Celestia watched Xyuka depart with the utmost disappointment, and with a hint of something else. A bad feeling that something was wrong, and that all of this seemed too convenient. Her consideration on that subject did not last long, though. A twin pair of magical spheres erupted before her- -one blue and one violet. This was far more intriguing to Celestia than a philosophical speculation on Xyuka’s motives and state of mind. In her own time, only a precious few ponies knew the spell necessary for teleportation, and far fewer had the magical potential to use it.

Several ponies emerged. From the blue spell came a single pony, a pale violet unicorn with dead eyes that indicated that something horrible had happened to her- -or been done to her. From the other came three: one, a white unicorn dressed in an astounding suit of mithril armor. Next to her was a blue stallion with blue hair who looked otherwise completely ordinary. It was the third, though, that attracted all of Celestia’s attention.

“YOU!” she cried.

The other ponies turned, confused, but the violet unicorn just smiled. Not knowingly- -it was clear that she had no idea what was going on- -but only because she had stolen the Princess’s attention.

“I remember you,” hissed Celestia, stepping toward her. “Twilight Aurora! Or…no. Even her necromancy could not have kept her alive this long…so you must be her descendent.”

“Twilight Sparkle,” said the mage. “You are correct. It was my ancestor who ended the War.”

“It was your ancestor who betrayed me!” cried Celestia. “Your ancestor was the reason WE LOST!”

“Or the reason we WON,” said Twilight with a dismissive smile. “Meaning the CORRECT side, of course.”

“Then I should end your bloodline right here.” She lifted her head, but instead of charging her horn she smiled cruelly. “But I can’t, can I? Because judging by your color, you’re not the heir.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed, and her own horn began to charge for an attack. Celestia watched, predicting the spell. It was impressive in complexity, and no doubt would have had some strange and horrible effect.

The little purple unicorn was interrupted by a hoof on her shoulder. The stallion stepped past her.

“Unidentified creature,” he said. “I am Darknight of Unlaw, representative of the Will of the Eternal Madgod Discord. If you do not wish to engage in a confrontation- -”

“How much has changed that a STALLION should address me like this?” snapped Celestia. “‘Unidentified creature’? I am NOT unidentified! I am Celestia, Goddess of the Sun and Princess of Equestria!”

“We don’t recognize that name,” said Twilight snidely. Celestia could tell that she surely did. “No pony here does. It was forgotten long ago.”

Celestia glared at her, and then took a deep breath. She smiled and laughed easily. “Well, then, I will remind them, won’t I?”

“Not if we kill you first,” said the stallion. “All threats to the Madgod must be purged to retain the purity of Chaos.”

“There is nothing pure about Chaos. And you will not be the one doing the killing.” She turned toward the white unicorn, who stared up at her in awe but backed away in terror. “A perfect reaction,” sighed Celestia, “and such a beautiful pony. Had you been born in my era, you would have been a Duchess. But alas, no pony who contains Chaos may survive. Equestria will be purged.”

Celestia raised her horn, but as she did she felt something strike her head. It did not really hurt, but rather just pushed it to the side slightly. Those around her who did not have her alicorn durability did not fare so well. The heads of several white unicorn soldiers burst into plumes of silver blood. Several more then fell, as well as those of her old soldiers who were still standing.

“Sniper!” cried one of them.

“Where?!”

“Unable to triangulate,” said one of the white unicorns with a blank, empty voice as more of his comrades fell around him. “The position is- -” His head burst, and he fell.

“It’s coming from multiple directions!” cried on of the old soldiers.

“Multiple snipers?!”

Celestia looked up at the hills in the distance. Her eyes scanned for a moment before she caught it: a rainbow-colored contrail, moving at almost impossible speeds from peak to peak. It would stop for only a moment, a pony would fall, and then it would move again.

“No,” she said, “just one.” She turned to the Pegasus with the missing leg. She had only barely regained consciousness. “Commander Hurricane?”

“For your glory!” she said, bowing for only a moment. Though she was weak, the order had steeled her- -and she shot outward toward the hill, leaving her own rainbow-colored contrail behind her.

Celestia turned her attention to the five ponies in front of her. All of them were either running to cover, or preparing shield spells, save for one. A pink earth-mare with a long, curly mane. She just stood there giggling madly. Celestia could have easily burned through them all simultaneously, but saw no point in endangering her own soldiers with the blast. She pointed her horn at the pink pony and fired a beam of pure solar light.

Pinkie Pie just stood there, now laughing as she so desperately wished that the beam really would be able to end her torment. Instead, Rarity- -who was running past her to cover- -slipped on a rock.

“GAH!” she cried falling over Pinkie Pie just as the beam was about to reach her. The light struck Rarity instead- -and rebounded in a thousand different directions off her indestructible mithril armor.

Celestia ducked as the beam shot back at her. Other beams went off in all directions, tearing through her soldiers. Many of them projected successful fields, but that did not stop the beams that flew over their heads and slammed into the ancient columns of the ruins around them. The stone instantly melted, and the stone began to fall. Celestia sighed and spread her wings, taking flight to avoid the impact.

“Sister!” cried Luna below. She spread her own wings but was still too weak to fly under her own power. Celestia just looked at her and then turned away.

Luna saw this, and the whole world seemed to freeze as she realized that her sister was going to allow her to be crushed. Just before the immense and ancient stone column hit, though, she felt a tug around her ankle. She looked down to see a thin violet thread coated in a blue magical field tying itself around her leg with an extremely fancy knot. Then, suddenly, she was being pulled.

Luna cried out as she was dragged away from her impending injury, and closed her eyes, not wanting to know what was going to happen to her. “Sister!” she cried. “Please help me!”

Then, all at once, the tugging stopped. Luna opened her eyes to see the one who had pulled it, a white unicorn dressed in exquisite armor. She smiled weakly, and then cried out, stamping her feet and turning. Luna saw that the mithril on one side of her body was white-hot.

“Hot hot HOT!” she cried. “Oh! It’s going to warp!” She tried to blow on it.

“Wow, Rarity, you’re really shiny!” cried the pink pony, herself jumping up and down. “When you hang yourself, you’ll make a great disco ball! We’ll have such a great party!”

“Pinkie! This isn’t the time for joking!”

“No! This is the time for POKING!” she jabbed her hoof painfully into Luna’s side. “Also, I’m going to remove some pieces. I’m not surgeon, though, so I’m going to have to…” She bit deeply into one of Luna’s wings “…WING IT!”

A sudden blast of blue light sent both the earth-pony and the unicorn flying.

“This is what I get for stealing Bob’s jokes!” cried the pink pony as she was thrown a distance before having her fall broken by the unfortunate mithril-coated pony. Luna looked up to see the white unicorn soldiers surrounding her, shielding her with their magic as they fired bolts of magic toward the enemy Chaos warriors.

“This way, Princess!” They called, pulling her back toward where her sister’s forces had already began moving to cover and assisting Celestia.

Celestia herself moved through the battle with the grace of a Princess, and without thought for the soldiers behind her. Her fight was beyond them, and they could do nothing to assist one so powerful as her.

Bullets erupted toward her, fired by the blue pony. They were inconsequential, and vaporized before they could even touch her divine skin. Yet he continued to fight. Celestia wondered why he looked so strange, but it occurred to her that he looked somewhat like the soldiers who had been ‘made’ for her. His eyes were empty, unquestioning, and unwavering. He continued without hope or faith, or without the need for either.

She saw him reload and moved her head as a new type of bullet whizzed by, a type that might actually have had the power to hurt her. When she looked back, she saw him charging her with a long, straight blade. The runes cut into its side likely would have made it strong enough to at least penetrate the magic that surrounded her, but she ignored it. She instead simply picked him up and tossed him hard into a crumbling stone wall fifty yards from her location.

She instead turned her attention toward Twilight Sparkle. The mage jumped back, her weight changed by the spells that she carried with her. Celestia lowered her horn and fired. Twilight countered with a shield spell. The first level of the barrier shattered instantly, and then the second. The second had been rigged with a magical trap intended to kill the attacker with a feedback surge. Celestia did not even bother to block it. To her, it was inconsequential.

The final shield layer snapped like the shell of an egg, and the mage teleported, leaving behind several small spheres that detonated as soon as she was out of their blast range. Celestia was struck by the explosion, but again its magic was so insignificant compared to her own that she barely even recognized it. She immediately turned and fired a bolt, striking Twilight just as she materialized.

The mage, to her credit, was able to summon a localized shield spell quickly enough to prevent herself from being vaporized instantly. Rather than attempt to absorb the blast or deflect it- -either would have killed her- -she instead transfigured it, converting it to force instead of heat. The explosion was resounding and sent her backward. She did not land on her feet.

Celestia was impressed, but still intended to kill her. She advanced slowly and saw the unicorn rise, or attempt to. Twilight’s horn flickered weakly. Her magic was almost entirely drained, but she used what was left to coat her left front leg with a complex symbolic spell. This caused Celestia to pause. She did not recognize this type of spell, or why the mage would be using it.

Then there was a flash of red light and she understood. Red energy burst around Twilight as her symbolic spell drew energy from something far more powerful- -something red and evil that reeked of Tartarus- -and a pentagramic symbol appeared around her.

“I summon you!” cried Twilight. “Come, serve your master, Hound of Tindalos!”

The space around her erupted with red light and a putrid smell as something came through. The demon, though it could not be resolved by mortal sight or explained properly by those who could comprehend why it seemed to have so many extra angles, appeared and immediately charged Celestia. Celestia ducked as a something like a claw slashed by her head, and fired a spell into the creature’s chest. Due to its internal angles, though, she missed it completely.

The battle, it seemed, had grown interesting.

Almost four miles away, Rainbow Dash once again came to a stop. She dropped to the stone floor beneath a large precipice of stone, her prismatic cloak billowing around her. With one swift motion, she dropped to the stony ground and drew her rifle. Through the scope, she saw another head explode, and she laughed a little. She found nothing more arousing than murdering ponies.

The next stage was muscle memory. She began to lift the rifle to tuck it back into its holster and to take flight once again- -but something went wrong. Just as she moved to take her head away from the rifle, something flashed toward her and then the world exploded into sparks of light as the scope slammed into her eye.

“BUCK!” she cried, jumping back and trying to regain her balance. She lifted the rifle, intending to use it at close range. Even with her vision swimming, she paused as she lifted the barrel. Standing before her was a pony with a steel-blue coat- -and a rainbow mane that matched hers.

“No,” she said, wondering if what she could be seeing was even possible.

That pause proved to be her undoing. The Pegasus shot forward, and Rainbow Dash fired. Her aim had been perfect, but with only feet between them her adversary dodged the bullet and rammed her one remaining front hoof into Rainbow Dash’s gut.

Rainbow Dash cried out in pain as the wind was knocked out to her. This was not supposed to happen. They never fought back like this, they just died. She was Rainbow Dash. Things like this did not happen to her.

Then, in an instant, the rainbow-maned Pegasus was behind her. Rainbow Dash barely managed to turn in time to block an impact that would have at minimum temporarily paralyzed her wings. This was not simple fighting- -that was a dueling movement. This fight was serious, and for some reason Rainbow Dash was terrified- -and more excited than she had been since she had first started killing.

She took off, moving the fight to the air. “You’re fast,” she said. “But there’s no way you can catch me!”

The other Pegasus smiled and spread her own wings, and then lifted off the ground with tremendous force. Rainbow Dash launched herself through the air, performing aerial maneuvers that she was sure no normal Pegasus would be able to replicate. To her tremendous surprise, though, she found the Pegasus behind her not just keeping up but gaining. Despite only having three legs, she was actually far more balanced and maneuverable than Rainbow Dash was. Such a thing was not supposed to be possible.

“So you’ve got me on turn radius,” she called back, “but how about speed?”

Rainbow Dash shot forward, accelerating into a vertical climb. The other Pegasus followed, and actually had the audacity to attempt a climbing strike. That was supposed to be all but impossible, and Rainbow Dash barely managed to dodge. She barrel rolled as she turned, converting her forward momentum into a wide arch and then finally a dive- -and that was when she threw everything she had into it.

There was an explosion as she descended, and the nature of the air resistance suddenly changed. A torrent of Rainbows spilled out from around her as she broke the sound barrier. She took a moment to smirk, knowing that no pony since Commander Hurricane had been able to perform a sonic rainboom.

Then a second explosion came. Over her shoulder, Rainbow Dash saw an even larger plume of rainbow light. To her horror, the Pegasus accelerated to supersonic speeds with ease and actually passed her.

This put Rainbow Dash in grave peril. Their aerial battle had just become a deadly race. At this speed, whichever Pegasus held the front held the capacity to kill the other swiftly and with little resistance. It was simply a matter of stopping and letting the mass of the rear pony carry her into a supersonic blow. Turning at these speeds was a lethal proposition.

There was at least one advantage that it gave Rainbow Dash. She lifted one of her wings and in a flash of silver opened one of the guns beneath it. She immediately opened fire, doing her best to target the pony ahead of her. Yes, this was cheating, but it was not possible to win without doing so.

Somehow, though, her rival dodged, tilting her body into an elegant roll. She then accelerated again, and as Rainbow Dash watched a second plume of rainbows shot out from her path. This was not necessary for the fight, but it did serve a capacity in a Pegasus duel. It was meant as a humiliation, and to Rainbow Dash the insult was more painful than any blow could ever have been.

Then a second impossibility. She watched as the Pegasus struggled against the air resistance and spread her wings.

“No!” Rainbow Dash cried, vicariously feeling the pain in her own wings. Empathy, she realized, was something she had never felt before. Not when every pony prior had seemed lesser in comparison to herself. “You can’t turn at Mach two!”

The Pegasus ignored her, and suddenly opened her wings. Feathers were torn free, and finely aerosolized droplets of blood sprayed onto Rainbow Dash’s face. The Pegasus did not allow this to affect her flight, though. Rainbow Dash watched in disbelief as her rival did indeed turn, creating a wide arch.

There was nothing she could do to dodge this time. She was moving too fast. Even the slightest adjustment would tear her wings off. All she could do was brace for the blow with the intent of taking it like a mare.

It came with absurd force, shattering several ribs and collapsing a lung. Fortunately, the alloy of Rainbow Dash’s rifle took most of the force, protecting her by sacrificing its own life for hers. She was thrown sideways, and did her best to regain control as she spiraled downward.

She eventually came to a stop beneath a large stone cliff, striking it with enough force to cause some of its wind-eroded rocks to fall to the ground below.

Behind her, Hurricane slowed to subsonic speed. In her armor she held a knife, a blade still stained by the cursed blood of chaos worshippers like this one. She did her best not to think about the implications of this mare’s rainbow-shaded mane, and how close it looked to her own. She drew the blade and advanced quickly toward her foe.

Then, suddenly, without warning, she was clotheslined by a hoof from nowhere. It struck her in the throat, which immediately cut off her air. Hurricane grasped at her neck in pain as she found herself unable to breathe, and dropped to the ground. A lesser pony would have collapsed in a heap, but Hurricane still remained standing if only barely.

She turned with absolute hatred toward her attacker, not understanding how she had not seen her attacker. Nothing could have moved that fast, and she at first expected a mage who had teleported as Starswirl had in the ancient battles, but instead found herself looking at a black-clad pink pony with long, straight hair.

“Don’t touch her with that dirty knife,” said the pony with a horribly neutral voice. “I am the only one allowed to penetrate her.”

Hurricane coughed blood onto the ground. “Earth-pony,” she said, her voice rasping. “why do you interfere? Are you a worshiper of Chaos, as she is?”

“No. I have no need to worship Chaos. I AM Chaos. And…” She sighed. “Although this is usually my sister’s department, I can’t help myself. You sound like you’re a little hoarse.”

Hurricane’s eyes widened in fury. This earth-pony had dared not only to interfere with her duel, but to joke about it. The joke was not even a good one. With a cry- -or as little of a cry as she could produce with a damaged trachea- -she shot forward.

Suddenly, a rock broke free from the cliff above. Not a small one like those before, but an enormous boulder. Hurricane barely managed to stop in time before it landed on her, and suddenly found that it had blocked a direct course to the pink pony. She adjusted course, flying around it, but more fell, each nearly striking her. As she was forced to take more altitude, she saw the pink pony walking through the barrage unhindered. The hail of stones was still falling, but none of them blocked her path or struck her. They came close, but she showed no sign of attempting to dodge.

“How are you doing this?!” demanded Hurricane.

“I’m not. The rocks are just falling.” She shrugged. “You did throw my lover into that wall quite hard. I guess you disrupted them.” She sighed. “My older sister used to love rocks. I’m sure she would have gone on to do great things in life. I cried so much when Pinkie killed her.”

Hurricane found the situation infuriating. That this pony had the audacity to babble and to claim loss to Hurricane’s face when she had lost so much more. Making it worse was the fact that she was unable to reach her. Time was running out. She had already exerted a great deal of the little energy that she had remaining, and the wound where Discord had taken her leg was starting to bleed again.

She decided to just ignore the rocks. The charged through them, allowing the smaller of them to hit her and using all of her remaining strength to avoid them. She rushed forward and even then- -even when she should have been terrified- -the pink pony remained impassive.

Hurricane struck, and the pony dodged. She turned her body and leveled a kick, but once again the pink pony avoided it.

“How are you dodging me?!”

“I’m not,” she replied, looking almost bored. “I’m just moving at random. Why aren’t you hitting me? It should be easy. Pretend I’m your husband.”

Hurricane’s jaw clenched and she staggered as though she had been hit. “How did- -”

“I guessed. But now I know. And you can’t do anything about it. I suppose that’s a good first step. Confessing your sins to a Priestess of Chaos.”

At the sound of that title, Hurricane jumped back. It all made sense now- -and the horror of what she had been doing and the THING she had been fighting dawned on her.

“A Priestess- -but there can’t be- -”

“A thousand years. I suppose that’s how long it took. It’s not too late. It’s never too late. You can still join us.” She giggled, and then broke out into manic laughter as her long hair became curly. “Or, OR! ORE!” An enormous chunk of magnetite landed, barely giving time for Hurricane to dodge. “I can get the BEATER and the SAW, and we can make DELICIOUS CUPCAKES!”

Hurricane was forced to flee. She was too weak and too alone to fight a Priestess on her own. Fortunately, the Priestess did not pursue. She just kept laughing that horrible, pained laughing. Hurricane did not feel fear or shame in her retreat. All she felt was pity.

Celestia lifted her head as the beast fell. It roared one last time, and then shattered into billions upon billions of pieces that all failed to stay in phase with their current reality. The mare that had summoned it had collapsed, but she was still breathing. Her endurance was impressive, even stunning. Celestia had no idea the nature of the spell that she had used to summon a Tartaran beast, but she had a vague understanding that the spell had been intended for something far different. The strain on the casting mage must have been incredible, not just to keep her captured demon in the overworld but to keep it from turning on its master and reducing her to a pile of steaming meat.

In fact, not only had the mage survived, but she had remained conscious. She was kneeling and out of breath, with thin streams of silver dripping from the corners of her eyes, but she was awake. She looked up at Celestia and smiled.

“So much power,” she said. “Such beautiful wings…”

“You must be in so much pain right now,” said Celestia. “Would you like me to end it?”

“But I haven’t won yet.”

“You’re depleted. Even with whatever that is you’ve carved into your leg, you have nothing left.”

Twilight smiled slyly. “Don’t I? I would say that a proper sorceress should be able to win a battle without using any magic at all.”

“And how would that be?”

“By sending a lesser pony to die instead.”

Celestia was suddenly knocked back by an explosion of blue light. The shock was sudden and actually painful, with the magical surge breaking through the outermost of her barriers in a single blow. Then she was hit again, and a third time. Each time more of her seals broke.

She did not know what was happening, or how the descended of Twilight Aurora had managed to summon so much energy. Then in a flash she saw it. A face moving impossibly rapidly through space. She saw the gray-violet coat, and the remnants of a mane that might once have been beautiful, and the eyes. The eyes were the most horrible part. They were blank and staring, and it was apparent that the irises had been slit in half. Their user was blind, and she had been blinded very recently.

Even though that blank stare, Celestia saw the rage and the hatred- -and something else. She recognized that face.

She was not like Hurricane, though. There was no hesitation. She struck full force into the offender’s side. There was no shield spell this time, but instead of witnessing her opponent being vaporized Celestia found herself wailing in agony. The spell had rebounded with incredible force directly back into her horn. There was no spell- -she doubted a pony in this state had enough intellect to summon even the simplest form of magical procedure- -but instead her own solar force had been reflected by pure unrefined magical potential.

The violet unicorn then moved. Or, rather, space moved around her. She teleporting, but not from one location to another. She was teleporting from within her own teleports, something that even her ancestor had claimed was impossible. Without a functional mind, she seemed to have no awareness of the level of madness that could be incurred by spreading herself across multiple simultaneous points in space.

And she used this power to strike without hesitation or mercy. Celestia had suddenly been thrust into the defensive. She weathered the blows she could, but even her own shield spells cracked under the force of this unicorn’s blows.

Celestia was forced to take to the air. She spread her wings and lifted herself aloft. She watched with sick joy as the unicorn looked up at her, dumbfounded at her inability to reach her opponent- -and then in horror as the unicorn cast a blue glow around herself and levitated from the ground under her own power.

There was nothing Celestia could do. She was struck in the chest by a magically charged hoof, and then again in the face. She tried to level her horn, but the unicorn struck her face again, sending the beam outward and into space. Then she tore into Celestia with magic. This time it was different. She seemed no longer to be striking Celestia’s protection seals. Rather, she was striking PAST them. Celestia cried in pain as she was injured internally, and in her rage struck with her full force in all directions.

A sphere of pure white light formed around her. The energy was brighter and hotter than the sun, and yet the pony across from her repeated the spell with an equally powerful sphere of blue energy. She seemed to have no impression of what she was doing, but was rather working purely by instinct. Her instinct, though, somehow seemed adequate. For the second time in one thousand years, Celestia found herself facing a being more powerful than her- -and yet she could not stop herself from asking a simple question, one that nagged in the back of her mind. A unicorn this powerful was an unstoppable force- -and yet somehow somepony had still managed to take her mind.

Celestia felt sweat running down her forehead. Above them, there were many glowing orbs, but not one of them was her sun. Without it risen, she was limited by the nature of her biology. That should have been enough. As a divine creature, an alicorn, she should have been able to easily defeat any foe. No unicorn should have had the power to stand against her, and yet this one did.

Her spell began to weaken. Her pain and fatigue were growing, but the unicorn showed no sign of relenting. She felt no pain, and was aware of no fatigue.

The spell collapsed. Celestia was thrown to the rocky ground, defeated. She bounced once before collapsing into a heap of white, hairless skin and feathers. Shaking, she tried to stand. She wiped her mouth with one of her front hooves, and when she pulled it away she saw it shimmering with golden fluid. She was bleeding.

Then she felt a hoof on her neck. Her head was pushed down into the dust, but through the one eye facing up she saw a sick smile cross over the pale unicorn’s face. She lowered her horn toward Celestia’s rump and cast a spell that Celestia did not recognize.

There was screaming, and Celestia realized that it was her own. The pain was strange, and horrible in a way that she did not think was possible. Part of her was being torn from the rest, a vital part of her being. She stared down in horror as she saw but did not believe what the unicorn was doing to her. In response to the unicorn’s spell, Celestia’s cutie mark- -the divine marker of her purpose, and of her power- -was being torn from her flank.

“NO!” she cried. “Please, no! STOP!”

The unicorn only smiled and released a weak laugh. This seemed to be the only thing she was capable of remembering, the only thing that brought her joy. And Celestia knew that if she succeeded, there would be nothing left. What had once been a goddess would be left as an empty shell.

Then, in an instant, the pain stopped. The unicorn stepped back, her eyes wide with a lack of understanding. Then she began screaming. They were loud, inarticulate screams; like her magic, they were the representation of something primal and naked within her.

The unicorn dropped to her knees, and that was when Celestia saw it. A thin silver thread connected to the unicorn’s head. She traced it back to behind her, where she saw Luna standing. The origin of the thread was the tip of her horn: it was her spell.

The screams from the pale unicorn began to fade. They were interrupted with frantic gasping. Luna appeared to be straining, but even this unicorn could not escape the nightmares projected into her own mind. She could not even fight.

With one final gasp, she fell, and was left twitching on the ground as the spell broke. Likewise, Luna dropped to one knee. The strain of the spell had been great.

She did not stop where she lay, though. She pulled herself toward Celestia.

“Sister! Oh please sister, please be safe! She didn’t- -she couldn’t- -”

Luna stopped suddenly as she heard a mechanical click. She turned slowly to where it had come from, and saw the barrel of a pistol pointed at her head, suspended in deep blue magic. Behind it stood the blue stallion.

His turquoise eyes looked into her turquoise eyes, and he tried to pull the trigger. The gun was loaded with a synaxarian bullet, one tipped with concentrated Chaos. At this range to an unshielded target, it would almost certainly be lethal. Except, for some reason, Darknight found him hesitating. He found himself wondering why he could not kill her.

Luna’s eyes widened. “You…it can’t…It can’t be you…”

Darknight suddenly found the gun shaking in his grasp. Before he could decide what to do- -to pull the trigger or lower the pistol- -one of the white unicorn soldiers rammed him from the side. His magically charged horn sliced through Darknight’s armor and gored him in the shoulder, impaling him deeply. Darknight looked at this with surprise, although he did not call out. His programming allowed him to feel pain, but he did not know how to react to it when it was this unexpected.

A small explosion went off inside him, and he was thrown back. He took one step and toppled to the ground. The white noncan stared at him, and then advanced- -only to stop suddenly as a sound of metal clanging against metal filled the air. His head twisted as the bullet struck his helmet.

Rarity leapt over Darknight, interposing herself and her armored body between him and the unicorn. She held the pistol he had given her in her magic.

“Stay back!” she warned, holding the pistol.

The pony slowly turned his head back toward her. His helmet had stopped the bullet, but at the angle its fragments had destroyed half his face and burst one of his eyes. He seemed not to notice, or to care. With his one remaining eye, he contemplated Rarity for a moment, and then decided not to attack. Instead, he walked to Luna.

“Princesses,” he said, extending a hoof. “I recommend an immediate retreat.”

His horn charged, and there was a flash of pink-violet light as he vanished, taking himself and the Princesses with him as he teleported. The remainder of the identical noncan soldiers each took hold of the old soldiers and teleported as well, with one leaving on his own to retrieve Commander Hurricane. The remainder of the noncans then sequentially teleported, and in seconds the entire army had vanished to somewhere else.

“Twilight! Track them!” cried Darknight.

“I…I can’t,” moaned Twilight. “I don’t have any magic left…”

The battlefield fell silent. The enemy had departed, and there was no way to follow them. All that remained were the Watchers, and the dead. 5�~�/