To the biggest of the dangers in this new Equestria, then, fair reader.
I promised you this quite some time ago, but the current developments I’ve faced since the last entry means that the next entry may be quite shorter than you think. The Crystal Empire has fallen, and my safe home is compromised. This calls for far more than an Almanac, but that will be for future concerns. I’ve got a list to try to get to - but the inner circle of Queen Twilight takes precedence. It was only by luck that Stellar Eclipse and I escaped them, and their sinister plan.
My goodness, what the very center of this entry has likely done to her own brother-
Well. This is why this almanac has been created. Let us begin with the Empress of Magic.
Relevant History: A topic that can be relatively short; that’s a first. Though, why it is short may have more to do with how much of her legacy has been burned into everypony’s mind. And with how far she’s fallen from that lofty ideal now.
This is the being that touched down to Ponyville, and within a week, beat the fearsome Nightmare Moon (a task she’d repeat to frightening effect more recently). This is the pony that took down Discord and Queen Chrysalis (though the latter has more than taken back her pound of flesh from her defeat.) Most recently, she’s usurped the throne of Equestria after a reign of terror followed by the Queen’s self-exile from the kingdom.
That this follows from her being framed and arrested for Prince Blueblood and Fleur de Lis’ demise may underlie several of her dictates, including the diminishment of Canterlot’s prison populace. It may also have a lot to do with her animosity toward the late Princess Celestia. Likely, her every move has been to redact her even moment of goodness from when she was Celestia’s student; the biggest being snatching back the Alicorn Amulet from Zecora’s possession.
The bodies she’s left in her wake (the actual ones) seem to stem from her meeting with Princes Shroud and Toxic Haze, who seemed to have ingrained this grisly aspect to her character. It is from that which stems her most damning slice of life, her grisliest chapter of her history, the various ponies she has slain to become Queen of Equestria.
A number that may have grown exponentially with what she has recently done to the compromised Crystal Empire.
Personal Notes: Is it not obvious from my previous entries? Queen Twilight is, demented.
From a combination of her false imprisonment, her fixation on the alicorns that did it, and her libidinous love affair with Shroud, Haze, and Rainbow Dash, Twilight’s great mind has broken. Spite is her primary motivator now; of the alicorns, of the other Elements, of the nation that tossed her and Dash in jail and turned their back on her. Equestria is now an outlet for her increasingly sick revenge fantasy, as well as other more craven and carnal ones as well.
And it is this which is what makes the Queen so dangerous. Her morals and restraint may have dwindled to the point of non-existence, but her calculating mind has not. Despite all that has happened to her, and that she has revisited upon so many innocents, Twilight is not dumb. She can attack you from multiple angles, she has little to no compulsion in lying to your face, and she will have no mercy on your body if she catches you.
Abilities: Queen Twilight Sparkle’s powers might literally be astronomical by now. With her role in whatever foul fate awaited Princess Celestia, her mastery over the rise and fall of the sun takes precedence. Naturally, it takes great magical power, which Twilight has forcibly tethered to her own from Celestia. I will make my next and final entry in the heart of Canterlot itself to find out precisely what spell it was. It will be crucial going forward.*
Next up is the magical power she already has. This includes the normal abilities that unicorns/alicorns can do, which work in three areas:
With the Alicorn Amulet around her neck, however,** her repertoire of techniques, and thus methods of mayhem, have increased. Queen Twilight can now hypnotize certain Earth ponies if they’re taken away from distracting noises or sounds, or even summon artifacts to amplify her friends’ cohorts’ powers.
Then there is the other gift her alicorn nature has given her, the power of flight. Due to her long-range military tactics and tricks, she is an expert attacker, often using clouds and other ponies’ blind angles to strike at an opponent. It has also made her utilize forcefields more often, enough to keep her secure when she’s meeting or encountering new targets.
However, she’s at her most dangerous when her target is in front of her. Should any opportunity to strike come, it’ll have to be from the back or above. Getting there in battle and only battle, however, is a mission that may prove impossible, given how many ways she has to hurt you if your first strike fails.
Finally, there is the new technology that she’d had her and her friends utilize -- it’s called an oumphe in the older texts I’ve read through on suppressive magical artifacts. Snap that iron ring onto a horn, that horn’s power fizzles out as long as it stays on. It should be enough that Twilight is such a terrifyingly fearsome magic user, but with this, she’s a terror to all other magical users as well.
I should have placed this in the personal notes, but this statement requires full-on illumination. Whether to fight or to talk (though I hesitate to know why you would do either): do not face Queen Twilight alone. She is psychotic, she is predatory, and she is protected by magic and monsters alike. Take it from a mare that barely escaped her clutches, nopony that isn’t serving or servicing her stays alive, or sane, long. I repeat again: Do Not Face. Queen Twilight. Alone.
Now to the log of my time in the Empire. Again, my journeys through the log took place after Stellar Eclipse spirited me to the area. To this end, my time will be restricted to the specific instances I landed, conducted the experiment, and the highlights of the sacking that came afterward. Any further notices on my time in the Empire will be revealed in the next entry when Princess Cadance gives consent for their publication.
First Visit to The Crystal Prep Academy/Time Log
7:30 AM - Landed in the Crystal Empire. Hugged Stelar as he left, allowing me my stuff to be taken within the interior of the Crystal Prep Academy.
7:45 AM: World my way into the Crystal Academy. Finally, finally met with Ex-Headmistress Cinch. She was a unicorn, tall and lanky, with a sea like green-blue coat and purple goat. She also had spectacles atop her head. “Ah, Miss Yearling,” she said. “I welcome you to my new Academy. I’ve… have a bit to get used to here myself.”
“Yes,” I replied. “That’s not too many ways left to evade the Queen, an-”
Miss Cinch sadly shook her head. “I meant more... My station.“ Her horn sparked feebly. “I am from a different dimension; one your former ruler’s feared the new Queen would invade.”
I didn’t know this. “I might have guessed, yes,” I actually said.
“Sorry, Miss Yearling. Celestia, both of them, spoke so often of you, and I’ve my own charge to oversee. I… must brief you really quickly, my… new greatest student will be coming soon.”
It was 8:15 when she finished the briefing. Apparently, I’d lost quite a bit of time since my last visit. The situation in Trottingham has gotten worse, with their Queen’s tyranny. Apparently, turning over the rest of the Sailor ponies to her fellow Queen Twilight gave her great joy. Cinch apparently called it a ‘chubby’, for some reason. I could not see it; Queen Trottingham was quite slim.
The statement also came with good news: the Ponyville Wedding was disrupted successfully by Viscera and her coalition. The process was so well-coordinated in the face of the Queen’s threats, in fact, that Cloudsdale was reconsidering its air blockade of the village. You might not know the significance yet, reader, but such a release would be what allowed the very heart of the anti-Twilight resistance to escape tonight.
Cinch was happy to set up the instruments next to the Amore statue as we went on talking.
8:20 PM: The experiment began: The Equilixir of Amber Ambition was applied to the Princess Amore statue I retrieved from Appleloosa. Attending the ceremony was Prince Shining Armor and, to my surprise, Chief Crystal Empire Ambassador Radiant Dawn. Even here, her smile felt enough to disarm the entire room -- no need for a spell.
8:58 PM: We finally completed the experiment with a successful draw-out and return of the Equilixir. Studies may still need to be confirmed on whether it would attract an Equilixir inside the body of another pony, but we now have our way of extracting one safely!
9:00: We were greeted with Ambassador Cori and Princess Gympis within the Crystal Prep Academy. Even with our only first battery of tests done, Shining Armor was quick to suggest doing this technique be applied with a live subject. Princess Cadance, while she was a bit wary at the speed of this, said that the secondary statue was coming soon. In fact, it would be right behind the two quadrupeds, fresh from the disturbed Ponyville Wedding.
Derpy Hooves confirmed the package; the statue of Queen Twilight. Again, my inner trepidations had me consider voicing my concerns. At a minimum, I needed to make sure my notes and this lab’s findings were in order before their next stage.
9:16: FInished gaining the heavy materials: Lightning Dust arrived. CInch introduced her as ner new chief student, and, apparently, the Wonderbolt prospect’s aunt. As she told me later, Celstai had provided this as a cover for two reasons.
9:18: Cinch helpfully came back, and told me about the Canterlot Times headline. I got out the paper and read it, while she looked upon the threshold that Derpy was in. It took me until the opening of the thick paper to see why.
DERPY HOOVES’S FLASH OF MADNESS: CANTERLOT TIMES
That headline smacked me in the face. Derpy, a slayer?! But yet, the picture accompanying it was too detailed to be magically made.
By Hoity Toity
With this being my last report before my move to Las Pegasus, I had thought that this would be the first time I would get to see how the Queen's now habits post-marriage worked out. But in this case, it is Miss Hooves that ended the proceedings of Flash Sentry and his faithful squires in sanguine-streaked horror.
Derpy, after infiltrating the harem as it pulled up to Canterlot Station, was seen by myself, Photo Finish, and Iron Standard. I can only assume that Standard was rushing to stop the madness with how disheveled he and Photo were. Soon afterwards, Derpy was murmuring some strange ramblings, allergy reported by Flash Sentry as “Set us free, set us free,” over and over, before striking. With Flash Sentry losing a wing to the initial attack, five of his Royal Guards were attacked with the same grisly…
I could read no further at this point. There was no way Derpy was capable of this much madness. There had to be rumors, some complications, anything to explain this. As it was, the-
Wait.
What was it that Derpy said?
9:30 PM: This time, I managed to pack up the notes. I know that the phrase by Derpy was the same as the Equilixir of Amber Ambition had pumped into my brain so often since Appleloosa. But she’d never taken possession of it. Still, Cadance had to be warned of the potential danger of Derpy and that Equilixir being drawn to each other. I just had to find the Equi-
9:32 PM: I raced to Chief Crystal Ambassador Radiant Dawn’s side to let her know of the disappearance of the Equilixir of Amber Ambition. She said that Derpy had headed back to Ponyville early, and that the air curfew was about to be back in effect in the Empire soon. The setting off of the perimeter alarm brought our talk to an end. So did the alerts that the Queen was in this tower.
9:37 PM: We made our way back to Crystal Academy, but the upper levels of it were closed off. Immediately, we got Stellar and left with the Amore statue; protocol dedicated that the princess and prince would respectively oversee the evacuation and protection of the city. We had to head to the rendezvous, and oversee the escapees.
10:00 PM: The first and second waves of the Crystal Empire’s populace was ferried to the teleporting circles. It would take them to Vanhoover and Trottingham. Even with the Queen Trotinhnal m in the latter, the spots we ported them too would see then.
Chief Ambassador Radiant Dawn would return to Cadance’s side after she left Ponyville; she had a tracker on him. Shining Armor, however, had a weird fixture with his own tracker. He was not in the Crystal Empire, but he was still alive. And neither Twilight, nor her inner circle, were in the Crystal Empire, either. The central tower, however: well, I‘ll need time to contemplate what the Queen turned the Crystal Palace into. Know that it now resembles Shining in a thoroughly obscene position.
10:39 PM: I was transported to Ponyville Preservation Society’s HQ. Only the Amore statue was not taken with me, teleported by the Chief Ambassador to Cadance’s new spot instead. Apparently she (Cadance, I mean) had suffered massive injuries from her escape from the Crystal Empire. I could only let out a silent prayer to Celestia, where she may rest, for guidance on my part and speedy recovery on Cadance’s.
So much had changed, so fast, in every development I had made in this Almanac. I’d list my home and nearly my life in the last day, the biggest city against Twilight's depravity and possibly our chance of getting the Equilixirs into proper hands And worse yet, Derpy Hooves likely had one, off to do Faust-knows-what with her piece, and likely a dawn’s breadth away from becoming an Equestrian pariah.
Next issue, all of you… I shall face the beasts myself in Canterlot; including the one I eluded during my first departure from Ponyville post-coup. I shall also affirm myself of Princess Cadance’s origins, and make plans for my future.
* The more powerful of these spells have their roots in the Palace of the Two Sisters and the annals of the Arcane University. This, again, makes penetration into Canterlot myself crucial before I make my sojourn toward Trottingham. That city’s Queen has proved too much a danger to too crucial a resource hub of the anti-Twilight resistance for too long.
** This was likely taken from Zecora’s hut. The three similar amulets around the neck of Prince Shroud, Prince Toxic Haze, and Princess Rainbow Dash require further confirmation. I think Queen Twilight has used her magic to give them replicas of the Amulet. In which case, I may need to provide Viscera’s group with a way to possibly work around those Amulets.
*** The translated phrase went as follows, thanks to the ciphers provided by Chief Ambassador Radiant Dawn:
Princess Amore, may this stand for our Tribute
as Eternal as thy Emissary, Somnambula.
To Those Four’ Thestrels here now, and many more to come.
May Our City of Thestrel Dorado prosper for all Time
Hatstirrup, Kinthanid, Sekhmare, Horsthor
This time, it leads to more answers, one I think can be answered by our Chief Ambassador. I shall leave them to Ambassador Cori, assuming she has the authority to do so with the compromising of the Crystal Empire.
**** Goodness, how many deaths have to be tallied under Dash’s belt for them to decide?