A bright eclipse of light showers over the battlefield as three alicorns descend from the clouds. “Celestia, Luna, Cadence,” Midnight brags and watches as the princesses land, shortly being followed by the royal guard and hundreds of civilians observing the confrontation. “I see you are all alive and well in this forsaken world.”

“Who are you?” Cadence, the pink alicorn, asks the similar height intruder.

“Oh, you don’t recognize me?” Midnight stretches a mechanical claw out and begins to gently stroke her beige, pink, and purple mane, “We used to go way back, before your other princesses betrayed me.”

“Who are you?” Celestia demands in the most serious voice Twilight has ever heard, slowly walking towards Midnight and the others.

“Name’s Empress Midnight, you’re new ruler, stand down now or you’ll face the same fate as your other versions from my world.”

“I’m not going to let you lay a hoof upon my little ponies, return from where you came from and never come back.”

“You know about the other worlds?”

“More than you can ever imagine.”

“Celestia!” Twilight and Raindrop holler, “Watch out!” As Celestia enter within a couple of meters to Midnight, the three pegasus Morks get off of Raindrop and charge at the large white mare. Unfazed, Celestia continues her slow walk and blasts the three with small yellow energy orbs with her horn, launching them over the crowd.

“Stay away from Raindrop.”

“I see that you are powerful enough the overcome the effects of my shield,” Midnight gloats as Celestia enters hoof distance from the slightly smaller empress. With rage filling every inch of her body, Celestia aims her horn straight at the head of Midnight, just standing there with a grin peering through the helmet. A solid beam of light, energy, and magic combined fires from her horn and scrapes along the ground, engulfing the empress everypony watches in awe. As the beam dies down, Celestia looks behind to see Luna and Cadence in utter shock and looks back, through the gap of ponies that ran from the attack to see a small green light in the far distance.

“How…” In that instant that Celestia gasps those works, Midnight teleports right in front of her and delivers a powerful uppercut with her left claw, launching Celestia high through the clouds.

“Take this as a warning all you ponies, for I am more powerful than all of you-“ Midnight’s cut off by Celestia landing right behind her and the princess delivers a blast of magic from behind. Midnight dodges by lifting her body over the blast, creating a small crater between her claws. Midnight lowers herself quickly and swings her arms and Celestia dodges all of her rapid punches. Luna and Cadence run in to help Celestia, blasting their own magic at Midnight. The empress takes several hits and teleports away into a field in the distance. The three fly over and try to stab their foe with their horns, but Midnight grabs the dark and pink alicorns with her claws and holds Celestia frozen with her magic. Celestia breaks the hold and the two clash horns in a high-speed swordfight. All the while, Midnight constantly smashes Luna and Cadence into the ground, trying to squish her primary opponent. The two trapped princesses scream as they find their magic unable to bypass the anti-magic spell. “Impressive fighter you are Celestia.”

“You dare lay your metallic claws on Raindrop, and I swear, I will torture you for the rest of your living days.”

“You mean that weak blind pony?”

“You’ve already crossed the line TWICE by injuring Twilight and everypony else, but Raindrop is going too far!”

“Oh really, I was considering making her an assistant.”

“NEVER!” As Celestia and the other princesses continue the battle, Raindrop helps Twilight up and takes her through the crowd of observers to what’s left of the boutique to her friends. Twilight shakes the three frozen ponies, snapping them out of Midnight’s illusions.

“Wait what?” Rarity stutters, “Where’s that monster, I was just about to smash her into the dirt!”

“It was an illusion,” Raindrop replies, “help the others snap out of Midnight’s spell.” As Rarity and Twilight wake Fluttershy and Spike from their hallucinations, an enormous shadow sweeps over and they all look up to see clouds of pegasus Morks carrying unicorn and Earth Morks in black chariots over everypony and to the main fight. The golden armoured guards look up as well and follow them to Midnight, ready to fight them off.

“Ugh,” Rainbow groans, finally coming to.

“Rainbow! Are you okay?!” Rainbow opens her eyes, seeing the small war going on between the civilians’ hooves.

“What in Equestria is going on? Everything’s a bit of a blur,”

“Celestia and the other princesses are stopping Empress Midnight.”

“Wait, you mean that bully that grabbed me?” Rainbow jumps to her hooves and trots in place, ready to fight, “Let me at her!”

“Don’t,” Twilight protests, “she’s too powerful, you saw what happened when your other self tried to fight her.”

“Actually, I’ve had my face pressed against her armour the entire time.”

“She tanked an entire Sonic Rainboom!”

“She WHAT?!?!”

“You heard me, she took on an entire Sonic Rainboom and didn’t receive a scratch.”

“What happened to the other me?”

“Well,” Twilight gulps as she painfully tells Rainbow Dash what happened while she was knocked out.

Meanwhile, Celestia and Midnight continue to duke it out as a ring of Morks and royal guards battle each other around the two. Princess Luna and Princess Cadence, still being clutched by Midnight, try multiple spells, each ending in duds. Celestia and Midnight enter a horn-lock as red and white magic sparks fly from the grinding of the long horns. As the grinding intensifies, Celestia enters a stare down and gets a good look at the empress’ red eyes.

“You are merely delaying the inevitable,” Midnight taunts her, Celestia returns with a stern voice,

“I do not fear you, you monster, trying to enslave my land and harm those I care about.”

“Loyalty is a trap, honesty is a lie, kindness is an oversight, generosity is a weakness, laughter is an annoyance, and friendship is meaningless.”

“Maybe where you come from, but here, friendship will be your undoing.”

“Ha, this land is no different from mine, before I took over of course.”

“I know about these other worlds you come from, and I know who you are.”

“Oh really, you may want to look closer…” Celestia squints and looks through her helmet and face plating and sees something completely unexpected. Her eyes open wide and she gasps at the realization, losing her grip in the horn-lock.

“No… This can’t be…” Midnight blasts her with a red blast of magic while she stands there frozen, launching her into the surrounding battlefield. Midnight slaps Luna and Cadence into the ground, opens her wing flaps, and takes off into the sky. Her horn begins to charge as she prepares to fire a barrage of magic upon the two downed alicorns. However, she is cut off but a grey blur colliding in her right wing, causing the massive empress to fall from the sky and into the herd of battling ponies. The royal guards ditch the Morks and pile onto Midnight, burying her in hundreds of kicking hooves, all trying to take her down. The minions try to charge at the pile up, but they are cut off by tons of civilians cutting them off, all standing up to the Mork army. Suddenly, a large roar is heard behind them and the ponies look behind them to see a burst of guards and plates of gold armour shower over them as Midnight pushes the pile off of her with tremendous force.

“I’ve had enough of this!” Midnight lands on all fours, and in her rage, she squishes a guard into the ground with her left and punches three heading towards her with the other in a single swing. She turns behind to see the pegasus who knocked her down and launches herself off the ground with her arms, launching her several hundred meters in the air. In midair, she smacks the retreating flyer in between her claws, sending him silently careening into the rubble of the boutique, right behind Twilight and her friends.

“And that’s what happened while you were out.” Twilight finishes her story, having small tears swell up in her eyes.”

“Rainbow Dash gave her life for me? Why?”

“She did it for us, for that’s what you are, loyal.”

“I see,” Dash closes her eyes and quickly contemplates the situation on her hoof in front of Twilight, Raindrop, Spike, and Fluttershy. Rarity meanwhile is searching through the rubble of her home in a panic, yelling,

“Did my dresses survive?! My jewelry?! Did they survive?!” Rarity steps on a tuft of black fur and a groan emerges from it, causing her to shriek. The others run over the wreckage and wonder what she screamed about.

“Rarity? What happened?!”

“There’s somepony underneath this wall!” All except for Raindrop and Spike crawl under the white fallen wall and push it up with all their might, helping the dark grey stallion out. They crawl out from under and they look to see the pony’s a pegasus, covered in purple and yellow armour on his body and black plating over his wings.

“Whoa, look on his body guys,” They then notice that he’s covered in cuts and scars, Twilight asks,

“Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry sir, we’ll take you to get some help.” The dark pony coughs out some dirt and clears his thought, still keeping his eyes closed.

“I’m fine, I’ve had these scars for ages.” The unknown pony replies, opening his deep blue eyes and sees Rainbow Dash on first sight. “Captain Dash! You’re here!” He then sporadically stands at attention, saluting with his right hoof.

“Captain Dash?”

“Yeah… That is your name.”

“No its not, its Rainbow Dash, did you hit your head too hard?”

“Wait what? Did you? You’re to be called Captain Dash at all times at duty.”

“I never recall that ever happening…”

“Oh, I see you are not the Rainbow I know, at least I think that’s how it’s worded.” He drops his salute and walks closer to the mare. “Name’s Major Borris, you must be the Dash from this world.”

“I believe so, I’ve already had this kinda chat with the Rainbow Dash you’re referring to.”

“Oh, you’ve seen her. That makes things a lot easier to explain. Do you remember me?”

“We just met…”

“No, do you remember your version of me? Remember Borris, from flight school?”

“Not ringing any bells currently.”

“I was there when you did the Sonic Rainboom, I became your best friend.”

“…”

“Huh, 2R-Borris?”

“Oh yeah! That was hilarious, when the teacher saw your first signature, the look on her face.” Borris exhales and replies,

“Yes, that moment. My mother wasn’t the best speller…”

“Yeah I remember you; you’d always hang out with me whenever I was having a bad day.”

“Until your other friend Gilda came along and picked on me,”

“Well I thought they were just pranks, but don’t worry, that jerk griffon will never show her face around Ponyville anytime soon.”

“I know, that’s what the other you said. Speaking of which, where is she? I gotta make sure she’s safe.”

“Well about that…”

“What?”

“She’s sorta…”

“What?!”

“Dead, Midnight got her.” Borris takes a few steps back with a look of utter shock and confusion imprinted on his face. A tear slowly crawls down his blue eye and down his cheek, running along a red scar on his face.

“Rainbow Dash, no…”