The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

19. The End of Friendship - Part 1

It was early in the morning...

The sun was already up and threw its light on Equestria, including the little town of Ponyville.

Some ponies were already walking around in town, going to work, school, or setting up merchant stands to sell something in the market. But there were also some ponies who still were asleep. One of them was Star Twinkle, who had a rough night. One would expect that it would be because of the day before. He and his friends had to deal with Ashgray, who tried to steal the Elements of Harmony, and eventually tried to destroy them. It was a hard-fought battle but they managed to win this battle. And even though Star Twinkle was hurt in this battle, he recovered really quickly and didn't sustain any serious damage.

But that was not the reason why he had such a rough night. The reason for him to not sleep very well was that he was haunted by nightmares. Star Twinkle was rolling around in his bed, sweating and panting. He was having a nightmare at this very moment.

...

In his dream, the stallion was walking around in a more empty version of Ponyville, something that he didn't notice while walking through the town. He was probably not even aware that he was dreaming at all now. He saw his friends in the distance and slowly walked up to them. Summershine, Happytrade, Brilliance, Crash, Nightsky, and Lightbeam were all walking away from the stallion, but as soon as they noticed him, they turned around, each one with a smile on their face, waiting for Star Twinkle to catch up to them.

Expecting nothing wrong, the stallion walked up to the ponies to spend the day with them. But as soon as Star Twinkle got closer to them, another pony was further in the back, looking at him with a malicious grin on his face. It was a pony that he once called a friend as well.

Ashgray...

Once he spotted the stallion behind his friends, things got a lot more chaotic. His friends were vanishing, and so did Ashgray. Ponyville was slowly fading away as well, leaving Star Twinkle in complete darkness. The stallion was looking around to figure out what was going on but things were way too bizarre for him.

Suddenly, he found himself in the Castle of the Two Sisters, the room where he last saw Ashgray before he turned to stone. Of course, he was wondering why he found himself inside the castle all of the sudden but he got distracted by things happening in front of him.

His friends were standing in the middle of the room and Ashgray was right behind him. It was the scene right before they defeated Ashgray with the Elements of Harmony. Star Twinkle found himself laying on the ground. He remembered that Ashgray was holding the Earth Pony in front of himself so that Summershine and the others would not attack. It was right after Ashgray dropped him to the ground after Princess Celestia shot him and his friends took the chance to attack at this very moment. The Elements of Harmony were activated and a huge rainbow-colored beam was heading right towards Ashray and Star Twinkle, the later one ducking to try avoiding this attack.

Before the beam reached them, however, Ashgray put on a shield spell in front of himself in an attempt to protect himself from this blast. Star Twinkle remembered how this shield was not helping the stallion to protect himself from the attack, so he knew that it wouldn't last for long.

But he forgot completely what happened right before that...

Ashgray lowered his head towards Star Twinkle, who was cowering on the ground to duck under the beam, even though, right now, he was also protected by the shield that Ashgray put up. Despite how loud the attack from the Elements of Harmony was, Ashgray slowly and calmly said some words to him, as if he had all the time in the world. It was almost as if time came to hold at the very moment. The words that Ashgray said to him both confused and scared him.