I would like to thank the Doctor for his contributions to this overall document. His input has truly been invaluable, as was his overall involvement. His descriptions tended to get really wordy, however, so I've scolded him appropriately.

But now, back to me.

It was a little hazy, I recall, coming back to my senses. There were voices around me, talking in hushed tones. My eyesight came back gradually, the blurry colors coming into focus as I recognized the PVCC members. Magneighto was standing over me, his hoof glowing bright white as he held it near my hind legs.

I felt sharp pangs in my legs and winced. "Don't worry," said Magneighto, "I am merely mending your legs. Kind of hard if you keep moving around."

I looked around, now more alert. Fluttershy stood by, sitting on Ben's back, watching Magneighto in befuddlement, with Derpy leaning on Ben. I noticed she had a bulging black eye. Spider-Colt was crawling on a wall near me, taking a photograph of Magneighto, who grunted when he saw the light flash, and politely asked Spider-Colt to stop doing that. "Hey, I'm just trying to get evidence of what happened here," he replied.

Shining Armor was propped against a support beam, his wounds already healed. His eyes were open, but they were also, in a sense, dead. He merely stared ahead at nothing. I had the feeling it would be some time before he talked again.

My eyes then fell to a red mess on the ground. Bits of bone and flesh lied atop it. I stifled a scream, remembering that this was what remained of Big Macintosh. Tears in her eyes, Fluttershy withdrew from her perch on Ben's back and came near and nuzzled me, trying to keep me calm while Magneighto was working on my legs. I felt punctured muscle close and bones snap back into place and winced and held my shouts.

After some silence, Fluttershy spoke to Magneighto. "So... how do you know healing magic?"

Magneighto sniffed indifferently as he went to work on my other leg. "I am well-versed in many forms of magics. My family has been teaching magic for generations, so I learned at least some healing magic. Why do you ask?"

Fluttershy inhaled deeply. I could see the look in her eyes, and knew exactly what she was about to say. "You... you killed all those soldiers earlier. You laughed when you did it. You enjoyed killing them."

Magneighto said nothing, and a palpable silence descended on us, covering us like a blanket. "You enjoyed it," she continued, her voice cracking at "enjoyed." "You enjoy hurting other ponies. So, so knowing healing magic..." She shook her head before she finally came to her point. "Why do you have to be a monster instead of a healer?"

Spider-Colt looked up at her. Magneighto stopped in his healing, pursing his lips and sighing through his nose. Neither seemed to have an answer. Derpy, however, provided one:

"Maggie... Maggie doesn't like having to hurt ponies. He does anyway, 'cuz... Well, it's 'cuz he's had to do it so much he doesn't feel anything for it anymore." Tears began to form in her eyes. "An' the Mayor's a big bully. He kept me a prisoner to make Maggie do whatever he wanted. All that anger in Maggie's heart..."

Spider-Colt intervened before Derpy could burst into tears. "All that anger in everypony's hearts, you mean. The Mayor has wronged every one of us. It's why we're here. It's why we formed this group." He looked down to his own hooves. Even through those reflective glass eyes, I could see the terror flash through his eyes. He looked at his hooves as if he remembered having blood on them once. "It's true. Some of us are monsters now." He looked to his camera.

I wondered, for one stomach-churning moment, what pictures he had taken with that camera today. Besides the horrifying pictures of Cadance, what else was on that thing's film roll? What other horrors had Spider-Colt seen? What other horrors would he have to show the world to prove their leader was a monster? There was a cavernous despair in his voice, not at all something that should be present in the voice of somepony his age.

"Some of us... can't become clean again. Some of us will never be whole again."

"That's the song I've been singing my whole life."

Out of a dark corner came the Mare-Do-Well. Magneighto and Derpy both tensed at the sight of her. She looked their way, then back to me. After a weird pause, she drew closer to me and sat down. "She gonna be all right, Magneighto?" Her voice was noticeably softer, closer to the Bon-Bon I knew from home, but still tough-sounding.

Magneighto swallowed and went back to work. "She'll... be fine."

The Mare-Do-Well looked to me again. Long silence.

"...There, uh..."  She breathed a bit. "There anything I can do for you?"

Everypony looked to the Mare-Do-Well in surprise. Her offer of hospitality caught everypony off-guard. After thinking it over, I said, "Just being here. You're doing wonders for me just by being here." I held her hoof and shook it tightly, smiling as I looked into those cold and lifeless glass eyes.

I winced as I felt the bones in my left leg mend. At last, my body was back together. All that was missing now was my lost magic, which was already slowly coming back to me, like it was swimming through an ethereal ocean to reach me. I thanked Magneighto for his work.

I looked back at the other members of the PVCC. "Where's... where's everypony else?" I asked with some dread.

I was met by a shameful silence. Spider-Colt looked downcast, and Fluttershy turned away.

"This was always going to be a suicide run."

We all looked up to see that Shining Armor had joined us again. He had come over silently (silently enough to give the Mare-Do-Well a run for her money), and was standing next to Derpy. "There was always a high risk none of us would make it." He looked out over the remainder of his team: Derpy, Fluttershy, Spider-Colt, Magneighto, the Mare-Do-Well, Ben, me...

Shining Armor's tongue wet his lips. He nodded, accepting that his teammate's deaths were his responsibility. All those mares and stallions, dead... Blossomforth, Caramel, Redheart... all gone. All his fault.

No.

I flew to my brother and embraced him, nuzzled him. "It's not just your fault," I told him. "This is all our faults. Everypony on this team is responsible for this. We're going to press forward, and we're going to win. We may have lost a lot in this battle, but the Mayor is not about to get away with what he's done. It's cost us everything and everypony we love, but the world will know. The world will turn against him."

The world...

My eyes widened. If we couldn't stop the Windigus Prime, there wouldn't BE a world left to save!

I looked up to Shining Armor, and...

...And I couldn't do it. I couldn't tell him the world was about to be devoured by an alien monstrosity called forth into this reality by a demon I brought here. I'd have to tell him it's using Cadance's body, and...!

He'd already been through too much already. Now that I'd set him up, gave him resolve to see this mission through to its conclusion, if he knew what I was about to ask everypony, he'd die a little more. I clenched my teeth nervously as I looked up at him.

Spider-Colt stepped between Shining Armor and myself. "Hey, listen," he said to Shining Armor, "I think there's something else going on here, big guy. Something that will.... something that's gonna hurt you to hear. I think the entire world may be in danger. She told me to tell you, but I... I don't know if I should."

Spider-Colt. Ever the hero. If Shining Armor would be destroyed by this news, then Spider-Colt would save me the despair of having to break it to him.

"What are you getting at? Who's 'she'?" Shining Armor asked, not curtly.

"Cadance," said Alterna-Doctor as he entered the room. Everypony's head shot in his direction, and with him were the Doctor and Spike, who was riding around this strange, pickle-shaped mech-suit.

I felt like running over to them and hugging them, but now was not the time. I looked instead, nervously, to Shining Armor. I expected anything. Tears, rage, screaming. Anything. Instead, his eyes widened. "Cadance is alive?!" His voice... it startled me. His voice was filled with hope. For the very first time since I'd met this version of my brother, hope had finally gripped him.

"Barely," replied Alterna-Doctor. He filled in his friend with the details, choosing his words as carefully and as considerately as he could. The Alterna-Doctor never broke eye contact even once during the whole explanation. That took guts, I'll bet. I'd never have that kind of courage.

"The demon possessing her is about to call forth the most dangerous entity known to space and time. We need to hurry so we can stop it."

The Mare-Do-Well stood up. "Where is it? What do we need to do?" From the looks on everypony's faces, it still came as a surprise to find the Mare-Do-Well acting so helpful.

The Doctor answered her. "My screwdriver can zone in on its unique magical signature. If we hurry, we may be in time."

All the PVCC got up. Derpy asked, "But what about the Mayor?"

Alterna-Doctor chuckled. "If Spider-Colt has done his job, we already have enough material to support our cause. Plus, we destroyed the machine he was using to subtly hypnotize the populace into loving him. He's already been defeated."

With that, we all got ready to go. Fluttershy invited me onto Ben's back, as well as Shining Armor and the Doctors. Since the others could fly (Or with Mare-Do-Well, whatever it was she did to cover so much ground so unnervingly fast), we were all set.

And so we shot forth, through the early hours of the morning, to the final battle waiting for us.

It was close to an hour before we found its hiding place. The Windigus Prime had stationed itself at the top of one of the tallest buildings in the city. Like some of the other buildings, it was a drab gray, but this one kind of shot from the ground like a forbidding tombstone, thanks to the eerie moonlight and gathering fog. Above us, the night sky seemed to be swarming and convulsing, almost throwing an epileptic fit. Even without the Doctor's screwdriver, it would have been an easy guess as to where the Windigus Prime had gone.

Alterna-Doctor looked up at it in bewilderment and whistled, amazed that something this tall and poorly-crafted hadn't already fallen over.

"Please tell me we don't have to use the stairs," he murmured, half-jokingly.

"If he's expecting us, he's probably booby-trapped the elevators already," suggested Shining Armor. He turned to his team. "Either way, I think I have a better idea." His horn glowed as he began to concentrate.

Suddenly a large magenta bubble appeared around us in a muted "pop", and we began to be lifted into the air. Both an elevator and a shield. Clever.

Fluttershy, evidently still afraid of heights, clutched tightly onto Ben's fur. Spider-Colt put his hoof on her back and whispered some reassuring words. Spike, still in the pickle suit, looked at me more than a little sadly. I asked him, quietly, what was wrong.

"I had a dream while we were in the PVCC's holding cell," he said. "I... I dreamed you were gonna go away again. Even if we win, you're..." Tears began to form in his eyes. "You're gonna go away, aren't you?"

The roof of the building was coming closer, the view of CWCville at nighttime becoming grander in its scope. It's an ugly town, sure, and from up there it felt like I was looking down at a pile of disjointed plumbing. But to all the ponies who lived here, it was home. For the PVCC, it was the home they were fighting for. What Spike was fighting for.

I pursed my lips, sighed sadly and nodded, looking into Spike's tearful eyes as I did so. I rested a hoof on one metallic arm. "Spike, you're a very brave boy, OK? I don't belong in this world. I have to go home, where there's another Spike who needs me. I don't want to leave him alone."

"But you'll be leaving me all alone."

"Look around you," I said, sweeping a foreleg, gesturing to all the other PVCC members. "They've all lost something important to them. Fluttershy, Magneighto, Spider-Colt, Derpy, Shining Armor, the Doctor, Mare-Do-Well... They're united in their pain. But they gained something else in return. Something better. I don't think they've even realized it yet."

Spike looked at me, then to the PVCC.

"They gained a family," I concluded. "Each other. They'll fight and squabble, of course, but now they'll do anything for each other. Even when I'm gone, I want you to be apart of this family. I want you to take care of them." I looked up at his face. "OK?"

Spike sniffed away a tear. "OK. Just promise to think of me sometimes, OK?"

I gave the metallic hand a squeeze with both my forelegs. "Of course. Besides," I giggled, "there's a place I know I'll always belong." I placed a hoof over his heart. "And it's right here."

He smiled. I made a resolution, right then, that when I got home, I would go out of my way to make Spike smile as much as possible, as often as possible. I'll never get tired of his smile.

Finally, the roof came into view. There, floating a few feet off the ground was the Windigus Prime. Its borrowed body was reclining as if in an easy chair, a cruel smirk on her face. It had been expecting us.

Our forcefield-elevator set us all gently on the ground. I looked to Shining Armor, reading his face. The sadness that usually clouded his eyes was gone, instead replaced by righteous resolve and indignation at the sight of this blasphemous monstrosity that had taken the form of his wife. I noticed the Alterna-Doctor had shot Shining Armor a scanning look as well.

"So, the rats have gathered before the flames," it cooed mockingly as it changed from a reclining position to a lying position faster than anypony could blink. "You are too late to stop me. The Smooze is already on its way. This dimension will be wrapped in the loving arms of god!"

The team, as a single force, stepped forward. The Windigus Prime giggled like a child receiving a present. "Planning on going down fighting, eh? I suppose that's the way anypony would do it."

"Monster," growled Shining Armor.

"I love you too, beautiful," the Windigus Prime responded. Suddenly, its expression became more... placid. It was a strange thing to see. Like watching invisible hooves shape clay into something foreign. "Believe it or not, I really do love you. All of you. Perhaps it is not in a way any of you could understand, but I do. It is why I bring the Smooze. It will take this world, and make it more beautiful." It eyed us all the same way a prostitute would eye her clients. "Make all of YOU more beautiful."

"I've already seen your idea of beauty," I said. "You think it's cute for others to suffer. You talk about love and beauty, but just like you, your words are empty and cold."

"Mortals!" it spat."Never understanding anything more than is past their noses! But don't worry; once the Smooze arrives, then you WILL understand."

The Doctor held out the screwdriver and it glowed. The Windigus Prime gasped as it fell down to the ground. I winced as I heard the sound. Regardless of the beast that posessed her, that was still my sister-in-law, desperately hanging on to what was left of herself, smashing into the ground. Shining Armor, without hesitation, ran for her.

"Wait!" cried the Alterna-Doctor, "Shining, what do you think you're doing?!"

He didn't stop until he reached the Prime. It cursed and swore at him, attempting lamely to bite him as he reached out a hoof. He picked up the Prime's head, Cadance's head, and lifted it off the ground. Suddenly, I understood what he was trying to do.

Shining Armor was trying, hoping against hope, that his wife was still in there, in that body. His eyes (those eyes that had seen such terrible things happen) looked deep into Cadance's. He stared as the Prime continued to curse him, curse me, curse Celestia.

"It no longer matters!" cried the Prime. "Your fight is over! The Shmooze comes, and it will devour everything! And everything will be beautiful again! EVERYTHING!!!"

The Doctor still held that screwdriver, like it was a torch in a dark passage. And just like a torch, it was snuffed out suddenly, causing darkness to fall like a curtain. Before anypony could register what happened, the Doctor was watching the screwdriver fall down, down, down the side of the building. He looked up, into the bruised-corpse face of the Mayor, who'd knocked him over.

Next Chapter: 26. When the Sky Falls, Hold Out Your Hooves Estimated time remaining: 42 Minutes