Original Link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/165_lS95U7uP6aw_1SD_YbFEbfWmOUvZU4Cm7DhzLpyQ/edit?usp=sharing

Months passed since the Crystal Empire was taken over by the demons and Sombra had returned to the throne. This once beautiful and lively realm had become yet another demon stronghold, a huge wall of dark crystal surrounding it entirely. The crystal ponies as well changed, having turned dark, cracked with strange eyes and changed their behavior to be both very violent and very obedient. The day they and their home realm became like this went down as the darkest chapter in the collective history of all sentient beings. With the utter destruction of the rebellion, there was nothing left to stop Blueblood from world-domination.

The news spread around like wildfire. So many believed that the rebellion would succeed. So many thought it was a serious force to be reckoned with. For it to be crushed with such ease and so thoroughly made nearly all remaining kingdoms in the world surrender. Globally, every last bit of hope had vanished. None even dared to consider refusing Blueblood anymore. His display of power was simply too overwhelming.

As the rebellion fell, many fell with it. The list of casualties was endless, which tragically included Cerberus and both of Twilight’s parents. While the hellhound had already fallen while the leadership circle was still fleeing from the battleground, nopony could clearly say when Mr. and Mrs. Sparkle were murdered. The group was unable to find them in the masses and did not have the time needed to search for them. These news were particularly hard to take for their daughter and son.

Twilight did everything she could. She had become so mighty that some started wondering how she was not an alicorn. But it wasn’t enough. All this power could not protect the rebellion, or even her own parents. The purple mare tried her best to keep up an appearance of stability, but she frequently just crumbled in front of her friends. None of them could even count the many days she just spent crying at this point. Although she still remained sticking to her word of continuing the fight, no matter what it takes, she was just broken on the inside. Only the fewest could even begin to imagine what she must be going through, of which Shining Armor seemed to be the closest to getting the picture, since he was going through the very same loss and grief. At the very least, he did not blame Twilight one bit and tried to support her as much as he could in his mourning state.

Celestia’s condition as well became a lot worse. After the fall of the Crystal Empire, she started drowning herself in her guilt. As time passed by, it only became increasingly more difficult to even get her to talk anymore. Whenever she could, the former ruler of Equestria retreated as far as the others would let her, taking every opportunity to be alone. She couldn’t even bring herself to even look at Twilight anymore. Not because of spite, but because of how much she blamed herself for what her star student was going through. Celestia firmly believed that the death of her parents was exclusively her fault, not even having thought of a backup plan for their evacuation. Knowing that all this started because she made a mistake and never managed to correct it became a burden nearly unable for her to carry anymore. If it wasn’t for her own sister, none could clearly say what Celestia would be doing at this point.

Aside of that, the status of all others dear to the the group of friends was unknown. Even Caramel became disconnected from them as they tried to escape. This only came out minutes after the escape, but Applejack had to witness as a cultist rammed his spear into Caramel’s hind leg, making him fall over. There was nothing she could do. The mere split second she needed to realize he was in trouble was already too late and a wall of demons closed the gap between them. Needless to say, the orange mare was wrecked. But she refused to even picture that he might be dead by now. So long as there was no evidence to either his survival or death, she would keep believing he was still out there somewhere, walking with another splinter group of survivalists. She could also only hope that Babs Seed was with him, since she also hadn’t been seen since the Red Day.

Summarized, it could easily be said that all of them had reached rock bottom. While it is generally said that things can always get worse, not many things could still considerably worsen their situation any significantly further. If it wasn’t for Twilight, they would have just given up by now. But seeing how she, despite what happened, despite what she was going through, still kept hanging on gave the rest of her friends and family just the small bit of motivation they needed to still keep going.

They didn’t even know for how long they had been fleeing now. With the rebellion gone, it seemed like there were enemies around every corner now. Countless smaller attacks and battles were fought in secrecy, making sure they always finish off any aggressor to keep their survival a secret. All the group could do was to continuously run in random directions. Lacking a map, they all completely lost orientation. All they could be sure of was that they were in a very old forest, full of crooked and twisted trees. Were they east of Equestria? West? South? Were they inside of Equestria? Or maybe far, far away? There was no way of knowing. For a good month now, it seemed like they were just stuck constantly walking in circles, trying to find a way through these woods without success. The lack of any supplies didn’t make this any easier. For a long time now, the whole circle had to resort to eating whatever fruit or wild vegetable they could find along the way. There simply wasn’t any chance for them to gather supplies as they fled from the Crystal Empire and with the constant threats in the corners of their eyes, always fearing another cultist or demon could jump at them any second, they found it extremely difficult to even gather anything.

Starved, dehydrated, deprived of sleep and very exhausted, Twilight and her friends kept on walking endlessly. Day after day. Night after night. They had become so dirty and lost so much weight, it would be easy to mistake them for zombies. But luckily, there still was only one true undead among them so far.

Rarity was doing just as poorly as all the others. Lacking the required materials to embalm herself, the decay of her body was clearly starting to show now. For the first time in months, she was feeling something again. Something she was just too familiar with during the final weeks of her life: Pain.

It started out as just an aching in the joints and a stinging sensation in the spine, but each passing day made it a little bit worse. Having gone through mind-breaking agony before, this so far was nothing she couldn’t handle. Even though she hated the dirty, messy and rotten way she looked, even though she despised the way she smelled of rotting flesh and attracted flies, Rarity remained silent. Even though she was a living corpse, she believed that the others, Twilight and Shining Armor in particular, were going through way worse things than she was. Rarity was just suffering physically. Her mind could still rest peacefully at night, knowing that her parents were still out there somewhere, still uncaught by the BloodClaw Cult and probably having sought refuge in another kingdom. Twilight was completely different in that regard. There were nights during which she couldn’t sleep at all, causing her to only be more exhausted the next day and randomly pass out several times. Rarity’s true worries were centered around her friends, not herself.

To them, it felt like an age had gone by when one day, the bushes started to rattle and the sound of cracking branches filled the air. As usual, the group jumped in position, ready to fight whatever would come at them. A hoof rose out of the bushes, requesting of them to not attack. It was brown and not fully grown. Moments later, a face followed. Applejack’s eyes quickly became watery and tears started rolling down her face as she ran towards the pony, embracing her and immediately being hugged back.

“Babs…” was all the orange mare could utter as she was struggling against her own tears.

“Hi, big cuz,” Babs Seed greeted, tears running down her own cheek.

The others tried to hold her back, but lacked the needed reaction time and strength. They were suspicious at first. This could as well just be a Skin-Walker, they feared. But already while Babs was leaving her cover, another familiar face followed. It was Amber, wearing a black cloak. This sight simultaneously made them feel out of danger and very sad. Twilight walked over to the still young filly, who in return bowed down before her.

“There is no need for that,” Twilight assured, then gave a gesture telling her to get back up. “Amber… where is Truesight.”

The filly’s yellow eye wandered to the ground, focusing it for a couple of seconds before looking up to Twilight again.

“She is dead…” Amber replied in a calm, emotionless tone.

Now, Twilight lowered her focus as well. She immediately understood. Everything that had been between Truesight and Amber suddenly became clear. The reaper clairvoyant must have foreseen her own death during the Red Day many years ago. Through a vision, she must have found out about Amber and decided to adopt her, raise her and prepare her for becoming her successor. This way, even after she would pass, another spectralist would be there to take her spot as clairvoyant. If only she hadn’t been so secretive about all this, Twilight thought to herself. She would have been behaving differently around them both. But perhaps this was exactly what Truesight wanted to avoid by not telling anyone about her plans.

Whatever the reason may have been, Truesight was gone now. Her life ended and Amber inherited her cloak as well as her curse. Twilight rose her head again, forcing herself into a smile.

“Pretty impressive that you managed to find us and brought Babs to us safely,” she complimented.

“I saw Babs in a vision and thought we would be better off together. Then I saw all of you, so I came… What are my orders, my mistress?” Amber wanted to know.

“Sweetie… You have been through a lot. I don’t have any direct orders for you. Just take your time and come to terms with what happened. I know, perception is different for you and you probably had a lot more time to prepare for this. But still, I would like of you to take it easy for now,” Twilight responded, then looked over to Fluttershy and Derpy. “Would either one of you be willing to become her mentor for now?”

“Don’t look at me! I barely know much more than she already does!” Derpy replied.

“Then I will take care of her,” Fluttershy agreed.

The purple mare gave a short nod, then turned back around. Cadence stepped up next to her, focusing the new little reaper filly.

“Do you know anything about the rebels? Are there any survivors? And do you have any clue where we are right now?” she wanted to know.

“A few reapers managed to escape. They spread out and are looking for whom the cloaks chose to replace the dead ones. They plan to gather any survivor they can find along the way and then start looking for you. As to where we are, I’m not sure. I had to walk south a lot. I can only say that we are well past Appleloosa and out of Equestria,” Amber explained.

“I’m pretty sure the reapers will manage to find us eventually,” Shining Armor suddenly started. “After all, they are bond to you, Twily. That means we need to stay around here and try to make it until they arrive. Then we can start to rebuild.”

“But this forest can barely even sustain the few of us,” Rarity disagreed. “If I still needed food myself, one of us would have starved by now. And that is with us actively wandering around and searching for food. How are we going to make it if we stay in-”

A loud scream not far from them suddenly interrupted Rarity’s argument. Once again, they all got ready to fight, this time joined by Babs and Amber. But nothing came. Wild beasts attacking a pony, perhaps? No, they would be able to smell them, or at least would have heard them talk. Without saying a word, Twilight gestured to tell them all to stick together as they approached the source of the scream to investigate.

Slowly sneaking past a bunch of bushes and trees, they suddenly halted. A gutted and partially eaten pony was hanging dead on a tree, held by two nails made of stone rammed in its front legs. He was wearing the robe of the BloodClaw Cult. The group decided to take a few more steps forward, now able to see that there were several baskets weaved out of fresh leaves close to the corpse, containing fruits, nuts, mushrooms, vegetables and wooden flasks filled with water. This just looked way too suspicious for the group. This had to be a trap of some sort. But surprisingly, it was Twilight who stepped out of the cover, lowered her guard and walked straight up to the scene.

The others remained silent, unsure if she was taking it upon herself to see if the area was secure. Twilight walked up to the corpse, looking at the roots beneath it. Then, she picked up a stone that looked like it had been chiseled into a diamond pattern.

“Wow…” was all she said before waving the others over. “You can come. Don’t worry, we can eat and drink all of this. They come from an ally.”

“What kind of ally would be able to track us down in the middle of the woods like that? And more importantly, why are they hiding?” Babs wondered.

“About two years ago, I was held captive by a cannibal mare for four days. She was trying to hide me from a particularly dangerous demon and possibly saved my life that way. This is her doing, I’m absolutely positive about this,” the purple mare responded.

“Are you really sure we can trust her?” Shining Armor wondered.

“Yes. My well-being was very important to her and even when she lost control, she refused to do anything to me. If she wanted us to die, she wouldn’t even need to go through the trouble of poisoning the food or water she provided for us. As Rarity just said, we wouldn’t be able to survive much longer without any help,” Twilight explained with confidence.

“Oh boy! Let’s have a feast then, everypony! Just look at this! She must have spent ages gathering that much food and clean water!” Derpy commented.

“She even left most of this dead cultist behind so we reapers could feed as well,” Fluttershy analyzed.

“Honestly, I’m more worried about the fact that this cultist is looking the way it is than anything else. Even if she is on our side, she is dangerous. To think she killed and shredded him like that in the few minutes we needed to get here and managed to get away unseen on top of that… Her hunting skills are uncanny,” Twilight analyzed.

“So can we trust her or not?” Luna wondered, wanting to make sure.

“I suppose we have to,” the purple mare finalized.

The others looked at each other for a moment, still a bit unsure. But their thirst and hunger eventually made them overthrow their worries and all began to refuel themselves. Of course, with Babs present, the reapers made sure to drag the dead body around the tree, feeding on it out of her sight. There even was a small bottle containing some kind of mineral powder at the bottom of one of the baskets, which seemed to be specifically for Rarity. Twilight didn’t much like the idea to depend on a cannibal pony for their survival, but she was in no position to be picky about her allies. As the day came to an end, they all finally felt energy returning to their bodies and prepared to set up camp. The rebellion started again.