From the endless sea of emptiness, the party now found themselves in a metallic maze, where the fiends in here were far more dangerous than in the last realm. It was difficult to navigate this area, some of the paths getting blocked off by walls shooting up from the floor, glyphs etched on the side in some language that not ever Twilight could translate. Not only were the several passages getting blocked off at random instances, some of the steel bridges shifted under their weight, causing them to trip and slide down climbable pits, becoming more of a nuisance than a trap.

They finally arrived on the other side of the confusing and irritatingly living maze, finding a long and endless corridor with nothing but the night sky able to be seen over the walls. As they began to walk down the endless road to wherever Faust was, something sparkled up in the starry sky, growing brighter as it got closer. A giant pillar of a meteor came hurtling down their path, crashing into the ground hard and knocking everyone off their feet as it shook the maze violently.

"I don't know what is going on in here!" Pinkie exclaimed. "Are we outside!? Are we on another planet that lives in Sin!? This is like the Chaos Ruins all over again, except there's no fake looking sweets that can kill me!"

"I think we should be more concerned about this...strange meteor?" As they stood up, they noticed there was a glowing portal in the piece of fake space rock that barred their only means of reaching Faust. "...This place really is stranger than the Chaos Ruins."

With no other possible way around the pillar, they entered the portal and found themselves in another realm. This was the exact same place Rainbow Dash saw when she chased Sin after Operation Mi'ihen, where she had seen the several ponies who lost their lives in the dangerous mission. The small patch of dreary forest, the sky spinning rapidly above them in an almost dizzying manner, only without the slain Crusaders and Al Bhed that took part in that terrible battle.

"Ahhh! My eyes are spinning! Don't look at the sky!" Pinkie said as her eyes began rolling around in her head.

While avoiding looking up, Applejack yelped when a crystal pillar shot up from the ground next to her, almost impaling her. "Whoa! Ah don't think we're safe!"

Several more began shooting up underneath them, the party avoiding them as best as they were able to. While moving around, Rainbow noticed some spirits floating down to the ground, creating small crystals as they touched down. She grabbed it before it disappeared as it created something in her hoof, which looked like a black cat with a small crown on its head.

"What the hay?" The pegasus leapt back as a pillar nearly ran itself through her face, spotting another crystal near Spike. "Hey guys, pick up those crystals!"

Each of them managed to grab a crystal, all of them turning into other objects, like weapons, shields, and even spheres. As Rainbow Dash picked up the last one that fell, the area turned white as they were all transported somewhere, safe from the dangerous crystal pillars that tried to kill them all. Their vision cleared and they now found themselves in another familiar area, both for Rainbow and Rarity.

Everyone stood on the floating platform hovering over the illusion of Zanarkand from a thousand years ago, a flaming "J" lit ablaze, the letter made up of different portions of crumbled buildings, highway roads, and much more bits of the city. Standing near the edge, watching the fire burn was Jet Stream, the pegasus stallion's ears twitching as he heard their hoofsteps slowly approaching him.

"Rarity, you're late," he said. "You took way too long to make it here."

"We ran into some trouble, Jet. I didn't think you of all ponies would be fixated on keeping to a schedule."  Jet chuckled as he turned around to face them.

"Boy, have I missed that alluringly, naggy voice of yours." Jet doesn't notice Rainbow Dash hiding behind the others, the pegasus too afraid to confront her father. He does recognize Fluttershy, her pink hair a lot longer than when she was a filly. "Fluttershy...Wow, you sure have grown a lot. You were at around my knees the last time I saw you."

"Y-Yes...but you're still taller than me," the summoner said.

"Well, I am Sin. Of course I'd be taller," Jet joked, though he didn't laugh at the depressing truth of his situation. "...I don't think messing around is going to make anything easier, huh?" He spotted Rainbow Dash's mane hiding behind the group as she tried to back away. Rarity forcefully dragged her to the front, wanting the two to make amends and find closure with each other before they fought. The stallion stared at his daughter, having definitely grown up after ten long years. She was no longer a filly, being a fully grown mare, though he could still see the look of fear and disdain in her eyes as she avoided his gaze. "...Dash..."

"...H-Hey, dad," Rainbow timidly said.

"...You grew up too...You're not the little squirt I thought you were anymore, huh?" The two pegasi grew quiet, making things awkward as neither father nor daughter didn't know what to say to each other. Jet scratched his head, curious to know how her life had been, but unsure if she would speak to him. "...So...how's your mom been?"

"...She's dead," she said, her voice cracking with sorrow as he brought back that painful moment in her life.

"...Well, of course she would be. It's been a thousand years." Jet was oblivious to Rainbow's pain, knowing his wife would have met her end a long time ago. "Stupid question."

"She committed suicide." The stallion stared at her in shock. "She killed herself...a few months after you disappeared...Mom thought you were dead, and left me...to try to be with you again..." Rainbow felt tears well up in her eyes, but she couldn't cry in front of her father. She refused to look at him as the pain of losing her mother came back. "She died because of you..."

Jet Stream was speechless, looking at the painful look on his daughter's face, unable to believe what had happened to his beloved. He looked at Rarity, the unicorn nodding her head sadly, having witnessed his wife's passing that depressing day. The stallion lowered his head, feeling responsible for her passing, along with more guilt for causing his daughter more pain.

"...She never could stay away from me," he uttered, rubbing his forehead with his hoof. "I really do deserve the reward for the worst husband/father in the history of the world...I'm such an idiot..."

"Dad..." Jet looked up to see Rainbow looking at him, anger and sadness in her eyes as tears threatened to flow down her face. "...I hate you..."

Though those three words stung the stallion's heart, he was glad to hear his daughter finally speak her mind about him to her. "...I know...I deserve to be Sin for everything I've done...What's worse is that I just might become Sin permanently." Jet sighed, beginning to feel what control he was keeping slowly start to waver. "It's already hard for me to hear the Hymn...I'm gonna lose it soon...You know what you guys have to do.

"Once we start...I won't be able to hold myself back. So none of you hold back either." The mares and dragon nodded, Rainbow wiping her eyes to try to get rid of her welled up tears. "Alright...Let's do this. Final play, all or nothing. Let's go!"

Suddenly, Jet's chest began sparking wildly with power, making the stallion yell out in pain as the energy grew into a sphere, covering most of his body. The others watched in horror as he stumbled backwards, clutching a hoof to his chest as the sparks shot wildly out of him. As he approached the edge, he took one last look at everyone before he would face his inevitable demise.

"No! Dad!" Rainbow shouted as she ran up to him to try to save him before he fell over. She didn't react fast enough as Jet Stream fell off, desperately reaching out a hoof to him as she watched him plummet to the rippling lights beneath them. "...Dad..."

She couldn't see any sign of him through the light, unable to save him. As much as she wanted to kill him for what he did to her and to prevent him from losing himself as Sin, she didn't want to at the same time. She already lost her parents once, her mother never coming back. She felt she didn't say how much she hated her father, too scared to speak out or shout at him over how much she wished he was dead. Jet Stream's words from his sphere to her in Macalania and in Zanarkand before he gave up his life to be the Final Aeon now affected her, not wanting to lose him despite them both being dreams.

As Rainbow stood up, she noticed something in the light, and it seemed to be getting closer. Seeing it shooting up at her, she gasped and leapt back, nearly avoiding a large black hoof clad with a dark blue gauntlet slammed the platform. Before whatever nearly crushed her pulled itself up, two strange, mobile pillars floated up to either side as everyone stared in bewilderment at what looked like the Final Aeon itself.

After the massive pony aeon rose itself up, it was a terrifying sight to behold: Jet's body was now completely dark, his body covered in dark blue and black armor, his mane and tail now ethereal, though maintaining his rainbow colors as his hair billowed wildly, he also had a long, sharp horn on his forehead that matched his large wingspan, and as he grinned, he now had a row of sharp fangs. He looked down at them, completely lost to his transformation as he growled. Everyone spread out on the platform and got into position, Rainbow being the last as she pulled out her sword and pointed it at her father.

"I promise this is gonna be quick! Give me all you've got, dad!" The pegasus increased everyone's speed using Hastega and flew toward the Final Aeon.

He held up a hoof and blocked her blade, Rainbow flapping her wings hard to push back against him. She managed to break through and repeatedly slash at his armored head, making him roar in pain. She flew back and avoided a swipe, having dealt some damage to him. Unfortunately, the two twitching pillars beside the aeon hummed and began twisting around, shooting an electrical current in his horn, healing any injuries and giving the Final Aeon more power.

"We have to get rid of those pillars!" Twilight said. "Applejack, you and I need to take those out!"

"On it!" Both mares began attacking the pillars to destroy them and avoid having any damage they deal healed up by them.

With the pillars being taken care of by the two long-range mares, the rest of the party focused on the Final Aeon. The aeon slammed its hoof down on them, Spike quickly grabbing it and holding it up, preventing them from getting crushed flat with his strength. While grabbing the armored hoof, he used Lancet and began absorbing his energy. Though it didn't seem to do much to weaken him, Spike absorbed enough to have his scales glow again. The Final Aeon made a mistake to fling the wingless dragon up into the air, pulling out his halberd as he dove down, stabbing his weapon down on the massive stallion's head, unleashing a powerful blast of energy upon impact using the energy he absorbed.

While the aeon tried to swat Spike off, his halberd buried deep in his head, Pinkie was busy mixing something with a couple of items she had stored in her personal inventory space. The moment she turned around, she pulled a massive cannon out of nowhere, placing a giant cannonball inside it, lighting a long match across the ground. Without warning, she lit the fuse on the dangerous machina, covering her ears as it fired the heavy ball straight in the Final Aeon's chest, the stallion wheezing heavily as he got the wind knocked out of him, cracking the armor around his chest.

As he struggled to breath, he looked up at Rainbow Dash as one of the pillars healed some of the aeon's pain, having revived itself after it was rendered "unconscious", unable to be destroyed so easily. "I'm not going to lose to you!" the pegasus shouted, which had greatly affected him as he frowned with a sad look in his eyes.

He immediately lost the energy he gained from his pillars and hesitated to attack, Rainbow flying in and slashing away at his face again. On the inside, Jet was trying his hardest to lose, fighting back against the being controlling him to end all this misery for all of Spira. The cyan pegasus backed away as she and Spike regrouped back on the platform, but the fight wasn't over yet.

Growling, the Final Aeon roared as the hilt of a sword shot out from the crack in his armor, disintegrating the chest plate. With his hoof, the gauntlets melded with the hilt, he pulled out a massive sword from his chest, the blade made of what looked like the night sky manifested into a physical form.

"That's a big sword," Pinkie pointed out, everyone quickly ducking as the Final Aeon slashed at them and missing them by mere inches. "Really big sword!"

He was about to swing again, only to be blocked by Rarity's diamond katana, stopping the blade of stars on a Gil with her incredible strength. As the two tried to push each other back, Fluttershy cast Holy in the aeon's face with Twilight's Ultima spell, distracting him while also getting struck by the powerful light and dark magic spells. While he recoiled from the sudden blast of white and black spheres of mana exploding in his face, Rarity ran along the sword and leapt up at the Final Aeon, hacking away in the powerful stallion's face.

Rarity quickly leapt back before getting smacked away by the aeon's hoof. Before he could slam his blade into the platform and crush the guardians and summoner, Rainbow Dash flew in and distracted him, letting out her frustrations on the Final Aeon as she whizzed past him in a rainbow blur. One hard smack to the face managed to knock the helmet off his head, sending it falling down into the abyss that was Zanarkand down below.

"You're not going to beat me, you hear me!?" The aeon was about to slash at the pegasus, only to falter as he froze, a pained look on the stallion's face. "After everything you did to me! After everything you did to mom!...You made my life miserable, AND I HATE YOU!"

Rainbow screamed as she began stabbing her sword repeatedly in the Final Aeon's head, constantly shouting "I hate you!" over and over in his face. While still dazed from the hateful words of the pegasus, she flew up high in the air, pouring in all her speed with her enhanced agility and immediately pulled off that same sonic boom she made over Bevelle when they rescued Fluttershy, lighting the false night sky with a rainbow shockwave. Faster than anypony could even blink, Rainbow sped by the aeon and flew around him, slashing him harder and harder as her screaming turned into shrieks of rage.

With one last U-turn, she flew straight through his back and out his chest where his sword came out of, the Final Aeon roaring in agony as it was defeated. Along with the pegasus, a strange, amorphous, spiritual red and white blob flew out from his chest, an image of a mare's head inside with a horn on her forehead shooting off and began circling the realm. As the strange spirit left, possibly being Faust, the Final Aeon fell forward and disappeared as Jet Stream's body landed harshly on the platform, greatly weakened, but still alive.

As the others relaxed, having defeated the Final Aeon on their own, Rainbow landed next to her father, panting heavily as tears ran down her cheeks, unable to hold back her emotions. Jet groaned, rolling onto his back, glad to be back to his normal self and freed from the spirit that was inside him. He squinted his eyes open, finding his daughter crying over him.

"Heh...I lost...I usually hate losing," he said. "But...I think I'll take this loss over anything else."

Rainbow sobbed, weakly slamming her hooves into his chest as she let all of her remaining anger out on the stallion, most of it taken out on his aeon form. "I hate you...I hate you so much...You ruined my life..."

She couldn't hold back anymore, burying her face in her father's chest and cried. "I knew you were gonna cry...You always cry..." Jet began to tear up, draping his hoof around his daughter as she let it all out. "You're gonna make me cry..." He sniffled, holding her little filly close. "Darn it...Why is crying...so contagious?"

As father and daughter wept, having rekindled their relationship a little, the others watched, some of them misty-eyed at the heartwarming moment. After a while, Rainbow helped her father sit up, still very weak from getting beaten and transforming into the Final Aeon. Fluttershy approached them, holding her staff out to perform the sending, Jet's life close to fading.

"Jet?...S-Should I send you?" she timidly asked, not wanting to shorten the pegasi from making up with each other.

"There's no time, Fluttershy. You all still have a job to do," Jet Stream said, wiping his eyes with his hoof. Speeding down over them, Faust tried to fly back in the stallion, only to pull out his sword and swing it at the spirit. "You stay the hay away from me, you parasite! Fluttershy, the aeons!"

Behind the group, Bahamut appeared. "We aeons!"

"Call them!" Jet shouted.

"Call us!" the fayth said as he appeared behind Jet Stream.

The stallion soon began to fade as spirits flew out from his body, looking at Rainbow Dash. "End this...for all of us."

"I will," Rainbow said. "And dad?...For the first time in my life...I'm glad you're my father."

Jet smiled warmly, closing his eyes as he finally faded away. Though their time was brief and they were in the middle of ending Spira's spiral of death, Rainbow was glad to finally have some closure with her father after all this time. And, once they met each other again once this over, maybe they can start their relationship as a family over and begin anew.

"Look out! Here it comes!" Rainbow looked up as Faust came flying in again, blinding everyone as they were transported somewhere else, the final fight against the corrupted entity about to begin and the fate of Spira resting on Fluttershy and her six guardians. Next Chapter: Chapter 52: Faust's Demise Estimated time remaining: 50 Minutes