Twilight awoke some time later to the sound of crying, and could easily tell it was Fluttershy. A stroke of pride that she could still tell such things quickly turned to shame at being proud she could work out which of her friends was crying at this time of night. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Twilight got up to see what the problem was.

She found Luna sitting by Fluttershy, a soft frown marring her features. Fluttershy herself was whimpering in her sleep, her cheeks wet with tears even though her eyes were tightly shut. She did appear to still be sleeping.

"Aren't you going to help her?" Twilight whispered to Luna, not wanting to wake the others around them.

"There have been many vile dreams dreamt this night, Twilight, and I have done what I can to ease them. In this case though, I am unable to help."

"Why not?"

"Because Fluttershy isn't dreaming."

Twilight wanted to laugh and point out the absurdity of that, but quickly thought about what Luna had said instead. Luna wanted to help, but couldn't, so that alone meant Luna probably wasn't kidding. But if Fluttershy wasn't dreaming, what was she doing?

"I know not," Luna said to Twilight's question. "I'm afraid this might be but a symptom of a greater problem. Come, let us go where we can speak more freely."

Twilight nodded, and with a lingering glance at Fluttershy followed after the elder alicorn to the observation area, which was empty. Twilight sat, her eyes still heavy with tiredness, and watched as Luna sat and yawned hard. It seemed she wasn't the only one feeling it.

"Have you even tried to sleep?"

Luna nodded numbly. "Tried, yes, but I was unable to with all these nightmares happening around me, so I did what I could to help. Even that Starlight Glimmer was having a nightmare, although all I did was stop her dreaming altogether. I'd rather expend my efforts on more deserving ponies."

"Starlight isn't a bad pony. Confused, hurt, and brimming with terrible ideas along with the power to enact them, but not actually bad."

"We'll see."

Twilight shrugged, accepting that for now. Luna had little reason to even begin trusting Starlight, so Twilight could accept that Luna did at least help the mare a little. However, none of that explained why Luna brought Twilight here to talk.

"I'm sure I don't need to explain, or even really point it out to you," Luna began after prompting from Twilight, "but your friends have changed. They have been through much, and as always these things leave their marks. Not even Rainbow has been immune to this, and with good reason. They have all been tested most cruelly."

"I realise that, but that could only be expected. Apart from their time in High Rock though, I don't see how their captivity in Ponyville was bad enough to make Fluttershy cry in her sleep."

"Trapped without hope for even a short period can have lasting effects, Twilight. No, their captivity in Ponyville wasn't overly unpleasant, but I never said it was the problem. There's no one thing we can point a hoof at and accuse of being the one thing affecting your friends. This is a more overarching thing, as you well know."

So Luna was pretty much saying that her friends all had post traumatic stress disorder. Twilight already knew she suffered from it, but to think that her friends might as well was upsetting to say the least. Unfortunately there wasn't really a cure for it. Therapy could help, but otherwise they'd have to learn to cope with it.

"So what now?"

"What now?" Luna laughed without humour, "Dear Twilight, please don't take this the wrong way, but your friends are deeply troubled. Can you even be sure you're capable of harnessing the power of the Elements at this point?"

It was a valid question, to which Twilight wanted to say the obvious answer that of course they could. If it hadn't been Luna asking, she might have.

"I don't know. I like to think we can, but until we try there's no way of telling."

"Of course," Luna said with an understanding nod. "If it doesn't work though, it will have to be up to you to fix it. Where the Elements are concerned, only you and the Bearers may have any say in their use."

"I know," Twilight sighed, right before another yawn wracked her body. "We can find out tomorrow. Good night, Luna. I suggest you get some sleep as well."

"I will certainly try to. Good night, Twilight."

Twilight returned to her bed, stopping by Fluttershy on the way. The pegasus had stopped crying now, but was still far from happy. Twilight nuzzled her cheek, smiling when Fluttershy relaxed a little. Maybe things wouldn't be that bad.

"Wakey wakey, Twilight!"

Twilight cracked an eye open to see Trixie standing over her, almost humming with pent up energy. "Whaf you wan'?"

"What do I want? Come on, Twilight, today's the day you finish the oubliette off! Shouldn't you be excited?"

Luna's warning hadn't been forgotten in the intervening hours, and did enough to drain any excitement Twilight might have had. A failure to use the Elements would show off all the cracks in her friends, as well as herself, and she felt a lot better not knowing, to be honest.

"Sleep more, save world later."

Trixie kicked Twilight on the rump, "After all the effort we've been through to get everything we need, are you seriously telling me you're not bothered, or excited? That you'd rather sleep in?"

"I'm only asking for an extra hour. Is that so bad?"

"Okay, wow. I didn't see that coming. I guess I'll get some breakfast and see you in an hour. Sheesh."

"Appreciated." Twilight breathed deeply as Trixie let her be, and closed her eyes to go back to sleep. It barely felt like seconds later when she was rudely woken up by somepony jumping on her. She cracked an eye open to find a manically grinning Rainbow standing over her.

"Come on, Twilight, get up! We got loads to do today!"

"No... need sleep make spell work good."

"Aww, c'mon Twi." Rainbow shrugged as Twilight slowly but firmly shook her head. "Fine, but don't sleep in too long."

Twilight snuggled back down under her covers as Rainbow left, and was just on the verge of going back to sleep when-

"Come on, Twily, time to get up."

"Fine!" Twilight threw the covers off herself and stood up fast enough to make herself dizzy. "I'm up! I didn't realise trying to get a little extra sleep was so difficult!"

"Oh," Shining said, a little confused by Twilight's behaviour. "If you wanted to sleep in a bit more, you could've just said."

Twilight growled, literally. "I'm sure it'd only be a matter of seconds until someone else came to try and wake me up, so I might as well give up and accept the inevitable."

"Are you alright, Twilight?"

"Fill me with coffee and ask again."

Twilight stalked to the kitchen, her head level with her body as she completely failed to even bother trying to look like she was happy. That attitude changed a little when she saw the others, and could see she wasn't the only one lacking sleep. The only ones without bags under their eyes seemed to be Trixie, Nightmare, and the three Wonderbolts.

"Good morning," Rarity said with a cheerfulness that belied her tiredness. She was also holding a cup of that divine brew in her magic, which she gave to Twilight, who drank half of it in one go. Twilight then noticed the breakfast spread of pancakes covering pretty much every inch of the table and asked about it.

"Well, Applejack, Pinkie, and I were up fairly early, and we decided that making you all breakfast was the least we could do after your valiant rescue yesterday," Rarity explained. "You do rather deserve it."

"Actually it was all Rarity's idea," said Applejack. "Pinkie and I were jus' happy to go along with it."

"That was... nice of you," Twilight said as a warmth spread through her that she wasn't solely attributing to the coffee. "Thank you."

"No, thank you, really, for getting us out of there."

Twilight nodded, deciding to let them be thankful rather than say that she wished they could've been rescued sooner. There was no point going into it. Not really. She watched as Nightmare tore into a pancake with all the savagery of a predator devouring prey, and decided to try one herself. It was, soft, fluffy, and definitely made by Pinkie. In other words it was perfect.

"So how are you all feeling today?" Twilight asked, steering the conversation to where it might give her a little insight on her friends' mental state.

"Happy to be free," Applejack said, to the strong agreement of the others. "I haven't felt so relaxed in a long time."

Fluttershy was shaking in her seat, but still managed to smile along with the others. Rarity was still generous, Applejack still honest, Pinkie still Pinkie, and Rainbow still loyal. Following that logic, Fluttershy should still be kind, but it was impossible to tell. Twilight needed to test it, if only to reassure herself that her friends at least had the basics required to connect to their Element.

Twilight picked a pancake up in her magic to disguise the use of her magic for other things. Gritting her teeth, she cut her back right leg, not too deeply, then shifted in her seat right before crying out in fake shock.

"Ow! What the fuck!?" Twilight moved off her seat to get a better look, and found she'd gone a little wider than intended. No matter. What mattered was the way Fluttershy perked up, her shaking gone as soon as she saw one of her friends was hurt.

"Oh dear! Stop moving, Twilight, and let me get a good look at it."

Twilight did so, feeling a little triumphant that her ploy had worked, although she took every care to keep it off her face. The look on Trixie's face was enough to let her know that at least one of them there could see right through her.

"It doesn't look too bad," Fluttershy said a moment later. "In fact it looks very clean. We should still put a bandage on it to keep it that way. Um... I don't actually know where the bandages are though."

Twilight teleported one to herself from the first aid supplies they kept in the observation area, and gave it to Fluttershy, who nimbly wrapped it around Twilight's leg using a mix of her wings and hooves.

"There, that should keep the nasty bugs out until it heals up."

"Give it ten minutes and you wouldn't even know she cut herself," Trixie muttered.

"Thank you," Twilight said to Fluttershy as she got back into her seat to resume eating. "How about the rest of you?" she asked.

"As well as I could be," said Octavia. "I have to admit that I'm also relieved to be free of Ponyville."

"I do feel a little trapped in here though," said Summer.

"I'll show you the portals later if you want to get out and about a bit. Stretch your wings and all that. How about you, Fleur? Filly?"

Fleur bowed her head, grief over losing Rocky and Crème still weighing it down. The filly didn't seem much better. "We'll survive. It's what we do. I just want this to be over now."

"Don't we all," said Shining. "With Cadence, Luna, and Moondancer going over things now, hopefully we can get your plan finished off, and finally make our move against Faust."

"Yeah," Twilight said noncommittally. She'd hoped the conversation wouldn't be steered in this direction, but that's exactly what had happened. Thankfully it was only short lived as the perfect distraction walked into the small dining area.

"I-I'm sorry," Starlight said as the eyes of all of them landed on her. "I'll-uh... come back after, when you're all done."

"Don't be silly, silly," Pinkie said, bouncing up and into the doorway to stop Starlight from leaving. "Everypony is welcome to breakfast! And lunch! And dinner too! Teehee! I even made some special pancakes just for you."

"Oh, you really didn't have to," Starlight said as Pinkie all but dragged her over to a seat and plonked her down.

"I know! That's the best part!" In a flurry of motion, Pinkie grabbed a plate of pancakes off the counter and placed them in front of Starlight. "Enjoy."

Starlight didn't enjoy them. Not immediately at least. She was too transfixed by the message written in blueberries on the top. The one saying 'we forgive you.' She sat, her eyes growing misty as her demeanour cracked a little more.

"You don't mean that."

"Of course we do! I even had Applejack write it, so you know it has to be true."

"But why? How could you forgive me?"

"We ain't saying you didn't do some sketchy things in that village of yours," Applejack said, trying to sound apologetic as she did, "but you sure as heck weren't happy about what Faust made you do."

"But how could you possibly know that?"

"Because you apologised to everypony before you took their mark," Rarity explained, smiling kindly at Starlight. "You also looked absolutely miserable. That was enough to tell us you weren't the same Starlight Glimmer we found in that village."

"Thank you," Starlight said in a tiny voice. Twilight could tell Starlight had already rejected the notion of actually being forgiven, because she'd done the same enough times herself to know exactly what it looked and sounded like. "I don't know how to repay you."

"You could do that by doing just one thing," Pinkie said, directly into Starlight's ear.

"Name it. If it's within my power, I'll do it."

"Oh, I think it's well within your power." Pinkie leaned a little closer, her expression curiously dark yet seductive. "The thing you have to do is... eat your breakfast. It's getting cold."

Twilight laughed as Pinkie sat back, all smiles again while Starlight stared blankly ahead.

"Are you serious? All I have to do is eat my breakfast?"

"Hey! It's more serious than that! You have to eat the breakfast made lovingly for you by your new friends! Every. Last. Bite. Don't disappoint us, Starlight."

Starlight swallowed and picked up her fork, stabbing it into the stack and cutting a mouthful free. She put it in her mouth, and whimpered. "These are amazing."

"Thanks! The secret ingredient is friendship." Pinkie patted Starlight on the head as the unicorn started shovelling the pancakes into her mouth as fast as she could eat them. "Also milk, flour, eggs, a touch of seasoning, and the stuff that goes on top. Enjoy!"

Twilight sipped at her coffee, feeling a lot better after having filled herself with Pinkie's pancakes and caffeine. Having breakfast with her friends. It was so unbelievably normal it didn't seem real. There were some people absent though, so the illusion wasn't quite fully realised.

"Where are Ember, Mayfly, and Daring Do?"

"Teaching Spike how to fly out in the Circen desert," Fleur replied, making the answer sound as mundane as possible in the hopes Twilight wouldn't be too shocked by it.

"Ah, right." Twilight decided to keep quiet about how she hadn't noticed Spike wasn't there. She assumed he was catching up on his sleep, and hadn't bothered to check on him she was that tired herself.

"Wait... What?"

Spike had wings, and Spike was flying. Both these things surprised Twilight, despite how closely intertwined they were. When did Spike get wings?

Why hadn't she noticed?

Twilight stopped and watched for a while, too ashamed by her inattentiveness to go up and join him. Yes she'd been busy trying to get everything together, getting everypony to safety, and all the other stuff, but it still felt like something she should notice.

"Twilight! Hey Twilight!" Spike flew down and landed in front of Twilight, his fangs showing due to how wide his smile was. "What do you think, Twilight? Pretty good huh, if I do say so myself."

"It's amazing, Spike. I can't believe you learnt to fly like that so fast."

"I had a good teacher," Spike said as Ember came down to land by him. He laughed as she rubbed his head.

"Only a dragon can really teach a dragon to fly," she said confidently. "A thestral might pull it off, but for a dragon it's all about how you bend the wings, which a pegasus just doesn't get."

"I tried," Daring said with a shrug, passing by in the company of another dragon that Twilight assumed to be Mayfly.

Twilight twitched a smile at Spike,"Still, I'm very proud of you. I'm sorry I wasn't here with you."

Spike shrugged, "I thought about waking you, but you looked like you needed the sleep. I mean you never even noticed I had wings, so I assumed you already had enough on your mind without worrying about me learning to fly."

Twilight hung her head to ineffectively hide her shame. Not only had she not noticed, but Spike knew she hadn't. "I'm sorry, Spike. I should've seen them, but I... I just didn't."

"Hey, Hey," Spike said soothingly, grabbing onto Twilight. "I didn't mean it like that. Yesterday was totally hectic, so it's totally fine if you missed that. Plus you've only seen me for five minutes at most over the last year before yesterday, and I didn't have my wings then. Really, Twilight, it's fine."

Twilight rubbed her eyes and nuzzled against Spike. If she were totally honest with herself, she was surprised at herself for being so upset over this. All she'd intended was to apologise and ask for forgiveness. Instead she was close to blubbering like an idiot. "I love you, Spike. I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you too. I've- All of us have been so worried not knowing where you were, or if you were even okay. It felt horrible not being able to do anything about it."

"It felt horrible not being able to save you until now. It should've been the first thing I did, but I just couldn't."

Spike squeezed a little tighter, "I know. We all know. There was no point saving us until you had a way to stop Faust, otherwise she'd only come after us, and might have done something worse than put us in prison."

Twilight didn't know what to say. It was the truth of the matter, but to hear something so grim come out of Spike's mouth was disheartening. It seemed that even he wasn't beyond being affected by all that had happened. "I'll find a way to make it up to you, I promise."

"Well... saving Equestria is an excellent first and last step, so we'll call it square after that."

Twilight shook her head, "I'm doing that anyway, so there's no way I can count that."

"Then perhaps there is one thing."

"Whatever it is, I'll do it."

"Come fly a few laps with me around this awesome ruined city?"

Twilight snorted a laugh. It was a small thing, but it was so very Spike. "Alright, but I think we'll take it slow for now. We can start going faster once you have a bit more experience."

"Aww, c'mon, I'm plenty experienced!"

"Alright, I'll tell you what. If you can keep up with me for three laps, the last one will be a race."

"You're on!"

Spike didn't even manage two laps before running out of steam. Twilight had to carry him back to the portal, which she really, really didn't mind.

"Who thought flying would be so much work?" Spike said as she lowered him to the ground. "My wings are killing me."

"Give it time," Twilight said back. "They're still new, and not used to getting used. Once they're stronger you'll be giving Ember a run for her money."

Ember raised a questioning eyebrow at Twilight, "Not you though?"

"Let's not be silly now." Twilight chuckled and kissed Spike on the top of his head, "I'm proud of you though. Keep at it and you'll be a great flier."

"I thought I already was," Spike teased, punctuating his words with a yawn. "Heh, I could really go for a nap after that. Hey, Twilight, do you mind if-"

"Go ahead, Spike." Twilight nuzzled Spike as they went through the portal along with Daring and a more regular looking Mayfly, if you could call her that. "I'll wake you if I need you."

"Thanks Twilight." Spike staggered away for a few steps, then jogged back to give Twilight a hug for a few seconds before carrying on.

Twilight felt her chin wobble, but for once it was out of a desire to cry for joy rather than anything else. She sniffed and composed herself, then remembered that she wasn't alone.

"Thanks for teaching him to fly."

Ember shrugged, indifferent to the appreciation since she would have taught Spike to fly anyway. "I can't believe you didn't notice. What did you think those things on his back were?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure I even saw them. I was just so happy to get them all back, and focussed on getting everyone to safety that I didn't notice. It's not like I was told he had them either."

Ember shrugged again. It wasn't up to her to judge how right or wrong Twilight was. "So what's the plan now?"

"Now? Now it's time for serious talk." Twilight led the way to the observation area where it sounded like all the others were already gathered. It had come to the time to tell them all what the plan was, and what their part in it all would be. Some of them didn't actually have a part to play, but had earned the right to know what was going on.

Twilight stopped as they entered the area, listening to the conversations going on for a moment, and over them the sound of sniffling. It didn't sound like Fluttershy this time. In fact it was Pinkie, which was unusual, and she was sat near where Twilight was stood, which was why Twilight was probably the only one to have noticed it so far.

"Hey, what's up?" she asked Pinkie, keeping her voice down in case Pinkie didn't want the others to see her crying. Not that it was really crying. Pinkie seemed far too happy to be upset.

Pinkie jumped and rapidly wiped her eyes, "That was super sneaky, Twilight."

"I was hardly being subtle, now come on, tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing!"

"I'm pretty sure there's got to be something wrong," Twilight deadpanned.

"Nope! Everything couldn't be more right! When I joined the army it was to get our friends back. That's all I wanted, and now it's finally happened! We're all back together again!" Pinkie smiled a wobbly smile as fresh tears started to fall, "Happy tears, Twilight. Happy tears."

"Alright, I believe you. I just wish this could've been the end of it all though." Twilight also wished that all of them really were there. Sunset would've loved meeting the rest of her human friends' counterparts.

"Me too. I hope I don't have to cry sad tears too. Sad tears are the worst."

"Yeah, they are." Twilight patted Pinkie on the back and moved on to where Luna, Cadence, Moondancer, and Starsy were talking in hushed tones. Waiting patiently for them to notice her, she cleared her throat as noisily as she could to get their attention, asking if there was something wrong once she did.

"Not wrong, per se," Luna said with an awkward slowness. "We were debating the best way to deploy the oubliette, and haven't achieved much in that regard. The activation procedures are too slow."

"It's an incredibly complex piece of arcane artistry designed to contain one of the most powerful beings in existence!" Starsy grumbled back, his voice rising in volume as he went on. "You never specified that it needed to be quick as well! I'm not sure that's even possible!"

"Come on, Luna, we knew this," Twilight said to the blue alicorn. "We wouldn't need all the armour and help if we thought it was going to be quick and easy."

"Ten minutes," Luna stated. "That's how long it takes. Are you sure we can stand up to Faust for that long, even with the armour?"

That was quite a bit of time, Twilight had to admit, but it didn't matter. "We'll hold her off as long as we have to. We don't get a choice in that."

"Sadly true." Luna splayed her ears out, her irritation showing. "Hopefully past lessons on our ability to fight her can be ignored."

"Hence the armour," Cadence reminded Luna. "We aren't doing this unprepared."

Luna breathed in deeply, and let it back out in a single burst. "Fine, so we shall have to hold Faust off for at least that long. There is still the matter of deploying the oubliette. Who will be doing that?"

"It needs at least three to do it properly," said Moondancer. "Since I probably know the most about it, except for maybe Starsy, I... imagine that makes me one of them." Moondancer smiled helplessly, "Lucky me."

"That still leaves two more."

"I had thought Sunset would be one of them," Moondancer whispered, her head sinking for a second before raising to skewer Twilight with a sharp look. "Unfortunately that won't be happening."

Twilight squirmed under Moondancer's piercing gaze, "I know, but I have someone that could act in her stead. Starlight Glim-"

"Absolutely not," Luna barked, dismissing the idea before Twilight could even finish saying it. "We would have to be fools to let that mare near this. It's bad enough for her to even be here where she can hear all this."

"We don't have a choice," Twilight countered. "Without Sunset we don't have enough unicorns to activate the oubliette. Trixie's already the third unicorn in this equation, Fleur and Rarity don't have the aptitude in magic, no offence-"

"None taken," Fleur and Rarity said together.

"-And Shining will already have the task of protecting them while they work. Starlight is literally our only option. Besides, she knows magic. Is good at it even. She can do this."

"It is not her ability I'm questioning," Luna said with an imperious air. "It's her integrity I'm in doubt of."

"She wants to stop Faust. That much I can guarantee. Give her a chance, Luna."

"Were this something of significantly less import, I would, but this is literally one of the most important events in our fight against Faust." Luna flung a hoof out to point at Starlight, who cringed under the attention. "I do not think now is the time to be giving her a chance to screw up or betray us!"

"I'd probably trust her to not screw up more than Trixie," Moondancer said in the short silence after Luna's declaration.

"Shouldn't there be a 'no offence' after that?" Trixie asked back after a couple of seconds.

"Should there? Must've slipped my mind."

Trixie sighed, "Great, so I'm being viewed as the weak link even though Moondancer's magic is probably more pathetic than Fleur's. No offence."

"Some taken this time," Fleur grumbled.

"Why is Trixie now the liability? Huh? Moondancer hasn't even been in a proper fight before! Is she going to be able to cast whatever the spell is while there's a battle going on around her? Starlight has at least some experience in both fighting, and casting under pressure, which is going to be a lot more use than whatever Moondancer thinks she can do!"

"That's rich coming from the pony that falls back on dark magic every time things threaten to get just a tiny bit difficult!"

"You've hardly even left this place since coming here! Hiding here while the rest of us do the hard work!"

"Oh, so you already knew how to make a magical prison capable of holding somepony like Faust, did you? Clearly all my time here helping Starsy was worthless!"

"ENOUGH! THE BOTH OF YOU!" Luna roared, her booming voice pinning everyone to the floor and making the entire library rattle. "Save your fury for Faust. Moondancer, Trixie raises a valid point that your ability to cast under such pressure is untested. And Trixie, are you really going to be able to cast without getting distracted, or without falling into using dark magic?"

"Considering how much that would screw everything up, yeah, I think I'll manage not to." Trixie turned her head and narrowed her eyes at Twilight, "Good job defending me here, by the way."

"Sorry, but I already know you're both more than capable of doing this. What you can't do is the entire thing with just the two of you. You need a third," Twilight looked to Luna, "and Starlight is currently our only choice."

Luna stared back at Twilight for a while, then raised her head. "Starlight Glimmer?"

"Y-yes, Princess?" Starlight replied timorously, stepping forward in the hopes that Luna would appreciate any signs of keenness.

"Why do you want to stop Faust?"

Starlight blinked and frowned at the question, "Um... are you serious?"

"Answer the question."

"Because she's insane! She wants to burn the world down to save it from itself! She doesn't seem to have any issues with how she does it either, so long as the end justifies the means, which it always, always does. Then there's what she did to Princess Celestia to make her all... weird. I'm sure there's other reasons too, but I'm not aware of those since you're keeping quiet about them." Starlight stopped her outburst and tapped her hooves together. "So in conclusion, yes I want to stop her."

"You're concerned by what she did to my sister?"

"Hey, if she can do that to Celestia, she could do it to all of us."

Luna hummed thoughtfully, then looked over to their resident lie detector, Mayfly, who shrugged and shook her head. If Mayfly had been unable to sense the lies in Starlight's words, then that probably meant the unicorn was being honest. Shallow and self-serving to a degree since her concern over Celestia was actually concern for herself, but still honest.

"Very well, but should you decide to abandon us at a critical moment, I shall hunt you down and throw you into the deepest, darkest prison I can find. There shall be no mercy, and no appeals. Faust needs to be stopped, so if you can't face her, say so now."

The callousness of that threat surprised Twilight, although she could see it was pretty empty. If they failed to capture Faust, hunting down Starlight Glimmer would be the very least of their concerns. She suspected Starlight knew that too, which only pleased her further when Starlight stepped forward with a determination on her face that made Twilight want to cheer.

"I won't let you down. I mean, I don't even know what your plan is, but I won't back out and run."

Luna studied that expression of determination for a moment, then smiled. "Very good. I suppose it is time we made you all privy to our intentions. As you all know, Faust is a being of incredible power that could only be rivalled by Discord. Even then he claims to be unable to defeat her. She cannot die, and we cannot beat her into submission. Neither will the Elements do much against her, even with their recent changes."

"Is this supposed to fill us with optimism?" Trixie asked. Even though she knew the plan, hearing all this wasn't exactly encouraging.

"I'm getting those out of the loop appraised of the situation, Trixie. They need to know what we're up against. They also need to know that we have a way to stop Faust."

"I'm sure they've already assumed that."

"Hush, Trixie." Luna waited until she was sure Trixie wasn't going to talk over her again before continuing. "With the help of Starsy, whom I'm sure you've all met by now, we've devised an arcane oubliette that is capable of containing Faust and her power. It is this which we will need the aid of the Bearers to complete."

"The heck's an arcane oubli- oubi... whatever it is you said?" Applejack asked.

"It's an inescapable prison," Twilight explained as simply as she could, "but made of magic. Faust will effectively be stored inside the crystal heart I brought back from Mareitania."

"Isn't that cruel?" Fluttershy asked.

"It's considerably less cruel than her previous imprisonment," said Luna. "It's also not quite as we're describing it. To put it simply, the spell Starsy has devised will create an entire world within the oubliette for Faust to inhabit and control at her whim. She should be quite comfortable there, while removing the threat she poses to us. Sunset Shimmer conceived the idea, so all credit for that goes to her, even after she... well, yes."

Twilight waited for something, some sensation that hinted towards Sunset not being gone. There was nothing, even though the very mention of Sunset's name usually had Twilight jumping at shadows. Perhaps she truly was gone. Twilight shook her head, and looked up as Rarity raised a hoof.

"I have a question. Not to diminish your achievements, but why has this taken so long to achieve? You already have the crystal heart, so why has it taken months to even get this far?"

"Because it isn't that simple," Twilight answered. "We needed components from Zebrica, and ended up fighting a war there, and there was plenty else besides."

"Like getting the griffons on our side," said Rainbow. "We haven't been stuck here sitting on our hooves, Rarity. We've built an entire alliance to help us fight Faust."

"Yes, but... why?"

"Because Faust has an army," Luna replied. "Faust we can fight with just the few of us, but we cannot fight her entire army as well as her, so we needed allies. The Griffon Empire has proven willing to see Faust stopped, and has agreed to provide the armed forces we need to keep Faust's army distracted while we stop Faust. The Saddle Arabians and Zebras also wish to see Faust stopped, although they have little to offer militarily speaking. The only other group to offer significant military aid was the changelings."

Twilight winced at the shock that got out of her friends. Other than that, the only one that seemed perturbed was Octavia, as she and Summer were the only ones to not know, and Summer had no real idea what the changelings even were.

"Are you pulling mah leg?" Applejack yelled. "Changelings? Ya allied with changelings? What the heck made ya think that was a good idea?"

"Desperation, mainly," Luna said back calmly. "Chrysalis wants Faust gone as much as we do, and offered her aid, for a price."

"What price?"

"The means to feed her people, which Cadence provided, and a place in Equestria once Faust was gone."

Applejack rubbed her hooves down her face, "You have got ta be kidding. How could you possibly trust a snake like Chrysalis? All those changelings are nothing but filthy crooks!"

"Thorax and Mayfly are changelings," Twilight countered to Applejack's complaint. "They've both helped us a lot."

"But-" Applejack pointed a hoof at one of those changelings present, "-they ain't changelings! I mean, look at Mayfly! She's all colourful and stuff! She don't look like the kind of folk that snatch foals just to steal a mother's love."

There was a flash as Mayfly transformed, first into a pony, then a griffon, a dragon, and finally into the black, vicious form that they more readily recognised as a changeling. A final flash took her back to her normal form. "Am too a changeling."

"Thorax and Mayfly are the result of when a changeling shares love, and gives it instead of stealing it," Cadence explained, giving the two changelings a warm smile. "They become like what you see now."

"That's also what we hope to encourage the other changelings to do," Luna added. "I know you won't appreciate the false pretences behind it, Applejack, but we hope to effectively steal Chrysalis' hive out from under her by encouraging them all to become like Thorax and Mayfly."

Applejack reached up to move her hat forwards and hide her eyes, but as she was still hatless the only thing she did was mess her mane up. "You're right, I don't like that, and I don't think Chrysalis will either."

"Pfft," Rainbow scoffed, "who cares what Chrysalis thinks? She's what's wrong with the changelings. The changelings themselves aren't that bad."

"A lot of this also depends on Chrysalis herself," Luna emphasised. "If she's comfortable with playing along, then she loses nothing. However, if she chafes under our rule, and wishes to break lose from Equestria, she may do so without her hive, severely reducing her as a threat for some time. We can scarcely afford a war with the changelings, now or ever, so this benefits all of us for the time being."

"I'm afraid this is politics," Rarity said kindly, patting Applejack on the back of her neck. "I'm afraid this is beyond any of us to deal with."

"Fine, but that still don't mean I got to like it."

"We're not asking you to," said Twilight. "All we ask that you know it's for the best."

"So you're on board with this too, Twi?"

"It was her idea to begin with," Trixie said, making Twilight wince as that was something that could've gone without saying. She failed to meet Applejack's eyes as the farm pony raised an eyebrow at her.

"As Luna said, we can't afford a war with the changelings as well, so if this makes Equestria safer, then I'm glad I thought of it."

"I'd also like to point out that the changeling in the room is also on board with this idea," Fleur told Applejack in the hopes of getting her to stop whining. "Not a lot of changelings really like Chrysalis, and will happily accept some change in that regard."

"Look, I said I'm fine with it, just not comfortable. Perhaps we should go back to what we were talking about regardin' the plans to save Equestria."

"Of course," Luna said with a nod. "As I was saying, we needed allies to keep Faust's army distracted, and unfortunately there's only one way to do that. While our allies attack the Mareitanian and yak army, we shall deal with Faust and put an end to all of this."

"So more fighting and bloodshed," Octavia sighed. "Marvellous."

"Unavoidable is what I'd call it," said Shining. "There's no way to do this without it. Even if we could stop Faust without fighting her army, the army would still be a problem afterwards."

"I fear the yaks will forever be a problem after all of this," Luna agreed. "Unlike the Mareitanians, who were forced through magic to follow Faust, the yaks follow her willingly. They will not like us removing her."

Twilight waved a hoof dismissively, "That's a problem for the future. Right now all we need to do, and can do, is stop Faust." Twilight turned to her friends, "That's where your part in this comes in. We need the Elements to complete the oubliette. After that you're welcome to stay here in safety until Faust is stopped."

"And then we can rebuild Equestria and make it a happy place again?" Pinkie asked, bouncing with excitement.

"Exactly."

"Then I am so on board! Just tell me what you need me to do."

Author's Notes:

I'm still here, just about, sporadically posting trash chapters to save myself from doing the hard work of the finale which I'm maybe halfway through writing, maybe... I'm kinda writing it in small bits, then going to jam it all into one big chapter that might be decent, or end up a wildly incoherent mess. Time will tell, but probably not that soon.