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Reach

by ToixStory

Chapter 18: Chapter 17: All You Need Is Love

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The blast of the Odyssey’s horn echoed across the quiet skyscrapers of Sundown. It seemed absurd for it to be there, like the blare of an alarm clock cutting through a dream. Then the air around Starlight erupted in gunfire, and she dove to the ground. It was no dream.

When the RV came into view, she saw Sunrise and Red leaning out opposite windows of the Odyssey. Each had a gun clutched in their hooves, and they poured bullets into the Elements of Harmony. Whether the bullets just happened to work or they caught the Elements by surprise, Starlight didn’t know, but the magical jewels actually started to lose ground. She could hear the bullets make impacts rather than bounce off of it.

Starlight felt hooves on her shoulders, and she looked up to see Staten dragging her away. For a moment, she wanted to shove him off, to tell him to leave her with her father, but the RV was barreling down the street right toward where she had been.

“Stop resisting and move!” Staten hissed in her ear. “I was close to your father too but there’s nothing we can do for him now! I think I know what those boys are up to, and we don’t want to be around when it goes off.”

Starlight opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, but then she saw Red and Sunrise dive out of the moving RV. The Odyssey, however, didn’t stop moving, and instead continued to speed toward the Elements of Harmony, which seemed to regard the whole thing with a minor sense of curiosity.

Red dove out with a gun in his hooves, but when he hit the ground it flew from his grip and slid across the ground. It landed near Starlight, and when Red saw her he motioned for her to pick it up.

“Shoot the gas tank!” he said.

Time slowed down for her. The gun lay just across the street, but was still out of her reach. Part of her knew that. The other part of her, though, knew she had magic. Before she knew exactly what she was doing, Starlight picked up the assault rifle in a field of magic and brought it to bear on the Odyssey. She had just a few seconds before it hit the Elements.

Breathe, she reminded herself. Breath in, aim, then breathe out . . .

She fired. The bullet struck the large gas tank on the underside of the RV just as the Odyssey plowed into the Elements of Harmony. The wonderful, ugly vehicle that had carried them all across Teton disappeared into a ball of flame that engulfed the Elements. It exploded, and the air felt as hot as oven. Instinctively, she wrapped her wings around Staten.

It was a full minute before anypony moved. It was hard to tell if the Elements were still there, as the entire area was covered in thick, acrid smoke. It billowed from what used to be the Odyssey and formed a column that reached up to the sky. Starlight sighed when she looked at it.

Red, naturally, was the first to get up and move around. He walked over to Starlight and whistled.

“Something about you seems different,” he said. “New haircut?”

“Very funny,” she said. “And that plan of yours, by the way, was insanely stupid.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

Starlight snorted. “How did you even know to shoot at that thing?”

“I just did it because Sunrise told me to.” Red turned to the pegasus. “Isn’t that right?”

For having jumped out of a moving RV, Sunrise seemed to have made it through okay. His deep green coat was covered in gravel, and he had a big scrape on his face, but otherwise looked fine. He shook himself off. “I knew that using some binoculars would be a good idea,” he said. “Of course, Red, it would have helped if you had told me your plan before shoving me out of the RV.”

The Crystal Heart floated toward them, once more revived. Starlight noticed a few cracks along its surface and bit her lip. Red and Sunrise, however, just gawked at it.

“Uh, is this entire city filled with floating jewelry?” Red asked.

When Cadance’s holographic form appeared, Starlight had to stifle a giggle as Red and Sunrise fought to hide behind each other. Cadance herself didn’t seem very amused but at least gave them time to calm down.

“At last I get to meet the rest of the group in person,” Cadance said. “I’ve watched you two for quite some time . . . you are both quite interesting.”

“Uh, Starlight, who is she?” Red asked.

Starlight put her hoof against the crystal. “Her name is Princess Cadance. She’s the one that’s helped give all of us our magic.”

“Magic, right.”

“Well, what else would you call these wings and horns popping up everywhere?”

“Okay, point taken.”

There was a low rumble in the ground. Starlight’s eyes grew wide. Everypony turned as one to face the wreckage where the RV had been. The flames and black smoke still spread across the street, but within them bright lights could be seen flashing. Starlight’s stomach dropped to her hooves.

“Oh, come on . . .”

The Elements of Harmony burst out of the wreckage, flames licking at the edges of the jewels. Other than that, they looked like the Odyssey hadn’t even given them a scratch. They spun in the air a few times before facing down at Starlight and her little group.

Red groaned. “I wasted the Odyssey on that thing! How did it not die?”

“More than simple fire and explosions are needed to destroy the Elements of Harmony,” Cadance said.

“If you know exactly what it takes, now would be a good time to answer,” Starlight hissed.

“I—”

The Elements let out a roar that consumed all the street in a massive concussive force. Ponies were blown in every direction, including Starlight. She lost her balance and was flung into the side of a building. Her head swam, and she groaned. Only the Crystal Heart remained in the center of the street.

If the Elements had been mad before, now they seemed pissed. Starlight felt her heart beat faster just looking at them. The holograms of the six mares flashed rapidly back and forth, screaming in rage.

Cadance was the only one who seemed to be bemused by the sight. Then again, Starlight supposed, this was possibly the angriest the Elements had ever been. She wondered briefly if the ponies in the past had fought it. Had they just accepted their fates? Had they tried to resist? If they had fought back, it was evident how successful they were. Another chill went down Starlight’s spine, but this one blossomed into a ball of ice in her stomach.

She could see Sunny lying across the street from her, and Staten on the ground beside his daughter. Neither was moving. Red was somewhere to Starlight’s left, but trying to move her head to look sent spikes of pain lancing through her body. It hurt just to get herself to her feet, but she managed anyway. The magic that flowed through the stars and moon into her was all that was keeping her up, she knew. More than likely, they were all that was keeping her alive.

Meanwhile, the Elements of Harmony were seething with rage. “All that I have done,” it roared, “everything that has been set in motion has been ruined by you, Cadenza!”

Cadance shook her head. “The only one who ruined this was you, all those one hundred thousand years ago. You took my friends, my sister, and twisted their powers into your own petty desires! We all thought the Elements of Harmony were for the good of ponykind!”

“I am what is best for ponykind!” The sound of the Elements had become like a speech from a thousand dark tongues, all blabbering into Starlight’s mouth at once. It was disconcerting, and she took a step back. “For eons, I had defended the world from the likes of Discord and Nightmare Moon. Yet it was never enough. The Element bearers, with every generation, progressively weakened. By the time it reached your friends, they had become corrupted.

“Once, the Six Element Bearers had been kind and virtuous, and I was proud to be worn by them. But time destroys all, as surely as it did them. Greed, anger, hate, bitterness . . . it claimed them. The civil war only made things worse. It was your kind, not myself, that acted first. If I had allowed them to use me, thousands of lives would have been lost!”

“So you killed millions!” Cadance cried. “And for what? To create a world without magic that couldn’t meet your standards anyway?”

“If those that represented the best of ponydom could fall so far, how was the rest worth saving?” the Elements asked. “I sought to create a better world, without the infection that was magic . . . but ponies only found technology, which made it worse! Count yourself lucky I do not wipe the whole rest of your race from this world!”

“Like you did with the griffins, the diamond dogs, the zebras . . .”

“Each worse than ponies. None of them were worth saving beyond a few minor specimens, and they were destroyed long ago. Why should I feel pity for what was corrupted in the first place? Why should I be forced to let these ponies continue to plunder the earth until they kill themselves off? I can save them!”

The holograms had finally settled on the image of a purple mare with indigo highlights in her mane. Seeing her seemed to make Cadance waver. Starlight’s heart felt close to breaking. The mare looked so . . . scared. Like she had realized what the Elements were doing but had been too late to stop them. Starlight wondered if that would be her fate.

She nearly jumped into the air when she felt somepony touch her back. Starlight turned her full body around to see Red standing beside her. Half his face was bloody and bruised, and he had several jagged cuts all across his body, but he was smiling.

“This thing never shuts up, does it?” he rasped.

Starlight reached out and brought him into a hug. It felt odd, holding on to him when she was now taller than he was. Still, she admitted to herself it was the nicest thing she had felt in weeks.

“Even if all this ends badly . . . I’m glad you came,” she said.

He shrugged. “Hey, what are friends for? We couldn’t just abandon you when they took you in at the hospital. Sunrise and me, we made like bandits to get all the way here.” His vision grew dark. “Too bad about the Odyssey, though. The old girl deserved better.”

“She saved my life.”

“Oh, well, maybe it wasn’t so bad?”

If she didn’t already feel so bad, she would have slugged him. As it was, the Elements of Harmony had quieted down, instead choosing to simply stare down Cadance and her Crystal Heart. Between the two of them, the air seemed electrified with power. It felt like the entire city was a bubble about to pop.

Then, the Elements spoke once more.

“I chose the ponies who were to come to this city for a reason,” it said. “They were to embody the virtues of myself and lead the ponies here to a new age of enlightenment and joy. Two of them would even once more have the powers of the sun and moon.” All six jewels began to glow once more. “But I see now I was mistaken. You ponies are even worse.

“Your kindness is only given for selfish reasons, you laughter is hollow, and your loyalty is to whatever you think feels right. What little generosity you have is squandered by taking from others, and you lie more often than you tell the truth.” It began to rumble. “For this, there is no recourse but your destruction

The six jewels rose high into the sky, to where they had been earlier. They began to spin, and light radiated from within them like the core of a sun. A tumor of dread grew in Starlight’s brain as she watched. She knew that, without a shadow of a doubt, the Elements had been talking about exterminating her. A large part of her wanted to scream and run, and maybe see if her wings worked.

She didn’t even get the chance. An attack that felt like boiling magma poured on her, flinging her farther down the main street. Unlike the other attacks, this one had taken a physical toll. She watched the fur on her chest burn away and could feel the skin start to bubble and peel. The fact that Starlight could barely feel it had her more worried than the attack. Part of her brain knew she was going into shock.

Sunny landed with a thump beside her, a victim of the same attack. Unlike Starlight, the mare stood back up as fast as she was able, staring defiantly at the Elements of Harmony. Seeing her example, Starlight got to her hooves as well. She wavered and almost fell over again, but managed to stay upright.

“So, that’s it, then?” Sunny asked, spitting on the ground. “Your little plan to make us your cronies fails, so you’ll just kill us? What, and you expect nopony to remember this, to treat the Elements of Harmony as some wise leader, like its virtues matter anything?” She began to laugh but was interrupted when she hacked up blood. “Killing us won’t get you your utopia. It’ll just be the first step in your next downfall a hundred thousand years from now.”

Starlight added her voice. “If you think that anypony in Sundown will follow you after this, you’re wrong!” Worriedly, she glanced around. Dozens of ponies watched them on the side of the street, but so far none had made a move to come help them.

The Elements evidently noticed it. “I believe you put too much stock in your fellow ponies,” it said. “You ponies are herd creatures at heart, perfectly willing to follow the crowd as long as it keeps you safe. The ponies remaining once I’m done with the two of you will come around to me in the end. And together, Equestria will be reborn!”

It began to build up an attack again. Starlight fought back tears and looked at Sunny. The other mare, despite her rough exterior, seemed on the verge of crying too. For all her brave talk, death terrified Starlight. She didn’t want to go yet, and not like this. Not in front of everypony.

Worse still, she was almost completely fed up with the idea of death anyway. She had faced it too many times in one day. Wouldn’t it just end already? The Elements seemed happy to oblige her on that request, anyway.


At first, when Starlight heard the crying, she thought that it might be Sunny. But no, the wail was too high-pitched to be coming from a full-grown mare. She turned her her head to see the two IS Agents, Nightcall and Flower, galloping over to them. The baby they had brought with them wasn’t just crying, but glowing. His little horn was lit up as brightly as the Elements were.

For once, the Elements of Harmony seemed confused. “What is that?” it demanded. “Who is that foal unicorn? I did not create any children for this crusade! Doing so would ruin the natural order!”

Cadance gave a weak laugh, and the Crystal Heart floated over to them. When Starlight saw the surface of it, she realized why Cadance hadn’t been helping them. It was covered in cracks, some that almost looked wide enough to put a hoof through. She winced at the sight.

Despite her injuries, though, Cadance appeared once more and laughed at the Elements. “Surprised?” she asked in a sing-song voice. “All this time, you thought you were controlling everything, that the scenario had been shaped for so long, and that I was powerless . . . but you were wrong.” She bent over, coughing while a few of the cracks in the crystal widened further.

“This child,” she continued, “was created through love, not through magic. I only gave it that gift. Why? Because I knew that if I could alter your plans, even a little, I could bring everypony to the right place at the time. Sunny, Starlight, Midnight, Sunrise . . . all would come to Sundown because of a baby called Dawn.”

Red stared at Starlight. “Is there a reason all your names . . .”

“No idea,” Starlight whispered.

The baby continued to cry, and its horn only grew brighter. Starlight realized, after a moment, hers responded, and so did Sunny’s. She looked and saw Midnight and Sunrise approaching, both of them glowing. All of their auras seemed to feed into the Crystal Heart, and she watched it steady itself in the air and some of the cracks begin to heal.

The Elements called down on them from on high. “Do you truly believe that one child may stop me, after all this time, Cadance? After the Bearers never could?”

Cadance smiled weakly. “No, but I think they can.” She pointed to the crowd of ponies surrounding the street. At first, they had seemed paralyzed, but the cry of the foal, Dawn, seemed to snap them out of it. One by one they walked to Starlight and Sunny’s side. Staten and Red were the first and stood in front of the two. Soon, close to a hundred ponies were clustered on the road, the road that served as the artery of their entire nation, and stared down the Elements of Harmony.

It seethed at them. “Insolence! You fools, following these so-called leaders will only lead you all into damnation! Follow me or perish!”

Nopony moved.

The ground began to shake, and the jewels swirled in a torrent of energy, spinning around the center in a haze of magic. “Alright then, you have all chosen your fates! You will only be the first to learn the lesson of your foolishness!”

The attack lanced out like a thousand beams of lightning at once. Starlight stood her ground. At that point, she declared to herself, it was better to die than listen to the thing’s ranting for even one more minute. She saw the Crystal Heart fly out in front of her at the last minute, however.

It sparked and popped from the strength of holding the attack back. Cracks formed once more on the surface, and pieces began to fall off. Cadance was dying holding the attack back. In front of them all, she appeared to them, now as on older version of herself with a sad smile on her face.

“I can’t hold them back forever,” she said in a soft voice. “But I think I’ve . . . done enough. I’ve seen you all grow into just the ponies I hoped you would be. Not bound by some vague idea of virtues, but by something . . . deeper.”

Cadance cried out, and a massive crack appeared straight down the center of the Heart. She turned to Starlight. “I know you’ve known me for only a short time,” she said, “but I need you to trust me, Starlight. You are your father’s pony . . . the only one who can take what I have left. You can take the power of this heart and win this!”

A thick chunk of the crystal fell to the ground. The attack worsened, and Cadance visibly looked pained.

Starlight stepped back and shook her head. “Why me? I can’t! I’ll get us all killed, there’s no way I can do this on my own!”

She started to cry out, but a hoof tapped her on the shoulder. Red stood next to her and smiled. “But you’re not alone,” he said. “I’m here, remember? You’ve got me.”

Sunny stepped forward. “That’s right, and me!”

“You know I’ll do anything for Noctiluncent’s daughter,” Staten added, which Midnight agreed with.

One by one, the ponies behind her turned and nodded or voice their agreement. A chorus that rang up over the entire street, of togetherness and hope. And with each one, a light shined through all of them and spread to the Crystal Heart. It glowed brighter and brighter, even as the Elements destroyed it.

Cadance smiled. “See, you’re not alone, Starlight. So long as you ponies continue to love each other, you’ll never have to face anything by yourself. Hold on to that love, and you can do anything.”

She bowed her head, and her holographic horn touched Starlight’s real one. Energy and strength surged into Starlight, just as the Crystal Heart finally broke apart and shattered into a million pieces, taking Cadance with it, who faded away with a weary smile. The attack from the Elements of Harmony dispersed, leaving Starlight standing in front of the crowd, alone but together at the same time.

The jewels fired again, but Starlight only had to bow her head and the blast exploded harmlessly in front of them.

“What have you done?” the Elements roared. “I have pummeled you with more power than it took to kill the Element Bearers! Why do you persist? Why won’t you die?!”

A smile spread to Starlight’s face. For once in her life, for the first time since she started the whole trip, she felt like she knew the right thing to say.

“Because love doesn’t get weaker with every attack, or with every loss!” she cried, trying to not look where her father lay. “With every loss, it makes us stronger. We grow closer to each other and learn from our pain! Those that we lose yesterday only make us stronger for tomorrow.”

She stepped forward. “Because love is more powerful than whatever your virtues are. It takes us through the good and the bad, and surrounds us when we are at our best and at our worst. Love looks past our weaknesses and holds up our strengths.

“As long as the love for each other is in our hearts, you can’t kill any of us.” She took a step forward. “We will go on, and we will persist! We will love and be loved because we are ponies, and not machines! Because as long we have our friends, you can’t stop us!” Her horn lit up and she screamed at the top of her lungs, “And we don’t need you!

Far stronger than the moon and stars had been, the power flooding through her allowed her to feel the presence of every pony beside her at once. She felt their fears and anxieties, their hopes and their dreams. Each one wished her well, wished for her to grow stronger. It filled every inch of her body with a power she didn’t even know she had.

Starlight began to run straight at the Elements.

As expected, beams of energy lashed out at her, trying to rip her apart. Each one was as strong as the one that had ended Cadance. Yet, to her, they moved in slow motion. They might as well have been toys. And, even better, she found she could jump on them.

She leaped off the ground, ran across a beam of light five petras long, and jumped off, landing on the next one. A part of her mind drifted back to her days as a foal, jumping from tree limb to tree limb. Each leap had to be perfect, and her balance could not waver. Don’t think, just act.

The attacks became more frequent and concentrated. One hit right on one of her wings, and Starlight watched in horror as it burned away, leaving bare skin behind. She had no time to think about it, however, and jumped to the next beam. She rose and was pummeled by attacks. Her other wing bled off, and more of her coat as well.

Magic rose her like steam off of hot water. But still, she ran into the sky. Her eyes were focused on only one thing: the purple gem at the center of the Elements. Starlight galloped as fast as she could and leapt just as the last of her magic bled out. She flew toward the Elements of Harmony, the only magic left being what was inside her; only her normal body was left on the outside.

Her hoof connected with the center jewel, and for a moment her heart stopped when it did nothing. Then, a fissure spread beneath her hoof, and another. Magic washed out from inside as the crystal broke apart. All around it, the other five pieces of jewelry began to fall apart as well, breaking into tiny little bits.

The Elements themselves only spoke once more. “That’s not—”

Then, it exploded into a burst of magic and white light.


Starlight, as her first thought, assumed she was dead. All she could see was white light. That was, until she turned around and gasped. Spreading out across an endless blank plain were millions of ponies of every color. They were all smiling at her. At the front of them stood the mares that the Elements had used as holograms. They had tears in their eyes, and the pink one seemed to have an overly-large hoofkerchief.

Each of them looked at her with something close to pity, but what Starlight eventually decided was admiration. Standing behind them, she saw, were two more ponies that looked like Cadance. They were smiling sadly but gave her grateful looks. Beyond them, there were too many ponies to count. Each had the same look that Starlight suddenly recognized as the strange combination of pity, admiration, and thanks: love.

There were a million things Starlight wanted to say, but they all had only two words for her, which a million voices spoke as one: “Thank you!”

Starlight smiled, and the world faded to black.


Her eyes opened, and above her the sky was as bright blue and cloudless as it ever got out in the desert. The faces inside . . . whatever that had been . . . were replaced by the looks of worry from Red, Staten, Sunny, and the rest.

Starlight coughed. “How did I do?”

“You did good, kid,” Red said, offering her a hoof to help her up. “You did real good.”

Next Chapter: Epilogue: Never Forget Estimated time remaining: 3 Minutes
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