//------------------------------// // On Instinct // Story: Greene Fields under Red Lights // by Europa //------------------------------// DAY 23 OF INFECTION: 89% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED Twilight Sparkle Twilight Sparkle was scared. The rest of the army's cut off, she thought. Cadance hasn't figured out yet how to summon Alex Mercer. Both Princesses are already here. Elizabeth's turned herself into an enormous flesh golem. She could already lift houses. She could already defeat Princess Celestia. Who knows if Fluttershy even knows what she did? Nopony's coming to save us. It went so much deeper than fear, though. She wasn't petrified. She wasn't frozen in terror. Oh no, she was way beyond those, to the sort of numbing fear where you didn't think, just acted slowly as if in a stupor. The kind of fear where your heartbeat slows down, and time crawls to a near stop. They untangled themselves and looked up - way up - at Greene's enormous bulk as she turned around slightly, raising her head as high as it could go. "Well my dears," Rarity said shakily. "It's been fun." At that moment Elizabeth Greene seemed to finish getting used to her new form, and curled back over. Immediately Twilight gasped, and next to her Chrysalis gagged as a horrendous amount of hatred and adrenaline settled over them, sucking color out of the world and thickening the air around Greene. Red and white tendrils, each as thick as a pony was long, thrashed around her entire body. "Shields!" Shining bellowed, lighting up his horn. The Princesses did the same, creating a multicolored wall right before them. Chrysalis added in her own barrier, and so did Twilight and Rarity. The shields thickened and crystallized, a rainbow of yellow, blue, green, pink, purple and teal. The barrier continued to thicken as more power flowed into it. Meanwhile a thick band of yellow light - the only thing not having its color drained - rose up Elizabeth's base and rippled around her head. Greene leaned forward... An enormous scream, like nothing Twilight had ever heard before, nearly burst her eardrums. A spherical blast of air quickly rippled outwards from Greene, bouncing off their shield. But the worst was yet to come. Just as the world had gone grayscale before, it reddened now. A nova of maroon light blasted outwards from Greene as a massive shockwave, taller than a Lead Breaker and made of rippling crimson energy, expanded outwards from her in a ring. It cleanly cut any irregularities on the ground, closing in on them and their still-strengthening shield. The shield made with the power of two goddesses, a three unicorns - two of them magical savants - and a godlike changeling. The most durable shield ponykind had ever constructed. It shook, resisted, then broke like glass. They collapsed from the magical backlash, and what was left of the shockwave rolled over them. Twilight's stomach flipped inside of her as she was picked up like a newspaper and tossed further down the street with everypony else. They all got back on their hooves, now much further from Elizabeth, watching as the red glow faded and the rest of the blast dissipated. The buildings around the monster had been leveled by the blast, creating an enormous ring of rubble around Elizabeth. The Evolved's bulbous head curled down, and the world turned monochrome as an intense yellow glow rose up the alien's body as she prepared to unleash another decimating blast. "Fly?" Rainbow suggested as the band of light reached the top of Elizabeth's neck. "Fly!" Shining Armor shouted. Immediately, everypony who could fly took to the air. A blue aura wrapped Twilight and her flightless friends, hoisting them up into the air. Chrysalis lifted Shining from the ground just as color was completely drained... The pulse of air nearly knocked them out of the sky and made Twilight gasp, but other than that the red flash and crimson shockwave rolled beneath them harmlessly, and once it had passed they were deposited back on the ground. The two shockwaves had really cleaned out the area around the monster. Around her was a perfectly circular arena, blasted smooth, with streets leading into it at strange angles from which the regular infected were already streaming in. The Prime Colony was completely gone, no evidence it had ever existed was left. The nine of them faced Elizabeth, and Chrysalis bellowed, "Attack!" They charged forward, Princess Celestia flying ahead. Elizabeth leaned back and thrust her head forward. A small torrent of blood exploded outwards from Elizabeth's 'mouth', followed immediately by a stream of boulders the size of carriages with edges as sharp as knives. The rocks flew through the air and slammed into Princess Celestia, knocking her out of the air. Twilight's mouth opened to scream her name, but no sound came out as Celestia hit the ground, covered in cuts from the rock barrage. Greene reared back to release another stream, which connected with Celestia again. Greene released a third stream in as many seconds... With a heave of telekinesis Twilight pulled her mentor out of the way, leaving the boulders to strike the ground and create craters or, in some cases, become stuck in the ground as obstacles. Celestia groaned and, with a flash of golden magic from her horn, her injuries healed and vanished. Elizabeth Greene groaned as well, a low murmuring roar, and not two, not three, but five emerald orbs shot out from her head in a semicircle. "Stay away from her," Princess Luna warned as Celestia finished healing herself. "Fire!" Twilight lowered her horn and shot a blast of pure kinetic force at Elizabeth's head, as did Rarity. Shiny tossed hardened shields at her, Chrysalis launched fireballs, while Luna summoned another volley of stars and sent each of them to seek another position on Elizabeth's 'face', silently exploding. They didn't even make a scorch mark on the infected tissue. The green orbs began moving, and Elizabeth summoned another five. Twilight was briefly blinded and deafened. Acrid heat washed over her as Celestia unleashed her lightning bolt at Elizabeth, doing... ... nothing. The same spell that Twilight had seen shatter Shriekers and go straight through the seemingly invincible Lead Breakers simply deflected off of Greene, streaking through the sky and out of Canterlot. Elizabeth was completely unharmed. There was a deep, sinking feeling in Twilight's stomach. How are we going to hurt her? The orbs began to close in, each headed for one of them. Twilight gulped and summoned her magic, wrapping one of them in a magnetic field and trying to disperse the electrical energy into the ground. The orb slowly diminished, but it was still closing in on Applejack because there was so much energy bound up in it. Twilight redoubled her efforts, barely destroying the sphere in time. Meanwhile, the Princesses had destroyed the other four... ... another five were on their way. Chrysalis surrounded herself in fire and streaked up to Elizabeth, who responded by spitting another rock stream at her, only for the changeling to dash away. While Chrysalis kept Greene occupied, they destroyed the other orbs, and her brother put up a one-way shield around them to keep the approaching infected away. They fired ineffectively at Greene, Chrysalis dashed away from another rock stream, closer to Elizabeth and... Twilight's jaw, again, dropped. A good third of Elizabeth's neck peeled away from the rest and slammed the ground, the changeling queen narrowly avoiding being crushed. The massive tendril rose back into the neck, and then the third on the other side tried to crush Chrysalis as well. It's not a neck, she realized. They're tendrils. Support tendrils. "The neck!" she shouted. "Go for the neck!" It was a long shot, but... Celestia launched a brilliant yellow fireball at the neck, leaving a scorch mark on Greene's right tendril before it healed over. Twilight's hypothesis was confirmed; they could hurt the tendrils beneath Greene's head. It wasn't much, but it was a better idea than attacking the indestructible core. Twilight lowered her head and fired a beam of pure kinetic force; it left a sizable mark on the same tendril Princess Celestia had attacked, which healed over immediately. If there was one good thing about Greene's surprise transformation, it was that she was now a very big, very immobile target. Elizabeth groaned and released another five orbs into the air, and spat a stream of boulders at Princess Luna, only for her to fly out of the way. Twilight shredded one of the orbs and Princess Celestia another three, leaving two of the orbs to take flight at them just as Greene summoned another five. A stream of green energy flowed out of Elizabeth's right tendril and into Chrysalis's horn, even as she inferno dashed away from an earth-shaking slam. Twilight didn't know how she was going to drain the two orbs closing in on Princess Luna in time, but she didn't have to. Rarity, using her precise telekinesis, hit both electric spheres with a rock, detonating them midair. "Good idea," she told Rarity, levitating five stones that Greene's boulder streams had dislodged and chucking them at her newest series of orbs. The Princess and Queen continued to maneuver carefully around Elizabeth, focusing their fearsome power on one of her tendrils while making sure Greene didn't hit them. "Thank you darling, now if you'll excuse me," she said as the infected continued to pile around the shield Shining had around them. Pinkie, Applejack, and Rainbow stared at them nervously. Then Rarity took a deep breath. "Get away from us you brutes!" she shrieked, running to the edge of the shield and bucking a pegasus stallion in the snout. She then grabbed the infected in her aura and spun around, the infected being dragged along the barrier and knocking away the infected climbing up the shield. Their sights were clear, especially once Shining punctuated it with a pulse of his shield. Twilight lit up her horn and slightly nudged the trajectory of one of Greene's boulders. She didn't think she could stop one of them, not with the speed they traveled at, but she could redirect them just enough to not pound Chrysalis into the ground. She fired her magic at the base of Greene's right tendril, leaving a mark that briefly bled... and then the next blue laser from Luna made it collapse to the streets and slither back underground. Greene moaned deeply, and suddenly Chrysalis, mid dash, was lifted into the air by a rainbow of colors. Twilight reacted quickly and dispelled the dozens of levitation spells around her just before Greene could nail her with a barrage of rocks, the changeling queen zipping away to safety. "Keep it up!" Shining ordered. "We can do this!" There was a familiar roar, nearly forcing Twilight to facehoof. Breakers. Of course Greene wouldn't make things easy. The two Breakers - one with a shriveled unicorn horn, one with black vines over its legs - arrived right before Shining's barrier, raised their arms and, before they could react, slammed down and broke it like glass. "Uh, right!" Rainbow said. "Hang on a moment, I got an idea!" With that, she zipped away into the cloudy sky. Twilight gritted her teeth and slashed one of the Breakers with her magic, while Shining knocked the other one onto its back. The one she'd just attacked charged her way and raised a paw to claw her, only to be bucked in the side by Applejack. It slowly raised its paw and looked her way. "Uh, girls?" Applejack asked nervously as the Breaker roared at her. A moment later she was running away, weaving through normal infected with a monstrously fast but slow-to-turn Breaker on her tail. Pinkie and Rarity ran after her to help, while Shining faced off the other Breaker. Twilight gulped and raised a shield around herself, keeping the infected ponies away, and looked at the horrific form of Greene. Currently the Princesses were flying complex circles around her, blasting her with fire and ice and lightning, a string of electric green spheres chasing them, some breaking off to try and cut them off. Chrysalis's horn was drawing in energy from Elizabeth's left tendril even as it thrashed at her, forcing the changeling to keep at a safe distance. Greene herself was facing Twilight and, with a spurt of biomass from her maw, she sent a dozen boulders her way. Twilight shrieked and teleported away so that she was behind Elizabeth. It was at that point that Rainbow Dash returned, carrying a very dark, very large thundercloud in her hooves. As Twilight reformed her shield around herself so the infected could beat away at it instead of at her, Rainbow parked it over Greene. She had an inkling of what Dash wanted to do, and she couldn't say it was a bad idea. Twilight gripped several more rocks in her magic but before she could toss them at the orbs, her brother did the same and popped them harmlessly, leaving her to throw them at the infected nearest to her, conking them on the backs of their heads and sending them down. She lowered her head and blasted Greene's tendril, and again, and again. A torrent of rain washed down from Rainbow's cloud, and where it ran down Elizabeth her skin broke into flickering tendrils. Applejack ran by Twilight nervously, a unicorn Breaker hot on her tail, Rarity and Pinkie hot on its tail. Twilight didn't see her brother at all, but she was confident he could hold his own against a Breaker. Elizabeth turned around and leaned over, spitting boulders at Chrysalis. The changeling, in the middle of galloping through a horde of infected, stopped and reared up just in time to let the rocks pass in front of her. Rainbow moved her cloud off to the side and struck it with her forehooves, a bolt of lightning striking the Breaker that had been chasing Applejack. A moment later Shining was there, battering it with shields and razor-sharp magic blades. Twilight had an idea; she magnetized the Breaker. Immediately, the newest of Elizabeth's orbs - how many could she make?! - locked onto it, then froze in the air, and a moment later exploded. She wasn't entirely sure why they exploded, but Twilight wasn't complaining. She fired at Elizabeth again. Princess Luna and Chrysalis both sent colored fireballs at it, and Princess Celestia landed. She faced Elizabeth, lowered her horn, and fired another bolt of white lightning at her. By the time the flash of light faded, Twilight could barely see the tip of the tendril sinking below the ground, leaving only one; the one around Elizabeth's neck. "Not so bad," she panted, teleporting away from the infected who were starting to break her shield. But before Twilight could do anything else, the dry air shimmered. Elizabeth gurgled deeply and writhed with tentacles, a band of intense yellow light rising along her one remaining tendril and sucking the color out of the world. Time slowed down for Twilight. Everypony who could fly took off, and for a moment Twilight was sure she'd have to teleport herself, her brother, and her friends away. Then bright green magic surrounded her and lifted up. Twilight shrieked and flailed as Chrysalis hoisted her into the air. There was a clap of thunder as Rainbow struck Elizabeth with lightning from her cloud, and then... The roar nearly deafened her. The pulse of air that went through the sky sent Rainbow off her cloud and everypony else flailing to regain their balance, lest they fall into the crimson shockwave down below. Eventually the roar ended, but before they could descend Elizabeth turned her head back much further than Twilight thought she could in that form, and sent a barrage of rocks straight up, smacking both Princesses and Chrysalis. Naturally, that interrupted the levitation magic keeping them so very, very high off the ground. Twilight screamed for a moment, then wrapped the others in her magic and gently lowered them, her brother doing the same for her. They landed, and Twilight noticed that, while infected were still coming in from the streets, the actual arena was very... clean after the blast. Greene turned her head down, seemingly ignoring the blasts on her last tendril, and sent a stream of boulders at Shining. He squeezed between them, wincing. Elizabeth sent out another volley, and another, and another, groaning and moaning loudly as she relentlessly bombarded Shiny with rocks. Twilight's eyes widened, and she deflected another barrage around him. She imagined the rocks hitting a narrow cone of telekinetic force, pushing them just far enough away, and made the vision a reality. But the rocks were just moving too fast, forcing her brother to dance around in between them. And it didn't take Greene long to wisen up, having her infected unicorns grab him with their telekinesis. Before long it was all Twilight could do to counterspell them, her ground-bound friends holding off the regular infected, Chrysalis and Luna pelting and draining Greene, and Celestia and Rainbow providing air support against the Breakers that kept showing up. But Elizabeth just did not relent on Shining, sending a barrage of rocks every second or so until... There was a wet shlick and the last of Greene's neck tendrils submerged beneath Canterlot. Instantly her bulbous head froze, and then let out a warbling shriek. She fell, resting on the street limply with her gigantic spine bent over. "Now, now! Get her!" Chrysalis screeched, her horn firing a blazing beam of magic onto Greene's tough hide. Luna launched a salvo of stars onto her, and then followed up with her own beam as Rainbow created a new thundercloud from the wisps over Canterlot and began blasting down lightning. Twilight understood in a moment, and teleported Applejack and Pinkie next to her, before she began firing her own blazingly bright beam. Her brother kept the rest of the infected back as they attacked Greene. Applejack kicked and bucked at her, and Celestia peppered Elizabeth with hoof-sized darts of stone. Wherever Greene was hit, the formerly impervious core spewed biomass and she moaned deeply. Pinkie had, much to Twilight's surprise, pulled a water gun out of her mane and was now spritzing Elizabeth, making her body flicker with colossal tendrils where she was hit. Twilight momentarily tried to pull Greene out of her monstrous form, but the tendrils held her tight. She switched back to blasting. Each time Elizabeth's body was struck, her actual body, spread eagle in the middle, shifted a bit and flashed yellow. They continued the attack for maybe fifteen seconds before Princess Celestia landed. She faced the downed Evolved, her horn brightening even more, and shouted, "Traitor!" Then she let loose another one of her enormous bolts of lightning. Unlike before, it didn't deflect off, and cut a deep hole through Greene. She pulled up, straightening out her spine even as she hemorrhaged, and sank beneath the ground with a great rumbling of displaced rock, leaving a sizable crater in the middle of the ring her shockwaves had blasted. "I don't get it," Pinkie said, reappearing next to Twilight, hitting an earth pony over the head with her water gun. "Did we win?" One of Shining's hoofball-sized shields appeared and clobbered away a divebombing pegasus. Twilight thought she heard something. The buzzing of distant wings, the marching of hoofsteps... Princess Celestia, still in the air, shook her head and used her magic to clean off the sticky biomass from a disgusted Applejack. "No, Pinkie. Elizabeth would not make it so easy." With that said, Princess Celestia turned a dozen infected into ash, and Rainbow dive-bombed somepony sneaking up behind Rarity. "Everypony remain alert. We do not know what tricks she still has." The ground shook, and then there was the same echoing shriek from before as Elizabeth burst from the ground, all three neck tendrils returned. Three Shriekers rose around her in a perfect triangle, crying out in their own high-pitched voices. ***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-*** Celestia Princess Celestia was angry. Here was the greatest threat to ponykind in history. She'd accomplished much worse than the windigos ever had, far beyond what Discord's chaos or Tirek's lust for power did to the population. She'd gotten much further than Nightmare Moon had, and was a worse slaver than even Sombra. And now, instead of coming to her senses and standing down, she had elected to cause an even greater senseless loss of life. Even when they won this battle, the damage done to her ponies would be so, so grievous. Princess Celestia was angry, and for the first time in centuries it felt good to be able to vaporize her foes and ionize the air. Celestia looked way up when Elizabeth returned, with more infected with her, and then smiled when she realized that their own forces had caught up. They were not alone in this battle. Soldiers galloped in from one of the streets and changelings flew in overhead; whatever had been holding them all back had been dealt with. Unfortunately, they wouldn't get air superiority that easily; another swarm of infected pegasi took to the air. She sent a fireball at Elizabeth... and it simply fizzled into sparks when it hit her. Celestia had hoped that Greene would've remained vulnerable, but no such luck. Then the Shriekers each tossed a boulder; one at Celestia's sister, another at a trio of changelings on the ground, another at Rainbow Dash as she took to the air. Adrenaline coursed through Princess Celestia's veins. Her horn was permanently aglow, casting spells left and right. A flamespitter orb to take the pressure off that unicorn group, blasting their way through Leapers to get close enough to aim at Elizabeth. A gravity well to slam a Breaker into a shaft of solid moonlight her sister had conjured. A pillar of flames to clear a pocket in the normal infected. Celestia teleported forward towards one of the Shriekers, making sure the burst of her emergence would toss away the infected around her. As it leaned back to slam down on her, she summoned core plasma to the tip of her horn and shot it forward at its bony scythes... ... and missed. The Shrieker, instead of slamming down on her, pulled its body to the side at the last second and swept the ground in a wide arc, the bone slamming into Princess Celestia's flank hard enough to break her ribs in spite of her earth pony resistance, tossing her into the air like a rag doll as the tip of the scythes cut a long gash along her side, bleeding gold blood. Before she could control her flight, pain erupted along her flank, head and wings as boulders broke on her. She flailed and hit the ground hard, another barrage of stones pushing her into the pavement. Then she was pulled away, letting her see another volley shatter harmlessly on the ground where she'd been a moment ago. Luna's magic set her on her hooves and healed her wounds, the Night Goddess appearing next to her. "Sister, prepare!" Luna raised her horn and lightning crackled. Knowing what she was planning, Celestia lent her own magic, quickly while Elizabeth was sending electric orbs at somepony else. She turned her horn into a makeshift lightning rod, while her sister used her pegasus magic to summon lightning from the mostly-cloudless sky and strike Celestia. She kept the charge around her horn as more and more lightning coalesced, then when she could hold no more she directed the blast at the nearest Shrieker, under heavy fire by magic and arrows. The initial shock blackened its red skin, and Luna's sustained barrage of lightning continued to electrocute it, holding it in place long enough for Chrysalis to maneuver around Greene's onslaught and send the Shrieker back underground with a gout of fire. Luna stopped the lightning, and they split off again to avoid a trio of emerald spheres. Celestia landed elsewhere in the area, Elizabeth having turned away to fire rocks at an earth pony phalanx. She raised a shield around them moments before the rocks struck, but she didn't have time to give it any real substance and so it collapsed, and the pony formation was sent into disarray. Celestia spotted two Breakers headed their way, and snarled. The two remaining Shriekers were being dealt with, Queen Chrysalis doing her best to keep the Evolved's attention solely on herself. Celestia flew over to the downed guards, and lifted the two Breakers into the air. Both flailed against her telekinesis, and several infected unicorns around her tried to free them, but that didn't stop Celestia from bringing the two monstrous infected together and engulfing them in an orb of brilliant yellow plasma. She landed and cast her wings to the side, as if the protect her little ponies, and ended the plasma. Both Breakers were blackened, but were already healing. So she tossed them to her sister, knowing she could easily finish off the two. Celestia flew from place to place, helping out wherever she could. Unfortunately, with the high number of infected they simply couldn't disarm Greene as easily, even with the soldiers' aid. As such her electric orbs crackled through the air of Canterlot, seeking out their targets and exploding with lethal force. Eventually, Chrysalis's life drain made Elizabeth's middle tendril sink beneath the ground. Celestia teleported next to her and, as Elizabeth spat yet another stream of rocks at the changeling, she conjured a wall of telekinetic force and pushed, shoving the rocks sideways to stick in the ground harmlessly. The queen's horn glowed acidic green, a steady river of energy flowing into her. They were close enough to Greene to have a lot of her attention, but not so close that her thrashing tendrils could smash them. Chrysalis looked at her for a moment, and then her life drain changed targets. From the changeling into Celestia, emerald energy flowed like a river, replenishing her magic at an incredible, breath-taking pace. Then Greene thrust her head at them, eight electric orbs forming in her maw and flying right at them with yellow streaks behind them. Celestia's eyes widened, but she took Rarity's example and tossed a volley of rocks at the orbs... which swerved around them and closed in more. Chrysalis engulfed herself in fire and dashed away, while Celestia flapped her wings and flew the other way, even as Greene spat another eight orbs at her. A drizzle of magical bolts peppered Elizabeth, a great many impacting ineffectively against her head but a few finding her neck tendrils. She blasted the one Chrysalis was draining with kinetic force, and she noted that it seemed... tougher than before. As if Elizabeth was slowly remembering how to make her neck as impervious as her head. She didn't like the thought of that, and as her left tendril whipped the ground, Princess Celestia was forced to retreat to a safer distance, the shockingly fast orbs still on her tail. Elizabeth returned her focus to Queen Chrysalis, and Celestia continued to fly around at a moderate height, blasting Greene with her magic and the sun's plasma. The entire circular ring around Elizabeth was thrown into chaos. She saw Shining Armor and the changeling Swarm Commander facing off against a Breaker. She saw her faithful student standing her ground and firing at Greene, protected by four changelings around her. She saw Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack back to back against a group of Leapers, and she sent them aid in the form of a flamespitter orb. She saw her sister flying around Greene's head, shouting long-obscure obscenities at her as she sent stars at the right tendril. Above them, the changelings swarm fought viciously with the infected pegasi, bolts of green lightning illuminating the reddish sky, darkened by the eclipse. Rainbow Dash flew haphazardly between them, pursued relentlessly by the streak of flame that was once Spitfire. A V-wing of changelings flew down, blasts of green energy flying from their horns and cutting a scythe through the infected on the ground, before a Breaker tossed a lump of rock at them. Two of the changelings fell, and the Breaker bounded onto them. Breakers were fast, but Celestia's teleportation was faster. She reappeared standing over the two fallen changelings, and reached into her spiritual link. A moment later the Breaker was flying back, dead, with a giant hole carved through its body by her solar core plasma. Princess Celestia got off the two soldiers and helped them up. They nodded their thanks to her as she healed the cracks in their exoskeletons, and took back to the air. Celestia chanced a look at Elizabeth; she had one tendril left supporting her, the one on Greene's right. It happened again. The changelings all around her began gagging as a yellow light rose up Elizabeth's base and tendrils thrashed around her. Color didn't drain for Celestia, but she still knew what was to come. Flying over to the Elements, she gripped them in her magic and took them with her into the air. The yellow light reached Elizabeth's head, and then there was the flash of red, the burst of air that nearly sent her tumbling to the ground, and the enormous shockwave rolling across the plaza. To Celestia's horror, a great many ponies and changelings were down there, held in place by the infected, and they simply ceased to exist as the shockwave rolled over them. The blast ended, leaving the area desolate. They landed, and new infected were already entering. Elizabeth spat more rocks at Celestia, but she squeezed inbetween them and summoned flaming streaks along the last tendril. With the combined assault of everypony else, it wasn't long before the third tendril once again sank, and Elizabeth Greene fell shrieking to the ground. She was instantly beset by attacks. Celestia called down a pillar of flame onto her. Pinkie sprayed her with water, Luna with stars, and so on. Even the changelings in the air broke off from their fights to engulf themselves in green fire, body slam into her, and then take off in time for the next ones to do so. Elizabeth groaned and her smaller body shook, flashing yellow. Before long, Princess Celestia's link to the sun cooled down enough for her to use it again against her most hated of enemies. "You enslaved my subjects!" she accused, releasing another core blast at Elizabeth Greene, striking dead center in her central form. Bleeding copiously and slowly regenerating, Elizabeth Greene rose up and sank beneath the ground a second time, three Breakers erupting from the crater moments later. She levitated them in the air helplessly, leaving the others to blast them. Chrysalis, however, instead began imparting life into Celestia and her sister, healing them and replenishing their magic. Before too long, the Breakers had been dealt with. They stepped back, holding off the infected and Leapers with relative ease for two minutes, the rest of the army returning to help. Then, there was a shake, an upheaval, and the Plague Goddess returned in all her power and horror. ***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-*** Greene Elizabeth Anne Greene was excited. They were here. They'd come. Chrysalis, Celestia, and Luna. And she was there with them. She could break them, right there and right then, and once she did nothing would be able to stop her children. After that, it was just a matter of finding out what their backup plan was and stopping it in time. She could do it; she suspected the Crystal Empire. Adrenaline coursed through her her her veins as she pierced the surface and prepared to fight her enemies once more, towering above the puny little equines. Immediately she gathered her anger and took a deep breath, drawing in the colors of the world. She told several of her children to keep the equines down so that they couldn't avoid her attack, including having her Strong Children hold down the alicorn sisters. The alicorn sisters teleported to safety, sadly. She finished taking in air and then let out a scream, the crimson shockwave exploding outwards from her in a flash of red light. It vaporized any it came across, friend or foe, ally or enemy, and then it was over. Four of her Throwing Children pushed their way free of the ground, forming a square around Elizabeth. More of the equines were coming, and she was ready for them. She pulled up rocks and spat them as they emerged from the streets, concussing them and breaking their skulls. She clenched her spine and a tingling traveled up from its base, into her head, and outwards as five crackling green spheres. She mentally directed them up, each one finding a changeling in the air and obliterating not only them, but anyone immediately around them. The alicorn sisters and and and the changeling queen began fighting her, the bug-like equine dashing irritatingly close to her legs and draining the life out of her left leg. She ordered her children to assault Chrysalis in according patterns, spat rocks at Celestia, had her children cut off that earth pony or chase after that pegasus. She wasn't just in her powerful, powerful body, she was in the entire battlefield. She and her Thinking Children coordinated perfectly, cutting off retreats, limiting how many of the enemy's soldiers could come. This was where she belonged, at the front lines, destroying those who would cause her family harm. It didn't sit well with her, of course, that she'd vaporized many of her own own own children with her shockwave, but there was no other way. She had to have them hold the equines down. Now wasn't the time to worry about them, now wasn't the time to be squeamish about sacrifices. Fighting for her life, her future, her Reason, was the time to be cold and calculating, analyzing threats and dispatching them. That didn't mean she couldn't enjoy it. She enjoyed electrocuting pegasi with her empowered orbs, having her Throwing Children knock Celestia out of the sky, scattering changeling swarms with her boulders. She lent her aid to her children that needed it, and nine times out of ten the threats were neutralized. Chrysalis darted to Elizabeth's left, so she had one of her Throwing Children stretch towards herself, forming a massive wall of flesh that the changeling slammed into. Her Throwing Child swept left, sending Chrysalis flying, an easy target for Elizabeth to spit rocks at. Dead center, she thought, directing three three three of the eight orbs she had in the air at the changeling. One of them was prematurely detonated, the other was was was shredded by Luna's magic, but the other hit Chrysalis and sent her tumbling through the air, into the arms of one of her Strong Children. The other five orbs, she moved around to independent spots, exploding each of them in the middle of a cluster of equines. She reared her head back, groaned deeply, and summoned five more. Two of her Throwing Children died died died, making her moan angrily and send four of them at Celestia, splitting up to close in on her from all directions. She turned around, and anger joined the buzzing energy in her veins. There they were, the three of them fighting back to back, not really going anywhere but providing a point of stability for the rest of the equines. She summoned more orbs and moved them towards the trio. Pinkie Pie. Applejack and Rarity. I TRUSTED YOU! she thought angrily, even as they popped her orbs with thrown rocks despite her trying to make the spheres avoid them. She groaned and spat boulders at them, forcing the unicorn and two earth ponies to take cover. She swiveled around and spotted Shining Armor, collapsing shields around two of her Strong Children. She spat a barrage of rocks at him, but the armored changeling beside him knocked the equine to the side and took the barrage instead. The changeling didn't get back up, so Elizabeth considered it a success. There was another advantage she had, too; she couldn't get tired, something that was certainly coming into play after forty minutes of fighting. She was incredibly strong, but even she wasn't all-powerful. The fact she was in Equestria was proof of that. Her four Throwing Children were either dead or so injured they had to retreat back beneath the streets. A half dozen of her Jumping Children were pulled together by Luna's vacuum and then engulfed in an orb of glowing gas by Celestia. She was peppered by useless arrows that bounced off of her, and by spells that she hardly even noticed hitting her face, but gently gently gently stung her legs. She was so dizzy. The two prior times they'd cut off her legs and they'd hit her head, it made her so nauseous nauseous nauseous. She felt like she was going to throw up; Elizabeth wanted to throw up, so badly, but she couldn't. If she threw up in her current form then it was over. Chrysalis had recovered, and had begun to siphon her life again. She slammed the ground with her legs, two at a time, in hopes that the shockwave would upset Chrysalis, and launched dozens of orbs directly from her maw that chased after her, some of them splitting off to try and surround the changeling. At the same time she had one of her sons leap to the side to evade an arrow, time enough for one of her Strong Children to kill the pegasus archer with a leap, and at the same time as that she had one of her few changeling children cast a cocooning spell at Rainbow Dash, which the pegasus moved out of the way from. She slowly tightened the muscles in her three legs, making them tougher and tougher, but it was slow going. There was another immense flash of light and heat, and suddenly there was a sharp pain in her left leg. She groaned deeply and spat a stream of rocks at Celestia, which the alicorn winged away from. At the same time she pulled her injured leg back beneath the ground where she and her Warm Children could begin healing it. All around the country, Elizabeth's orders had gone out. All of her children were making their way back to her. Not all of them made it, and it was a long journey, but now there was no more reason to hide her hand hand hand. Most of her Thinking Children and Throwing Children were engaged in fights elsewhere, leaving Elizabeth without much of their support... but she could make do. She had to make do. The assault continued. Her children and the equines held each other in rough equilibrium, herself fighting the three biggest threats. Sometimes they broke off to aid the armies, but mostly they faced each other. Slowly but surely, they struck her middle leg, numbed it, made it tingle, then sting, and finally burst into pain so intense she had to withdraw it. Chrysalis was a big threat; not only was she more powerful than either Luna or Celestia, her technique of fighting was very bad bad bad for Elizabeth. She was sucking the life right out of her, and then giving it to whoever was run down. It was a form of regenerating, the very same thing that enabled her Wayward Child to defeat her so long ago ago ago. Celestia had frightening knowledge, and she had faced off with Elizabeth before. Of course, circumstances were different, but she still had an idea as to how to disarm Greene's abilities. To say nothing of the enormous blasts of hotter-than-lightning. Luna... had her head tilted back, horn aglow. One of her Strong Children was constantly engulfed in a purple beam of light with a pool of black water beneath her, arms reaching up and grabbing at her Strong Child mercilessly. Elizabeth groaned and sent a stream of boulders at Princess Luna, interrupting the spell and freeing her child, the alicorn slumping down under the force. She redirected her orbs there and kept Luna pinned with another barrage, so that by the time the Moon Goddess got back up she was bombarded by electric blasts that sent her back down. I'LL KILL YOU! she raged, even as Chrysalis surrounded herself in fire and zipped over to Luna, healing her. She wasn't going to to to just let Chrysalis undo all her work. She turned around so her right leg was near her, and struck the ground so hard the shockwave knocked them both far away. "Luna!" Celestia shouted, disengaging from her fireball-throwing to go help them. Elizabeth pulled more rocks up her throat and spat the boulders at them, groaning menacingly as she did. She ignored the tiny little spells hitting her right leg, and summoned five electric orbs to deal with the slightly noticeable spells that Twilight Sparkle was attacking her with. It made her so angry that it had come to this! She'd thought they were her friends! She'd trusted them with her life, gave them her blood, her protection, her Blessing, and how did they repay her? With demands to stop, threats, death, and attempts to imprison her! Elizabeth had thought that the equines were better than the Similars, but they were just as bad if not worse! They'd called her their friend, but it was all for nothing! Hollow hollow hollow words. Lies of friendship and love! All she had given them, all she would have given them... and it meant nothing to them! For another five minutes she kept the alicorns and the queen on the defensive, before a painful crack in her remaining leg made her retract it by instinct so that she could mend it... and then she fell limply to the ground with a scream of indignity. Despite the attacks that came, she coordinated her children, mostly to keep them off of her. She tried to pull herself back up, but Elizabeth found that her strength had left her, and it was taking too too too long to get it back. The fact that Pinkie Pie was spraying water at her with some stupid contraption was making it even harder to pull her head back up, letting changelings slam into her, equines shoot her, unicorns and alicorns blast her. A trio of lasers carved a triangle around her face; one green, one blue, one yellow. Elizabeth gagged, a spurt of blood coming out of her giant mouth, but held the rest in. The yellow laser cut out and Celestia landed, facing right at her with an uncharacteristic snarl on her pretty little face. "Why?!" she demanded, and then Elizabeth was blinded. A hole was torn through her body and shattered part of her spine, the thunderclap of power forcing her back. That little push, despite the immense pain, was all Elizabeth needed. Sluggishly, she drew her head up, bone and flesh healing, and descended. ***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-*** Twilight Sparkle Twilight Sparkle was tired. Scratch that, she was exhausted. All four of her legs trembled and she took deep, gasping breaths through her mouth. Her head swam, her horn ached, and her eyes stung with sweat. But she was, remarkably, still alive. Elizabeth's bulbous form sank back beneath Canterlot, prompting Princess Luna, still flying, to pump a hoof in the air. "See that?! We hurt her!" Princess Celestia played Discord's advocate to that. "Eyes open, everyone! It's not over yet!" As she said that, the ground around Elizabeth's crater shook and two Lead Breakers, each with a half dozen Leapers on their backs, emerged. The Leapers dispersed, none of them headed her way but each one after somepony. Rainbow swooped through the air, leaving a rainbow path that was soon overtaken by a fiery trail, and the Lead Breakers moved to attack. Luckily, they had two goddesses on their side, and the Lead Breakers were quite easy to distract. Twilight was tired, so very tired, but she swallowed, steeled herself, and did her best to lift the giant, heavy infected into the air. Under fire from Chrysalis and the princesses, not even the incredibly tough hides of the Lead Breakers could last very long, and within two minutes both were... ... not a threat. Then the surface quaked, and Twilight immediately knew what was coming. Elizabeth returned with a deafening roar, but this time no Shriekers came with her. Something was, however, different; each of the Evolved's neck tendrils had a thick band of yellow across their middles, which momentarily made Twilight think she was preparing another crimson shockwave. Right away Greene was on the attack, wasting no time. Twilight shrieked and teleported away from a rock stream directed her way, making her groan in dizziness when she reappeared. Very quickly, she fell into what could only be called autopilot. The fight passed in a blur. The Princesses and the Queen flew circles around Greene's enormous form, pelting her with world-shaking magic. All around Twilight infected closed in, some larger than others, all trying to kill her, while above the sky rippled with changelings and pegasi. At one point she was next to Applejack, who was bucking a Leaper in the chest. Then she was next to her BBBFF, helping him sustain a shield around a platoon of armored changelings, the so-called Imperial Guard. Suddenly she was helping changelings and earth ponies defeat a Breaker, and failing to protect half of them. Next she found herself next to Pinkie and Rarity, who had long ago ran out of magic and was, her horn sparking, punching infected in the snouts to ward them off. She was dizzy and exhausted, the only thing keeping her going was a mantra of Can't stop, you'll be infected. Can't stop, you'll be infected. Despite the crystal amulet around her neck, it was much more motivating than even death. Elizabeth's right tendril, still ringed with yellow, went down. As for the others two, another band of light began moving up them. Elizabeth writhed angrily with tentacles that sucked the color out of the world and replaced it with hatred and fear. Twilight gulped, and soon found herself and her friends wrapped in Chrysalis's slimy magic and hoisted into the air. She looked down as the yellow light reached Greene's head, and gasped. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna foalishly had their backs to Elizabeth, fighting off four Breakers at once while regular infected clung to their legs. Twilight tried to teleport them away, but her horn sparked angrily at her instead. She opened her mouth to shout at them to fly, but her voice was lost to Greene's roar. Both alicorns turned around in shock and, when they saw the shockwave approaching them, tried to fly away, but the Breakers slammed them back to the ground. She watched in horror as the wave of red energy washed over them, obliterating the Breakers and sending both Princesses flying far away, to the very end of the arena. Their fur and manes were gone, their armor and crowns shredded, and their skin, oh alicorns their skin... She would've thrown up, but she wisely had kept her stomach empty. So she dry heaved in midair. It took until Chrysalis put them down for her to find her voice. She screamed, but could do nothing except watch as Chrysalis flew over to them, touching down on the empty streets and lightning up her horn. Twin rays of energy flowed outwards from the changeling and into the two alicorns, regrowing their skin... Elizabeth groaned and spat boulders, all of which missed Chrysalis. Twilight whipped back around and snarled at the Evolved that had hurt her Princesses, her mentor, her friends! She could feel her second wind coming, and lit up her horn. This time her magic obeyed her, and she shoved Greene's next rock stream to the side. Meanwhile, those fighting in the air came down periodically to blast Elizabeth's left neck tendril. She growled at the Evolved, summoning a layer of frost on Greene. It immediately melted, the water flowing down her body and making her flicker erratically, making the next volley of orbs she sent out to immediately explode along her impervious core. The next five didn't explode, nor did the next five, or the next, each one heading for the alicorn sisters. Twilight's jaw dropped; she tried to shred them magnetically but there were just too many. She tried throwing pebbles to detonate them but they swerved out of the way. Then Twilight ducked below a Leaper's blade and blasted it back. Suddenly, a dozen pink shields formed around each one and collapsed, exploding them harmlessly. Shining Armor was right before Elizabeth, fearlessly looking up at her. "Hey! You! Focus on me!" He roared and fired a beam of blinding light at Elizabeth's smaller body, making her shriek and turn towards him. Twilight gasped as he formed a thick, hemispherical shield right before him. Applejack bucked an infected unicorn away from her, and she counterspelled another's attempt at casting a fireball. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Elizabeth bent down, a shower of blood coming from her 'mouth' as she spat a line of boulders right at Shining Armor. Not one of them missed, each one hitting his shield and bouncing off, making it fade to slightly less than half its intensity. She watched in numb horror as he partially restrengthened his shield, just in time for the next volley of rocks to completely destroy it. He fell to his fetlocks from the magical backlash, but looked up and summoned a faint shield. Twilight tried to do something, to blast Elizabeth's body, or her legs, to make her relent on Shiny, but she released a third volley of rocks. Shining's barrier imploded quickly, and he was slammed backwards by five high-speed boulders, and didn't stir. She found her voice as her heart skipped a beat. "No!" She also found her magic, and teleported him into one of the buildings in the ring around Elizabeth. She teleported herself forward, away from the throngs of infected, until she was just outside of Elizabeth's tendril range. She had to keep her attention, at least until the Princesses were back in the fight. She couldn't let Elizabeth win. For her parents' sake, she couldn't let her win. She narrowed her eyes and lowered her horn, unleashing a kinetic beam at Elizabeth's ridiculously tough left tendril. She unleashed a wall of telekinetic force forward, detonating the eight orbs Greene had spat from her 'mouth'. That didn't deter the Evolved; with a deep, resonating groan, she summoned another five from her and sent them skyward, and slammed her left neck tentacle into the ground. Twilight was far enough away to avoid being flattened, but the shockwave still sent her flying through the air. At the height of her arc Greene stuck her 'head' forward and unleashed a volley of rocks. She gasped, but managed to teleport herself down just in time to avoid the lethal projectiles; they did stick in the streets, after all. Twilight really didn't want to picture what they could do to her. Once again on the ground, surrounded by infected, she galloped forward under Greene, to the Evolved's right. Elizabeth tried to spin around so she could slam Twilight with her left tendril, but physics was on the unicorn's side. She reached Greene's enormous spine, ignoring the stench of infected flesh, and climbed onto it. She pointed her horn at the left tendril, which due to its angle, couldn't attack her. She had no such problems, and promptly slashed away at it, opening ruptures on its yellow-ringed, veiny surface. Around her the armies continued to fight, ponies and changelings working feverishly against the infected army. Breakers towered over everypony else, but were few and far between. If she squinted, she could see Chrysalis healing both princesses, their manes filling back in. Also in the background she thought she saw a fiery pegasus falling to the ground. Crushing fear and hatred battered her, and color vanished. The air around Twilight thickened immensely, and her eyes widened in horror at what was about to happen. She lit up her horn and, despite the flash of pain that it brought, teleported up. She arrived on top of Elizabeth's head, tendrils angrily flashing around her. She slipped and landed on one of the three large protrusions from her side, and wrapped her hooves around it as tight as she could, ears flattened to her skull. A moment later, the yellow light flashed around Greene's head, and she was nearly blown off by the pulse of air and the sheer volume of the shockwave. Twilight watched it wash outwards, vaporizing infected and those the infected had pinned to the ground. A few Breakers leaped over it. To her relief, she saw her friends levitating... in a yellow aura. A similar yellow aura surrounded her, and she was teleported off of Greene moments before she could summon electric orbs on top of Twilight. She was next to Princess Celestia, looking at Elizabeth furiously. "Thank you for distracting her, Twilight," she said. "Stay safe." Celestia spread her broad wings and shot forward like a cannonball, and let loose another blast of white lightning. That one spell was all that it took to send Greene's left tendril beneath the ground, leaving only her middle one. Twilight's forelegs buckled and she collapsed, panting heavily. When she next looked up, her friends were around her, busily fighting off the infected. "Come on, Twi!" Applejack shouted. "We're not outta the woods yet!" She nodded and got up. She tried to swallow, but no saliva came, making her throat clench painfully around air. She lit up her horn and created a purple shield around herself and the girls, then pulsed it outwards, sending the infected right around them flying away. Chrysalis was once again dashing in tight circles around Greene's base, draining the life from her last neck tendril. Both of the alicorns flew around her, bombarding Elizabeth with explosive stars and solar plasma. Two changeling V-wings swooped down and blasted both the infected and Greene with their emerald magic. Meanwhile Elizabeth continued with her onslaught of stones and orbs, groaning and warbling powerfully, animalistically. Twilight noticed that she didn't go for her or her friends at all; with them so tired they could barely able to hold off the regular infected and the occasional odd Leaper, it was obvious that Greene no longer considered them a threat. Minutes passed and, eventually, Greene's last tendril sank beneath Canterlot. With yet another screech her spine bent and she fell over. Changelings began dive-bombing her, others kept the infected away, and Twilight grunted. She teleported herself and her friends right next to Greene. Rarity and Applejack both went hooves-on, while Pinkie again pulled out her water gun. She flashed yellow each time Twilight or somepony else struck her, either with a hoof, magic, or an arrow that stuck in her flesh. Twilight was slightly skeptical; were they even hurting her? After all, each time Elizabeth returned she showed no signs of weakening, just the opposite in fact. Princess Celestia faced off against her, her burning horn flashing even brighter. "Monster!" she shouted, releasing another bolt of lightning. The hole bled furiously, but closed up soon. Twilight's second wind was ending. She pushed on, firing magical blasts despite her horn burning against her head. After maybe fifteen seconds of a continued assault on Greene's vulnerable core, she suddenly reared up. Elizabeth warbled and groaned loudly, thrashing her head around as she bled copiously. In the process, she smacked several changelings out of the air. Twilight's heart sank. She was going to sink back below and then come back up. Not again, she thought tiredly. I can't do it again. Rainbow landed next to them, panting heavily, as Elizabeth's gigantic spine tipped over and landed with an earth-shaking thud. Her head was angled perpendicular to the neck, so that her 'mouth' was right before Celestia, Luna, and Chrysalis, both alicorns without any regalia or armor. Twilight panted heavily, as did her friends. She didn't take her eyes off of Greene's monstrous form, even as a river of biomass spilled from her 'mouth'. If she looked away the Evolved would get back up and keep fighting. Finally, the stream of blood ended and out fell, with a pained shriek, Elizabeth Greene. She landed on that biomass-covered ground with a squelch. Her left knee was up and her left hand rested on it, but her right leg and right arm were limp and her head was bowed. She looked up and to her left at Celestia, and her pale green eyes widened in horror. Then the solar princess spoke, and Twilight's racing heart skipped a beat. It was not Princess Celestia, benevolent diarch, speaking. It was not Celestia, beloved sister, friend, and mentor. It was Celestia Helio Invictus, the vengeful Goddess of the Sun, with a single word on her lips. "You."