Twilight slowly walked to the edge of the wall where Spitfire and the other Wonderbolts were waiting to play their part along with twenty or so other pegasi. She didn't want to go through with this, but wasn't going to override the majority of the ponies that voted in favour of the tornado, especially since she didn't have a better plan.

That wasn't much of a comfort though, and between that, and what the thestrals were currently doing out there, she felt awful. And yet she not only had to go along with it, they were expecting her to fly though the middle the carnage they had wrought to singlehoofedly take out General Filigree.

She adjusted the straps on her armour as she walked, matching the actions of a large number of the other ponies there as they waited to charge out and meet the enemy. They wouldn't have to wait much longer, as the plan was to have the thestrals do their grim duty until the sun started to rise, then the Wonderbolts would form the tornado, which would be followed by the charge. Personally Twilight hated that Celestia's sunrise was being used to mark the beginning of a massacre.

Spitfire nodded a greeting to Twilight as she joined them at the wall, before resuming watching the thestrals at work. Even as light gathered on the horizon, and the dark began to wane, Twilight could barely make out the distant specks of the thestrals as they darted about, their colouration still blending in with the dim light. She probably wouldn't have spotted them at all before her ascension, though she still would have heard the terror they were sowing in the enemy's camp.

"I'm really glad those guys are on our side," Soarin said, to enthusiastic agreement. Twilight herself would probably be a lot more afraid of them if she didn't know they were being led by a pony with a penchant for bad jokes, and that the thestrals were strangely united in their love of fruit.

"Are you sure you can do this?" Twilight asked Spitfire as they watched.

"Sure, although it won't be really powerful. Two hundred and fifty wing-power at best. Frankly we're lucky to find ponies capable of that kind of flying in this country. Good job we only need about twenty ponies to do it."

"That's not what I meant. I mean, can you really do this? Run a tornado into their camp?"

Spitfire looked thoughtful for a moment. "Have you heard a poem called 'the Winds of War?'"

Not a tangent Twilight was expecting, but she went along with it. "I've heard of it, but I don't read a lot of poetry since its accuracy on events is usually pretty questionable. It's about Commander Hurricane isn't it?"

"Well... yes... but not the Commander Hurricane you're thinking of. The Commander Hurricane you're thinking of wrote the poem. Anyway, I know there's a lot of interpretation put into that poem that Commander Hurricane, senior, and her warriors were the wind moving amongst their foe, and that the enemy being blown away was a nice way of saying that they were killed, but they'd be wrong. They literally did what we're about to do, but with about ten times as many tornados. Bigger ones too. It's how the Hurricane family line earned its name."

"Really? How do you know that?"

"It's something we get told about when we become a Wonderbolt. The tactic we're using isn't new in the slightest, having been invented and used long ago." There was a short, thoughtful pause, "You do know Soarin, Fleetfoot, and I voted in favour of this, right?"

"I wasn't really paying attention to who voted when it happened." Twilight looked at Spitfire, "I'm assuming you're in favour of such heavy-hooved tactics then?"

"As a rule, no, but we are in favour of winning. As we get told in training, if the odds of winning aren't in your favour, make them into your favour. Admittedly there's not exactly a lot of fighting in Equestria, so this sort of thing is never needed, but we still get taught about it."

"And they used to do this sort of thing back during the intertribal wars?"

"As far as we know, yeah, and that's just the pegasi. Who knows what kind of weapons and spells the unicorns and earth ponies came up with. Besides the freaky anti-magic armour that is."

"Yeah, I know about that. A lot of the knowledge of such things ended up going to Equestria as well, and a lot of it was forgotten by most ponies thankfully, but it is recorded in the Canterlot archives. Some of the spells the unicorns created make this look tame in comparison, and were never used at all due to the danger they posed to everypony, not just the unicorns' victims. The war of the three tribes really was just a ridiculous arms race with no winners. Thank goodness they decided to end it."

Spitfire tilted her head curiously, "Is that what you're afraid of? Turning this into an arms race, with each side creating worse and more deadly methods of destroying each other?"

"No, I'm afraid we're going to commit atrocities like this, and keep commiting them while calling it 'justice,' and 'freedom.' I regret what happened in Caverndown, and never wanted to do it in the first place. Now we're doing something like this? Where does it end Spitfire? When we're all sat here breathing in the vaporized remains of ponies? Because there are spells that could do that in the archives."

"No offense ma'am, but I think you're overreacting."

Twilight took a deep breath and released it slowly. "Maybe I am, but there is still a line, and I honestly think we're crossing it. But that's just the opinion of one pony. You better get ready, the sun's about to rise." Spitfire jumped off the wall, followed by the ponies joining her, leading them into the distance and almost to the edge of the soldiers camp in preparation.

Dawn started to break, and sunlight started to creep across the land. In the distance the thestrals scattered and broke their attack, returning to the keep as the light removed their cover. Instead they traded places with the small group of pegasi, who were going to wreak more havoc than the thestrals could ever hope to.

Twilight could just about hear Spitfire shout orders to the other pegasi with her, and they started flying in a series of circles, faster and faster until the currents they whipped up formed into a tornado. A cloud of dirt started building around the base of the tornado, lending it a dirty brown colour that hid the pegasi within. Then the pegasi really started trying.

In the space of a few seconds the tornado trebled in size, and the wind tore at the ponies watching from their vantage point on the wall. A few ponies stumbled and Twilight erected a shield over the keep to save anypony being sucked off the wall, although the eerie stillness the shield created almost felt worse.

Everypony watched enraptured as the tornado started to move into the enemy camp, none of them able to look away despite the carnage it unleashed on the totally unprepared soldiers, who were still reeling from the thestrals' attack. The wooden barricades the soldiers had erected to hold off any charges were ripped apart in seconds as the tornado passed over them, and a few seconds later the pegasi burst out of the funnel as the deadly detritus was sucked up. Twilight thought she could hear the screams of the soldiers, but suspected that was more than likely her imagination as there was no way they could be heard over the sound of the tornado.

Even without the pegasi driving it onward, the tornado kept moving, slowly growing weaker, but still deadly enough to pick up tents, weapons, and even soldiers in its path, throwing them out again at a much higher altitude.

"Get into position!"

Twilight jumped as the shout echoed around the area. Ponies quickly made their way to the gates in preparation to charge the enemy, led by Trixie, who had volunteered to lead them out. Twilight wasn't taking part in that, and chose to remain where she was, reluctantly watching as the tornado finally run its course, dissipating and throwing its collected junk and ponies back to the ground.

The ponies below her burst out of the gate and down the ramp, fanning out into a wedge once they were clear of the narrow walkway. Hooves thundered on the packed dirt as they charged, and a battle cry went up as they approached the enemy. The adepts kept a shield up as they ran, not that the soldiers were in any position to retaliate after the tornado, but dropped it as they met the enemy, allowing the hardy earth ponies to overtake them while the adepts did their damage from a distance.

Twilight took to the air, followed by the thestrals and those pegasi willing to fight, and flew over the battle, which was proving to be very one sided. An army comprised purely of earth ponies was poorly suited to fight an army comprised of all three kinds of pony, and it only got worse when the fliers with Twilight peeled off to join the fight.

Twilight stopped as she surveyed the battle, and almost wanted to call a stop to it. After the thestrals and the tornado, the soldiers weren't putting up much of a fight, and often didn't put up a fight at all as many tried to flee the onslaught. Those that did flee only met the organised part of their own army, finding themselves trapped between the rebels and a wall of spears as the retreat stalled. It seemed those ponies were being sacrificed to buy time for the soldiers to organise a decent defence.

Suddenly the battle seemed a little less one sided as the charge lost momentum. A rain of arrows sprung up from the soldiers and fell on both the rebels and those soldiers caught in the middle. The thestrals changed tactic and went after the archers while the adepts raised their shields, but not before many of the arrows found their marks.

Twilight reasoned that Filigree must have been pretty desperate to use such ruthless tactics, firing on his own ponies. She couldn't even conceive of how evil a pony must be to even consider such a tactic, and felt sorry for those soldiers caught in the middle. They'd been annihilated by the rebels, only to turn around and be betrayed by the ponies on their own side.

The other soldiers though, Twilight felt nothing but hatred for them, willing to so heartlessly fire on their comrades, ponies that should've been their friends, just to buy themselves some extra time. The sheer unfairness of the act brought Twilight out of her stupor, and spurred her into action.

With a cry she dived the enemy, strafing them with her magic again and again, thoughts on the ponies she killed lost to her anger. She pulled back up and dived again, a blast clearing a patch among the soldiers for her to land in. She hit the dirt and before she had even fully recovered from her landing she unleashed a shockwave in all directions, sending the soldiers around her flying.

She took off again, raining blasts of magic down onto the enemy, taking down pony after pony in a target rich environment. The shock of her attack broke the line of the defenders, and some of those soldiers trapped between the two groups broke through, forcing the gap ever wider as more sought to escape the rebels attack. She dived the line, lances of purple magic slicing through ponies as she tried to break the line completely.

She succeeded, and the soldiers were pushed back by the charging rebels who were still having to rely on the adepts for protection from the archers. Twilight turned her attention to the archers, and with a flap of her wings hard enough to make the air snap she dove at them, but not before they could fire another volley, once again stalling the charge, and giving the soldiers another chance to form a defensive line.

Blast after blast rained down onto the archers, cutting them down in droves. The thestrals joined the attack, eliminating even more of them, but it wasn't enough as the archers focused on them instead. Twilight's chest felt tight as several dark bodies fell from the sky, guiltily hoping that Shadow wasn't among them. The thestrals pulled back, but not without having inflicted serious injury on the archers.

Turns out there was even worse things than the archers being arrayed against the rebels, and Twilight missed the shot from the ballista that clashed against some of the adepts shields, popping them like bubbles as the force overwhelmed the caster. Clearly Filigree had waited for the rebels to draw closer before using them, and with the thestrals pulled back temporarily it was up to Twilight to stop them.

It didn't take long, as they were big, immobile targets that burned and crumbled under her magical onslaught. It was only a drop in the ocean though, as the two sides clashed again, and even though the soldiers numbers were reduced significantly after the thestrals attack and the tornado, they still outnumbered the rebels. Even with magic and airborne attackers on their side, they still ran the risk of being overwhelmed. If this was to end in the rebels favour, Filigree had to be eliminated.

"Go and fucking kill Filigree you stupid fucking cow!" Trixie screamed as she watched Twilight wheeling back and forth over the battlefield. Normally Trixie would've been happy to see Twilight fighting like that, but this time it was verging on being infuriating as it meant the distant dot of the purple alicorn wasn't doing the one thing that she was meant to. Trixie was seriously considering launching her own attack at Twilight if she didn't get a move on.

Trixie wasn't entirely sure what else was going on as things had quickly turned into a mess after the soldiers had formed a defensive line behind their own. The glorious vision she'd had of charging in and cutting down their enemy with impunity had all but evaporated, to be replaced with the bloody carnage she now witnessed, filled with the constant sound of fighting, and the cries of the wounded.

"Trixie!" Trixie's ears perked up at the sound of Snowbright shouting her name, and she shoved her way through the crush of ponies to get to him.

"Yeah? What?"

"We have to break their lines! With Twilight doing what's she's doing we have some relief from their fire, but that doesn't mean shit if they keep holding us back!"

"But what about Filigree? Shouldn't she focus on killing him?" Thoom! Trixie ducked as something struck the shields to her left, destroying them completely. Screams echoed across the remaining shields as arrows found their way in through the gap.

"Fuck Filigree for now!" Snowbright shouted, "That's Twilight's problem!" The shields boomed again as a bolt from a ballista bounced off the top. "We just have to get past that defensive line and do some serious damage! Can you do that!?"

Trixie glanced over her shoulder at the soldiers on the other side of the shield before looking back at Snowbright, "I think so, but you need to push us up to their line."

"Done." Trixie pushed her way back to where the shield ended, walking with it as it crawled ever closer to the soldiers. There was a muted boing sound as the tips of their spears pressed against the magical barrier, and Trixie closed her eyes, even as purple mist leaked out of their corners, and braced herself, focusing her magic on the earth beneath her and the soldiers in front of her.

Her magic seeped into the ground, forming into dark crystals, and with a wrench of her head upward, they burst through the ground, thrusting up and through the soldiers in a wave that ran for easily twenty meters, shredding and impaling the soldiers before sinking back into the ground.

"Now!" she cried. The shield in front of her dropped and she fired a volley of dark blasts at the soldiers in front of her, cutting them down. The ponies around her advanced into the gap she had made, sparing no thought for the bodies of the soldiers they trampled over. Shouts erupted as weapons thrust forward to meet the heavy armour of the rebels earth ponies, which was considerably more robust than the armour the unicorns wore as earth ponies could handle the weight.

Soldiers found their spears broken by iron clad hooves, or simply snatched out of their hooves by the nimble magic of unicorns, and were defenceless as the rebels pushed forward. The adepts launched a volley of magic, cutting down dozens of soldiers as pegasi swooped down, picking them off one by one, and ponies near the rear fired their own volleys of arrows, taking down more soldiers, proving that it wasn't even safe behind the front lines.

Shields quickly flashed up overhead as the soldiers fired another round of arrows, though the amount fired was a lot less than their opening volleys, and the rebels answered with arrows of their own as soon as the shields dropped again. In the thick of it Trixie was in her element, her body almost seething with darkness as black lightening crackled off her horn, tearing the soldiers to pieces as she pushed forward, widening the gap in the defensive line ever wider.

"Push forward! Push forward!" she shouted as the soldiers resolve began to crumble. A pair of mares stood in front of her, bearing their spears as she neared them. Trixie didn't even think as she fired lances of crystal at them, spearing one in the chest and the other in the neck, adding them to the growing collection of bodies around her. She stepped over them and pushed on into the enemies ranks.

A soldier charged Trixie from her left, only to be stopped by a shield that sprang up between them. A second later a blue pegasus slammed onto his back, plunging her blades into his back and taking flight again before he had hit the ground.

Trixie nodded her thanks to the adept that had shielded her, and would've done the same for the pegasus except she was long gone. Instead she returned the favour by snatching the arrow a soldier was about to fire out of his crossbow and stabbing him in the eye with it, pushing it into his brain and killing him. Trixie was sure she'd appreciate the gesture.

Octavia felt guilty. Not for something she had done, but rather for what she wasn't doing. Instead of joining her friends in the attack she had opted to stay in the back and provide triage to the wounded. At the time she had thought she was taking the soft option, but there was a whole other level of horror involved in walking a battlefield after the fighting had moved on, and there was nothing in the world that could prepare you for the sight of a mare crying and clutching her stomach, trying to hold her intestines in, or the sight of a stallion hopping about on three legs, slowly bleeding out as he searched for his forth.

Octavia was learning things about mercy that she never thought the word could encompass, and her first and most reasonable response to the sights around her had been to throw up. Twice.

"We need more bandages!" Sawbones shouted at her. "Octavia! Bandages! Now!"

"Sorry!" She ran over to the doctor and his patient, a light grey coloured mare with a wound on her neck gushing blood. She rummaged in her bags and passed a rolled up bandage to Sawbones, who didn't even bother to unroll it before pressing it to the wound.

"Hold this here until the bleeding stops," he instructed. Octavia did so, the blood spilling over her hooves as she applied pressure. She was about to ask what else she could do when Sawbones went running off to deal with another injury.

"I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die..." The mare whimpered, her breathing laboured and raspy.

"Shh, it's okay, you're not going to die, you're going to be just fine. The doc will come back and we'll get you fixed."

"Please, I don't want to die..."

"You're fine, you're fine." Octavia looked around desperately, only to catch the sight of a wounded soldier being given 'mercy' at the sharp end of a knife. Sawbones was nowhere to be seen. The mare started crying, and Octavia held her and rocked her gently, not even stopping when the mare went still and passed away in her legs. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..." she whispered through her tears.

"Octavia?" Octavia looked up to meet curious eyes of Summer, and did her best to wipe her tears away, seeing only Summer's expression of alarm as she inadvertently smeared the mares blood across her face.

"I'm sorry Summer, I had to... I couldn't just leave her here to die alone." Summer nodded and wrapped her legs and wings around Octavia and held her as the earth pony cried softly.

"I know, but there are other ponies that need your help, and she doesn't anymore." Octavia looked at the mare, her expression of fear frozen on her face as she bled to death. She closed the mares eyes and gently lay her down on the ground. "Come on."

Summer led her to where Sawbones was performing an impromptu amputation on a screaming stallion, his leg having been mangled beyond recognition. They cringed as Sawbones snapped the bone after sawing most of the way through, but let him finish. The stallion was bandaged up and left there to be picked up while Sawbones moved on.

"You!" he said loudly as he noticed them watching him. "Where have you been?"

"You left me with a mare, with an injury on her neck."

"Yes, and?"

"And... she didn't make it..." Octavia could feel herself choking up.

"I didn't think she would." He shook his head sadly, a brief crack on his composure showing. "It doesn't matter now. Suture needs more help, so go find her." He pointed in a vague direction, and moved onto his next patient, leaving them to head off in the way he indicated.

They found Suture struggling to direct the actions of several other ponies while trying to save her own, and judging by the haggard expression she bore, was not doing as well as she hoped. "You need to get the shaft of the arrow out first! You can't do anything until it comes out!"

"But it's broken inside her!"

"Then find some pliers or something to pull it out with!" She pulled a blood soaked cloth off the pony she was working on, and replaced it, only to realise the pony was already gone. "Fuck!"

"Excuse me?"

"What!?"

Octavia took a step back, "Where do you want us?"

Suture pointed to where many more wounded ponies were being gathered up, "Over there." Octavia trotted over at first, but burst into a gallop as she saw the massive bulk of a pony she knew lay there.

"Mason!" She skidded to a stop beside him and clutched his head in her hooves, but his eyes were dim and his chest unmoving. Mason was already gone. Octavia's throat constricted, and she leaned against him as her tears washed streaks through the blood on her face. "No..."

Her ears perked as a mare lay nearby spoke, her voice heavy with pain from the two arrows protruding from her side. "He kept- He kept saying something about telling Woody something, but he couldn't say it very loud, and I couldn't hear him. I don't know who W-Woody is though. Do you know?"

Octavia shook her head. "No, I don't." She suspected Woody was Mason's coltfriend, but Mason has always been very quiet about his private affairs, and none of them had ever met his partner.

"Oh..."

"Why are you just sitting there!" Octavia's head snapped around to find Sawbones coming up behind them. "Get to wor- Mason..?"

"I'm sorry," said Octavia, the lump in her throat threatening to stop her from talking at all. "He was already gone when we got here."

Sawbones placed a hoof on Mason's chest, and for a moment Octavia saw the true amount of pain Sawbones bore. But just like that it was gone again, buried beneath a layer of professionalism and practicality that demanded he save his grief for later. "There's nothing more we can do for him now. Get those arrows out of that mare and get her stitched up." He moved to another wounded pony before she could respond.

"Okay." Octavia got back to her hooves and took a deep, shuddering breath. If Sawbones could see the body of a long-time friend and still perform his duty, then she could do no less. She clamped her jaw around one of the arrows in the mares hip and yanked it out, ignoring the mare's agonizing scream.

Twilight found Filigree on a raised platform at the rear of his army, ordering ponies to march to their deaths and fire on their own from the safety and comfort that distance provided. Twilight had every intention of changing that.

First though she had to take out the ponies guarding him, and not just the four bodyguards he kept with him. Plenty more ponies crowded the area, watching the battle as it crept ever closer to them. Twilight wasn't sure when the rebels would get this far, but the last she had seen Trixie was carving a swath of destruction through the soldiers, and was providing the power the rebels needed to push forwards. Things got even better after the thestrals rallied and returned to the fight, and the battle was starting to tip into the rebels favour.

Twilight swooped down, a purple shield in front of her to block the arrows coming her way. Not many did, but it would only take one to end her attack. She shot the soldiers in front of her, flying over them before many had hit the ground, and pulled back up before turning back to where the General was. His bodyguards had reacted by imposing themselves between her and Filigree, and the area around them had cleared so they had plenty of room to dodge her attacks.

Twilight could just take out the entire platform in one go, but whether it was plain stupidity on her part, she wanted to know his reasons for continuing this fruitless assault. She flew down and landed on the platform with a solid thud, her body low and tensed to defend itself. "Why?" she asked. "Why aren't you retreating? Why keep fighting?"

Filigree snorted a single sharp laugh. "Why? Because you present us with little choice, that's why."

"What? What do you mean?"

"Every message I've sent out for reinforcements has been intercepted, so I have little choice but to use the forces at my disposal."

"You could still retreat!"

"What for? If we run your pegasi and thestrals would just pick us off one by one, and if we regroup would you send another tornado at us? I'm not too proud to admit that you have us completely outmatched 'Princess,' and so we will take as many of you with us as possible."

Twilight was shocked, "That's monstrous! You'd let all these ponies die just to kill as many of us as possible!?"

"'Monstrous' says the pony that tried to burn me alive, sent ponies to kill us in our sleep, and used a tornado to 'soften us up' for a brutal assault. I don't know about you but you really ought to check on your definition of monstrous before you go accusing ponies."

"Then surrender! Please! You can end this!"

"Last I was aware, you lacked the facilities for prisoners, and your previous actions haven't suggested you have anything but a 'take no prisoners' attitude. In fact, I rather suspect you're here to kill me, not convince me to surrender."

"I was, yes, but that doesn't mean you can't surrender."

"Only to die as your prisoner? Do you honestly think your rebels would let me live? Because you're horribly naïve if you do. They'd probably have me strung up before the sun had set, and frankly I'd rather die here, by your hoof than let them do it."

"They won't if I tell them not to."

"Are you so sure about that?" Twilight's head dipped slightly as she realised she wasn't. "I thought not. A pity you lack such control over your forces. Anyway, enough of this. For all your talk of beating us, there's one thing you haven't realised. We haven't lost yet."

The four mares guarding Filigree attacked at once, and Twilight dropped to the decking as a bladed hoof scythed through the air at where her face would have been. She rolled to her right, only to find her left wing being wrenched out by a armoured hoof standing on her feathers. Fear shot through Twilight as that same pony dragged the blade of her other hoof along the length of her wing, shearing her feathers off at half their length. More than enough to stop her from flying.

They let her up, giving her a chance to back away as they watched her silently. Twilight almost wished they would say something, even if it was to taunt her, just to break the silence. Even Filigree was staying quiet, watching the fight with interest.

Twilight fired a blast at the nearest guard, only for the mare to deftly twist out of the way and catch the bolt of magic on the blade running up the back of her foreleg. Twilight jumped back as the mare to her left twisted and bucked at her, which only put her nearer to the guard to her right, who reared up to bring her blades down on Twilight's neck.

Twilight teleported away, coming out of the teleport running. She shot a blast of magic back at the guards hitting one in the chest, the mare collapsing and convulsing a couple of times before dying with a smoking hole in her armour. She didn't even make a sound.

Twilight hoped that might've discouraged the others slightly, but they came after her all the same, dodging the blasts Twilight sent at them with ease. Twilight made a barrier between them, but one jumped on the back of another and flipped over the shield. She pirouetted in the air and landed standing on her rear hooves, bringing her foreleg around in an arc that would've hit Twilight in the face if she hadn't caught the leg in her magic. The guard brought her other leg around to backhoof Twilight, but she caught that leg too and slammed them both down so her blades stuck in the wood of the platform. Twilight caught a brief hint of fear in the mares eyes before her hooves slammed down on her head.

The other two guards caught up to her, running side by side, so she teleported behind them and shot a thin blast of magic at the one on the right, punching straight through her head and coming out the other side.

As she collapsed the other guard caught her and swung the body around, throwing it at Twilight who wasn't prepared for such a tactic. The weight of the body knocked her over and landed on her, winding her slightly. She tried to lift the body off her with her magic but the guard flicked her horn before punching her in her unprotected stomach.

Twilight got her forehooves under the body and pushed it off towards the guard, blocking her attack and allowing Twilight to roll to her hooves. She teleported away again and shot her magic at the mare, finishing off the last of Filigree's bodyguards.

Unfortunately Twilight hadn't paid attention to where she has teleported to, and the first thing she knew about Filigree attacking her was a sharp pain behind her left wing right before he laid his full weight upon her, pushing her down until she was lay on her chest.

Her breath became short and she coughed, a small spray of blood coming out with it. She tried to rise but something was stopping her, pulling her from the inside and pressing by her left wing. She looked beneath herself, seeing a pool of blood around the blade that was stuck into the wood of the platform. The same blade that was sticking out of her chest.

Hot breath tickled her ear and she shakily looked around to see Filigree standing over her with his muzzle right next to her ear, the cruel smile it bore ending long enough to tell her, "You could've just killed me from in the sky." Then Twilight found herself blinking blood out of her eyes as his head exploded into meaty chunks, leaving nothing but wisps of black shadow fading into nothing.

"Twilight!" Blackness started to creep into Twilight's vision as hooves thundered over the decking towards her, Twilight feeling every thud vibrate up the blade. "Shit!"

The blade was torn out of her and Twilight slumped sideways. A blue blur framed by silver filled what little vision she had left, and it screamed at her to stay with them. She wanted to, very much, but as the darkness claimed what little sight she had left, she realised that she couldn't.

"No!"

Author's Notes:

Yep, that's a thing that happened. I'm not sorry. Aww who am I kidding... See how your patience has been rewarded Miss Dragonborne Fox, look what you made me do!

Right, two things. That last episode was awesome, which is weird enough for a Spike episode, and has given me some fun ideas that won't have a bearing on this fic, but still, good stuff. Ideas be percolating in the depths of me thinker. I even went back to change the bit in Party Hard pt2 when Twilight and Ivory had their little talk about things and changed it from Dragon Matriarch to Dragonlord.

Secondly, I was watching friendship games with my neice yesterday, which was awful because she's four and has the attention span of a gnat, along with the volume of a jet taking off. It did get me wondering though, what is the general opinion on whether Sunny Shim is an alicorn or not? I'm not entirely decided myself, leaning slightly towards her being one because Hasbro loves thems alicorns. Again, this will have nothing to do with this fic since I've kinda phased out the Sunset letters to focus on more important stuff, but I would love to know what your thoughts are on the issue. Leave your comments below, even if it's to say 'hue hue Sunset Shimmer sucks.'