"I must be dreaming," Rarity murmured softly. How else could she explain it? It obviously wasn't true. Ten Elements? Preposterous. The Elements only worked when they were all together, and they were able to use them with only six. So how could more exist?

This was beyond confounding. This was beyond simply confusing. This was one of the most serious, jolting, and mysterious things she had ever encountered in her life.

She didn't know what to do. Even Twilight, who she was absolutely sure could solve any problem, would be puzzled. More importantly, how was this important to the friendship problem they had been called to solve?

Rarity brought her head closer in to the astounding carving. The Elements weren't detailed carvings of Cutie Mark shapes; they were just starbursts on the tree with long spikes extending in every direction.

"If we are dreaming, then Luna's got some explaining to do!" Rainbow stated, her gaze locked on to the carving. "I don't get it," she said after a while. "Why ten? Why haven't we heard about these other Elements before?"

"I don't know, Rainbow," Rarity whispered. She put a hoof on one of the starbursts weakly. "I really don't know."

Sir Firestorm, Knight of Equestria, Guardian of the Sun, and personal adviser to all four princesses of Equestria, was feeling snappy. Snappy was a word not often used very often in his vocabulary. Every so often he'd run his hoof along the long shelf of adjectives in his brain and would occasionally linger on that word before he would choose to unshelf another word that best fit his circumstances, like "Annoyed" or "Affronted". This time, however, it was "Snappy."

He knew exactly why he felt snappy, of course- Rarity had just roasted him. Usually he liked it when others did that. Being proven a hypocrite was usually funny. And he wanted others to laugh so he could feel better about himself. But aside from him pretending to get offended, there was something else...a weird feeling he couldn't shake. It was making him itch for some reason, itch for a bit of action. He felt like if something big didn't happen soon, he'd totally whack out.

Right now he was pacing back and forth on the platform the mildewed thrones were on. He occasionally caught a cobweb in his face and he'd pause and shake the thing off before returning to pacing. He kept his flaming sword aloft, giving a flickering light to the spacious room. He kept his ears straining for any hint of conversation below him, but all he heard was something about, "Ten?"

Then there was that smell in the air. That smell of rotten wood and vegetation, with rusted iron and stagnant water. It seemed to invade his nose and slay the senses, and Firestorm had a scrunched-up face because of it. For some reason it reminded him of Arimaspi Mountain, where he was almost murdered in his sleep by the predators there-

He froze. Forest predators. Rotten wood. Awful smell. Everywhere. He cast his eyes around the throne room, looking for them. It was empty, but the smell still permeated his nose.

They were near. They were in danger.

Firestorm flicked the sword's ignition again, and the flames died down. He then jumped from the throne's level to the floor and poked his head into the small antechamber beneath the thrones. "Rares, cut the light and come with me. I think we're being watched."

"We are?" Rarity asked, then turned around with concern written on her face. Behind her, Rainbow also turned around. Behind her was what looked like a carving of some sort. That wasn't important right now, however. "How are we in danger?"

"Just cut the light!" he hissed, and licked his hoof and extinguished the ball of light. The room was plunged into darkness, and all anypony could see was each other's eyes.

Firestorm stuck out his tongue. There was a foul taste on it. "Bleugh. I shouldn't have licked the thing I walk on."

"What are we in danger from again?" Rainbow asked.

"Be quiet," Firestorm whispered.

"Well okay then!" Rainbow sounded exasperated. "Fine, mister know-it-"

"Shh," Firestorm cut her off. He then looked around the massive throne room, hoping they weren't heard.

Rarity tried to move into the open, only to stumble into Firestorm. She hurriedly backed away, shuddering at her physical contact with his ragged clothes. "I can't see a thing," she complained. "If I can just get some light in here- "

"No!" Firestorm whispered vehemently. He actually sounded serious, and the mares, sensing the drastic change in tone, actually followed his directions. He continued. "If I'm correct, our scent has already given us away. I think my scent is a little more pungent, but I think we're already in trouble!"

"Are you actually going to tell us why we're in danger, or are you just going to- " Rarity began, but a sound cut her off.

It was a growl.

They looked past Firestorm, who was blocking the small chamber's entrance. In the darkness, nothing could be seen. But they could hear growling and sniffing and they could smell rotten wood.

Timber Wolves.

Rarity gasped and Rainbow clapped a hoof over Rarity's mouth. They were trapped. Between them and the room's exit was a pack of Timber Wolves, whose shiny green eyes were visible now that their eyes had adjusted to the dark. They were sniffing around furiously, trying to find their very smelly meal. One of them looked straight at them with savage hunger. His green eyes were so shiny, so unnaturally shiny as he glared suspiciously at their position.

"Keep. Completely. Calm," Firestorm breathed. They didn't dare move, didn't dare breathe, didn't dare do anything. It was a tense moment.

Then, after a prolonged stare, the wolf looked away and stalked off.

"Whew!" Rarity said in relief, wiping her brow.

The head of every single Timber Wolf snapped up to look at her. They all snarled in anticipation at their meal's appearance.

Firestorm and Rainbow Dash simultaneously facehooved.

The wolves charged.

A whine filled the air and a little click could be heard, and suddenly the hall was in blinding light as Firestorm activated the flamethrowers built into his armored rags. Two streams of bright orange fire spewed out of his hooves and onto the carpet fifteen feet in front of them. He spread the fire in a wide arc, creating a large barrier between them and the wolves, then he shut off his flamethrowers. The wooden creatures fell back from the deadly fire, and Rarity and Rainbow were blinking hard from the sudden light.

Firestorm tuned around, looking picturesque with the forest of fire behind him and his wild fiery mane all over the place. He drew his swords and asked, "Can you fight?"

"Huh?" the girls asked at the same time.

"CAN YOU FIGHT?!" He had to roar over the snapping of the fire and the snarls of the wolves.

"...Yeah, I think I can handle myself against these guys," Rainbow replied uncertainly.

Firestorm flipped a sword upside down so he was holding it by the blade and offered the hilt to Rainbow. "Take it. You need it."

Rainbow almost flipped out at this. She was being offered a sword? She knew she was awesome, but being awesome with a sword was...epic! And it was from one of the most awesome pegasi she knew, too!

She froze. Did she just think that?

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? TAKE IT!" he screamed urgently. Blushing all of a sudden, she took the sword in her teeth and came out of the antechamber.

"No, no, no," Firestorm said. "In your front hooves. Like this." He stood on his hind legs, holding one of the swords in his front hooves next to his head. "You can control it much better that way, and it's much more powerful."

Rainbow accordingly readjusted. It was a little awkward, but she managed to stay flapping in the air with the sword in both front hooves. It was forged out of a single piece of metal, except for the hilt, which was made of a comfortable wood grip.

Rarity exited the antechamber next. She looked uncertain and scared.

"Can you fight?" he asked her.

"Just because I'm a lady, it doesn't mean I'm not willing to get my hooves dirty!" she cried, rearing on her hind legs.

"Since when?" he muttered out of the side of his mouth. Then he raised his voice. "I'm also a dirty pony as well! Take the meaning however you want!" Before Rarity could reply in outrage to his double-entendre, he had already given her the two knives on his flank and underbelly. "Use them!" he ordered.

"Why are you acting so urgent about this?" Rarity asked, using her magic to lift the knives to the front of his face. "You can handle Timber Wolves, can you not? Are you really that scared for your own life?" Her tone was scolding.

"It's not my own life I'm worried about," he retaliated bluntly.

Rarity thought for just a second, Then who is he scared for- before what he said hit home. She looked at him incredibly.

Firestorm groaned and said in a low and serious tone, "Look here, Miss. You don't like me all that much. And I'm fine with that. I don't like you all that much either. But that doesn't change the fact that I will protect you by any means necessary. So you can be happy about that or complain about it, I don't care which. All that matters to me is that you are my friend, and I never want to see my friends die or get hurt- regardless of how annoying they can be at times. So if you don't want me to help you, just give the word, and I'll put you in front of me when the danger comes instead of vice versa. But until you do, I will fight for my friends until I can't do it anymore. I actually care. Hard to believe it, yeah, but I really do." He looked up at Rainbow, who was flapping softly, hanging on to every word he said. "I care for you, Rainbow Dash. Do you believe me?"

Rainbow nodded, feeling something deep for him.

He then turned to Rarity. "I care for you, Rarity. Do you believe me?"

After a moment of reflection, she sighed. "I do now."

He then faced the dying fire and the Timber Wolves behind it. "Then follow me," he said, and took to the air in a leap that sailed over the fire. He dropped on a Timber Wolf, igniting the flame on his sword as he did so, and plunged the fiery blade into his head. The wolf blasted into pieces of loose wood, some of it burning. The other wolves fell back as he swung the sword in a wide arc, leaving a flame trail in the air wherever he swung the sword.

Rainbow followed his lead by flying through the dying flames and kicking another wolf in the face hard enough to make him stumble. She then hacked at the wolf's face twice with the sword before jamming the thin-bladed weapon into his eye. The wolf blew into firewood.

"Flick the switch on the front! It ignites into flame that way!" Firestorm yelled, sinking his sword into another wolf's belly. He kicked the body off and it turned to loose sticks.

Rainbow found the switch and ignited it. The sword turned hot and she felt the heat on the side of her face as it erupted into a sharp bar of flame. She looked at it for a second, staring into its fiery depths, then screamed as she felt a sharp yank on her tail. A wolf had her tail in its jaws, and was intent on ripping it out.

But before it could, a light blue aura enveloped the wolf, and it was pulled off, whining in surprise. Rarity, her horn glowing, screamed, "GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU BRUTE!"

She threw the wolf against the side of a wall, eliciting a loud CRACK from the impact. He slumped to the ground, shaking his head in pain.

Rainbow was already moving, giving a savage slash across the face of another wolf. It roared and swatted her down with a massive paw, pinning her throat to the stones on the floor. Gasping for air, she gave a wild swing with the sword, out to the side, and the edge of the sword embedded itself in the wolf's neck. She felt the grip on her throat weaken, and she pulled her legs up and kicked the wolf off of her. It slumped to the side, clattering as it fell apart.

Rarity blasted a wolf with her magic while Firestorm blowtorched a wolf from five feet away with his flamethrowers. He turned to see the unconscious wolf get up and stalk behind Rarity and Rainbow, unbeknownst to either of them. "LOOK OUT!" he yelled as the wolf pounced.

The two girls turned and screamed as they saw a wolf almost crush them and rip them to shreds- then the wolf got thrown back in midair as a flaming sword entered his brain. He landed on the ground, the sword embedded in the pile of firewood that was all that remained of the wolf.

Firestorm had thrown his sword and leaped clean over the girls at the same time. He then grabbed his sword while he was upside down in the air, flipped to land on his hind legs, and then ran his sword into the bottom of another wolf's stomach.

Suddenly a loud roar echoed through the castle. The wolves stopped and looked up fearfully. Firestorm's blood chilled. He knew that sound. And it was not good.

Fallens.

How were they here? They were supposed to be in Tartarus.

And then the entire side of the wall came tumbling down. In its place was a bone-white pony the size of a small house. It had a fiery crown on its head and dripping black fangs, with a pale aura for a mane and tail. But worst of all were its plain sickly yellow eyes that narrowed at the sight of them.

"WHAT IS THAT?" Rarity shrieked in terror.

"A FALLEN! RUN NOW!" Firestorm scooped up Rarity and sped towards the door out of the hall with his wings, ignoring her protests. Rainbow got there first, dodging the remaining fleeing wolves, and opened the large doors. They all got through and slammed it shut just as a torrent of flames spewed out of the Fallen's mouth, destroying all that was flammable in the throne room, including the wolves.

Rarity shoved herself off Firestorm. "I can run too, you know," she told him irritably. She looked dirty, but Rainbow looked worse. The fringe of her mane was burned off, and there were numerous scrapes and gashes all over her body. Rainbow looked at Firestorm, who was panting. "Care to explain?" She asked him.

"There's no time! Give me back my sword and let's run. Our lives are top priority right now."

"The friendship problem is the top priority," Rainbow insisted.

"And we won't solve it if we're all dead, now will we?" Firestorm replied. "That thing you just saw is called a Fallen. Fallens are ponies that betray Equestria and are twisted by the powers of Tartarus. They have almost immeasurable strength, and it's hard to take one down if you don't have the proper materials. The only way to even find our friendship problem is to survive. To do that, we need to run." And he started to fly low to the ground to escape the castle.

Much as Rainbow wanted to turn and fight the Fallen, she had to admit Firestorm was right. It sounded like he had experience, and he knew better. Besides, she thought, I want to be with Firestorm, not alone. She flapped after him, and after a moment Rarity followed.

They got twenty feet before they heard a splintering sound, and they turned their heads to see the Fallen's head, replacing the broken door, take a massive intake of breath. They all instinctively ducked as the Fallen bellowed flames into the main hall. The flames subsided after ten seconds, the castle around them in flames.

Ahead of them Firestorm yelled, "COME ON! RUN!" They heard a clattering of hooves as Firestorm ran over to the crouching mares. He brought Rainbow up to face him. "Dash, get out of here. Fly through the windows, the rafters, anything. We need to split up and make it confused. That way, if he manages to get me and Rarity, you at least will be safe."

"B-b-but..." Rainbow didn't know how to object.

"Just go. Anywhere. We'll meet at the front of the castle. You can get there in ten seconds flat. I know you can. I'll see you there. I promise."

What he did next surprised Rainbow. He hugged her. Rainbow could feel him- how warm he was, how strong he was, how solid his body was, how he wrapped his arms tightly around her front. And she didn't want him to stop. She felt comforted and secure, and for a moment she wanted to do more to the hug. But all too soon the hug ended, and she felt Firestorm take his second sword from her grasp.

"Now go. Fly, you fools," he said in a melodramatic voice.

The Fallen opened his black-fanged mouth again.

"GO!" he yelled desperately, and Rainbow instinctively took to the air as the Fallen blew fire again. She went up into the massive buttresses supporting the ceiling and started to weave in between them with the unerring skill of a Wonderbolt.

Meanwhile, Firestorm and Rarity ran at full speed through the now-blazing hall. To every side, bookcases and chairs and tables and bannisters and old mortar caught fire. It was no longer dark in the castle, but that was no longer a good thing. The fire was everywhere, running up the pillars and chasing them to the sides like it was racing them. The Fallen continued to spew a torrent of fire everywhere, and in a matter of moments the whole castle was ablaze.

They reached a clearing of the castle where the fire surrounded them in a ring. Firestorm looked back as they ran. The Fallen was now in the hall, slowly walking through the hall deliberately, taking its time. Firestorm stopped with a skid on the floor, then he ignited both of his swords again. He twirled them in a cross in front of him as the Fallen came close.

The Fallen, inexplicably, halted, frozen with fear at the sight of his swords. For some reason it was fine with the fire on all sides of it, but Firestorm's swords infected it with a kind of fear not before present on its face. It shrank back.

"Yeah, baby!" Firestorm yelled behind the crossed fiery swords. "You don't like that, do ya? Does the swords remind you of the pain you felt in Tartarus? Huh? I wield the wrath of Tartarus's infernos! Get out of here before I decide to use it!"

The Fallen shook his head, then gave a deep snarl.

He shrugged. "Suit yourself!"

He launched himself forward at an untraceable speed, up into the air, and with a mighty thrust buried his fiery sword into its eye.

The Fallen reared his head, bellowing in pain. Firestorm dropped to the ground, now ablaze, and scooted back out of a few burning cinders. He watched the Fallen clutch his face and roar, dripping pale white blood from its eye socket that sizzled when it landed on the fire below.

"Yeah! That's what you get for coming after us!" Firestorm pointed his sword at the Fallen again. "Now get out of here and die in the forest where you belong!"

The Fallen, screeching and stumbling, blindly obeyed. It got weaker, but they saw it crash through a wall and stumble through it into the forest behind the burning castle. After it vanished through the foliage, Firestorm turned. "How was that? he asked her.

"What?" Rarity asked, befuddled.

"It doesn't like its home, Rarity! It grew up in a bad family in a bad home- Tartarus! Seeing my swords and feeling its sting drove it out! Nothing else will harm it!" He hooted for a second. Then he looked at the blazing inferno around him. "But let's get out of here before we talk, okay?"

A buttress collapsed right above them with a loud crack, falling right above them, but Rarity used her magic to slow the beam's descent and threw the flaming log aside. They ran and ran, but for how long they couldn't be certain. The air got thick and heavy with smoke.

Firestorm spotted a square of dim light ahead. "THERE!" he shouted above the roar of the fire. He coughed horribly as he and Rarity raced to the window of opportunity. Firestorm threw himself at the wall around it with all the force he could muster.

The mortar had long ago crumbled to something resembling stale bread, and Firestorm broke through the wall with ease, bringing Rarity along with him. After they felt the cool rush of air on them as they ran out, they continued to race away from the castle until they couldn't feel its heat anymore, and it was only then that they turned around.

It seemed to fill the whole sky. The whole castle smoked and had orange flickering fire rising up like the trees of the forest behind it. The fire snapped and crackled and popped like a certain cereal Firestorm was reminded of. Here and there fragile towers tumbled and crashed to the ground like taken chess pieces. Smoke billowed up so high they couldn't see the sunset behind the castle.

Firestorm looked around with a concerned face. "Rainbow?" he called out worriedly. "Where are you, Rainbow?"

There was no sign of her.

"RAINBOW!" he screamed with fear. No response. He flapped into the air about twenty feet, the smoke getting into his eyes and mouth. "Oh, please don't still be in the castle," he murmured.

There came a collapse of the back part of the castle, sending up a flurry of sparks to join the ever-darkening smoke. Firestorm looked at it for just a moment of indecision. Then, his mind made up, he sped to the earth at an acute angle and hit the earth in front of the castle. He started to strip out of his ragged outer layer, exposing his fireproof flight suit.

"Firestorm? What are you doing?" Rarity asked worriedly.

"I am rescuing Rainbow Dash. Got a problem?" he growled.

"You'll burn in there!" she cried.

Firestorm wheeled around. "SO WHAT IF I DO?!" he roared. "If it means rescuing Rainbow Dash, I'll go through Tartarus itself to get her back. And if we both burn, then I'll be there with her. Friends either live together or die together. Her fate will be the same as mine either way." He turned around and took another step to the inferno. "I won't let her burn to a cinder!" he roared, and rushed into the conflagration.

Rainbow was collapsed under a collapsed portion of the ceiling. A buttress had been burned away and the stone and wood had avalanched down, taking Rainbow with it when she had flown under it. She was trapped in the castle, with fire all around her. She had heavy stone and wood on her limp body, trapping her wings and back legs. Her vision was hazy, swimming with smoke and pain.

She coughed weakly and whispered, "Help." She tried to pull herself out, but a sharp splinter was right under her, digging into her thigh, and she winced and immediately stopped. Even more of the castle collapsed around her, and she bowed her head in defeat.

Applejack lifted her head up, sniffing at the air curiously. Was that smoke? She hoped Apple Bloom wasn't making pie again. She turned her head around the field she was in and spotted something on the horizon that made her gasp.

It was the outline of the Castle of the Two Sisters, but it was orange, and hazy. A billowing cloud of smoke lifted out of its remains.

Applejack looked around again, sincerely hoping Granny Smith would understand. Then, looking back at the chores she was in the middle of, she galloped out of the farm and down the road and into the Everfree as fast as she could.

Orange and black dominated Firestorm's view. He was surrounded by flames as tall as he was, and the smoke rose even higher. Because of that, he could not fly, and so he stayed to the ground, where not as much smoke was. There was barely a spot on the ground where nothing was ablaze.

He jumped over a baby flame and kicked a support aside. It hurt him, but he didn't care. He chopped a flame-eaten support aside, sending up a flurry of sparks. He made his way deeper and deeper into the castle, and as he did, the flame got hotter and hotter, even with his fireproof suit.

He was continually turning his head to the side, straining his ears for any sign of distress. But all that could be heard was the snapping of the flames and the crumble of stones around them.

Then a noise made his ears twitch. A shifting of rubble...and a whisper. He hopefully turned his head to the noises origin.

It was thirty feet to the right, through a maze of glowing debris and glowing red stones. Firestorm jumped right in. He knocked aside anything in his path, regardless of its significance or weight. All that mattered to him was that he get Rainbow to safety.

He punched a support in half, bruising his hoof, but he didn't feel it. The beam fell to the ground, revealing a terrifying, hazy sight.

Rainbow Dash was buried under a tremendous pile of burning debris and rubble. Rocks and jagged splinters were everywhere, surrounding her head and forearms like a halo, those parts of her body being all that showed. Her colorful prismatic mane was stuck all over the place, and was contrasting against the black and orange all around her.

Crying aloud, Firestorm came to Rainbow's side and started to lift, with impossible strength, the fallen buttress on her back. It shifted upwards with a cascade of ash falling from it.

Rainbow lifted her weary eyes to see an orange, shining figure freeing her. At first she was at a loss as to what it was. Was it a Guardian Angel? But after it tossed aside the beam, freeing her back, she realized who it was.

Firestorm? she weakly thought. He...he came back for me...

He seized her under her arms and slowly started to pull her out. Pain wracked through Rainbow's body as her thigh was dragged out with the splinter still in it, and she felt like her wings were bent the wrong way. But at last, after a bit of pulling, she was finally out from the bone-crushing debris.

She felt herself be slung over his back, with his wings flared out to help steady her. There was pains in her wings and back leg, with burns on her barrel and side. She yelped helplessly and cried aloud in pain.

Firestorm heard the Pegasus scream in pain and his heart ached for her safety. He started to gallop at full speed, keeping Rainbow on his back. Behind him, the already-weak ceiling started to fall apart. He leaped clean through a wall of fire and landed just as a heavy beam smashed to the ground where he was not a second before.

His lungs hurt badly. It was like someone was scraping a knife along his insides every time he took a breath, but he pressed on. He had to. For Rainbow.

Panting hard, he ran straight at a wall, shoulder first. He rammed his whole body against the wall and he dislocated his shoulder, but he slammed through the weak brick, stumbled through a cloud of smoke for a bit, and collapsed in pain on the cool grass just as the castle behind him fell in on itself.

They lay there for a bit as they caught their breath and coughed up smoke. Firestorm slowly got out from under Rainbow, settling her gently on the grass. Rainbow turned to look at him. Her eyes were bloodshot by the smoke, but that didn't matter to Firestorm. She weakly struggled out, "Y-y-you c-came back...for me?" She gave a heavy cough.

Firestorm stretched out a hoof and rubbed it on Rainbow's mane gently. He smiled. "For you, Rainbow..." he said in the most sincere voice he could remember, "...I always will."

The last thing both of them remembered before blacking out was the sound of hooves and a hazy orange figure with a hat on her head rushing towards them, with a white pony at her side.

Beep...beep...beep...beep...

Firestorm woke up to that annoying noise and his first instinct was to reach out and shut off that stupid alarm clock- preferably like he destroyed the Skyworld file. But as he opened his eyes and slowly wiped eye crud out of his face, he noticed his arm was hooked up to a heart monitor. He groaned in consternation and lay his head against the pillow some more.

I'm in a hospital... he bleakly thought. He never liked waking up in hospitals. It was just confusing, and disorienting, and he never liked hospitals to begin with. The nurses were overbearing, the beds were uncomfortable, and the food was tasteless- almost as tasteless as Firestorm's jokes sometimes.

He felt fine, except for his barrel and wings and hooves. He was unclothed, and had bandages on his front. His wings were to the side, limp and tired.

He remembered what had happened at the castle. It came to him slowly, in bits and pieces. The Timber Wolves, the Fallen that he had mortally wounded, him rushing back inside, him lifting a Pegasus onto his back-

"RAINBOW!" he yelled all of a sudden, and sat up in the bed with a jolt. He instantly regretted it, however, as a huge headache rushed to his head and his arm pulled on the needles in it. His voice was hoarse and weak from smoke inhalation. He groaned and sat back.

It was then that he was aware of the others in the room. They were the Mane Six- minus Rarity and Rainbow, obviously- his fellow Guardians, Starlight, Spike, and Nurse Redheart. Upon his return to waking, they all looked at him with faces of gratitude, concern, and relief.

"Welcome to the land of the living!" Noble Blade announced extravagantly.

Firestorm gave him a weak smile. "Then why am I dead inside?"

"You've been dead inside for as long as I can remember," Noble replied.

"Right. I've told you that before, haven't I?" He asked, clutching his front.

"I'd say you feel dead on the inside because of all that smoke inhalation," Nurse Redheart told him unequivocally. She looked at her clipboard. "When you were brought in twelve hours ago, you had a dislocated shoulder, two bruised hooves, a few first-degree burns on your face, a sprained wing, and a cracked rib, next to all that smoke inhalation. I did the best I could, but then they," she indicated Noble Blade and Twilight, "came in and did something to you. You're healing much better now. You should be fine in about twenty-four hours."

Firestorm looked at Noble. "The healing spell?" he asked.

"I had to use Twilight's help," Noble replied modestly. "It is a difficult spell, after all."

"Did you do it to Rainbow?" Firestorm asked, a hint of desperation in his voice.

"I did it to her first," Noble reported. "She was the one in the most serious condition."

Firestorm let out an exhale. "Good. She matters to the girls more than I do." He looked around the room. "Come to think of it, how did I end up here? Last thing I remembered was me and Rainbow collapsing on the ground."

"That was ma fault," Applejack told him. "Ah noticed the smoke from the castle in the distance and I ran in there faster than Rainbow Dash in cider season. When Ah got there, Ah saw the castle a-blazin' an' Rarity standin' over the both o' yer bodies. Ah helped 'er take yer bodies back here ta Ponyville Hospital. Ah didn't know that there was a Friendship Mission in place."

"How'd you know we were on a Friendship Mission?" Firestorm asked.

"When Ah reached ya, Ah noticed yer Cutie Mark was flashin'. That meant ya had solved a Friendship Mission."

"But Ah didn't solve a Friendship Mission," Firestorm protested.

"On the contrary, Ah think ya did," Applejack responded. "Ah've noticed things between you and Rares've been rough. Both o' ya can't stand the other. Ah think ya see her as hoity-toity an' stuck-up an' prissy, and she sees you as...how do Ah say this politely..." She faltered.

"An uncivilized unlettered disrespectful dirt-caked baby-brained beady-eyed bottom-barreled blibbering baboon?" Firestorm offered with a grin.

"...Ah wouldn't put it exactly like that," she mused, rolling her eyes.

"Well, don't worry, because I do." He smiled. "Continue."

She did. "Anyway, Ah think the problem ya had to solve was the one between the two o' ya- gettin' over yer differences ta survive." She said the last word with a note of worry.

"Then why did Rainbow come along? Firestorm asked. "I had no qualms with her." He shook his head slightly. "I mean, apart from the, uh, flying competition incident."

"I don't think that matters anymore, "Starlight offered. "I think she came along so you could prove your heart. The lengths you would go to to protect the ponies that matter to you. And by the looks of it, I'd say the mission went pretty well. You saved Rainbow, according to Rarity. And for that we offer our thanks," she said with a smile.

"Speaking of which, where is she, anyway?" Firestorm looked around the room. He was the only patient.

"She and Rarity are in the next room over," Fluttershy offered quietly. She was on the opposite side of the room, glancing at Noble Blade occasionally. "When Rarity came out of the Everfree next to my house, she screamed for help before she collapsed from magic exhaustion from carrying you back. Oh my goodness, I was so scared then. But luckily Rarity can scream loudly, so Twilight heard it and teleported over to where you were. She took the three of you to the hospital, and she got, um..." she glanced at Noble Blade again before running a hoof through her mane and said, "N-noble, and, um, he and Twilight cast the healing spell on Rainbow Dash and Rarity before going to you." She looked at Noble again. "Thank you so much for helping my friends, Noble. I don't know what we would have done without you."

Firestorm saw Noble Blade blush intensely before saying, "It was nothing," to the ground.

"Thanks, Flutters," Firestorm said to her. Fluttershy looked at him strangely, whispering "Flutters?" under her breath. Firestorm remembered to tell Noble the disconcerting news. "Oh, hey, Noble? While we were in the castle, we encountered a Fallen."

Freedom Fighter pretended to drink a glass of an invisible liquid, then spat it out to indicate surprise. His eyes traveled to Firestorm's bedside table, where a glass of water rested. He let out a sigh as he realized his missed opportunity, then stretched forth a hoof.

Firestorm slapped it out of the air as it came near. "What's the point of doing it twice?" he asked him.

Freedom Fighter retreated, a miffed look in his red eyes.

Noble eyed Firestorm. "You're kidding."

"I'm totally not kidding. We saw one- I think it was one that escaped from Tartarus a few years back when Cerberus got loose."

"What's a Fallen?" Twilight asked.

"A servant of Tartarus. A pony twisted by its false promises of power and turned into a hopeless soul that's better off dead. It's invincible in Tartarus, but it doesn't like being there because it's a place of torture for him. Out in the real world, though, it can be killed by the flames taken from Tartarus. And that's what I did. I stabbed the thing in the eye and it stumbled off."

"But where did it come from? Where did it go?" Twilight asked.

"Where did it come from Cotton Eye Joe?" Firestorm asked weakly.

And suddenly, inexplicably, they all heard a very catchy country song coming from somewhere. It was quiet and muffled, but everyone started to bob their heads to it. "Where in tarnation is that funky country music comin' from?" Applejack demanded, a little shaken by the occurrence.

"Sorry!" Pinkie grinned sheepishly, then inexplicably pulled an entire stereo out of her mane and the music became unmuffled for just an instant before she pressed the power button.