkie! Come on! Are you gonna help or not?" Rainbow Dash called from behind Rarity as she helped guide Twilight through the crater in the hill from where they had entered the clearing.

"Just a minute!" Rarity called back as she turned to Pinkie Pie and tried to get her attention.

"Pinkie, darling, we need to go now." Rarity said to Pinkie, worried that she was still going to ignore her. "Are you alright? Do you see something?"

For a moment of silence, Rarity had thought that her words had gone straight over the spacy teen's head.

"... It's okay. I'm good." Pinkie replied, still looking up at the night sky. "I just thought I saw... something."

"Alright, well let's go then. The others are already leaving, we need to catch up with them." Rarity replied as she took Pinkie's hand and walked hastily back towards the group at the hill.

All the while, Pinkie continued gazing up into the sky, confident that behind the lazily drifting clouds something was, in fact, watching them...

.......................................................

(Celestia's POV)

From the clouds above the Everfree Forest, a vigilant Celestia was quietly observing the events that were playing out below her from the cover of a tall, drifting cumulonimbus cloud. She had arrived not moments ago under the cover of the clouds when a massive, coiling stream of white-hot energy sliced through the floating herd of clouds that she was flying through, forcing her to weave and bank to and fro in order to avoid getting sliced up by the coils of energy. By the time she had found her way to a safe distance away from the energies, she heard a great crash of noise as she turned around to see the stream of energy shoot straight down below the burnt silhouettes of the dead forest.

She had never seen such a display of power ever in her entire life.

But the amber energy in the form of a whip,

This she had seen before.

"Don't take any chances, Cel." She whispered to herself harshly, refusing to let her guard down. "You need to see him with your own two eyes."

She looked back towards the sleepy town of Ponyville and was reminded of what happened to small villages like this one before The Longest Day. While reminiscing of those horrible times, she felt her paranoia become rejuvenated, pushing forward the notion to still keep her guard up.

All it took was one of her kind to obliterate armies.

She would know.

She had done it countless times in the past.

This arrival was NOT to be taken lightly. Not in the slightest. She had to be ready. She had to be paranoid. She had to think of every possible worst-case scenario that could happen from now to whe-

She felt strange wet feeling slide down her cheek, catching her off guard as she raised her hand up to her cheek to wipe it away. Right as she did that, her latent emotions resurfaced as she realized that she was beginning to shed tears. They began to flow more fluidly as she sat down onto the cloud's surface and cradled her head in her hands, losing herself in her hurricane of long-buried emotions. Not one single emotion stayed long enough in her head for her to say that she felt exactly one thing. When guilt became the source of her tears, happiness immediately took its place. After feeling happiness, she'd feel fear strike at her.

His arrival meant so many different things; but as she regained her composure and wiped away her tears, one fact still remained.

The High Bloods were returning.

And they would not be as weak as this one when they arrived.

Rising shakily to her feet, she summoned her staff and walked over to the edge of the cloud. From there she could see that her prized pupil, Twilight Sparkle, and her friends were retracing their steps back through the dead forest with her unconscious sibling in tow. She didn't need to see their slow pace to know how difficult a task it must have been to carry one of her own with only their human strength. However, not all of them were actually helping to carry him like her student was.

From her distance, she noticed that the youngest of their group, Pinkie Pie, was looking directly in the direction of the herd of clouds that she was hiding in. At first, she simply thought that the young girl was just star-gazing in her general direction. When she continued to squint as if she was beginning to see something, though, she realized that she was, in fact, aware of the presence watching her. Thankfully, it seemed that she did not know exactly where the presence was coming from, nor from which cloud, as she continued to look aimlessly past where she was hiding.

Regardless, this observation bothered her. There was physically no possible way for her to spot her from behind a cloud as thick as this one without the aid of magic. She was a simple sapien offspring. Pure and simple.

Her mannerisms, though, were so completely out of character. She seemed more...

... aware...

Her thought was cut off by the elegant one, Rarity, walking over to Pinkie and telling her something that Celestia couldn't make out. Apparently, she was trying to get Pinkie to snap out of it because she quickly stopped gazing at the sky and followed Rarity to the rest of the group. Even as she skipped to catch up with the group, she stole a glance over her shoulder every once in a while, still carrying the notion that something was still watching them.

'It seems that there are still some things that I have yet to learn.' Celestia thought to herself as she gazed on the small entourage with her piercing amethyst eyes. 'It seems that there is still very little that I am to understand.'

Looking off into the distance, she realized that Luna had gone ahead and moved the Moon back to the correct timing of what she roughly estimated to be around 2:30 A.M. in the early morning. Four hours until it was her time to raise the Sun from the east as the natural cycle had always dictated for them to do. Losing herself in the black silhouette of the Moon, she realized that she had gone to sleep yesterday thinking that today was going to be just another normal, peaceful day. Yesterday, the Citadel was thriving at its usual bustle and liveliness as the day went by as lazily as a hot summer Sunday. And Celestia enjoyed every second of it as she had simply stood against the balcony and watched as her subjects went on with their daily lives. So mundane and normal. Sometimes she envied them.

And now, within the course of an hour, her peaceful world was turned upon its head.

'Funny...' Celestia mused as she unfurled her wings and took off into the night towards the small cottage at the edge of the forest, making haste while still trying to stay out of sight from the girls below.

'... how fate can blindside you like that.'

..........................................................

"There it is! We're here!" Twilight announced to the group as they passed through the forest and into sight of Fluttershy's homely cottage. The great tree from which she lived in was darkened and unlit, obviously because of the crash-landing of the High Blood she had no time, but it's sight was such a relief to their tired eyes that they began to break into a jog to the tree's backdoor, despite the great weight of Prometheus on their shoulders.

"Fluttershy, get the door." Applejack groaned as the girl complied and broke from the group, running to the door and opening it as wide as the hinges could allow. From the dark interior of the tree jumped out a little white bunny as it frantically ran up to Fluttershy and began to tug at her nightgown.

"Oh, Angel Bunny, I don't have the time to feed you right now, I'm so sorry." Fluttershy sheepishly said to the upset little bunny as it began to kick at the ground with frustration at his caretaker.

"I'm sorry, y’all, I just gotta stop for a minute or two." Applejack exhaustively gasped as she, Twilight, Spike, and her brother stopped at the wooden steps leading up to the kitchen door, slowly easing Prometheus to the ground as they shifted his weight carefully upon the creaky steps. He appeared to shift a little under the discomfort of this new surface that he was laying on, but quickly disregarded it as he continued to contently slumber without awakening. The noise of the little wooden stairs creaking surprised the jittery white bunny into whipping around to come face to face with the slumbering Prometheus, visibly causing him to freeze in sight of this ancient creature.

"Could you get the lights for us, Fluttershy?" Twilight panted as she leaned on her knees and watched as Angel Bunny curiously sniffed at Prometheus' short jet-black hair. Fluttershy gave a quick nod as she ran into the dark interior of her kitchen and rummaged through her cupboards, throwing open all of her pantry doors until she found what she was looking for: a candle and a matchbox. Striking the match against the rough of the box, she lit the candle and took it around the dark house; lighting the various oil lamps across the room as the group fell in and dragged Prometheus through the kitchen and into the spacious living room beyond.

Suddenly, Twilight and Applejack felt the weight of Prometheus easing off of their shoulders.

"Could you get me a blanket?" Prometheus rasped as he returned from unconsciousness, leaning on the girls' shoulders as he began to stand on his own and walk slowly to the fireplace. Out of nowhere, he lost the strength in his legs and fell to his knees, the force of the fall shaking the entire cottage as the flames in the oil lamps around the room rose and fell with his heavy breaths. "And that fire... I asked for... Wouldn't be so bad either..."

As the cottage settled down from the great force, Twilight saw that some of the birdhouses were still shuttering back and forth violently, ready to fall at any second. Shooting out her hands, she surrounded the shambling birdhouses with a lavender aura, robbing them of movement as her sore arms pulsed with magical energy again. Her levitation spells were too elementary for her to need to summon her gloves and had long become simple and mundane for her to cast at a whim. From the other room, Fluttershy frantically ran over to Prometheus' side and draped over him a large blanket just as they heard a great shift of magic come from Prometheus' body. Almost immediately, his wings appeared to catch on fire and dematerialize into his shoulder blades as Twilight's and Rarity's magical garments did when they willed them to disappear. He shuddered in response to this as his amber and crimson royal armor also began to disappear in a flurry of magical amber energies, making him grasp the blanket around him tighter around his now naked body.

"T-t-thank-k y-y-you f-f-f-or-r t-t-the bl-blanket..." He shivered as he scooted closer to the little stove in the corner of the living room. "N-n-now if-f-f y-you c-c-c-could ki- kindly s-start this l-little ov-v-ven f-for m-m-me, p-please..."

"Yeah, of course." Fluttershy answered as she ran quickly to the little coffee table where she had left her matchbox and back to the oven, turning on the brass gas valve on the side of the stone oven before striking a match and tossing it in. Flames stretched and grew as it consumed the free radicals of gas in the stove and spread within it's confines, when suddenly, Prometheus struck at the little brass valve; turning it all the way around as the flames roared out of the small oven with an impossible ferocity.

"Hey! Whatever you playing at, you freaking pyromaniac-" Rainbow Dash yelled as she ran forward, but froze in place by what she saw Prometheus do next.

He leaned forward as far as he could and reached into the fire, closing his eyes and raising his head in calm concentration as the raging fire surrounding and licking at his arms began to curl and twist furiously around the now vibrantly glowing markings along his arms. Gradually, the flames condensed and swirled into the middle of the back of his hand, where a glowing amber symbol of a flame shined brightly with the newfound energy that it was absorbing. Prometheus then let out a very long and very exhausted sigh of relief as he scooted as close as he could to the flames before him.

"Thank you... So, so, so very much." Prometheus breathed as he reached around in the fireplace for a wooden log with one hand, and with the other hand, reached out to turn the brass knob to a full close. "I needed pure, raw, natural fire to regain my initial powers, nothing conjured, and you gave it to me without even questioning me. Why?"

Rainbow Dash simply retained her flabbergasted expression as she began to back away from him, fumbling with herself on her words and what she was going to say.

"Uhhhh..." Rainbow Dash fumbled as she scratched at her neck nervously before grabbing Twilight and pulling her forward. "Maybe you should ask this girl. She's the one who led us to you and kept us safe from your crazy flames."

Twilight whipped around and smacked Rainbow Dash's shoulder in anger from throwing her into the center like that, but quickly remembered that this lost and confused High Blood was still waiting for an answer from her. However, he simply chuckled at this friendly sight before him, instantly easing the obvious tension that he had caused to settle in the room.

"What's so funny?" Twilight said with a grin, his warm smile visibly infectious to the others as well.

"Well, one of two things." He smiled as he shifted around enough to where she could see him holding the burning log that he was siphoning his energy from and his extremely lean and toned body, but nothing else. "It's just... feels like such a privilege to be in the company of humans again after so, so long. It's almost like a dream."

The rest of the group felt flattered by this as they all shifted around in place, all except for Pinkie Pie, who was leaning against the far corner of the room with her arms crossed and her head lowered.

"What was the other thing?" Twilight asked.

"The fact that you haven't noticed Princess Celestia standing behind you." Pinkie Pie answered in monotone.

Everybody's blood ran frigid.

As they slowly turned around, they saw that Pinkie Pie was, to their horror, correct.

There stood Celestia.

In full crown and dress, she frigidly stared at the weakened High Blood sitting vulnerably in front of the stove as she summoned her royal staff and began to walk forward.

"Princess Celestia..." Twilight shuddered as she immediately dropped to her knees and bowed in the presence of the ruler of the Solar Empire, as did the rest of the group.

But she did not acknowledge it. She simply walked past with an urgent stride as she came to stand above her young brother, glowering down at him as he looked back up to her with a weary smile strewn across his face.

"Prometheus..."

"I'm home,Celestia...

... I'm finally home."