"Ahhh... my head..." Applejack murmured, regaining consciousness.
"Enough of that, Applejack! Get up!" Rainbow Dash's voice scolded from beside her.
"Whoa!" Applejack's body was shoved and rolled until it hit a wall.
At least, that was what the disoriented pony thought had happened.
"Why is it so dark?!" At once, a blinding light hit her eyes, confusing her even more.
"There's your light — happy now? Start biting through your ropes, because I'm not doing it for you!" her Pegasus friend scolded, a flashlight strapped to her head.
Applejack was still tied up, so that last part was easy enough to follow, even if she still had no idea about everything else.
"Rainbow Dash, what...?"
"Are you going to bite through those ropes or not?!" the Pegasus pressed.
With no desire to receive more complaints, Applejack began obediently gnawing through the cords. Meanwhile, a hurried Rainbow Dash was finishing removing hers. Once free, she planted herself firmly on the ground and stretched her wings. To the farmer's surprise, they cracked like breaking wood. They gave the impression of having shattered on the spot.
Noticing her friend's alarm, Rainbow laughed.
"Did you buy that? That furball bought it too. Faking serious injuries in flight school has its perks." With that, Rainbow Dash stretched her wings again, but this time they simply spread open, revealing that the previous state had been a voluntary dislocation.
The beam of light danced inside the darkened barn.
Rainbow carefully tested her wings in the air. She rose, reached the ceiling, and came back down. On the ground, she dropped into push-ups, as if warming up for a marathon.
"Done!" Applejack announced, flinging the ropes aside.
"Good! Now let's begin phase two of the plan."
"What plan?"
A distant rumble, like an explosion, shook the barn. Applejack flinched, but Rainbow Dash only smiled with defiance: the plan was going too well...
[---]
"Can I have just a teeny tiny taste of the salad...?"
"No," Rarity replied from the other side of the table.
"What about the lemon juice...?"
"No," she repeated firmly.
"Pleeeease..." Pinkie begged, with her hungry-puppy face.
Across the table overflowing with delicious food, Rarity's frown was growing deeper and deeper... until, at an inconvenient moment, her own stomach growled.
"Enough!" she exclaimed, springing to her hooves. The cutlery clinked and Pinkie shrank in her seat.
"How is it possible that they leave us waiting after all the effort I put into this meal?!" Rarity snapped, pacing furiously.
"Maybe something happened to them..." innocent Pinkie replied timidly.
Rarity stopped and turned with a look so fierce that Pinkie nearly vanished from sight. She seemed on the verge of shouting something. But she didn't. She held herself back, took a deep breath, and, in a softer tone, replied:
"You may be right... if they're in trouble, the best thing is to go look for them."
Pinkie leapt to her hooves at once, smiling, with cutlery in her hooves and a bib on her chest, ready to sit down to a feast.
"And then we'll all eat together," Rarity declared with determination.
"And the food...?" Pinkie asked with a frozen smile.
"It can wait!" the unicorn announced, wrapping herself back in her latex suit and catching Pinkie in her magic just as she was lunging toward the plates.
"The food! Think of the food, Rarity!" the pink pony shouted, kicking her legs as she was dragged out of the kitchen.
Her whining was to no avail. Rarity continued on toward the treehouse's front door, where she stopped a moment, trying to remember which direction Rainbow Dash's new shelter was.
"It was that way... or that way..." she murmured, her gaze drifting through the empty streets.
She never got to decide. A pink butterfly dove down and crashed straight into her forehead, making her stumble backward with a start.
"A Breezie...?" she managed to say, puzzled, as she watched the tiny creature now resting on her head.
"Ehh... nope, I think that's Fluttershy," Pinkie Pie replied, still floating in the air.
A flash of light enveloped the apparent Breezie and, in a blink, Fluttershy materialized on top of Rarity, bringing her down to the ground. Pinkie fell too, tumbling backward.
"Agh! What... what's happening? Fluttershy!" Rarity exclaimed, using her magic to push her friend aside so she could get up.
But Fluttershy didn't respond right away. Her gaze was distant, her wings were trembling, and her words came out barely above a broken whisper.
"Candies... the beast... Twilight... run away..."
"What?" Rarity exclaimed, completely confused.
"Ahh?" Pinkie leaned in, equally baffled by her friend's behavior.
"Beast... windmill... Twilight... Rainbow Dash... run away..." Fluttershy repeated, nearly out of breath.
Rarity and Pinkie looked at each other — they had no idea what Fluttershy was talking about, but it was clear she needed help. Immediately, Rarity used her magic to prop her upright, while Pinkie Pie went and came back with a glass of water for her.
Fluttershy drank it at once, but before she could finish she spat it out and, with a piercing cry — as piercing as her delicate voice allowed — exclaimed:
"The beast... a beast is coming! Run away!"
"A beast? What beast?" Rarity exclaimed, alarmed.
"Maybe it's the one charging straight at us right now!" Pinkie Pie replied, terrified, looking at the open door.
Rarity barely had time to turn when an enormous shadow hurtled behind them.
An instant later, chaos broke loose.
The entire treehouse shuddered, as if struck by an invisible storm, then tilted to one side and finally collapsed. The crash, surprisingly muffled, lasted barely a minute. By the time most of the debris had settled, a tiny Breezie emerged unharmed, coming to rest on what remained of the kitchen table, now exposed to the open air along with the rest of the place.
A light flickered, and Fluttershy recovered her original form. Incredible despite the disaster, much of the banquet Rarity had prepared was still intact beside her.
The aroma of the food contrasted with the desolate scene surrounding it.
"Rarity? Pinkie?" Fluttershy whispered, barely audible, stunned by the destruction.
"I suppose that must be one of your princess's gifts," said a deep voice behind her.
Fluttershy turned and, frightened, fell backward at the sight of the imposing figure.
In full light, the beast stood upright at well over ten feet tall. Horned and furry-bodied, she resembled a cartoonish cross between a stocky bear and a wolverine. Her mouth, as wide as her face would allow, was packed with sharp teeth whose gleam was eclipsed by the blazing intensity of her black eyes — dominant, hostile. Beneath them, a ridiculous brown nose clashed with the ferocity on display. White and gray fur covered her entire body, flecked with reddish tones on her tail that recalled the intense pigmentation across her back.
She was a dangerous creature; every one of Fluttershy's senses was screaming it.
"My, I didn't think my current appearance would shock you so much. I thought you were used to dealing with beasts... aren't you?"
The taunt rang out in the air. But there was truth in those words. Fluttershy, in her long experience, had dealt with entities more threatening than the creature before her. Yet none of that was the reason she was backing away so unsettled.
It was those glowing eyes that made her pull back.
They showed no innocence, reflected no light of a wild and misunderstood being she might come to empathize with. Only the phosphorescence of a scheming, closed mind loaded with a hatred that demanded flight.
"I see... I suppose that, deep down, you're not capable of dealing with creatures like me. I could say I'm disappointed, but that would be too much honesty on my part. Let's leave it at that, shall we, darling?"
The beast took one step forward; Fluttershy took six back.
"Oh, don't run. I think you're more reasonable than the others. Let me explain..."
She raised her heavy arms, showing her palms like a mischievous child. Resting in her claws were Rarity and Pinkie Pie, unconscious but unharmed.
"See? I haven't done anything to them, yet. So we can talk calmly, like friends. I just need a little of your attention and your time — what do you say?"
The beast advanced again, closing the distance. Fluttershy backed up until she hit a wall of rubble that cut off her escape.
"Good, you don't have to speak. Just nod when I ask. Twilight isn't here — I know it; otherwise, she'd have stopped me already. So tell me... do you know where she is?"
Fluttershy didn't answer. The beast took another step, crushing what remained of Rarity's banquet beneath its foot. The food, prepared with such care and meant to be enjoyed when all her pony friends were gathered together, was reduced to a repulsive mess under those feet.
The Pegasus watched this with attention; the beast didn't even notice. And even if she had, she wouldn't have cared.
Like an epiphany, Fluttershy understood it in that instant.
Just like that food, her friends — Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash — were all at the mercy of that creature's whims, whose cold spirit was willing to keep them around only as long as there was some value to be extracted from them. The moment that value vanished, they would simply be crushed.
Without a doubt, that would happen. What could she do in a situation like this?
That was the breaking point.
With her eyes fixed on that image, despair flooded Fluttershy's noble heart, cornering her exhausted spirit. And then, in response, something else rose up. A feeling that only her closest friends had ever witnessed.
"Answer me, Fluttershy. Where is Twilight?" the beast insisted in a pressing tone, squeezing the heads of Rarity and Pinkie between her claws with diminishing gentleness.
Fluttershy kept her head lowered... until, at last, she raised it, her gaze meeting the creature's.
The beast froze at once.
"Find the others... run away..."
"Huh?"
That was all. The conversation ended with those simple words.
[---]
It was sudden.
The motionless continuity of the toy world's landscape, as unchanging as it had been since the first day of its existence, broke apart at once.
In a matter of seconds, a dark mass, resembling a bowling ball, shot out from the fake Ponyville in a straight line and slammed into one of the colossal walls of that giant's room.
A thunder, like a cannonfire blast, rang out through the air.
Immediately, remains of trees, vehicles, and plastic buildings — swept away by the previous impact — began to rain down in a continuous crash, making plain the violence of what had just occurred.
Little by little, the uproar subsided and the artificial silence of that world imposed itself once more.
But things were no longer the same.
Two imposing figures had emerged beneath the light of the stage.
[---]
"Ughhh..." The beast writhed in pain. She hadn't lost consciousness from the impact, but the torment running through her body kept her on the edge of fainting.
Concentrating what little clarity she had left, she made an effort to raise her arms in the midst of her agitation, adopting a posture like someone invoking a divine power. She held that position for several seconds until, without further ado, she managed to stabilize herself.
Lowering her arms slowly, her breathing now regulated, her mind — as tireless in scheming as always — focused on what had just happened to her.
"Damn..." she spat. Her forehead burned as if she had just been headbutted. A headbutt?
Before her, an immense straight-line trench divided the ground in two, stretching on until it disappeared into the horizon. Behind her, the solid stone wall had been shattered, and from the imprint left by her body's impact, deep cracks spread across the entire surface.
"Could she have...?" she doubted her own logic; yet, focusing her eyes better toward the horizon, she was able to confirm what she feared.
Much as she wanted to deny it, she could not.
She had been brutally attacked, and the one responsible for such an offense was none other than...
"Fluttershy!" she screamed, consumed by fury.
That was how it had been. She could see it with her own eyes.
At the other end of the trench, the firm silhouette of the Pegasus stood tall, defying her.
[---]
The unconscious bodies of Rarity and Pinkie Pie were set down carefully on the ground, a few meters from the ruins of Twilight's fake treehouse. It wasn't a safe place, but she couldn't do more for them at that moment.
A roar echoed behind her, coming from the other end of the giant's room.
Fluttershy turned around and could see, clearly against the horizon, her opponent: already recovered and advancing toward her.
She was far away, though not far enough for that to count as any kind of advantage.
Advantage? No. With the changes her body had undergone, she was now on even terms with her surroundings... and with her enemy.
The beast began picking up speed. With each step more thunderous than the last, her advance transformed into a charge.
Fluttershy tensed like a bow and, with a simple breath, let go of her last remaining worries. She was ready now.
She was no longer the same frightened little pony as before. Thanks to the magic of the pearl, all her determination had become fuel for the remarkable increase in size she had undergone.
She would not let that beast hurt her friends any further.
Not while she was here.
And so, stamping the ground with force and making buildings shake, the enormous Pegasus spoke in a firm voice, as if taking an oath:
"I'll handle it."
[---]
It was madness — she knew it in the deepest part of herself, but she had already given herself over completely.
"Why had Fluttershy grown so large?"
"Where were Twilight and the boy?"
"How much time was left before the ruler of chaos lost patience and finished her off?"
Too many questions, with no room to answer them now.
The beast, in the middle of her furious attack, was ignoring the warnings of her own body. All her attention was fixed on the enormous pony before her.
Fluttershy, turned giant by a magic item she didn't know, stood tall in the middle of the fake Ponyville, laughing at her futile effort.
A sickly laugh, identical to that of her detested sister... Sister? Was she imagining it? Was it just a reflection of her paranoia?
The thought dissolved, along with the true reason for her fight.
The humiliations weighed too heavily on her. If she'd been more clear-headed, she would have feigned defeat and fled.
But she was not. She no longer had the strength for that. She could only let herself be swept away by fury.
"You're going to pay for this!" the beast screamed, slobbering in the middle of her uncontrolled charge.
Cardboard trees flew away in her wake. She ran at great speed, despite her short legs, and it wasn't until she was just fifty meters from her target that she leaped into the air. Pulling her limbs together like a ball, she took the form of a massive reddish cannonball spinning on itself and hurled herself at the Pegasus.
The giant Fluttershy didn't move.
The beast's field of vision narrowed. But she smiled in silence.
"Your friends are right there, you fool! Whether you take the hit or not, the next thing I'll do is crush them!"
Confident in her move, the beast fell directly onto the Pegasus. And then...
"Huu?!" There was no sound. There was no impact. No sign of violence of any kind as she had expected; instead, the sensation of weightlessness she had felt while taking the cannonball shape returned for a few moments... only to transform into ascension.
Ascension? Had she hit Fluttershy or a giant trampoline?
Confused by what was happening, the beast undid her posture, only to discover that she was indeed in the air, rising at great speed.
"What...?" she shouted in bewilderment, watching as the ceiling of the toy world rapidly approached her.
Without wasting a second, she extended her lower limbs and, with the force that only they could give her, braced herself against the encounter with the ceiling. Digging her claws into the solid rock, she clung to the wall, motionless for a few seconds.
"Haah... haaah..." she panted, trying to catch her breath.
What move had Fluttershy made to launch her like that? Unable to answer the question, the beast could only examine the ground below her with anxiety, the way a bat would when searching for its prey.
Far below, in the distance, the ruins of Ponyville were still there. The trench created by the first charge was visible too... but there was no trace of the giant Fluttershy.
"She escaped?" she asked aloud.
The answer came from behind her, in a chilling whisper.
"Don't move..."
Before the beast could react, two pony limbs extended from her back: the first wrapped around her neck, choking her, and the second pinned her right arm.
Trapped in a hold resembling the death grip of a criminal, the beast tried to extend her one free claw to break loose. However, that too was immobilized, this time by the flexible tail of the Pegasus.
The grip she had maintained on the stone ceiling dissolved and the beast began to fall alongside Fluttershy toward the ground. With every meter descended, her consciousness faded faster; her numbed body wouldn't respond and her thoughts flashed red with the signal of her end.
Now it was the ground rushing up toward her fast — a sea of colors and bright specks.
That was the place where she would finally taste the bitter flavor of defeat.
"NOOOO!" she roared from the deepest part of herself, refusing her fate.
The beast's body swelled; Fluttershy's relentless grip broke. Free, just one second from impact with the ground, she managed to breathe deeply one more time and then...
A wet thud, like a muffled splash, reached her ears... followed by a new sensation running across her skin.
Everything had gone dark. Her eyes were closed, but she could clearly see sparks bursting in her blackened vision. She was still conscious, barely, clinging to the unknown fluid that surrounded her. She was swimming with difficulty through that unreality.
"Not like this, not like this!" she screamed in her mind on the edge of collapse, suffocating, fighting against the tide that was trying to sweep her away.
Committed to surviving no matter the cost, spending every last fiber of her being, the beast pressed on until at last a light of salvation opened above her.
"I will prevail, I will prevail!" she repeated, frenzied.
Without thinking, she surged toward it and crossed through.
[---]
"Wow..."
Standing on the shore, Fluttershy let out her barely audible voice as she contemplated the interior of the lake where the beast had fallen. It was not an expression of surprise at the creature's unknown whereabouts, but at the state of the terrain itself.
She hadn't recognized it at first, but now she was sure: that was the same place where she and her friends had been captured.
The nearby structures — half-submerged — confirmed it.
"Are they... really still coming out?" she murmured with mild alarm.
And no wonder.
An enormous candy lake stretched before her — the unexpected result of the small mishap that she and Rainbow Dash had set off earlier that same afternoon.
Hours had already passed since they had broken that mysterious mailbox that spat out sweets. They had only wanted to get a few, but they ended up breaking it and triggering a torrent of candy that hadn't stopped since. Worse still: it gave the impression of having intensified, which explained the enormous size of the multicolored lake now flooding a large part of the forest and the low-lying areas beside it.
Taking all that into account, the idea of the lake eventually covering the entire toy world could not be dismissed as a far-fetched notion — it was, rather, a very real danger.
That was precisely what Fluttershy was thinking.
"Oh no... I hope I haven't gotten everyone into another big problem," she exclaimed with regret, forgetting for a moment the current crisis.
She'd barely said it when her enormous size began to shrink.
Catching her mistake, Fluttershy shook her head forcefully, refocused, and made herself stop the regression.
The pearl's magic — whose workings were still a mystery to her, though she was beginning to sense them — fed off her emotions. In this case, her determination to protect her friends. That was a feeling she could not allow herself to lose, for the threat of the beast was still very much present.
And indeed, it was not over.
At that very moment, an explosion shook the lake.
The Pegasus narrowed her eyes.
Like a whale surfacing, the beast burst up from the depths with a desperate howl.
Fluttershy stepped back, shielding herself from the intense shower of candies the creature sent flying.
She watched her carefully and sighed with relief upon confirming that she was still alive, though visibly badly wounded.
Despite everything, Fluttershy had never wished to seriously injure her. From the very beginning she had limited herself to immobilizing her or knocking her out with one technique or another. The initial headbutt, the attempt to paralyze her... all of it had followed that intention.
Even so, her opponent still didn't understand it, and that saddened her.
That was why, when she saw her fall into the lake, she felt devastated.
She tried to go into the thick sea of sweets to rescue her, but found it impossible to move inside it. With no options, she stayed at the edge, watching expectantly for whatever might happen.
Fortunately, things seemed to have calmed in her favor... or at least that was what she wanted to believe.
The candy rain had stopped. In the center of the multicolored lake, the beast, in an apparently unconscious state, was clinging to the top of a playground slide set that served as a small island. Her eyes were closed and her body was visibly battered. Fluttershy judged it safe and, with a powerful beat of her wings, set off toward her.
As she drew closer, her first impression seemed to be confirmed. However, as she was about to descend and pull the beast out of there, something stopped her.
A gleam was filtering through one of her wounded eyes.
On pure instinct, she pulled back.
It was the right move, for at that very instant the head of the beast — which had been resting nearly lifeless — turned toward her. With both eyes and jaws wide open, a reddish glow emerged from within... and then an explosion.
Multiple explosions.
Fluttershy, horrified, beat her wings with all her strength, trying to move out of the trajectory of the fireballs shooting from the beast's mouth.
Expelled like blazing lances, the fireballs pursued Fluttershy through the air. Some grazed her mane, others whistled so close that the heat seared her skin. The entire sky seemed to be in flames.
The imminent danger overwhelmed her. In an instant, her transformation undid itself and she returned to her natural size. Her wings, stiff with tension, gave out... and she ended up plummeting toward the multicolored lake.
"Ahhhhhh!" she cried as she sank into the thick mass, clinging desperately to a cardboard tree that was floating. It took a while to stabilize, but she finally managed to stay afloat.
From there, Fluttershy watched, terrified, as blasts of fire crossed the space where she had been seconds before. They continued their path until they struck the opposite stone wall, unleashing an indiscriminate bombardment that lit up and shook the entire horizon.
With her gaze fixed on that point, the Pegasus remained still, witnessing the magnitude of the danger she had just evaded.
After a few more seconds — which felt like minutes — the explosions ceased. And the sky fell silent once more.
Fluttershy, pale, swallowed hard. The danger had passed, but she didn't feel relieved in the slightest.
Fearful, she turned around, looking at the place from which the projectiles had come.
In the center of the multicolored lake, the beast, wreathed in smoke, was slowly pulling herself up, revealing a battered and grotesque face, marked by reddish eyes still glowing with that light of hatred that seemed to emanate from her very soul.
"Who are you?" Fluttershy asked, distressed, letting the thought escape her. She didn't understand it. How could such hatred toward them be explained? What had they done to receive such aversion? Or perhaps it was a deeper feeling, one of which they were only accidental victims?
The beast began to roar, with intense howls that chilled the blood, disoriented in the search for her opponent. She turned her head in every direction, until she ended up spinning around, exposing her back to Fluttershy.
It seemed like a good opportunity. The idea of surprising her from behind, as before, flashed briefly through her mind. But it was only a flash, displaced at once by another thought — one more faithful to her own nature.
All her attention had been caught by the singular red markings across the beast's back. They didn't look like simple patches, as she had believed at first, but rather...
"Scars?" the Pegasus murmured, struck. She had seen a similar number of scars before, but not on a beast — on another pony... a Pegasus in particular.
The creature's howls continued. Now she was leaning toward the ground, as if drinking from the lake.
"Magi?" Fluttershy finally spoke the beast's true name.
The creature's eyes shot up in her direction, blazing like incandescent lamps. Yet despite being in their direct line of sight, she didn't seem to notice her.
Instead, she was devouring the lake's candies in a frenzy, as if they were her only salvation.
No trace of reason remained in her behavior.
Horrified, Fluttershy then noticed something even more alarming: the beast's body had begun to swell in different places, as if she were suffering an allergic reaction.
She was too slow to understand it: the cause of that reaction was all around her.
The candies...
"No...! Stop! Magi, stop!" the Pegasus shouted as loud as she could. But the beast didn't even seem to hear her. She kept gulping down candies as if that were her sole purpose in the world.
At the same time, her body — already misshapen — inflated out of control.
Desperate, Fluttershy tried to free herself from the candy lake, while launching new warnings.
She was ignored without pause.
The creature, absorbed in her deranged feeding, grew brighter and brighter with her burning eyes. The size of her body, stretched like a balloon, had already reached an absurd proportion relative to the surroundings.
She was not stopping. And she wouldn't. Common sense dictated that it could only end one way: exploding.
And that was exactly what was going to happen.
Accepting the worst, Fluttershy went still. Her thoughts swirled:
"Should I save Magi? But if I fail... my other friends will be in danger! But if I only protect them, then Magi..."
She wavered over her choice. But when she turned her gaze back to the beast, she understood with a pang that, in reality, there had only ever been one answer.
Resigned, with tears rising in her eyes, Fluttershy turned her back.
She had chosen her friends.
With an enormous effort she managed to beat her numbed wings and, at last, rose above the sticky candy trap she had been caught in. Running and flying at once, she moved away from the place as fast as she could.
She didn't look back. She couldn't: bitterness and guilt made it impossible. And even if she had, she would have seen an immense circular mass covering half the horizon in shades of white and red.
The candy lake fell into shadow, and beyond it, the cardboard forest too. The beast's shadow extended without limit, covering a quarter of the toy world.
Fluttershy, barely, managed to leave that shadow behind. In a low-altitude flight, giving everything she had, she reached the outskirts of the fake Ponyville.
That was as far as she got.
A second later, a white light flashed across the toy world. Then a muffled thunder, and finally, a shockwave swept everything in its path.
Shortly after, a multicolored rain fell from the sky. And on the ground, nothing remained but emptiness.
The beast was never seen again.
[---]
In the darkness of a room full of elegant furniture, lit by the fire in the fireplace, a slender figure was having tea.
Seated in an enormous armchair, as if he were a figure of great importance, this being was dressed for the occasion in a style that screamed classicism: a gray coat, a bow tie, a slightly tilted bowler hat, and a monocle that reflected everything around him.
"Mmm…" he let out a sigh, carefully adjusting the teacup beneath his very well-groomed mustache.
His bearing was, without question, that of a respected great lord. More than a ruler, an administrator.
However, that appearance was deceiving. Up close, his face, his hands, his skin... everything revealed abnormal traits. He was not a creature of a single species, but a discordant mix of many.
"Ou wa…" he murmured suddenly, turning his attention toward the glowing crystal ball on the desk. In its surface, the last flashes of the explosion that had shaken the toy world could still be seen. After contemplating them for a few seconds, a smile spread across his chimeric face.
"So, at last, the curtain has fallen on Lady Magi. How unfortunate... juju." He brought a claw — or was it a hand? — to his chin, thoughtful. "So close to fulfilling her end of the deal... and yet so predictably self-destructive."
With a casual gesture, he turned the crystal, bringing into focus another scene: a distant figure of Fluttershy, unconscious on the ground beneath the multicolored rain.
"Fascinating," he said to himself with gleaming eyes, leaning forward.
Amused by what he observed, he set the teacup aside and began to write on the scroll that had been waiting for him all that time. His quill danced across the paper with elegant, precise strokes.
"A contract is a contract... but one can always renegotiate, can't one?"
He finished writing with an exaggerated flourish and sealed the document. An instant later, the scroll was consumed in flames, dissolving into the air.
The strange being rose, stretching with movements that defied normal anatomy. He added a few logs to the fireplace and walked toward the door, pausing a moment to take one last look at the crystal.
With a smile, he left the room.
On the desk, the crystal ball blinked one last time before going dark, leaving the place immersed in the dancing shadows of the fire.