The cheers for Twilight roared through the hall, and yet, never had she been so sad.

Twilight stood alone in a hall not much wider than her and with the floor and walls around her an undistinguishable, shadowy black. The shadows reflected off the wall and covered her body, leaving only her wings and horn visible. No matter how deep one looked into the hall there was not a single source of luminescence to be found. Only in front of Twilight's hunched down body was there an open entrance at least twice the size of her in height and width, but even with its size it was as if not a single ray of Celestia's light shined inwards. The outside beyond the entrance was just a bright and indistinguishable haze, like the effects of looking directly at the sun after keeping your eyes closed for too long. The only recognizable thing on the other side were the screams and cheers for Twilight. The chants were full of glee and with the enthusiasm of a madpony, but Twilight could only take a step back, into the darkness.

Her wings touched the edges, folding inwards from the pressure. Sometimes she'd forget that she had them, leading to such situations. She tried folding them to her sides to a resting position but found herself staring at them with a disturbed look. The way they moved on her; the way they felt. Unnatural was the only word to describe it. Twilight couldn't focus on her gifts for more than a few seconds, though, as the cheers grew ever louder.

"Twilight! Twilight!"

Twilight Sparkle fully packed her wings and reformed her hunch into a pose of confidence. The look on her face reflected it. She took a quick breath and walked into the haze.

The screams grew louder with every step until they were more like an earthquake than the sounds of ponies. The haze ended and revealed a stadium packed to the maximum with thousands of ponies and with the stage for the princesses as the centerpiece. Griffins and other races were there as well screaming away, and behind the stadium, beyond it, was the Crystal Palace and the kingdom it led. The sunlight sparkled off Twilight's Element of magic crown.

The stadium must have been as big as the royal palace and held posters and banners titled "The Equestria Games" on every opportunity it could. A peculiar sight was the presence of hundreds, if not a thousand, royal guards and armed security stallions on every aisle, corner and pathway. The games had always had a great security presence, but never like this. There must've been almost as many guards as audience members.

The field already held athletes, but what caught Twilight's attention was the podium right beside her which held the other three princesses of Equestria. Cadence was the farthest away and Celestia the closest, sitting right beside Twilight's empty seat. She stared at her pupil with her usual motherly smile. "Our cheers can only accomplish so much," she said. Emissaries from other nations such as Saddle Arabia and the Griffin Kingdom sat in the row below the princesses.

Twilight chuckled, "Right," and took a seat on her throne. Her cheers ended a moment later after a quick bow from Princess Celestia to the audience. The moment Twilight's flank hit the cold stone of her throne, though, the fact that the Princess was sitting right next to her had left Twilight and she focused straight at the rows of ponies in the audience. Her friends were here, somewhere.

It took her a few minutes, and a lot of near cramp-worthy head turning, but Twilight found her five friends and waved at them. Sitting beside them were at least a dozen royal guards. Twilight's body shook a little from the intensity of her hello.

Her friends didn't take long to notice and waved back. Pinkie Pie, of course, got the most into it. Twilight creaked out a laugh and turned back to the field. A few short minutes later the next event had started, and Celestia brought her head closer to her student's. "Well that certainly took quite long," she said, "I do hope the chanting I called for helped draw you out."

"While not totally necessary... yes," Twilight chuckled. "Just got a little stage fright, hope it didn't cause the event to get too postponed or anything."

"No need to worry, and completely understood. I myself was not always this open to publicity." Celestia kept her eyes at the event taking place on the field below, "So tell me, how does it feel being without magic? Quite the alien experience isn't it? I thought it would be best for us to join the other unicorns for reasons of good will."

Twilight took a glance at her wings, "Not as weird as I thought it would be... maybe I'm just used to 'alien experiences.'" Celestia and her shared a laugh.

"I do hope you shared these experiences with me in your reports! When I used to receive them at least..."

Twilight had her face turned away from both her teacher and the field, and showed off an obvious frown. Her friends were all on the opposite end of the stadium, as far as they could be from her. None of them sat on a frozen throne.

Celestia put her wing over the troubled pony, "Is there anything you wish to speak about?"

Twilight quickly turned back to the event, "No! Sorry... You're not grading this, right?"

Celestia paused, still giving that same warm smile, "Have I ever told you the story of my first days as princess?"

Twilight wasted no time in turning to her, "No... Truthfully, I don't know much about your childhood, now that I think about it."

"Well I certainly was not a filly when I inherited this throne. When this is all over I will gladly share with you my story... I am beginning to get the feeling you may need it."

"I make it that obvious, huh?" Twilight blushed.

"Well I have known you since you were a filly... but yes. You never were quite good at hiding your emotions."

A smile grew on Twilight's face and she watched the rest of the event as such. Celestia's wing remained on her; the feel of her caretaker's warm feathers made her all but forget the chill of her new throne.

"Princess," Twilight said as the next event started, "What's with all the security today? Doesn't it seem like a little much?"

"I would argue that it is not enough. A threat was made against the games; I personally voted to move them to a later date but the games committee as well as many Crystal Empire officials argued against me, saying that too much had already been done to make adjustments so late."

"What kind of threat?!" Twilight said.

"A letter from an unknown source was found in the palace last night. On it was written of a possible attack today," Celestia said, looking worried. Her false calm could only hold up for so long. "I am sure, however, that this security presence will be more than enough to dissuade any would-be attacker. Now then, I believe the next event is starting," she said, her royal look returning.

The next event started and finished without a hitch. It was only the first of many. A series of events from sports of all types and styles continued as the hours progressed and finished with a relay race between the Wonderbolts and Ponyville. Twilight's home team lost, but their time was still respectable. An awards ceremony followed with Cloudsdale taking top spot.

The end of the ceremony brought much commotion among the crowd and athletes. No new athletes came onto the field to replace the old ones.

"Now for an event that I can get excited for!" Twilight said, smiling so hard that her cheeks tensed. "I can't wait for Spike to take the stage! Sure, he had his issues with stage fright at first but I'm glad to say that's all in the past... I hope."

A shadow overtook the main, central entrance of the stadium, and out of it came Spike with a smile ballooning with confidence and a microphone in his hand. His entrance was met with even more cheer than Twilight's. He gave the audience his cool winks, as well as the coolest poses and impressions he could think of. Twilight nodded at him, You got this, Spike.

Spike took center stage, and all the lights and eyes fixated on him. The silence didn't even last a second. Spike raised the microphone to his mouth and sang the first words of the Cloudsdale anthem, exactly how they were meant to be.

Twilight relaxed backwards onto her throne, "Phew... for a second there..."

Note for note and word after word, Spike sang the anthem without a single mess up. His voice was not the best, but it was far from the worst. With his performance at an end, he took a bow and then several more as the audience applauded their now twice savior. Twilight hadn't seen Spike this happy in a while. She shared his happiness.

The next bow Spike took, an explosion went off beneath him. The force of the blast shook the stadium from end to end and blew back the ponies in the sections near it. Spike disappeared into a flash of bright green, and then into the charred black smoke.

Twilight jumped out of her seat, "Spike!"

Her scream ended just as quickly as it began. Another explosion rocked a section in the stadium, engulfing the hundreds of ponies on it. Their screams too were engulfed by the explosion.

Just as Twilight turned to it, another explosion ripped apart another section of the stadium. A moment later, another flash of green blinded Twilight, and then another, and another and another. All around her, the stadium fell as the sky itself turned a glowing green. Twilight found herself unable to think from the sound of the explosions. All the defender of Equestria was able to do was hear the vanishing screams of her subjects, paralyzed.

Why is this happening..?

Twilight turned to her friends. Their section was still there, as were they. They were all yelling at the other ponies, no doubt to get them to run, and could be seen picking up the few paralyzed audience members off their seats. The guards that sat in their aisle tried to get them to leave, but all the Element bearers could do was focus on the innocents around them.

The world around Twilight was now in slow motion. Her friends remained in their section and made not even a single attempt to run away themselves. There were still a few other ponies near them, after all. Twilight yelled at them to run, but her voice never left her mouth. Maybe it was the sound of the world falling apart around her, or maybe it was that her mind could just no longer take it all in. Twilight yelled and yelled, but her friends were still away from her. The eyes of the six met, and it was like time itself had stopped. Twilight stared into the faces of the ponies she had come to love one moment, and the green flash that overtook them the next.

The explosions spread to the field, blowing away the athletes still on the sidelines. All Twilight could stare at, though, was the black plume of dust and smoke that had replaced her friends.

"Twilight!" Celestia screamed.

Twilight snapped back to reality, gasping for air once back, and let out a painful grunt. The muscles in her face tensed, like she was lifting a heavy weight.

"Our magic is gone!" Celestia yelled at her. An uncharacteristic look of worry was on her, and she too gasped for air. She ran towards Twilight, then using her enormous wingspan and body to cover her apprentice.

"Huh?!" Twilight's gasping grew faster.

Celestia tightened her hold on Twilight as the structure behind them exploded in green, sending them and the other two princesses onto the burnt grass of the field.

Twilight's ears rang from the boom, but her body was free of injury besides a sprain or two. Her vision too was distorted; the scene around her tilted and moved on its own from side to side, but even then she could see the still bodies of her fellow princesses on the ground. All three were burnt over large areas on their bodies, Celestia the most. Her face and wings were swathed in cuts and bruises, with more being revealed from under her burning feathers.

Twilight crawled to her protector's unmoving body. She shook it, "P-P-Princ..." The look on her face was not one of terror, but shock. The new truth of her life was beginning to set in.

A voice boomed through the sound system of the stadium. It was loud screech at first but enough to get Twilight's attention as well as the survivors' littered around the field and blackened aisles.

"This is pain."

The voice froze all in the stadium. The tone was that of a child's, like a colt. Bubbly and innocent sounding, it made the fiery and death filled scene all the more bizarre.

"Just a few short seconds ago you were all so happy... I saw the smiles on your faces. Here at your time-wasting games, I saw you mothers with your little colts and fillies in your hooves, the way you looked at them. I heard the cheers and songs. I saw you, Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight's heart skipped a beat.

"But that was a few short seconds ago. Look at yourselves now... for the first time you're able to feel pain, real pain. You see your dead friends next to you, your dead sons and daughters. Even your princesses are on the ground burnt the same as the dirt. They could move the sun and moon but in just a few short seconds they're like a bunch of ants ready to be stepped on. You all look around; I know what you're thinking. You can't hear the ambulance. Maybe they won't make it in time? Maybe you won't make it? Look around. You won't.

Cries began filling the stadium.

"I did all of this in just a few short seconds, now imagine what I can do with a day... or more. I will not stop, just as the sun will not stop its daily rise. Look at yourselves, those of you who still can, do you know real pain? Consider this just the first seconds of a new life."

Twilight stumbled up and clenched her jaws and hooves. Her teeth began to crack as she looked up and heard the words blazing overhead.

"Every single day. Every day I will bomb a populated area in Equestria. It could be a city, a village, a mall, or just another everyday home... you will never know, but you'll never have to wonder for more than twenty four hours. That will be your new lives, for all of you, unless you give me just one thing I want... our Element bearers.

Twilight stood still. The look of anger on her had transformed her into a new pony entirely.

"Yes, Twilight, I want you, and the rest of your friends. I want you, the ponies of Equestria, to give up the Element bearers to me. Once given up, I want them to go to the place where they discovered just how special they are... they'll figure it out. And I want them alone, and not for my sake, but those unfortunate enough to be with them. Everyday this request isn't completed another attack will take place, and they will never stop unless the Element bearers are given up. It's really that simple, Equestira... Oh, and don't worry, Twilight, your friends are still alive, so no need to look at me like that..."

Twilight quickly began twisting her head in every direction, but no matter where she turned all she could find was the same scene.

"I look forward to your decision, Equestria, but remember, not all in life is a choice."

The voice boomed out, leaving in its place the cries and yells of those still alive.