---{Dilan Shier}
"Just be sure you don't betray Celestia or Luna's trust," warned Princess Twilight, "Otherwise, I'll be the first you answer to."
She's still the most intimidating princess I've ever met, I thought with a gulp. "Duly noted."
"Nachos for the road?" asked her assistant Spike.
"Oh, thank you." I accepted the food box in my mane's grasp before trotting out the door to the castle's long hallway.
Do any of you have problems you'd like to voice regarding her terms? I casually asked the other presences in my mind.
All of them held their peace. The only sound was that of my anklets clinking against the crystal floor.
Neither do I. I nodded silently. I should probably head back to the train station as soon as possible.
I took care to close the front door behind me. The afternoon sun made the castle glow in brilliance. I took in a deep breath. In doing so, I got a large whiff of the contents in my to-go box. I could feel my mouth watering.
Well, maybe I could just nibble on one of these before I-
A sudden burst of swirling light flashed in front of me. I admittedly yelped and the box scattered all over the ground along with its contents. But I was more concerned with the unease I was feeling from the strange energies being emitted by the light show. I covered my eyes with one wing while peaking through the small opening between the tips of my feathers.
As soon as it had started, the swirl of light shrunk down to almost nothing. A mere floating point was all that remained. But before that, it deposited something... or rather someone, from its center. Aside from the weird belt with metal rod attachments, shorter height and lack of wings, she looked rather familiar.
"Princess Twilight, is that you?" I asked.
In response, she looked up and gasped. She shuffled backwards on her hooves.
"It can't be," she said in a loud whisper. She then raised her voice in saying, "Nightmare Moon!" Her eyes were wide. "But how? You already turned back into Shirayuki and merged with Tundra!"
Now, I knew I didn't have much room to talk seeing as I had lived in Equestria for a much shorter time than her. But, a few terms of hers went right over my head in regards to their significance. To her exclamation, I raised an eyebrow.
"Huh? Shear of what and thunder of who?" I asked.
She seemed to squint and look at me with more scrutiny. "And your colors are slightly off too. Wait! This must be one of David's failed creatures left behind."
David? I was even more confused. Last I checked, I was the only one for a hundred miles to have a human name. And what does she mean by 'failed creatures'?
The wingless princess surprised me even further by leaping to stand on her hind legs. She held out her left hoof high in front of her while holding her right hoof next to her face. A strange whirring noise accompanied the sudden appearance of an archer's bow composed entirely of bluish-white light.
I stood there with my mouth agape. Where did she learn to use magic of the hornless variety, and in weapon form no less?
"Licht Regen!"
I was seeing several arrows of the bow's light appear out of nowhere and approaching fast. I had no time to think. I tapped into Reflect Sun's teachings and concentrated a large portion of magic to my horn. I was rewarded with a full body-covering sphere of orange magic. The hail of arrows created a barrage of clanging noises. I felt myself sliding back a few inches from the onslaught.
After what felt like forever, the fracas started to slow down until there was no more banging. There was a lot of smoke for some reason. As it began to clear, I chanced a peek at Twilight Sparkle who was currently holding her bow so that it faced downward.
"Princess Twilight, please hold your fire!" I hollered to her. "Didn't we just have a conversation about you giving me the benefit of the doubt? If it puts your mind at ease, you can join my ride back to Canterlot and see for yourself that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are both unharmed."
Her moment of intent-to-kill determination seemed to fade. She blinked a few times. She looked around herself in wonder, like a kid who had stepped into a mall for the first time. I somehow caught a few words in her befuddled ramblings.
"What happened to this town? Where did this castle come from? Wait, Princess? Why does she keep calling me Princess? What...?"
The front door slammed open and I saw... Princess Twilight, very much the same way I had seen her inside.
"All right, who has been throwing stones at my...?" Her question seemed to die on her lips as she took in the immediate sights. "Wait, Dill Anne Shear, who is that?" She pointed at... herself... who was standing several feet away... and staring wide-eyed back at her.
"I don't know what's going on," I slowly and nervously admitted.
"And why do you have your shield up?" she asked.
"You just attacked me." I shook my head and pointed at the wingless Princess Twilight. "I mean, she just attacked me with the largest hail of arrows spell I've ever seen."
"That's impossible," said the winged Princess Twilight. "There's no such thing as a 'hail of arrows' spell. Hold on." She teleported over in front of her wingless self. "Is this... me? But, I'm me too, and I already used the time-traveling spell. So, this shouldn't be possible."
"N-Not scientifically... possible," stammered wingless Princess Twilight. Her bow of light vanished.
Out of physical danger for the moment, I lowered my shield. However, I was certain that my brain was going to explode from all this confusion.
"How can there be two of you?" I asked while banging my hoof against my helmet.
At that moment, winged Princess Twilight placed a hoof against her chest. She took in a deep breath. She then proceeded to exhale while extending that leg out in front of herself. Where did she learn to compose herself like that?
"Would you like to come inside and have some tea?" she asked.
"Huh?" The wingless Princess Twilight tilted her head. "How is tea going to solve anything?"
"Once we calm down a bit, we'll be better able to make some sense of our current situation," explained winged Princess Twilight. She turned her head and smiled gently at me. "Don't you think so?" Despite her mouth, her eyes were not happy while looking at me.
I gulped. "I-I agree completely."
---
I felt like my bladder was going to burst. Normally, I wouldn't have been drinking so much tea, but it seemed like the only logical thing to do in the presence of the princess of fear, and now there were two of her. The rate at which the winged Princess Twilight poured another cup for me to keep me quiet simply multiplied.
Now, Spike was serving the wingless Princess Twilight some cookies. I closed my eyes in sadness as my stomach growled. I really wished I hadn't dropped my nachos earlier. Now my organs' respective problems were accentuated by each other.
The winged Princess Twilight set her cup down gently and cleared her throat. "That's better now. As we've got a new guest, I think it's only appropriate that we get properly introduced." She turned her head to me. "Dill Anne, how about you start us off?"
Somehow, I succeeded in not audibly groaning. "Of course, your highness."
"Wait a minute," interjected the wingless Twilight. "Does that mean you aren't Nightmare Moon?"
"It's a long story," I said while scratching my neck. "Hope you weren't planning on going anywhere for a while."
So, there I sat. I recounted my full predicament for the second time that day. My hind legs kept shaking due to restroom urges, yet I managed to get through the recollection of waking up in the old castle ruins, encountering the princesses, reclaiming the loose fragments of Nightmare along with some of their powers, and my current occupation. My stomach only growled four times throughout my story.
"Did you want some cookies, Dill Anne?" asked Spike.
I swore that the winged Princess Twilight was shooting me a death glare. She'd probably claim she was smiling professionally, but I had seen that look one too many times already. She was practically daring me to show some sign of the evil that was still within me, as petty as mooching off her assistant's kindness might have proven anything.
"N-No thanks," I stammered, "I'm good."
Spike shrugged and tossed three of the sweet circles into his own mouth.
The wingless Twilight looked like she was deep in thought. "So, yours was slightly different than Tundra's."
"Huh?" I looked over at her in wonder.
"What?" added Spike.
She looked up. "It's just that I know a pony that also used to be a human that ended up bonding with the Nightmare spirit into a new pony. But, she didn't die before waking up in Equestria. In fact, it turned out that she was actually another pony all along whose soul had been split in half for many years."
"Okay," said the winged Princess Twilight, "Before we start inquiring about the ponies you know, how about you tell us about yourself?"
"Well, my name is Twilight Sparkle, but you already knew that." We all shared a chuckle before she continued. "I am a Quincy, a being capable of conjuring spiritual particles into a weapon capable of fighting what normal magic cannot. As far as I was able to gather from my research, the only other pony on historical record of being a Quincy was Clover the Clever."
"Wasn't Quincy the sixth U.S. President?" I thought out loud.
Spike and the wingless Twilight tilted their heads in confusion. The winged Princess Twilight frowned slightly as she stared.
"Sorry, please continue," I insisted while shaking my hooves in front of me slightly.
"Anyway, the bow is my specific weapon." The wingless Twilight pointed at herself. "My friends actually discovered their weapons in the form of swords called Zanpaktou. Well, that's all except for Pinkie Pie. I'm still not sure what her six energies are supposed to be."
"Pardon me, but 'Zanpaktou' doesn't really sound... Equestrian," I commented after a pause.
"You're right," agreed the winged princess surprisingly. "I've never even heard of the terms Quincy and Zanpaktou until now." She perked up. "Wait a minute. What did you mean by 'fighting what normal magic cannot'?"
"We've had a large number of skeletal creatures called Hollows threatening our home once in a while," said the wingless Twilight. She shrugged one shoulder casually. "They don't respond to any defensive spells that I can cast. So far, my arrows and the special powers of my friends are the only things that have been effective in removing them. The Hollows were all created by an invasive individual called David, so they don't exactly have lives left that we can save without endangering the rest of Equestria."
"That sounds rough." I crossed my front legs and frown. "To think you need that much firepower just to clean up the undead. To think of how you'd live, permanently trapped inside a zombie apocalypse..." I shook my head. "And here I thought my life was rough."
"It's getting better, though," insisted the wingless Twilight. "After David was dealt with, the frequency of the attacks has been steadily decreasing. As long as my friends and I stick together, we can make our way back to peace and harmony."
"Well said." The winged Princess Twilight nodded sagely. "I suppose it's my turn."
---
"And here I am now, Twilight Sparkle: Princess of Friendship," concluded the winged princess. "As the name implies, the effectiveness of my position is dependent on the rest of my friends at the same table."
"Wow..." The wingless Twilight sat there in awe, before looking up solemnly. "Sorry to hear about your library, though."
Princess Twilight sighed. "It does still pain me to know that it's gone."
"So many precious books destroyed just like that... How many memories have lost their physical attachment to the physical realm? I can't even bear such a thought." The wingless Twilight shook her head.
While I couldn't directly relate to their understanding, I still sympathized with their feelings.
"Uh, aren't we forgetting the elephant in the room?" asked Spike. "How did this Twilight get into our world?"
"I don't know, Spike," answered Princess Twilight. "A certain somepony refused to answer me earlier."
I held up my hooves in defense. "I didn't do anything. What I saw was a rush of swirling light that deposited her right in front of the castle." I turned to look at her other self. "Do you remember what happened just before you showed up?"
The wingless Twilight held her head and closed her eyes. "Hmm... recently, I noticed a disturbing number of missing ponies in my hometown. When I sent a letter to Princess Celestia to inform her of the anomaly, she replied that ponies in Canterlot were also disappearing. Then, when my friends and I gathered to discuss what could be done, I noticed the light that was threatening to take Rainbow Dash away. But... after I tried magically anchoring her to the realm of physical existence, I don't know what happened.
"If this really is a new world, then I might be able to track my world's Rainbow Dash through spiritual sense. Give me a second." She stood up and slowly turned her head from one side to the other. Suddenly, she jerked in a specific direction and her eyes opened wide. "That way! About a hundred miles!"
Um, a few feet in that direction would bash your head against the wall, I thought as a sweat drop hung onto my pore.
Princess Twilight gasped. "That distance and direction would put her at Canterlot!" She quickly stood up. "Come on. Let's go find your friend."
All of us galloped out the castle's main entrance. We weren't going to miss the next train. But before we got anywhere, wingless Twilight slid in place. It was so sudden that Princess Twilight and I slammed into her and tripped over another individual into a huge pile. It was... uncomfortable to say the least.
Spike shook his head before squirming out. He looked up and down. "Wait, weren't there only two of you, Twilight?"
I rolled out of the pile before standing on all fours. I looked back at Princess Twilight on top of wingless Twilight... and she was on top of another wingless Twilight. The difference was that this one was missing the metal belt.
I held my hoof against my helmet. "Okay, this is just getting weird."
---{Tundra Stanza}
In another Canterlot...
How long has it been since I returned to my home world of Equestria? Was it three years? Maybe it's been as many as five. Either way, a lot has happened.
About a month after my friends and I defeated the overpowered entity that called himself 'David', Luna decided to officially make some of us a branch of the royal defense. She called it the Soul Defense Unit, named because our weapons could handle enemies invading from the astral plain as well as the physical. Our job was to keep on the lookout for leftover Hollows from David's experiments that hadn't quite bitten the dust yet, and maintain peace among any of the innocent souls that these Hollows threatened.
Sometime over the next two months, my Zanpaktou's spirit Sode no Shirayuki and my mind partner Shirayuki had merged into a single spirit. No one was sure why, but after some speculation, Luna and I surmised that it was due to the overuse of my bankai: The final release of a Zanpaktou's powers. In my particular case, using bankai temporarily fused all three of our minds into a single warrior's thoughts. It could have just as easily had side effects in a number of other combinations.
But Sode no Shirayuki hadn't been altered any further after she first came to be the only other presence I could hear within my soul space. We've tried my bankai a couple of times since then, but the end results never changed her existence again. It was kind of a shame. I liked sharing my pinch of insanity with another mind. The only difference now with this fused Shirayuki was that she never left the physical plane of existence once I was done with the sword. We had to construct a makeshift pony belt and katana sheath just to carry her.
Still, I was keeping up my training in combat. Luna saw to that... literally. As a fellow ice-Zanpaktou-wielder, her rigorous routines were the best way to toughen up and pick up some new tactics. After a few months, I no longer had to say the full incantations to produce my kido spells at a decent power. Though, situations in which I could say the words allowed for an extra boost in overall output.
It was during the session when I was getting the hang of shooting "Arc Lightning" and "Blue Crashing Fire" simultaneously that we received an interruption. Normally, that wouldn't surprise me. Monsters of various degrees attacked a nearby city or town almost once every few weeks. However, this was no monster attack. It was simply Twilight Sparkle appearing out of thin air.
"Princess Luna! Tundra!" she cried out. "You've got to come quickly. Fluttershy's gone missing!"
---
All of us who had acquired new powers had a sort of sixth sense that allowed us to feel the spiritual energy "reiatsu" from other living beings. That is what has allowed us to locate each other and pinpoint enemy locations. However, even as Twilight, Luna, and I flew closer to Ponyville (Well, Luna and I flew. Twilight was galloping through the sky with her Hirenkyaku. Twilight growing wings? That'd be a day.), none of us could sense Fluttershy even faintly.
This was a bit troubling. Even dying ponies emit some amount of reiatsu. There weren't any instances that we've encountered reiatsu levels that were completely gone. Had Fluttershy disappeared from the face of Equestria? If so, to where had she been taken?
"I don't like this," said Luna with a grim expression. "This is reminding me too much of Discord's power."
"But it can't be Discord," I insisted. "Even though we had been drained of our colors, we still saw that other pony's sword slay him clear as his mishmash of night and day."
"And even chaos is not exempt from the laws of death," finished Luna in affirmation. "That makes the foreboding feeling I have right now all the more disturbing."
I looked around her. "You've been awfully quiet, Twilight. A ruby for your thoughts?"
"It just doesn't seem to fit the usual pattern of attack," said Twilight, staring at Fluttershy's cottage. "What kind of enemy would go out of their way to mask Fluttershy's reiatsu and then not bother to follow through with the rest of the representatives of the Elements of Harmony?"
"Discord and David have been removed from the picture." Luna started crossing off names from her list of possibilities. "The changelings have faced large losses as well. Only two factions remain that would be bold enough to strike when our guard is at its lowest point."
Twilight gasped and turned around. "You're not seriously proposing that the Dragon Dominion or the Gryphon Kingdom would take such elaborate measures, are you?"
"There's always room for the unknown," admitted Luna, "but we need to know for sure if these are near impossibilities or certain impossibilities." She turned her head. "Tundra, you should work your way to the dragon's ambassadors. See if you can uncover any plans. I will have a chat with the gryphons in their neutral territory."
"What should I be doing, Princess?" asked Twilight.
"Stay on your guard and keep your friends close," advised Luna. "Somepony else might disappear and maybe you'll get a lead on who is responsible."
"Alright, I can do that." Twilight nodded in determination.
"And break!" I exclaimed as we galloped as quickly as our legs could take us. It was actually a lot faster than one might think, considering that Luna and I could perform the "Flash Step" and Twilight had the "Flying Screen Step" techniques to travel faster than sound.
Though, after a few minutes of travelling East in that manner, I was suddenly blinded by a white light.
---
At a private house near the edge of Whitetail Woods...
"And that's pretty much all that happened before I landed here," I concluded as I looked at my newest acquaintance.
"Huh, well that's... a lot to take in."
"So," I prompted by lifting up my hoof, "what's your story?"
---{#51}
I sighed. I didn't like telling stories that much. They seemed so tedious. Besides, there was no guarantee that she was going to remember all of the important details. Oh well, them's the brakes. It was part of a fair exchange for her explanation of her situation. It was my turn.
---
I am the Fifty-First Drone of Her Majesty Chrysalis. The majority of my life was spent within her hive in the northern wastelands. Those of us who pleased her rose to the top twenty-five ranks. My particular standing was apparently mediocre. Back then, I didn't care. I was satisfied to have a position and clear-cut instructions on a daily basis.
At least, they were straightforward until one particular day. Her Majesty declared that it was time for the changelings to invade Canterlot. She sent a wave of her pain through all of her underlings that her favored daughter Princess Cinders had been attacked by a merciless band of unicorns. Queen Chrysalis demanded vengeance and ordered us to be ready to suck Equestria dry of all the love that the ponies could spare.
Her pain echoing in our minds was enough to drive any thoughts of questioning her out. We would make our way to Canterlot, destroy its defenses, and make the treacherous Celestia pay for her ponies' crime. That was my queen's motive. It was all I knew to follow.
It was the first large-scale mission I had ever witnessed in complete and utter failure. Everyling that could be spared had been exposed in spite of our stealthy tactics. There were too many friendly fires when we decided to copy the forms of the six VIPs. All sense of battle tactics had been thrown out the hole in the wall. Then, we were all pushed back by an overwhelming force even though we had clearly broken through it to invade in the first place.
It took several days to even remotely recover. We had lost many of our numbers. I seem to recall all of the drones in the Five Hundreds to be reported as deceased. The only complete squad among the living was the series One-to-Ninety-Nine. But we had no time to recover. For the master of chaos decided that he wanted to play another game and drag us into it.
---
On a planet with similarities to Equus, and yet not quite the same...
I awoke with a most terrible realization. I couldn't control my own body's motions at all. It just sporadically moved in ways against how I wanted it to move. My head was filled with thoughts that were not familiar to the sounds of my hive. They all belonged to a lone individual.
After he stumbled around with my limbs in ways more embarrassing than a newborn foal, I finally managed to gather who and what this individual was. He was a human whose mind had been forced into my body while his body temporarily didn't exist. Discord had apparently been busy in this human-filled world before I was strung along for the ride. He was forcing other ponies and people into a similar situation as this boy and I. We were going to be trapped like this for a couple of weeks, which wouldn't have been so terribly bad... if Discord hadn't fiddled with the length of an Earth's week to reflect the normal time span of a full year. I didn't understand it. Then again, what was there to understand when a manipulator of disharmony was involved?
Letting the human figure out my power was frustrating since I had been blocked from stepping in control for the most part. My magic was not a true pony's. It was only meant to burn or melt objects. So, he was understandably scared when he melted the knob on his bedroom door into a fine mess.
A while later, we found out that his mother had become one of the mind victims trapped in a pony's body. Together, we made our way to a large city in which the Bearers of Harmony were supposed to gather for one last confrontation with Discord. It was also possible that we'd find a "cure" for our condition. Though they did manage to put Discord in his place, the resulting "fix" did not remove certain scars. I had lost a fang due to the chaos magic. Additionally, my eye's default look was permanently that of a pony's eye white with a blue iris.
The compound Bearers of the Elements stood behind to allow passage of the newly separated ponies and other creatures to head back to their own home world. For the first time in my life, I felt a twinge of sadness within myself. I was actually going to miss the human that had unintentionally spent so long in my body's driver seat. Still, I had my own kind to support, and we both understood that. There were no regrets upon my departure.
---
Returning to the hive...
After spending so much time in that other world, my queen had probably taken on as much empathy as I had, if not more. She decided that perhaps draining love without consent probably was not going to give her the revenge that she wanted. While she was still going to be wary of any unicorns, plans were made to re-attempt peace agreements with the foreign nations, including Equestria.
Not everyling agreed with Her Majesty's change of heart. Every so often, I'd hear a faint ping of stray thoughts that indicated that the time for anarchy was fast approaching. But every time I tried to pinpoint the source of these specific thoughts, the one responsible cut off from the hivemind. This was unsettling.
Without some form of leadership to sustain our people, the co-dependent changelings would have nothing to receive the necessary love energy to stay alive. If Queen Chrysalis were to be removed from the picture, there would be no-ling left that could feasibly handle her responsibilities to the hive. I didn't have time to search for these internal traitors. My job was to stay on the lookout for external predators and to help lead lost wanderers away from our land.
Eventually, Her Majesty did find a candidate suitable of the nickname "traitor". The Forty-Third drone liked to hear herself talk a lot before we could sentence her to a decommissioning. But upon her sentence, something happened that none of us anticipated. A surge of dark magic danced around various changelings of the jury, including myself.
---
A house near Whitetail Woods...
"Next thing I knew, I was waking up in this place when I caught sight of you," I said while briefly pointing a hoof at her. I then scratched my neck awkwardly. "Sorry about the hissing earlier. I was... kind of scared of your presence."
"I guess I am kind of terrifying," she admitted. "I think you're the first one that ever brought it up directly."
"Embarrassment always has an off-putting spice to it," I commented offhandedly.
"Wow, you can taste other emotions besides love?" Her eyes got big and her mouth grinned in excitement.
"Yeah, though I've taken to eating solid foods rather than straight up love." I waved a hoof dismissively. "I'd say your ability to see the souls of other beings sounds a lot more useful."
"Speaking of which..." She looked up and slowly turned her head to the right. "I think I can sense my world's Twilight... that way!" She pointed her long sword toward the town. Though, she immediately tucked it away in a belt at her side. "Hop on, Fifty-one! It'll be faster if I do the flying."
"I can believe that," I said as I flew over and took hold of her backside.
"Shunpo!" she shouted.
"Shun-what?" I asked before the rush of wind suddenly made it impossible for me to form words.
---