“You’ve been dreaming a lot lately,” my dream companion said quietly.

“I guess I have,” I replied, and my voice carried all the exhaustion I was feeling.

The air around us was so still, and it was thick with unspent magical power. In the distance I saw the dark and towering form of Storm King, his motionless body twisting with magical force to better accommodate the alien mind occupying him. Raindrops were frozen all around me, Gilda was captured in an expression of pain as she staggered towards me, and I felt a pang at the torment painted over her features.

“You can’t always be dreaming, though,” she pointed out.

“Don’t you think I know that?” I spat bitterly as I looked over the rest of them.

Octavia lay supine on the ground, her cello had cracked with the strain of absorbing the magical energy it had been channeling which Rainbow had shattered through. Penny and Vinyl were slumped onto the ground, barely held up and leaning on one another as their magic bled out from them and into Storm King.

“You’re so close to me now,” she said, and I sighed.

“Couldn’t you have just told me who you were?” I asked, weary and feeling a familiar surge of anger. “All of this could have been avoided!”

I heard her chuckle in an equally bitter tone from behind me.

“I’m not a person, remember?” she said, and I hear the apology in her tone. “I’m you… a part of you, anyway… the part that intrinsically understood your Element, but it just wasn’t enough to go all the way.”

I turned to the migraine bright light behind me and winced. It wasn’t as bad as before and slowly, achingly slowly, the light began to fade.

“But you see it now don’t you?” she said, her voice warm and kind. “Thanks to that boy there.”

“Yeah,” I replied, gritting my teeth in rage. “Thanks to his sacrifice I finally fucking get it… and really, of all people, you’d think I’d have figured it out before now.” I looked up and glared at her… no, at me and gestured to the frozen chaos around us. “You’d think I’d have figured out your name before all of this!”

I smiled down at myself. No, that’s not quite right. She was so much more than I was… she was more me than I was. Wings of pure, brilliant white light stretched from her back, and her scarlet and gold hair flowed like a liquid sunrise. A golden horn was like the tip of a charger’s lance and rose from the middle of her head, gleaming with light. She was clad in a flowing white gown, my split sun mark adorned her shoulders, arms and feet like armor, and there was a streak of red across her face, splashed over her eyes like war paint.

“Don’t blame yourself,” she said softly. “You were hurting, you were in pain, and those in pain often don’t realise what it is they’re looking for until after they find it.”

“Fat lot of good it did Score,” I replied angrily.

“We can help him,” she said, and I felt my heart leap into my throat as I turned and stared.

“But… I can’t-”

I can’t use magic… was what I almost said. And that was true… not right now, but…

“It’s time, Sunset Shimmer,” she said in a gentle voice, stretching her hand out towards me. “You need to do more than just seek forgiveness and make amends, but the question is are you strong enough to do that?”

Was I?

“Say my name,” she pressed. “It can only come from you… and make no mistake, the catalyst must be the shoulders that bear the brunt of the burden from the Elements… can you do that?”

Could I?

“Can you say my name?”

I had to be.

I had to be strong enough. For myself and for Gilda, and for Penny, and Vinyl, and Adagio, and Octavia, and Helden, and Score, and for every single person out there that Storm was going to hurt.

“Okay, it’s been a little while but I think I remember how this goes,” I said, a smile tracing over my lips as I met my double’s eyes. “Let’s say those words that started everything… one last time.”

Then I took a deep breath and I remembered. I remembered a more innocent time, a time when I had to complete my lessons and write to my mother about them, something she did with all of her students, as I understood it, and eventually did with Twilight as well. My lessons, and therefore my letters, were generally arcane in nature, but I’m given to understand that Twilight had to write letters about Friendship.

Maybe this time it was my turn, and I raised my gaze to the sky, wondering if somewhere out there my mother could see me.

“Dear Princess Celestia,” I began, “today I learned that sometimes it’s not enough just to hear someone say that they forgive you for doing something that hurt them,” tears flowed from my eyes and down my face as I remembered every wicked thing I’d ever done to the students of CHS, “and if you want to be able to grow and rise above the things you did, that sometimes you have to take a much harder road.” Light began to suffuse me and veins of white light rippled through my body. “When someone forgives you it can feel good for a moment but, in the end, it all just feels worse because you feel like you didn’t deserve it, and the reason is because… because I hadn’t forgiven myself.”

A pulse of power echoed out from me and I rose up into the air, I felt the energy of the Elements of Harmony all around me, just like I had that day in front of the school that was, ironically, not far from where I was at that moment. Only this time the power came from inside me, and from my friends… my family.

“Humans aren’t like ponies,” I continued as the power raced along my body. “We’re flawed, and angry, and we lash out because we don’t know any better, but sometimes, if we’re lucky, someone comes along and shows us a better way.” I saw my friends all around me, not just my new friends, but my old ones as well. “And that’s when we’re given a choice… we can keep listening to our lesser selves, indulging our demons, or we can take a higher road, a harder road… and even if it hurts, it’s still worthwhile, because it’s a road that others will walk alongside you, and that’s what I’m going to do!”

The air split with a deafening boom as my Element ignited in my heart, and I smiled as I felt myself connect to the others that were scattered around me.

“Even if it takes me my whole life, I’ll spend it seeking Redemption.”

My dream companion smiled as she faded away, her fragmentary essence rejoining the greater whole. Then I took a deep breath and finished.

“Your Faithful Student, Sunset Shimmer.”

There was a blinding detonation of light as the rain resumed in a hammering fall and the lightning crashed and the thunder boomed around me, but Sunset barely felt it as she stared down at Score.

She descended on wings of silver and sunlight, reaching out fingers clad in pale gossamer white to touch the burn scar on his chest. Warm sunlight flowed from her hand into his skin and where it touched the scorched flesh became new and clean,

“S-Sunshine?” Gilda’s voice was awestruck, and Sunset turned and smiled at her lover, her girlfriend… and one day, her wife. “Is… that you?”

Sunset nodded with a faint smile.

“Yeah, babe, it’s me…” she chuckled lightly and spun a pirouette in the air, “so uh… how do I look?”

Gilda worked her jaw soundlessly for several moments. Words didn’t come easily to the young former-gangster in the best of circumstances but…

“Like ya ain’t even real,” Gilda said quietly, her face still struck with disbelief. “Y’like a daydream in the middle of a nightmare…”

“Heh, daydream, huh?” Sunset said with a smile. “Maybe you’ve got a little bit of a poet in you after all.” Taking a deep breath, Sunset turned to look over her shoulder at the towering figure of twisting shadow behind her. “Get everyone else up, babe… I’ll buy some time, but we’ve got to end this.”

“Savvy,” Gilda said, nodding as she stiffened and moved towards the fallen Elements.

Sunset glanced over to the small group of students who were still cowering away from the rest.

“AJ! Rarity!” Sunset called, and the two former elements perked up. “Get everyone to safety, I’ll cover you!”

Both girls gave her a sharp nod and began corralling the students, including with a dazed and confused Score who was being tearfully hugged by his friends, away from the devastation of the front lawn.

Waving her hand as she turned, Sunset sent a ripple through the walls of reality, then passed through them, emerging on the other side of Storm’s shifting form between the prone forms of Zee and Twilight. The former was shaking and crawling towards Twilight, while Twilight was just lying on her side, a distant, broken look on her face.

“I’m so sorry I took so long,” Sunset whispered softly as she looked down the pair of them.

Zee let out a broken sob and turned to look up at the angel in their midst.

“Help’er!” Zee croaked, “please… I’ll do anythin’ ye want! Please… jus’... help’er!”

“That’s all I ever wanted to do,” Sunset replied in a gentle voice, then lowered down, still floating, and press one finger to Twilight’s forehead and with her other hand pressed a finger to Zee’s. “Sleep… and let this nightmare turn into a daydream… and when you wake may you wake free of your hatred…”

With an effort of will Sunset pressed her power through the pair of girls, and she felt the roil of dark magic there. Rather than try to wipe it out in one fell swoop and risk missing some of it, she instead planted a seed of pure magic and breathed life into it, willing into existence a growth of pure light that began to spread through them.

It would take time, but the roots of that seed would find every shard of darkness infecting them. It would be painful, and it wouldn’t be free, but… there was hope.

“May Harmony keep you both,” Sunset said quietly, then she turned and sent a similar seed into the minds of Rainbow and Lightning, letting it plant itself there and begin repairing the egregious damage that Twilight had inflicted on them. “You tried, Rainbow… I saw it… I saw that you tried.”

Scowling, Sunset rose on wings of light and glared at the creature that had once been Storm King. The shadows had fallen away from him like a cloak, revealing a body mostly covered in wiry black-blue fur across the chest that darkened to black where it reached his cloven hooves. Brutal, chipped rams-horns curled out from his head and his hair had turned bone white and now fell in a wild mane down his back as he stood better than eight feet tall. Clawed hands flexed and grasped at nothing, as if testing their limits, and Storm’s eyes burned with a hateful red light.

Most telling though was what lay on his chest. A small brass bell hung there, looking almost comically small where it rested on the monster’s enormous frame.

“I know your name,” Sunset said quietly, and the creature looked up at her with disdainful contempt.

“Oh do you?” It said, and its voice was a strange basso cacophony of intertwined tones, as if it were two voices overlapping. “Do pray tell… what do you remember, foal? Have I not yet passed into myth and the forgetfulness of mortal memory?”

“For most, sure,” Sunset allowed, nodding a little. “But I was taught by the immortal Princess of Equestria.”

“Ha!” he barked out a guffaw of laughter. “Immortal Princess? Those bit-store ageless hybrids yet persist? No… I am the only true immortal, foal.” He chuckled as he turned to face Sunset and opened his arms as if in welcome. “But please… do tell, I would hear my name from Equestrian lips after so many millennia of banishment by your witch-goddess.”

Sunset took a breath and, even with all of the power of her Element coursing through her, she felt a shiver of true fear sluice down her spine.

“You are Grogar,” Sunset whispered, “Grogar the Necromancer, the Black King of Tambelon.”

Grogar smiled, an ugly, twisted smirk that revealed too-sharp teeth as he opened his palms out wide and brayed out a great laugh.

“So named, and so I am,” Grogar agreed, a broad smile on his lips.

“Now what?” Sunset snarled, gesturing around her. “What will you do now that you’ve battered a bunch of neophyte practitioners into insensibility and, what, killed off your last real ally?”

“I presume you speak of Arabus?” Grogar asked, a dark laugh in his throat, then he waved his hand dismissively. “That mad thing has been dead since he was torn apart in the maelstrom of light but even had he not been, it was a necessary sacrifice for my return to power.”

“I can’t imagine what it must be like to be so cruel,” Sunset said bitterly.

“And that is why you are destined to remain a powerless cripple,” Grogar chuckled, a deep, ugly noise. “Although I must thank you, without your arrival on this world it may have taken me centuries to acquire enough magic to even begin executing my plan to return.”

“W-what?” Sunset choked out, floating back, genuinely wrong-footed. “I didn’t do anything!”

“You came here,” Grogar said matter-of-factly, gesturing around himself. “To the place of my imprisonment, and when you passed through the portal, by opening the iris of the passageway, if only briefly, you allowed a small amount of pure, true magic to flow into this world.”

“That’s… that couldn’t have been more than a few droplets of magic!” Sunset cried. “You’re lying!”

“I only lie when it suits me,” Grogar spat, “and this does not suit me, not when it agonises you so,” he brayed out a wicked laugh. “I am a sorcerer capable of twisting dimensions, foal, do you really think I’m incapable of capturing every iota of power possible? It took time but I was able to get just enough to speak to my host here, and a more brutal, self-serving creature I could not have asked for.” He gestured around with another braying cackling. “I might’ve had to engineer a dozen such massacres as I did in that loathsome, smog-filled port without you!”

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. “Engineer… what?”

“NO!” A voice roared from behind Grogar and a bolt of lightning caught him full in the back with a deafening peal of thunder.

Grogar didn’t even move.

Turning his head slightly, he stared unblinkingly back at Gilda who was breathing hard and fast, and her eyes were incandescent with rage. Her body was sparking and her hand raised, open, and crackling with lightning as Huracán snapped back to life. Somehow, through the funnel of her rage, Gilda had dredged enough magic out of the air to fuel herself again.

“YOU?!” Gilda snarled, stalking forward. “It was YOU?!” Another bolt splashed harmlessly over the towering, demonic figure. “The fuckin’ gang war?!” Another bolt struck, but it did as little as the others. “All those goddamn people?! WHY?!”

Finally, Grogar smiled.

“Why?” he asked in a wry voice before turning back to Sunset. “Would you like to explain to this… primitive creature the why of it? I’m feeling magnanimous and will permit her go into oblivion with at least the satisfaction of her question having been answered.”

Sunset swallowed hard, her own limbs shaking with barely contained anger. It didn’t take a genius of the arcane to figure out why he had convinced Storm King to trigger a seemingly meaningless gang war.

After all, it was practically in his name.

“Grogar the Necromancer,” Sunset hissed. “You caused the gang war just to feed your own power…” her fists began to shake and light like a dawning sun started to gather in them. “There was never anything you were looking for… all that chaos… all that suffering… there wasn’t any other reason… the war was an excuse, it was all just a harvest!”

“I heard it put well by another, once,” Grogar said with a ugly grin. “To quote: I will use any ends, to achieve my means.”

Without any warning beyond a bellow of incoherent rage, Gilda charged Grogar down, spear leveled and eyes blazing, and Sunset felt a stab of terror in her heart as the enormous, demonic sorcerer turned to face the charging woman.

“Gilda don’t!” Sunset cried.

There was no reaching her, though, and tears streamed from Gilda’s eyes as she barreled forward. Gilda’s body blurred with sharp, blue hyperkine light as she reached Grogar, weaving and blurring around his grasping claw and spinning the spear into a devastating overhand blow to drive the tip of Huracán down in his chest.

Huracán stopped inches from Grogar, right above his heart. He had the blade grasped in his other claw as he grinned at Gilda who was now being held up by him.

“How-”

A beam of pure, effervescing light lanced out and hammered into the back of his head, jerking him a step step towards.

Blinking in irritation and surprise, Grogar whipped around as Sunset charged him from behind, her hands outstretched and blazing with power, and backhanded her roughly out of the air with the force of a freight train. Sunset went spiraling away in a flash of light to impact the ground, leaving a crater hewn into the torn ground.

“SUNSET!” Gilda screamed, her voice raw with panic.

She flapped her wings and tried to wrench the spear from Grogar’s grasp, but it was like trying to pull a piece of steel rebar from concrete by main force. Raising his free hand he’d use to throw down Sunset, Grogar curled it slowly into a fist, his lips twisting up into a smirk, then thundered his fist down.

Grey planes of light, flickering and unsteady, caught the descending hammer of his attack in a deep, bass hum of cello strings. Octavia was getting unsteadily to her feet, bracing herself on her cracked cello as she drew the bow along the strings shakily, her body limned with magical light.

Snarling, Grogar threw Gilda, sending her sailing haphazardly away from him as he gripped the planes of light and shredded them apart with brute strength, drawing out a cry of pain from Octavia as her spell was forcefully shattered. He began to raise his hand, drawing out the sickly dark magic in his soul to conjure a killing beam of necromantic force, but a flare of light from Grogar’s side drew his attention.

Abandoning his spell, Grogar sidestepped as a ravening beam of razor thin light scored a furrow into the ground beside him. Two more identical beams flared out and he ducked one, then leaned to the side to avoid the other.

“You’re aim is poor, foal,” Grogar jeered. “Or perhaps my blow to your head simply rattled your wits that badly.”

“My aim was perfect, shit-head,” Sunset snarled.

Then she snapped her arms wide, let out a song-like cry, and the storm-riven sky directly above Grogar split open. The ancient necromancer’s eyes flew wide and he had a split second to glance down and see the triune of interlocking lines his enemy had carved into the ground; a quick, dirty, and very effective thaumic binding circle that left him nailed to the ground flared to life as Sunset infused it with her will and power before calling down the might of her magic.

Grogar roared, bellowing out a wave of power to shatter the seal that was keeping him standing in place, but it was too late. A pillar of searing solar light crashed down from above him just as the seal broke. His fur cooked and scarred, his horns blackened, and he let out a shrieking bray of pain.

Then came the darkness. It boiled out of him like a tidal surge of tar and sickness and, even through the pain of the ravening light, Grogar wove it around himself like a chilling cloak before casting it upward into the pillar. The darkness devoured the light, tunneling upwards like the inevitable encroach of midnight on dusk, until there was nothing left of it.

It had bought Sunset time, though. She landed amongst her friends with Gilda on her heels. Vinyl and Penny were only barely beginning to stand and Adagio was getting to her feet, looking sick as she did so, and her lambent goldenrod aura was beginning to flicker around her again, but weakly. Octavia was breathing hard and only seemed to be standing by virtue of her sturdy instrument as Gilda gave her a silent nod of thanks for the interception she’d managed.

“We’re fucked, Sunshine,” Gilda rasped as she stared at Gorgar’s display of horrific magical strength. “We ain’t got nothin’ like that.”

“We have the Elements,” Sunset replied evenly.

“Not to belabor the obvious, my dear,” Adagio replied testily. “But the Elements are running on fumes right now, thanks to his ritual.”

“Oh believe me, I know,” Sunset countered before glancing back at her team. “And I’ve got a plan… do you trust me?”

The five other girls shared a look, then Gilda chuckled and shook her head in disbelief.

“C’mon, Sunflower,” she said with that wry, cocked grin of hers, then raised her hand in a fist, showing Sunset the back of her hand where the etched symbol of wings enclosing a divided sun glowed like forge-flames. “Do ya even gotta ask?”

Sunset felt her heart swell at the looks of absolute loyalty on her friends’ faces, the trust in their eyes, and tears started to fall.

“Okay,” Sunset said quietly as Grogar banished the remainder of her spell and began reaquiring his bearings. “Then trust me, watch each others backs, stay alive, and after this buy me like… five minutes.”

“You got’em, boss,” Penny snarked, her voice tired but ready.

“Do try not to die, darling,” Octavia quipped as she took a bracing breath and steadied her arm, but Sunset could see the concern in her eyes.

“Take care of each other,” Sunset said as she began turning back to face the scorched-looking Grogar. “And… Gilda…”

“I know, babe,” Gilda said, her cocky grin turning soft and warm. “I love you too… now’n always.”

Sunset nodded, wiped the tears from her cheeks, then steeled herself. She hardened her gaze to a furious glare that was leveled at Grogar and bellowed out a wordless warcry. Her body lit with blazing tattoos of blinding white light, Sunset charged him down with twin solar flares blooming in her fists, her total aggression and recklessness catching the necromancer off-guard for a moment so he only had time for the crudest kind of counterattack.

A beam of dark energy carved through her path, but she veered hard right, releasing the orbs of light and sending them spinning in wild arcs at Grogar.

He roared, smashing one orb out of the air with a fist and taking the other on the meat of his shoulder as he turned his massive frame ponderously to follow Sunset’s rapid flight. His attacks came with brutal speed though, slamming through the air with wrecking-ball strength that carried bruising force in their wake.

Sunset dove and wove gracefully between the attacks, lancing stinging sparks and blasts of power into Grogar, leaving scorched patches of flesh wherever she passed.

“Stay still!” Grogar roared, snapping out one hand to cast a net of brackish coiling power at Sunset that she neatly avoided. “Are you a foal or a fly?!”

“Give up!” Sunset snarled back. “It doesn’t have to be this way Grogar! Even you can come back from the darkness!”

“HAH!”

Grogar brayed a laugh and whipped around at the sound of Sunset’s voice, turning on his cloven hoof in a curiously graceful spiral. Grogar got a split-second glimpse of Sunset’s shocked face before his power wrapped fist slammed into her body, shattering through her defensive enhancements and barrier spells with a sound like breaking glass.

This time he didn’t hold back, Grogar had ceased playing with these lesser creatures, and he leaned the full weight of his strength into the blow.

Sunset shot backward like she’d been fired from a cannon towards the school she’d been caught in front of. Her impact was carried by the sound of exploding masonry, splintering wood, and crumbling drywall as her limp frame punched through the school’s structure.

“SUNSET!” The voices of her friends split through the night as they saw their leader sent away in what looked like a lethal blow.

“Don’t try to redeem me, foal,” Grogar chuckled dryly as he shook his hand out, briefly examining his scorched knuckles where he’d blown through her shielding spells, before they healed over. “I did battle with the power of light back when it was whole.”

A strange sound erupted from somewhere to Grogar’s side like bass strings bellowing from the world’s largest speaker, and a stroke of lightning came at him. In an instant a barrier of black energy was erected between him and the incoming attack but it only took a moment for Grogar to realise his reflexive defense would not be enough.

The ensuing thunderclap shattered every window in Canterlot High, tore through the shield Grogar had raised, and caught him full in the chest, backing him up several meters and leaving blackened furrows in the ground beneath him. Grogar roared and staggered back as pure energy ravaged him in a stream of undiluted power. It passed a moment later, leaving him scorched and smoking, staggering as he shook the lights from his eyes.

In front of him was Gilda, her spear outstretched and crackling, with lines of white energy coiling out from her back and into the right hand of the girl with blue hair and furious red eyes whose left hand had yet more wires that were trailing into the instrument of the girl wielding a bass guitar.

Gilda let out a gasp, and her limbs immediately began quaking with the strain of channeling so much power all at once.

“D-Double Amp is probably a last resort, girls,” Gilda gasped out, “that really hurt.”

“Take a moment,” Adagio said, looking slightly more healthy as she took another breath. “I’ll tag in… Miss Melody? Do back me up, won't you?”

“Always, Miss Dazzle,” Octavia was still shaking slightly, but she matched Adagio’s smirk and stood a little straighter.

A thrum of Penny’s bass sent a thrill of power and adrenaline through Adagio’s frame and the Siren grinned viciously as she rocketed towards Grogar who was still shaking stars from his eyes as electricity sparked between the scorched tips of his horns.

Adagio spiraled around him belting out a high, operatic cry. Goldenrod light erupted out from her and cascaded around Grogar who blinked in confusion as tiny sparks and fireflies of warm light began to orbit him.

“What trickery is-”

His next words were lost in a roar of anguish as the little motes all simultaneously raced into his body and he suffered a perfect repeat of what Gilda had done to him at point-blank range, his body arching as electricity detonated through his body. Another roar of defiance ripped from his throat as he released a massive, disrupting wave of dark magic, purging his body of Adagio’s spell through the pain of the effect, but only barely.

“That…” Gorgar gasped as he found his footing again, “that was a spell-echo…” he fixed his eyes on the gracefully floating form of Adagio who was smiling beatifically at him. “How can you wield such complex magic in this crude place?”

“You thought that was complex?” Adagio asked playfully. “Is that why you’ve been limiting yourself to crude vomitations of power and magically enhanced brute force?”

“The laws governing the arts in this world are different,” Grogar snarled, “what manner of pony are you that you can-”

“BE SILENT, GOAT!” Adagio snarled imperiously, her aura flaring violently. “You are not speaking to some third-circle spellslinger, you stand before Adagio Scyllia Dazzle, Strifebringer, and the last of the true Siren Sorceresses of Coltlantis!” Another cry of operatic magic wove out from her and slithered past Grogar’s defenses.

His lungs began filling with salt water and he gagged, staggering backwards and falling to his knees as he vomiting out seawater in torrents that refused to end while Adagio floated closer.

“I have been in this world for over a thousand years, and unlike you I didn’t sleep through most of it” Adagio said contemptuously. “I’ve had all the time in this world that I needed to learn how magic functions… do not presume to lecture me on the mysteries of magic you two-bit, death-worshiping charlatan!”

Grogar bellowed as he brute-forced through the spell gripping him, spitting out the last of the seawater and charging towards Adagio with his head down and power crackling off of him. Adagio’s eyes widened and she spun out of Grogar’s path as he ripped up the ground around him.

As he passed her, Grogar swung an arm out, nearly clipping Adagio across the chest, but his blow was intercepted by layered planes of gray light that he shattered through. It was enough, though, and Adagio managed to narrowly avoid the strike.

Grogar spat a curse, snapped out a palm towards the gathering of girls, and loosed a flurry of curving bolts made from dark, smoking energy. Gilda charged forward, spinning Huracán, expertly catching three of the bolts on its crackling tip and dispersing them even as Octavia intercepted more of them with planes of light. The rest were blown from the air by a pulse of bass guitar strings funneled from Vinyl’s hands as the two girls amplified one another.

“This is hopeless,” Grogar snarled at Adagio. “You’ll all run dry momentarily… while I still have all the power of an elder demon to draw from, not counting my own considerable strength.” His gleaming red eyes narrowed at the ancient Siren. “Why do you stand by them, Strifebringer? I know your name… I know the ruin you made of Old Equestria… how can you stand as an Heir of Light?”

Adagio’s harsh look softened for a moment, then she smiled.

“Because Sunset wasn’t lying when she said anyone can be called back from darkness,” she replied with a shrug. “And because I want more for my sisters than the ignominious decay of failure and defeat that you are destined for.”

“I’m curious how you reckon that, Strifebringer,” Grogar asked with a chuckle before waving a hand at the other girls. “Look at them… they’re exhausted… barely standing and nearly dry of magic with only the wells of their Elements keeping them alive, and a master sorceress you may be,” he allowed, now gesturing at Adagio, “but you will reach your limit soon, while I could endure all day.”

“You’ve left one variable out of your equation, Necromancer,” Adagio said with a small smirk.

She could feel an upwelling of power beneath the earth, some great working of the magical arts was building up steam and her senses were beginning to prickle.

“Oh?” Grogar smiled back as he stood and aimed a hand at her that was filled with crackling black energy. “Do tell.”

“Didn’t you wonder why Sunset never came out of the school?” Adagio asked brightly.

Grogar stared at her for several moments, then his eyes widened and he spun around to face the school with a snarled curse. He had barely finished turning when a wave of power rolled out from beneath the school and over the field surrounding Canterlot High.

Sunset Shimmer threw the collapsed rubble and drywall off of her, gasping for breath before groaning in pain as her entire body reported back to her that it was one entire bruise. Her jaw clicked and she was at least relatively certain she’d either cracked or broken a few ribs as she floated back into the air. Coughing up a spatter of blood, Sunset tensed as she waited to see if Grogar called her bluff.

If he pursued her into the school then her gambit was screwed.

He didn’t, and Sunset let out a slow breath as she sent of prayer of thanks to her friends whom she could hear causing trouble outside in the form of muffled explosions and one building-rattling crack of thunder.

“Nice one, Gil,” Sunset murmured, then looked around and began thinking. “Okay, Sunset… think, think, think… he invoked a ritual that turned the school into a magical lightning rod, funneling magic down to him… down! Magic flows downward!”

She stared down at the floor beneath her and swore.

“The basement!” Sunset spat, “of course it was the basement! I’m so stupid!”

Stretching her arms out to either side of her, Sunset spat narrow beams of superheated light down and spun in place. A clean circle of concrete and flooring fell down into the basement below and Sunset followed it a moment later, shedding soft sunlight from her hands as she flitted around the lower level, looking for any signs of Storm’s working.

It took better than two minutes to find the secluded corner, and that was only because Sunset knew what to look for. A cursory glance might not have spotted the scorched symbols on the filthy concrete floor, but her eyes picked out the unpleasant, curling runes that had been carved into the stone underneath the patina of scorched dust.

“THERE!” Sunset stared down at the section of concrete that made up the main magical circle.

Her eyes roved over it and Sunset forced herself to take her time. She had to trust her friends to take care of themselves and keep Grogar’s titanic ego occupied long enough to ensure he wouldn’t give too much thought on why she hadn’t gotten back up yet.

“Got it,” Sunset muttered, her face splitting into a satisfied grin.

Snapping her palms out she cleansed the filth from the floor that was covering the symbol, then went to work adjusting, changing, and repairing the circle until it was in the configuration she wanted.

“I can’t just funnel everything like Storm did… I can’t risk siphoning any of Arabus’ tainted power into the Elements…” Sunset muttered to herself, her gaze dancing over the multiple runes on the walls and adjusting those as well with sparks and beams of light that spat from her finger like a magical arc-welder. “Gotta make it selective… funnel in the pure magic, sieve out the dark magic… leaving him with his own strength won’t matter if I can just re-engage the Elements themselves!”

“Change the function,” Sunset recited as she darted around the basement, making sure she accounted for every single carved rune, “tighten the variable thaumic range, add an exception a~nd…. YAHTZEE!”

Flitting back to the central circle Sunset grinned viciously and began bleeding power into the circle, closing it and beginning the ritual.

“Time to start the engine,” Sunset said, laughing a little. “Let’s see how you like getting a silly straw stuck into your wellspring, goat-boy.”

She felt the power begin to build and seconds later energy began flooding into her, and Sunset shot forward to make her way out of the basement.

It was time to end this.

Standing at the wrecked entrance of the school, Sunset Shimmer floated with her arms outstretched and a look of fury on her face.

A beam of ravening black power erupted from Grogar’s hand but before it made it halfway to Sunset the coiling energy began distorting, twisting, and then dispersing into the air as an invisible vortex of energy began pulling it apart. The constituent energy bled away from beam and seemed to drain back down into the school, and Sunset glowed a little brighter.

“Did you forget that I’m a genius, asshole?” Sunset roared as she pulled in a waterfall of ambient energy, and suddenly the emblazoned symbol of her Element erupted into a furious light. “Your ritual wasn’t so complicated, and you left it all right there on the basement floor for me!”

“NO!” Grogar thundered, as what looked like smoke began issuing from his body. “NO! You worthless, insignificant little insect! You cannot-!”

Light of all colors poured out around Grogar, and he turned with wide eyes to see the other girls all erupting into light in turn, each one’s Element flaring into life as their magic began funneling back into them from their connection to Sunset Shimmer as she drank back in the stolen power that was now leaking from Grogar.

“Grogar,” Sunset said calmly as she began floating into the air, and moments later the other girls began to finding their places alongside her in a slow kind of orbit. “I made you an offer of redemption and you spat it back at me, now it’s time to give the other one in there with you a chance… girls, let’s do this.”

Sunset stretched out a hand to Grogar who, for the first time since he had awoken, looked truly afraid. He took two steps back, but made it no further as the eyes of each of the six girls turned white with incandescent power, each one contributing a blaze of color that poured into Sunset and then out of her in a torrent of prismatic light.

“NO!” Grogar shrieked again, raising his arms and conjuring a thick, ablative shield of black light in a futile gesture. “I WAS SO CLOSE! I WAS SO-”

The light shattered his defense like tissue paper and slammed into him, bleeding through his corrupted body. All at once it was as though there were two figures standing in the midst of the torment of light, each overlayed on top of one another, the wolf-lean figure of Storm King and the twisting, ugly, emaciated abomination that was Grogar’s true body.

“Storm!” Sunset cried out to the human ganglord. “You have to let go of him! Just let go of him!”

“N-No!” Storm snarled, then he gasped as his face twisted in an insane rictus of hate. “I won’t… let ye… take… my p-power… from…”

The light of the Elements was clearly trying to separate the two of them, the human and the unnatural sorcerer, but impossibly it was both Grogar and Storm who weren’t letting go of their venomous link.

“It ain’t yours pops!” Gilda snapped. “Y’gotta let it fuckin’ go, savvy? You ain’t gettin’ outta this one! Please! Just let it go!”

“SHUT UP!” Storm screamed, his ghostly hands still wildly grasping for the strands of power that were bleeding out of him. “I’M STORM KING! STORM KING! I’M THE BLOODY-!”

All at once the voices of Storm and Grogar merged again in a high, keening howl as the light consumed their forms entirely. Sunset flinched away along with the rest of the girls, holding out arms to shield their eyes as the Elements of Harmony judged the two soul-bound sorcerers in front of them.

When the light faded and the girls lowered their arms Grogar was gone, and standing in his place was a statue of marble shot through with thick veins of black. The statue was tall and twisted, and Sunset grimaced at it as she and the girls descended back to the staircase.

It was Storm King, his arms up, his hands grasping and curled in arthritic claws, and his face frozen in that insane snarl of madness and hatred. The horns of a ram curled out from his temples, and one of his eyes was human while the other was the narrow bar of a goat. He still wore his rough linen shirt, come slightly undone in the fight and ragged with scorched holes and damage, and suspended from his neck, cast in stone, was a small, brass bell.

“Ah… pops…” Gilda sagged slightly as she staggered over to him, leaning heavily on Huracán. “All ya… all ya had to do was…”

Sunset put an a hand on her shoulder as she floated over to her girlfriend, a look of sadness on her face. “We tried, babe… it was his choice.”

Gilda sniffled, nodding as she wiped at her eyes. “Y-yeah… I know… but fuck, I guess it was stupid t’hope he might… y’know?”

“Not stupid…” Sunset said quietly, floating around to face her and pulling her into a warm embrace. “You wanted him to be better than he was but, sometimes, people just aren’t.”

Nodding, Gilda let her tears flow as she buried her face in Sunset’s shoulder, her own shoulders silently shaking as she let it out. Moments later four more pairs of arms went around her as the Elements of Harmony leaned against one another, their bodies wracked with pain and exhaustion, but flushed with victory.

Outside the windows of Principal Celestia’s office the sounds of construction could be heard. Men and women milled about cleaning up and prepping for the larger scale of work that would be needed to get the school back into working order. Fortunately an anonymous donation had been made to the school about twelve hours prior that paid for more than just the rebuilding costs.

“So in the end he just wouldn’t let go of the power he’d gotten, no matter what,” Sunset finished, sighing as she leaned back in her wheelchair. “Storm was so obsessed with his magic, with his power, that even in the face of the Elements he was totally blind.”

“Some people are,” Chrysalis replied evenly. “You see it in petty dictatorships and corrupt officials all the time… even if it flies in the face of all logic and reason they still do anything, no matter how insane, to hold onto their power.”

Sunset nodded at that, but everyone knew that she was still a little angry that it had played out that way, though.

It was the day after the Battle of Canterlot High, as it was starting to be called, and school had for obvious reasons been canceled. Regardless, Sunset and Gilda had been asked to meet with the Sonen sisters and Chrysalis to explain what precisely had happened over the course of the fight itself, since they had evacuated along with all of the students and staff from both Crystal Prep and Canterlot High long before Storm had ever shown his face. They had all gathered in the faculty conference room and were seated around one of the long tables that had somehow survived the punishment the school had taken during the fight.

Sunset sat at the head of the table in her wheelchair with Gilda seated dutifully beside her, and both girls looked harrowed and exhausted, with bags under their eyes and a kind of weary slowness to their movements. Gilda particularly looked worn incredibly thin to the point that she wasn’t even moving her prosthetic arm, claiming the magic it took to power it was just too much at the moment. Principal Celestia and Chrysalis sat beside each other near the other end of the table, while Luna sat at Celestia’s left munching on a donut she had procured from somewhere.

Gilda wore her usual t-shirt and jeans, with her father’s bomber jacket pulled snug over her, and her left had was clad in her talon that clicked as she tapped a clawed finger on the table. The symbol of her Element gleamed in burnished red and bronze on the back of her hand. Sunset was wearing her teal dress, and had her tumbling mess of red-and-gold hair that she clearly hadn’t had the energy to tame tucked partially under her orange beanie. A new addition to her ensemble, however, was a choker of light blue silk that was around her neck, and at her throat a jeweled divided sun symbol done in ruby and topaz rested. Her hand had settled over Gilda’s gauntleted arm comfortably, occasionally giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“May I ask what happened to Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust?” Celestia asked quietly. “Are they alright?”

“They will be,” Sunset assured them. “My mother had them taken over to Equestria to be treated for the damage that ‘Midnight’ inflicted on their minds,” the image of Twilight overriding their wills still turned Sunset’s stomach. “Princess Twilight claims to know of an expert on the subject of mental compulsion who will be treating their symptoms and ensuring they recover safely.”

“What of their parents and guardians?” Luna asked, narrowing her eyes, but Sunset shook her head and nodded to Chrysalis instead.

“Ah, right, I’ve been taking care of that,” Chrysalis put in. “I spoke to both Dust Off, Lightning’s grandmother, and Rainbow Blaze, Dash’s father, and explained the matter to them inasmuch as I could.”

“Which was how much?” Celestia asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Not nearly enough for their liking,” Chrysalis replied wryly. “But it was enough to assuage them… I had to bring them in on the whole ‘magic’ angle, though, so I’ll be keeping an eye on them to make sure they don’t spill the beans.” The dark-skinned woman shook her head ruefully. “Magic… what a righteous mess, at least Dust Off knows the whole military routine, so I’m reasonably certain she’ll keep her mouth shut.”

“They’ll be okay, though,” Gilda said quietly. “Sparks promised us they would, and she ain’t ever let us down.”

“Plus,” Sunset added, “they’ll be kept in a magically induced sleep state for the period of time that they’re on the other side of the portal.”

“Probably for the best,” Chrysalis agreed. “I hate to ask this but… what about him?”

Sunset sighed.

The statue of Storm/Grogar was currently hidden away in the basement but it wasn’t exactly a permanent solution. Sunset didn’t have the resources of an entire kingdom and its immortal ruler at her beck and call the way Twilight did with Princess Celestia. She barely even had magic to call on, and she wasn’t one hundred percent certain it would be enough to contain a being as powerful as Grogar.

And she certainly didn’t want to risk sending the statue through the portal. That seemed like a recipe for absolute disaster.

Besides, the Elements of Harmony weren’t tools of death or destruction. The mind of Grogar, that ancient evil, was still in there along with, unfortunately, the mind of Storm King. All of that meant Sunset needed a place to keep him and they couldn’t exactly put him on the front lawn.

“I… might have a solution to that,” Sunset admitted after a moment, rubbing her arm awkwardly. “But it’s gonna sound a little crazy.”

Luna raised an eyebrow. “Miss Shimmer, you just fought an apocalyptic battle of sorcery and demons on the front lawn of I and my sister’s public high school,” she gestured towards the school entrance with a flat stare. “I think we’ve sprinted past the bar of ‘crazy’ at this point.”

“Agreed,” Celestia said, rolling her eyes and took Chrysalis’ hand. “Lay out your plan.”

Gilda chuckled and elbowed Sunset gently. “Yeah babe, go on and tell’em what ya wanna do to their school.”

That got both Luna and Celestia’s attention.

“O-Okay, well,” Sunset began, awkwardly wringing her hands. “You know how the Sirens are funding the rebuilding of the school?”

“Y~es,” Celestia said in a tone of deep suspicion.

“Well… I might have helped Sonata and Adagio draft up the blueprints they’re working off of,” Sunset explained, laughing a little nervously. “They’re going to be expanding a basement a little, and restructuring some of the foundations in a more… ‘geometrically advantageous’ configuration.”

Celestia and Luna stared at her with blank expressions, but Chrysalis just started laughing.

“Oh, my, god,” Chrysalis gasped, “a-are you turning your high school into a prison for magical entities?”

“Just the basement!” Sunset replied with a painfully weak smile. “It’s not like we have anywhere else to put him! And it’s a lot safer than moving him!”

“What, precisely,” Celestia groaned, “are you doing to my school?”

“It’s not that bad, Auntie,” Sunset replied, raising her hands placatingly. “I’m just sort of replicating some of the structural advantages of my mom’s arcane academy… it’ll help guide and channel magic more safely and we’ll be able to use it to contain things that… y’know… might be dangerous.”

Luna raised an eyebrow. “Things?”

“Aha,” Chrysalis said after a moment. “You think there are more dangers out there, don’t you?”

Sunset shrugged. “I mean… it seems reasonable, right?”

“Yeah,” Gilda chimed in, “apparently my pops had that bell for a while before magic came in and screwed stuff up, there might be a buncha other stuff around.”

“Right!” Sunset added, “and with the magic that our fight let off into the atmosphere, those things have an exponentially greater chance of waking up… not to mention possible… uh…”

This time it was Chrysalis’ turn to sit up and fix Sunset with an even look.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not gonna like what you’re about to say,” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Heh… w-well,” Sunset laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head. “T-there’s a better than even chance that, considering the amount of magic that we released, some real human practitioners, like Storm was, might crop up.”

“Well shit,” Chrysalis spat, leaning back in her chair and sighing. “My superiors are gonna love this field report: possible magical threats incoming, eta in ‘who the fuck knows’?” Sighing, she leaned against the table and shook her head, then stopped, and looked up at Sunset with suspicion. “And you suspected this would be the case, didn’t you? That’s why you’re working with those girls to rebuild the school.”

Sunset looked away from them, but nodded faintly.

“I wanted to be prepared for anything that might happen,” she explained quietly as Gilda put a supportive arm over her. “There’s no telling what might come up next, and there’s no way to get any official acknowledgement of something like this… so we needed an edge, a bastion we can operate from.”

Chrysalis smirked.

“Oh no,” Celestia held up her hands in an ‘x’, “no, Chryssi, I am not letting you go along with this, you are not co-opting my high school! If you try and turn it into some kind of counter-magical wetworks operation and if you try I will throw you into the wall until I snap your other leg!”

“Auntie please!” Sunset pleaded. “I know it’s not fair, but this is ground zero, Canterlot, and the surrounding area, is going to get more dangerous with this level of magical saturation!”

Before Celestia could answer, Luna put a hand on her sister’s shoulder and met Sunset’s eyes. “How dangerous?”

“Very,” Sunset continued, looking concerned. “I’ve already discussed it a little with Adagio, and the level of magic we’ve filled the air with here will definitely wake up any dormant artifacts nearby, and could easily cause people who might have a natural aptitude for magic to start generating real talent.” Sunset wrapped her arms around herself and looked stricken for a moment. “Please… I can’t put this parasprite back in its cage but I can try and mitigate the damage, okay? This is half my fault so please… let me try to help!”

Celestia sighed, burying her face in her hands as she blew out a breath and counted to ten.

“Alright,” she said, finally, “let’s figure out how we’re going to do this.”

“Y’know when I joined in on this,” Chrysalis said, still smirking, “I didn’t foresee it leading to me getting in on the ground floor of the first counter-magical organization.”

“It doesn’t have to be counter-magic,” Sunset said with a smile that was quickly warming as she put her hand over Gilda’s. “This is a school, right? So instead of trying to suppress magic, maybe… maybe we can start teaching people to control it.”

Celestia looked up, a light entering her eyes for the first time since the start of their dire conversation, and even Luna looked markedly more interested.

“A school?” Celestia muttered, turning to meet her sister’s eyes. “A school of magic?”

“Not openly, of course,” Chrysalis said, shaking her head. “But for kids who get caught up in this whirlwind… that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”

“But how?” Celestia pressed the issue, but Sunset could tell she was hooked on the idea.

“My mother has her own school remember?” Sunset replied, the optimism growing in her voice. “I figure we’ll start with a basic education and then… see where it goes. Adagio is already on board since she knows more about controlling magic on this world than anyone else.”

“It will be dangerous,” Luna said with a touch of concern, “but I agree that it’s probably our best course of action.”

“Plus we got us, still,” Gilda put in, breaking her silence. “The Elements, remember? If anyone goes off the deep end like my pops and sister did we can get’em back in line.”

“Speaking of,” Celestia interjected. “How are those two girls?”

Gilda sagged a little.

“Zee still ain’t woken up,” she admitted, “but Doc Tourniquet says she’s stable and it’s only a matter’a time… Adagio and her sisters are checking in on her now and again.”

“And Twilight?” Luna asked, her voice gentle.

“Completely comatose,” Sunset replied grimly. “She was saturated with dark magic, far more than anyone I’ve ever seen come back from, but harmony-willing the seed I planted in her mind will bring her back to us.” She debated not going on, but that wouldn’t have been fair or honest. “But… it might be a long time,” Sunset admitted, “and her body isn’t in great condition anymore either… the dark magic left her broken and she’ll probably need a lot of help for the rest of her life.”

“How so?” Celestia asked, her voice sad.

“Her immune system is shot,” Sunset replied angrily, and everyone could hear it. “She might have some memory issues early on too… I’m not sure if the effects are the same on this side as they are over in Equestria either, but if they are…” Sunset closed her eyes for a moment, gathering herself before pushing forward. “If they are then she’ll suffer from things like paranoia, bouts of forgetfulness, even psychotic breaks… but I’m hoping the seed I planted will mitigate most of that.”

“What about Zee?” Gilda asked, her mouth set in a hard line.

Sunset relaxed a little. “Fortunately the news is better there… as it turns out she was insulated from a lot of the worst effects by the armbands,”

“How so?” Luna looked curious as she leaned forward. “She seemed worse than any of the others for a while.”

“But it was all Arabus’s latent consciousness,” Sunset explained. “And Zee never let Arabus fully into her mind except at the very end, so the damage was minor. It seemed bad, but there was always a partition between Zee and the Demon, and when Grogar killed what was left of it… it ended the effect on Zee’s mind entirely.”

Gilda let out a relieved breath. “Thank fuck f’that.”

“Good to know,” Chrysalis agreed.

“Any other casualties?” Luna asked.

“Well, Abacus Cinch is in traction,” Chrysalis replied dryly. “Apparently that blast nearly killed her.”

“My heart is truly broken,” Celestia said in an utterly arid tone of voice. “I also understand she’s under investigation for child abuse regarding her daughter, Sunny.”

The mood at the table darkened considerably, and Sunset expression turned nasty.

“Yeah, someone may or may not have tipped off certain elements of the police by providing magically produced recordings,” Sunset said in a neutral tone. “Too bad we’ll never know how that happened.”

“Mm, yes, too bad,” Chrysalis replied with a smirk. “I should mention also that Sunny Flare has yet to leave Miss Sparkle’s side, save for necessities… is she…?”

Sunset sighed.

“Her mind has the residual scarring effects of mental magic, yeah,” Sunset confirmed, which got a grimace from the table. “But it wasn’t as bad as Rainbow’s and Lightning’s, honestly.”

“How is that possible?” Celestia asked, her brow furrowed in confusion. “Twilight only controlled Miss Dash and Miss Dust once, right? She must have been controlling Sunny for months.”

“I don’t think she was, actually,” Sunset admitted, shrugging. “There was some residual scarring, like I said, but it was old and mostly healed… in fact, I’m pretty sure Sunny was just that crazy to start with, or close to it… which was probably her mom’s doing.”

“God I hate that wretched woman,” Luna spat. “What a horrible creature.”

“So long as she’s not going to crack, that’s all I care about,” Chrysalis replied, waving her hand slightly. “Magical side-effects are kind of out of my jurisdiction… either way, though, I’ll check in on her and Miss Sparkle from time to time and keep you all updated.”

“We’d appreciate that, Chryssi,” Celestia said warmly as she took the woman’s hand in her own. “So… back to the prior topic: a school of magic, huh?”

“Not just a school,” Sunset said, a touch of her old pride coming back to her voice. “The first school in this whole world.”

“What’ll we call it?” Gilda asked, “can’t exactly keep callin’ it ‘Canterlot High School’, I mean… it’ll be that but it won’t be just that.”

“Well, it’ll still be my school, but you called it a bastion right?” Celestia began, meeting Sunset’s gaze, and the girl nodded cautiously. “A bastion… Bastion Academy of the Arcane has a nice ring to it, I think, don’t you, sister?”

Luna smirked and nodded along with Celestia. “I like it, any objections?”

There weren’t, and Sunset grinned brightly at the two educators who were actually getting into this.

“No objections,” Sunset said happily. “Bastion Academy… that sounds perfect.”

The sounds of a cello filled the large living room of the Siren’s mansion in the Heights, and the smells of good food permeated the air. The low chatter of friendly conversation was a dull thrum in the air as the saviors of Canterlot took a much needed rest from their trials.

There were three long couches, a handful of easy chairs and loveseats, and the coffee tables interspersed between them had plates of food and drink set out on them.

For a gathering of teenagers in high school, the Sirens notwithstanding, the atmosphere was curiously subdued, but with the chaos of the last few months having finally been put to rest all of them had agreed that a quieter evening would be just what the doctor ordered. Octavia had been pleased to take the opportunity to play for pleasure rather than for purpose, and had taken up one of the large easy chairs with her cello and contented herself with filling the air with music. Vinyl was seated beside her girlfriend, shades off, eyes closed, and headphones down and around her neck as she listened to the calming music.

Adagio sat nearby, her eyes occasionally drifting over to meet Octavia’s and sharing small smiles between them.

Sunset Shimmer, for her part, spent most of the evening in a comfortable doze sitting on Gilda’s lap, with Penny and Helden sharing the couch with them. Penny had her bass perched in her lap and would join her bass strings to the cello’s own deep voice every so often in short bursts of harmony that would occasionally be joined by Adagio’s sultry contralto, Aria’s golden tenor, and Sonata’s rich soprano.

Hours passed from afternoon and into the early evening, with most of the group simply sitting about contentedly, conversation flickering around subjects that had nothing to do with magic, demons, apocalypses, or the events that had most recently occurred at the school.

Which meant someone had to break the ice eventually.

“We did it, babe,” Sunset murmured softly as she watched the horizon turn a warm, smoky orange. “It’s finally over.”

“Yeah, we did…” Gilda replied quietly, her eyes half closed as she leaned her head on Sunset’s. “We made it out the other side… all in one piece, too.”

Sunset chuckled.

“Well, mostly…” The redhead patted both her legs and Gilda’s prosthetic arm. “But yeah… we’re all here… and we did it.”

“You did it, I think you mean,” Adagio said from where she was curled up on a chaise lounge like a model from the twenties. “Without you we’d have all perished.”

“Hear, hear,” Octavia agreed, waving her bow emphatically, to which Vinyl cracked and eye and gave a thumbs up, while Penny nodded judiciously from beside Sunset and Gilda.

“We all did it,” Sunset countered, “and I’m not just being self-effacing… that’s literally what the Elements are about, after all.”

“Speaking of which,” Adagio put in, “your Element is one I’m still not clear on… it’s what? Forgiveness?”

“Seems about right,” Aria laughed, taking a long sip of wine as she did.

Sunset shook her head, though, as she brought a hand up to toy with her Element where it hung from her choker.

“It’s not forgiveness, it’s Redemption,” Sunset clarified.

“Okay…” Sonata raised an eyebrow as she took a long pull of her gin and tonic. “But like… what’s the difference? Seems like one means the other pretty much.”

“They’re close, but the intent is different,” Sunset said firmly. “Forgiveness comes from others more than it does ourselves, I mean sure we can ‘forgive ourselves’, but it’s more than that…” Sunset gave Gilda a wordless look and Gilda reached a hand up and undid Sunset’s choker for her, and Sunset held it up. “Redemption isn’t an act… it’s a commitment… it’s a journey and a path, one you might spend your entire life walking down.”

“But why is it the main Element for this world?” Penny asked, still idly strumming her bass.

“Because… humans need it as badly as ponies need Magic,” Sunset replied, turning the Element in her hands to stare into it. “We make so many mistakes, and we do so much harm… but Redemption can always find us somewhere along the way.” Looking up, Sunset smiled at her friends, and a bloom of warmth opened in her heart for a moment as they all smiled at her. “Humans are sort of baseline crappy, y’know? It sucks but at the same time… damn it we try so hard not to be!”

“Hear, hear,” Gilda echoed Octavia dryly, earning a chuckle from the others.

“Seriously, though!” Sunset pressed, her voice rising. “We make so many stupid mistakes, and hurt so many people… what would it mean if we couldn’t redeem ourselves?” That sobered the group a little, and the Sirens especially looked thoughtful. “But we can, with Loyalty, Generosity, Laughter, Honesty, and Kindness we can find a way back from darkness and pain…” Sunset closed her hands over her Element and pressed it to her heart. “We can find Redemption, even if we’re never forgiven.”

Aria, Sonata, and Adagio turned to look at one another, each of them sharing smiles as they reached out and took each other’s hands. Sunset felt her heart warm at the sight of the sisters, once enemies, now the staunchest of allies.

“Hey, if a thug like me gets it I figure we all got a shot, right?” Gilda said with a laugh.

“I’m fairly certain we Sirens hold the gold medal for terrible mistakes,” Adagio countered to the laughter of the room. “But… yes, I suppose your words make sense, Sunset.”

“Everything is going to change, isn’t it?” Penny said suddenly, her eyes taking on a distant quality. “The magic… the power we’ve been swinging around… it’s going to change everything.”

“Yeah, it is,” Sunset replied. “But we’ll all be here, together, for every moment of it.”

“But nothing’s changing tonight,” Octavia said, finally opening her eyes and lifting her bow from her cello. “Tonight we’re all here to remember that there’s more than just fighting… there’s victory… and there’s peace.”

Sunset laughed a little. “Seriously, I’m telling you, Tavi, you shoulda been born a princess, you’d be aces in Equestria.”

“I could never leave the love I’ve found on this side of the portal, I’m afraid,” Octavia replied wryly, leaning over to kiss Vinyl. “And besides, were I a princess I imagine I’d have hardly any time to play my cello.”

“Too right,” Adagio agreed, “and we can’t be having that.”

The conversation settled into a more comfortable silence for another half hour as everyone in the household shared smiles. Aria was looking increasingly restless, however, enough so that she eventually sat up and let out a huffing snort of annoyance.

“Hey ‘Dagi, you gonna tell’em at some point tonight, or am I?” Aria asked, her voice wry, and Adagio stiffened. “You said you would, and it’s been hours.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Tell us what?”

“C’mon, ‘Dagi,” Sonata pushed, nudging her ribs.

Adagio rolled her eyes and sank back into the couch looking pensive for several moments before nodding to her sisters and looking out to address the group.

“I… suppose now is a good time to mention something,” Adagio began uneasily. “Which is that… following Storm’s consumption of all magic… we, the Sirens, are no longer immortal.”

“What?!” Sunset sat up looking stunned, and silence descended on the group.

“It was a spell,” Aria explained, “between Adagio and Sonata the three of us got to live pretty much forever by funneling some of our feeding magic into our lifespans.”

“But the spell was broken,” Sonata chimed in, “or, I guess… technically it was eaten.”

“Can’t you recast it?” Octavia asked worriedly.

The three sisters shared an uneasy look.

“Maybe,” Adagio replied, “but…”

“We’re not sure we wanna,” Aria answered for her big sister, earning more stunned looks. “What? It’s not that weird.”

“You’re basically choosing to die,” Penny said dryly. “What’s not weird about that?”

“Well, technically we should’ve died like, yonks ago,” Sonata said with a nervous laugh. “Like, a long time ago… right? Plus… we don’t even know if it’s possible to cast the spell here, and even if it is we’re not sure we have the juice for it.”

“It would take years, possibly decades, to redesign the spell to operate within the laws of this world’s magical system,” Adagio replied with a shrug, “and that’s assuming it’s even possible to do so, like Sonata said.”

“Which means we might end up spending decades working on a pointless-ass spell,” Aria replied in an arid voice. “A spell that may or may not even work, and… y’know… even if it does…”

“It means we’ll have to lose all of you!” Sonata cried, her voice choking up a little. “A-and… and I don’t wanna do that!”

Sunset’s jaw dropped open as she watched the three ancient Sirens look very determinedly in any direction but the rest of the group, and she could see tears in their eyes.

“I-it was one thing when the spell was permanent,” Adago said, her voice thick with emotion, “but p-purposefully recreating it only to go back to watching all of our friends and loved ones die of old age just…”

“I ain’t doin’ it,” Aria said stiffly. “Not again… I ain’t living like a fucking parasite again, and I’m sure as fuck not gonna spend another fucking millennium watching every friend I ever made or make turn to literal dust.”

“Me neither!” Sonata cried, her tears finally falling. “I’m not gonna stay young and just watch all of you wither away! I’m tired of it! I’m so… I’m so tired of losing people!”

“So… that’s the consensus, as you can see,” Adagio said, her shoulders giving a heave every now and again as she fought against her own tears. A battle she was losing as one trickled down her cheeks every now and then. “None of us are willing to waste decades of our lives in magical experimentation for the sole purpose of once more isolating ourselves for the rest of eternity… it’s just too much.”

Only Octavia noticed that Adagio had been looking at her when she’d said the words.

“So… you're all mortal then, huh?” Sunset said, wiping away at her eyes. “That’s it? Just like that?”

“I assure you the decision wasn’t made easily,” Adagio half-growled. “But… yes, mortal once more, for the first time in ages.”

“Actual ages,” Aria added.

“What does that mean, then?” Penny asked quietly. “Does it change anything?”

“Not really,” Adagio replied. “We’ll have to take a more active role in preparing for the future since we eventually won’t be in it, but…”

“We just wanted you all to know,” Sonata said with a smile. “We’re one of you now, for realsies… and it actually feels kinda good.”

“Who knows, we might actually start families,” Aria said with a laugh. “I always kinda wanted a rugrat or two, I just never wanted to outlive’em.”

That got a lot of people talking.

Penny seemed thrilled at the idea of her friends wanting kids, and she and Helden both began talking excitedly about their own plans. Penny, with the Sirens’ help, had officially gotten out from under her mother’s thumb, and Adagio had ensured she could finish her schooling at Crystal Prep.

“Everything really has changed, huh?” Sunset said in a quiet voice, leaning back against Gilda as she did.

“Is that a bad thing?” Adagio asked as she took another sip of her drink. “Change is good right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sunset admitted. “Just… a little scary I guess.”

Vinyl let out a huffing laugh before signing. ‘Scary? Sure, but that’s what friends are for, right?’

Sunset smiled warmly.

“Yeah, I guess they are…” her eyes roved over her friends, all of them, and nodded. “No, I’m sure of it.”

It was late in the evening, and the slowly cooling night air brushed past Sunset as she stared out over the city of Canterlot from where she was sitting on the west balcony of the Sirens’ home. Sunset had left the slowly dispersing group about an hour ago to sit on the balcony, right at the edge, and lean her arms against the bannister as she watched the sun sink all the way beneath the horizon and the moon come into its full brilliance. Most of the others were asleep, taking up the sisters’ many guest rooms, and the fullness of the home had led Sonata to cheerfully inviting everyone to just live there together.

As appealing as that had sounded, Sunset hadn’t been sure she wanted to leave her and Gilda’s little apartment. It was nice, having a small, personal space. Plus they had so many memories there… she knew they’d move out eventually but it was nice to savor it while it lasted, even if the insulation was bad and the floors were a little dirty.

“It’s finally over, huh?” Gilda’s voice said from behind Sunset.

Sunset looked over her shoulder at the young woman she’d fallen so deeply in love with, and smiled. Gilda’s own smile was as cocky as ever, a little lopsided and arrogant, but charming. Her dark skin was lovely under the starlight, and her beautiful white hair, getting long now as the months passed, was wavering in the gentle breeze.

“Yes and no,” Sunset replied. “I mean… we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

Gilda walked up to the edge of the balcony where Sunset was seated and leaned next to her. She’d let Sunset have some time alone, she knew when her girlfriend needed it, just like she knew how Sunset hated for her to be out of arm's reach for more than an hour.

“You okay?” Gilda asked.

“For certain definitions of the word,” Sunset replied, nodding a little. “I think it’ll be a long time before I process everything… so much has happened.”

“Yeah, savvy,” Gilda replied with a harsh laugh. “Hard to imagine not too long ago we were sittin’ on that pile’a junk behind the school smoking cigarettes and avoidin’ everybody.”

“I miss that old junk pile,” Sunset said in mock wistfulness.

“Pretty sure the construction crew cleaned up,” Gilda replied with a laugh.

“Tragic,” Sunset said lightly.

Gilda pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket and shook a couple out, passing one to Sunset and tucking the other between her lips. In her other hand she took a pair of matches, struck them, lit her cigarette, then leaned down to Sunset who angled her head up til the tips of the rolled tubes touched.

Taking a deep breath, Sunset let the flame pass between them, then looked back over the skyline.

“I should really quit smoking one of these days,” Sunset idly as she blew out a breath of the pungent smoke. “It’s awful for me.”

“I’ll quit whenever you do,” Gilda said around her own cigarette, smoke leaking from her lips and giving her a vaguely draconic look.

Sunset chuckled quietly before taking another breath and blowing out a ring of grey ash and vapor.

“Yeah… I figured you’d say that.”

“Gonna quit, then?” Gilda asked, not looking down at Sunset.

“Mm… eventually,” Sunset allowed, a faint smiling curving her lips.

“Not today though?”

Sunset laughed, and spirals of grey smoke spilled out from between her lips as she did before she took the tube out and shook some of the spent ash from its lit end.

“Nah,” Sunset replied. “Not today.”

The warm, late spring wind cascaded over the pair of girls as they watched the night expand its dominion, and Sunset reached out to take Gilda’s hand as they stood in silence. The world was quieter than it had been in months, for Sunset at least. For so long, ever since the events of the Fall Formal, it was like everything had been happening all at once. In just over half a year her entire world-view had been shaken, shattered, and rebuilt no less than twice, maybe three or four times depending on who was counting.

She glanced up at Gilda and had the thought that maybe one of those times hadn’t been all that bad.

“Bit for your thoughts?” Sunset asked playfully.

Gilda chuckled around her slowly smoldering cigarette.

“Eh… just kinda feelin’ lost now, I guess,” Gilda replied. “Like… I ain’t even sure what to do with myself anymore, savvy?”

“Go back to fixing cars?” Sunset suggested, an impish smile on her face.

“Yeah, I guess,” Gilda admitted, shrugging. “But… what about the Elements? What about all that magic crap we talked to the Principals and the scary-ass government broad about? What’s it all mean?”

“It means,” Sunset said wryly, “that we’re still kids… still teenagers… and we deserve to live our lives the way we want to.”

“So long as I’m living my life with you, babe?” Gilda said, her voice becoming serious as she turned and knelt at Sunset’s side, taking one of her hands in her wide, warm palm. “So long as we’re in this together? Then I’m pretty much good with whatever you want… you’re all I’ll ever need.”

Sunset blushed heavily as she turned her chair to face Gilda, letting the larger girl’s hands envelope both of hers. Her heart was thundering in her ears, and she knew she wasn’t going to get a better moment to bring up the subject that had been sitting in the back of her mind for the past few days.

“A-and… if I said I…” Sunset swallowed heavily, and Gilda cocked her head and grinned at the nervous look on Sunset’s face. “I-If I said… that I’d thought about what you mentioned a few months back?”

“What’s that?” Gilda asked, crooking one eyebrow up.

“Y-Y’know, before we left for Las Pegasus?” Sunset said sheepishly. “About… about maybe having kids one day?”

Now it was Gilda’s turn to blush.

“O-Oh…” Gilda worked her jaw for a few seconds before her face split into a wide grin. “So… so ya think… maybe…?”

“I want kids, Gil,” Sunset said in a quiet, happy, tearful voice. “I want your kids, I want to have a family… I want to have a home… I want to be a mom,” Sunset’s shoulders began to shake as tears fell down her cheeks. “My whole life has been about bouncing from one place to another with nothing solid under my feet, and I’m tired of it! I want to make something real out of my life, I want to do more than just exist place-to-place.” Sniffling, she wiped her cheeks with her arm, but gripped Gilda’s hands all the tighter. “It doesn’t have to be anytime soon, y’know? It doesn’t have to be today or tomorrow, or even this year. I know we’re still basically kids… but maybe whenever we get married, savvy?”

Gilda held Sunset’s hands tightly, pulling them up and pressing her face to them, and Sunset could feel warm tears trickle down along her fingers and Gilda nodded.

“Y-Yeah,” Gilda said happily, “yeah, that sounds good t’me, Sunshine.”

Sunset pulled Gilda forward and pressed her lips to Gilda’s in a warm, passionate kiss, the pair laughing and crying equally as they leaned against one another, bliss and relief mixing together into a cocktail of euphoria.

Another hour passed, and by that point Sunset had left her chair and was sitting in Gilda’s lap as they stared up at the stars. Gilda had her arms wrapped snugly around Sunset who was half-buried in Gilda’s jacket with her as she leaned her head against the comfortable crook of Gilda’s shoulder.

“Hey Sunflower,” Gilda said suddenly, and Sunset glanced up at her girlfriend in silent reply. “You, uh… ya said you wanted ‘my’ kids but, uh… given we’re both ladies how’s that-”

Sunset smirked.

“We’ve got a spell for that, actually,” she said confidently, then frowned a little. “I mean, so long as you’re okay with it… I think I’d be the one, y’know, actually having them.”

“Wait so… you’n me can just, like,” Gilda made a vague gesture with her hand, “get pregnant like that?”

“It’s a little more involved and complicated than,” Sunset mimicked the waving hand gesture, “but yeah, and it’s safe… it’s a pretty common spell actually.”

“Magic, huh?” Gilda looked thoughtful, and Sunset watched her for a few moments. “Guess we might as well give it a shot right?”

Sunset’s smile could have lit up the night.

“It’s all in the future though,” Sunset said happily. “We’ve got a lot of time ahead of us, y’know? Plus, maybe I’m just old-fashioned but I kinda wanna get married first.”

“Fair enough, Sunshine,” Gilda replied, wrapping her arms more tightly around Sunset’s waist. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

“Yeah, you aren’t huh?” Sunset said quietly. “We promised… so long as I never give up on you-”

“-then I’ll never give up on you,” Gilda finished.

“Together forever, then?” Sunset asked, her voice stronger than before.

“I’m too stubborn for anything else, Sunflower,” Gilda replied with a cocky smirk.

Sunset smiled, and the world turned for several more silent minutes as they finished smoking, eventually putting out the stubs in an ashtray nearby. A few more minutes passed before Sunset spoke again, and as she did she reached up to set her hand on Gilda’s cheek, stroking the strong lines of her lover’s face.

“Gilda?” Sunset’s voice sounded, to Gilda, almost as strong as it had the before her accident.

“Yeah, Sunshine?”

“Kiss me until I tell you to stop,” Sunset said firmly, her fiery cyan eyes fixed intently on Gilda’s hawkish gold orbs.

Gilda chuckled as she leaned down.

“When’s that gonna be?” she asked, stopping less than an inch from Sunset’s lips.

“Maybe never,” Sunset replied, moving in just a touch to brush their lips together playfully.

“Sounds like a plan, Sunflower,” Gilda said, grinning as she pressed her lips firmly to Sunset’s.

The scents of cherries and lilacs mixed with the warm, smoky spice of ash, engine oil, and leather as Sunset and Gilda embraced under the moon and stars.

The future would come and bring what it may, be it adventure, beauty, or something utterly new. One thing, however, was certain: when it did, it wouldn’t find a single one of them standing alone.

Author's Notes:

We Have Come To Terms

---

Wow, folks, I can't believe how far these girls have come. I really can't. It kind of blows my mind how big of a story this ended up turning into. Like, I had plans and outlines but seeing the finished product is absolutely a different beast altogether.

This was a huge endeavor, it started so small scale (the word count of individual chapters notwithstanding) with just a few major characters, and then exploded into this massive ensemble cast. I'll be honest, I'm not sure how good I did at giving everyone their fair share of screen time, but I never wanted to commit the cardinal sin of the filler arc in a story that already had so much going on.

There will be an epilogue coming in at a later date, soon most likely, but this is the story of Gilda Grimfeather and Sunset Shimmer, the product of a random plot bunny that scampered through my mind with the words "what if Gilda weren't a heinous bitch" stapled to its hindquarters.

I'm not sure I can properly convey what it feels like to be finished with this project, I think that, like Sunset, I'll have to take some time to process it. It'll be so weird not writing Sunset and Gilda anymore.

Which is why... I kind of won't be... the truth is that I'm going to be angling the meat of my efforts towards writing something original and to fans of this story I can promise two of the main characters will have some... very familiar features. No, it's not going to be an E.L. James style rewrite of this, the story is entirely original, but there will definitely be some callbacks, nods, and characters that only fans of my work here will really understand.

I love all of you, thank you so much for coming on this crazy ride with me.

Special thanks to Reese for their peerless editing and to WandererD for their insight and conversation early on.

Cheers,

I-A-M