Defeat, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Your will, your strength, and your ability is all tested against somepony else. Only to be found wanting. They all knew it for what it was, not a one amongst the party dared call it a tactical retreat, a regrouping, or any other platitudes.

Even though they did achieve their objective, even though they did get Twilight’s son back, even though they did win in that regard, they still lost.

Twilight and Rainbow walked side by side, limping as they were forced to nurse a broken leg and the weight of Taz carried between them on their backs. His bruised and bloody body weighed them down, but it was a weight that they would not put on anypony else.

Of all of them, only Radiant was anywhere near full strength. At least physically he was, the same could not be said for his mental state. Radiant walked behind Rainbow and Twilight, he was crying, had been for the entire trek, but he would not say why. The magical field above him sputtered, almost dying as he carried his best friend in the world. Radiant felt numb, almost like his body simply lost the ability to feel anything. The only reason he managed to put one hoof in front of the other was the promise that still rang in his ears.

They figured he was crying because of Dayspring still being alive or the death of his mother. They were wrong on both counts.

Dayspring was unconscious. By all rights the stallion should be dead. He was dehydrated, nutrient starved, and the fall did him no favors. Only his little sister’s magic had kept him alive. The alicorn exhausted all the magic she had left to that end. So much so that she could not even stand on her own anymore.

Ataxia and Night brought up the rear. Of all of them those two were the worst off. Ataxia looked dead on her hooves, her strength was just gone, gone from carrying the mare on her back. Shimming Night was not awake. After spending every little bit of magic she had left to save Dayspring, the mare fell unconscious. Ataxia carried her, she would not let anypony else help.

Seven of them entered Tartarus and seven of them would leave. Under different circumstances Twilight might have laughed at the symmetry. Laughter was the last thing she wanted to do right now. Princess Cadance, her foal sitter, her sister-in-law, she was dead.

Princess Luna was Nightmare Moon once more, and judging by Night’s report, she was far more powerful now.

They failed to protect the Key of Ages from falling into Red’s hooves. Worse, by charging in after the bait of her youngest son, Twilight had actually allowed for its capture.

“Twi,” the voice snapped her out of her melancholy. Twilight looked up, surprised to see Rainbow with her mouth agape.

“What is it?” Twilight asked.

“We… we’re here,” Rainbow said the words in disbelief.

Twilight looked around, there was no portal. “No we’re not, it’s gotta be farther ahead.”

Rainbow shook her head, “No, this is the spot. Trust me, there’s just no portal.”

Twilight glanced around again, Rainbow was right; this is where the portal was. The tracks in the ground showed that much, it just… it just wasn’t there.

“How long has it been?” Twilight thought out loud. They were just supposed to be gone for an hour, but the trek back here had taken forever, a lot, lot longer than an hour. She fell onto her knees at that. unable to stay up at such soul crushing news.

Rainbow caught Taz’s head and gently laid him down on the ground. “C’mon Twi, there’s gotta be something we can do.”

Twilight shook her head, “Not until these things are off,” she looked down at her bracelet.

“Dayspring won’t survive a month,” Radiant spoke as he placed the unicorn down next to his brother. They looked so peaceful next to each other.

“I know,” Twilight replied.

“I’ll… I’ll do it,” the voice was weak, feeble, and it came from a pony that just woke up.

“Night!” Twilight yelled, “You can’t, you’re exhausted.”

Ataxia collapsed under the weight of her wife, no longer able to stay on her hooves when Night started moving. Shimmering Night groaned a little as she rolled onto her stomach. “I’m exhausted, but there’s other magic I can use down here.”

“NO!” the shout came from Twilight, Ataxia, and Rainbow all at the same time.

Night just tried to smile, it did not work, “You all act like we have a choice. SC wasn’t meant to last, if we don’t get back before he fades Equestria will be without day and night. Besides, I just got my brother back, I’m not going to lose him again, not if there’s something I can do about it,” she took one more look at her older brother.

“You said it was dead magic and that it will poison you,” Ataxia looked at her with tears in her eyes.

“It is and it will,” Night replied.

“No, Night, we’ll find another way,” Rainbow said.

“Do you have another way now? Because I don’t think Dayspring will make it that long! We can find a cure against the poison at home, but for now we have to leave!” Night’s voice grew louder with every moment.

Twilight hung her head low; this was her versus logic all over again. Logically, everything her daughter said made sense; it was their one and only play, at least if they wanted to save Dayspring. She knew it had to be done, she just did not want it to be done.

No matter how much you might wish otherwise, the truth has a way of simply being the truth.

“Do it,” everypony, even the speaker was surprised at who gave the order.

“Rainbow, no!” Ataxia yelled.

“We don’t have a choice,” Rainbow gulped. "We’ll just have to deal with it later, and we will deal with it,” there was a spark in her eye when she said those words.

Twilight looked at her wife; she saw confidence, but also fear in those eyes that she loved so much. No matter how much she wished Rainbow to be wrong, she wasn’t.

“Rainbow is right. Do it.” she whimpered before burying her muzzle into her wife’s coat. She just couldn’t stand to see what would happen next.

“Night no!” Ataxia yelled as she turned back to her wife. Her mouth fell agape when she saw Night’s eyes, they were pitch black.

“It’s already started,” Night said as she opened herself up to the power of Tartarus. The God magic, the dead magic, she could not deny its existence, but she could command it. With her force of will she commanded it to reopen the portal. Forcing the magic to the state of being that she wanted it to be in.

Already she could feel it, like a burning sensation when one drinks something too hot. There was power, intoxicating power, but underneath all of that came the poison, the thing that would kill her.

She sent more and more power into the portal. In a flash of black magic it opened wide, offering the party their one and only home, ”It’ll be open for only a minute.”

Taz

“Uh… Nighttide?” a weak and low voice spoke up, causing them all to turn and see Taz slowly awaken.

“Good you’re awake. Taz, we’re leaving.” Rainbow said with a frown.

“What? Where’s Nighttide? We can’t leave without her!” he shouted after seeing that the mare was missing from the party.

Ataxia slowly crouched to him. She wasn’t good with words, but she tried anyway. She nuzzled his coat softly before speaking up. “I’m so sorry Taz. She’s not here anymore… she’s dead…” a single tear made its way down her muzzle at the thought about how Nightmare Moon killed her own daughter.

Taz jerked his head away. “What are you talking about? I just heard her! She just called out my name, she’s alive!”

Ataxia slowly shook her head. “No, Taz. Night and I saw it w-”

“No! We have to go back and get her!” Taz shouted again.

“Taz, Ataxia is right. We should leave now while we can. Eeh, I’m not good with math, but I think we only have seconds left before this thing closes on us,” Rainbow pointed at the portal.

“Then leave me here! I’ll rescue her!” Taz replied as he jumped up, only to immediately collapse back on the ground as his wounds made themselves known in the worst sort of way.

“You’re not in any state to do anything, besides it would be for nothing. Also you couldn’t come back on your own. You’re coming with us and that’s my last word,” Rainbow clarified before lifting him back up.

Taz fought, kicked, bucked, scratched, and bit against his mother's grip, but regardless what he tried, Rainbow would not let him go. Taz felt his ears hang low, “Nighttide…” he whispered. Even if the others did not hear it, he did. He knew she was alive and that is all that mattered.

He wanted to go, he wanted to search for her, rescue her, but Rainbow would not let him. He was forced against his will to leave with them.

“I’ll come back for you, Nighttide! I promise you that!” he yelled and howled his promise throughout all of Tartarus as Rainbow dragged him through the portal.

“I’ll come back for you!” Taz shouted one more time.

“I’ll come back for you!”

“I’ll come back for you!”

The echo of his words carried all throughout Tartarus.

Against all odds his promise was heard.

Author's Notes:

The end of one story is simply the beginning of another.

Well, we've reached the end of yet another tale. This time things went a little different as there was no happy ending. A bittersweet one maybe, but not happy.

A lot happened this time around, some good, some bad, and some downright disturbing. While I may not have handled everything correctly, I'd say the overall story turned out exactly as I envisioned it.

I thank those of you that stuck with it. I hope at some point that I pissed you off, made you happy, made you sad, made you smile, and made you think, just like any good story should.

Oddly, judging by view counts Outed is where I lost most of my readers. However, I don't begrudge them one bit. We are all entitled to our opinions.

What happens next you ask? Well, for me I'm going to be taking a break from personally writing on TiM for a few months. I've been heavily invested writing on this series for over a year now and could use a few months off before picking it back up.

I say 'personally' because I will still be working on stories with ScratchnTavi. Together, we will be working on Taz's return to Tartarus to find Nighttide. This should be about 4-5 chapters in length and you can expect it sooner rather then later. :)

After that we brought up an idea to go back a little to a time before Best of Intentions, Worst of Results.

I believe that the greatest show of support you can give something is to create your own works for it or help in its creation. As such I want to give thinks to Scratch and Frozen for their contributions to the story. I want to give thanks to everyone that helped edit these stories and those that pointed out errors along the way.

I'll probably start the next story around Aug-Sept timeframe. It'll pick up about 6 months after this one ended.

Until then, you can expect more coworks between me and Scratch, and maybe a few non-TiM stories every now and then.

I'll end this by thanking all of you for sticking with me.

TwiDash on!
TwiDashforever.