Through passion, I gain strength.

Through strength, I gain power.

Through power, I gain victory.

Through victory, my chains are broken.

The Force shall free me."



Scootaloo's own saber ignited, and calmly she stepped forward to meet her oldest friend and her worst enemy.



And somewhere else far, far away, a high reedy voice cackled with hateful laughter.







"Friendship? Loyalty? Sure, Scoots. Let me tell you about 'friendship.' Let me tell you about 'loyalty," said Rainbow, the words coming hard, cold and fast, like bullets. "I can tell you all about them."Scootaloo backed away, cautiously circled. "Rainbow...please....don't do this. There's still time."But the cyan pegasus continued, relentlessly."Those are just words, Scoots Meaningless sounds. We throw them into the dark in hopes we can prod the universe into caring about us, even for one second. Tell me, Scoots, do you remember how your parents looked, lying there bleeding out in the ravine that day? Do you remember how the sun came up, how blue the sky was? How the birds sang and the crickets chirped without a care in the world? The world, the whole universe, went right on cheerfully ignoring you all, even as they died there in puddles of their own blood. THAT'S real, Scoots. That utter callousness, that pain? That's what's real."**She will try to use your love against you,** the human's words came back to Scootaloo then. **She will use your friendship, your connection to try to undermine your control. You must stay focused. That's not your foster-sister there anymore, Scootaloo, not--not really. Believe me, I know...**"Do you remember how not one day after they were in the ground, the bullies were already throwing their deaths into your face, egging on your tears? Your agony? Feeding on it? That's real, too," the pegasus was saying. "And do you remember why they stopped? What it took to stop them, make them go away?""I remember." said Scootaloo quietly. **A blur of blazing blue, sound of hoof slamming into jaw, bulky bodies flying back with blood spraying from broken teeth. She'd moved like lightning, a thunderstorm of raw power and blue-hot fury, untouchable. She'd spent a month in gaol while Scoots had stayed with Rarity and Sweetie Belle, and she'd owed a years' worth of weather team wages to the hooligans' parents for medical and dental bills. 'Totes worth it," she'd laughed, the day she got out. "How could I forget it?""Then you DO understand," said Rainbow. A grin cracked her face, but her eyes...oh Celestia, those eyes were icy, lifeless, and dead as a corpse. "That's what's real, Scoots. Fear. Power. That's the ONLY way to make the universe around us listen to us, to take notice. HE showed me that, but...but I think...I think at some level, I-I always understood..." Her eye twitched and her voice hitched, and she looked lost and haunted and so, so alone for just an instant; Scootaloo saw how thin her cheeks were, how gaunt the cyan pegasus had become, and knew in a flash that the black power blazing through Rainbow Dash was simultaneously eating her up and wearing her out. The scarred pegasus was burning alive from the soul out.**Poisoned love, tainted sacrifice, loyalty turned on its ear and used against itself. Those, too, are the weapons of the Dark Side,** the Human Jedi master had told her. **The Dark Side is pernicious, Scootaloo. You must guard yourself, even from FROM yourself. Remember your focus. Remember your control, your training...**"And HE showed me...he showed me what's out there, coming for us, for everyone...everywhere," murmured Rainbow, as much to herself as to Scootaloo, and the young filly knew that her precious window was closing fast. "Friendship, love, compassion...they're going to kill everything in creation, when They finally get here. The Long Night is falling, and we're going to die screaming, unless we can stop Them...""Rainbow," said Scootaloo desperately, urgently. " Don't just hear my words, listen to them...listen to me. This isn't the way to fight. This isn't YOU. He lied, because he lies like he breathes. The Dark Side is eating you, because that's all it can do, that's all it ever does to anyone, it devours everything it touches like a fire. Love and compassion aren't our weaknesses, they're our greatest strengths. If there's a weapon that can stop the Long Night from falling across the universe, they key to using it isn't going to be found in our hate or our rage, it's going to be found there, in our love and friendship. In the things that truly make us ponies. In our faith. I believe in my faith, Rainbow. And I believe in you. Please...please come back to us. Come back while you still can."She reached out her hoof to the cyan pegasus. "Come back to us...please."Rainbow looked down at it, her eyes twin pools of damnation. Her mouth opened, worked, but all that came out was a thin keening sound, almost too faint to hear. She started to reach back out to her with a trembling hoof......and then the iron mask slammed down again, her eyes once again lifeless and cold. **No...no...* thought Scootaloo, her heart breaking before the ice of her training took over."Do you know what else he showed me?" said Rainbow, her voice deceptively soft. "He showed me what the Dark Side demands. It feeds on sacrifice, you know. In order to harness it fully, we have to feed it. Equivalent exchange, some egghead somewhere called it once, I don't remember who. They made a religion out of it, on some worlds, y'know? But it's not magical, and it's not religious. It's just a balancing of the equation. Simple physics--you can only ever get out of the system what you first put into the system..." She slowly stepped toward the filly as she spoke. "Do you understand what I'm saying, Scoots? But...it doesn't have to be you." She stopped a few paces away. "You can come with me. The sacrifice..it can be someone else, or maybe...maybe that alone will be enough. Maybe just being with me will be enough to satisfy it. It doesn't matter. We can still be together, the way we always wanted it." Her soft voice was almost...almost hopeful. "We can kill him, and then it's just you and me. We can stop the Long Night together. Friends to the end.""Please," she whispered, and for one final second, it was her best friend standing there again, her big sister, her mentor standing there, lost and alone, her eyes staring at something Scootaloo prayed she'd never have to see herself. "Come with me."Scootaloo looked into her eyes, her heart numb and calm and still, and said one word, the only word that mattered:"No."**Oh Celestia, please let me remember her for what she was, and not what she has become...**Exhausted, Rainbow closed her eyes; when they opened again, she wasn't there anymore. Her face twisted into a look of cold fury."The old bastard was right, I guess, but it was worth a shot. Oh well. I started alone, and I end it alone." And with that, she drew herself up on her hind legs, her modified lightsaber igniting in a scarlet spray as she softly chanted the ancient mantra of the Sith: