A few moments later, Starlight woke up and was surrounded by this deep, black void. Just then, Twilight appeared at arms length away from Starlight. As Starlight glowed her horn once more, Twilight casted a spell and made her scythe reappear. She raised her weapon at Starlight and had a wide grin on her face. “Twilight… Don’t do this...” She was too weak from the battle to fight back. She tried to conjure up a spell, but was too flustered to do so. “Keep it together!” She tried to stand up and run away. “Twilight, do you not see what your powers are doing to the land?! If this keeps up, everything and everypony in Equestria will be killed! You are the Princess of Friendship! Start acting like one! Without Death to balance out the darkness, everyone will be corrupted much quicker! Do you really want that?!” she shouted as she moved. “I know you don’t want this!”

But she could no longer concern herself with what was in front of her. She only wanted the pain, the agony and the suffering... to end. As Twilight walked closer, so did the ooze around her. Her eyes were now completely black.

“This darkness... it’s endless… it’s like a fungus that can’t be remedied...” She stood up once more and obtained her staff, which completely reassembled. “I said start acting like one!” She tried to cast a spell but it was too late. It slowly absorbed her magic as soon as it glowed. “This power… this corrosion… It’s taking everything away… not even I can hold on...” She gathered what was left of her magic and charged it, making it glow brighter than ever. “I will not let it end like this. I didn’t want to resort to this… but you’ve left me no choice. Since that day, I promised everypony that I wouldn’t let the anomaly control anyone else I know. And if it means killing us both… then it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

The corruption started to swirl as Twilight levitated it. At this point, Starlight was out of options. As she was about to deliver the attack, something or rather, somepony showed up in front of her.

“Phew! Sorry it took me so long. It took me a super duper long time to track down since you get up early. No matter. For I, Pinkamena Diane Pie, will save you!” she said, boasting all the while.

Her sudden appearance took Starlight by surprise as she lost all her energy that she had gathered. “P-Pinkie!?”

She turned her attention to Starlight as she said, “Oh, hey Starlight! I see you’re having a good time! But you look like you’ve taken one heck of a beating” She took a closer look at her and saw that she was tuckered out. “But more importantly, why do you have your staff out? Were you about to pull off a super, highly dangerous move?” she asked.

Starlight pointed over to where Twilight is with the swirling darkness. Pinkie noticed and became awestruck. “Twilight… she’s…”

“Hmm? What about her?” Pinkie asked in a clueless manner.

“She’s been corrupted. She’s lost it!” Starlight answered.

Pinkie looked over to where she pointed at and noticed Twilight completely covered in the abyss. Instead of panicking, Pinkie just looked.

“I was gonna fire at her with one of my spells, but-”

“And you were going to use your super move on her?” Pinkie asked, casually. “We don’t need to resort to that.”

“What? Why not!?” Starlight asked, completely outraged. “I’ve tried leveling with her but he won’t listen to reason! She’s become-”

“She’s not a bad pony, Starlight. She’s just scared. Everypony is,” Pinkie said, putting her hoof on Starlight’s shoulder.

“Pinkie...”

Pinkie stood in front of Starlight and insured her that everything will be okay. “You don’t need to worry, Starlight. She maybe a lot of things. She may be whiny, selfish and even ruthless. But she is not evil. She’s just having a hard time facing the facts.” She walked closer to her friend who was still covered in the ooze. “Twilight, stop it. You’re scaring everypony. That’s no way to treat your friends…” Twilight stopped upon hearing Pinkie’s voice. “So this is why you told me to stay behind? So you could do everything yourself?” Pinkie chuckled a little as she added, “You never change. But that’s alright. Because you have us. After all, you’ve always had a reason behind it. Even if it costs you your sanity…” She hugged her and held her close. “It’s alright, Twilight. I’m here for you. You didn’t think you could push your friends away, did you?” The ooze slowly faded away and Twilight’s tears soon appeared. The ooze started to disappear as she fell to her knees. “It’s okay. I won’t let you be sad. Not while I’m around to keep that smile of yours.”

Starlight was stunned at what Pinkie was able to do. She couldn’t believe that Pinkie was capable of calming Twilight. She facehoofed accompanied by a small laugh. “Pinkie you…” She sighed. Not out of anger. But out of respect. “The ooze seemed to have gone. So, is she back to her old self?”

Pinkie nodded. She turned towards Twilight, hoping she was okay. “Looks like it! Hey, Twilight? You back to your old self?” she asked.

Twilight wiped the tears away and tried to make a joke. “I guess I screwed the pooch on that, didn’t I?”

At first, Pinkie didn’t get it. But thirty seconds later, she started to laugh while Starlight shook her head in bewilderment. “Well, with one crisis avoided, now we can talk about how to stop the anomaly.” They both looked over to her to see if she was still okay. “Normally, I would have to report what happened here... but since you were talked out of it, I’ll overlook what happened here. However, I want to know everything that you’ve been doing for the past few days. No more doing everything yourself.”

Twilight sighed and reluctantly agreed to her terms. “Alright. I’ll tell you what I know,” she said.

After straightening herself out, they started walking back to the empire. As they were moving, Twilight talked about what happened while she was with Celestia. She went over what they were doing as well. She explained that the monster visited her and went to see Celestia. She even explained what he was planning to do with the princess.

“What?!” Pinkie and Starlight asked in unison.

“That’s not all… there’s one more thing that I manage to find out. But I can’t one hundred percent confirm this to be true.” Twilight said in a solemn voice.

“What is it?” Starlight asked.

Twilight took a deep breath as they walked past a couple trees. Then she looked at Starlight. “A few months back, I found traces of the same ooze that had been corrupting everypony. At the time, I was unsure if this was the same thing associated with the anomaly, but I saw something that looked familiar… it might’ve been…” she answered.

Both Pinkie and Starlight leaned in to hear Twilight. At first, she felt hesitant to tell them the truth. But Twilight knew that there was no other choice.

“I managed to locate the monster once more but I was unable to kill it. It looked to similar to somepony I knew and at that moment, I hesitated… but he seemed so-”

“Why didn’t you report this!? Do you know how vital this could have been?!” Starlight asked angrily.

“A-Are you sure about this?” Pinkie asked, completely shocked by the news.

Twilight nodded. “At the time, I didn’t want to believe it and I wanted it to be a lie. I needed more time and investigating to make absolutely sure it was accurate. But since it reappeared, it spoke to me… like it knew me. Now I can only assume one thing… It was Spike.”

Silence feel on them as the heard that name. Pinkie was now completely stunned at hearing the name. Starlight wasn’t sure if she heard her correctly.

“...Can you… say that again?” she asked.

“It was Spike,” Twilight answered with sorrow in her voice.

“Stop mumbling its name!” Starlight yelled, trying to snap Twilight out of it.

“Spike! Why can I- Spike!”

Twilight knew what to say but was unable to find words. She couldn’t even put together a cohesive sentence. She kept repeating it but all that came out was a distorted version of what she was trying to say.

“What’s going on?!” Starlight asked, feeling scared.

There was this darkness that started to cloud Twilight’s eyes. Pinkie and Starlight stood back, completely nervous. It felt like Twilight was about to wreak havoc on the two of them. But Twilight soon calmed down and went back to previous demeanor as she said, “It doesn’t matter…”

“Of course it matters!” Starlight, feeling aggravated.

“No, it really doesn’t… I know who it is. But our main concern right now is putting together a plan to stop this anomaly,” Twilight answered calmly.

“Did you not hear what I said before!? She’s dea-”

“Don’t... remind me…” Twilight stopped her dead in her trackers.

They kept walking, but were being wary of Twilight. Starlight, in particular, kept her eyes on Twilight the most. Pinkie decided to break the silence.

“W-Well, we are the Grim Reapers, Starlight! If anypony can keep the empire safe, it’s us,” she said.

“I’m not-”

“Besides, with Twilight helping us, she’ll make the impossible, possible so we can’t give up hope!” Starlight said nothing to that, knowing that Pinkie Pie would be stubborn. “If my gut feeling is right, and it usually is, you’ll find the monster again and with Fluttershy’s element of harmony, we’ll be able to bring everything back to the way it was!” Pinkie said, filled with enthusiasm.

“But what about the Corrupted? What if they come-”

“I’ll be able to handle that. I may be death but I can still handle the anomaly,” Pinkie said, removing any doubt Starlight had.

Starlight knew that Pinkie wasn’t lying. But she didn’t feel confident that it would turn out that way. “Are you sure about this, Pinkie?” she asked.

“Have I ever let anypony down in our group? Besides, your the only one I know whose magic is on the same level as Twilight,” Pinkie answered without hesitation.

Twilight smiled in an embarrassed manner upon hearing that. “When did she…”

“But more importantly, the likelihood of me failing is like saying a bird can’t fly,” Pinkie boasted.

“Hmm. Pinkie… thank you,” Twilight thought.

She teleported away at the blink of an eye. Pinkie and Starlight turned around to see where she has gone. Then Starlight turned towards Pinkie in frustration.

“Gah, Pinkie… you…!”

Pinkie scratched her head nervously and said, “My bad, Starlight. I should’ve thought of a better idea. But you know how she is. Once she has her mind on something, she goes for it. No pony in the multiverse could stop her even if they tried.”

Starlight found that statement very hard to believe, considering that Pinkie usually is focused on the task at hand. But the fact that she Twilight slip just felt very underhanded. She hated to admit it, but she was right. Nopony could stop Twilight even if they tried.

“I guess… but do you know the full extent of the situation we’re in?” she asked.

Pinkie thought for a moment to think about the situation. “Can’t say I do but- Hmm? Hey, where are you off too?” she asked.

“If Twilight managed to keep this under wraps from everypony… only one other pony would know about this. I have a few selective words that need to be said to her…” She had a mental image of who she was referring to. It suddenly clicked in her mind like a lightbulb. “I’ll see you back at the empire.”

And with that, she teleported away, leaving Pinkie by herself. She had no clue what Starlight was talking about, but she knew that Starlight would figure it out. Even if it meant that Equestria would never be the same, Pinkie knew that Starlight and Twilight wouldn’t let anypony down. She proceeded to head back to the empire by herself.