I made my way back to Princess Celestia and Spike outside of the gate at Sweet Apple Acres feeling much better after getting the heavy burden of telling the Apple family about Applejack and me. The hard part was over, now I just needed to rescue my wife and her friends from a villain all the while saving Equestria. Spike was on the Princess' back when I returned, holding the chest that contained the elements of harmony, and it occurred to me that the Princess was going to be our mode of transportation. My relieved feeling didn't last long, as I had a terrible fear of heights, but that wasn't about to stop me. She lowered her back for me to hop on, and Spike moved back so I could hold on to her neck.

"Um, Princess? I think we would be better off if you told me a thing or two about this guy," I said, climbing on her back.

"I'll tell you after we make up some time. Hold on," she said without looking back, standing up and spreading her great wings. Saving Equestria and her subjects was the only thing on her mind at that moment, and given how serious she was, I was kind of surprised she let me do what I just did with the Apple family. I gulped and grabbed ahold of her neck; I had next to no time to prepare myself to go soaring through the skies; she wasn't about to waste anytime. I felt Spike grab on to me very tight from behind, and I could tell he was nervous too. This was nothing new to the Princess, but Spike and I had not experienced the thrill of flying. What better time to do it then right now?

"Um, AJ? How do you feel about hei- WHOOOOOAAAA!" before Spike could finish, Princess Celestia very suddenly and swiftly propelled herself off the ground with her legs and wings, beating against the air and soaring almost directly upward into the skies at incredible speeds. The sheer force of her takeoff into the sky left me and Spike screaming with terror, with me holding on for dear life to the Princess' neck and Spike digging his claws into my side. I saw nothing but blue sky, and puffy white clouds were passing right through my face as the Princess leveled off her flight direction thousands of feet above Equestria. I barely had to time to look around me at the beautiful country of Equestria before she rapidly changed direction and bolted down and eastward, spreading her wings in a way that caught all of the air and propelled us forward at blinding speed. It was all happening so fast I barely had time to think, and all I remember was the rush of adrenaline and constant screams from me and Spike. I reached around the Princess' neck with my arms until my head was against it, and I shut my eyes and pictured Applejack. I'm coming, Applejack!

After a while, she finally began slow down. I opened my eyes, and we were much lower to the ground now, probably only a few hundred feet or so. We were flying over a forest, and up in the distance I saw what appeared to be the castle that the mysterious enemy occupied. There was a very large thundercloud over it that made it look very menacing, and as we approached, the light from the sun faded. Princess Celestia lowered us into the trees until we were flying only a few feet above the forest floor. She finally touched the ground and came to a complete halt in a part of the forest where it was very dark, and the castle was obviously very close given the center of the thundercloud could be seen right over the trees.

The Princess lowered her back and Spike and I climbed off rather dizzily, and she turned and faced us.  

"Ok, so what are we dealing with?" I said, trying to regain my balance. The Princess looked down and took a deep breath, indicating she had a lot to say.  

"This is the ancient castle of Blackcolt. Long ago, I had a very promising pupil, a young unicorn stallion. Unlike my most trusted and most beloved student, Twilight Sparkle, this unicorn never let the magic of friendship into his heart. As a result, I dismissed him from my teachings, but he kept studying magic on his own in different parts of Equestria. He began devoting his time to different kinds of dark magic. He became very powerful, and devised a plan to use dark magic to control all of the evil creatures guarded by Cerberus in Tartarus and declare himself King of Equestria. This was back when my sister and I were still connected to the elements, and we used them to ironically banish him to Tartarus to be guarded by Cerberus himself, and he was unable to complete his ritual," she said, and I tried to wrap my mind around it.

"If he's been trapped there for all this time, how did he suddenly manage to escape?" I said.

"Not six months ago, just before you arrived in Ponyville, Cerberus briefly left the gates of Tartarus and the evil one escaped," she said. I scratched my head and pondered how it took her until now to realize this.

"Wait, so you haven't discovered him until now? What has he been doing for the last six months?" I said. The Princess rolled her eyes.

"He realized that in order to complete his ritual, he would have to do it in complete secret and away from the elements of harmony, or else he would be revealed and defeated again. He has spent this time looking for the perfect place to complete his ritual, and he chose here. I detected his presence in Equestria about a month ago and had Twilight help me locate him, but we couldn't find him. Finally yesterday, I discovered that he was here and as you know took action. Listen carefully; this is where our advantage comes in. He thinks that because the elements of harmony didn't work on him last night that he is now more powerful then them. In his mind, nothing can stop him from completing his ritual and taking control of the evil creatures in Tartarus and ruling Equestria. What he doesn't know is that when your heart joined with Applejack's, the element of honesty became one with both of you, and because you were not here, it didn't work."

Some of it was actually starting to make sense, and I finally had an idea of what we were dealing with. The problem was, where did we go from there?

"So, what's the plan?" said Spike. She lowered her head in disappointment.

"You and Spike take the elements of harmony and go in and free Twilight, Applejack, and the rest of them. Then you use their power to defeat the evil one. I'm sorry to tell you this, but if I enter that castle, he will feel my presence and your cover will be blown. You have the element of surprise on your side, and you must use it now. The secrecy of your mission is everything. You two are humble creatures and he will not detect you unless you reveal yourselves to him," she said sadly. You have got to be kidding me!

"With respect, Princess, do you think it's wise to leave the fate of Equestria in the hands of a teenage human and baby dragon? You are the most powerful being in this land!" I said, trying to hold back my frustration. The Princess looked up at me and hardened her expression.

"The fate of Equestria is in the hands of the elements of harmony, as it always has been. I am no longer connected to them, so my power is not as great as the evil one's. You must do this without me. Never doubt the power of your love," she said.

Spike and I looked at each other uneasily. I always wanted to go on an adventure, but not like this. As if the responsibility of rescuing my true love wasn't enough, now I was responsible for saving every last creature in Equestria from miserable life under a tyrant, and the only one to help me was a baby dragon. The Princess was right about one thing, however; our plan was fairly simple, and the "evil one" apparently had no idea that anything could stop him now, so his guard would be down. All we had to do was sneak in, free Applejack and her friends, and use the elements of harmony again. That doesn't sound that hard.

Spike and I walked through the trees a few feet until we came to the ancient castle. The presence of dark magic and evil was apparent on the outside of it, as not a single ray of light shone through the clouds on it. My love of Applejack was really coming to life inside me. I hadn't seen her since our sorrowful parting the night before, and I really missed her. It was tearing me apart that she was trapped in this wretched place with this horrible monster. This was my chance to stand beside her in the face of danger and stop at nothing to save her. How I longed to spend the rest of my days with her, working and playing together as the best of friends. I didn't need anything in this world that I didn't have in Applejack. I wouldn't care if I lost all of my belongings, my house, my friends, etc. as long as I had her. I was so scared, but she alone gave all the strength and courage to continue on. If this adventure was to be the price of making our dreams come true, then so be it.

I looked at Spike and saw the same fear in his eyes as he looked on at the castle. I grabbed his claw with my hand.

"Hey bud, glad to have you with me. Be strong brother, be strong for Rarity and all of our friends," I said. Spike looked at me and some of the fear left his eyes, replaced with compassion. I wasn't good at motivational speeches, but maybe that was enough to encourage him.

We walked through the trees right into the open and up to the castle doors. It seemed so huge as we stood at the doorway, which must've been four times taller then me. We both looked up in fear and awe as we slowly opened the great door. I held on the elements of harmony with one hand and slowly and (more importantly) quietly opened the door with the other. Spike and I walked in and shut the door behind us. We stood in a huge dark room held up by great pillars, with torches that lit the path in front of us. There were decaying statues of ponies on both sides of the room and huge stain-glass windows. It was deathly silent, and when we heard the squeak of a bat, we both jumped in fear.

"Alright, Spike. We're looking for the dungeon, that's where our friends are. We also need to be extremely careful not to make any noise. We don't know where this jerk is, he could be anywhere. We have to move slow," I whispered, and Spike nodded. I grabbed a torch off one of the pillars and we inched forward, slowly and quietly. We had no idea where the "evil one" was, and we were terrified that he might see us. We walked forward until we got to the other side of the great hall, and came to a set of dark, winding stairs that went both up and down.

"Dungeons are typically on the low part of castles, right?" whispered Spike.

It made sense to me, so we started to walk down the winding staircase. The only light was from my torch and a few torches that lined the narrow stone walls on the side of the stairs. We walked down until we came to the end of the stairs and saw another great stone hallway, lit by only a few torches, except this one had what appeared to be prison bars on the side of it. Spike and I hid behind the wall at the end of the staircase and took a good look through the prison bars. My heart jumped; sure enough, Applejack and all of her friends were on the other side of the bars. Tears came to my eyes as I saw Applejack; she was lying on the ground, sobbing and looking miserably sad at something. I put my hand on my mouth when I realized that she was staring hopelessly at the locket I had given her at our wedding.

"My heart will always belong to you," I whispered out loud.

I went to run out to her, but Spike held me back and kept me behind the wall. There was an eery but soft howling noise, and the presence of evil was getting much stronger. At the other side of the room was another stairway leading upstairs, but more importantly was that something was happening at the base of the staircase. There was a noise like rushing wind, and black smoke was forming at the bottom of the staircase. Applejack stood up with the rest of her friends. The black smoke thickened, and fire balls began bursting forth from the base of the staircase. The noises of howling and rushing wind became loud until there was a flash of fiery light, and emerging from the cloud of black smoke was what appeared to be a large unicorn, draped in black robes and wearing a black hood. It was quite an epic entry. I could only see the outline of his face in his hood given the extremely poor lighting, but he had the most intimidating eyes. They were very small, but they were glowing red. You could feel the evil in his presence, the dark magic that consumed his heart. The only love he knew was love of himself.

Very slowly he walked over to the prisoners, who were huddled together in fear (even Rainbow Dash) until he was standing but a few feet from the bars. His slow movement was menacing. He went to speak to them, except when he spoke, he spoke very slowly, drawing out each and every word in his extremely low, coarse voice. His words seemed to be dripping with evil.

"Oh, yes. Yes, my prisoners. Soon my ritual will be complete. I shall have dominion over all life in Equestria," he said, turning his body in our direction so that Spike and I had to hide completely behind the wall. He was seemingly exciting himself and his speech got louder. "Yes, oh yes! Then you will worship ME! Me."

He turned back and looked right at Applejack and saw the locket she had in her hoof.

"You're married! My, he is a lucky one to have a mare as beautiful as you. Tell me, what kind of stallion is he? I could use a strong stallion in my collection of personal slaves," he said. The end of his horn lit up, and he forcefully started pulling the locket towards him as Applejack cried out, begging him to give it back. He opened it up and looked at it, and was silent for a second. A deadly laughter echoed throughout the room. "I am so disappointed," he said, flinging the locket back at Applejack, who grabbed it and embraced it against her heart as she sobbed.

An inconceivable hatred was building inside me. I did not want to send this monster back to Tartarus, I wanted him dead. He had just taunted my beloved. If this was to be my end, then I was going to make such an end as to be worthy of remembrance. I had never wished bad on anyone in my entire life, even those who hurt me. But this was different. I didn't care how powerful he was, I was going to get my shot at this demon.

"Leave her alone! You let me out of here and I'll show you who to worship!" said Rainbow Dash, flying right up to the edge of the bars. Her bravery was most admirable, but the evil one just laughed. Something shot out of his horn that began shocking her in pain and she fell to the floor. He scoffed and began to walk slowly back to the staircase where he came from, and was gone.

After waiting a minute until it was completely silent, Spike and I ran out to the opposite side of the prison bars. They were all shocked to see us, and they ran up to give the edge so that only the bars separated us. Applejack saw me and her weary face lit up with happiness that I ever so longed to give her. She ran right up to the bars and we reached our arms through the other side and gave each other the tightest hug. I went to rest my head on hers, only to be denied by the prison bar. I placed my hand on her face as we deeply and affectionately stared into each other's eyes. Looking into those heavenly green eyes was the thing I missed the most in our time apart.

"You didn't think I was gonna leave you, the fountain of happiness in my life, did you?" I whispered.

"Ah' love you so much," she whispered, as we hugged again. Twilight walked up to us and looked at me confused.

"How did you get here?" she said.

"Princess Celestia. She flew us," I said. Twilight looked up in hope at her mention.

"What is her plan?" she said excitedly, and Applejack and the rest of their friends looked at me eagerly.

"We brought the elements of harmony," I said, and they all looked bitterly disappointed.

"They're not powerful enough to stop him!" said Twilight. A smile came over my face.

"Yes they are. They didn't work because they weren't complete," I said. Twilight looked even more bewildered.

"What do you mean? There's not a seventh element!" she said. I smiled and looked at Applejack.

"There are six elements of harmony. When Applejack and I got married, our hearts became one, and the element of honesty became one with us! Applejack was so special in my heart that the spirit of honesty inside her transfered into me! The both of us now complete the element!" I said.

Every one of them looked shocked but for a moment, and then a combination of deeply touched and deeply inspired. Hope had been resurrected inside all of them. Pinkie Pie started bouncing around in excitement and Twilight had to remind her to be quiet. Applejack stared at me as happily and deeply as she ever has, her eyes filled with tears, and my soul erupted with unfathomable joy. Our hearts could feel the other's burning love for the other, and we once again tightly embraced each other. If it weren't for this stupid bar.

"Um, how are we gonna get outa here?" said Rainbow Dash. Spike laughed.

"Hello! I am a dragon, you know," said Spike, pulling out a diamond.