Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer (Twilight) Part 3
Ponyville – as tolerant and accepting as it has become – was once a very skittish town. Indeed, there were still a few ponies who tended to freak out at the tiniest inconveniences.
As such, I’ve had years of practice calming herds of panicking townsponies under my belt. Barring the other princesses – and maybe my brother – there was no other pony more qualified than myself to handle the chaos surging through Manehatten.
However, to state that I could accomplish the task without error would be terribly presumptuous.
Despite multiple assurances that I acted to the best of my ability, I still question my actions that day. I feel like there’s so much more I could have done, but didn’t do, and I don’t know how to feel about that.
Is it wrong of me to hold myself to such impossible standards? Is it wrong for me to think a little more effort on my part could have prevented the deaths that occurred: both before and after I left town hall?
I stepped into the harsh glare of the cold, winter sun and the dull roar of the riots swelled into a cacophony of angry shouts. Earth ponies bucked. Pegasi dove. Unicorns slung rocks, refuse, and even the occasional spell.
Looking over the square, I tried to take it all in. From what I could tell, the herd of protesters had fractured into smaller groups. Small groups of ponies fought amongst each other, denouncing the ‘changelings’ among them. An individual ran here or there, desperately looking for help, but they were the exception by and large.
The guards I had sent out were doing their best, but it wasn’t enough. The pegasi airlifted the wounded, while the unicorns and earth ponies tried to intervene in the fights before ponies went too far. Even as I watched, a foal almost fell from the back of a pegasus – wings straining after who knows how many trips; an earth pony being swarmed by his fellows as he stepped between them and a fallen mare. Poor, timid, little Tibia wilted at the sight. Her guise of an earth pony secretary shrunk in on itself, eyes screwed shut and ears splayed back against her head.
Something needed to be done and quickly.
Thus, I spoke, and everypony listened – whether they wanted to or not.
“Enough!” The entirety of the square buckled down onto their knees as I magnified Celestia’s ‘To the Sun’ voice throughout the entire city. “Look at yourselves! You’re fighting and kicking and scraping amongst your friends, driven into a frenzy by mere suspicion! Have you no shame or decency?! I doubt there is even a single changeling among you! You’d make them sick to their stomach, reeking of distrust like you do! I have never witnessed ponies acting so disgraceful!”
I rose slowly through the air, my skull pounding as my body tried to magically surge off of my remaining reserves. It took every inch of control I had to skirt that line, and I did so purposely, knowing it helped impress the significance of my words on the populace.
The quiet that followed was awkward, shameful, and painful.
Ponies refused to look to each other, and especially myself – their eyes skirting the ground, the amount of misery in the air enough to drown any number of changelings.
“You place yourself above us, preaching and lecturing about trust….” A group of disheveled ponies somehow stood their ground. “You’ve been hanging around changelings so much lately. How do we know you haven’t been replaced? Or worse: how do we know you haven’t been converted into one of them with their creepy cocoon things?!”
“That’s not even how they—” I broke use of the ‘To the Sun’ voice to correct the poor stallion who’d spoken. This, of course, broke the strangled silence of the city – shattered like a thousand pieces of invisible glass.
“The horror! The horror!”
“Nopony is safe!”
“Our princess, a changeling!”
“Run for your lives!”
“Teach her a lesson!”
“Look for the spies she brought with her!”
“No!” I shouted. “There are no spies! I’m here on my own to help you!” Seeing the panic flaring once more, I desperately tried to diffuse it.
“There are no spies, my dear, but there’s certainly a lord!” Another explosion rocked the town hall, punching a hole through the wall this time. Ponies roared as Antiquity stepped daintily forth from the wreckage, baring her fangs in a grin at me.
“Do forgive me, Twilight,” she chittered, deflecting all the rocks and refuse thrown at her. “But I completely forgot the other little surprise I had for you.”
She turned to the crowd. “Smile and wave, peons!”
With eerie synchronization, about a fifth of the everypony’s’ eyes flashed green as they turned to do as ordered. The other four fifths screamed, and whatever calm had remained vanished as fights picked up far more violently than before.
“Oh, what a shame…” Antiquity hissed, another portal opening up behind her. “And here I was hoping the city would burst into a musical number at that. My agents spent months planting all those suggestion spells. Who would have guessed that – instead of triggering one of your precious pony heartsongs – it would cause such abhorrent violence?”
Her fangs lengthened slightly as she continued to smile. “Alas, I cannot stay to watch the show. I’m needed to help in evacuating my troops as someling—” her voice dripped with venom “—is apparently alive, kicking, and very, very angry with me. Ve haven’t the faintest clue how you managed to get that maggot through another Chrysaling, but kudos to you for luring me and the General into your little web.”
She bowed. “Even more impressive, you almost calmed everypony down – which simply would not do. I had to come back just to incite more panic. Speaking of which—” she turned to Tibia, “—worm, serve as a proper sacrifice!”
Antiquity’s horn pulsed and Tibia’s disguise was ripped from her body before she was picked up and bodily thrown into the throng of ponies rampaging around us.
“What did you just— How could you even—” I sputtered, quickly turning to dive in to shield Tibia. “Antiquity! You’ll pay for this! I swear it!”
“Oh, I’d gladly pay to watch this – or even better, I’d pay to see you punish me.” There was a laugh from out of the sea of ponies. “But, sadly, you just don’t have the stomach for it, Princess. It’s something you might be about to learn from these peasants, though!”
Her voice was fading as she stepped through the portal. “Have little Mo give me a call if that’s the case. I promise you’ll find it pleasurable if you do.”
“Get back here, Antiquity!” I fumed, trying to look through the wall of ponies pounding on the shield around me and Tibia. “Poisoning me is one thing, but Tibia here has done nothing to you. Antiquity! Antiquity!”
“She’s gone, Princess….” Tibia meekly prodded me from behind.
I growled with a vexation usually reserved for Discord. “Of course she is,” I sighed. “You know, sometimes I really wish the Elements were still an option. Antiquity really needs to meet them.”
“Your friends?” Tibia blinked.
“The artifacts.” I rolled my shoulders to ease some of the tension in them.
“Ve thought they were.” The little changeling scrunched up beside me – compressing herself down to the size of a foal so she could cower between my legs. “Can’t you just launch intercontinental waves of friendship and rainbows from your castle?”
“It’s just not the same, though.” I looked for an opening in the mob. “Besides, the new method makes us just so… gaudy, and the fact that I’m the one saying so really says something. I wouldn’t know gaudy unless it was given to me by a draconequus.” Slowly, I pushed us back toward town hall – one hoofstep at a time. “Come to think of it, that’s exactly what happened when I got Castle, too.”
“Well, ve don’t suppose you can just fire your castle remotely, can you?” Tibia chirped shrilly, pressing up against my leg when a particularly large earth pony in a hard hat decided to stop banging on the shield to give it a full-on buck.
“If I could do that, I would have done so already. At the very least, it would have grabbed everypony’s attention again.” I finally made it up the steps and began to change the properties of the shield. “All members of the guard, to me! We need to regroup and replan! That goes for anypony willing to help, too! If you aren’t a threat, the shield will let you pass!”
Painful minutes passed where we watched the sea of ponies washing against the shield as we waited. The pegasi made it first – some carrying a brave fellow pony in their forehooves. My heart warmed as it saw there were a few civilians amongst the guards, and still more were coming, so I let them catch their breath as the remaining earth ponies and unicorns slogged their way through the masses.
Eventually, enough came through that I needed to expand the shield again, however, only a few more straggled in at that point. It gave us more breathing room, but I had hoped for a larger force.
“Alright, everypony.” I began to pace in a circle. “It should be clear there’s no outright stopping the riots. They’re too far gone to listen to a direct order from even a princess, so we’re going to have to minimize the damage. Ponies and changelings come first, no exceptions. I don’t care if you think the changelings caused this. Nopony – not even our enemies – deserves to be torn apart by a mob, and I know for a fact that some of the changelings trapped out there are our friends.”
The mayor – who had been hanging in the back avoiding me – opened his mouth. “What about—”
“No. Exceptions.” I frowned.
“No, Princess, not that.” Pencil Pusher bowed. “I wanted to ask what we should do if a situation arises where we need to choose between a pony and a changeling? Even worse, some ponies might be too far gone to just restrain, and who knows how the changelings will respond if they feel backed into a corner. What do we do if they won’t stop?”
I scowled for a moment before schooling my face. Taking in a deep breath, I sighed mightily and pushed my more troubled thoughts away.
“I can’t answer that.” I looked to everypony – making sure my eyes met theirs. “There’s no one right answer to those questions, and I’m not going to pretend I have one. Everypony and everyling you come across is going to be in a different situation, and I’m going to trust all of you to best judge how to handle whatever you come across.”
A bruised and unconscious changeling was unceremoniously tossed through the shield, followed shortly by another madly scrabbling harvester.
“Phera! Mone! I thought I told you to wait back at the house!” Tibia shot forward from behind me to tend to her fallen comrade.
The conscious one shivered. “Some ponies found the barrels we hid in the abandoned warehouse next door, Tibia. They started going from door to door demanding the changelings, and we didn’t want to cause any problems, so…” she bit her chops, “...we ran before anypony could say anything. Ve didn’t want to risk what might happen if the neighbors defended us.”
“There aren’t any other changelings out in that part of town, are there?” I bounded to Tibia with a single flap of my wings.
“No, Princess!” The changeling bowed before me squirming. “Most harvesters prefer to live closer to the clubs. I don’t think that will matter to the ponies that found us, though. When we finally gave them the slip, Phera and I heard them talk about going back for more.”
“Discord damn it all,” I exhaled. “I guess I know our first targets. Tibia, you live on Fifty-first street, right?”
Tibia tilted her head. “How did you—”
“I have to go through Morpheus’ reports on harvester activity to Princess Celestia every so often.” I shook my head. “But I can only remember bits and pieces. I didn’t even know there were others with you that needed rescuing.” I gestured to Phera and Mone. “Honestly, I should have asked you sooner about that, but right now we need to make sure nopony does anything to any of your neighbors.”
“What about the clubs, though?” Mone scrambled towards me slightly. “There’s no way everyling there is going to go unnoticed.”
“I know,” I sighed. “That’s why I’m sending most of the guard there.”
“Princess!” The mayor protested.
“I don’t want to hear it, Pencil Pusher.” I frowned, and used Celestia’s ‘Cold Fusion Number One’ voice. “The guard can cover more ground than I can, and there may be too many changelings there for me to reach them all in time. I can and will deal with the group of ponies on Fifty-first street, however. I have a hunch they’re sticking together to check everypony from Tibia’s apartment complex. Understood?”
The mayor of Manehatten huffed. “And what about all the panic and fighting right here? Or in the rest of the city?”
“That’s where you all come in.” I tried to smile, looking to all the civilians that had ‘volunteered’ – Celestia knew how many just wanted shelter. “I want pegasi patrolling and on the lookout for ponies that need an air lift to safety or the hospital, and I want teams of earth ponies ready to intercept any of the more rowdy fights in the street. There are enough unicorns here to power my shield for a few hours at the least, and I want you, Pencil Pusher, to coordinate all this from here.”
I rolled my shoulders and prepared for take off. “Keep a few pegasi on hoof to act as scouts and messengers too. There’s bound to be fragments of the guard everywhere trying to control the situation, so get them and any other ponies you find trying to help in the loop. If we can get a large enough coordinated front, ponies will stop rioting and start helping. They’ll start to follow the herd, so to speak, and, when that happens, we need to capitalize on it and use it to shut down the riots.”
“And what then, Princess?” Pencil Pusher stomped a hoof. “All this tension isn’t going to magically disappear!”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged before leaping skywards. “I’m hoping we can keep ponies focused on rebuilding and moving forward, though. If everypony sees the changelings helping rebuild, then they might let go of any grudges they hold.” I soared off into the city before Pencil Pusher could protest any further.
It would work. It had to work. Mo and I had made too much progress for everything to come crashing down.
Sweet Celestia, they had set an honest to goodness fire.
The blaze consumed the apartment building and neighboring warehouse with a hungry frenzy. Thick, acrid smoke bellowed forth from it as its flames hissed and roared with savage ferocity, the very air being sucked from the lungs of onlookers.
Trapped in the clutches of a starving beast, the buildings creaked and groaned. A loud crack signaled the collapse of the abandoned warehouse – drawing me from my horrified trance and urging me towards the remaining building.
Thankfully, the mob of onlookers had maintained enough presence of mind to have their pegasi gather clouds to prevent the fire from spreading further. Maybe – just maybe – beneath the haze of all their panic, some little bit of rationality scrambled for control.
They weren’t my primary concern right now, though.
I slammed through the front doors of the build, barely noticing the heat in my hyperfocus. My eyes were wide as I cast my gaze about the floor, and yet my vision may as well have been tunneled.
“Lobby. Elevators. Staircase. No visible fire. No apartments or places to hide. Easy access to main doors. Should be clear, but I better make sure,” I spoke with the speed and quiet assuredness of a muttering madmare.
“Anypony on the first floor, the way is clear! You may now exit the premises!” The ‘Royal Canterlot Voice’ made my presence known to the building at large, yet the ‘To the Sun’ voice was needed to express the severity of the situation to the crowd outside. “To all you foals standing outside and watching, you better start helping put out the blaze or I will be charging you with treason and endangerment of a Princess! Do anything to the ponies I’ll be evacuating, and I promise that you’ll wish I locked you up in the place I’ll be banishing you to.”
There was a change to the timbre and pitch of the chanting outside. It sounding vaguely like muffled arguing, but I couldn’t bother to check if anypony was listening while time was so precious.
Discord damn Antiquity and her Mage’s Bane! This would have been easy if I had more of my reserves.
I cast a spell meant to grant resistance to heat and fire in an area around me – as well as one meant to filter the air. Instantly, I felt both a little lightheaded yet clear-minded. The stifling heat was no longer sapping me, yet I could feel the beginning of a dizzying migraine. It seemed I wouldn’t be able to teleport anypony out like I’d been hoping. I’d just need to roll with it.
Charging up the stairs, I found a hallway riddled with doors – ten on each side – and another stairway on the other side. Door after door was bucked down to thankfully empty apartments, but my luck couldn’t last. Around halfway down I found a burning doorway with debris blocking a couple cowering together – the smoke having drained them of the will to do much more than nestle together in what they probably thought were their final hour. They didn’t seem to notice as I lifted the debris away and levitated them onto my back – which worried me greatly – but I needed to carry on.
Two more couples were found on the floor – thankfully conscious – as well as a family of four. It broke my heart to see the two foals coughing in fits, but I couldn’t spare any more of my reserves until I was sure the building was empty.
With the floor clear, however, I escorted them all out the front. My legs burned the good burn – as Applejack would say – as I carried close to half of them out. The clock was ticking, though, and I tried not to panic as the building creaked ominously behind me.
The mob had stopped fighting as I came out to stare. Nopony had said a word as I struggled through the door nor as I helped settle the dazed fire victims down. I selfishly spared a quick diagnostic spell on the foals to make sure they weren’t in critical condition from the smoke before I turned around and bolted right back inside.
Never before had I been so thankful for earth pony stamina. I still had three floors left, and the trip would be getting longer each time.
The third floor’s apartments were fewer yet larger, and I had to navigate several more rooms in each to assure myself that nopony was there. I could only hope I hadn’t missed a room in the much more prominent debris and flames. Small ceiling cave-ins littered almost every apartment, and the floor had caved in on one of the apartments above where I’d found the first couple.
My heart had lurched at the sight of a couple I’d found crushed beneath some rubble. And it had cried when I hadn’t found a pulse on a rather elderly stallion in bed – the diagnostics said he’d probably suffocated from smoke inhalation: I had to make sure. But nopony living was on this floor, so I made my way up to the next.
There were only four apartments this time, but the smoke was too thick to see through. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to both search them all and escort ponies I found to the entrance. The creaking of supports was now a constant companion, along with the occasional crack of more debris crashing to the floor.
The migraine I was determined to ignore spiked as I cast a spell to detect any life on this floor or the next. Thirteen entire ponies huddled together in a single apartment on this floor, while a lonely two rested on the floor above. Several life signs flickered dangerously – the two above me being the faintest of all – but I needed to start with this floor.
Thirteen ponies was a lot. Maybe the families on this floor had sheltered together? I desperately hoped that was the case.
Bucking down the door I found them huddled together and hacking out their lungs. None of them seemed capable of moving, and I wasn’t sure I could carry them all through the building. If I bucked down the wall, I might have a chance to leap out and glide down with them all, but then the building would probably collapse on the two above us.
No. I couldn’t do that to them – whoever they were.
With agonizing pain, I summoned every ounce of magic I had left to me and teleported the thirteen to the street below. Spots danced in my eyes, and my vision was swimming in circles, but I managed to stumble to a free window to check that they had made it.
I poked my head outside and paused as I began to feel rain pelt my matted and sweaty coat. The sky above me was now overcast – pegasi flying about the clouds bringing rain, while earth ponies and unicorns formed relay lines of bucket bearers below. The ponies I’d saved my first trip were in the middle of being air lifted, and everypony looked up and cheered as I stood there blinking dumbly.
Slowly, a smile found its way to my lips, and tears began to creep down my face.
A loud ominous crack broke my befuddled euphoria, however, and my heart stopped as a young mare’s voice filled the air. “P-Princess, are you there? I think the ceilings about to—”
With a groan, the entire building began to fall.
Time had run out.
“Jump!” I ordered instinctively.
A small filly and yearling smashed through the window above me.
I jumped in kind, but was in no condition to catch them: I could barely coordinate myself into a glide after the previous teleport.
I prayed to all that was good in the world for a miracle – something wondrous that would wipe the smirk off of Antiquity’s face when she heard about it.
Those prayers were answered as a familiar boom filled the air. An enormous rainbow blast washed through the city – every window blown inward as it passed. A similar contrail soon rocketed into view, before taking an impossibly sharp turn to charge down the street.
Seconds before the foals met the ground, the contrail bent down as Rainbow spotted them.
Less than a meter from the ground, she swooped in to catch them.
And inches from the burning ruins she managed another hairpin turn back into the sky.
Everypony cheered – nopony louder than myself.
That was the last thing I heard before I crashed into the building across the street, losing consciousness.
It was alright, though. My muscles burned the good burn. My head ached the good ache. I had at least done something. Not nearly enough, but it was something.
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I want to execute that bitch, Antiquity
Is the changeling lady/lord's name Antipathy or Antiquity? These chapters use both.
Love this story. This particular chapter made me cry (In a good way, at the end there). Thank you.
8442611
Her name is Lady Antiquity Antipathy. Her house name is Antipathy. Her personal name is Antiquity.
8442603
come now, no need to put the execution equipment through that....
i get a feeling her days are numbered anyway....
although i can see her pulling a Zira on Twilight...
Antiquity needs to die. And the rioters should be publicly shamed for their actions.
Okay, I kinda lost the idea here... what was the point of not exterminating changelings again?
8442790
shrug? I've said several times in story that it's the lords that are the real problem. The common changelings just kind of follow. Fun fact about this arc, though. Assuming House Antipathy and House Scorpio pull out of the hive, it'll be about a 70:30 split in Mo's favor as many of the more common changelings won't stomach what was done here. The 30% of the hive going with Antiquity and Carapace are literally the loyalest of their elites -- infiltrators, warriors, and minor lords.
I know that Antiquity is an actual villain and everything, but I'm most angry at the arsonists. And the rioters but hurting people while rioting isn't half as deliberate as what those arsonists were doing.
8443102
And that's exactly why Antiquity did nothing more than start the riots. Nothing is more satisfying to her than breaking somepony. Nothing is more euphoric than corrupting somepony into something they aren't.
That is the core of a Black Widow, regardless of any debauchery involved.
Antiquity herself made sure her actions didn't directly harm a single hair on any pony's back -- preferring to relish in the fact she turned them into some of the worst equine kind has to offer. Sure, she's responsible for it because she essentially pulled the trigger, but ponies won't be able to ignore that they themselves were her weapon of choice -- that she made them something any rationally thinking pony would abhor.
In comparison to her, Chrysalis is small potatoes as a Black Widow. Chrysalis loves to watch her prey squirm, but Antiquity goes beyond that to ensure her prey loaths everything about themselves before she eats them whole -- figuratively speaking, of course.
What works best for someone like Antiquity is that she did FAR worse then Mind Control. By allowing the ponies to be consciously involved, she will leave far longer lasting mental wounds. Not only that, but it also does a lot to show the dangers of Changelings.
As much as I hate Antiquity, she was masterfully written, truly a match for someone like Twilight.
Now as for Twilight, she was foolish to believe that a Changelinge as craft as Antiquity would be stopped by mere "Poison Detection Spells". Even more so considering she has seen Changelings trick Pony Spells before. Not only that, but she majorly fucked up by letting Antiquity control the ENTIRE event, constantly being put off-guard and dancing mostly to the pace and movements that Antiquity set. She should have followed the advice of the Changelings and been a LOT more paranoid.
Ehh, that was probably about a best you could have done, Twilight. Stopping a riot is a challenging a task when the person instigating it has changeling troops hidden in the crowd. At least the show of personal heroism seems to have helped calm at least the immediate surrounding situation down.
Drinking the tea was forever a mistake, though.
Well, when I called this situation akin to water boiling in a lidded pot, I didn't expect Antiquity to come back, put francium in the pot and put super glue on the lid.
Hopefully everyone will recover from the aftermath of the explosion. At least this got most of that toxic pressure out leaving only small pockets behind.
That smile and wave part sorta reminded me of Penguins of Madagascar.
Well. Time for some punishment.
Also just realized that Lady Antiquity Antipathy is basically named Old Hate. Fitting.
You know, in this story a changeling hive seems to be an extremely efficient society: from not wasting any resource that can be recycled to mathematically optimizing their operations for maximum chances of success. I can imagine it being a byproduct of living in harsh and unforgiving conditions.
Given that, Aniquity Antipathy is stunningly wasteful with her being a social darwinist and rejecting Equestrian ideals without a second thought. After all, such attempts should boil down to a classic prisoner's dilemma of betraying someone or being betrayed by them. If either party chooses betrayal, it will start a chain of mutual backstabs that sooner or later will end in a mutual loss. A shameful waste of time, effort and resources on pointless internecine squabbling - something a changeling should've been taught to avoid.
8457610
As Lyra pointed to Mo, the real enemy of his Hive was and still is its crippling traditions. Nobles like Antiquity are not actually rebelling against their king merely because they crave the throne, but because they reject his vision of cooperating and making friends with prey. They are, ironically, idealistic in their desire to keep the status quo even if it means risking extinction.
>every window blown in
How much of the disaster relief budget is devoted to rainbooms?
8459600
Changelings that will not change.
8442603
I feel like writing a snip where I do the awful human thing: cook her in her own carapace like a crayfish then eat her...