Chylene bit her lip, fidgeting nervously as she once more wiped Twila's burning forehead with a cool damp rag. She had been in a fever for hours now, fighting off an infection not of the body, but of the mind. While Chylene could handle keeping a body healthy, be it beast or man, a mind was something far beyond her control. She just had to hope Twila could pull through.

The door opened behind her, Chylene glanced over to see Pinkie and Spike.

“Twila!” Spike called out in a panic, rushing to the bed she lay in.

“Keep your voice down, please,” Chylene warned. Spike reached forward, gasping Twila's hand.

“Is she...?” he asked quietly. Chylene glanced at the boy and after a considering pause, nodded.

“She's steady,” she said, choosing to not worry the boy as much as she could with a full diagnosis. “Her fever isn't being reduced by medicine, which is a problem, though.” She looked over at Pinkie, who seemed focused on a nearby picture of Twila and Spike sprawled out on the floor, open books in every direction around them.

“Pinkie?” Chylene asked.

“Yep?” she asked, a forced grin on her lips.

“D-did you get in touch with the police for Jack and Dash?”

“Indeedly-doodly. I called and they didn't believe me for a while, but I knew Dashie had family that worked in their business so I called him and he said something in a funny language, but told me he'd pull some strings and send a group over from Southhearth to investigate.” She gave an enthusiastic nod to Spike. “I bumped into him after the phone call and let him in on a few thingies.”

“So there's nothing we can do here?” Spike asked then without waiting rolled up the sleeve on his arm. “Because if she needs blood or something, I can give it. I have plenty, too much even.”

“No, Spike,” Chylene said. “She's comatose. Aside from making sure she's comfortable, I don't know what to do.”

“But I do,” an authoritative voice answered. They turned and let out a collective gasp. Princess Celestia stood at the doorway, a determined frown on her face. She marched forward, speaking as she did so.

“When a soul-folk uses far too much of their magical power, most of the time there is no real chance for them to live, as they die on the spot. However...” Her expression lost a bit of its ferocity and she looked down onto Twila with a gentle pity, going so far as to brush the girl's hair back motherly. “For those that do live through the initial shock, there's a way to save them.”

She knelt to the side of the bed Twila lay on and shut her eyes calmly. “We transfer some of my own magical energy into her.” She opened them and gave a reassuring smile to Spike. “We do that, and she'll be ok.” Celestia glanced at everyone present. “Luna failed to inform me why Twila used her power so recklessly, however. Do any of you have an idea?”

“Rarity got kidnapped and Jack and Dash went out to save her. They'll be back soon, I bet!” Pinkie said brightly.

“By themselves?” the princess asked.

“Jack was afraid the police would make the kidnapper desperate,” Chylene said, fidgeting with her fingers. “I-I thought it made sense.” She met Celestia's eyes. “But we called them just a moment ago.”

“Besides,” Spike chimed in, nodding sagely. “Jack gave me her word as a woman that she'd take care of Rarity. When has she ever lied?”

Pinkie nodded quickly. “Well, duh. Jackie will get her back. It just wouldn't be fair if she tried that hard and didn't.”

“Life itself isn't fair.” Celestia narrowed her brow, then exhaled, rubbing a hand across the bridge of her nose. “But we don't have much of an option, other than hoping, do we? I won't be worth anything in a magical sense after I help Twila and Luna is much the same, weakened after using her own magic on Twila.” She gave a small channel of her magic and took Twila's hands into her own. “So let's all hope together, for her sake.”

Jack stared up at the creature that was once Dmitri, her stomach tying itself into worrying knots as she gripped her sword, unsure how to approach him. He reared back to his full height, his head nearly scraping the tall ceiling. He leered down at Jack, his scaled tail swishing across the carpet.

On seeing how she remained motionless, had been ever since he finished his transformation, Dmitri grinned. “Don't tell me you're done already,” he said. “I'd hate to have gotten myself all dolled up with nowhere to go.”

She shook her head slightly. “I ain't done,” she said, taking a step to her side, circling him. “Not by a long shot.”

He let out an amused snort, matching her circling by turning his body. “You don't give up, do you?”

Jack sternly locked eyes with him. “No.”

She saw Dmitri's tail pause mid sway. It rose like a snake spotting a rabbit. Before Jack could react, it shot forward. Jack swung her blade; the tail weaved from the strike and went about its way towards her. It wrapped around her ankle and pulled, leaving her flat on her back. It then picked her up and slammed her against a bookshelf, then once more pounded her into the ground.

Dmitri raised his cloven hoof and brought it down. Jack brought the flat of her blade up in the nick of time. She let out a shout of pain as his hoof and its weight came down and pressed the flat of the blade into her with enough force to slam her head back into the floor and kick her legs up fruitlessly in the air, but the sword helped absorb the blow that would otherwise have easily collapsed her ribs. He brought his leg up in the air once more to strike her; this time she managed to twist her body away from the impact. She glanced down at the tail entwined around her ankle and swung, severing it. Dmitri howled as blood sputtered from the fresh wound; Jack took his brief moment of agony to rise. His eyes shown raw hatred as he brought his malformed chicken-like claw toward her head.

She leaned back and twisted, the claw only just nicking the side of her forehead, drawing blood. She dodged another strike by his lion paw, ducking under it and bringing her blade up and at an angle, which he easily twisted away from. She struck with renewed conviction at his other side, bringing her sword up and around her head. He blocked it with his paw and grasped it, pulling it towards him. Jack stood her ground, planting her feet and pulling the sword back towards her with every fiber of muscle she had. They locked eyes, Dmitri's wild, crazy, predatory.

Jack's were much the same, almost too the same. She grimaced after a moment's pause in the stare-down, blood from the cut on her forehead already seeping down and essentially blinding her in one eye.

Dmitri reached with his other hand grasping the blade, easily lifting it up. Jack held on for dear life at the sword's handle. Before he could react, she pushed off his chest with her feet and twisted, climbing onto his shoulder like a monkey. She perched there and reached her hand forward, gouging at his eye with a thumb. He howled, her blade clattering to the ground in his pain as he turned, reaching towards her with his clawed hand, only for Jack to adjust herself once more to be on his back. Grasping both the horns on his head and with a tremendous feat of strength, Jack pulled. She was rewarded with first a line of fractures on either one, then a sharp crack that echoed across the room as his horns shattered and blood began to spurt from their stumps. Roaring, Dmitri threw his back into the wall; Jack let out a cry as she was crushed. Pushing into her, the monster continued grinding her into the wall. Jack clenched the unicorn horn she still held in her hand and slammed it into his back. Flinching, the beast scrambled forward for the brief second she needed to free herself. She landed on the ground like a sack of potatoes, dumb luck rather than reflexes saving her from being trampled under his stomping feet. She dodged a strike as she moved underneath him, grabbing her blade along the way. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, a flare of pain flew through her body like electricity, Jack clutched at her side with a weak grunt.

Something had got messed up bad in her. A rib, a lung, whatever it was, anything but the most shallow of breaths left her aching.

Despite the blood running down his face from the mutilated stubs above his head, Dmitri grinned.

“Guess I clipped your wings, girl?” he asked, beaming victoriously down at her.

“Jus' getting' started,” she answered, breathing through the pain.

Rarity finally rose, wiping at her bloodshot eyes. It took everything she had not to sit down once more on the floor and feel sorry for herself, but she forced herself to action, using the keys she found on Flam's body to unlock the door and step out. She observed the dimly lit, narrow hallway for a moment, mentally trying to put together how she was brought in from the labyrinth of turns and doorways. She knew the door was on her right when she was brought in, so...

She turned left, walking down the hall. When she came to a crossroads she paused, trying to recall something, anything as to clue her in on where she needed to go to escape.

Rarity glanced down the path to the left. It clearly wasn't the way out. The floor was dusty—caked with it from a lack of cleaning and use. Her nose crinkled and her lip curled in unconscious disgust. She turned to the pathway straight ahead and to her right. Either seemed possible, as Rarity was so panicked and distraught earlier that she couldn't say for sure which direction she came in from. Refusing to be paralyzed by choice, she traveled straight, moving quickly. Who knew how long it'd be before Flam was missed?

She wandered for what felt like centuries, down the narrow pathway, running her fingertips over the bricked walls.

Coming to another point where the path split into two points, Rarity chose left and pressed on. Up ahead eventually came a large wooden door. She did remember a door like that on the way down here, but...

Pulling on the handle, she groaned instantly at what she saw inside.

A wine cellar, with wooden shelves holding what had to be hundreds of different vintages.

A different circumstance and Rarity would be in heaven in here, but she took a step back, preparing to close the door. A light on the far end of the room caught her eye. It was a small beam emanating from the bottom of a door.

Her curiosity piqued, Rarity walked into the wine cellar and across. Taking a breath, she grasped the door's handle and pushed.

The room she found was a stark contrast to the rest of the basement. It held a far more modern design, with tiled floors and florescent lightning. Ahead stood a large, full-bodied mirror in the vague shape of a horseshoe, lined with red gems at equal angles across its body, perfect and flawless in design. Even from where she stood at the doorway, she could smell the magic seeping from it. A part of her wanted to touch it, needed to touch it. She took a step forward, like a drunken puppet on a string. As she went closer to the mirror, its reflective surface distorted, twisted, turning into a swirling abyss. She willed, pleaded with her body to stop, but it kept walking closer. Just as she rose a hand to touch the mirror's surface, a telephone on a stand to her right flared to life.

She was snapped free of whatever it was that had hold on her and she glanced at the phone, breathing heavily. She turned her gaze back to the mirror, only to notice that the distortion was gone, instead, she was graced with nothing more than her own ragged figure. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear she turned to the still-ringing phone. It was an old model from years back before she was born, when soul-folk had just created the technology during the war with the other tribes. A large black base in the shape of a candlestick, with the transmitter at its tip and a rotary wheel instead of buttons. She reached for the earpiece, a palm-sized piece on a hook to its side, and picked it up, listening but not speaking.

“I felt that, you know,” the voice on the other end said, a feminine, gravely voice. Husky and dangerous, reminding Rarity of a snake. Her words rang with ominous threat. A threat that left Rarity paralyzed simply hearing the voice over the phone.

“I cast an enchantment over the portal, my pet. You said you wouldn't use it until you had the situation resolved in Caballo.” There was a pause, Rarity shrunk back, swallowing as the voice continued. “And that we'd go through together. My. Pet.”

“I—“ Rarity stuttered out then clamped her mouth shut, her eyes wide and panicked. The voice on the end laughed.

“Ah. I see,” the voice muttered. “One of Dmitri's playthings?” In a slightly less ominous tone, she continued. “I'd watch myself, deary. That mirror was crafted by Merlin himself. There's no telling what might happen to a careless insect that gets too close to a spider's web.”

Rarity swallowed, nodding. As if the woman on line could sense it, she laughed once more.

“I'm glad we have an understanding, deary.”

The line went dead.

Rarity's hands dropped, unable to even put the ear piece on the cradle. She leaned forward on the table, sweat caking her brow and unable to catch her breath. Whoever... whatever was on the line had a presence so powerful that it left Rarity weak, as if all the magic in her body had been drained out from a straw. Finally able to rise again, she left the room, refusing to look again at the mirror as her heart slammed dangerously hard into her ribs.

Jack ducked under a strike, then backpedaled from another wild swing from Dmitri's bird-like hand. She blocked his tail as it came in for a whip, then rolled to the side, letting out a swear as she got back to her feet, her chest screaming at her over the action. She ignored it as best she could, adrenaline and her raw, furious anger working at the moment like the world's best anesthetic.

Dmitri reared his head back, inhaling deeply. Jack had a guess to what he was doing, and right now she didn't want to risk being wrong. Turning and sprinting away, she dove behind the desk just as a pillar of flames erupted from Dmitri's mouth, scorching the room and incinerating the objects on the desk before blasting through the glass windows. Jack felt something wrong with her foot and glanced down, noting that flames were burning at the leather. In a blind panic she quickly batted at it with her hands until she smothered the fire out. As the flames above died down and Jack began to rise from the relative safety of the desk, she paused.

On the ground by her were a row of keys. The basement key had to be in there too. Had to be. She reached out, grabbing them and dropping them down a sleeve as she rose, her blade at the ready. Dmitri charged at her, crushing the desk underfoot. Jack rolled once more, forward and at an angle past him. She let out another cry of pain as her body impacted against the floor, but pushed it back, willed it back as she rose.

This wasn't working. Her body was too sore, too broken, to be dodging for much longer. Even now, her legs were lead and her shallow gasps for air were doing nothing to appease her lungs or her cramping muscles.

She had to end this, and she had to end this now if she wanted even a chance at beating him.

She raised her sword, resting it on her back and lowering her body, turning her torso and ignoring the pain that once more came from her chest.

“Oh?” he said, cocking his head as he observed her. “You're gambling, aren't you? Throwing it all down on one strike.” He grinned, lowering his body in preparation to pounce. “Well, I'm a gambling man too. Challenge accepted.”

They stared down one another for not the first time that evening. Jack could feel sweat caking her brow, making the cut there sing in pain. She adjusted the grip on her sword, clinging to it like a drowning man at a life preserver.

Dmitri's nose flared, taking in greedy gasps of air. She could tell he was furious. Good. It was about time he lost his cool completely.

With a roar, he sprinted forward at a blinding speed. Jack quickly swung and paused halfway through the swing in a feign, bringing her sword back up to block her torso. She hopped to the side, intending to deliver the killing blow at his armpit.

She hopped to the side, but not quick enough.

The clawed thumb of his lion's paw struck true, burying itself deep within her stomach. She looked down in surprise and a sort of dull, detached confusion at the slowly reddening fur on Dmitri's hand.

Her vision dulled, then began to fade at the edges.

Dmitri grinned, flexing the digit imbedded in her. Jack let out a shuddering, groaning gasp. Blood, her blood, pattered onto the floor, creating a sickening pond at the landscape of her feet.

“Looks like I win, Jack.” Dmitri easily replied.

Rarity wandered the basement yet again, scrambling through dead end after dead end, each bringing her that much closer to panic. That call had unnerved her, unnerved her in ways she couldn't imagine. It was as if the woman on the other line had somehow violated her mentally over the telephone and taken away something from her. Something she couldn't place her finger on.

Twisting and turning down the pathways, she found herself once more at the crossroads from earlier. Taking a second to collect herself at the relief that washed over her on finding familiar ground, she turned, walking down the road less traveled.

It was almost bliss when she found a few steps leading up to another level. She tried the door, locked.

Without pausing, she started cycling through the keys, trying them one at a time in search for the correct one. After the fifth, it finally opened for her and she quickly entered, shutting the door behind her.

The room was pitch black. Rarity gestured with her palm out and, after several failed attempts, was finally able to channel a small flame of her magic into her palm. The room seemed to be a study of sorts, lined with books in dozens, if not hundreds of different languages. Briefly thinking back, she was pretty sure she recalled this room as she was dragged downstairs. It was just past a few of the shelves.

Walking past the rows of books, tomes and scrolls, she let out a breath of relief. There was a door. Behind it, she knew, she knew, was a stairway up that lead to a landing that would put her back to the main lobby.

Grinning triumphantly, she took to inserting the keys one at a time, searching for a match.

Her knees refused to buckle. She swayed on her feet, barely hanging on. Now wasn't a matter of if she would fall, but when.

Her eyes briefly lost focus, her hands slumped to her sides.

She was as good as dead, yet...

Yet she refused to let it end like this. A small, impossible to shatter well of courage roared to life, forcing her into a last-ditch effort, into a burst of blind, zealous anger. This tiny ounce of courage forced her into a miracle.

She snapped her head up and with an almost superhuman amount of strength, shot her hand forward, grasping his wrist.

“No,” Jack panted out. She looked at him with her dazed, cold eyes. “I won.”

Her grip tightened, becoming an impossible essence of iron, of conviction. Jack held her grip on the beast's wrist and clenched her sword in her other hand. Dmitri growled with frustration. He brought his free hand down onto her, but Jack snapped her sword up and cut deep into the monster's strike, severing his arm in one deadly swing. Before it had even finished its fall to the ground, she snapped the the blade over to his other arm, cleaving it with the same precise, flawless cut. He recoiled in agony and surprise. After pulling the monster's digit free from her body, Jack hefted Durandal back behind her, clenching it tightly in a two-handed grip, her weaker hand soaked crimson from her own blood.

He howled louder still at the shock of losing both his arms. Dmitri dropped to his knees in blind agony, thrashing his head to either side like a man possessed. Jack took a step forward, rearing her upper body for a strike.

“Wait!” he called out. A gentler soul like Chylene might have done just that. Might have been willing to hear his last words. But not Jack. She brought the blade down upon him without hesitation and hoped against hope that in his last moments before the sword cut his skull in two, he realized that everything he did was for nothing.

It wasn't the way she was raised. She wasn't supposed to have this deep-seated hate in her gut, but that didn’t matter. Jack wanted him to suffer despair.

And as she cleaved him in half and pulled the sword free from the floor it was embedded in, Jack realized that was it. She had really, truly won. Looking down at his still bleeding corpse, Jack wanted to say something, anything, but a dizzy spell took her thoughts away from her. A sharp pain, one even stronger than her aching chest crept up on her from her gut. She hissed out, clutching her horrifically bleeding stomach. Trembling, Jack weakly sank down, planting a knee in her own blood as the adrenaline high she had been riding ever since she had entered the room vanished, sending a wave of sluggish agony crashing through her body. She drew once more into her will, rising after a long arduous pause, and limped towards the door, dragging her sword behind her with a hand. Sparing a glance at her bag on the way out she decided against it. The medical supplies were used up, and bending down at this point meant she wasn't getting back up. She let her blade collapse to the ground, soaked and smeared with blood. Jack knew most of that blood was hers.

Her vision darkened as she took a step down the stairs. She swooned, light headed, and tripped, barely catching herself on the wall with a shoulder. Taking a few weak breaths, she pushed herself up again, continuing downstairs.

As she made her way towards the base of the steps her legs collapsed once more and this time when she leaned toward the wall to catch herself she bounced off, tumbling down and landing face first onto the ground. She struggled, gritting her teeth and summoning every ounce of her strength, before finally rising once more to a knee. Looking down at her free hand, Jack froze, noting her wrist's unnatural angle.

After all that, and she hurt herself in the most mundane way possible. She would have laughed, if she had the power to do so. As she stared at the twisted mess of her wrist, an alarm bell rang in her head.

It didn't hurt. She didn't hurt at all. She rose, buckling and nearly pitching forward on her numbed legs before she took one step, then another, marching towards the last flight of stairs separating her from the basement door.

In a way she knew, had known since Dmitri had got her gut.

She was dying.

Pushing the thought away for at least another moment, she took another step forward, leaning on the banister, using it as a makeshift cane as she approached the stairs. Taking the first step down, Jack once more collapsed with a heavy thud, rolling limply to the ground floor and staring at the ceiling. She tried to move. Couldn't. Couldn't even lift a finger. Was this it, then? Stopped just feet from the door? Jack felt like crying, but she lacked even the strength for that. Her eyes searched upward as she felt her breath lighten and soon become nonexistent. The windows gave clear view at the night sky, and she felt her despair fade to the back of her mind.

The police were coming; they had to be soon now. They'd find Rarity, wherever she was.

Jack had a few regrets, sure.

She wanted to see Bloom grow up. She wanted to see the farm prospering. She wanted Mac and Zecora to be happy and to see them with a kid on the way, but...

Guess that's the thing 'bout people. They always find somethin' ta live for.

A fleeting image came to her of Rarity, laughing with her, scolding her, loving her harder than she had ever loved before.

Her eyes focused for a brief moment at a twin pair of shooting stars dashing like quicksilver across the heavens. She felt a faint, weak tugging at the corner of her mouth as she found the strength to at least smile as her eyes closed and her hands went limp.

Only a lucky couple find somethin' ta die for.

Rarity hesitated as she stood by the door leading to the foyer. There had been a terrible crash a few minutes ago; she had thought someone had missed the man she had slain and so she sat at a half crouch by the doorway, her hands clenched so tightly Rarity was sure she had broken a nail.

Another minute passed and she finally reached back to the key ring, going through the different keys and testing them before a faint click rang like music to her ears.

Pushing the door a mere inch open, Rarity peaked through the crack and openly gasped, any thought of stealth vanishing as soon as she made sense of what she saw.

Jack. Her Jack, sprawled on the ground, her wrist swollen, dozens of cuts across her body from a keen blade, and, the last, a horrific puncture wound at her stomach. Rarity gave up on common sense and sprinted for the farmer.

“Jack!” Rarity cried out, kneeling at the woman and looking at her grave injuries. She looked up at the woman's closed eyes, then back down to her injury, raw terror and panic on her face as she looked over her, before putting a hand to the farmer's shoulder, shaking it.

“W-what am I supposed to do?!” she asked herself, blank and empty on ideas. “You have to tell me! Jack!” She let out a sob, bringing the woman's body closer to her.

“Jack!”

Author's Notes:

Final chapter, "Promise" will be out in short order. Stay tuned, true believers!