Author's Notes:

Here we go ladies, strap in.
Someone mentioned something about Sunset going badass at some point too I think, well...

“Go faster,” Sunset urged Celestia. “Go much, much faster.”

“Unless you want us to be pulled over by the police-” Celestia replied from behind the wheel of her vehicle.

“Fuck the police,” Sunset hissed before pointing at the Everfree, “that was a thaumic flare powerful enough to rock half of Canterlot!”

“And we’re goin’ towards it?” Gilda asked with an incredulous look on her face.

“I still think this is a very poor idea,” Celestia said in a strained voice.

“We went over this,” Sunset replied, crossing her arms. “Would you rather know what happened? Or not?”

Luna coughed lightly into her hand and shrugged. “Truth, sister? I’d rather know.”

“And we’re taking our chil-... our students into the middle of this mess with us why?!” Celestia bit out as her grip tightened around the wheel.

“Because we can’t grow wings, shoot fireballs, or throw lightning bolts,” Luna replied dryly. “And unless you’ve also got a magical spear hidden somewhere in your unmentionables then I’d suggest swallowing your pride and accepting that.”

“At least Chryssi is on my side,” Celestia grumbled as she put her foot down on the gas.

In the distance, lightning struck again and again as the once-clear skies quickly began clouding over with brutal, black thunderheads, and as the pair of vehicles, made up of Celestia’s blue sedan and Chrysalis’ silver Lotus approached the source, it was only becoming more and more obvious that something unnatural hung heavy in the air.

Sunset could taste it, even if no one else could, like ozone but almost… rotten. A human being could be forgiven for not noticing the subtle flavor of magic in the air, but to a unicorn who once stood in the presence of a Goddess on a daily basis and was hailed as the most talented sorceress of her generation, there could be no mistaking the high density of tainted magical particles.

Dark magic.

Even Sunset had never risked delving into that particular lore; there was far too much evidence that its use corrupted the mind and body of its user and her experience with the stolen Element of Magic, when she had inadvertently turned its power dark and suddenly been submerged in its influence, proved her right on her caution.

‘As if I should’ve needed an in-person example,’ Sunset thought bitterly.

She knew of the ancient histories of Equestria, of the War of Shadows when the slave-legions of King Sombra marched across the north. Sunset knew about the siege-engines the terrible king had crafted from living shadows that had battered down every fortress that had stood against his annexation and creation of the Crystal Empire. She knew all about how his lieutenants wielded magic so powerful it would consume them as often as it did the armies that were arrayed against them.

No, Dark Magic was too much of a risk and had she known what she was stepping into when she put the crown on Sunset would never have considered it. Even the old her, the bitch queen of Canterlot High, wasn’t that arrogant. After all, what was the point of ruling anything if it came with the caveat of insanity from Dark Magic corruption?

Now that same magic was threatening the human world again and, no matter what platitudes Twilight gave her, Sunset knew that the danger it presented now was almost certainly her fault.

A warm hand closed around Sunset’s, dragging her thoughts back to the present as the countryside rolled away alongside them, and Sunset looked up to see Gilda staring down at her.

“Ain’t your fault,” Gilda said quietly.

“I wasn’t-”

“Think I don’t know that look on y’face, Sunshine?” Gilda asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking in a way that informed Sunset that she didn’t really need an answer to that question. “You got a bad habit’a blaming yourself for a lotta shit, babe.”

Sunset scowled. “Yeah well, this mess is my fault.”

Gilda sighed but didn’t continue the argument. It was one they’d had before and almost certainly one they would have again. Sunset’s regrets were tied almost as deeply to Canterlot High and what she did to the student body as they were to Princess Celestia. It wasn’t something that was going to be solved by one conversation, just a lot of time and a lot of processing, and Gilda…

Gilda intended to be there for every second of it.

Sliding her arms around Sunset, Gilda pulled her close and buried her face in Sunset’s hair, letting the scent of lilacs and cherries fill her senses. She felt Sunset let out a sigh of her own and wrap her arms around Gilda’s torso, clinging tight to the bigger girl.

“Don’t worry, Sunflower,” Gilda said quietly, “we got this… you’n me.”

Sunset nodded but clung all the tighter to Gilda as Luna glanced back at the pair. Gilda in her bomber jacket and Sunset in a faded sweater curled together and looking for all the world like the most normal pair of teenagers.

Luna grimaced at the thought. They were normal teenagers, for most intents and purposes. Neither of them wanted to be in the situation they were in and it was terribly unfair that they had to be. As much as Luna wanted to turn her back on what was happening in the distance as thunder cracked and boomed overhead, as much as she wanted to just take the pair home with them and let someone else deal with the danger the fact was… there wasn’t anyone else.

“I’m scared, Gil,” Sunset said in a tiny voice, one that was so small and subdued that it broke Luna’s heart, and Gilda looked little better.

Gilda tightened her embrace around Sunset and nodded. “Y-yeah… me too, Sunshine, I’m fuckin’ terrified… but…”

“I know,” Sunset said softly. “I know we have to do something but… I can’t lose you, Gil… I just can’t,” the last word came out as a sob, and Sunset gripped tight onto the shoulders of Gilda’s jacket.

Tonight, with the wind and thunder and lightning, all Sunset could think was that it was just like her dreams, just like her nightmares, and the thought of it was almost paralyzing. Was this it? Was this the night it happened? Was tonight the night that her nightmare visions would become reality? Would she see the love of her life pursued through the storm only to be struck down?

“I don’t think I’d survive it, Gil,” Sunset cried. “I really think if you… if something happened to you, I really think it’d kill me.”

Luna and Celestia waited to hear Gilda reply, to hear her give her usual comfort to Sunset. There were no words that came, no harsh raspy laughter, or cocky remarks.

Instead, there was just another, soft, broken sob. Luna glanced back again as the rain began to fall in pounding sheets around them, and saw Gilda with her arms crossed around Sunset, face buried in Sunset’s hair, with her shoulder shaking and tears dripping down her cheeks.

“Sister…” Luna said softly.

“I know, Lulu,” Celestia said through gritted teeth. “I know.”

It was like a fist-sized rock had been lodged in Celestia’s chest, listening to the two girls in her backseat cry. They were so scared and there wasn’t a single ounce of that fear for themselves. They weren’t scared of being hurt, or of fighting, or even of dying.

They cried because each was so scared of losing the other. Of the other being hurt.

“Girls…” Celestia said, trying her absolute best to keep her voice from cracking with the tears building in the corners of her eyes. “We can turn around… we can leave, I won’t make you do this.”

The quiet cries from the back softened for a moment, and it was Sunset who eventually broke the silence.

“We can’t do that, auntie,” Sunset said in a raw voice. “We have to go there, we have to know… there’s no one else.”

“If it’s him,” Gilda joined in, her voice as hard as iron, “if it's my pops then… it’s gotta be us.”

Celestia took a deep shuddering breath as tears slid down her own cheeks.

“I am… so proud of you girls,” Celestia sobbed out, her hands tightening on the wheel of the car. “If I ever had daughters I’d hope and pray that they had even a fraction of your strength and character, so understand, no matter what happens, that I… that we are so very proud of you two.”

Luna nodded along, gritting her teeth as her hands curled into fists so tightly that she felt a pinch of pain.

A shape resolved out of the darkness a moment later alongside the road, and Luna jerked up at the sight of it. “Tia, there!”

“I see it, Lu,” Celestia replied, pulling off to the side of the road just behind the station wagon that had been haphazardly parked by the side of an open meadow near the Everfree. “It looks familiar.”

“No,” Sunset hissed venomously as her eyes fixed on the parked vehicle, and Celestia and Luna both snapped their heads around to look at her.

Sunset’s face had gone pale as she scrabbled out of Gilda’s arms. “Get my wheelchair out, now!” she snapped

Gilda got out and unfolded the chair, helping an impatient Sunset Shimmer into it as the four women pulled on gloves and pulled their coats closer around themselves to ward off the wind. The rain had abated, in a certain sense, but only because it was clear that they were now in the eye of the storm. Dark clouds twisted around them like the bars of a cage, and the wind ripped and bit at any exposed skin or loose clothing as Chrysalis’ Lotus pulled in behind them after being flagged down by Celestia.

“Babe? What’s the matter?” Gilda asked, half-shouting over the howling wind as Sunset gripped the wheels of her chair the moment she was settled and rolled over to the station wagon. “Sunny what the fuck is goin’ on!?”

Sunset stopped just behind the older car and stared with wide eyes. “No, no, no, Dash you fucking idiot!” Sunset shrieked at the parked station wagon. “WHY IS IT YOU?! WHY IS IT ALWAYS YOU?!”

Reaching into her jacket, Sunset pulled out a small smooth, black stone and held it to her lips. Gilda saw her whisper something to the rock and suddenly it began to glow faintly.

Tossing the stone into the air, Sunset snarled: “Find her!”

The rock snapped off towards the inner part of the meadow like it had been loaded into a slingshot.

“Sunny what-” Gilda approached, but Sunset had already turned and started following the trail of faint red sparks that the stone had left in its wake. “Shit, I guess that’s that.”

Pulling her phone out, Gilda sent out a quick text before sprinting after Sunset, marveling at how quick the girl was moving on the wet grass.

“Fuckin’ magic,” Gilda grumbled.

“Uh… here goes nothing?”

Rainbow Dash did not like the fact that Twilight made that sound like a question and a quick glance at Lightning proved she shared Dash’s misgivings. None of them had any time to make an alternate suggestion though, because Zee clearly didn’t have the time for it.

“What the fu-” Lightning muttered, trailing off as she watched pale, translucent purple-and-green tendrils, like hundreds of living cords and wires, slither out from behind a small, ancient-looking bell set inside Twilight’s odd bauble.

“Back it up, Dusty,” Rainbow set a hand on Lightning’s shoulder and pulled Lightning Dust away from Zee’s thrashing form.

Twilight’s conjured tendrils slithered through the air towards the tormented girl, probing around her for a few moments before finally arching back and lancing towards Zee. The tendrils stuck fast into Zee’s flesh, linking with her and within seconds her thrashing began to diminish as coils of energy wound themselves up and around the tendrils towards Twilight’s strange machine.

It was clearly not going perfectly, though, as Twilight scowled and trembled, sweating profusely as she seemed on the edge of passing out.

Sprinting up to Twilight with Lightning Dust hot on her heels, Rainbow stopped herself before touching her, not sure if it would break the lavender girl’s concentration.

“What can I do?” Rainbow asked softly.

Twilight’s eyes flicked towards Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust, and both of them could see the raw panic in her eyes.

“I… I don’t know,” Twilight croaked. “It hurts, Dash… it’s never hurt before… I don’t know if I can do this twice in one day!”

“What happens if it goes wrong?” Lightning asked, stepping up beside Rainbow. “What are you even doing?”

“It's complicated, but tee-el-dee-ar? Zee is overloading because of the armbands she’s wearing, and I have to use this to siphon the excess but…” Twilight swallowed hard as another tremor wracked her body, “but I’ve never done it twice in one day! If it goes wrong the discharge could hit the whole meadow!”

“Yeah, I… I can guess what that means,” Lightning replied, looking pale before looking back to Dash. “What do we do?”

Before Dash could answer, Zee’s voice snapped out from the ground. “Fuckin’ run, mates… tha’s what ye do… get t’fuck outta here and take our lass wif ye.”

Her voice was hard and cracked and, behind it, there was an almost electrical buzz and whine.

“NO!” Twilight cried, tears streaking down her face. “I’m not leaving you, Zee! I’m never going to leave you, okay? I’ll save you!”

“Get t’fuck outta here!” Zee roared, her body convulsing as snapping arcs of electricity scorched the earth around her. “I can feel it… it’s all gone wrong! Get out!”

“No! This is my fault!” Twilight sobbed. “I made us stay! I got us into this! I won’t be the reason you… you…”

Rainbow narrowed her eyes and then stepped up and, following her instincts, clapped her hand on Twilight’s shoulder.

For a brief moment, she was positive she had made the wrong decision because suddenly absolutely everything hurt. Rainbow Dash screamed as electrical current roared through her, and it felt like she was being lit on fire from the inside out but… It was familiar, too…

Rainbow felt this power back when the unbridled force of the Elements of Harmony was surging through them, during the Fall Formal and during the Battle of the Bands, but it was different. Back then it was focused, all drawn towards a central point and it flowed like a raging river, here though… it was like there was no focus, no goal, just power.

“Focus!” Rainbow roared, gritting her teeth through the pain. “Magic is alive, you gotta focus on it, and focus on what makes you who you are! The magic will figure it out from there!”

“What does that even mean?!” Twilight cried.

“It means focus on everything that makes the world real for you!” Rainbow snapped, and she closed her eyes.

For a moment, her old reflexes took over, the ones from when she and her friends would Pony Up. She thought of how each of their magics felt, the bubbly, airy feeling of Pinkie’s laughter, the insistent, gentle strength of Fluttershy’s kindness, the quite, iron presence of Applejack’s honesty, the warm, encompassing pressure of Rarity’s generosity, the blinding, living spark of her Twilight’s magic, and…

Sunset.

She was like pure, fiery passion, but it wasn’t a terrible heat and it didn’t burn. It was like a hearth, a feeling of home, and of welcome. A feeling like no matter where she wandered, or what she did, she could always… always come home.

Whatever equilibrium Rainbow had gained flew apart like a shattered window at the thought of the girl with red-and-gold hair and Rainbow screamed again as the electrical energy blasted through her.

Darkness filled Dash’s soul and suddenly she was choking, she was drowning, she was alone and she was going to die that way… she was alone… she was al-

A warm grip suddenly appeared on the edges of Rainbow’s senses as someone took her free hand, and Rainbow snapped back to reality as Lightning cried out in pain. She was standing right next to Rainbow Dash, both hands clasped around Rainbow’s hand.

“I’m not leaving you either!” Lightning shouted through the pain. “I’m never giving up on you, Dash! I chased you for years! I’m not losing you now!”

“Lightning…” Dash stared over at the amber-haired girl who was smiling through a rictus of pain. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay,” Lightning replied, her tears crackling and evaporating before they had a chance to fall. “You’ll never leave me either, right?”

Rainbow gripped Twilight shoulder and Lightning Dust’s hands harder, glancing between the two girls, and Zee on the ground, linked to Twilight through her spell, before finally looking back at Lightning Dust.

“Never,” Rainbow hissed as pain shot through her. “I’ll never leave anyone hanging ever again!”

“I can’t hold on!” Twilight cried, her body shaking violently. “I’m gonna lose it!”

“We’re here!” Rainbow roared. “We got this! We’re not leaving anyone behind! We’ve got-”

Whatever Rainbow was about to say next was lost as the reinforced casing of Twilight’s machine snapped clean in half, and her entire world turned white.

“Wait!” Gilda called out, sprinting across the field in Sunset’s wake.

Somehow, Sunset had managed to tear past all of the soaking wet grass towards a pillar of smoke that rose up near the middle of the field. That question of ‘how’ was answered as Gilda finally managed to catch up and saw Sunset, her body and chair limned faintly in teal light. She had gotten ahead because she hadn’t been touching the ground at all.

“How-” Gilda muttered.

“Can’t you feel it?” Sunset asked, not turning around but staring down at the crater. “The magic here… it’s dense, it’s so dense and it’s all tainted. I can barely breathe, Gil… it’s like someone covered everything in a foot-thick sheet of whale blubber, everything feels… wrong.”

Gilda licked her lips as she glanced around. For certain, she could feel… something. There was a spark in the air, a metal stink like lightning had struck the ground countless times, although they’d definitely seen something like lightning strike here back at the diner.

But Sunset was right; there was something else.

Something… dark.

“What is it?” Gilda asked, slowly moving to Sunset’s side and staring down at the crater.

Sunset gripped the arms of her chair tightly and scowled. “Dark magic… tainted magic… like the kind that… that…”

“That turned ya into a demon, huh?” Gilda finished, and Sunset flinched. “S-Sorry, I know…”

“No, you’re right,” Sunset replied. “But this… this place makes what I did look like foal’s play, the magical particles in the air here are so dense I…”

Her last words came out in a choking sob, and Gilda looked over at Sunset. Tears were streaming down the redhead’s cheeks as she shook perceptibly in her chair, one hand covering her mouth and her eyes wide and haunted.

“There’s so much power, here, Gil,” Sunset breathed. “I can taste it… it’s like I’ve been starving all this time and suddenly… suddenly I can eat as much as I want!”

Holding up her hand, Sunset’s smiled turned glassy and stretched as she flicked her fingers, releasing a pulse of teal energy and lighting a flame in her palm. It flickered and danced and glowed a searing, blinding white. Stretching her fingers, Sunset pursed her lips and blew softly as if over a birthday cake.

The little flame blossomed into a pillar of pale fire that stretched several feet into the air, and Gilda staggered back at the overwhelming heat. Thunder cracked around Sunset as the extreme hot and cold air struck one another like a hammer to an anvil.

Gilda’s eyes widened. “S-Sunshine?”

“I don’t… I don’t want to, though,” Sunset cried, her face falling as her shaking redoubled and the pillar of flame wavered and sputtered out. “I don’t want to be her again… I can’t… I can’t do that again, I want it so bad, though, Gil…”

Gilda clenched her jaw and stepped in front of Sunset, reaching out to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

“You say the word, and we’re fuckin’ gone, babe,” Gilda said softly, running her thumb over Sunset’s warm, soft skin. “Fuck Canterlot and fuck this whole world, savvy? You say the word, and I’ll run as far away from here with ya as y’want.”

Sunset took several shuddering breaths as she looked up at Gilda, and at the unwavering and absolute loyalty in her eyes, and a part of her wondered if that was the Elements influence or…

‘I don’t need a magical artifact to be kind, right?’

Of all things, Fluttershy’s words to Vinyl and Octavia were the ones to come back to her.

No, it wasn’t the Element making Gilda loyal, it was Gilda who was worthy of the Element because she was loyal. Because this was just the kind of person Gilda was. Sunset knew that Gilda wasn’t just testing her, or making a hollow offer. Sunset knew that Gilda would do exactly what she had just promised to do and that all Sunset had to do was ask it of her.

To leave, to go somewhere they could live in peace. Somewhere they could be away from the threat of magic and all the awful things it had brought into Sunset’s life. To be free of the responsibility of the Elements and to just forget everything and be normal. To not be a sorceress or an Element-bearer or a hero.

To just be… Gilda’s wife.

To run away.

Sunset closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out in a slow, calming stream of air as she brought her hands up to cover Gilda’s, taking comfort in their strength and warmth.

“Sunset Shimmer doesn’t run away,” Sunset said firmly as she opened her eyes and stared back up at Gilda. “And neither does Gilda Grimfeather, right?”

Gilda smiled.

A smile that vanished in a flash as her hackles went up. Before even Sunset could react, Gilda had spun around, her wings erupting from her back with a pulse of magical force as she released Huracán with a deafening snap of metal just as an arching pulse of electricity tore out of the smoke towards the pair only to be caught on the tip of Gilda’s spear like a lightning rod and deflected into the ground.

“Gilda~,” a voice hissed from inside the fading smoke.

The voice sent a chill of terror up Sunset’s spine and suddenly she wasn’t so sure that she had made the right choice. There was something about that voice… something horribly familiar, like something from a dream.

Or from a nightmare.

Now it was Gilda’s turn to start shaking as a dark and tattooed figure emerged from the smoke. A scorched dress flickered around her slender frame as she stepped out into the storming winds. The faint, inconstant illumination of the lightning strikes in the distance reflected strangely off of the gauntlets that covered her arms to the shoulder. Pale white hair that was a terribly familiar snowy shade fell across half of her face, covering one eye but leaving the other one wide open and fixed on Gilda with a mad intensity.

A single, golden eye.

“Z-Zee?” Gilda whispered softly, her whole body was frozen still as she worked her jaw, trying to find any words that could convey the torment of emotions she was feeling. “You… you’re alive… y’really alive?”

“Arh,” Zee growled as lightning snapped and coiled around her body, “no fuckin’ thanks t’you, GILDA!”

With a wordless roar, Zee snapped her arms out and coruscating arcs of electricity danced between the metal gauntlets for a brief moment before surging out in a stream of unbridled power that was aimed straight at Gilda.

An angled plane of teal force appeared in front of Gilda in the split-second before the ravening energy struck, intercepting the blast. Gilda shot a look back to see Sunset holding up her hands and shaking as she used her magic to weather the onslaught Zee was unleashing.

The torrent of blinding energy vanished leaving behind a winded and sagging Zee. Her gauntleted arms hung like lead weights from her shoulders as sweat poured down her face, plastering her hair to her scalp. Zee took a breath as she struggled to straighten, only to sag again.

“Zee, sis…” Gilda said in a quiet voice as she lowered Huracán. “C-C’mon… it’s me… I didn’t… I tried but… Pops… he k-killed ya… he told me-”

“TRAITOR!” Zee roared, raggedly before shooting a glare over her shoulder. “Giz uz more power, our lass! Giz uz more!”

Another figure began to breach the smoking ruin of the meadow and, for a brief moment, Sunset expected it to be Rainbow Dash. A large part of her expected it actually, and she was only about half correct, as the figure that emerged was familiar, but in all the wrong ways.

Her eyes were lit with a furious, lambent shade of cyan fire that licked out from the edges of her eyelids. Dark magic coiled around her entire body in a sickly, serpentine manner that left Sunset’s skin crawling. Her eyes were wide and that familiar, heart-shaped face of hers was framed by a messy waterfall of lavender hair. It was a face of a friend, of someone who had brought Sunset out of her darkest moments.

“T-Twilight?” Sunset said her friend's name, drawing the girl’s gaze.

Raising an eyebrow, Twilight sneered. It was an utterly nasty expression and one that made Sunset’s stomach twist as she saw its form. It was a look that had no place on a face like Twilight’s one made for kindness and gentle reassurance.

“We’ve got to go, Zee,” Twilight said, ignoring Sunset as she turned to look at Zee. “We’ve got them to look after.”

Twilight gestured behind her and only then did Sunset and Gilda see them. Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust were floating, supine, through the air in a sheath of telekinetic force. They looked a little singed, but even from where she was sitting Sunset could tell they were breathing.

For now.

“No,” Zee hissed. “You’ll giz uz that power, pet… that fuckin’ traitor’s not leavin’ my sight til she’s DEAD.”

Something erupted out of Zee at that moment, a monumental presence that seemed to diminish all the world around her. Sunset felt her mouth go dry at the tenebrous shape that grew from Zee’s body and towered over both Gilda and Twilight. The latter barely had time to gasp before the world shuddered around her, and Sunset watched in horror as pure magic was ripped whole from Twilight’s body and straight into Zee. The form that stretched out from Zee’s back laughed in a voice like a distant thunderhead as it devoured the power and funneled it into Zee.

“I know you,” Sunset whispered softly, and the shadow turned to face her. It’s indistinct features seeming to focus on Sunset alone. “You can’t be real, though… you’re a myth, just a foals’ tale.”

There were so many old stories from Equestria’s past, and even further back. Stories from the times of the three tribes, when division plagued the unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony nations when disunity drew down the endless winter and the Wendigo from the north. There were even older stories, too, though, like faerie tales, but stranger… each one a foals’ story told at their bedside and they were all about cartoonishly evil villains being defeated by the power of love and friendship and song: Tirek and the Two Rainbows, The Shadow of Tambelon, the Witch’s Daughters and the Utter Flutter.

But one, in particular, stuck in Sunset’s mind. One that gave her nightmares when she was just a little filly living in the Canterlot Orphanage.

The Shadow-Eater.

A boogey-mare’s story, and one that even as a foal Sunset had found disturbing. The concept of an evil wind that swept up behind bad foals to gobble up their shadows. A laughing, wicked wind that had a name, one that always made Sunset shiver when the keepers of the orphanage would tell the story to the group.

Sunset licked dry lips as she stared at the shadow, and felt her bones quake with its laughter.

‘Say it,’ the shadow seemed to say as two unearthly, burning orbs piercing into Sunset’s soul. ‘Say my name…’

“Arabus,” Sunset murmured in a voice so small that the wind stole it away.

“Babe?” Gilda glanced back worriedly at Sunset.

The form shuddered, it’s shoulders seeming to shake as that thunderous laughter boomed from around Zee’s body.

“Gilda… we need to run,” Sunset said in a frail voice. “This was a mistake… I made a terrible, terrible mistake… we’ve gotta get out of here now!”

“Yer not goin’ anywhere, pal,” Zee hissed.

Raising her hands, Zee ran her fingers through her hair as pure magic coruscated across her body. Her pale hair stood in a wild mohawk, held aloft by the electrostatic energy pouring off of her slender frame. Lashing her arms down, bolts of lightning crashed out from her fists to rip the ground up around her as she stalked towards Gilda and Sunset, her face a grinning rictus of hatred.

“Gilda let's go!” Sunset cried. “That’s not your sister!”

Any answer Gilda had was interrupted by a bolt of lightning. Reflexes from months of training and years of fighting, multiplied by the powers of her Element, snapped to the fore as Gilda spun Huracán and caught the bolt, casting it into the ground. Arc after arc of blinding white energy flew from Zee’s hands as she roared her rage out, each bolt caught by the tip of the storm-forged spear and dispersed harmlessly into the ground.

“I ain’t leavin’ my sister again, Sunset,” Gilda said in a low voice, “never again.”

Sunset felt her heart clench at Gilda’s words and tone. ‘Sunset’ she had called her. Not Sunshine, not Sunflower, but Sunset.

“I…” Sunset stammered, but her words were ripped away by a scream of manifold rage from Zee.

“GILDA!” Zee roared.

A crash of thunder boomed through the meadow as arcs of electricity spat out from Zee’s back, and for a moment, Sunset thought they looked almost like wings. If she closed her eyes, the image burned there from the intensity of the light and shadow gave the distinct impression of coiling wings of light.

The moment passed and suddenly Zee moved, barreling towards Gilda with her fists raised and the ground around her cracking and blackening from her passage. Sunset gripped her fists, calling up her magic as quickly as she could but Zee was far too fast.

The clangor of metal impacting metal erupted throughout the meadow as Gilda deflected Zee’s frontal assault. The shorter, younger Grimfeather moved in a blur of fists wreathed in crackling blue-and-white lightning as her older sister desperately spun and twisted the Huracán to catch, turn, and spoil each attack, and soon Gilda was breathing hard as she did her level best to keep Zee at bay.

“FIGHT ME!” Zee screamed, “FIGHT ME OR I’LL KILL Y’BOTH!”

“Don’t do this, Zee!” Gilda cried as she snapped the Huracán in a wide stroke, forcing Zee back. Gilda was painfully aware that her girlfriend was mere feet behind her and if she missed even one attack from Zee… “Don’t make me do this!”

“Y’already killed me once, Gils…” Zee spat. “Wha’s one more for the road, ey?”

Zee’s eyes flicked over Gilda’s form, and her face fell as her eyes lingered on Gilda’s right wrist where a faint shine of gold and gems reflected the strange light crackling off of the both of them.

“S’a fancy bit’a glitz ye got there, Gils,” Zee said, her voice suddenly dropping to a toneless drawl. “Don’t remember ye wearin’ nowt like tha’.”

Gilda’s voice stuck in her throat as Zee’s eyes drifted over to Sunset.

“Guessin’ tha’s yer lass, aye?” Zee said, an ugly smirk growing over her face.

“Don’t you fuckin’ look at her,” Gilda hissed, true anger entering her voice for the first time. “This is ‘tween you’n me, Zee, don’t you dare fuckin’ look at her!”

“Guess ye’ll ‘afta fight me arter all, then, Gils,” Zee said, her smirk growing into a humorless, shark-like smile.

In an instant Zee was gone, her body accelerating and blackening the grass around her as she circled around Gilda with blinding speed. A second later, a bolt of lightning shot out at Sunset from her left, and only Zee’s threats had given Sunset enough time to raise her shield. It was a quick and dirty defense, absorbing the blast with plates of hard, ablative conjured force that shattered under the attack.

“NO!” Gilda screamed as Sunset threw up another shield on instinct the moment her first went down.

It shattered an instant later as Zee’s follow-up one-two bolts hammered through them.

“Don’t you FUCKING TOUCH HER!” Gilda shrieked, her wings billowing out and firing her towards Zee, the black flint-and-gold eyes of her Ponied form tracking the motions of her younger sister.

“GILDA WAIT!” Sunset cried as the taller girl tore off into the sky after her sister. “No… no, no, no…” Sunset mumbled as she stared up into the skies and watched the two indistinct shapes battle, her head pounding with the sudden use of so much magic. “It’s happening… It’s… I can’t let it happen like this!”

She needed the Elements of Harmony but… but they weren’t here. Sunset had brought everyone to this place, into this danger, lacking their greatest weapon. If she had the rest of the girls here she might have been able to defeat Zee, maybe even help her, because right now Gilda’s sister was riding the dark magic high of being half-fused to an artifact that might very well be the final remains of a demon out of Equestrian antiquity.

Wringing her hands and gripping her hair to the point of almost tearing it out, Sunset let out a low moan of despair.

In the skies above the meadow, a war was being fought as Gilda wheeled through the winds that whipped violently around, the higher she went the more rain there was too, and it pelted her face like hail as she strained her wings to keep up with her sister.

Zee moved like a firefly, held aloft in a crackling mantle of electromagnetic energy and magical force, and she was fast.

“GILDA!” Zee roared.

It was the only warning Gilda got as she spun about to face the oncoming threat, and the air around her crackled violently as Zee slammed into her fist first. Her gauntleted knuckles crashed and crackled against the unyielding metal haft of Gilda’s spear.

Arcs of lightning spat and sparked between the two sisters as they clashed, and Zee let out another wordless yell of rage as she gripped the haft of Huracán with her free hand.

“I’ll put you down, Gils,” Zee snarled, “and I’ll send that redhead slag’a yours right on after ye.”

Gilda roared back as she leveraged the full weight of her body and her greater strength, swinging Zee through the air like a rag doll before bolting after her, the tip of the Huracán spitting sparks as it clove the air. Zee cackled wildly as she met Gilda’s charge, catching Huracán’s deadly tip on the curve of her right vambrace and sending it skittering awkwardly down the length of the gauntlet. The force sent Zee back but Gilda’s momentum carried her along for the ride; enough that Zee put a surge of energy into her left arm and rocketed it forward to slug Gilda across the face.

A sound like a thunderclap split the air as Gilda spun out and away. Gilda tried to clear her ringing head as she righted herself, but she knew she was on the back heel. Flapping her wings, she wheeled and spun in the air as the living livewire that was her sister bolted to and fro behind her in a chaotic pattern that Gilda couldn’t read.

All she knew was that Zee was getting closer no matter how hard she tried to evade and that eventually she would be caught. A faint tickle of static on the back of her neck sent a jolt through Gilda’s instincts and she whirled about, bringing up Huracán to guard just as Zee impacted hard carrying a fistful of lightning.

A crash of light and thunder from above Sunset preceded a cry of pain as two figures came crashing down from the sky. Sunset’s eyes were barely able to pick out Zee wrestling with Gilda, her gauntleted hands gripping the haft of Huracán and trying to tear it from Gilda’s grip as they fought over it, finally impacting the ground.

A crash of lightning from above her preceded a cry of pain as two figures came crashing down from the sky. Sunset’s eyes were barely able to pick out Zee wrestling with Gilda, her gauntleted hands gripping the haft of Huracán and trying to tear it from Gilda’s grip as they fought over it, finally impacting the ground.

A loud crack sounded and Sunset felt her heart leap into her throat as she recognized Gilda’s voice in pain. Gripping her wheels, Sunset cursed her condition and tried to roll towards the pair as Zee was the first to stagger drunkenly to her feet. Sunset flinched as she saw Gilda try and push herself up, her wings bent at odd angles from the impact.

Zee spat a glob of bloody phlegm onto Gilda and kicked her arms out from under her, sweeping one arm down to grab Gilda’s right arm and lift it up as Gilda dropped to the ground.

“She must really love ye t’give ye glitter like this, Gils,” Zee croaked as her grip tightened on Gilda’s forearm. “Wha’say we make it a little more permanent, aye?”

All Sunset heard was a deafening boom of thunder, the crackle of electricity, and a gut-wrenching, utterly overwhelming scream of pain. At that moment, Sunset’s whole world went red with rage as magic roared out of her like a geyser. Her wheelchair sagged and fused into molten slag as she pushed herself up, buffeted on heated air that coiled around like cushions as thermal energy leaked from her eyes and dripping embers from her fingertips.

Her eyes caught the last bit… they caught Zee smirking coldly down at Gilda as she let go of something that was blackened, burnt, and… and… Sunset’s stomach twisted horrendously and all of a sudden her anger was reflected a thousandfold.

“GILDA!” Sunset shrieked.

Zee had a brief moment to glance up, witnessing no less than an avatar of light and fire in front of her, and at that moment something broke through the inebriated cocktail of dark magic that was currently pickling her mind… a single, primal, overwhelming urge.

Run.

She never got a chance.

A beam of pure, blinding white light punched Zee full in the chest with the force of a champion boxer’s haymaker, sending her flying backwards, and instinct told Zee that whatever magic was in the gauntlets was the only reason that the beam hadn’t seared through her. The bolt of solid light left Zee feeling like she been just sideswiped by a passing I-beam as she gasped agonizingly, and felt as much as heard the crackling in her chest that informed her in no uncertain terms that she had multiple broken ribs.

Before Zee could even begin pushing herself to her feet, a faint teal light appeared around her followed quickly by a sensation like a dozen super-heated bands of iron clenching around her and lifting her bodily from the divot that her impact had dug into the damp dirt, leaving her flailing helplessly in the air.

Zee’s eyes widened as something unearthly hovered in front of her.

The girl that had been in the wheelchair earlier, Sunset Shimmer, was burning. Her amber skin was lit from within making her flesh seem almost gem-like, and her hair whipped and snapped in the coiling sirocco caused by the heat she was emitting.

Her eyes were the worst though, and they drove a cold spike of fear into Zee’s heart: cold and blue… and so much like her foster father’s. Nothing so much as two pitiless shards of blue ice driving into her soul.

“I know Storm King sent you, but I don’t care...” Sunset hissed through gritted teeth as she drifted forward, “because if he comes looking for you the only thing he’ll know you by is whatever ruin I leave smote upon the ground.”

Zee choked and sputtered as she flailed in the invisible grip of Sunset’s magic, her eyes widening as the girl she’d all but written off as a cripple floated closer carried on a thermal of rage.

“And if he wants revenge? If he comes for me?” Sunset clenched her jaw and raised her fist as a writhing mass of flame, like a miniature sun, was conjured several feet above Zee’s head.

“He’ll know me by my trail of flames.”

Sunset swung her hand down like the smile of a headsman’s ax in the same moment she released Zee, dropping her roughly to the ground as the fireball detonated downwards in a spear of liquid light.

Tears streamed from Sunset’s eyes, hissing into steam before they reached halfway down her cheeks as she hemorrhaged the flames of her rage into her spell. A part of her asked what Gilda would think… there wasn’t anything on this null-magic world that could survive this kind of heat, and Sunset damn well knew that. Gilda might never forgive her but…

‘I will do whatever it takes to protect you,’ Sunset swore mentally. ‘No… no matter what.’

Something was wrong. The thought came to Sunset as her spell tapered off. She could feel something under the cascade of molten energy: something solid, if a little brittle. Snapping her hand and banishing the rest of the spell, the light faded to reveal a hemispherical dome of pure opaque shadow, and a heavily panting Twilight Sparkle underneath it with her hands outstretched, her legs trembling and sweat streaming down her face standing protectively over Zee’s prone form.

The barrier collapsed a moment later and Twilight with it as she fell on top of Zee and wrapped her arms around the burnt and wounded girl.

“C’mon babe, the others are safe, we gotta go!” Twilight sobbed as she pulled Zee’s unmoving form to her breast.

Sunset snarled, lambent fury lighting in her chest as she felt the beginnings of a teleportation and instantly Sunset understood how Twilight had gotten to Zee in time to save her. The skin of the world began thinning around the two girls as Sunset let out a scream of rage.

“NO!” Sunset shrieked, tears falling as she snapped a hand up to conjure a spear of molten light. “You don’t get to get away! You don’t get to just hurt her and get away from me!”

Reality boiled around Twilight and Zee as Sunset loosed the bolt, but in the moments before it reached them there was a sickening crack and they vanished, leaving the bolt to erupt through the empty space they had occupied a split-second ago and strike the ground behind it with a deafening explosion.

Sunset hung in the air for a moment, breathing hard as her jaw went slack and she stared at the emptiness in front of her. They were gone… they had gotten away… she’d… she’d let them get away.

Seconds later, Sunset felt the wind go out from her as the magic in the air bled away. She had nothing left… everything she had been wielding she had been drawing from the magically saturated air around them that had been left over from the thaumic flare, but now, with the sources of that flare having fled, the energy in the area was dispersing naturally, stretching itself thin over the whole region and sinking into the magicless soil like water being dumped into desert sand.

A moment later, it was gone… all the magic and all the power Sunset had been gripping had faded leaving her empty with a gnawing hunger in her soul. A broken sob escaped her as the last vestiges of her spells collapsed, taking her down to the ground with it.

“G-Gilda…” Sunset sobbed as she turned back to the crater from where she and Zee had landed earlier.

Gripping the damp grass and dirt, Sunset began crawling towards it, dragging herself forward as she heaved frigid air into her abused lungs. The journey felt impossibly long, though she wasn’t more than a few dozen feet away; Sunset had never cursed her legs more than she did at that moment.

Hand over hand… wincing as she felt her raw hands crying out in pain from the cold and wet ground.

“Gilda… please~” Sunset cried as she reached the edge of the crater. “Please… answer me!”

Taking a deep breath, Sunset pulled herself over the edge and tumbled roughly into the open wound in the earth.

At the bottom of the crater, she was there… and Sunset let out a wordless cry as she saw the state Gilda had been left in. Her right arm looked like it had been struck repeatedly by lightning and her whole body was covered in scars radiating out from her right shoulder across her face, and presumably down her torso, that resembled bolts of lightning themselves.

“B-baby?” Sunset sobbed as she crawled over Gilda and pressed one hand to Gilda’s cheek, with the other gently shaking Gilda’s shoulder. “Baby? Please… please wake up…”

There was no response, and Sunset tightened her grip on Gilda’s jacket as she buried her face in Gilda’s chest.

“Please, baby, I can’t do this without you…” Sunset begged. “You can’t leave me… you can’t… I’m not strong enough.” Sunset’s breath caught in her throat as hot tears fell from her eyes and soaked into the leather jacket. “Please… come back to me, Gilda… please…”

Sunset’s eyes snapped open as she felt it. A faint susurration, a heartbeat… so weak that it was barely there, how weak it was didn’t matter though, all that mattered was that it was there.

It wouldn’t be for long, though. Sunset knew Gilda was fading fast and there was no time to get her to the hospital.

“Magic…” Sunset muttered. “Gilda has a wellspring, even if it’s weak it could… but there isn’t any magic left!”

But there had been.

Sunset sobbed as she collapsed onto Gilda. If she had just gone to Gilda first… if she hadn’t let her temper control her again then she would have had more than enough magic to perform a transfer, enough to refill Gilda’s wellspring a dozen times over, and enough time to get her to the hospital just like Gilda had done for her months ago.

‘But no… what did I do instead?’ Sunset cursed bitterly, ‘I did the same thing I always do when things go wrong: I got mad and I threw a fucking tantrum.’

And this time not only had she failed to stop the person who had hurt, maybe worse than hurt, the most important person in her entire life… Sunset had probably signed off on Gilda’s death warrant herself.

Sunset’s breath came in deep, gulping sobs as she let out an agonizing scream of rage and despair as she buried her face in Gilda’s chest again, tangling her fingers into her hair and gripping as she tried to let out all the darkness that was coiling inside her like a python strangling her heart.

Her fingers came to rest on something cold and metal in her hair, and Sunset’s eyes flew wide.

“Magic…” Sunset whispered, barely daring to hope. “Maybe… maybe it’s enough.”

Tightening her grip on the twin runes that were pinned into her hair, Sunset prayed to whatever deity governed this horrible world, if there was one, that it would be enough.

“I don’t care if it means I have nightmares every single time I close my eyes,” Sunset cried as she began pulling on the threads of magic that were circulating through the runes and keeping them active. “So long as you’re there when I open them.”

The runes turned to dust as Sunset ripped the magic from them, gripping the glowing star of arcane energy in her fist, she pressed her hands to Gilda’s heart and let it flow into her wellspring directly. She had no idea if it would work or if there would be enough there to matter, but it was all she could do.

All Sunset could do as all of the stolen hours of sleep she’d kept at bay with her now-disintegrated Slumbernot rune slammed into her at once was pray that, when she opened her eyes, Gilda would be there too.

Sunset collapsed as her limbs turned to lead and her body went numb with exhaustion, and she curled around Gilda’s form as the last of her magic seeped away. Sleep dragged Sunset down to unconsciousness with the weight of iron chains, and her last thought was a prayer that when she woke up, it would be to the sight of gold eyes, and the smell of smoke and leather.