Bloodied, battered, the companions were thankful to have a brief time of rest as they planned out what to do. Octavia sat rubbing her sore throat while Maud ignored her own injuries and stared at her husband, who looked nothing at all like his usual self at the moment. Princess Celestia’s projection, though not real, stood with a defensive posture over her little ponies who huddled together in the dark.

Looking weary and worn down, Vinyl pulled her slate from her saddlebags, using her telekinesis rather than an act of conjuring in an attempt to save some of her available magical energy. With a short, stubby bit of chalk, she went to work writing something down, then held it up for her companions to see.

Getting Tarnish up and out the hole is going to be difficult if we can’t touch him.

It was Vinyl that had thought ahead and foreseen a major problem with their plan. While Tarnish was carrying the crown, nopony would be able to touch him in any way, including magic. Princess Celestia now had a worried expression upon her face. Octavia and Maud both exchanged a glance with one another. Tarnish let out a worried, weary sigh.

I know a wall walking spell though. Before we go, I’ll cast wall walking and water walking on his hooves. Just let me know. She wiped the words away and then wrote more. Those spells are going to push me into exhaustion. I’ll be helpless.

“I’ll carry you,” Maud offered, and then before Octavia could protest, Maud shushed her. “You are having trouble breathing. I’m fine, more or less. Just let me do this.”

With a nod, Octavia relented, but said nothing.

“I wish we had more time,” Tarnish said to Maledico. “I am just starting to learn what I need to know. How will I learn without the orb?” Tarnish’s swollen, distorted face contorted with both physical and emotional pain. A bloody tear welled up in the corner of his eye, which stung a great deal and caused the corner of his eye to twitch.

“You will find a way.” Maledico’s projection flickered a bit and the glowing blue centaur’s head hung down. “Grrrr will help you. Experiment upon him. Learning to control his body will teach you how to control and manipulate the flora. The fauna is a little trickier, animal minds are stronger and will resist more, but you will learn. A druid is never without help. With but a thought the woods will come to life and aid you.”

“And what of Vinyl? What is her role in all of this? There is so much I don’t know.” Tarnish looked over at the resting unicorn and then back at his teacher. “You and I were just getting started. This feels too sudden. There has to be some other way.”

“You must have confidence in yourself,” Maledico replied. “Vinyl will act as a counterbalance of sorts. Druids and wizards have long woven magic together for the benefit of all. Like the sun and the moon, you two will figure out what is expected from one another and you will find your balance. The two of you will shepherd the new order. Turn no one and nobody away… we all have a role to play.” Maledico’s brow furrowed and his expression became quite stern. “A long time ago, we made a mistake. The order began to believe that only the equine races could properly serve the earth… centaurs and ponies of all kinds. Learn from the past, Tarnish, you have been shown quite a bit of it.”

“I don’t want to destroy my orb.” Another bloody tear fell from the corner of Tarnish’s eye, revealing that the damage done to his face was considerable. “But I understand that it must be done. I am ready… I will carry the crown to its place of destruction.”

“What becomes of this place?” Maud asked as she looked over at the spectral image of Princess Celestia.

“This place is dangerous,” Princess Celestia’s projection replied. “I will do my best to seal it away and make certain that it is protected. It will be a long time before the residual evil of this place fades away. All of you will have passed away from old age and so will any offspring that you have had.”

And what of Grogar, hiding in the cave? Vinyl held up her slate for Princess Celestia’s projection to see.

“I suspect that, even now, Grogar is enacting his escape.” A sour expression crept over Princess Celestia’s face and there was a visible shudder that shook her whole body. “If I were to go and confront his shadow in yonder cave, I do believe that I would find it empty. No doubt, he will travel along underground passages, down in the hidden crevices of the world, until he finds some other place of shelter.”

“How do we beat him?” Tarnish asked.

“I suspect that you won’t,” Princess Celestia replied without hesitation. The spectral image of the wise and wily alicorn let out a frustrated sigh. “Ultimately, I think Twilight has another villain in her rogue’s gallery. But she’ll need help. She’s going to need her friends. And probably all of you.” After a pause, she added, “No doubt, she will need as many friends as she can muster. Every other enemy that has come before will seem like a warm up compared to what is coming. We’re all going to suffer a great deal before this is over.”

“Without his crown, Grogar will be weakened.” Maledico’s words offered little comfort in the chilly dark. “We might be dealing him a mortal blow by destroying the crown.”

“I don’t understand. How so?” Tarnish, intrigued, focused all of his attention upon Maledico.

“Grogar gained immortality through the black star when it fell.” Princess Celestia’s voice was little more than a whisper, it was as if the alicorn was telling ghost stories in the dark. “Destroying the crown will sever that connection.”

“Tarnish, your princesses, both Celestia and Luna, if something wanted to kill them, they would have to destroy the sun and the moon first. Thoroughly and completely. The sun would have to be extinguished and it’s heart destroyed... and as for the moon, if even a speck of dust survived, so would Luna. She would be weakened, but so long as she could recreate the moon, she would survive.”

Tarnish stared at Maledico, trying to understand what the centaur had just said.

“Princess, please, forgive me, but I feel they are owed the truth,” Maledico said. The centaur bowed his head and then continued, “The two of you came long after my time, but I knew of the plan. We centaurs had long discussed creating the ultimate weapons of war against war. We centaurs sought long term stability. We knew that any would be world conquerors would have to be stopped… be put down. We centaurs reasoned that any would be world conquerors would give pause when faced with the daunting prospect of having to destroy the sun and the moon to forward their plans, as there would be no world for them to conquer. Our plan, the centaur plan was very simple… create two world defenders that couldn’t be stopped. A way to insure that life went on and continued. A way to hedge our bets.”

“That’s an ambitious plan.” Octavia blinked a few times as she tried to process the words she had just heard.

“I was planned?” Celestia asked in a voice thick with discomfort.

“This is like unravelling a sweater.” Tarnish coughed, then spat out a wad of blood and phlegm upon the floor. “No more talk. We need to get this done. I am ready to go. Vinyl, cast your spells.”

“I was planned…” Princess Celestia’s projection now had droopy ears. “There are so many questions, it is a shame that the orb must be destroyed.”

“There may still be answers. There are other cities just like this one, places hidden away from the world, sealed off and forgotten. Go and look for them. You have many intrepid explorers.” Maledico stared at Princess Celestia and the expression on his face was a mix of sad and hopeful. “Be careful though. Many of our secrets should remain buried and you may not like what you find, should you find it.”

As Tarnish began to prepare himself, Princess Celestia replied, “I’ll keep that in mind…”

It all came down to this moment. Tarnish closed his swollen eyes and drew in a deep breath to fill his lungs. Unencumbered, naked as the day he was born, he opened his eyes and faced the doorway made of petrified nullwood. The plan was simple. Go in, grab the crown, come out, pick up the blue orb to help nullify the crown’s influence, and then march out to the island.

It all seemed simple enough.

The others had already retreated out of the vault, leaving him alone. He needed room to move on his own, unimpeded. Stomping a hoof against the floor, Tarnish summoned his courage and screwed it to the sticking place. Taking a deep breath, he made his way through the doorway, letting everything out in a slow exhale as he did so.

His magic did not fail him. No, the nullwood, petrified as it was, obeyed him. With his telekinesis, he seized the crown and lifted it from the rotten black nullwood pedestal. The world around him became darker, dimmer, and it was now difficult to breathe. Tarnish ignored all of this and backed out of the tiny room where the crown was stored. He picked up the orb from off of the floor, turned around, and began to make his way out.

Now free from the nullwood lined vault, the Crown of Corruption awoke…

Blue mist streamed from Tarnish’s eyes, which had turned white from an overabundance of magical energy. His skin bubbled like hot wax as tumours grew beneath his skin and then were purged by his magic, which reacted to the thaumaturgical impurity. Magical cancer grew and died, the corruption unable to take root.

All in all, the process was excruciating, agonising, and there was nothing that Tarnish could do about it but grit his teeth and endure the pain. Around him, the shadows grew long and twisted in the pale blue light offered by the orb and his magic. Tarnish’s own shadow took on a life of its own, it writhed, danced on the floor and the walls beside and beneath him, and became the silhouette of a goat.

“Stop what you are doing…”

The voice, Grogar’s voice, was no louder than the faint sound of breathing. The chamber around Tarnish filled with hoarfrost, which crept up the walls, and his own breath became visible. The cold made his battered muzzle ache in the worst way and his joints grew stiff.

“I will destroy you… I will destroy everything you hold dear… I will destroy everything you love…”

Tarnish ignored the voice and kept going.

“Long after I have destroyed you… I will savage the wombs of your daughters and make them bear my generals. I will corrupt the seed of your sons. Your offspring will do my bidding and praise my name… I will sing them lullabies that will corrupt them in their cribs. They will suckle from my darkness and I shall become their father.”

Overcome with revulsion and fear, Tarnish stumbled, but he did not fall. He kept going somehow, alone, feeling as though he would suffocate in the darkness. Maledico had gone silent and his projection had vanished. The orb swirled with some great inner storm. He began to doubt that he could make it to where the others waited. A patch of cancerous growths sprouted from his neck, which spread with frightful speed, and then they went away, shrinking and shriveling as his magic nullified them.

Tarnish’s steps slowed as nightmarish images began to play for his mind’s eye. Grogar showed him his plans for the princesses, both Celestia and Luna, for Cadance, and for Twilight. It took conscious effort to keep going and Tarnish focused upon placing one hoof in front of the other as Grogar continued his barrage of grotesquerie. The hideous, horrible demon spawn that crawled and slithered from the wombs of the ruined alicorns danced around inside of his head, tormenting him, mocking him, and singing perverse songs as more of their kind were born.

It was all illusion, but Tarnish was powerless against it. Bloody tears dribbled down his cheeks and splashed upon the shadows dancing along the floor around his hooves. Gibbering with fear, Tarnish wasn’t sure he could keep going.

“BAD DARKNESS! BAD! GO AWAY!” Flamingo’s chirpy voice echoed through the chambers up ahead and a faint pink light illuminated the way. “I AM THE ELEMENT OF PINKNESS! I AM SENT BY THE TREE AND I WILL PURGE YOU! YOUR DARKNESS IS NO MATCH FOR MY PINKNESS, YOU BIG MEANIE!”

Poor Tarnish thought he was losing his mind. Blinking, he saw a pink pegasus appear in the darkness. She looked a bit like Pinkie Pie, but more pegasusy, and there were bright red streaks in her mane. The feathers on her wings had scarlet-red tips and her eyes blazed crimson in the faint light. The pegasus mare glowed with an inner light and she was beautiful. Her beauty drove away the darkness.

Above her head floated a sword that blazed with pink light.

For a second, Tarnish was certain that he had gone mad. Flamingo went flat, she became very two dimensional, and her flat body became one with the wall—she had become a pink shadow of her former self. Her pink shadow lept and attacked the black shadow that clung to Tarnish, whose own shadow was no longer that of a pony, but was now a goat.

“Run you fool!” Princess Celestia’s voice was all around him. “He will not be able to cast his shadow in my light! Hurry! Hurry to the surface before all is lost! I have extended the day to keep the sun in the sky so that you might have a chance!”

While Flamingo was beating the stuffing out of Grogar’s shadow in a way that only an over-protective pegasus could, Tarnish made a run for it as the sounds of Grogar’s agonised howls filled his ears. As he had done so many times before in times of trouble, Tarnish ran.

Author's Notes:

There is a lot in this chapter...

And we are so close now.