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We flung the doors open…

…and were greeted by chokingly thick pink and flames!

My lungs collapsed, and I fell to the ground, my magic imploding, dropping SteelHooves. I felt myself dying, the Pink Cloud tearing me apart like I was filled with Fillydelphia parasprites. Velvet Remedy collapsed next to me with a weak cry.

The basement of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences had exploded. The suffering alicorn had finally lost her battle. Or perhaps the clinking chains had let off a spark. The whole Ministry was on fire, as were the dead trees. All of them, including the ones that formed the Ministry of Peace. I could hear the building groaning as it began to buckle.

The basement had been huge, stretching under about a third of Ministry Walk; and when it blew, the explosion breached the tunnel between the royal treasury and Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. The remains of the field were filling with an instantly lethal concentration of Pink Cloud. Setting off the Gala fireworks and turning the mother dragon into a mouse had not made all that Cloud magically disappear. It was more diffused here, but that just meant we had seconds more to live. Maybe a full minute, and most of that without consciousness.

My vision blurred and darkened. I felt Pyrelight thump down limply on my back. I barely saw the shadow of the Sky Bandit dropping out of the air above us. Velvet Remedy shoved all three of the super restoration potions she was still carrying into my muzzle, making me drink, then fell into unconsciousness.

I felt my body jolted alive as the overdose of healing magic flooded through me. I was alive to the point I was burning up. My nerves were on fire. But I was conscious, and that was enough to levitate everypony and everything around me. I tossed us all onto the Sky Bandit, shouting for Calamity to fly as fast as he could. Already, I was beginning to weaken, the Cloud clawing at me.