Romance and the Fate of Equestria

Chapter Thirty-Four

"I'm here, y'all."

Applejack rushed into the library, where all the others were gathered around Twilight, who was scanning the page of an enormous book she had open on the floor.

Twilight looked up. "Shouldn't you be at the hospital?" she asked.

Applejack shook her head. "Granny'll be on the table for hours, I won't do her any good standin' around frettin'. I'm going with you, Twilight."

"Thank you," Twilight said softly. "Pinkie, is something the matter?"

Pinkie was sitting down, twisting her hair nervously. "It's just… it's a lot to have to process. A lot to keep track of…"

"You get the gist, right?" Twilight said tersely.

"Is the 'gist' that your boyfriend is a cheap hack of a villain and we're going to beat him up?"

Twilight smirked. "Nice to have us all on the same page." She tapped the passage she had been reading. "I looked up this 'epic teleport' spell… it should work on all seven of us, and get us to Canterlot Castle instantly."

"Seven?" Rarity asked, looking around. "Is Spike joining us?"

"No, he's with Big Macintosh and the Crusaders at the hospital," Twilight said. "This'll be much too dangerous for him. The seventh member of our party is…" She looked around for her, finally spotting her huddled in the corner of a bookshelf. "Venni, get over here. You're a part of this."

Venni nervously shuffled over to them, her eyes darting to each pony in turn, as if waiting for one of them to attack.

"Anyway, 'epic teleport'," Twilight went on. "Teleporting groups is hard, distances even harder. This spell should simplify things. If I succeed, we'll be there in an instant. If I fail…" Her eyes darted over the text, looking increasingly disturbed and horrified. "Ooh… tell ya what, I'll make absolutely sure I don't fail. Are we ready?"

"Ready!" came a general chorus from the others.

"Let's do this thing," Twilight said dangerously.

Her magenta magic aura expanded from her horn and enveloped all seven ponies. The magic exploded and smoked, and they all vanished from the library.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Shining Armor swung his shield at Vorpal Blade, who dodged. Shining Armor's defenses were left wide open, and Vorpal Blade blasted him with magic. The captain of the guards collapsed to the floor, shivering, his shield on top of him.

"You bastard," Shining Armor hissed. "You filthy, lowlife, traitorous, treasonous…"

Vorpal Blade picked up Shining Armor with his magic and stuck his face uncomfortably close to the captain's. "I'm aware of how much I suck, okay?" he said. "You don't have to tell me." He threw Shining Armor across the long castle corridor, smashing him against a wall.

One of the corridor's huge windows shattered, and Crazyface burst in, Skippmud still dangling from his front hooves.

"You guys are early," Vorpal Blade noted. "Has something happened to compel a hasty retreat?"

"We encountered complications," Crazyface said apologetically, setting Skippmud on the ground.

"Had to cut and run early," Skippmud added. "So let's get this over with, or your dorky GF and all her dysfunctional bitches will be right behind us."

Vorpal Blade stood for a moment, blank and solemn. "That's regrettable," he finally said.

"I thought we had a procedure, man!" Skippmud snapped, smacking Vorpal Blade's chest.

"I know, I'm sorry," he said. "This is nothing we can't handle—here, I brought you guys horns."

He levitated out two CMC unicorn horns and unceremoniously shoved them into his friends' skulls, causing them both to squeal in pain. Crazyface's horn was made of igneous rock, dark red and porous; Skippmud's was of limestone in a swirling pattern of light green and black.

"Skipp, wings for you," Vorpal Blade went on, passing her a pair of pitch-black wings.

"Sweet!" Skippmud said, taking them and activating them. They found the spot on her midsection and installed themselves into her nerves. "AGH!" Skippmud cried out. "Agh… oh yeah," she said softly, flapping the wings clumsily.

"Face, have an earth pony pin," Vorpal Blade said, offering him one made of brass. "I'm not sure what they actually do, but I'm wearing three." He stood erect, showing off his chest, revealing that he was indeed wearing three gem-studded earth pony pins: one red, one green, one pink. "You know, can't be too careful."

Crazyface inserted the pin into his heart, flinching silently. He looked over Vorpal Blade's intensive modifications. "So, er… how come you get to be a septacorn and we don't?"

Vorpal Blade pressed his forehead against Crazyface's firmly. "'Cause I'm the chosen one," he said with a straight face, before breaking out in laughter.

"Ah, of course," Crazyface chuckled. "How could I forget? Blow it up!"

The two stallions bumped their hooves together, then brought them apart in imitation of a slow-motion explosion.

"All right, filly and gentlecolt, let's nick some crown jewels," Vorpal Blade said grandly. "Thankfully, I recently got a castle tour. Let's go."

Vorpal Blade and Crazyface rose into the air and started flying down the corridor. Skippmud followed on hoof, trying to fly, but finding she couldn't get any amount of lift from her frantic, uneven flapping.

"How are you doing that?" Skippmud demanded of Vorpal Blade. "I can't even get off the ground, I can't figure out how to work these wings… how are you flying so perfectly with so many?"

"Well, the whole 'chosen one' thing comes to mind again," Crazyface mused.

Vorpal Blade dropped to the ground. "We'll walk, we're in no hurry."

Skippmud glared. "You didn't see the fight that Rainbow Dyke gave us back there. Trust me… we're in a hurry." She ran down the corridor, leaving the other two in her dust.

Crazyface landed beside Vorpal Blade. "We could try putting Golden Thread on her wings?" he suggested.

"Wouldn't work," Vorpal Blade said, shaking his head. "I've tried it, but it's right there on the Golden Thread packaging, it only strengthens living material. So you can keep a tree branch from breaking, but you can't fix a bridge with it."

"Ah, I see."

"Skipp!" Vorpal Blade called, flying after her. "Skippmud! Skipp, buddy…" He found her at an intersection of corridors, furiously looking from one path to another.

"First of all, it's that way," he said, pointing down the left corridor. "Second, relax a little bit. We can take it easy on this job, we have full run of this castle!"

"Do you?"

The three thieves stiffened and tensed up in surprise. Vorpal Blade managed a smirk, and the three of them turned around slowly, to see Princess Celestia advancing on them, towering over them like a force of nature.

"What sort of fools are you," Celestia said darkly, "to break into my castle in broad daylight and never even consider that I might be here?" Her eyes lit upon Vorpal Blade and she gasped. "Oh!" she said, her eyes widening as she brought a hoof to her mouth. "Oh, no… no, no, no, it's… it's you?"

"It's me," Vorpal Blade said, almost apologetically.

"But… but…" Celestia stammered. "But Twilight…"

"Yup," Vorpal Blade agreed.

Celestia frowned. "You know," she said harshly, "when I first came upon the carnage you left in the entrance to the mines, it occurred to me… that in the millennium I've been princess, very few ponies have seen me truly angry. I thought, well, anypony who would come into my house, and do harm to my sister and our faithful soldiers, would certainly be entitled to be the target of such a display of emotion. But… since in doing so, you've also betrayed my beloved Twilight Sparkle…"

She smiled, and went on in the kindest and most motherly tone of voice imaginable. "You don't deserve the honor of witnessing my anger. All you deserve is oblivion. Prepare yourselves."

She opened her eyes wide, and from both her eyes and her horn shot a continuous, waving, golden sunbeam—as wide as the corridor, it enveloped the trio of thieves, causing them to writhe in the intense, burning light.

Vorpal Blade summoned a pair of midnight-blue, knife-shaped shields of pure magic, setting them in front of his two companions, blocking the onslaught of sunlight energy. "It's all in your heads, guys!" he bellowed. "She's not doing any real harm!"

In response, Celestia's beam intensified, shattering the shields and blowing Skippmud and Crazyface far down the corridor. Vorpal Blade stood his ground and walked against the wavering beam, finally stepping out into the open space where the beam's arc didn't touch the floor, as it expanded out from Celestia's eye level.

The princess ceased her onslaught, as the beam coming from her eyes blinded her, to look down at Vorpal Blade. He responded with a pearl of light shooting straight into her head.

"Oh, you can't hesitate for even a second, Princess," Vorpal Blade said sweetly. "That's all it takes for me to get into your head."

She looked at him in horror, silently.

"That's right, you've forgotten how to breathe, haven't you? Don't worry, it'll start back up after you pass out. But, just to make sure you stay passed out, let me restrict the flow a little bit."

Two tendrils of blue magic emerged from his many horns and swung around Celestia's sides. In a panic, Celestia used a pair of her own sun-yellow magic tendrils to push his magic away. The small bits of magical energy skirmished with each other for a few moments, before Vorpal Blade's magic slipped beneath Celestia's defenses and smashed her ribs on either side.

Celestia wheezed as her breath was squeezed out of her.

"Booyah," Vorpal Blade growled.

Skippmud weakly tried to stand up, her heart not really in it until she came to a realization. "Vorpal Blade!" she cried out, jumping to her hooves. "Vorpal Blade, what—"

"No way!" Crazyface exclaimed.

Vorpal Blade stood atop the collapsed and broken form of Celestia. He waved to the other.

"How is that even possible?" Skippmud muttered.

"You're still just a pony, aren't you?" Crazyface said nervously.

Vorpal Blade chuckled. "Heh… heh heh… eh heh heh heh heh… aaaah ha ha ha ha… AAAAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAA!" He threw his head back wildly. "THIS—IS—WHAT WAS ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! THIS—IS WHAT WAS PROMISED—TO MEEEEEEE! HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!"

"Hey, pal," Skippmud said sharply. "Leave a bit of scenery for somepony else to chew, would you? We got crown jewels to steal."

Vorpal Blade grinned. "Right!"

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

The Canterlot treasure vault was, like most rooms in the castle, deep and narrow and high-ceilinged. Ancient suits of armor, weapons, magical talismans, enormous carvings and sculptures of bronze, clay, and iron—all these things lined the walls of the windowless vault, but the three thieves paid them no mind, walking straight to the end of the vault to the enormous glass case which displayed six jewels unlike any others in the world.

"Here they are," Vorpal Blade said, opening the case with unnatural ease, as if it hadn't even been locked. "The crown jewels of Equestria, and all the power that implies."

The smallest of the jewels—a bright green gem carved in the shape of a dagger—was larger than a pony's head. Even larger were the white gem in the shape of a war hammer, and the pink one shaped like a dancing lick of flame.

"The unicorn Princess Platinum showcased them in a weekly parade," Vorpal Blade said, levitating the gems out of their case one by one. "Her daughter, the mad immortal Amethyst Abjurer Dweomer—a.k.a. Princess Bubbles—loved them so much that it took a love poison to get her to so much as lift her eyes from them."

He lifted out the next two gems, a brown bow with a matching arrow nocked and a dark green stringed instrument, perhaps a lute or a mandolin. Each of these gems was longer than a pony's body.

"And the old master-o'-chaos himself, Discord… when he got carried away in his torturous games and his playthings died on him, he'd nab their newly-released souls and stick 'em in one of these guys so he could play with them forever…"

He called the largest jewel to himself, a midnight-blue broadsword with a length greater than any three of the others, greater than any three ponies standing end-to-end. He touched it gently with his hoof.

"They say each gem still has one pony's soul still trapped in there," he whispered. He levitated all six of the gems into the air above himself and his companions, giving them a clear view of their prize. "Celestia, meanwhile, has kept the gems in a box for the past thousand years. And she wonders why all the other goddesses call her a sissy."

He turned around and starting marching purposefully out of the vault, the gems over his head and his two friends in tow. "Savor this moment, fellas, this is our finest moment in all our years as thieves. We won't top ourselves until the day we steal Equestria itself! This is the ultimate heist, the alpha and the omega of bling-bling. I wish I knew a song about these gems so I could break into a big show-stopping number right now!"

A beam of magenta magic cut across Vorpal Blade's many horns, causing his levitation spell to end and the six gems to come tumbling to the ground. Twilight stood at the entrance, the tip of her horn smoking.

"Hooves off the bling-bling, Vorpal Blade," she commanded. "It doesn't belong to you."

"Smiley!" Vorpal Blade said, delighted. "Um… heh…" His grin turned into an awkward chuckle as he noticed her blatantly unsmiling face. "Of all the heists in all the world, you had to walk in on… wait a minute, you called me Vorpal Blade. Where did you hear that name?"

"Made a new friend," Twilight said. "One who's devoted her entire adult life to putting you three away."

"Ah, Loli," Crazyface said, grinning wildly.

"That psychopath?" Vorpal Blade said in disgust. "And you just took her word over mine, just like that? What kind of girlfriend are you?"

"The fact that you're currently robbing Canterlot Castle kind of undercuts your point, don't you think?" Twilight said.

Skippmud laughed. "She ain't wrong, Veeb."

"So how is Loli these days?" Crazyface said through a tight, unsettling smile.

"She's good," Twilight said. "Especially since her quest is nearly over."

Venni leapt to Twilight's side, crouched like a dog ready to attack, grinding her teeth and growling. The rest of Twilight's friends filed in one after another, forming a V-formation with Twilight as the head.

"You guys wanna fight, or will you come quietly?" Twilight asked.

"Oh, you're gonna have to come and get us," Vorpal Blade said sweetly.

"Fine," Twilight snapped. "Venni, you've fought these guys before, right?"

"Actually, no," Venni confessed, her entire body quivering in fury. "This is the closest I've ever been to them since I started hunting them."

"Hm. Well, okay, doesn't matter, I'm putting you in charge anyway. Direct the group in the best way you can think of to disable Skippmud and Crazyface." She started forward. "There's six of you and two of them so, you know, just stay loose and have fun with it."

"What'll you do?" Fluttershy demanded anxiously.

"I'm going to have a word with my boyfriend… alone."

With powerful bursts of magic, she blasted Vorpal Blade's companions and the crown jewels to the sides of the room. An immense force field bubbled out around Twilight, taking in both her and Vorpal Blade, before solidifying, becoming impenetrably black.

Crazyface tapped on the dome-shaped field. It made an ethereal whispering sound, but didn't give way.

Twilight's friends looked at Venni expectantly. She shrugged her shoulders, the gesture rolling through her entire body. "If you're looking for military leadership tactics or whatever, I'm afraid you're gonna be disappointed. Just follow my lead."

She raised herself up on her back legs. Two knives extended from the bands around her front hooves, and she leaped powerfully at Crazyface, banging him against the dome.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Twilight and Vorpal Blade stood facing each other in a void of total blackness. Nothing was visible but the pair of them, and they could see each other perfectly.

"So… we're alone," Vorpal Blade said, seeming resigned. "What'd you wanna talk about?"

"I just don't get it, Vorpal Blade," Twilight sighed. "You've dedicated your whole life to lies and thievery when you could have been healing. Should have been! Isn't that what your cutie mark wants?"

"I heal," Vorpal Blade said dully. "I heal ponies of the unhealthy belief that possessions matter. And then, while they're standing there in slack-jawed, childlike catatonia, I take all their stuff while they watch." He chuckled bitterly. "It's temporary, of course. Crime is crime, but permanently damaging somepony's mind? Be difficult to live with myself if I did that."

Twilight glared. "So you have some morals, then."

"Some," he agreed.

"Then heal me," Twilight said.

He tilted his head to the side. "Hmm?"

"Heal me…" Twilight's voice broke, and she swallowed before continuing, "…of my love for you, of the anguish of finding out who you really are, of the sorrow when I think of what we could have been. If you truly have a heart or a conscience, then please… please… rid me of all these ailments, permanently."

Vorpal Blade looked down at his hooves in shame. "Gee… I'd like to. I want to, but…" He looked off into the distance and abruptly changed the subject. "You know, the one permanent thing I afflict on ponies is to wipe away any chance that they'd suspect my partners and I of wrongdoing. That's why we've never been caught, you see? Because everypony we meet has a mental block against suspecting us. Somehow," he said contemptuously, "dear old Loli Pop slipped through the cracks, remembers what we've done with perfect clarity. But forget her, she doesn't matter."

He looked deeply into Twilight's eyes, despite the distance between them. "Now… since I genuinely do care for you, I deliberately neglected to do that to anypony in Ponyville. And since I care for you more than care for myself, I'm tempted to do what you've asked. But… I feel it'd be detrimental."

"To what?" Twilight prompted.

"To this thing I've got going, the reason I came to Canterlot in the first place: Power. We are after power. Power, whether it be financial or political, physical… or magical. Now you, you swear by the magic of friendship and love. Which is… okay, I guess. But it's not thinking big enough—the real magic lies in hate. Hatred is magic. And so long as you hate me, I'll have power. Not just in the sense of me hanging over your head all the time, but actual magical power. It's part of the deal I made to get here. And for you to hate me properly, you need to still remember what it was like to be in love with me. I'm sorry."

Twilight scoffed. "Honestly? Hatred? So you're not just the scum of the earth, you're also evil."

"Something like that, yes," he said sadly.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Rainbow Dash grappled with Skippmud against a wall.

"Don't touch me," Skippmud sneered, punching Rainbow across the room.

Rainbow and Rarity came at Skippmud from two different directions, but she spun around with her false wings extended, unbalancing the pair of them, then picked up Rarity and hurled her back toward the entrance.

"It's NOT my time to lose!" Skippmud growled. "I've been at this too long!"

"I'll say." Venni stood atop Twilight's force field, and flung a bola at Skippmud. The weighted cord entangled her limbs, knocking her to the ground. "You've gotten old, Skipp!"

"So have you." Crazyface mowed Venni down, pushing her all the way to the back of the vault, crushing her against the wall and letting her fall to the floor. He swept her face twice with his wings, leaving deep cuts, then pinned her against the wall, groping her theatrically. "Mmmmmm, Loli, you were so much more erotic as a filly, but you'll do… you, my dear, will do."

Venni produced a few small round objects from the pockets of her neck ring, dropping them to the floor. They exploded in clouds of flame and black smoke, knocking Crazyface away from her.

Skippmud flexed, breaking free of her bonds. Instantly, Venni whipped out two throwing stars and tossed them in two separate directions, effortlessly plugging both Skippmud and Crazyface in their shoulders.

Rainbow dropped to the ground alongside Venni. "Nice moves you're whipping out there," she said.

"Thanks," Venni said graciously. "You got some moves too, I've noticed."

"Yeah, I got the moves," Rainbow chuckled.

"Remind me who the filly with all the pockets is?" Rarity asked Applejack. "Besides being the 'Gewgaw' we were told to avoid but whom apparently we now trust?"

She cast a spell on Skippmud's mane, pulling it tight in all directions and holding her in place, making her grimace in pain. Applejack charged and headbutted Skippmud's face, knocking her back but leaving much of her hair floating in place.

"I dunno," Applejack said, in response to Rarity. "But she's like a superhero with all those little weapons she's pullin'."

"Ha!" Venni barked, coming up to the two of them. "Hey, I've been making plans for this fight for, what, nine years now? I can only hope I get to hit them with everything I've always wanted to hit them with."

She pulled a long black chain out of a compartment in her breastplate. The link at the end of the chain somehow spiraled out into a fully-sized wrecking ball, which she swung in an arc over her head, bashing Crazyface's midsection.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"I'll level with you, Twilight," Vorpal Blade said, pacing back and forth in the cramped pitch-blackness. "This job, breaking into the castle and taking the crown jewels? It was gonna happen today no matter what, and succeed. It was kind of… written. Predestined, or prophesied, or whatever. Things like Golden Thread, Crusaders Mecha, a girlfriend who could give me access to knowledge of the castle's entrances and inner workings? Those were all just… bonuses."

He stopped pacing and chuckled glumly. "Actually falling in love with you, that's more of an unanticipated obstacle that I'm gonna have to work to overcome. But hey, what's life without unanticipated obstacles?"

"Well, that's a crying shame," Twilight said graciously, "'cause I'm completely over you." She lowered her head in an attack stance, her horn sparking and smoking. "I'm done talking. Put 'em up!"

Vorpal Blade scoffed. "What, are you gonna fight me, Twilight? Maybe you didn't notice, but I just took down Celestia."

"I saw," Twilight growled.

"Yup," he chuckled. "Took her down in one shot… and with a very satisfying crunching noise, I may add. You're not gonna be so arrogant as to compare yourself to Celestia, are you?"

"Not at all," Twilight said. "Except in the sense that I'm the one she calls when everything goes to hell."

She enveloped him in a pillar of pink flame.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Venni had a garrote around Crazyface's neck, struggling against him as the minutes went by. Skippmud swirled and danced around the corridor, managing to keep Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity at bay all at once, but the three of them were improving in their coordination and slowly gaining the advantage against the powerful and nimble thief.

Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy stood near the entrance, apprehensively watching the goings-on.

"I'm not sure how we fit into this fight," Pinkie confessed.

"Neither am I," Fluttershy said. "But I'm sure that if we were truly needed, we'd know."

"Yeah…" Pinkie said thoughtfully. "Ooh! Should we go get the Elements of Harmony? They're around here somewhere, right?"

"Only the two of us?" Fluttershy said uncertainly.

"Yeah! It's not like they're some mighty evil or anything, they're just two ponies. Just the two of us could blast 'em!"

Fluttershy shrugged. "Why bother? We're pretty much winning. And it wouldn't do to run off, just in case they need our help immediately."

"I guess you're right," Pinkie said, her eyes scanning the entire room. "Are those cracks in the ceiling?"

Fluttershy followed her gaze to a thin crack slowly making its way across the ceiling of the vault. "…Huh," she said uneasily.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Vorpal Blade sidestepped the coils of pink sand that were attempting to grab him. "You've taken precautions," he observed. "I can't find your consciousness."

"It's elsewhere," Twilight said. "I had to guard myself from you."

"Cool."

He called an assortment of knives made of magical energy, and had them lunge at Twilight from various directions. She blocked them one at a time with scarcely a thought.

He created a shapeless, ghostly creature with a horrific face. The monster swooped down on Twilight, but she sliced the phantasm in half with a slash of her horn.

He shot lightning at her, but she countered with lightning of her own. The two crackling bolts met in the middle, neither giving way to the other. Vorpal Blade started sweating and struggling, attempting to push his lightning past hers. Twilight, meanwhile, was clearly not even trying, standing there with slackened muscles, her eyes at half-mast, a theatrical smirk on her face, waiting for him to run out of energy.

The deep blue lightning faded, and the magenta lightning struck, banging Vorpal Blade against the invisible wall of the force field.

"You pathetic, simple-minded creep," Twilight said calmly.

She summoned an ocean wave, which passed over her but smashed into Vorpal Blade violently.

"Maybe hatred is more powerful than friendship, I couldn't say," Twilight said, advancing on him slowly. "But you don't embody hatred, you just channel it. It's not your area of expertise. Your 'area' is healing, but you've turned your back on it, foolishly."

She called up a swarm of flaming meteors, then sent them flying one at a time into his chest.

"Me? Friendship fills every cell of my body. I'm harmony given life, love given physical form."

With a crick of her neck, she set him on fire. He screamed.

"In other words, you can't best me at magic because—not unlike my good friend, the vigilante formerly known as Loli Pop—I am magic. The magic."

As the flames died down, revealing some of Vorpal Blade's already-black fur even more blackened and some of it gone altogether, he broke out laughing.

"That was awesome, Smiley," he said, coughing. "How will you ever top such an inspiring heroic monologue next time we meet?"

"We will never meet again," Twilight snarled. She encased him in a force field shaped exactly like his body, leaving him barely able to move. "I have you," she spat, "and you're going to prison for a very long time."

"No, see, it's destiny that I'll leave here today with the crown jewels and live to steal again," Vorpal Blade said brightly. "After that, my fate is less clear, but I know you well enough to know that when I return, you'll be there to try and stop me. 'Cause you're you," he finished, his voice full of admiration.

Twilight shrugged. "You may want to sue whoever makes your 'prophecies', because they're wrong. You're finished."

"What I've come to understand about this particular prophecy is that, whenever it starts to look like I can't succeed, something really weird happens to turn the tide in my favor."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Venni flung another of her small bombs at Crazyface, who stood atop Twilight's force field. He flew out of the bomb's range, and it shattered the pitch-black dome. Venni tossed another one, and Crazyface caught it gently in his wing, then flung it at the ceiling.

The explosion intersected with the odd crack, and a huge chunk of the ceiling fell down upon the dome, making it vanish altogether. When the smoke cleared, Vorpal Blade was standing free while Twilight was pinned underneath the rubble.

"Yep, just like that," Vorpal Blade said cheerfully. "Oh, there's your brain!" He cast a spell on her.

Twilight gaped in horror. "What have you done? What have you done? I can't remember how to use magic! I can't use magic! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO—"

"Re… lax!" Vorpal Blade snapped. "It'll wear off when I'm gone."

A small hurricane appeared over his head, and powerful gusts of wind filled the chamber. Skippmud, Crazyface, and the crown jewels were drawn toward the center of the storm, while Twilight's friends were blown away. Only Venni managed to hold her ground well enough not to move.

"I have just one more question," Twilight shouted over the winds. "If you really did love me, why did you go ahead and do all of this anyway?"

"Did, past tense?" Vorpal Blade demanded. "I do love you. But… these two were here first." He draped his arms across Skippmud and Crazyface's shoulders. "They'll always be first."

The trio laughed darkly as Vorpal Blade's many horns sparked, and they vanished.

Twilight's magic returned to her, and she lifted the piece of ceiling off of herself. "Teleportation?" she muttered. "But I thought that only I could do that… how did he get all of those spells? It can't just be all those horns that gives him this power."

Venni tapped Twilight gently. "I'm gonna go," she said.

"Go?" Twilight asked.

"Where I belong: tracking them down," Venni said. "It used to be, I was hunting them only for myself. Maybe that's why I failed, I had no passion." She put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder, and Twilight flinched uneasily. "Now I'm hunting them for you, my friend. And I'm gonna bring them back—for you."

"Oh… okay, yeah," Twilight said blankly. "Go get 'em."

"I shall!" Venni said grandly. She looked up at Twilight with a thoughtful expression. "Hey… maybe when I've brought justice on them and I don't have to be Vengeance Lash anymore, I'll… I'll tell you my real name, the one I was born with. No one's heard my real name for fifteen years."

"Okay, Venni," Twilight said. "Just one thing: just remember that justice and vengeance aren't the same thing."

"Oh, I know. Except in this case, they are. Seeing them in a Canterlot prison will be all the vengeance I need." Venni pulled Twilight into a crushing hug. "Goodbye, my dearest friend."

"Gah! What?" Twilight choked out.

Venni pulled away and looked her in the eye. "We've been wronged, you and I. We're like sisters in that way. And I'll show no mercy to the one who wronged my sister."

Twilight nodded. "Okay, friend. So why don't you get out there and come galumphing back here with his head?"

Venni smirked, patted Twilight's shoulder comfortingly, and galloped out of the treasure vault.

"Dearest friends, huh?" Applejack said, coming up alongside Twilight as they watched her go.

"Guess so," Twilight said, amused.

"Ain't that just like you, Twilight? You musta made a real impression on her. You always do."

"Yeah, I don't really get it," Twilight muttered. "It never occurred to me in the couple of hours I've known her that we were 'best friends'. I've barely spoken to her… but I've spoken to her. I wonder if she's ever had that chance to tell somepony who she is. Thanks to Vorpal Blade's meddling, none have ever listened to her or cared when she told of her raison d'être and what she's been through. But I did. It must have made a difference to her heart. Sometimes, one pony is all you need."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Twilight carefully swirled her horn around her brother's head, spreading dust on him to wake him up.

"Hey, BBBFF," she said, forcing herself to smile.

"Twilie…" Shining Armor groaned. "It was Snicker-Snack."

"I know."

"I'm so sorry," Shining Armor muttered. "I did this, I told him everything…"

"Shh," Twilight whispered. "You didn't do anything wrong. You were just being a brother."

Shining Armor was on his hooves now, and looked at Twilight with pity. "I'm so sorry," he said again.

Twilight knew he was sorry for something else, something unrelated to him. "Thank you," she said softly.

"Twilight!" Rarity called.

Twilight turned to where Rarity stood over Princess Celestia, who was stirring and attempting to stand.

"Princess…" Twilight gasped, running toward her.

"Twilight?" the princess said weakly. "Twilight, my beloved, is that you?"

"Yes, Princess."

Celestia opened her eyes and surveyed Twilight. Her face fell. "Oh… oh, poor Twilight… your heart is shattered."

Twilight chuckled bitterly. "My heart, Princess? I'm more worried about your ribs."

Celestia stood, and her mane began flowing around her. "I swear to you, I will use all means at my disposal to hunt down that vile traitor."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Twilight said with a bow. "But don't sweat it. The hunt is already on."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Venni stood atop the highest spire in Canterlot. From her uncountable pockets, she produced a large, folded mass of cloth and numerous wooden rods.

The cloth expanded into an enormous kite shape, and she used the rods to fortify and stiffen it. She attached herself to her primitive hang-glider with a collapsible wooden handle.

A gust of wind came, and she jumped off the spire, floating away from Canterlot and into the hazy distance.