Night gasped in shock when she crossed the border into Tartarus. The entire area was layered in shades of grey. In the distance she could make out several mountain peaks with pitch blackness hanging over them. There was no wind, no sound, and the only thing she could smell was death. It was a smell that seemed to permeate her nostrils.

For lack of a better term, the entire place seemed dead.

“Took you long enough!” Rainbow shouted as she looked down at her wife and daughter, “I’ve been waiting for over a minute!”

“Nopony told you to rush off like that, mom,” Night said with a smile. Twilight just smirked; Rainbow was never the type to wait for anything. She knew that much from decades of experience.

“You forget the time distortion, Rainbow,” Twilight replied, “Time moves about six times faster here. Every second we spend in here is six and a half in Equestria.”

“So we got another minute before the rest show up?” Rainbow asked, Twilight and Night just nodded in response, “Good, I’m going scouting.”

“Rainbow no!” Twilight shouted, but it was too late. In a rainbow and golden blur, the cyan mare was gone. She took off into the distance, a sonic rainboom left in her wake, “Stubborn as always,” the alicorn sighed.

“It seems like a good idea to me, why didn’t you want her to go?”

“Last time we were here, Rainbow almost died to a Titan’s fist,” Twilight looked down as she sat on her flank. Those times were both the best and the worst of her life.

“Yeah, but all three Titans are dead.”

“Well, two for sure,” Twilight replied. Night just raised an eyebrow in response, “You and Luna killed Cronus and Rainbow got Hyperion. However, we only have Tartarus’s word that Crius is dead.”

“You mean we might have another Titan to deal with!?” Night’s eyes went wide at that.

Twilight thought about it for a while, “Unlikely, there’s nowhere else Cronus could have gotten his new arms, besides, I’m sure we would have seen Crius by now.”

“Seen who?” Cadance asked from behind them. Twilight and Night looked back as the rest of the group came across the threshold. Radiant and Ataxia looked around in awe and a little disgust at this new plane of existence. Cadance and Luna simply looked uncomfortable to be here. Twilight knew that the last time those two were here was when Lord Tirek banished both of them and Celestia during his failed attempt to take over some sixty years ago.

She could forgive them for being a little apprehensive about returning. Even if the place has changed a lot, “I was just saying that it’s doubtful, but a possibility we might encounter the last Titan, Crius.”

“A Titan?” Luna actually seemed excited about that, “I’d relish another go at so worthy a foe.”

“Not going to happen,” Rainbow’s voice came from above. The rainbow mare had zoomed back to them with all haste. “She’s dead, I just found her body, but you gotta come see this.”

“Spotted something?” Radiant asked.

“It’s the palace, and it’s inhabited,” Rainbow nodded to her wife, once. Twilight just gulped in understanding.

‘Tartarus’s palace, the one where we got the first piece to the scythe’, suddenly, the mare was overcome with very different instincts. She wanted to grab Rainbow and go home; just to guarantee that nothing could happen to her again.

She squished that idea like a bug, after all, they were her for a reason. She was here to get her son back. Come what may, she would not leave here without him, “Which direction and how far?” Twilight asked.

Rainbow gestured with a hoof to their left, “About fifty miles that way.”

Twilight nodded, “Come down here, Rainbow.”

Rainbow flew down and landed next to her wife, “Alright everypony, let’s make this quick. Ataxia, I’m sorry but this will not be easy on you. I don’t know what would happen if I try to open a portal in that direction so I gotta go with a simple teleportation spell.”

Ataxia gulped but nodded her head. Shimmering Night walked over and stood by her wife. She stretched out her left wing and wrapped Ataxia up in it, “Don’t worry, I’ll stay by your side.”

Ataxia pecked her wife on the cheek with a kiss, “I know, I’ve always known that.”

Twilight smiled at her daughter and niece. She then turned back to the group, “Our mission here is twofold. The first and most important thing is to find my son. The second is to find the Key of Ages and keep it from anyone that might be attempting to use it.”

“Um, Twilight. What if this is just some trap?” Radiant asked the question that had been weighing heavily upon his head.

“Then we’ll kick the flank of whoever dared buck with us,” Rainbow said as she smiled at Radiant.

Cadance wanted to say something but she bit her tongue. Whoever their enemy was, he had already caused her to kill her son’s wife. They were not facing a foe that they could just ‘kick the flank of’. Their victory would come at a cost. In a way, it already had, and she was afraid of it happening again.

However, it would do no good to voice such concerns. They all knew it even if some of them would not admit to it.

“Alright, gather up everypony,” Twilight said as they all walked slightly closer together. It was not necessary but it did make the teleportation easier on Twilight. Shimmering Night walked with her wife under her wing. She led the unicorn to the edge of the circle of ponies and made sure that she was facing outward. While Teleportation had been getting easier on Ataxia, Night knew that this would not be one of those cases. Here, in this place, they would be lucky if Ataxia was able to stand up afterwards. There was no doubt in Night’s mind that Ataxia would lose her lunch over this.

And she was right.

Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated on her magic. She sought out the destination in her mind. Her sight left her body and traveled the fifty miles to her left in a second. She saw what Rainbow was talking about, the palace. She ignored it for now as her mind found a suitable spot for them to teleport to. She focused on that spot and in a flash of magic, they were all there.

The cloud of smoke was soon accompanied by the sound of Ataxia puking. Everypony cringed in sympathy as the unicorn failed to hold down her lunch. Although none of them felt quite right after that teleport, Ataxia by far had it the worst.

“It’s ok, let it out,” Night cooed softly as she rubbed her wife’s back.

Rainbow grinned at Twilight, “They really do love each other,” she softly whispered in Twilight’s ear.

“I know,” Twilight whispered back before the smoke cleared and she started looking around. She needn't have bothered, directly in front of them was the largest castle Twilight had ever seen. It was massive, easily bigger than the entire city of Canterlot. Made out of – what appeared to be – black marble, the front walls stood hundreds of hooves high. They surrounded the entire castle with a dark, foreboding presence that all but said, ‘You are not welcome here’.

The castle had more towers than Twilight cared to count. Each of them reached into the skies above. Their walls were decorated with macabre bones that were hung unceremoniously from out the windows.

Some, much to Twilight’s horror, were still moving. The bodies were left alive, decomposing where they hung. Their souls had no place to go to, after all, they were already in the deepest pit of hades.

“I’m guessing that’s where hope goes to die,” Radiant said as he walked forward.

Rainbow shook her head, “No, I’ve experienced that before, this is nothing like that feeling. This is nothing more than where a God used to live.”

Twilight stretched out a wing and wrapped it around Rainbow. The cyan mare looked down at the ground, a tear formed in her eye as memories of ‘that’ event came back fresh to her mind.

It was the truth, nothing had broken the mare worse than the day Tartarus killed Twilight. That had been the day she wished for death, the day when death was preferable to a life lived without the mare she loved.

When the prospect of seeing her wife in the afterlife was taken from her, that destroyed her. She was gone at that moment. Her mind was a blank, unable to think or act on its own. At that moment she truly knew what it was to have no hope. Only the impossible, hearing Twilight's heartbeat again, saved her from living the rest of her life in a vegetative state..

This, this was foal’s play compared to that. This was nothing, a mild inconvenience; a rock, a pebble to be thrown out of the way.

“Ahh, now that is just adorable.”

Every head snapped up at in the direction of the new speaker. They all saw an earth pony walking out of the castle to greet them. He had a white coat and a huge muscular frame. The pony’s dark blue mane lay flat on his back. His mark was that of an hourglass, one that was even now spinning on his flank. They all gasped at him, amazing that something lived down here other than a damned soul that could not escape.

He smiled a toothy smile at the group of seven ponies. “Wow, you all came in force, didn’t you?”

“Who are you?” Radiant asked before one of the others simply jumped to violence.

“Of course, introductions are in order I suppose. As none of you have had the pleasure to meet me yet, allow me to go first, Radiant Star. My name is Timespire, the Demigod of Time.”

Every jaw dropped at that, shocked that another Demigod existed; nopony suspected that might even be a possibility, “How is that…” Night tried to ask, Ataxia stomach interrupted her though.

“Oh, dear niece, how are you doing over there?” he smiled, “Oh, your wife’s not doing too good is she? Sorry about that. Now, about your question. I do believe you were going to ask how that’s possible? You see, when a God and a mortal love each other very much, they do a special hug. Then, in a little less than a years’ time, a Demigod is born.”

“Shut the buck up!” Rainbow shouted as she extended her right wing’s primary feather to silence the pony’s smart mouth.

Timespire actually looked surprised when the feather made it to almost ten hooves of him. The magic feather dissipated into nothing as time took its toll. Rainbow pulled her wing back to her face to try and understand what in all of Tartarus had just happened.

Her largest feather on her right wing was gone, just gone. It was almost as if it never existed in the first place, “How in the hay? “ Rainbow asked allowed.

Twilight took one more look at the pony and then at her wife. She lowered her horn and touched the wing, transferring her magic energy into it until the feather started to regrow. She poured more and more, only stopping when Rainbow’s wing was returned to normal, “You’ve sped up time around you, didn’t you?” Twilight turned to ask, a pissed expression on her face.

“Indeed, Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

“And you know our names too.”

He nodded again.

“Why did you call me your niece?” Shimmering Night asked as she approached from behind her parents. Ataxia was left laying on her side as she sought to relax her upset stomach, but there was nothing more Night could do for her right now. This… this had to have priority.

“Well, you are the Demigoddess of Magic, Princess Shimmering Night. That means my father was related to your mother. That makes you my niece,” Timespire said with a smile.

“Your father?” Twilight asked.

“The one that banished me and my two brothers to the moon for all time. By the way, Princess Rainbow Dash, thank you for releasing us. None of this would be possible without you.”

“Buck you,” Dash said with a snarl.

“You’re welcome to try,” Timespire smirked as his mark kept spinning, “However, I think even you are smarter than that, after all, you saw what happened to the feather.”

“You’re Tartarus’s son, aren’t you?” Twilight asked.

He grinned at her, “The brilliant intellect revealed at last.”

“How’s that possible?” Rainbow failed to catch herself before she spoke.

“Oh, do you need a lesson on the birds and the bees too?”

“What she means, Timespire, is that Tartarus was self-righteous bastard of a God at the best of times. It seems unlikely that he’d take a mate,” Princess Cadance stepped forward as she spoke.

“The crystal princess herself, It’s my honor. Tell me, how did you enjoy your time under my brother’s thrall?”

Fifteen swords shout up out the ground, directly below Timespire’s hooves. They lasted less than a second but that was enough. He jumped up as two of them cut into his back hooves. Blood poured freely from the cut as the swords dissipated into nothing as fast as they appeared.

Radiant Star was pissed, “WHERE IS HE?! WHERE IS THE BASTARD THAT KILLED MY WIFE?!” Anger radiated off the white unicorn as he stared daggers at his polar opposite.

Timespire licked the blood from his hooves, “Relax prince, the one you want is Mindsink. However, I’m not letting you pass that easily. Besides, the one that killed your wife is your mom.”

Radiant stepped forward, his eyes spoke of all the anger and hate he felt at that moment. Luckily for him, a golden feather blocked his path before he could take the next step into Timespire’s aura, “What you’re saying is we have to go through you to get to the others?” Rainbow asked.

“There’s no going through me, I won’t let you. Try and teleport and I’ll simply follow you. Yet this time I’ll make sure to appear right in the center of your group. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Is my brother here?” Night asked.

“Indeed he is, he’s been such pleasant company too, by the way, thank you for providing him with entertainment last night.”

Night did not rise to take the bait, “You’re going to get out of the way and let everyone pass,” Night said with a level head as she walked closer to him

“Why would I do that?”

“Because, I’m your opponent,” she took another step forward until she was right next to Radiant.

“Night, watch it,” Rainbow spoke.

“It’s fine, mom, you can lower your wing.”

“Night?”

“I’ll be fine,” she turned to look at her mom. Rainbow started to say something, but bit her tongue and said nothing instead..

“It’s okay, Rainbow. Let her do it,” Twilight said, she did not know what her daughter was up to, but she did not need to. She trusted that Night knew what she was doing.

“One more step, little pony, and you’ll be a thousand.”

“Somehow, I’m not worried,” Night said as she took one more step closer.

Timepsire’s face became a frown, “How did you know?”

“Simple, As soon as you pulled that little stunt with my mom’s wing, I tried to remove your magic. Radiant’s blades disappearing confirmed what I suspected. In much the same way that I couldn’t affect your magic, your time magic won’t work on me. It’s because we’re both part God, isn’t it?”

Timespire laughed, “Indeed, my clever niece.”

“You never answered my question,” Cadance commented.

“You’re right, I didn’t. You’ll have to ask my older brother that one.”

“Mindsink?” Radiant hissed, “I plan on doing a lot more than asking.”

“I’m sure you do,” Timespire said, “However, no. Me and him are twins, you need to ask my older brother, the one Taz has affectionately nicknamed Red. Not that you’ll get tha-”

His reply was cut off as a hoof made contact with his muzzle. Shimmering Night hit the earth pony as hard as she could. Timespire was a well built stallion, he had the strength and muscles to match Big Mac’s in his prime, even if he was slightly shorter in stature.

Shimmering Night as an alicorn, the perfect mix of all three races, he never stood a chance. Her blow sent him flying into the wall, crashing into it with all the force of a freight train, “I never want to hear my brother’s name come out of your mouth again.”

“Holy cow,” Radiant said. All the other’s just nodded their heads in agreement.

It was the unwritten rule of Equestria: You do not buck with an alicorn.

Or in this case, with an alicorn’s little brother.

“Go,” Night said as she stared at the pony that was doing his best to dislodge himself from the wall, “Find my brother, bring him home safe. I’ll deal with him.”

“Fair Night. We won’t leave you alone,” Luna stated.

“She’s not alone, I’ll back her up. Just… just give me a minute,” Ataxia wheezed as she made to stand. She was doing better but was not quite a hundred percent yet.

The rest just looked at each other, with a nod they ran forward. Twilight smiled as she ran past her daughter and through the gate that Timespire came out of. Rainbow took a second to fly up to the earth pony, “Buddy, you’re fucked,” she said with a smile before rejoining her wife. Radiant, Cadance, and Luna ran past without saying a word.

Timespire freed his hoof from the wall and reset his jaw. That hit hurt, a lot, but he had taken worse in his day. It was nothing compared to what he experienced from Red on a daily basis or for that matter what Dayspring had done to him just the other day.

The shadows were already at work healing him, “Well, it seems my little niece has a temper, I’m impressed.”

“You'll be more than that after I get through with you,” Night said with a snarl.

“Sure I will,” he forced himself the rest of the way out of the wall. Fading into the shadows disappeared and reappeared right next to Night, “Let me ask, what’s stopping me from simply going after them right now?”

“Simple, I’ll destroy this whole bucking castle if you do that.” His smile became a frown when she said those words, “As I thought, this place is important to you and your brothers. You don’t want it destroyed so you will have to let them pass.”

“You’d hurt your family if you did that.”

“If you go after them you’d kill them all anyway. They’d be dead either which way. So I might as well make it a pyrrhic victory for you.”

“You really do have a vicious streak, I’m impressed. I’ll let you in on a secret thought, you see, I bluffed. I’m not allowed to kill anyone. Orders and all.”

“So you’re just a puppet, interesting.”

Timespire’s smile left his face, “I’m no one’s puppet.”

“Really? You’re under the command of somepony else, you have to do what they say when they say it. You cannot follow your own wishes, and if they say jump you have to jump. What part of that doesn’t make you a puppet?”

Night barely reacted in time as seventeen spears shot out from her shadow. She raised a shield that deflected them into the sky, “Touched a nerve, did I?”

“Shut up.”

“I guess the fun part's over,” Night said with a sigh as she brought forth the magic energy of this place. It came as a shock to her, the magic was everywhere, and everything. The entire place seemed to be made of it, from sky to floor.

Timespire smiled as he saw the look of confusion on her face, “You forget where you are, my niece. This is Tartarus, well his corpse anyway. The entire place is made of magic, God magic.”

“I’ve… I’ve never felt anything like it.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. We’re not in some form he chose to wear so he could walk amongst mortals. We’re in his real form. A form he brought into existence so he could trap his ‘other’ sons and daughters.”

“You’re referring to the Titans?”

“Indeed. They were the first children of the Gods, the direct offspring between my father and your mother actually, a huge colossal mistake by any standards.”

“From where I’m sitting it looks like he made three more.”

Timespire laughed, “He’d agree with you, actually. However, the Titans were power incarnate. While they had no magic, their size was a physical representation of their power. Outwardly, they were impressive, however they had nothing more than what you saw. We, my dear niece, are the exact opposite. We look like every day normal ponies but command forces that can topple mountains.”

Night lifted a hoof and flexed it, now that she opened herself up to it, she could feel the power here, the pure magical energy that made up this place. However, there was something else, something was wrong with it. It was wrong on a fundamental level.

She suddenly knew what it was. “This power is dead,” she stated.

“What was that?” Timespire asked.

“The power you’re drawing from, the one that permeates this place. It’s dead, this entire place, much like the God it represents. It’s all dead.”

“Your point?”

“You’re corrupting yourself with this power. You can draw on it but it will take its toll on you, on all of you. You’re dying, aren’t you?”

Timespire gasped, taken aback by her response. She nodded as that was all she needed to know, “Your older brother didn’t tell you, did he? Let me guess, he told you to feed on this power, to use it to increase your own strength. But I would bet you’ve never once seen him feed on it. He lets you do all the work while he reaps all the benefits with none of the consequences.”

“You couldn’t possibly know that.”

“You forget who you’re talking to, Demigod of Time. I’m the Demigoddess of Magic, all magic falls under my domain, even here. Sure I might not be able to control your ability, but everything around us is made of magic, dead magic.”

“Even now I can see its effect on you. It’s killing you cell by cell, isn’t it? Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re lying.”

“Denial, one of the five stages of grief, well I guess it’s not too big of a problem until you get to anger,” Night said before looking back at him, “Anger it is,” she sighed.

Timespire was pissed, he glared at her with all the rage and indignation he felt about what she just said, about what it meant. If what Night said was true then he had just been betrayed and sentenced to a slow, agonizing death from magic poisoning from his older brother.

“That can’t be true!” he shouted, although his mind was in a race against the words his niece had just said.

The truth has a way of being the truth, even if you do not want to believe it.

Night nearly failed to react as he rushed forwards, trying to hit her square in the jaw like she did to him earlier, however Night only nearly failed. Quickly covering herself in a mirror bubble his hit ended up slamming against his already injured jaw. Timespire wailed in the pain he had caused himself.

‘Interesting, it seems his own hits hurt much more than mine.’ Night cataloged what had just occurred and smiled at Timespire. It was something she intend to use against him no matter the risks. Her smile fed his anger and Timespire gave up any pretense of holding back. With a scream of hatred and anger he formed a blade out of the shadows, grabbed it with a hoof, and took another try forward, activating his magic on the way. He already reached Night as his error dawned on him.

Night just continued to smile, unaffected by his power as he came closer and closer. Night timed it just right, as soon as he was in range, she commanded her magic to create several caltraps. To Timespire’s shock, he never saw the spikes below his hooves. The next thing he felt was pain from his own hooves as he cut them open from stepping on the caltraps while Night simply flapped her wings and flew out of reach. Throughout it all she held that condescending smile on her face.

With his ability going, the spikes on the floor where short lived, but they served their purpose. In his arrogance Timespire had let Night know everything she needed to know about his ability. Yes he could age magic, even hers, but for a split second, if timed just right, she could still use it against him.

“You’re a cocky little shit, aren't you?” Timespire hissed as he looked up at her.

Night’s grin left her face when she saw what he was doing next. All around the earth pony shadows were gathering, hundreds, then thousands. “Horseapples,” Night cursed under her breath as thousands upon thousands of shadow spears shot up out of the ground.

‘If he can age my magic...’ It was a theory, but one worthy of testing. Night poured all her willpower into what she did next, she commanded the spears back in upon each other.

She almost laughed as the thousands upon thousands of spears collided with each other. At the same time Timespire reacted too slow. He was not used to facing an opponent that stood on equal footing with him, had that not been the case he could have altered enough of the spear’s flight paths to continue his attack, but his reflexes were too dulled by anger. Every spear was sent impacting into another and Timespire had no choice but to force them back to where they came. Timespire howled his rage at Night.

He lost his composure again and tried another attack, this time with his shadow’s reaching for the alicorn. Coming closer and closer they formed solid, sharp objects, each shaped as a different kind of weapon. Night suddenly got an idea. She prepared a small portal in her mind, but did not open it yet. She waiting for the objects to come closer so she could time the spell to the point where Timespire would not be able to alter them.

The stallion smiled deeply as the objects were a hoof away from Night. A smile that dropped as with a sudden plop a portal appeared in their way and they flew in. Before he could react he heard the same sound behind him, then he felt pain. Every single one of the objects cut through his body. When he looked down, thirty spears were sticking out of his chest. On his flank his mark started spinning in reverse. He could age an objects time as well as reverse it. He would simply make it so these spears never existed in the first place.

Nothing happened, his eyes widened in shock at this new development.. He wasn’t able to interfere with them, he could feel their magic, he could sense their time, but they were like water. Every time he’d grip them, they would simply flow out of his grasp.

Timespire fell onto his knees and shot Night a hateful glare, “What did you do to me?!” he shouted, his voice filled with pure venom, “What the hell did you just do?”

“You and I, we the children of Gods, Timespire. Our power is absolute. Even from each other's. That gave me an idea. What would happen if I were to combine our powers? What would happen if the Demigod of Time were to have his own power adjusted and turned on him by the Demigoddess of Magic? I think we both know the answer now.”

“Why…” he hissed.

“Because I’m at a disadvantage here. You’ve killed yourself to use this power, I will not. But thankfully your power is filtered out. So you continue using dead magic, and i’ll continue turning your own power against you.”

“There’s just one problem with your plan, little niece.”

“Oh, what’s that?”

“I can shadowmeld,” with that Timespire faded into the shadows, the spears in his chest fell to the ground.

“Like it matters, do anything, I’ll simply turn your power back upon you.”

“So arrogant, my older brother would like you,” the pony said as he reappeared directly below her. She looked down and blew him a raspberry. At this distance he could never reach her, never mind actually touch her.

Or so she thought.

“There’s a funny thing about time. It’s constant yet always moving, always in motion, and it effects everything,” He looked down at the ground. Night’s eyes went wide as the floor began to rumble.

Timespire poured more and more of his power into the ground, with a shake the very earth he stood upon shifted and split. Huge sections of it shot up into the sky as he caused some parts to regress and others to age forward.

In less than a minute, the entire area was now a labyrinth of rocks. Night flew higher in an attempt to keep her distance. She knew that if she could just see his attack coming, she would be alright.

That was the problem. Before, their battle had been on a flat surface. Now it was anything but. There were millions of places to hide, millions of different attack vectors.

The first spear shout out from directly behind her. Night knew it was just a diversion but she deflected it back to it’s spot all the same. A loud ‘clank’ sounded as it hit a rock confirming what she already knew.

Timespire learned from his mistake. He would not stay in the same place for long enough for her to pull that trick twice, “As much as I love a good game of hide and seek, let’s skip to the end!” Night shouted.

Laughter echoed throughout the land, “Now, now, what would be the fun of that?”

“I’ll just destroy it!”

“Go ahead, draw upon the magic energy of this place and destroy our new fighting ground,” two more spears shot up, each from a very different angle. Night cause them to collide without effort. “Poison yourself with the very magic energy you accused of killing me.”

Night gulped, he was right. if she drew upon that energy she could destroy everything he created, but doing so will see her dead. Her own personal reserves were sufficient to do the job, but then she would be tapped, easy prey for him to pick off.

“Besides, Shimmering Night. I think you forgot something.”

“What’s that?!” she yelled in response.

“You left your wife down here.”

“Get off me, you bastard!” the yell could have only come from one pony.

“Ataxia!” Night yelled as she flew down into his maze, his trap.

Author's Notes:

You always have to remember the reason you fight.