Twilight and Fluttershy kept searching every house in Ponyville looking for the unicron that maintained the spell keeping them there.
No such luck.
The whole of Ponyville was empty save for the square, and that was where the others were holding off those golems. The only place they hadn’t checked was Sweet Apple Acres, and that was because they couldn’t reach it at all. And Twilight did not want to risk a teleportation that far blindly.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “How are we supposed to find this unicorn?”
“Maybe we could go back and ask nicely,” Fluttershy asked. A small stare of confusion from Twilight and she cowed. “Oh, never mind, it was just a suggestion. There’s no need to be so angry.”
“Fluttershy, I’m not angry with you, okay?” Twilight reassured her. “I just don’t think asking nicely is going to help us here. Whoever this pony is, they don’t want to be friends at all. So we need to be tough and force them to cancel the spell if it comes to it.”
“But Twilight, can’t you cancel the spell yourself?”
“Normally, but to break a spell of this magnitude without its originator is really difficult if you don’t know its full extent and abilities. Plus, I’m not sure if I can do it on my own.”
“Twilight Sparkle...”
The voice made her ear flick. At first it was like a mere soft gust of wind, going easy on her while she was thinking. And yet it sounded familiar.
“Twilight Sparkle.”
“Did you hear that?” Twilight asked. Fluttershy shook her head, then they heard ‘Nopony messes with my boom, pal!’ from Rainbow Dash. “Okay, somepony else is here. We know that much, now.”
“So what now?”
“TWILIGHT SPARKLE AND FLUTTERSHY!” The next thing the two mares knew, they were hugging each other in fear of the tone in some corner alley. “Forgive me, but I was uncertain if you could hear me or not with the chaos happening over there.”
The two of them blinked in unison and then said, “Princess Luna?”
“Indeed. You cannot see me, but know that I can see you. If we were not having a crisis, one would think you two were up to something.”
Twilight and Fluttershy separated rather quickly. “Nothing happened, your Highness. You merely scared us with your tone.”
“I know,” Luna replied. “But right now, we need to get you and the others back to Ponyville. I have the mayor gather the things we need, but I need you to perform the spell necessary for us to break it.”
Twilight didn’t even need to consider it. “Where do we need to be?”
-
Why? Celestia thought as her shield forced her to slide backwards on the ground.
“And here I always thought that the tyrant of Equestria would put up a better opposition,” Sombra mocked her whilst pushing her back away from the library. “I guess I overestimated you, Celestia.”
Why can’t I do it? Celestia tried to refocus and assessed the spells that would allow her to achieve the best outcome. Things didn’t look good. Why can’t I hurt Shining Armor, even if he’d agreed to my reasoning?
Several of her spells could lay waste to Ponyville. Those that she did knew that wouldn’t, most were harmful. Shining Armor could take the brunt of them, but not for long. That left a mere handful. And Sombra wasn’t going to let that happen. If Luna wasn’t preoccupied with bringing Twilight and the others back, this would be easy.
But Sombra had never made it easy.
I will need to incapacitate his horn. Small target, and he will have thought of that. Barriers and protection spells, like those inside the library. And he would have thought to prevent me from dispelling them.
For some bizarre reason that was beyond her at the time, and even though it seemed insane to do it... Celestia couldn’t help but smirk for just a brief moment.
Sombra caught her smirking and for an instance faltered in his movements.
Just what she needed.
The next thing he knew, Sombra felt hard pressed by sheer weight of magic force bearing down on his barriers, fixating him in just one place.
“Overconfidence is always the greatest enemy, Sombra,” Celestia said as she dared approach him. Driving something out of a pony’s body required touching them with the horn and she kept pressure on him from moving out of the spot. “That is how you were defeated last time, since you believed yourself to be on par with myself and my sister.”
She leaned down to fire up her horn with more power to drive Sombra out of Shining Armor. “Tis’ a shame that you chose tyranny and enslavement to rule, rather than- AHH!”
Sombra had snapped instantly, biting as hard as he could at the time on Celestia’s neck beneath her chin and using his own bodyweight to press her backward. He flared up his horn and with some adjustment for a proper angle, fired a beam right into her eye.
Celestia screamed in pain and wrenched herself free from his bite, covering her eye with a hoof. She chided herself for getting too close to him too soon - and for not heeding what she said just mere seconds ago.
“Funny that a dictator like you should talk of tyranny like it’s a bad thing,” Sombra snarled with his horn ready with magic. “Wasn’t that what you and your sister achieved after removing Discord so long ago? So what right do you have of accusing me of doing the same thing?”
“We did it because ponies were suffering under Discord’s reign,” She snapped back. “We took Equestria from him to ensure that the ponies would live free in harmony. You just seized the Empire merely to satiate your own ends.”
“Oh, don’t come with the whole “With power comes responsibility” speech, Tyrant Celestia,” he spat at her and activated a spell.
It wasn’t the kind she expected. She had erected a coat-thin shield around herself like he had done previously.
He added a layer of his own on top of that, ensuring she couldn’t move.
“I grew tired of it the first few times,” Sombra quipped. Celestia merely glared with her other eye and flared up her horn again, only to find that it couldn’t break through. “What’s this? The great tyrant of Equestria can’t break through a simple barrier?”
This is not a “simple” barrier. Sombra has reinforced it heavily. Wait, this must be of Shining Armor’s design. A heavily reinforced barrier yet coat-thin around the body to ensure protection from whatever comes your way. But what’s the trade-off? There’s always somet-
Is it getting harder to breathe in here?
Uh oh.
Celestia really wished she had started brushing up on her combat magic at this point, otherwise she’d have to resort to brute force and that would mean ponies could get hurt in the process.
-
Buck the golem. This jerk needs to be handled.
Rainbow Dash banked hard in pursuit after the new adversary.
This pegasus was surprisingly fast, not as fast as she was, but a lot more agile and familiar with sharper turns. Wonderbolts trained hard at making turns to flip a bit and Rainbow had nearly burnt her wings out mastering such turns. This guy could do the same stunts without a sweat. That wasn’t fair at all.
He dove down to the streets and she followed right on his rear hooves. Diving at that speed was dangerous if you didn’t know what you were doing. He’s good, but not as good as me!
Then he turned upright at the last moment to skim across the ground. Rainbow had to brake mid-air to avoid crashing straight down. “Darn it!” Then she burst right after him. At least she could catch up with him in a straight line. “Okay, pal, time to-” She didn’t finish because he just took a straight turn right into an alleyway. She had go past the alley and turn around in a G-bend before going in after him.
An L-turn? He can do an L-turn? To make matters worse, she could barely see the tip of his tail going left. She had to slow down to follow him and then speed up until she almost hit another wall. Bird-fighting wasn’t something new to Rainbow, but this guy wasn’t playing by normal rules and he was dragging it out.
The rogue pegasus flew into a house and Rainbow followed. She almost immediately regretted it as it turned out to be Bon Bon’s Chocolat Shoppe. He had gone straight over the cash register desk - she crashed right into it by flying too fast. Then she crashed straight into the open oven. Thank the sun that it wasn’t heated up.
“That’s it!” Rainbow yelled once she was out. “No more nice mare!” And then she was off in pursuit of him again.
They reached a tight intersection in the street, the perpetrator quickly turned to the right without even slowing down. In the other side, there was another intersection. The pegasus took a left turn this time. Anypony would've had lost sight of the pegasus, but not for Rainbow Dash. She managed to keep up with the perpetrator without any sign of slowing down. In fact, she was already closing in.
Then he banked up again, but this time she was prepared and she flew straight at his back and pushed him into a passing cloud above the town square. “Okay, pal. Time to explain why you...” She wandered, having a look at his cobalt blue coat and silver mane and his cutie mark that was a twister with lightning bolts shooting out of it. And her jaw just dropped as much as it could.
“Oh, my, gosh! You’re Tempest!” Rainbow Dash cried. “The retired Wonderbolt!”
“Uh... yeah?” he said in confusion.
“I saw you pull off the Thundering Twister in Vanhoover! I can’t believe it’s actually you! I’m Rainbow Dash, ‘Bolt trainee. Sonic Rainboom?”
“Oh! You! Now I recall. You saved Soarin’ and Spitfire real good from what I saw,” he congratulated her with a friendly smile. She pretty much gushed about this.
“If we weren’t in a serious fight right now, I’d ask for your autograph!”
“And I for yours. Not every day you get to meet a national hero,” Tempest replied. Then his smile shrunk away. “But as you said, we’re in a serious fight.”
“Yeah, so let’s get to dirty business. Enough bird-fighting,” Rainbow stated as if it was a rule.
He pushed her off the cloud and once she recovered from that, the two of them got into using their forehooves to try and hit the other. She was fast, but he had skill and well honed reflexes. Their hooves connected with each other more than their barrels.
Then he just kicked her down below with a rear hoof and took off from her whilst she clutched the place he had hit. “Why has it got to be down there?”
Next thing she knew, Rainbow Dash was slammed from behind and was on a ramming speed against the ground. She tried to wriggle out of it but velocity made the wind too harsh for her to get loose. Which meant that she could only wait until she hit the ground.
WHAM!
Okay, that hurt a lot. I have hit the ground before, but when you’re guided to do so... Ouch.
Tempest landed in front of her with a hostile look. “‘Bolt trainee, was it? Allow me to be your crash course drill sergeant.”
Buck the pain. Idol or not, this jerk was going down.
-
Of all the peculiar ideas that she had heard, having Princess Luna request that as many couches as possible be brought to the town square in front of the library was by far the most ridiculous so far.
Ivory Scroll had had her own doubts about if this would work, but seeing that Captain Shining Armor was not only holding ground against Princess Celestia, but also constraining her and if he was possessed by something (Loose Screw was bad enough!) then gush darn, she’d be sent to the moon before she let her town go under some crazy spell again.
Curious about how the couches were going to placed, the ponies placed them next to each other and asking the mayor what was going to happen next.
“We are missing one couch,” Princess Luna informed Ivory as she counted them. She had to send a few away much to the ponies’ chagrin.
“Oh what now? First we turn down couches being used for this reenactment and now we are missing just the one?” Ivory asked of the princess before remembering who it was she was talking to. “Er, your majesty.”
“I understand your tone, Madam Mayor, and I sympathize. But we cannot allow this spell to go wrong. That is how magic works. We need to replicate the effects to near exactement. If things were out of place...” She said as if hinting for the mayor to finish the rest.
“..we’d have an even greater disaster on our hooves.” Ivory Scroll sighed and consented to the princess’ demand. “So which couch is it we are missing?”
Luna looked over the lot assembled. “It should be-” Then she noted that one couch was slowly going to them, almost apparently on its own. “Oh, that’s the one.”
It crawled on three sets of hooves, one yellow, one orange and one white. When it came close enough, the two mares heard, “Cutie Mark... Crusaders... Couch... Deliverers. Yay.”
Luna blinked, gave a minor shrug and lifted the couch up with her telekinesis, giving the three fillies some breathing space at last. “Thank you, girls.”
“Alright, flank check!” The yellow one bellowed and the three checked out... three blank flanks. “Oh for- Ah thought this time for sure.”
“Now we need to worry that Rarity doesn’t get mad we took her couch,” the white one said.
“No need to, young ponies,” Luna interrupted. “This couch was the last one I needed.”
“For what?” Ivory asked the night princess.
“For this.” Luna’s eyes turned bright white, her horn flared up with her magic and all the couches together began to shake and lift into the air. Eight couches formed two pillars, then four joined together with each other, working their way into making a massive bipedal form in front of the library.
Sadly, somepony couldn’t keep quiet in light of how amazing it was. “That is so AWESOME!”
Luna snapped back to reality and almost lost concentration of her magic. She turned to see that Shining Armor had just turned his attention to her and oh crap, he was angry. If Luna had to focus on him, then she wouldn’t be able to contact Twilight Sparkle in order to-
Sweetie Belle was a unicorn with a loud voice, if she remembered correctly.
Luna turned to face Shining Armor and flared up her horn, to which Sweetie Belle glowed softly blue for a moment. That was all she needed just in case. Her combat magic was almost antique compared to Celestia (to be fair, she had been locked in the moon for the past millenium) but she had been at the practice range, so to speak, more frequently.
What happened next made her wish she had been there a lot more often.
Shining started with a honed forward curved shield that shimmered fast against her, which Luna was able to counter with just one forehoof covered in magic. The old magic beam came next, a trick even Luna knew. She had been present at its creation during the conflict against Discord.
She diverted it narrowly merely to show off to the wicked king. Shining had already fired off a number of the new magic missiles that had been made in Luna’s absence. Twenty of them, in fact. Luna’s shield held back only five of them. The rest she had to dodge on her own or brush off with her wings.
“Surely that’s not the best you can do, Sombra,” she told the unicorn. “The good Captain is much more developed than...” she stopped to think for a brief moment. Why would Sombra show this little experience with combat magic? He may not have brushed up as much as they first thought when they disbanded his dominion, but this was even less. “This.”
The ground erupted right beneath her hooves and she found herself caught in a forcefield bubble hovering above the ground
Thing was, this bubble was shrinking rapidly. “SWEETIE BELLE! NOW!”
Shining cocked his head to the side. Sweetie Belle merely took a deep breath, the other crusaders covered their ears and....
“TWILIGHT! CAST THE SPELL NOW!”
The noise deafened the combatants for a few moments at first. Then when the whole of Ponyville glowed purple, did Shining’s eyes narrow for a brief moment.
“..No,” he said when he noticed the cracks in the field. “No!”
Celestia looked at him in the corner of her eye with a smirk on her face. “Yes.”
Everything went sheer white for the magical explosion. Utter silence reigned even as it happened. Then when all color came back, the couch golem was still there, though covered in pie cream, dough and plates along with seven other ponies, a baby dragon and a smaller golem made of gems.
“Hey, we’re back!” Applejack cried first and then the townponies cheered at seeing their local heroes back.
“Oh, jolly good,” said a certain brown pony with an hourglass for a cutie mark. “Now we can get rid of the crazy unicron casting a spell on town.”
“You mean unicorn, right?”
“Unicorn, right! Sorry!”
Twilight gave off a sigh of minor exhaustion and shrugged the fatigue off. The situation as she saw it was not a pleasant one. Rainbow Dash was locked up in forehooves with a pegasus stallion she didn’t recognize, Rarity and Spike had only just fended off the gem golem and were staring it down. Applejack and Pinkie Pie had been keeping the couch golem busy and the party cannon looked exhausted.
Princess Luna was trapped in a shrinking bubble and Princess Celestia was in a forcefield holding her in place, apparently holding her breath. And right next to her with his horn shown to have been used was...
“Shining!” Twilight rushed over and just tackled him down to the ground, sliding them a small distance away from the princesses. “What are you doing!? Attacking the princesses? What has gotten into you...”
Shining couldn’t answer, much thanks to that he was seeing stars and pretty pegasi mares with well-curved flanks in front of his eyes. No, wait, those are images of his wife, Cadance. Never mind. Hold on, Twilight Sparkle is directly above me and putting herself at risk to wake the armor pony up.. Chance for one small spot of revenge, then. Need to rouse the rest. I need to get away from here as soon as is practically possible.
“..Cadance think when she hears of this,” Sparkle continued talking with a barely awake Shining Armor. “She’d be furious to hear that you assaul- Are you even listening?”
Oh, right. Need to focus on her. I can multitask. “I’m sorry, Twilight Sparkle, I was a little out of my head at the moment you were talking,” he said to the mare. She raised an eyebrow first.
“What happened to calling me Twilie?”
“..What?”
“You always call me Twilie, even when we’re in public. It’s never Twilight Sparkle, just Twilie,” she told him.
Shining shifted his eyes about, looking around the area. The rainbow pegasus was occupied with Tempest, the farmer and the baker was focusing on the couch golem and the dragon - cursed vermin - was with the gem golem.
“You don’t seem yourself,” Twilight told him, snapping his attention back to her.
“And you always stick your neck out for others... Twilie,” He replied to her.
“..Why did you drag it-” That was all she could say right before the stallion lashed out and bit her in the neck, just below her head. The screams of pain were enough to halt most ponies’ train of thought.
“TWILIGHT!” Most of town (well, those who witnessed the event) shouted that name upon seeing her being bit in the neck by her brother.
“Did Shining turn into a vampony and get thirsty for her blood!?” Somepony shouted.
“WHAT THE HECK IS A VAMPONY?!” Another shouted back.
“Get him off! Get him off! Get him off!” Twilight screamed at the top of her lungs, shaking wildly to get the stallion off her, but he stuck to her. She tried teleporting away, but he just went with her. At the rate he was going, Shining could be drawing...
She didn’t pursue that train of thought.
“Ah’ma coming, Twi!” Applejack cried and ran straight towards the two.
Something fast swooped her off her hooves and sent her head with a gu-goosh to the ground.
“AJ!” Twilight managed to squeak out.
“Courtesy of the fire department, Prime minister, would you care for some bonbons? Ah made them mahself, the excavation team can attest to that.” This was said by Applejack who was lying upside down, hooves in the air and seeing dancing twinkling stars around her head.
Rainbow Dash was trying to get to her and Shining, but the pegasus stallion was too brutal on her wings to let her get airborne, trampling and biting them along with clobbering Rainbow with his forehooves. Spike was stuck between rushing to help her, or keep the gem golem occupied from attacking the rest of them. Rarity kept shifting her head between her and the golem, meaning she had a similar problem.
“You let go of her right now,” came the angry voice of Fluttershy, trotting up to the white stallion with her infamous Stare in full swing. “What makes you think you can just simply come here and do all these terrible things to us?” Shining looked frozen, yet refused to let go of Twilight’s neck. At least he had stopped pressing down. “Now, I want you to let go of Twilight, Shining Armor and any other pony you have-”
Shining poked her in the eye with his horn.
-
What in the pits of Tartarus is this!?
Sombra felt cold and barely movable underneath the yellow pegasus’ glare on him and he struggled hard to maintain control of the stallion.
“Now, I want you to let go of Twilight-” she said to him and he almost readily agreed-
In the same instant that Fluttershy had said the word ‘pony’, Sombra closed his eyes, bent down with his head and thrusted with his horn as hard as he could. He felt squishy around the horn. He must have hit her in the eye.
-
Getting twisted down gave Twilight an open window to see Celestia attempting to break out of her barrier shell. Celestia had a scowl on her face and was - tinktinktinktinktinktink - tapping her horn on the shield back and forth in a very rapid succession. Hearing Fluttershy’s squeal of pain and grasping her eye while stepping back was more than enough.
Before Shining could react, Twilight shot a magic missile at the shield and it made a crack.
BOOM! Celestia burst out, smashing the shield to pieces and flying straight at Twilight and Shining full aflame.
-
Adjust adjust adjust adjust adj- Yaaargh! That burns, that burns!
-
Twilight rolled underneath the large alicorn, rolling a few before coming to a stop and seeing everything spinning like a merry-go-round put on the side.
..Wow, I’m starting to think like Pinkie Pie.
She shrugged it off quickly and spotted Celestia standing on top of Shining Armor, full aflame and looking... so angry it scared her more than the door up in the Crystal Empire.
“You made an error, attacking Twilight like that,” Celestia said in a baritone, tranquil tone of the Royal Canterlot Voice against the stallion. “And you made an error, thinking you could outwit me, fiend.”
At first Shining didn’t speak, he merely looked up at the angry alicorn. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and then looked back at her with fixated eyes. “Outwit? No. Exploit? That was the intended goal. And now yourself have made an error, Tyrant.”
“Shining, what the heck!?” Twilight yelled at him calling the princess that word.
“And what error have I made, as you claim?” Celestia asked, ignoring completely what she had just been called.
“Putting yourself at play yet again, now that I have more pieces.”
Almost immediately, Celestia lost her rageful composure and shifted her attention away from Shining. She was about to call for Twilight, when the gem golem smashed into her out of nowhere.
“Princess!” Twilight yelled and ran to her, but Celestia cut her off.
“Get-” The princess suffered a blow to her muzzle and then her neck as the golem kept pounding her with blow after blow on her blow, leaving cut marks on her every time. “Luna!”
Twilight didn’t at first, seeing her mentor being pummeled like that, but seeing how Luna was faring -
“Owowowowowowowowowowowowowowow,” the princess of the night repeated as the bubble kept shrinking with her inside.
- it seemed the better idea to let Luna out and help her sister. Then she’d have to tend to Applejack and help Rainbow Dash with her opponent. Oh wait, Rarity and Spike have gotten there. Good.
“Princess Luna, I’m coming!” Twilight sprung into action and ran over to where Luna was.
“Owowowowowowowowowowowowow,” Luna kept saying even as she acknowledged Twilight’s presence.
“This shouldn’t take long.” Twilight charged up her horn and connected. Bubble cracked, shattered and Luna fell unceremoniously to the ground.
“Thank you, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said. “Now I intend to repay him in full.” And upon seeing her sister being assaulted by the gem golem, it only fueled her determination.
To the point that she failed to hear something whistling toward her location. “Princess, look out!” Twilight ran for cover.
“Hm?” Luna looked up to see a firework rocket a mere second from impact. “Oh-”
Boom!
“Princess Luna?” Twilight looked at the impact site with a big deal of concern. Seeing a wobbling pony shape through the smoke gave her some relief.
“I’m fine,” Luna said, albeit a tad dazed by the explosion. “I’m alright. Any other pony and they’d be in deeper trouble.”
Then the second rocket hit right next to the princess, sending her flying briefly through the air. She didn’t move once she landed. Twilight and a few others (including the guards that had been just standing on the sidelines so far!) ran over to the dark alicorn. “Princess! Are you alright?”
Luna didn’t answer at first, but at least she was still conscious, though seeing stars in broad daylight. Her voice was croaked when she get air back. “Ah... could do wit’ sum cocopuffs.”
“Cocopuffs. Got it.” One of the guards saluted her and flew off in search of the requested item. The squad leader facehoofed and groaned loudly.
Twilight, having been relieved that Luna was only slightly damaged, looked around the battlefield and spotted another familiar pony, though it wasn’t going to be a friendly reunion. “..Trixie?”
“NOW!” Shining yelled.
“Stop them! Both of them!” The squad leader shouted and his troops sprung to action. “Miss Twilight, can I trust you with handling your brother?”
Twilight barely got to respond before he set off toward Trixie.
“Oh look, what’s a poor mare like me to do now?” Trixie semi-sobbed, before flaring up her horn. Pyrotechs emerged all around the guard, sending them reeling and singed by the fireworks and magic. The squad leader didn’t get singed, he just flew over the fireworks and landed in front of her.
“You got some nerve attacking Princess Luna like that, showpony.”
“And you got nerve to engage me alone, Sergeant,” Trixie replied with a grin. The sergeant didn’t realize what she was talking about until it was too late.
Hidden forces had, in the past, been a very useful tactic for the races that fought one another. Hide them away using the terrain and have them emerge when the enemy least expected it. When ponies did fight, they had the same tactics, with varieties depending on the ponies themselves. Pegasi always favoured mountain peaks and passing clouds to hide. Earth ponies were the masters of terrain and used forests and hillsides like the others. Unicorns...
Well, they took a step further in using spells that allowed them to sneak up on enemies without being spotted at all in the night. The sergeant chastised himself in not seeing that sooner. Sooner, as in, before being heaved up into the ground and then slammed back down by a pony that wasn’t there earlier. And then he was stepped on the head by a broad fetlock, rendering him unconscious.
-
Twilight was almost on the verge of panicking. First Shining Armor, then Trixie and now Romance? Something was up and she wasn’t in control of anything. And with most of the guards licking their burnt coats and the sergeant just knocked unconscious, it left her almost alone, until her friends could assemble themselves.
She took a deep breath and started thinking.
With the gem golem assaulting Princess Celestia, that left Spike and Rarity free to do something. Applejack had been attacked by something fast (most likely a pegasus) and it was still something not hidden from the rest. Most civilians were running from the scene, leaving mainly combatant ponies there. Fluttershy was severely injured in her eye. Luna was incapacitated for the moment and Twilight had virtually no idea how fast she could recover. Maybe soon enough, maybe too late.
Rainbow Dash was occupied with the pegasus stallion bearing down on her wings and Pinkie Pie was in the middle of reloading her cannon. What were Rarity and Spike doing?
Twilight took a look over her shoulder to see that Rarity was running to tend to Applejack, with Spike heading for Pinkie. Then that fast swooping form came down again, aiming straight for Rarity.
Before Twilight could yell for her friend to watch out, she got hit herself by a magic missile, forcing her off her hooves and hitting the ground.
Her sight was almost blurred for a second, but she froze in fear when she saw Shining Armor standing over her with that glare. Twilight shrunk together at seeing her brother being so hostile. “No, no no no no no...” she covered her face with her hooves, not willing to see what would happen.
He merely lifted the tiara off her head and left her there. What? He was... he wanted the Elements!
Twilight rose up to see that Shining and his group had managed to steal all six of the Elements from her and her friends, after leaving most of them incapacitated so they couldn’t resist or take up pursuit properly.
Of their group she saw Shining, Trixie, Prince Romance, the ex-Wonderbolt Tempest and another pegasus with a sandy yellow coat and a brown short mane with matching tail banded together, with the unicorns striking their horns together to form a dome of magic energy.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Twilight could still stand. She could still use magic. She could still fight. And she was the most powerful unicorn in Equestria. She’d be bucked to Tartarus if she were to fail now. Right now, she was the one thing standing between Shining and victory. “This ends now,” She stated as she began charging up her horn.
“I could not agree more.” That voice changed the whole stage. Twilight’s eyes narrowed on hearing that one.
“What?” was all that she could say before a bolt of black energy shot her right on the chest.
-
Celestia didn’t feel anymore on her person, merely a cascade of gems falling over her for a final time. Waiting a brief second for any more coming on to her, she rose her head up to see Twilight get hit by that bolt and her heart almost stopped out of concern and grief. Right before it got refueled by rage.
The alicorn rose up first before charging over against the dome, her mane now crackling with blue fire and eyes crimson red.
But even she could break the shield when she slammed into it. At least not immediately. She did make a crack at it and it was enough for her determination. “You will not succeed here, Sombra,” she snarled while stomping on the shield. “Not while I am in control of this land.”
“You say that as if it’s an invitation to take you down, Celestia,” Sombra said to her. “But I have something else in mind right now than conquest and rulership. That will come later.”
Celestia paused in her stomping. “What are you talking about?”
“And with delegates coming so soon, you should perhaps keep up your... appearance for the sake of your peace? We don’t want them to get the wrong idea, do we?”
With that, the shield dispersed, along with the dome. Nopony was there.
Celestia wanted to scream, loudly and for a long time. Sombra had targeted the Elements all along, and he must have had used the changelings and/or the diamond dogs to drive Celestia into action. That ruthless, thoughtless, arrogant-
Munch!
What? She looked down on her leg.
“Spike?” The little dragon let go of her leg and looked at her directly.
“Look, Celestia, I know that this isn’t the best time, and I know I could have done more myself, but right now we need to tend to the others, stat.” Celestia took a look over the whole battlefield.
Her soldiers were singed and had trouble seeing. Applejack was dazed in her head, Fluttershy covered her eye as best she could, Rainbow Dash’s wings had seen much better days and Rarity was lamenting the damage done to her couch after the couch golem had collapsed under its own weight.
Pinkie Pie pulled the ramrod out of the barrel of her cannon and got to the sights... only to see that the fight was over. “Oh, come on! Knew I shouldn’t have prepared the sarsaparilla bombs,” she grumbled.
Twilight was barely conscious herself and clutching herself in pain. Luna was still seeing stars with a guard standing by her side.
Celestia wanted to break down in sobs over it all, but instead she took a deep breath, sighed and picked Twilight up gently onto her back.
-
Some time by the hospital, the doctors and nurses were working like crazy.
Applejack had gotten a concussion and were given the appropriate pills to down at least twice a day with water for the headache that could come with it.
Rainbow Dash was grounded for a few days. She asked at least if she couldn’t stay at the hospital this time. They bound up her wings nonetheless and put a buzzer on in case she were to mess with her wings before they gave her the clear.
Pinkie had gotten a few scrapes but nothing serious so she was the one who didn’t need an overlook by the nurse.
She did wish Fluttershy had been that lucky. Her eye wasn’t infected but she couldn’t use it for a few weeks and was forced to wear an eyepatch during that time. Pinkie helped bring the bandages needed.
Rarity had had a concussion of her own, but it was not as bad as Applejack, though she was given the pills just in case. She headed off for the spa to book appointments for all of them when it suited them.
The soldiers were given salves which they kneaded onto each other with care. Their squad leader was even worse. A serious concussion and he was bedridden for a few days.
Luna was also bedridden, but only for the night. She could return to her duties the day after. Alicorns seemed to be of sterner stuff than regular ponies. Her doctor said that any other pony that close to the explosions could have lost a leg. And she was having her first meal of the night, a bowl of cocopuffs with milk.
Celestia was just covered in cut marks and scrapes. The doctors and nurses took great care at the start not to upset her with the appliance of alcohol to prevent infection on them, but Celestia told that she wasn’t a delicate vase and they didn’t need to be careful. She could take the pain of it and her wounds were proof enough of that.
She and Twilight shared the same room, the latter pony being examined by the doctors per Celestia’s request. None of them had treated combat magic injuries before as there was no need and they had to send a nurse to fetch the old books on how to do it.
Twilight would be fine, her neck had been treated with salve and bandaged, but because of the magic bolt, she couldn’t do anything strenuous for days on end, such as carrying books or even trot. She had to walk if she wanted to breathe normally. Twilight looked very glum about today and she deserved to be. Once the doctors left the two of them alone with just one nurse each to treat their wounds, did Celestia speak up.
“It never is a good feeling, is it?”
Twilight sighed a little. “It stinks,” she said. “It stinks and I just downright hate it.” She couldn’t deny the tears coming. “Everything was supposed to be fine. Shining.. was gonna be fine, he would just be delayed by blizzards on his way to the Empire and Cadence... I mean.. he can’t be the one being behind all of this...”
It was right then that she looked at Celestia looking at her with a shaggy mane and bandages all over her. “..can he?”
The princess wasn’t too thrilled about that prospect. Fortunately, it wasn’t a real one. “No. He isn’t, Twilight. Shining Armor is not responsible for his actions right now.” And from there, Celestia told Twilight that Sombra was back.
At first, Twilight insisted that Sombra was dead, that there was no way he could have returned. Celestia countered with that she thought the same until today’s events. Twilight thought that it could have been somepony else, some other unicorn that had studied the effects and usage of dark magic, but the alicorn said that dark magic was forbidden ever since Sombra was first banished.
She had to cut Twilight off and say that it was an emergency that Twilight had used what little she knew in order to save the Crystal Empire, and Twilight couldn’t have known that beforehoof.
After their discussion, Twilight was quiet at first. Celestia almost squirmed at it, to the point that her nurse had to calm her down in order to apply the bandages correctly. She had almost forgotten their presence in the room.
“So... what do we do now?” Twilight asked finally.
“Our recommendation would be that you first rest up for the next few days,” her nurse said. “If you intend to go after this Sombra unicorn, you can’t do so in your current state.”
“Of course,” Celestia agreed. “You may have all your friends with you, but not even your body can completely heal. The doctors will take care of you fast enough for you to get back into shape.”
“And then?” Twilight asked, even though she knew the answer. Her expression told the princess everything.
Celestia smirked. “Let me worry about setting up your means of pursuit.”