Almost as soon as Xyuka entered the beam, the ground below started to shake. The color of the beam changed from pale green to dark blue, and the moon overhead changed shape. It became more angular, more diseased looking.

A wave shot out from the transmitter, much like the one that had first engulfed Equestria on Rarity’s very first day as a Watcher. The blow felt the same, but far more powerful. Along with it came a deep rumble, a kind of explosion, and a feeling that the world were tearing itself apart.

“What’s happening!” screamed Rarity over the squeal of energy that the beam produced.

“It is a dimensional gate.” Rarity turned and to her horror saw that Sunset was speaking to her. Despite having her head severed, she was not dead. The head was still alive. The skin had mostly been removed from it, revealing the grinning metallic skull beneath. Her organic eye had burst, and its contents were dribbling down the side of her face. The other eye seemed unable to focus. Her mouth did not move when she spoke. “It is destabilizing.”

“What does that mean?!”

“It means that it’s going to tear half of Equestria off,” said Twilight, her eyes wide. She looked up at the beam. “Oh buck! I have to get out of here!”

She immediately stood up and raced across the plaza to where Rainbow Dash was lying. Rainbow Dash was attempting to crawl across the ground to retrieve her severed wing, but she had not managed to reach it when Twilight pushed Darknight out of the way and grabbed her.

“No!” she said. “My wing! I- -I need my wing!”

“I only have enough energy for two,” said Twilight. Then, in a flash of pink-violet, she was gone, leaving only the severed wing behind.

Rarity watched in panic as this happened, and immediately felt the sting of the betrayal. She had been left to die. They all had. Still, she gritted her teeth.

“How do we stop it?” she said. “There has to be a way to stop it!”

“I might be able to,” said Sunset. “But I need to interface to the system.”

“Tell me what to do.”

Sunset’s mechanical eye shifted, and Rarity looked to where it was pointing. The Stonie unit that she and Darknight had killed was lying a distance away.

“Hardline me into that,” said Sunset. “The interface cycle might still be intact.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“There is nowhere to escape. We will die. Everypony will die.”

Rarity felt her heart skip, but this was no time to faint. If she stopped now, everything would be lost. Not just her, but Sweetie Belle and all of Ponyville as well.

With a strong sense of disgust, she picked up Sunset’s head and began running to the deceased noncan.

This was not easy. Another wave shot out, and this one brought Rarity to her knees. This impact was not only physical, either. She felt her mind slip. It was a disturbing sensation, not painful but not pleasant. For a moment, Rarity lost track of where she was, and where she was going.

“Rarity,” said Sunset. She sounded so distant. “Focus!”

“Focus,” said Rarity, standing up. “Focus!”

She stepped forward into the storm of energy and magic, feeling it swirling around her. The ground was now beginning to crack, and she could feel her mind cracking with it. Still, she did as Sunset said. In her mind, she mentally reviewed each and every type of stitch that she knew, sorting them into priorities based on application and what fabric they could be used for.

When the next wave hit, she forgot again- -and something else took her objective’s place. Something she could not describe. But she did forget the stitches, nor did she stop. She struggled onward, forcing her way across the expanse.

When she reached it, she collapsed, breathing hard. The air around her tasted bad, like metal and ozone.

“How do I do it?!” she screamed.

“Open the faceplate,” said Sunset. “Hurry!”

Rarity did as she was told, and found removing the plate surprisingly easy. There was no face underneath, or even a skull. That had all been hollowed out and been replaced by machinery.

“The port in the back of my head,” said Sunset. “Find a wire that matches it. Plug me in.”

Rarity searched through the wires. It was difficult, and a sudden horror crossed her mind when she remembered that she had shot this unit through the head. If the bullet had severed the wire- -

She did not allow herself to think that thought, and in a few second she found it. Fumbling and trying to move against the force of the storm, she reached out and connected it to Sunset’s head.

“Accessing,” said Sunset, her one remaining eye beginning to scan. “I can…oh Discord, please give me the strength…THERE!”

“Sunset!” cried Rarity, feeling her mind beginning to tear as she ran out of stitches.

“I need more time, I have to- -”

She was drowned out as something happened. Exactly what would have been impossible for Rarity to describe other than in terms of its effect. Her body collapsed, but her mind remained open. Whiles he stayed in one place, she became perceptive of other places- -places that were elsewhere.

The world seemed to oscillate. Rarity found herself in a dark world of endless cities with a sky of eternal twilight, surrounded by throngs of mutants, demons, and cyborgs of every shape and size- - and then one where the sky was filled with thousands upon thousands of starships, each carrying out ponies in the name of the Eternal Queen. Then she found herself lying in cold snow, surrounded by gaunt alicorns, all of whom were staring at her with hungry, empty eyes as something horrible and indescribable circled above.

She blinked and saw a different world, one where the sky was black and streaked with red, where the shadows had glowing white eyes and screamed inside her mind. Another blink, and the ground was red, a wasteland populated by enormous but strange, harsh plants that grew beneath a sickly yellow sky in a choking atmosphere of heat and radon.

Then she found herself facing a pony. One dressed in mithril and white, her hair long and blue and her eyes red with horizontal slits for pupils. She looked back at Rarity, and smiled a strangely aggressive and hollow smile. A smile that conveyed only hatred.

One final world came. Rarity opened her eyes to see a bright-lit world with green trees and singing birds. She saw the ponies there, and saw them laughing, smiling, playing, singing. This was a world where Chaos had never ruled, where ponies did not get murdered or raped or become psychotic. It was a happy place.

Rarity felt a sense of profound longing for that world, and her mind began to move toward it. She felt it separating from her body. She could not enter that world, not whole. Xyuka had been the only one to survive that. Rarity did not care, though. Even if only part of her could make it there, a disembodied ghost that would be acceptable. She could forget this horrible world, and life forever in happiness and friendship.

“Rarity!” called a distant voice. Rarity’s mind suddenly felt a twinge of recollection, and it slowed its descent. The voice called again. “Rarity!”

Rarity paused for what felt like an eternity. She knew that voice, and knew that it was not time to leave yet.

She opened her eyes. It took a moment to focus, but she saw Darknight standing over her, a look of genuine concern across his face. Behind him, the sky was red. Flaming objects were streaking across the sky: they were the fragments of the now destroyed mon, falling to Equestria from above.

“Darknight,” said Rarity, trying to get up. “The portal- -”

“It is closed,” he said. “You and Susnset, you stopped it. You saved Equestria.”

“Sunset…” Rarity suddenly shot up. “Sunset!”

“I am here,” said Sunset, her damaged mechanical eye turning toward Rarity. “I am here.”

Rarity could not stop herself. She lunged forward and hugged both of them, bursting into tears as she did. “I was so afraid!” she squealed. “I thought- -I thought- -”

They did not speak. They did not need to. They just embraced for what felt like minutes before Rarity released them. “Ahem,” she said. “Forgive me, that was intrusive.”

“I did not mind,” said Darknight.

“Well,” said Rarity. “We should start to think about our next course of action.”

Darknight looked up at the brutalist building that stood in the distance. “I think I have an idea of where to start.”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash materialized back in Twilight’s castle. Both of them dropped to the floor. Twilight was more drained than she had ever been, and Rainbow Dash was in a kind of panic.

“My wing,” she said. “Where- -where’s my wing?!”

“Rainbow Dash- -”

Rainbow Dash looked back at the stump and nearly vomited. Her entire body shook. “Oh god- -oh GOD! She took my wing! I- -I can’t fly! I’ll NEVER FLY!” She burst into tears. “My wing!” she wailed. “My WING!”

Twilight reached down and grabbed Rainbow Dash’s shoulder, nearly shaking her and forcing their eyes to meet.

“Rainbow Dash! Listen to me!”

Rainbow Dash sniffled, but she stopped screaming. “T…Twilight?”

“I’m a necromancer, remember? A mage? Remember? I make you a new wing. An even better one.”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes became round with optimism. “You…you can?”

“It wouldn’t even be hard,” said Twilight, shrugging. “I’m sorry about the original. There just wasn’t time.” She looked around. “But judging by the fact that we’re still here, I guess it didn’t go up anyway.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s HERS. First the only pony I ever loved…ever COULD love…and now my wing. My flight. My freedom. I hate her. I hate her so MUCH.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t get your chance,” said Twilight. “She’s gone now.”

“I know,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Here,” said Twilight, helping Rainbow Dash to her feet. “Careful! Move slowly. Your balance will be off for a while, until I get the new wing on.”

“Thanks,” said Rainbow Dash, wobbling as Twilight released her and taking several awkward steps forward. “You’re a real friend, Twilight.”

Twilight inhaled sharply. “Friend?” she said. “You…you consider me a friend?”

Rainbow Dash stopped to consider it for a moment. “Yeah. You helped me out, you know? And you really get me. I mean, you’re a huge egghead, but I like you. Yeah. We’re definitely friends.”

Silent tears dripped down Twilight’s face. “A friend,” she said. “I finally have a friend. After all this time. Finally…” She silently drew the long stainless steel needle from her clothing.

“Don’t get too sappy on me,” laughed Rainbow Dash, weakly. “Hey, how about after you put the wing on, we can go get some drinks. Celebrate your first friend and all.”

“Sure,” said Twilight. She then reached out with the needle. There was a popping crack as she jammed it between two of Rainbow Dash’s thoracic vertebrae. Rainbow Dash suddenly collapsed into a heap.

“Twilight!” cried Rainbow Dash in a panic. “I- -I can’t feel my legs!”

“Of course not,” said Twilight, wiping the needle on Rainbow Dash’s fur. “Because I just severed your spinal cord. You’re paralyzed from the neck down.”

Even though she was facing away, Twilight saw Rainbow Dash’s eyes go wide with confusion and betrayal. “Wh- -what?” Twilight turned her over, and their eyes met. “Twilight- -I thought- -I thought we were friends! Why?”

“Because I all ever needed was one friend. Only one.”

Twilight reached out with her magic and encased Rainbow Dash’s head with it. Rainbow Dash’s eyes bulged with panic, and she tried to struggle. Her body did not move, though. It could not, and it never would again.

“But I thought,” she said, tears running down her face. “I thought- -”

Twilight increased the pressure suddenly. Rainbow Dash’s head imploded, and her brain matter squirted in several directions. There was a momentary involuntary spasm of her facial muscles, making her eyes twitch and her mouth open like a scream. Then she ceased moving at all.

Almost unable to contain herself, Twilight bit the end of her glove and tore it off, revealing the runes and scars underneath. At the same time, she pulled a fragment of bone from the wreckage of Rainbow Dash’s skull.

“The last pieces,” she said as she gripped the piece in her magic. She pressed it against her leg, and grimaced as she began to cut the final pattern. “The final piece on the way to power: to renounce friendship. The Element of Betrayal. To exist alone and hated…for all eternity.”

She completed the symbol, and the now completed spell erupted with red light. Twilight screamed as it burned into her skin, creating new patterns as it spread and shifted. She could feel the magic flowing through her, and feel the pain of what she had done. It felt so good.

Then, finally, the Mark was complete. Twilight was no longer drained of energy, and she stumbled forward. After all the time, the effort, the agony, and the cost, it was ready. Only one element remained. She was not powerful enough to active the spell on her own. She required a catalyst. And she knew where to find one. ��|��