The first thing we came across in Tartarus was a long hall littered with empty cages of every size. Comet Tail with Pinchy on his back led the way down the hall and Blossomforth and Cloud Kicker brought up the rear to keep me from falling behind.

By the time we reached the end of the hall and the light from outside was completely gone, the cavern had opened up. It was like the world had disappeared and we were in an empty void. I can not emphasize enough how dark it was. It was a warm dark too, like being under a wool blanket. If it wasn’t so terrifyingly quiet, it would have been inviting. Physically, I wanted to sleep but I wasn't even going to sit down.

Unanimously, we agreed to continue: forward and with beacons to get back. The unicorns took turns casting light spells on cages closest to the edge of the void and then we headed out. We were like seven stars moving through nothingness. Every shadow we made stretched away from us, creating titans, monsters, hellspawns across the ground. Except just beyond our light there was just the void. The only sign that anything was down there at all was the occasional wall of warm, dry air billowing past us. It was like the darkness was breathing. It felt less like we were in a den of monsters and more like we were inside one.

The first real thing we found was a dried riverbed and even that was barely more than a valley full of smooth stones and cracked ground. With a new trail, we checked our ‘beacons’ were still glowing and walked down the riverbed instead.

The minutes ticked by as we grew further away from our way out. We were in over our heads; I didn’t expect it to be this big. We rounded a bend and the beacons couldn't be seen anymore. I imagined what would happen if they winked out and I think everypony else did too because we started talking about turning around.

Going around that corner was what we needed though. At first I thought I was just seeing things but everypony else saw it too: much further down the ‘river’ was the first sign of another light. We knew it wasn’t ours: it was a warm, orange glow. At this point, more curious than scared, we were drawn towards it. As we approached it, a huge stone wall came into focus, like it appeared out of the dark like a ghost. We walked alongside it dumbstruck.

“What is this?” Blossomforth asked in a hushed voice. “Is this a castle?”

“It’s a prison. Tartarus is a prison, isn’t it?” Carrot Top questioned Blossomforth’s surprise. She didn’t reply.

“Most of the cages we saw weren’t pony-sized,” Comet Tail defended.

After a moment, Carrot Top relented.

“...that’s true. But if I was a betting pony, I’d bet these walls aren’t to keep things out.”

“I figured Tartarus was just, like, a place where scary things lived?” Blossom asked. “Why would ponies put things into cages? Or build a prison inside of another prison?”

“Maybe ponies don’t like killing,” Minuette suggested.

“So we bury them?” my freckled, feathered friend feared.

Nopony knew so nopony answered. We cautiously moved towards a point in the wall that looked destroyed. The mountain of crude bricks were bathed in the orange glow from inside the walls.

“I don’t think this fell by itself,” Comet reasoned.

“Do you think it was a break in? Like the gate?” my Pinchy asked. We might still be on Sunset’s trail then and not something else’s.

Cloud Kicker volunteered to peek inside the wall first. I watched her carefully climb up the rubble until she could peer in. She took her time staring into the abyss with what little light she had: the shield’s light on her and whatever made the orange glow across her face. It looked more like she was baiting anything in the dark to see her.

“...all clear,” Cloud said after an agonizingly slow minute. “I… don’t know if this is a prison though.”

Curiosity made us all climb the rubble and look too.

“It’s a city… ” Comet Tail said in disbelief.

Visible in that warm glow, rotting wooden buildings and empty street lights lined roads that were crumbling into sinkholes. What was left was definitely something like a tiny walled-in town, sloping downward. Past the broken boulevards was another destroyed wall and what looked like more buildings. The town had layers of defensive walls that grew taller towards the center. And just like the outer breach, each wall was brought down to create a path towards the final destination: rising far above the city, a crumbling tower bled harsh red-orange light: the last light in Tartarus.

“...oh-kay,” Blossomforth stated, folding her wings together in front of her. “We should leave.”

“You want to turn around now?” Cloud Kicker asked her partner.

“Do you want to be here??” she retorted incredulously. “I don’t want to guess what’s inside that tower!”

“Whatever’s respawning the monsters, I imagine,” Cloud stated the obvious. When she saw the fear in her friend’s eyes she dropped the act. “It’s right there. Blossom, we should at least get a peek.”

The inferno inside the tower grew brighter. The ground beneath us rumbled as another wave of hot air funneled up from the tower. The heat wave caused the city’s ashes to resettle and for the tower to crumple just ever slightly more. It was right there, glowing in the dark like a beacon: the perilous answers to the questions that made us come down here.

“This is way too dangerous,” Blossom reasoned.

“Yeah. It’s dangerous,” Cloud agreed. “Like all the fighting we did back in Ponyville and like all of our friends back there are still doing! Here though, if we figure out how to stop the monsters from coming back, we can make a huge difference for them!”

“That’s true…” she admitted. I saw the fear in Blossomforth’s face melt into guilt and Cloud nuzzled her mate to try and wipe that away.

“I’m scared too but we’ll do it together,” my Pinchy agreed. She got her own nuzzle from me for that.

“And on the plus side, it doesn’t look so dark there?” Minuette added.

I looked around at the rest of us. Comet, Carrot and I were quietly in agreement as well. It really was us versus Blossomforth and unfortunately for all of us, she was a team player.

“Yeah, okay,” she finally agreed. For her trouble, she got a nuzzle from Minuette as well and we started the careful descent down the first pile of rubble.

Unlike the cages, the town itself was undoubtedly made for ponies. The doors, the windows, the park benches: they were all pony-sized. I wondered if this was a town for the worst of the worst who didn’t even get to see Princess Celestia’s sun or Princess Luna’s stars.

I passed by a sinkhole and looked down into it. Just more black. I couldn’t judge how far down it went. We were on hollow ground.

Blossom saw it too, her wings out and raised, as if an agitated bird ready to fly at a moment’s notice. “This whole thing could fall any minute…” she whimpered.

“...no pronking zone… two hundred and fifty bit fine,” Minuette mumbled. It was either more for her own amusement or she realized it was inappropriate.

We stepped over the broken bricks filling the hole in the next destroyed wall. We had no interest in exploring this town. If anything, we had a reverence for it like a cemetery. We kept an eye out, but there weren’t any ghosts left.

We passed over the third and final wall that was around the tower at the center of all of this. The tower was smooth and almost looked like gold from the way it glowed in the fire. The doors here were broken too so… we let ourselves in.

The entire interior was smooth, dark stone coated in inches of ash. The height of this floor actually reached all the way up the tower. I could see what I thought were oddly-angled windows on the outside were just holes. It was otherwise quite plain. There was a shaft at the opposite end gated off, an elevator shaft maybe, and stairs that only led down. It was muggy inside here and all the light poured up from the depths of the elevator and the stairs.

“It looks like carved obsidian,” my little Pinchy suggested. She reached out with a little hoof to touch a wall just out of her reach on Comet Tail’s back.

“What does that mean?” I asked, not knowing my rocks.

“It’s formed from lava flow! I don’t think it’s ever one giant piece like this though.”

“I reckon ponies are good at making things that look natural,” Comet Tail said, smiling at the little geologist on his back.

“I ‘reckon’ so too,” Pinchy copied him.

We chanced moving towards the shaft and stairs. There was nothing obvious from looking down into the shaft other than that there was definitely light down there. In mostly silent caution, we headed for the stairs.

“More down,” Blossomforth whined. She didn’t complain anymore though. We single-filed down the warm, black stairs designed for a pony’s gait. After several minutes of struggling down the smooth black stone we found a door leading out of the tower. I stumbled out behind my friends. Joining them, I stared at what we had walked out into.

We were inside a deep pit the size of Ponyville’s town square lit by an open chamber of magma below. Stalagmites the size of towers rose out of that angry sea. Some were knocked over, shattered or broken but on the remaining ones their tops were cleared away down the middle, creating a canopy on both sides of what became flat platforms large enough to put a small house on them. The empty cages sitting on the platforms told me that the creatures living here weren’t doing so willingly though. The red sky far above us confirmed we were at the source: the hellspawn were coming from here.

We were on a balcony and carefully we approached the edge to look down. Around the circumference of the pit was a spiraling path. Broken and interrupted in spots, but clearly the intent was to be able to go down and access the various towers from narrow rock bridges spanning from the pit walls.

My friends looked down and when they did, they ducked behind the lip of our balcony. I was confused until I saw it and collapsed down next to them too.

At one of the lower towers there was a colossal… thing. Its body was nearly ursa-sized. It had a back like a pony but two arms coming from a torso on its front. I would have called it a centaur but there were half a dozen giant, feathered wings on its wide back and just as many horns jutting out in front of its crown. Its horns and most of its sooty body were coated in crystals and rock that seemed to weld it into the ground and restrain it. There was some kind of heavy rock collar weighing down its neck embedded with its own raw gemstones.

We had found the last prisoner of Tartarus.

“D-do you think it saw us?” I asked.

Cloud took another peek and quickly ducked back down. ”No, I don’t think it knows we’re here.”

“What is that thing?” I asked the group for answers. We had seen a lot of messed up monsters today, but I didn’t expect a half-pony one.

“It’s demonic,” Carrot decided. “Did you see how many horns and wings it had??? It’s like… like the Beast of Revelation and the Whore of Babylon had a baby!” I didn’t know what she was referring to but I was getting the idea from how drained and terrified she looked in the volcanic light.

She turned to Comet Tail for someone who would tell her she’s not crazy.

“Not enough heads… but, if it’s at the center of hell, past the city of Dis, then…” Comet speculated but trailed off. He was followed by a horrible, thunderous rumble. Everypony but Blossomforth looked down at the beast.

Beneath its crystallized cover, I saw the creature of the deep glow red and the feathered wings burst into flames. The world around us shook with that noise and the rest of its body began catching fire. As if on cue, the pit around us thundered and shook and threatened to collapse.

“It’s going to blow!” Carrot yelled. We turned to run but fell in the earthquakes. Earth around us slid and fell and I found my daughter and threw myself over her.

There was a huge rushing sensation, like we were on top of a raging river and I became aware again just how small I was. The heat wave hit so hard I thought I was being cooked or vaporized. Then it passed and we lived.

I opened my eyes. We were okay, except for the fact we were too close to whatever this thing was. My daughter looked pale and was trembling. From lying there and holding her, I looked up. A plume of magma and the fresh hellspawn had been thrown up. I stared up at where they went. Some had escaped the opening above completely, others reached a climbable surface and finished crawling out of the deep we were in. I saw some of my friends were watching too.

I saw our curious stallion peek again over the thin cover of balcony for answers. Cloud slowly rose up next to him to look as well.

“Its back and wings are… well, they were open,” she muttered. “...its back?”

I saw Comet look up at the red sky and back down into the pit.

“The creatures are coming from its back; it’s giving birth to them,” Comet explained as he continued peeking at the creature.

“From its back???” Carrot asked in a loud hush next to us.

Curiosity seemed to get Minuette, who had been lying next to me and Pinchy, and now she peeked to look. I continued sitting and holding my daughter until they sat back down with us and compared notes.

“I dunno what I was expecting,” Comet admitted. He continued looking over the landscape around us for answers. “It’s hard to say when this place got wrecked, but I reckon Sunset’s group did it?”

“Or that thing when they tried to kill it,” Carrot reasoned. Comet nodded.

“You think it’s what Luna was talking about: the creature her guards were sacrificed to free?”

“Doesn’t look free now,” Cloud pointed out.

“I imagine that’s Sunset’s doing,” Carrot suggested. The fear in her eyes was replaced with a bitter sadness. She got back up and looked down to the monster and around for anything else. The sigh told me she didn’t find it. “The fact it’s stuck in the ground is telling. They couldn’t finish killing it. …they probably fell.”

We held another long moment of silence.

We came looking for answers or something we could do to help. Instead, we just saw why others had failed.

“Ponies?” Blossomforth broke the silence. She was standing near the way back up. “Can we go now? Please?”

I nodded. Several of our friends seemed to agree. We were far, far in over our heads and found what we were looking for, even if we couldn’t understand it.

Blossomforth and Carrot helped me back to my hooves and we all started to leave the biblical horrors we had found. Except I looked around and saw Minuette was looking over the balcony.

“Minnie?” I asked.

“...they’re in pain,” Minuette said. It took me a moment to realize she must have meant the hellspawns’ ‘mother’.

“Minnie? We need to go,” Carrot said, gently nudging her. Comet Tail reapproached the edge to try and see what Minuette was seeing.

“It’s barely reacting to any of this,” Comet Tail pointed out.

Minuette shook her head.

“They don’t want this… we should talk to them! Maybe they know how to stop what’s happening to them?”

“‘Talk to them’??” Blossomforth asked, incredulously.

“Minnie, that thing might of killed Sunset and her friends,” Comet tried to reason.

“Don’t call them a ‘thing’. They might be a person,” Minuette defended. “And they might not be evil! We don’t know what happened. They deserve the benefit of the doubt!”

“Minnie, if it’s down here we know it’s evil,” Blossomforth pointed out.

“Maybe because Discord knew they weren’t on his side? Maybe… we can at least talk to them? …please?”

Minuette looked to me for somepony to back her up.

I was torn. She liked to believe in the good in people and she had pulled me out of a metaphorical hole before but this was very different.

I looked back at the biblical abomination. I couldn’t believe I was actually contemplating this but I was struggling to find meaning to all of this if we all just walked away now.

"...well, they don’t look like they’re going anywhere,” I began defending Minuette.

“Berry, are you serious??” Carrot questioned me like I had gone mad. She looked to Comet Tail for some sanity. “Comet?”

Comet Tail was contemplating the monster in the pit now. I saw his eyes trace the paths along the walls.

“Comet??” she tried again.

“...‘but who prays for Satan?’” Comet quoted to the group. “...‘who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?’”

“Mark Twain,” my little Ruby answered before I had to ask.

Carrot seemed to reflect on this before focusing in on Minuette.

“Minnie, this is an incredibly dangerous idea. Suicidal even,” Carrot reminded her.

“We don’t know what they did. They deserve a chance,” Minuette explained.

I watched Carrot’s face go through several stages. This thing didn’t deserve a chance: after all, there wasn’t a thing deserving… but who were we to not give them one when we could? Wasn’t that the warmth she professed? Finally Carrot’s ears relaxed.

“...what’s the plan?”

“We need to go down there; get in their line of sight!” Minuette insisted. The prisoner was looking in front of themselves, slightly downcast. It was almost as if…

“...I’ll go with you,” Blossomforth volunteered. Everypony turned to look at her.

“You will?!” Minuette cheered. Blossom gathered her courage and nodded.

“...you’re right, Minnie. We need to be brave and show them kindness first. We don’t know if they’re doing this on purpose. Maybe they don’t even have anything to do with Sunset’s disappearance.”

“That’s the Blossom I know and love,” Cloud said before nuzzling her partner.

“Okay,” Carrot Top started to agree. “You two want to just fly down in front of it?”

“I could, but I couldn’t fly us both back up here,” she said, lifting up her wings to demonstrate the state of them. Cloud looked back at her own feathers and frowned.

“We could fly down then walk back up?” Minuette suggested.

“There is a path. Plenty of cover too,” Comet agreed.

“...be careful,” Carrot hesitantly let them go.

Comet Tail cast a spell and the shield glow around Blossom grew stronger. Pinchy refreshed the sparkle on Minuette as well.

Cloud stepped in front of her partner and gave her a chaste kiss on her freckled cheek.

“You got this. I’ll be here to back you up,” her partner told her before going in for a hug. I saw her lean into her ear and whisper something. Blossom flustered and pushed her grinning partner away in a good-natured huff.

“They’re doing it again!” Comet warned us.

We felt that rumble begin, telling us the prisoner was getting ready to recreate more hellspawn. We embraced and collapsed to the floor to cover each other. The pit around us began shaking more intensely and before long the world started vibrating again, threatening to collapse in on itself.

But it all passed. I was starting to get used to it, maybe. It wasn’t much more horrifying than the grinding noise from digging hellspawn. We looked up at each other, in one more embrace before executing the plan.

“Okay!” Carrot took charge. “ They just blew! If you’re going, go now!”

“Hold on tight!” the brave little pegasus ordered. Minuette obeyed by bearhugging her from behind. Carefully, they approached the edge of the balcony. Blossom raised her singed wings and on heavy flaps and incredibly hot air currents, they glided away and down.

We crowded where they had been to watch them fly. It was more of a controlled fall. They plummeted fast but had little distance to go. They quickly got around the few rocky outcrops and towers in the way and lined up their landing.

I held my breath as they came down in a graceful, controlled crash along the wide, narrow path that led to the prisoner.

“...this is crazy …but she’s crazy, right?” Carrot Top muttered next to me as we watched them go. I looked at her and she continued. “Tell me I’m letting her do the right thing.”

“You’re letting her do the right thing,” Cloud answered before I could.

“...should we have gone with them?” my daughter questioned. My best friend petted our daughter’s little pink head and assured her.

“We’re just letting her try her thing, because we believe in her. Then we’ll all go home,” he promised.

Home. I wanted to go home. Someplace safe and with all of my family and friends. A place we could make all our own again.

I looked back in time to see Minuette approach the demon, leaving a wide berth from it. Blossomforth trailed quietly behind. We all watched with bated breath.

Minuette waved to them as if to get their attention and then, even without getting any response, called out loud and clear anyway.

“Hello! My name’s Minuette! What’s yours?”

The creature didn’t respond. It continued to just stare blankly downcast at them, where its gaze had been held for who knows how long. Now, there just happened to be a blue unicorn and a white pegasus there.

“Helloooo! I just want to hear you out! Why are you here?? Do you want to leave??”

The creature began to stir and I thought it was going to answer before I realized it was reflexively tensing itself up for another bastardous birth from its back. Minuette and Blossomforth ran to an overturned cage nearby and hid behind it. I barely ducked in time before I felt that wave of heat and felt the world slide and rumble past us. By the time I pulled myself up to see what my friends were seeing, I heard Minuette already back at it.

“Hello?? …Please?? …are you hurt?? …did someone hurt you??” Minuette asked it more questions. She was clearly getting desperate but this eldritch thing didn’t even see her; it was gone, if it ever was there.

I watched the creature not respond. The hunched shoulders, the downcast eyes, the despondent nature; I did recognize this. It was as if they had lost all hope and receded away from the world around them. There was a ‘gulf between them and the world’.

“...they’re depressed,” I realized. All of my friends next to me stopped staring at the prisoner and looked at me instead for saying that.

“The horn!” Blossomforth shouted.

We all looked back too late to notice the tip of the last horn on the prisoner’s head not fully coated in crystals: it glowed.

Minuette turned around and grabbed Blossomforth to protect her or run away with her.

The reaction was too slow though. A huge rock, ripped straight off the edge of the pit, crashed straight into them like a train. Blossomforth was clipped and crashed into the side of the platform. Minuette, meanwhile, took the brunt force of the blow. My heart plummeted as I watched my friend’s glowing body go flying, past the zig-zagging path, over the open pits of the volcanic magma below and miraculously, came to a tumbling stop on one of the giant, fallen pillars on a lower, much more broken layer below. Her glow was out now.

“Minnie!” we all shouted before leaping to their rescue.

Cloud Kicker jumped straight over our balcony and the rest of us tumbled down the crumbling path along the edge. I immediately ran into issues keeping up with everypony. Before we reached the first thing we had to climb over I felt that familiar rumble. I saw Cloud dive down for cover. I caught up and the rest of us ponypiled on top of each other as Tartarus shuddered and we held on for our lives. The ground felt so unstable down here, like we could fall into the open magma chamber to our right at any minute.

Once the rebirth finished, we started climbing over the rocks in the way before Carrot stopped us.

“Wait, wait!” Carrot shouted, raising her hoof.

There was something wrong: the ground hadn’t stopped tremoring. I saw Cloud was already in the air, rushing to meet Blossom who was holding her wing in a very unnatural position. Cloud was so desperate to reach her in time, she practically crashed straight into her. As soon as they got their bearings again, the seismic activity was at its height.

“Get down!” Carrot shouted and jumped down on top of us. We held onto each other again and rode out the violent quake and burning heat. As soon as I heard the shouts I tried to look back, almost too soon for the light and heat.

Minuette was still there. Cloud and Blossom were fine but things only continued to get worse. A creature with a mess of limbs, tentacles and claws crashed from above down right next to them. Quickly followed by another with too many wings, eyes and mouths not far behind them. The creatures reorientated themselves from the fall then began clambering towards the retreating two pegasi.

“Okay!” Carrot said, climbing back on top of the rubble. “We’re getting Minnie!” Carrot ordered me directly. “Comet, Ruby: Cover everypony!” Carrot took my forelegs and helped me up and over.

“I’ll try the chaos shields!” my daughter shouted after us.

“I’ll cast the normal ones!” Comet supported her.

Before I could linger any longer, I was being pushed and pulled along the path further down, down by Carrot Top. There was a winding, unsupported path that led to a tower and closer to the pegasi but Carrot and I continued along the pit’s walls, a painfully slow and wide descent to Minuette. I saw a fresh green shield reach her body.

As Carrot Top gained distance ahead of me, I saw the first shots fired down at the monsters near the center platform: a ball arched and lobbed into one of their backs quickly followed by a short blast of a narrow beam. They were trying to get the focus of the hellspawns off of Cloud who was talking to and nuzzling a visibly shaken Blossom. They were pinned from ahead and behind on a naked set of stairs by the abominations approaching them from both directions.

As soon as the one in front of them spun, confused from being attacked from behind by magic, I saw Cloud charge it. There was no way she could go around or under the mass of tentacles blocking their path.

“Berry!” Carrot yelled. I came to a stumbling stop into her forelegs. She pointed along a trail leading to a tower out in the center. I saw how it snaked behind the prisoner and reconnected down to the outer wall: right above the shelf Minuette landed on. We had a path to her!

I nodded and Carrot took off. I limped after her but got caught up looking at our friends. The pegasi were in flight, Cloud held Blossom and with three okay wings they made a flying hop on and over the cursed creature, barely missing tentacles and the lasers from Ruby and Comet.

“Berry!” Carrot yelled at me again. I looked up at her fearful eyes waiting for me at the sheltered tower. I felt the path begin to rattle, little pebbles dancing around my hooves. I was out in the open behind the prisoner when their body burned like coal again and their wings erupted like kindling. I was blinded by the heat and noxious fumes. When they blew I’d be blown off the path if I didn’t make it to cover. I rushed blindly towards the tower.

My coat singed but then I felt another earth pony fall on top of me. Our bodies reeked of sweat being baked off of our coats as soon as it came. The eruption happened but it wasn't over yet. I think I blacked out from the heat for a moment.

Carrot kept jabbing me awake as the earth around us shuddered and snapped. I saw it when I woke up: a hellspawn had landed almost right on top of us. It still dripped with magma, its black guts spilling out from its torso in a mix of tentacles and mouths. Its eyes were diamonds embedded in coal, glimmering at us.

“Go! Go!” Carrot shouted. I started before I could find the way; anywhere was better as the monster pulled down onto where we were.

A magic beam carved across its body and its mouths roared in time to get a face full of rock. The smell of burnt hair and rotting flesh disappeared behind us into the sulfurous heat as we scrambled away.

There were more hellspawn in the air, full of wings and black blood. Cloud and Blossom tried to keep them off my daughter and Comet but Cloud’s luck had finally run out: one blindsided the mare and crushed her to the ground. Comet focused fire to try and rescue her.

I couldn’t really run as much as trip and stumble fast down the stairs we were racing down. Carrot grabbed me when I got too close to the ledge. I felt a familiar green glow start to hug my body and the same glow fit around Carrot’s body as she righted me and continued to urge me forward. We made it to the pit's edge again. We were so close to Minuette now. Just a little further.

The prisoner at the center of this problem made their horrible sound again and tried to hold back the monsters tearing from their back to no avail again. I saw their flesh and rock torn away, being replaced by fire and their children's bodies pulling from the knot of rocks and burning feathers down their spine. Then at the peak of their pain, light and fire engulfed everything. I clung to the ground, hoping I wouldn’t slide off the path we were on. I was surprised when it passed that we weren’t incinerated. I felt around the unprotected path as we carefully continued moving ahead, a little too blinded to see right.

Things crashed behind us. Our presence here was too easy of a target. I heard magical bursts and rocks carved and tossed in the aftermath. We bumped into a rock wall and Carrot pushed me against it. I tried to blink and rub my eyes.

“Stay behind me!” Carrot shouted, pushing me back against the wall. I heard her charging hoofsteps meet stomps.

I tried to stand and desperately blink the afterimage away from where she went. I saw a Carrot Top-shaped green object move against a moving, misshapen wall being pounded down with shapes and stars from above. Carrot turned and bucked one of its pillars. Her green aura exploded sending her and the wall in separate directions. As the wall came crumbling down it reached out and violently swatted her against the pit wall.

“Carrot!” Ruby called out from far away. I saw the green around her limp body roar to life. It was so strong it knocked the bleeding coal monster back. It clawed and slipped before finally going over the edge. One down. Another hellspawn was quickly moving towards us to take its place. I went to get Carrot first. Her coat was quickly staining red underneath the green glow.

My daughter shot beams and pelted the hellspawn barreling down on me with rocks. Carrot held herself in shock as I dragged us both backwards away from it.

In the middle of all of this, the prisoner was doubled over, ready to give birth again to its children that just died. In the middle of this chaos, a little voice cut through.

“Get down!”

I pulled Carrot down next to me. I trusted my daughter until I saw Comet Tail and my daughter with their horns together, glowing white hot. By then, I realized what they were doing and it was too late.

My coat stood up as a green burst of energy ripped through the area. It felt like I was electrocuted. The hellspawn melted in the wave of lightning. The actual beam hit the prisoner and stripped the rock and crystal right off then penetrated through their red, leathery skin. Their body burned and crumbled. For the first time, they opened their mouth and they screamed. It sounded like an eagle and a woman in pain.

After the sensory overload I saw my daughter back in Comet’s hooves. They were shaking and their horns glowed white hot but there wasn’t a horrible mist of green stars everywhere. For a moment Tartarus grew quiet as the last prisoner of Tartarus was slumped over in pain, a large round hole punched through their body, and I thought my smartest little unicorns had done the impossible.

Until a deep low rumble began from the prisoner. I saw the skeletal scaffolding of its wings were already regrowing. Things began crawling out of their wounds that were already closing, like maggots the size of bears: the hellspawn were already coming back and they weren’t even done healing.

They pulled out of them, with too many wings and faces. Like slow motion, I saw them rise into the air. They ignored me and Carrot and went directly for those who just hurt their ‘mother’.

“No!”

Pinchy and Comet couldn’t protect themselves. Comet shielded our daughter from the impact of the first blow of the first hellspawn. An injured Cloud grabbed hold, trying to tear it off, they were lifted into the air as a result. They must have bit and kicked hard because I saw them crash hard into the pit wall and a rock slide buried them along with the hellspawn.

“No!”

They had to be okay. I found my adrenaline again. I abandoned Carrot Top. I kicked and tripped trying to get back up the long path back up to my friends- to my daughter! I was never going to make it in time. Blossom tried to protect my daughter. I saw her jump in front of the first blow of the first hellspawn but they were immediately swarmed. Blossom held my daughter away from them, even as it wrapped its tentacles around them both. She bucked and thrashed at the tentacles and wings that lifted in the air over the pit. That was, until she broke them free.

I helplessly watched my daughter and friend fall down and past me. The green glow of Ruby’s shield disappeared into the haze of fire and heat below. I was about to throw myself down after her but I didn’t even notice when one of the hellspawn found me and crushed me.

The white hot pain woke me as quickly as it blacked me out. I could still feel my legs but, in the moment, I wished I couldn’t.

I lost everyone.

More importantly, I’d lost my everything. I saw her…

The earth around me raged again and then the heat and light smothered me. I think I blacked out again from it. Then, at some point it passed and I could feel hollow again. I didn’t open my eyes.

I waited in pain, because that’s all I could do. Just wait, until…

Behind my eyelids I thought I saw that green glow that I so wanted to see.

Against what my body was telling me, I opened my eyes. The intense heat of the pit jumped out and stabbed me right in the eyes. I unscrewed my stinging eyes, I definitely saw that green. The fire of hell behind her just wasn't helping.

Just ahead of me, not even fifty yards, that giant prisoner, that death, slumped still, shrouded in their seven red wings, their seven horns and their lowered crown. Listless, more than anything else. I think, if they could, they’d lay down and die but something wouldn’t let them. I wanted to be mad at this creature but I couldn’t be. It felt like my fault we came down here and everyone was dead or dying because of me.

They weren’t the green glow though. Closer to me, but still too far, there was Minuette. She was haloed in that green glow from…

I wasn’t sure why but I tried to crawl and immediately regretted that. The pain shooting up my back told me my rear legs did not want to move. So I just stared at the thinning green aura around Minuette more than Minuette and her still breathing body.

I wanted to be mad at myself but I couldn't do that either: I wanted to stop hurting. I wanted the guilt to stop. I wanted them alive and to forgive me. Maybe it was selfish, but I knew my friends: they were a part of me. I couldn’t deserve their patience or love or forgiveness. And yet… everything blurred: I couldn’t be mad at her mother or his best friend or their family. I just wanted to think about them, to live in their memories and turn myself over to them. It would have been their gift and I wouldn’t refuse anything from them; not ever again.

Not ever again…

I looked out at that thin green aura again, as if hoping that it was thinking exactly what I was thinking. The light on her, in her, in me… in my family…

There was someone else there though and when I tried to see from their perspective, I understood. Like an awakening, there was suddenly something I needed to do. It wasn’t for myself, it was for my higher power. I knew exactly what I had to do with my last ounce of strength.

I tried to crawl forward again and this time I pushed myself until I whimpered and cried.

“Berry?” a voice called behind me and to my right. She sounded so small and far away.

“Carrot… it’s her… It’s always been her… she’s so lonely,” I explained deliriously from the heat and pain.

I heard a noise like dragging and realized as she got closer that’s exactly what it was. Carrot Top was breathing heavily like she had just ran a marathon. Her breath was shallow.

Carrot touched me. She was warm and… wet. I rolled my head in her direction. Her chest and forelegs were covered in her own blood.

“Berry…” she started but continued her heavy breathing into my ear. “We need…. to go.”

“It’s her,” I explained again, trying to point in her direction.

“...Minnie…” she realized. “Get up,” she ordered me.

We both grew silent when we heard the grinding noise of the earth around us again. Hollow anger made the ground around us tremble: the prisoner was giving birth again.

I felt Carrot Top’s body collapse onto mine. I was stunned by her weight, confused by how wet she was and surprised by the thin, green aura that crawled over me when she did.

The monster at the epicenter of hell exploded again. This time though, I didn’t black out from the heat.

I opened my eyes and looked at the precious green aura on me again. I looked at Carrot’s. She was in my face, muzzle-to-muzzle. The aura was bleeding onto me as well.

“...get up,” Carrot spat again, half-laying on me.

“I can’t…”

Carrot continued trying to catch her breath while she assessed me. She nuzzled my cheek.

“...then… we’ll crawl,” she decided. “...get Minnie… we’ll go home.” Home? There wasn’t a home now. My Pinchy…

Carrot could read my expression.

“For her,” Carrot stuttered between shallow breaths. “ …for her.”

I had no physical reason to crawl: there was no way we were getting out of this hell, let alone out of Tartarus, let alone back to Ponyville, but… I pulled myself forward, towards Minuette and the prisoner.

I pulled with green-tinged forelegs and they were exhausted immediately. Carrot pushed with her forelegs, but her weight was still on me. I could feel her blood on my back; even in Tartarus, Carrot felt so warm.

“...for Papa…” she muttered into my ear before I pulled again and she kicked.

We tried catching our breath when the birth of more hellspawn started again and we nuzzled into each other. I focused on staying conscious through the heat and the fire. I focused on the weight on my back. I imagined Carrot’s weight was my daughter’s.

Tartarus grew silent again.

“...for Meemaw…” Carrot readied us.

I pulled again and she kicked again: we go a few more feet.

“...for Mom…” Carrot told me. I agreed. Once again, I pulled and she kicked. We breathed again and then again we prepared for another few feet.

“...for Dad…” Carrot reminded me. I took her queue and crawled and she pushed. My chest and forelegs shook from muscle failure.

“...for Nathan…” she muttered. I closed my eyes; just trying to rest. There wasn’t any strength left.

I felt a viciously sharp pain in my ear. I became conscious and tried to pull away. Carrot let go; she had bit me. She shuddered.

“...for Nathan,” she tried again. She sounded further away now, she was growing weaker. “...for Chad…”

I agreed to both.

I focused on my target: Minuette was so close now. My tunneling vision narrowed on her. I could already imagine the way the last of my Pinchy’s magic would feel. It was like I could feel her again.

I dragged myself forward. Just a few more feet and I could touch her…

I looked past Minuette and back up to the last prisoner of Tartarus.

“...our friends,” Carrot muttered. Her voice was nearly lost in her shallow breaths. She was shaking like she was cold but she still burned...

We dragged ourselves the last few feet right into Minuette. I nuzzled into her and Carrot rolled off of me and into her, practically pushing her over. Through that absinthe glow I saw Minuette stir.

“...d’we win?” my blue concussed unicorn asked dreamily.

I looked up at the one who defeated us…

…and I was sure now.

With the rock and crystal blown off her face and torso, I saw her coat was orange and her mane flowed like fire. I knew why she was here too: because I came down here for the same reasons and I almost gave up for the same reasons.

I gathered the last of my strength and called out her name as loud as I could:

“Sunset Shimmer! …I forgive you.”

I grew dizzy and my vision went totally black. I swam through the darkness and gripped my slipping consciousness like any black-out alcoholic could. When I came to the bleary surface, I shivered at the sight: staring down at me, from the center of Tartarus, were the coldest eyes I had ever seen. I had her attention.

Her fanged mouth opened and a fallen angel spoke.

“Who said that?” she asked. Then she stared directly into my soul; ice crawled down my spine. “What are you?”

“I-I’m a pony. We’re ponies.” I told her simply.

“Liar!” she screeched like a bird when she spoke. She tensed and tried to pull herself towards me. I saw the earth crack around her but Tartarus shuddered and continued crawling up over her horse legs and her back. Her wings shuddered and caught fire again. She looked like she was in pain. My heart was beating so fast and erratically I thought it was going to fail.

“W-we are,” I told Sunset. Looking for evidence, I pointed to Minuette. “This is Minuette. She-she’s the poniest pony I know. She brings joy everywhere…” My ears were ringing. “Not joy, hope. She believes… good things can always happen; there’s a reason left to laugh. She… she’d be your friend.”

“...I would,” Minuette mumbled.

“I don’t care!” Sunset’s voice pierced hell. She reached out with her giant claw to crush me; she could almost reach me.

Carrot shook me.

“Berry, …what’re… you doing?” Carrot said between gasps.

“Monologuing…” Minuette mumbled deliriously. Was that what I was doing? I was just trying to make her understand.

Sunset Shimmer tore from her rock again, determined to reach me.

“Sunset, I forgive you… ‘cause you need to forgive yourself. Your friends died coming down here…” I was getting winded and dizzy from talking. “Do it for them, the way they’d do it for you.”

In truth, the words weren’t just for her, they were for me. I saw no way to forgive myself, but if I could find it in myself to forgive Sunset, if we could all give each other mercy, love, warmth…

“You know nothing about my friends!” she screamed. Tartarus literally shook with her words but I saw my opening. Maybe I was monologuing.

“No, but if they're like mine, they would!” I knew just the pony to introduce her to.

“T-this is Carrot Top. She’s… she’s the most generous pony I know. She opened her home up to us. She taught me about love- about deserving.”

Something new caught my eye: around her neck on her collar, or was it a peytral, something glowed, deep beneath the black crystals and rock. No, not something: two things.

Sunset must have felt it too because she suddenly stopped struggling and took a moment to look at it. A tired, desperate look crawled across her face.

“I need no forgiveness from you creatures! I couldn’t save the Equestria you took from us but I will be remaking it! Nopony will ever die again! The sun will never set on Equestria ever again!”

There was another surge of seismic activity and I saw Sunset pull away in pain. I collapsed against my friends and held them. The world went white and turned to flames.

And yet, Tartarus came back: my daughter’s magic protected us. Were these flames… chaos magic?

In the silence of Sunset Shimmer’s burning body regenerating, while I tried to stop trembling, I heard a few more rocks slide and a small shout behind us.

“On… your hooves …Rudolph!” I turned towards it.

Cloud Kicker stood, worse for wear and nursing a hind leg, bracing a stallion with a profusely bleeding muzzle. He looked sick and shivering but alive. My heart soared.

“Comet? Cloud?”

“Punch,” Cloud saluted down to me from the rim of the pit. “What’re you doing down there?”

"There's… more of you..." Sunset heaved in several voices at once. I looked back at her and saw the seven flames along her back were regaining their feathers again.

Seeing the two glowing lights beneath her collar… I wanted to believe.

“Comet Tail’s my best and most loyal friend. He’s always been there for me and… for our daughter…”

Impossibly, a third light appeared around her neck. This one was less covered in rock and it shined: it was a gem.

The Elements? She couldn’t have the Elements. Even if she did…

“No more lies! The ponies are all gone. Equestria is gone. Everyone is gone… but I'll remake it. I'll remake everyone! I'll save everything and stop Discord... you're just impostors wearing their flesh… I'll peel it off of you!"

Sunset reached out with a clawed arm. I didn’t have the energy to move away. She grasped me by the foreleg. I felt weak ponies try to pull me back but I slipped away from them then from the ground and was hauled into the air by a strained shoulder.

"Don't touch her! We're ponies!" Cloud Kicker shouted. She tried to come towards us with Comet Tail but they weren’t going to get to us in time. It didn’t matter where they were though: they were already inside of me, part of me. And I was part of them.

I looked back at the Sunset who brought me up to her cold, cyan eyes. She seemed confused by something.

“Cloud Kicker’s telling the truth,” I said before realizing. “...she’s honesty.” Always trying to do the right thing, always looking out for others. It was a kind of honesty, it was… “Integrity.”

Another gem shined under Sunset’s neck. She nearly forgot about me as she grabbed at it with her other claw. She couldn’t get to it, couldn’t get it off, but it was clearly bothering her.

I knew who the last two Elements would be…

“Blossomforth wanted to give you kindness… your things killed her…” That wasn’t a fault in kindness, she knew the risks. She was brave. “she died protect-“ I choked. I saw the fifth light now. I had to say it: the final Element.

"My daughter is magic. She brought us together…. she made us family… she's gone now…”

I couldn’t go on but I had to: I would do her justice. There was so much left to live for, so much left to die for. So much love and mercy and warmth left in this world. And it was a gift to be given and accepted.

“Sunset Shimmer, if there's anything left of you in there to forgive, if you're ready to receive it, I give it freely. For friends, ponykind, humanity, I forgive you.”

I saw the rock and crystal collar rend themselves from around Sunset’s neck. She screamed like a mortally wounded eagle as lights escaped from chest. In her pain, Sunset let go of me and I fell.

I saw two lights fly over me, two go past me, two go far below and… one light caught me.

I didn’t hit the ground. There was a purple-pink gem revolving around me. It hummed and I resonated with it.

Then I heard more hums join mine in harmony. I saw Carrot Top, Minuette, Cloud and Comet were picked up by the stones that found them. My friends understood what was happening too.

We all heard two more notes join ours and looked below.

Past the glare of the inferno, a pink light joined ours. Blossomforth’s limp, battered body joined ours. There was still the faintest absinthe-green to her wings, even to the one bent at an awful angle.

I froze when Blossomforth’s good wing limply opened. Wrapped under her forelegs and pressed to her body, my daughter, my Pinchy, was there. She looked like she was sleeping.

She was glowing her color; my favorite color and her soul hummed in tune.

For a fleeting moment, I was my friends and they were me. I lost myself. A voice called me back.

‘You will be okay.’

It was the gems. These gems weren’t just rocks, they were more abstract yet more real. They were like seven eyes to a creature looking into our dimension, seeing us. It was looking at me. Its eyes asked what I wanted.

I looked past me, us, and saw the frightened, demonic Sunset trapped in her own personal hell.

“Save her.”

‘Save her,’ it echoed back in its own voice.

I understood as the gems spun faster and we aligned: seven colors, seven gems, a rainbow of harmony. I became a funnel for a raging river. A burst of spiraling, pure magic pushed through me and I fell in and was swept down, down into a darkness and then in.

‘They shouldn’t have followed me, that wasn’t the plan! And yet… I’m so thankful they did.’ I saw girls: humans then mares.

‘We can’t let the portal fall into his claws, it’s our only hope, for this world and the other. They’ll have to find a new tether from their side.’ An ornate glass portal shattered and it echoed until the next vision.

“Philomena!”

‘Sunset Shimmer!’

“Where’s Princess Celestia?”

I was a phoenix and I bowed my head.

‘Sunset, I have terrible news.’

The castle’s Royal Library. Books upon books, spells I somehow knew, memories and algorithms came back, but they weren’t my memories. I was seeing behind her eyes, remembering memories like they were mine.

Looking proudly at one of her friends, devouring the thick spellbooks laid before her. ‘Already half-way through the crash-course... She really was born to be a unicorn.’

‘...But it may not be enough.’

A click, and a bookcase shifted to reveal a dark passage she had found once, long ago, setting her on her path. The restricted section.

“Wait, Sunset? What’s down there?”

“The types of spells we’ll need.”

Time passed. I saw defeat. I saw loss. ‘Ponies aren’t meant to live like this. Scavenging a broken world, with traps and treason behind every corner… only postponing the moment he’ll take them. The Resistance won’t last. They need to strike back, but none of them have the magic I do…’

‘…that we do.’

“If Philomena can still send letters to Princess Celestia, then she has to still be somewhere out there! She knew how to defend herself against him, she may’ve been in hiding all this time... She knew she couldn’t disappear, otherwise who would raise the sun?”

‘My friends believed in me. Trusted me.’

Discord came. They had to run, but one had different ideas.

“Andy! No!”

‘She could barely fold her new wings yet she reared to charge, and then- there was a blur. When the dust settled, Discord was holding her necklace in his claw. Distant screaming. My eyes scanned the sky, and I saw the dot, practically on the horizon. My heart sank with it.’

We ran and we hid. The thin line between Discord taking the rest of us was my magic… but I wasn’t strong enough. One by one, my friends were picked off. And then it was just me and Philomena: us.

‘The gates of Tartarus broke before us. Nothing would stop me, not after everything that was sacrificed to get there.’

‘A last note, entrusted to Andy's notebook. How they all still helped me carry on, even now... Even if as always there's no answer. Maybe there never would be. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe there was nothing left of them. If so... may this be an epitaph to the world of their birth, that their bravery shall never be forgotten.’

‘We made our way in.’

‘I found Princess Celestia’s crown and peytral, and we cried... until that Draconequus interrupted my grieving, twirling my friends’ geodes on his talon.’

“For the last time, tell me where you’re from and where you got these, and I just might let you crawl out of here.”

‘No more running away. We fought him head-on, but it was a short fight. Philomena was reduced to ashes. I was in horrible pain.’

“Well then, Miss Williams, if you aren’t going to tell me anything then I guess we’re done here.” He cleared his throat and began a curse. “For Five Score, Divided By Four-”

‘I finally saw the spell, front and center. Frozen in its headlights, I saw it was a memory spell, and then… I recognized it.’

“No!” I shouted as a surge of dark magic burnt through the spell that started wrapping around me. A stunned Discord stumbled away, laughing.’

“What?? Whaaat?? How did you do that?!”

“You’re not the only one who knows forbidden magic!”

‘I used my geode to call out to the others and they came to me, I was their rightful owner now. With the geodes and dark magic harnessed against him, all of my grief and loss pushed me into a blind, magical rage. The geodes began protesting so I bound them to my body. My soul felt sick, yet I needed more fuel to burn.

That was when I spotted Philomena’s reforming body. I needed her power.’

“Philomena, forgive me…”

‘We became one and grew in size and power to fight Discord on wings of fire. Celestia’s crown and peytral fit us perfectly, and we wore them for their protection. She had been right, it hadn’t been my time yet... but it was ours now!

‘The only thing that mattered anymore was stopping Discord. For a moment we burned so bright, we saw fear in his eyes. We were the last ones capable. We kept draining the geodes, and one by one they stopped responding, until there was nothing left to drain. Exhausted again, he caught us off guard.

‘We fell down to our razed battlefield, and Discord landed on us.

“You make a terrible alicorn, Sunny,” he sneered as he grabbed us by our wings. “Let me fix that for you.” He pulled.’

‘Rage refused to let us die, and we- I grew the wings back. Dark crystals continued crawling over us, so when one horn crystallized over, I grew another. Our shared body became so heavy with corruption, more wings erupted to make us stay in flight. And yet, eventually I was struck back down to Tartarus.’

‘Its very ground tried to swallow us. I fought it too, but its rock was ensnaring us as quickly as we could pull it off, even with how much Discord’s laughter angered me.’

“You can’t stop us!” I snapped at the serpent. “You've tried to remake Equestria in your image, but it isn't yours, it has chosen me! I will save Equestria, I will remake it! And I will bring the ponies back, I will reign forever so that no one will ever have to die again!”

“Oh I’m not doing anything, Sunnybuns. Tartarus just knows you belong here now.”

’If Tartarus was going to take me, if it had the power... then it could take him, too!

I tried to harness and redirect the ancient magic as Tartarus continued to grow over me, but Discord’s words were a poison, a poison that could reach past any anger I had left. In the back of my mind, I knew he was right in a way.I couldn’t protect my friends from Earth. I wasn’t there when Equestria needed me, and when my sun had fallen. Here in the hellish depths I had renounced what little I had left. I was guilty of treachery in every form.’

‘I could feel Tartarus’s guilt and pain. We were bound, just as much as Sunset and Philomena had been, and yet we hadn’t won...

‘Discord may’ve been unable to stop us now, but what difference did it make? The weight of my guilt was crushing me down, heavier than the rock, heavier than the whole dark mountain over us, and... And what? It was getting hard to focus, on anything else but on my failings, on how deep I’d fallen...

‘Now all I could do was lay still, and keep on drowning, and drowning, ever deeper...’

I was separate from their memories now and I ended up inside a world of thoughts and dreams and it was… chaotic. A burning, golden bird found me and guided me along a kaleidoscopic plane to the person in the center.

I moved closer trying to see her. A pony? A human? No, definitely a pony.

She spotted me and backed away screaming.

“Stay back! Who are you?! What are you?!”

So, I introduced myself to Sunset Shimmer.

“Hello. My name is Berryshine Punch and I’m…” I smiled. “I’m an alcoholic, and a mother, and a son, a friend, a fan, a human, and a pony.” Then added. “Oh! And, uh, she/her.”

Sunset looked at me as confused as she should but as she continued to study me the confusion receded.

“You are a pony.”

“I am! We came down here to stop Tartarus but we’re here to take you home now.”

She shook her head.

“No. You saw what happened. I belong here.”

“I did. They would have forgiven you.”

Visions of her friends, the princesses and views from Canterlot danced between us. She looked away from them.

“I know,” she agreed. ”They would. Those girls were too good to me. They didn’t deserve what I put them through.”

“They didn’t… and you don’t deserve their forgiveness either.”

She looked at me broken and horrified. It hurt me to see she was about to cry.

“What do you want?! Leave me alone! Just… let me die.”

“I’m trying to say it isn’t about deserving or earning it: love is given freely, it’s a gift. You can’t deserve their forgiveness. It’s about what you’d do with it; everything you have left to give. Think of all you can do with their memory and what they taught you.”

“...nothing. Everything I want is gone.”

Sunset wilted away from me and whatever was keeping me in her mind began pulling me away. She couldn’t see herself continuing: Equestria was destroyed, her friends were lost, maybe for good, any life she had imagined on the other side of the portal was gone forever.

I knew this. This was depression.

“I tried to kill myself,” I admitted. The way her ears turned told me she was listening. “There was nothing good in my life but the things I kept away. I didn’t want to hurt them but that was wrong. I shouldn’t have pushed them away. I should have turned myself over to them. I did. I let them be my higher power.” I was losing her again.

“I’ve seen miracles, Sunset! Wonderful things I wouldn’t have seen if I gave up,” I promised her. I saw the memories play in front of us: Luna finding my daughter in the dark, Nathan and Pinchy rescuing me, holding out against Discord, Luna’s promise, Dash’s Sonic Rainboom and the magic that healed us, my friends and I reuniting on Applejack’s farm and getting back to Equestria. Then, they faded and it was just Sunset and me looking at each other. She looked away again.

“They each happened because somepony didn’t give up: not against adversity and not against themselves! They believed in something greater and gave it their all and they made something beautiful. Sunset, you have so much left to give. Your friends might still be out there. Maybe they don’t remember everything, but you can help them now. You could help everypony! We can rebuild. Things will never be the same but this doesn’t have to be the ending. Continuing can make all the difference.”

Her teary eyes finally met mine again. I offered my hoof. She looked like she wanted to take it. But, then she didn’t and my moment was up.

Like gravity reversing, the force that brought me into her mind began pulling me out and there was nothing to grab onto. Sunset and Philomena watched me go.

“Sunset!” was all I got out before I was pulled through the dark and back into the light.

I was disoriented. The magic of the geodes had been hard at work. At front and center, Sunset and Philomena’s satanic form was glowing white hot behind a prison of rainbow light. They looked scared. The stone and crystal had receded from them, pulled away with the magma into the cracks in the world; Tartarus took back its power. Cracks had splintered up the canyon walls of the endless fall that Celestia had taken and the mountain came down. The red sky disappeared from view. Tartarus was sealed.

The harmony of light and emotion using my body as a musical instrument receded. I just felt a single note playing close to my chest. My hooves touched ground. I collapsed and felt what was around my neck: a necklace with one of the geodes.

‘Empathy’? I tried to remember what was going on. Empathy…

My family!

I turned around and was greeted by everyone I wanted to see. I didn’t know who to hug first. I embraced Carrot, she was the closest and the most disoriented. Minuette joined us and kept her upright so I kept moving and stumbled. Two pegasi caught me and helped me to a handsome stallion on his way to our ‘magic’. My favorite little pink unicorn grabbed me and her dad with all the strength of a little filly. Her watch necklace glowed now just like her weeping eyes. The crystalized edges dug into my chest as my best friend squeezed us both together. I held her, kissed her, sniffed her mane and cried all over her as more ponies started hugging us.

“Mom,” my squeezed little daughter protested and I started crying all over again.

“Pinchy…” I weeped at her voice.

“Mom, Sunset and Philomena,” she directed me.

It was the only thing that could have pulled me away from that moment. We all disbanded our hug and looked back at what we had just done. My heart fell when I saw the pile of rubble where a behemothic red centaur had just stood.

“No,” I refused. I tried to race towards her but I could barely coordinate my sore body. Unanimously, my family joined me and we carried each other to the rocks. It wasn’t too late until it was too late; she hadn’t wanted this: I saw it in her eyes.

I saw magical glows start pulling away at the rocks. A weak and woozy Carrot Top joined me and we rolled a rock away. We found Celestia’s crown and peytral. Then the seven of us kept digging until we heard coughing and heaving.

“No… no!” somepony weakly pleaded inside. We heard it from under the largest slab that had landed at an angle. We started carefully pulling away every rock that wasn’t bearing weight until we saw a pony coated in ash. In her tiny crawl space she clung to the broken corpse of her bird friend in one forehoof and ineffectually tried to push away from us with the other. As soon as there was enough space I dragged myself in after her.

“No! No!” she tried to fight me but she dry-retched and coughed and I saw my opening. “Let me die… let me-” I hugged her. Her pushing and biting suddenly reversed and she grabbed me like she was going to drown. She started sobbing.

“Ssssh,” I hushed and whispered. “Sunset, we’re here. This is another chance. Let’s keep going. Let’s make our friends proud. Let’s go make life worthwhile.” She held her breath to try and listen but kept breaking and crying.

While I consoled her, the last of the rubble that needed to be moved was pushed away and my friends started pulling us out, me in reverse and Sunset Shimmer attached to me who held onto Philomena’s crushed, lifeless body. I had a feeling there was still some life left in both of them.

We emerged from the rubble and back into the still-warm cave. The quaking only sounded louder now that I was out of the pile. The cavern we were in was shifting, restructuring itself.

“Let’s get out of here!” Blossomforth suggested. It was easier said than done. We could barely trot and Sunset was barely responding.

“Put her on me!” Cloud offered. We started to do so but Cloud quickly changed her mind. “Ow. ow. My back! Nevermind.”

Minuette and Comet Tail ended up shouldering our rescued hero. Blossomforth and I propped Carrot Top up. Then, Cloud and my daughter led the way out. It was slow going. The only light to lead us out was from the geodes around our necks, each glowing like a spent gun barrel.

We pulled ourselves through the stairs and out of the tower and into the city that Comet called “Dis”. It was still a wreck. We traveled through the inner part and took a break at the rubble of the first wall we had to cross over.

Sunset sat up between Comet Tail and Minuette, still seeming in shock. She petted Philomena’s body when she wasn’t looking around at us. The body looked half-crushed and feathers fell loosely. By all visual measures, she was dead.

“Uh, Miss Sunset?” Minuette asked her. The freed unicorn hesitated but looked up at her. Minnie delicately pointed back towards the bird. “Is your friend going to be okay?”

Sunset nodded before answering. “It might not look like it, but she’s not dead; she’s a phoenix.”

My friends perked up at that. I realized they probably didn’t recognize her, I only knew her because Sunset knew her in her memory. My little Ruby’s and Blossomforth’s curiosity made them lean in towards her.

“That’s Philomena?” Blossomforth asked.

Sunset looked between the curious ponies.

“Yes. Do you know her?”

“We’re big fans,” the freckled pegasus admitted. Minuette giggled and nodded enthusiastically.

“...’fans’? Fans of Philomena?” Sunset questioned. She looked too tired for this.

“No, see, there’s a show that…” Minuetted started but a deep cracking noise silenced us. There was a roar, like rock tearing from rock and the thin bedrock we were on shook.

“Move-move-mooove!” Cloud staccatoed out. She didn’t have to tell us twice.

Blossom nudged my daughter who was already moving up the wall rubble. Comet and Minuette hauled Sunset to her hooves and helped her up. I braced myself when Carrot used me to get up. The ground shook again. The coat on the back of my neck stood up. We clambered towards the top.

Sunset struggled the hardest, her hooves were more like anchors. She dropped Philomena. “Wait, wait…” Sunset begged.

“I got her!” I shouted at the three slowing down. With no thought or ceremony, I opened my saddlepack and pushed Philomena in next to the crown. My tough Carrot friend and I reached the crest of the rock pile just as a hot burst shoved us onto our friends ahead. We were drowned with a heavy plume of dust. I thought we were in a cave-in. It was just the depths of Tartarus exhaling.

We tumbled down the rubble, coughing. Through the dark and ash we found each other from the dimming rocks around our necks. We struggled away with our eyes more closed than open.

There was another violent shudder behind us but we couldn’t move any faster. We felt around the buried city, one building to another, until the ash started to settle. We saw the next broken city wall to cross and moved towards it. It was a straight shot on empty tanks of adrenaline.

There were more violent shudders, like an angry beast beating through its cage. Each bang caused us to miss our steps or pick ourselves back up. We started getting spread out but the green and blue lights of my daughter and Blossom waited for us at the next mountain of rubble to cross. The four of us turned and waited. Comet Tail, Minuette and Sunset, now assisted by Cloud, caught back up with us.

We began a new climb over broken brick as something behind us thundered and cracked. There was a horrible golden light emerging from the tower that led to the bottom of Tartarus. It bathed the enormous abyss in almost daylight. I looked.

Whatever it was, it was nothing but wings and eyes. The light coming off of it was screaming. I could taste hate: seething, overwhelming hate like it was pickling my brain with it. I was so scared and confused I didn’t know how to run.

A pony grabbed me and I thought she was killing me. I didn’t recognize what she was screaming.

“Run! Run!” Carrot ordered before pushing me forward. Blindly I tried to obey because I was scared and couldn't understand why my friend hated me so much.

We finished hauling ourselves to the top of the stones and practically threw ourselves down the other side. The heavy beats of wings made the light engulfing the darkness dance. It was coming for us.

“Seraph! It’s a Seraph!” Carrot Top screamed in hysterics as she pulled me up before collapsing herself.

“No. It’s a chaos spawn returning,” Sunset weakly corrected as she tried to sit up. Cloud, Minuette and Comet were quick to get her back to all fours. Meanwhile Blossom and I nudged Carrot up to her hooves. My little filly in the middle of all of this looked down at the pocket watch around her neck now embedded with crystals.

“Can these stop it?? What do we do??”

Sunset’s answer was short: “Run!”

We took heed. Without warning Blossom got under and lifted my daughter until she slid onto her back. We limped along for the third and final wall of the city. It was gaining on us now, we could feel the wind of its wingbeats and its light got louder. I could smell our fear. There was no plan, just to run until…

A giant stalactite crashed down onto the wall ahead, followed by more gigantic rocks to our left. Suddenly, maybe from all the seismic activity, there was a massive cave-in where more of the ceiling above gave away. The golden light that had been chasing us had suddenly been snuffed out and our entire group screeched to a halt in the now darkened abyss. I counted and recounted the faint light sources around my friends’ necks.

…Seven. …seven. And Sunset made eight. I went towards the smallest green light.

“Blossom?” Cloud called.

“Cloud?” the pegasi exchanged.

“Pinchy! Did you do that??” Minuette asked my daughter while she started nuzzling her. I quickly joined in.

“I didn’t!” she denied. She didn’t deny my snuggling.

The earth behind us settled again and we froze.

“Whoops. My bad,” a voice said on top of the giant rock pile that buried and presumably killed whatever it was that was chasing us. A spotlight shown down onto her from above.

“Derpy?!” we all cheered in various amounts of shock and relief.

Derpy turned and spotted us. “Oh! Hey, ponies!” the wall-eyed savior said with a little wave.

“D’rpy??” a stallion’s voice called down from the spotlight. I saw the flashlight get jostled a bit in his mouth.

“I’m okaaay!” she called back up. “Doc, we found them!”

Sunset Shimmer's words and perspective rewritten with direct input from my friend Alsey to provide a different voice and texture! When her writing is unenencumbered by my scribblings, her prose really does cause a sensory reaction. If you haven't started, you should reads her Five Score story A Prench Tale next!

When you need a Five Score break instead, but still need awesome TF sequences and a mentally stimulating plot with an ensemble cast of real characters, you should go love Aremna's The Exiles too!
These talented friends have been the backbone to me making it this far!

Sunset Shimmer and Philomena reuniting in Equestria was inspired by Fire and Earth, Bats and Hearth. Chaos Spawns from Tartarus are found in Wonderbolt DownDerp Ex Machina! You didn't think we were never going to to see Derpy in this fic, did you?? Which fimfic is she from though?

More answers and the conclusion are coming soon... in the next and last chapter!