Twilight beat me to the library. Presumably to put Spike to bed, little guy had passed out when Nightmare Moon showed up. Probably for the best that he didn’t see what happened after. As I approached the, still living, hollow tree I suppressed a chuckle. It amazed me how no one ever questioned this impossible building, even in Equestria trees die when you hollow them out.

The reality of the situation was that this “tree” was part of one of my Leviathans, another type of bioform I created specifically to protect small towns like this. I only made three of them however, mostly because of the insane amount of biomass and time required to form them in the first place, but also because they’re weird. They follow their orders well enough, but developed unique personalities and unforeseen abilities very quickly. This one for example believes all of the townsponies are its children and took over all of the decorative vegetation to watch over them. It has also figured out how to vibrate the leaves of those plants in order to play music, I consider this one the most sane.

Appleoosa’s leviathan demanded that I “bask in the glory of the Tree King.” At this rate, if I had made another it would have declared itself “King of the Squirrels” or something.

“Did you see her face when Bestie put his head back on? She was all like ‘whaaat.’ Or, or when he dropped down and made his scary face right in her face? Ooh, he should have kissed her, she’d probably still be frozen there.” ‘Shit, I should’ve thought of that.’ It seemed I was being followed, and Pinkie’s gonna Pinkie.

‘How long had Celestia been crafting this little plan? The number of factors and variables required to get these six together at just the right time, it’s impossible. It fell into her lap, coincidence, it had to be. No one is that good.’ I would be having words with a certain diarch later. I was so lost in this train of thought and the implications therein that I walked beak first into the door of the library. I made a note to apologize to the leviathan later, maybe even give it a name.

As I entered the library, ignoring the laughing ponies that followed me in, I found Twilight desperately searching through a number of books repeating the word ‘elements.’ It seemed she had already figured out how to win this fight, provided Rainbow didn’t attack her for being a “spy.” This made my job easier, all I had to do now was keep them alive. All it took was a nudge and a gesture to Pinkie for the group to have all the information they needed. ‘Oh look, they’re even lined up according to their dominant attributes.’

“The last known location of the five elements was in the ancient castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, it is located in what is now the Everfree Forest! What are we going to do? It’s all happening just like you said Mr. Defense.”

“Just call me Best, it’s faster. And no, it isn’t. This is the unexpected, and this is the time when you have to stand up to those who would see you fall. This is the time when you dig in your heels.”

“We don’t have heels,” damnit Pinkie.

“Don’t interrupt, I’m on a roll. When you dig in your heels and say ‘no more,’” I finished, “Now, get your gear and meet me at my cabin. I can get you to that castle.”

It didn’t take them long to gather by the edge of the forest, I had ducked inside to grab my old sword and then waited for them to arrive. I missed the days when this blade meant something, a symbol of my rank. I drew a few looks as the others noticed the blade across my back, none of them had ever seen it before.

“Okay, we’ve got a mile before we hit the end of the safe zone. But we shouldn't run into any of the locals tonight, even in the red zone,” I said, genuinely expecting this to be an easy hike.

“Oh, yeah? Then what’s with the new kit?” Rainbow asked suspiciously.

“This sword is older than your great-grandparents. If we run into Nightmare again she’ll likely back off once she sees it,” I answered simply.

Now it was Twilight’s turn to speak up as we set off, “Is it some sort of lost magical artifact? I’d love to catalog it.”

That statement ran down my spine like a lightning bolt, “Not on your life, being in a museum would ruin everything this blade stands for. Although, maybe I’ll tell you its history someday. Nah, you’d have more fun researching it. This is Cataclysm, reforged to fit my stature.”

“Who names ah sword?” AJ asked, her interest peaked.

“Who names a tree?” I joked, “besides, it used to be a pretty common thing.”

Twilight’s head spun to look at me, “Hey, that reminds me, what was all that stuff you said earlier about being over a thousand years old and being cursed to live forever? You can’t possibly be that old and everypony knows curses don’t exist.”

“Ask your mentor, she’s known me almost the whole time. And I’m not a pony, that’s racist.”

Now she just looked confused, “I’ll do that, but so many mages over the years have tried to figure out eternal life, why do you call it a curse?” Captain Oblivious here didn’t manage to see everyone else waving her off this topic.

“I’ve buried everyone I’ve ever cared about.” Twilight’s hoof rose to her mouth so fast she almost tripped.

“Oh.”

“Tarnation Twi, all them books and ya couldn’t ah figured that one out,” AJ said, facehoofing.

“As I recall, AJ, you walked into the same tree,” I said with a smile, letting them all know I hadn’t taken any offense.

As the group quieted down, we set off into the forest, however it wasn’t long before Fluttershy spoke up, as much as she ever did, “Um, excuse me, I think we’re being followed.” At this, the six disguised enforcers following us stepped out of the bushes. Suddenly I had four ponies competing for real estate on my shoulders. The exceptions being Rainbow, who jumped into the air and hovered out of a timber wolf’s reach, and Fluttershy, who knew about me and my enforcers. Shy had figured out my disguise on her first day in Ponyville, as I was delivering a housewarming pie no less. That girl missed her calling, not even gryphon doctors could tell I wasn’t a real gryphon, she could have been one hell of a physician.

Fortunately after being scolded for lying and subsequently explaining myself, she agreed that I should stay hidden as Best Defense.

“Calm down, they’re with me,” I said placatingly, “This pack helps me out sometimes.”

That got their attention. One by one they climbed down and slowly approached the “timberwolves,” who did not acknowledge anyone but me. Even when Pinkie decided it would be fun to try and ride one, it did not move. I understood immediately what this meant, something had gone wrong.

I followed one of the enforcers out of sight and hissed, “What happened?”

“The route has been compromised by unknown entities, estimated threat levels ‘A’ through ‘C.’ Recommendation: divert to alternate route,” the enforcer responded in their usual over-militarized speech.

“I see, return to your positions, we’re pressing forward,” As soon as they had appeared, the enforcers had vanished into the trees, “Girls, we’re going to have some company up ahead. Let’s see what you’re made of.”

And so we passed through what could only be trials designed for each member of our little group. The cliff face collapsing was easy enough to handle, those of us with wings simply grabbed the rest and carried them down. Then Shy managed to make friends with a manticore before I could kill it, so I threatened it into becoming a vegetarian in exchange for the ability to cross through my territory to visit its new friend. I had no idea why they started screaming at the trees though, Pinkie had to go into a song and dance number to break them out of it. Then we had to cross the river, which is where we ran into Steven.

Steven Magnet the sea serpent, no respect for boundaries of any kind: personal or territorial. I could have forgiven that though, but not the blood on his breath. It wasn’t from Ponyville, there hadn’t been any disappearances, likely one of the coastal cities. I held my tongue, waiting for the others to figure out their test and get out of sight. I was not expecting Rarity to cut off her own tail for Steven to use as a mustache. They couldn’t have been more different, Rarity would cut off pieces of herself to help a stranger, whereas Steven would have eaten them all by now if I wasn’t glaring at him.

Once the girls crossed the river and made it into the woods, I called the big lizard down, “I swear by whatever you consider holy, Steven, if you call me cute I will end you. You remember I can smell blood, right?”

His face fell, “Yeah, I do,” his ridiculous accent had disappeared.

“What happened to the fish, Steve? I gave you this chance for old time’s sake, and you’ve thrown it away.” Sea serpents live for hundreds of years. Steven and I had been friends for the last hundred, but it hinged on Steven giving me his word that he wouldn’t eat anything that could talk.

“It just isn’t the same Best, there’s something about intelligent prey that gives the taste a certain quality I can’t get anywhere else.”

“This is the last favor I’m doing you, Steve, get out of my sight. Get as far from here as you can. If I see you again, I’ll kill you.” I think it was my resigned tone that scared him the most. That was the last time I ever saw my old friend Steven.

It took me less than a minute to catch up to the others, however I did not blend seamlessly back into the group as I had hoped. Rarity in particular wondered what I had been talking to her new friend about. This was a problem I had never faced in all my years, how do you tell someone you just evicted their friend?

“I just evicted your friend,” they say there is elegance in simplicity.

‘They’ are wrong. I was met with a storm of upset shouts, all questioning why. Except Rarity, Rarity didn’t say anything, she just cried.

“I’m sorry girls, I promise I had a good reason and that it was the best option.”

Once again, Twilight spoke up when the rest backed down. “And what could Steven have done to deserve that?”

“Now Twi, ah know ya haven’t been ‘round that long. But when Best says he’s got a good reason, it usually means we don’t wanna know,” AJ warned.

“We need to keep moving, if you really want to know you can ask me later,” If she was going to pester the information out of me, I could at least push it to a time when the others couldn’t hear.

Twilight accepted this with a promise of “later,” and we set off again. Not ten steps later we cleared the trees, the ruins of the old castle finally in sight. All that was left was to cross Ghastly Gorge. Even with the bridge collapsed, this shouldn’t be too much trouble for them. I’d handle the moving shadows.

Nightmare Moon coalesced from the darkness, cutting off our path to the bridge. “You foals, did you really thing I would allow you the opportunity to reach the Elements? You will die this… What is that?”

Cataclysm had left its sheath for the first time in over half a millenia, “Do you not know this blade, corrupted one?” She flinched as if struck, that was a declaration of war.

“Iron Knight,” her voice shook, if only just. The Order of Iron was much older than me, and I had been betting on her being wary of their power. Outright fear was much better than I had anticipated.

“Iron Legate, actually. Get it right.” I took a step forward, she a step back.

“Were we at our full power we would strike your whole order from the face of Equis,” She said before evaporating back into shadows and flying into the ruins.

“Heard that one before,” I called at the retreating form.

“WHAT just happened? What is an Iron Legate? Or Kight? And why don’t I know any of these terms?” Twilight looked like she was about to blow a fuse. Parts of her mane were sticking up and one of her eyes was twitching. ‘Time to throw some gas on this fire.’

“The Order of Iron is, was, the elite honor guard of the Crystal Kingdom. Legate is about the same rank as captain in your Royal Guard.”

“But why haven’t I heard about any of this?”

“Come to think of it dear, why haven’t any of us heard about this?” Rarity added.

“Later, you have a job to do, but this is as far as I can go girls. The other side of that bridge is Jekyll’s territory,” I said. This left me with a lot of angry looks, the girls were not happy with being brushed off. Again.

“Ponyfeathers, you mean we have to beat up Nightmare Moon AND Jekyll?” Rainbow said, incredulous. This brought the others back on track.

“Not likely, he might yell at you for fighting in his house, but I doubt he’ll get involved.” This seemed to calm them down a bit. Except Fluttershy, who just looked disappointed until I winked at her. There was no way I was sitting this out.

I said my goodbyes, promising to meet them back in town, and set off back into the forest. Once I had traveled a few feet past the woodline I let out a low whistle, one of the enforcers stalking us appearing immediately. “Take my gear back to the house, I’m going to have some fun tonight.”

I shifted to my “natural” form once the enforcer was bounding off with my equipment, relishing in the feeling of being humanoid. It just felt right. After stretching and testing my ranges of motion, it had been a while, I set off for the castle. As I formed wings to carry me over the gorge, I could see the girls entering the ruins.

You see Nightmare Moon. When those Elements are ignited by the, the spark that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the sixth Element. The Element of Magic!”

Fear, we were feeling fear, again. Even without their freaky gryphon, these sun-lovers were winning. I still had one trick left though, and this time they’d get the point. The Elements immobilize the users, making them vulnerable to attack, so I leveled my horn towards the annoying, purple one and charged. A moment later I felt my horn sink through flesh and part bones, I had won. My precious night would finally last for all time.

“Huh, that actually hurt. Weird,” said a gruff voice from my right side. I opened my eyes to find a demon staring at me, its claw impaled on my horn and holding me back from achieving my vengeance.

Son of a bitch, that hurt. I was bleeding, I didn’t even know I could bleed. More things to worry about later. I quickly numbed the area and wrapped my other arm around Nightmare’s throat, lifting her front legs off the ground and effectively immobilizing her.

“Any day now, ladies. I may not age, but we’re not getting any younger.” Something was wrong. Whenever Celestia hit me with the Elements it only took a second, no longer than any other spell, but with these six it was taking much longer. ‘Of course it is, Chelly’s an alicorn, she has way more power than they do.’ I needed to stall. Unfortunately, Nightmare was not keen on waiting patiently.

As it turns out, Nightmare is much more athletic than her sister. She pulled off a standing back-flip to free herself from my grip and impaled hand. This was going to be fun after all, now to just keep her attention. I shifted my hands into claws, let out a roar, and charged. To an outside observer, it would appear that I was swinging wildly. I was tearing deep cuts in the walls and floor, cutting decorations to pieces, bits of blue mane littered the ground from near misses. Every swing easily dodged but followed by another, forcing Nightmare to remain on the defensive.

I held the advantage and the momentum of the fight, right up until a blast of telekinesis splattered me across the wall. I reformed myself with a leap and landed on Nightmare’s back, tackling her to the ground before she could get a shot off at the others. Quickly regaining her footing, she began throwing fire magic at me. She must have realized that she couldn’t hurt me with physical blows, and correctly assumed that I would have no immunity to fire. This meager amount wouldn’t kill me, but it still hurt.

The light from the Elements brightening signaled that it was time for me to wrap this up. I darted in, faster than I had moved the whole fight, and stopped fractions of an inch from Nightmare’s face. She lashed out with a hoof in surprise and I unleashed my secret weapon. As soon as her hoof made contact, thousands of tiny tendrils flooded into her system. I was tempted to consume her then, as I would finally gain the ability to use magic, but I held back. My tendrils locked her muscles and joints in place, playtime was over. As an afterthought, I turned her head away from the building Elements. It wouldn’t stop her from casting spells, but it’s really hard to hit what you can’t see.

“You lose, bitch.” The world went white. I retracted my tendrils, they were no longer necessary. I could feel my body trying to convert into stone, but with the help of diamond dog and dragon DNA I simply converted it back to normal at the same rate. ‘Wish I could figure out how to fireproof myself.’

It was over in a moment, the light faded, and Nightmare Moon was gone. In her place, a new alicorn I barely recognized as Luna struggled to even sit up. She was barely larger than the average pony, and it was hard to imagine that this had been my opponent not a minute ago.
She looked nothing like the figure I had seen depicted in history books and paintings, they all showed her as being the same height as Celestia.

“So you’re Luna, eh? Welcome back to the land of the living,” I said slumping against the wall. I turned my attention on the new Element Bearers, “and what took you lot so damn long, I’ve never seen the Elements charge so slowly? I was starting to think you were waiting for that shit to come in the fucking mail!” I wasn’t actually angry, but I had a reputation to uphold.

“Well it had to be forwarded in triplicate and signed off on before we could actually fire the Elements, those things take time you know.”

“Goddammit, Pinkie,” I didn’t want to know, but I laughed anyway. I turned my attention back to Luna, who was wearing a look I did not like. The same look Celestia gave me when we first met, she was trying to figure me out. “See something you like?”

“You are a strange creature, a contradiction at every turn. You look like a demon, but defend our ponies and laugh with them. You are ferocious in combat, but held back to avoid harming me even though I was your enemy. You are crass, but your tone belies your pride in these six ponies. Please, tell me, who are you?” I was speechless for a moment, this was the fifth person on this world to ask that question. It still caught me off guard.

“I am a lost soul, far from home. I have been given the name Jekyll since I arrived in this place.” I remembered my manners, in light of the turn in the conversation. “If I may ask, are you feeling well? I admit, I do not know what side effects that last attack may have.”

This got the attention of the others, including one I had not realized had arrived. Celestia was here, and I could feel her gaze boring into me. Fortunately Luna spoke up before anyone else had the chance.

“I am tired, though I suspect that has more to do with the Nightmare. Other than that I am fine. Thank you for your concern, Jekyll.”

“Anytime. Now, I believe I am holding up a family reunion. I will contact you in three days, we have much to talk about. And Chelly, I admit defeat.” This startled everyone until I continued, “I was wrong, you and your sister do move the sun and moon. I’ll honor our bet the next time I’m in Canterlot.”

“Jekyll, I never expected to be saying this, but thank you for being here,” said Celestia. ‘Might be able to clear my name, worth a shot.’

“Hey Chelly, could you do me a favor? Look back on everything that has ever happened between us, and ask yourself if you would act the same way today. Food for thought.”

“Alright, I suppose I can do that. Wait, what bet?”

I left without another word, I would only be intruding if I stayed. Besides it’s funnier for me this way. Once I entered the forest, I shifted back into Best Defense and took off towards my cabin. The dawn was breaking behind me as I flew. As I took a peak over my shoulder I couldn’t help but wonder, if Luna could come back from being basically dead, could they come back as well.

Celestia said they would, that they were only sealed away. Not everyone gets second chances, but I wish I could. I just hoped she wasn’t lying about this.