> Scales of Time
>  by The Psychopath
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Anything Goes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Here comes another battle!"

"Get the cannons out!"

"Watch out!"

Bombardic was a unique, large town where most surviving ponies of Equestria lived. It was a large platform built in-between cliffs and held up by cables on its four corners. Two bridges led out to the walls that had been turned into a literal anthill from the necessity of mining. Most of the town was made from stone and the few bits of wood were grabbed by scavengers that risked the surface. Why would the ponies be foolish enough to make a town above a nauseatingly high precipice? Because it was the best way to avoid angry ejge and dragons fighting and the easiest way to acquire sunlight and water for crops and the populace. The town's underside also held many lens tubes which focused light a million times over, making even the weakest of candles into a deathly laser, but these were recent additions to their defenses. Older ball turrets remain that launched steel-fiber nets with rocket-propelled javelins as nails to plaster a dragon against the wall or far away where they would plummet to their doom.

Four towers stood tall at the corners of the town, informing ponies of any encroaching battles or territorial dragons and alerting the populace. No magical bubble protected Bombardic. There was no one strong enough to create proper magic anymore, and the alicorns of old were now gone...if they even existed in the first place.

"The dragon queen is coming! Get your lances and armor ready to kill her alleged 'ascended'," somepony hissed.

Twilight Sparkle was one of the survivors of the upper lands, but they were only faded memories of her youth. The only landscape she knew now were the colors of stone and the inside of caves, and she felt she was all the better for it. Her hair was always a tangled mess she fashioned into a more jagged appearance near the front so that it hung to the left of her head and left the right alone and bare. The back of her head was left alone as it did not impede her eyesight, but it was not well kempt and jutted in almost all directions imaginable. It was just a dirty, dry mess. Her left eye was gone after dodging a fireball just in the nick of time, and the burn scar was now hidden by her fur that was forced to grow back. Her back wasn't so fortunate, and several lines of naked fur remained after her many battles against ejge and dragon alike, and she no longer had a tail as it had to be cut off when a dragon decided it wanted a snack after attacking the city. Twilight still hoped it got a nasty hairball out of it.

"Save them, my brothers and sisters! The dragon queen heard of new magic taken from the lands above!"

Twilight's cutie-mark was also a pair of long claws clamped into a dragon's skull, and she was one of the fiercest warriors alive, having lived past the life-expectancy of twenty-four by three years. The mare suited up in a suit of armor comprised of metal plates on the outside and dragon leather on the inside. It might not have been of best quality as knowledge of tanning and smithing using traditional techniques had been lost, but the new techniques were more than adequate and, perhaps, even better now than they ever were before. This was an age of technology, not magic. Magic was practically dead, but that didn't mean unicorns couldn't still use it for one thing.

Twilight hurried over towards one of the two gates where draco-ponies were swarming from and found a bit of amusement in seeing the many turrets on the wall shooting explosive cannonballs and throwing those outside of the blast radius off the stone bridge. Said bridge was thirty-five meters wide, rounded up, so quite a few ponies would be more than capable of walking on it.

"Twilight? What are you doing here?! Shouldn't you be with the wizard to travel back in time?" an orange pony protested.

"They'll come to me, Oryx! I'd rather have the memory of helping you fight off these invaders than leave like some coward!"

"Well said!"

The draco-ponies on the bridge were corrupted ponies with draconic traits such as fire breathing; scales pushing out from under the fur; and long, reptilian tails taken by the self-proclaimed 'Dragon Queen' who believed that the essence of dragons would save ponies and let them live forever as a new and improved species, but only under her rule, and Twilight really didn't care about her or her philosophies. She wasn't strong enough to fight the crazed 'queen' off on her own and so relied on her comrades, but she knew that fighting her off was enough to keep proper ponies free from whatever mindless influence she had on them.

Twilight took out her spear made from pure metal and pointed it at the would-be invaders and focused the magic from her horn, through her foreleg and into the weapon. The blade head was cut in half and placed above the shaft in a ring-bayonet fashion, leaving a hollow portion running through the rest of the body. A ball of magical energy fired out from the spear, exploding amidst the draco-ponies and tossing them around like ragdolls.

"Good shot, Twilight!" Oryx congratulated.

A pony atop one of the towers started ringing a bell and shouted to everyone. "The Dragon Queen is coming! The Dragon Queen is coming!"

Several older turrets placed on the wall all focused on an incoming, sky-blue dragon with green spines running along her back and started firing at her. The dragon was quite thin with a very feminine build rather than the muscular, powerful build that most dragons preferred. She responded in kind to her attackers with large streams of flame, but the metal plates on the walls prevented any kind of permanent damage to the town's defenses. A beam clipped her left wing, slicing it off and causing her to plummet onto the bridge and slide off. She quickly grabbed onto the edge and ignored her subjects falling off because of her and their pleas for help. She frantically scraped at the surface of the construct to get back up on it and paused for a moment to catch her breath. She didn't have the luxury of such a thing and was attacked by all the cannons and ponies stationed on the walls and gate.

"Why do you attack me when I'm only trying to save you?" she roared.

"We don't need the 'help' you're trying to give us!" one of the ponies on the wall shouted at her.

A few more draco-ponies charged forward, with a few belching fire at the defenders of the gate, but their armor was strong enough to protect them, and Twilight took this opportunity to gallop through the flames and stab several through their throats and use the momentum to throw them off the bridge and into the dark abyss below.

"Twilight! Get back here!"

A white stallion with a sky-blue mane and tail and wearing a white robe galloped towards the gate while holding a ball of warping, blue energy in his foreleg. He was flanked by a unicorn, named 'Alberdere', and a pegasus wearing armor fashioned from whatever they had found on the surface. While the ponies called him a wizard, it was only related to his advances in the field of technology and how he used the magic flowing within everypony to power his devices. It did not have the same meaning as it once did in earlier times.

"The spell is ready. You need to use it now!"

The lavender unicorn turned around to face her comrades who nodded in approval while they kept the invaders at bay. 

"Alright. Remind me what I have to do, Marble."

The spell had been acquired by scavengers hired to tread along the surface world and found an ancient library of knowledge where it was told a spell on time travel resided. Several scavengers had gone to get on request of this town, but not many ever survived the hellish, broken landscape before them. One group, however, did find the rumored, hollow tree amidst smoldering ruins long since abandoned. The tree was bunt to a crisp as well, but it seemed whoever lived here had placed almost all of the books in the library into the basement, where they were kept safe, and while most of those books have been taken now, the one holding a spell of time travel made by an unknown magician of the past was brought back to Bombardic where ponies spent several months trying to understand and decipher the runes.

"I'm going to send you back in time, approximately seven-hundred and eighty-three years. I don't know where you'll end up, but it should be in proximity to Celestia's home, wherever that may be. You'll only have a few months to do what you need to, such as convincing Celestia to prepare for the coming draconic apocalypse. If possible, you also need to warn the dragons. History books say we've lived in peace with them, and they fear the King Dragon, so if they all join together, then you just might stand a chance and stop any of this from happening when the King Dragon and Royal Ejge awaken."

"But what exactly do we do about the ejge?"

"I don't know! We still didn't know much about them back then apart from them being far more isolated than dragons." The stallion expanded the orb into a wobbling blue portal of swirling magic. "There. It's ready. I can't hold onto it for long. Just be aware that their technology is probably not as advanced as ours, so take that into account. We HAVE advanced quite drastically for our survival, after all."

"Why can't I take a group with me? Surely it'll be easier to take care of this together!"

"Because I only have enough power to send just one pony through, and a huge group of us will likely attract too much attention...maybe you on your own will attract too much attention...That's still a risk I'm willing to take with this endeavor. Plus, seeing as you have the most experience in the field of combat, you're most likely to be able to deal with whatever dragons and ejge are thrown at you."

Twilight rotated her shoulders in response, silently bragging about what Marble just said,

"But how will she come back?" the pegasi asked while she passed some saddlebags to Twilight.

"That's a matter for the wizards of old, Cinnamon. Just let her take care of everything."

The lavender unicorn nodded and jumped into the portal. Before she did, however, the Dragon Queen noticed the creation and shouted in horror.

"A time portal?! DON'T GO IN THERE, FOAL!" 

Unfortunately, no amount of hissing or growling impeded Twilight's advance through the rivers of time, but where there is room for one boat, there is room for a second right behind it.
> Too Different
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight flew out of the portal and managed to adjust herself to land with a bit of sliding in the process. She immediately grabbed her lance  and adjusted her helmet and face plate. Her suspicion grew to a rancid mixture of horror and marvel.

"What is this?" she wondered aloud.

The mare had attracted the attention of those all around her in the street. The walls and floors were all white and houses and buildings of various sizes, but with a mostly rectangular shape, flanked the road. Several ponies wearing overalls or aprons were starting to paint the buildings to finally give some color to the city, and what a city! Ponies all around the armored mare wore various forms of clothing, including pants and hats, something Twilight didn't understand the need for. Even her muzzle was overloaded with smells she didn't recognize. Something other than the smell of dirt and ash made her uncomfortable. What were these smells she was detecting in the air? The sun was slowly being covered by a gray, cloudy sky, dragging the attention of the unicorn upwards. She gasped when she saw pegasi moving the clouds.

She pointed to the sky with her lance, trembling. "How are they doing that?!" she yelled aloud.

A mare with a green coat and a bubblegum-purple mane fashioned in a bun style hesitated to answer. "Wh...What do you m-mean?"

"Them! The pegasi! How are they manipulating the clouds?! "

A crowd of ponies started gathering around the mare and creating a loud brouhaha. Her loud and flashy entrance was enough to attract attention to her, but her yelling was not any better. 

"Are you okay there, miss?"

A hoof put itself on Twilight's right shoulder, causing her warrior instincts to kick in, spin around, and point her weapon at the culprit of her discomfort. It was a blue minotaur who lifted his arms in surrender.

"Woah woah! No need to be so defensive there. I'm not going to--"

"What manner of beast are you?!"

"B-beast?!" he repeated in a defeated tone.

"Are you a draco-pony?! That would explain your size and horns," she lowered her spear briefly. "but not the cloven hooves and lack of wings."

The group around Twilight started mumbling to each other about what she had said. They started calling her 'looney', 'crazy', and many other derogatory terms insulting the stability of her mind.

"What is a draco-po-WOAH!"

A ball of magic shot out of the spear and blasted into the side of a building further away, tearing off a good chunk of rock and shattering a window built into it. This scared the crowd, causing them to scream and scatter everywhere.

"What was that?!" he shouted.

"I don't have time for this. I need to find Celestia," she spoke aloud to herself.

The mare looked around her to see that four streets branched off her location. Two of them led forward and two others flanked her. An immense, lone building with no surrounding walls sat atop a hill further away, leading the unicorn to conclude that, if this 'Celestia' was anywhere, then it would be at the top of that hill where the most elaborate looking building was, so it was best to choose the road to her left that led uphill. 

The streets and the sights she was seeing looked terrifying to her. She screamed every time she saw any form of magic used. Just seeing a unicorn levitate a bag of groceries shocked her enough that she fired off another blast from her lance, torching the bag and its contents and covering the unicorn in soot. Further on, she witnessed another unicorn building something with her magic in a small park using blocks of marble as material and chisels for sculpting. They formed a familiar shape which raised Twilight's rage to insane degrees, prompting her to slice it to pieces, throw the shards into the floor, benches, and nearby fountain.

"How DARE you!" she yelled at the mare.

"Wh-what...?" 

She fell backwards and tried her best to scamper away. The lavender unicorn stopped her threats and lifted her head for better hearing. As her ears twitched around, she realized that a large contingent of ponies were coming. 

"Hmph." Twilight slammed her spear's butt against the ground. "Perhaps they'll teach you filthy draco-ponies not to try and raise effigies to your pseudo-queen amongst the normal ponies."

The mare's high-pitched voice only compounded upon her fear. "Queen?"

Ten armored ponies wearing blue armor around the head, torso, and legs surrounded Twilight with swords in their hooves. This armor was surprisingly thin and plain. They were sheets of metal painted blue and wrapped around the ponies' legs and torsos with straps under the body armor and behind the leg plates to facilitate putting them on. Their helmets were rounded balls with rings attached to the base which wrapped around the wearer's neck.

"Ah. Good!" Twilight pointed her spear towards the trembling mare. "This one is creating a statue in effigy of the Dragon Queen. It's already starting. I trust you know what must be done, I presume?" Twilight asked.

One of the stallions stepped forward. His coat was a mint green with white stripes on the outer sides of his legs going up to the joints connecting to his torso. His eyes were magenta, as were the locks of his mane trying to spring free from under his helmet. He stepped forward and pointed his sword at Twilight's neck.

"I know that you're an insane pony and need to be placed in a recovery facility."

"What are you doing?! Kill this fiend and put her head on a pike for the other dracoponies to see!"

"Head on a pike?!" one of the guards shouted.

"Captain Sundown, shall we take her in?"

He nodded. "Yes. I want to interrogate and confiscate that weird equipment she has. I've never seen the likes, but it seems rather primitive in retrospect."

Twilight nodded and raised her spear. "I see. You're working for her as well. I guess I'll have to deal with you lot as well, but I have more important things to do right now." She started focusing magic through her spears and calmed her breathing. "Tell me, is Celestia in that castle? It's vital I speak with her."

Twilight's answer was a sword from behind trying to stab her, but she expected it and blocked it with her right hind leg. She took the opportunity to kick the sword away, then spin around and stab the pony through their armor. This was only to take a hold of the space between the wearer and their armor and swing them around with the spear, tossing them into two other ponies and firing a ball at them. If their comrades hadn't shield them with a magic barrier, then they would have been killed. 

"The dark arts of the dragon queen. I knew it! You're all corrupted!"

Two swordsponies galloped to the aggressor and started moving in sync to slice at Twilight. When one would pull back, the other would follow with an attack in order to keep their enemy on the defensive, but the armored unicorn only gave one, loud laugh to their efforts.

"I've seen this kind of combat technique before, and you two are terrible at it!"

Twilight waited for the moment when the two's swords would align, and angled her spear in a way that allowed her to use the hilt to knock the sword out of the retreating pony's hoof and send the attacker's strike upwards. She used her spear to lift herself up and kick the disarmed guard in the head while the other felt the butt of the spear smack right into his ribs. The discharge of built-up magic provided extra 'oomph' and broke his ribs, jettisoning him through one the small fountains. That was five down, with five more to go. Twilight was having fun, but she needed to do this fast.

The lavender unicorn focused much energy from her horn into the spear and waited that the remaining five guards get close enough to her. She vaulted upwards using her spear when they simultaneously thrust towards her, flipped her spear so the head could aim downwards towards the ground, and fired. She was thrown further away and that much closer to the castle, as she had intended. Unfortunately for the park, it was practically a barren crater now, and of the guards caught in the blast, only three were gravely burned.

"I should have known that atrocity would already be present." She spoke to herself while galloping up the hill. "Legends did say that the Dragon Queen was alive before the two awoke." 

The mare was pleased to see a large, open space between the city and the castle further away and took advantage of its lack of walls and scurry over to a bush to hide behind. The enormous building in front of her was comprised of several different sections and was strange to behold. Like the city below, it was mostly white with only the roofs and domes being colored in assortments of yellow and pink. The main entrance was presented as two, enormous, wooden doors below tinted glass representing a blue and white pony swirling around six objects in the middle. It looked like a pathway was currently being constructed that would lead towards the main entrance but had only seen its shape designed and implemented first. A long trail of brown dirt two ponies wide led from several meters away from the door and was accompanied by an occasional pile of white tiles, shovels, trowels, and groovers.

The lands in and around the large building were well trimmed and very green, something Twilight was unaccustomed to. In fact, a few feet away where a large assortment of bushes trimmed to look like ponies were, a gardener was watering the grass and trees.

"Why is she wasting such a precious resource on something like grass? It's not like we eat it." Twilight shook her head in disappointment.

She waited for the various patrols to look away before rushing to the next bush or tree. She hid in a tree for a good fifteen minutes before the two ponies guarding the entrance walked away after being called by somepony. Her goal was at hoof. It was almost done, she hoped, so she needed to be careful. She kept her spear under hoof and jumped off the tree and landed quietly on the ground. Taking another look around to make sure no one would see the door move, the mare pushed said obstruction slowly with her rear leg and backed away into the building then slowly closed the door.

"Yes! I'm in!" she cheered loudly. "Now I just need to find Celestia."

"Excuse me, little pony, but I do not believe I have guards wearing that kind of strange armor or wielding such bizarre weapons," a voice spoke behind Twilight.

"She implied the guards are hers. Let's ask first." Without turning around, Twilight asked her question. "Are you Celestia?"

"Well...I'm a princess and would appreciate the title to be used, but yes. I am Celestia," the pony answered calmly.

Twilight let out a sigh of relief and turned around, her muscles finally letting loose. "I've been looking for you. I figured you would be in this huge place considering the legends surrounding you."

"Legends?"

"Yes. I--"

Twilights smile faded when she saw the white alicorn with flowing, pink bubblegum for a mane and tail before her. She immediately started charging her spear and aimed it at the alicorn.

"YOU!" Twilight roared.
> Damp Times
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight charged at Celestia, only to find herself flanked by ten guards around her. She dodged several strikes, parrying and countering with her spear and knocking many of them out while stabbing others before moving forward with her plan to attack Celestia. Unfortunately, the pony still hadn't understood that magic was abundant in this time unlike her own. She was promptly compressed onto the floor by a gravity spell summoned by Celestia, who gasped in shock when she saw armored pony somehow struggle through her magic and crawl along the floor, albeit at an extremely slow pace.

Seeing the potential threat from this one, the princess created chains made from magic and tied up the pony's legs but forgot to remove the spear which was stuck to Twilight's back. With another spell, the alicorn woke the knocked out guards who all groaned in pain at what just happened.

"Guards, take this would-be assassin to the dungeons."

The ponies struggled to even speak. "Y-yes, princess," they groaned.

"Stop! That's not Princess Celestia! It's an imposter!"

"Like we would believe some crazy pony like you," one of the guards said.

Twilight started yelling in frustration and trying to free herself from her shackles while being carried off, leaving Celestia baffled as to what just happened and the strange words that came out of her mouth. Celestia was taken out of her trance when two of her servants rushed towards her, worried about her well-being.

"Princess, are you alright?" a mare asked.

"That crazed psychopath didn't hurt you, did she?" a stallion worried.

Both of them were poking and prodding Celestia to see if she had any cuts or bruises, but they were pushed aside by the mare who gave them a warming smile.

"It's alright, my little ponies. I'm more than capable of fending for myself." She looked upwards towards the pony thrashing about in the arms of her captors who were struggling to walk out of the castle and round the corner. "I'm more concerned about that mare."

The stallion looked towards the princess then the pony repeatedly. "Have you gone insane? She's clearly fit to go to a mental ward!" 

"While that may be, don't you find it strange?"

"W-what do you mean?" the mare wondered.

"If she truly was crazy, then the chances of her being able to fight and defeat ten of my personal royal guards seems highly unlikely. Plus, did you see that weapon of her's and that armor? Those are NOT pony made."

"What are you trying to say?" the stallion asked.

"That there might be some sort of story behind her, and I intend to find out what it is. She was looking for me then became enraged when she saw me and accused me of not being myself."

The stallion and mares shrugged. "Maybe she's confused?" they said in unison.

"Maybe, or maybe..."



Twilight found herself stuck in a small cell with a metal door and stones all around her. The only light she was given was from an orange crystal above her and fluorescent, blue moss growing along the damp walls. The guards didn't bother undoing the chains that bound her, most likely because they didn't have any way to undo them. Instead, she started to struggle a bit, using the blade of her spear to try and cut the chains of magic. It was a long shot, but it was still worth an attempt. She had to find Celestia and kill that imposter. With her dead, then the first step towards a better future would be more than possible.

It took several minutes of effort, but the pony managed to cut the chains and dissolve the magic. Ecstatic about her success, the pony stretched a bit then grabbed her spear and was about to burst out of the door when it opened, showing Celestia and several guards all around her. Twilight almost immediately aimed her weapon at the threat and started charging it. The alicorn sat on her haunches and lifted her forelegs as a sign of peace.

"It is okay. I will not hurt you. I'm only curious as to your actions and how you managed to get past my guards. We haven't even heard of your intrusion yet, although there were some disturbances in Canterlot, if I saw correctly." She pondered. "Were those you?"

Twilight refused to speak and kept her weapon pointed at the alicorn and would not back down.

"Princess," one of the guards stepped in front of Celestia and blocked Twilight's view. "she obviously won't let you talk to her. Let us disarm her."

"But she would see that as a sign of aggression and won't trust me."

"She already doesn't trust you! Look at her!" the guard whisper-yelled.

"That's not a reason to not try diplomacy."

"But--"

"I understand your concerns, but I can take care of this myself." Celestia pushed the pony away and stepped into the cell despite the protests of all the guards, and closed the door. "There we go. We're all alone now."

"Yeah, so now I can kill you without being impeded."

Celestia looked around casually and chuckled internally. "While it is true that this cell is far too tight for me, it doesn't mean I'm under any threat," she smiled.

"What are you talking about?"

"If you truly believe me an imposter and those ponies out there to be under my 'influence' or whatever it is you think might be allowing me to manipulate them, then certainly you must know that just killing me will result in all the guards outside coming in here and decapitating you."

"But killing you would release the spell you have on them, using your...disgusting sorceries," Twilight spat out.

"Oh? And what if I took that into account and manipulated them with words? They won't be 'freed' from their own thoughts and delusions, now would they?"

Twilight opened her mouth but closed it soon afterwards, and Celestia could see, through the thin slit in her visor, that Twilight was thinking about what she had just said. For Twilight, while she really did not like Celestia for reasons she certainly wouldn't reveal...yet, she was begrudgingly agreeing with what the alicorn had just told her. There was no way to know what the imposter could have done to those guards outside and, were she killed, she would never be able to stop the Draconic Apocalypse. She loosened up and lowered her spear, showing her reluctant, good will.

"Good. That's a good first step. The next, to allow my guards to feel a little less under suspicion of you, is to remove your helmet."

"And how do I know that you want shoot me through the head with some sort of magical blast the second I take it off?"

"You don't, but if you don't want the guards to attack you at every opportunity, it would be best for you to at least remove your helmet."

Twilight audibly grumbled and undid the buckles on the back of her neck linking her helmet to the rest of her armor. Once it was undone, she attached it it to her armor, just above her left foreleg to keep it close by, and looked up at Celestia, anger in her eye. The cool, smooth attitude of Celestia both visibly and audibly dissolved when she saw Twilight's face and head. 

"What...?!" she gasped.

"What's wrong with you now? Can't stand to see a pony under the influences of war?"

"What?! What war? Is this why you hate me? Did I cause a war where you come from?"

"Cause it? No..." Twilight narrowed her eye.

"Then why do you hate me?!"

"That's for me to know."

"I--"

Unicorns behind the door used their magic to swing the metal open and pull the princess out and stepped forward to threaten Twilight, but they too were horrified to see the scars on her face. They might have been soldiers, but they had yet to see any sort of horrifying, long term war with such damages.  As such, what had happened to her was beyond their comprehension.

"What the--"

"Guards, bring a doctor here at once. Only one of you needs to get one. We will...remain here. Let her roam out of her cell in the mean time," Celestia trailed off.

"But princess--"

"NOW!"

Twilight raised an eyebrow and walked out of the cell. The rest of this dungeon didn't look any better to what she had witnessed in her own cell. It was all identical to what she had seen those few, brief minutes, actually, but there were other cells whose doors were closed.

"Don't try anything funny, pony. We're watching you."

Twilight looked around and hummed. "So, what. Is this the luxury housing for ponies?"

"L-luxury housings?!" Celestia shouted in horror.

"I thought you were going to imprison me. This place seems to be quite nice, actually." She laughed, attempting to taunt to the guards and alicorn. "Even this floor feels nice."

Her taunting failed as everyone could not comprehend her point of view.

"You're lying," one of the guards accused.

"Nope. Always slept on harder floors than this during the attacks."

"What attacks?"

"I'm here!" a pony shouted.

The doctor had arrived. She carried saddle bags overflowing with green plants that fell onto the floor in a trail behind her. Her mane and tail were both dandelion yellow with a few lines of mint green running vertically along their surface, while her coat and wings were a color identical to Twilight's coat. She was a bit larger than the other ponies around her and seemed a bit more clumsy as well.

"Where is the patient?" 

"She is there, Sparkles." Celestia pointed to the pony.

Sparkles' eyes twitched when she saw the condition in which Twilight's face was in.

"You poor thing!" she shouted. "Who did this to you?!" 

She grabbed Twilight's head and forcefully twisted it left and right to get a proper view of her scars and wounds.

"What do you mean?"

"Wh-Even royal guards don't get wounds like this!"

"Then they aren't doing their jobs to properly protect you from the dragons and ejge."

Everypony in the dungeon started mumbling about what she had just mentioned. Celestia pushed the doctor aside and looked at Twilight with extreme sadness akin to that of mother who just lost her child.

"You mean you have been battling dragons this whole time? Where do you even come from?"

"I dunno. I'm not going to tell you anything. Maybe I've been fighting them, maybe I've been fighting something else. It's not information for you."

Celestia frowned. This pony had something to say, but she was obviously confused about what she as going through. Her physical appearance was enough proof to show that she wasn't lying about her background of battle, and her combat prowess and strange equipment compounded this fact. 

"Please remove your armor so that I may verify that you're fully healthy," Sparkles asked with her squeaky voice.

Twilight decided to add to the 'trustworthiness' she had. If she could get the guards' trust, then she could eventually prove to them that this Celestia was an imposter. The guards gasped and Celestia put a hoof to her mouth when she saw Twilight's full body and how casual the pony acted about it.

"What?" Twilight asked.

"This one is a veteran of whatever dark pit she came from. These wounds aren't normal, but I'm determined to learn just where and what exactly she comes from." 

"Alright...Let me just take out my needle to get some blood from you and analyze it," Sparkles said.

"Analyze...blood? You can't analyze blood!" Twilight mocked.

"What? Of course you can! It's basic, medical knowledge!"

Twilight scoffed at the doctor. "Preposterous."

Sparkles frowned and folded her lips inwards. "Guard, I need some help getting my syringe out. I didn't have time to organize when I was called."

"Okay."

"Thank you."

The unicorn stallion fumbled through the saddle bags with his magic, scanning the contents then eventually pulling the syringes out with his magic and floating them towards Sparkles.

"BLACK ARTS!" Twilight bellowed.

She sliced the syringe in half then tackled the guard onto his back and pointed the spear to his throat.

"Did the Dragon Queen bring you here?!" 

"D-d-dd-ragon Q-queen?!" the guard stuttered in fear.

"She's scared of magic?!" Celestia and Sparkles shouted in unison.

"But she's a unicorn!" Celestia gasped.
> A Sacred Temple
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Why are you scared of magic?" Sparkles asked.

"Magic? These are black arts used by the Dragon Queen!" Twilight looked back to the perpetrator and put the tip of her spear just at the pony's neck.

"Wait! Wait!" Sparkles hurried over and did her best to attract Twilight's attention. "They're not black arts! It's magic that unicorns use-Well...everypony can use it, but unicorns can actively manifest magic into various forms."

"That's not magic!" Twilight looked at her victim and bared her teeth. "This is magic," she growled. 

Magic ran along the lines of her horn and her legs to reach the spear and charge, but the other guards weren't having and closed in to tackle her.

"Stop!" Celestia yelled in the Royal Canterlot Voice. "She is obviously from a different era of thought and place." Celestia stepped in front of Twilight and leered at her. "I truly do not know what has happened to make you as you are, but we need to analyze you better than this and help you relax, otherwise you're liable to destroy everything around you like a frightened animal."

"I'm not an animal."

"You're acting like one!"

The lavender narrowed her glare at the alicorn and reluctantly retracted her weapon. She put her armor on her back and went next to Sparkles.

"When is this 'body scan' or whatever medical procedure you mentioned?"

"When can do it r-right now, if you want," the mare squeaked.

"Then let's go. I don't want to be in the presence of the imposter any longer."

Sparkles wanted to say something, but it only came out as a brief stutter. She accepted the situation and brought the mare and four guards along with them back to the surface, leaving Celestia to marinate in a pool of various emotions. 

The group walked through the grounds towards a small building next to a growing field of bushes. Nopony but Celestia and her gardeners knew precisely what it was for, but there were quite a few statues placed around in front of them, including some aberration of parts that seemed to be singing for some sort of choir. Twilight took notice of it but never really recalled seeing on of them in her time. They were probably wiped out just like all the rest. 

The small building only had one room full of medical equipment, such as syringes, tongue depressors, scalpels, tables to place patients on, desks, and chairs. There were several different plants akin to giant flytraps, placed upon drawers lining the walls. They were vibrantly colored, something that made them clash with the white room and stick out like an uneaten cake in Celestia's pantry. Several shelves were attached to the walls above the drawers, but Twilight couldn't fathom what was in there. A large group of windows comprised the wall behind the main desk of the Sparkles, allowing plenty of light to enter the room.

"Put her there," Sparkles told the guards.

They moved her to a large, stone sculpture sitting in the corner of the room. Its central body was quite a bit high, at least the height of Celestia, and two, smaller 'wings' of stone flanked the central body. It was polished and smoothed, like marble, and Twilight noticed several transparent veins running across its surface which resembled glass.

"What's this?" she asked.

"It gauges your magic power," Sparkles answered.

"How?"

"You'll see--Wait. You know about magic?"

Sparkles and the guards stared at her with the 'loudest' expression of confusion they could muster.

"Well, yeah. If I didn't have magic I wouldn't be able to use this spear."

"Then...Why are you so terrified of magic?"

"I just told you that I'm not."

"But when the unicorn guard was levitating--"

"THAT'S NOT MAGIC! That's black art of the Dragon Queen." Twilight bellowed in rage.

Sparkles shaped her face into an 'o' shape as she tried to comprehend this pony. "She says she uses magic...but she doesn't like spells used with magic. There has to be a logical explanation to this...but...that spear she uses might be a clue on how she uses magic. First, I need to gauge her powers, first, and hope that they're stable." 

Sparkles cleared her throat and gestured Twilight to move next to the stones and sit next to them. The doctor took a red jewel from her saddle bag and held it in her mouth while she moved towards a circular stone with a large indentation in its center. The jewel started glowing brightly and the glass tubes on the monolith started glowing the same shade of red, engulfing Twilight in a red sheen. The doctor decided to use this opportunity to extract some blood from the unicorn who yiped in pain and glared at her 'attacker'. Sparkles shrugged in embarrassment and took the syringe to analyze it using the various elements of the plants dotted around her office.

The guards kept watch and observed the monolith do its work while Twilight sat still, too nervous to move anything but her eyes. Sparkles crushed some of the leave and petals of a blue and green plant and poured them with a vial in which she placed some of Twilight's blood. The powder was well mixed into the blood and left on a holder for a short moment until she started to hear flickering.

"Doctor, is this normal?" one of the guards asked.

Sparkles turned to see the lights flickering on the monolith before they eventually extinguished.

"N-no. That's not normal." She turned to her vial and realized that it remained darkened by the substances she placed in it. "This isn't normal either. The blood should be glowing slightly and letting out some sparks of magic. This plant removes magic and is a good way to test how much magic someone has, but it's barely even glowing at all."

A wide smirk grew on Twilight's face, but Sparkles didn't see the same amount of humor in it. She and the guards went back out of the office and bumped right into Celestia who was sitting patiently, awaiting for the results.

"What are the results?"

"P-princess? What are you doing there?"

"I was concerned. I wanted to now everything about this pony that I could possibly get."

"Well, she isn't telling us anything about her past." Sparkles turned slightly and tucked at her throat fur with her wing. Twilight 'harumphed' and looked away from the doctor's look of worry. "But...she is anomalous. Whatever she's saying might be truer than we initially thought."

Celestia was very curious now. "Oh?"

"She...She has no magic flowing through her."

"But...that would mean she's dead, no?"

"No. Even the dead have some form of magic -even if not entirely their own- passing through them, but she has confirmed that she uses magic for her spear."

"Then that would mean that ponies where she is from have either developed something akin to magic and haven't realized it, or--"

"She has an impossibly high resistance to magic, diluting any she has or even any spells that..."

The two mares looked at each other in glee. An epiphany hit them, one that would kill two stones with one bird.

"Twilight," Celestia spoke. "I would like to see your combat prowess and how well you can fight against both pony and magic. Would you permit this?"

"Yes, but don't get any ideas. I know how to pay attention to the things around me." Twilight flipped her spear behind her should and started filling it with magic. It point at a guard behind her who was approaching with his spear ready to jab at her. "And tell your little colt wearing foil that he is far too clumsy to attempt discreet assassination."

Celestia leaned casually and glared at the guard who shrunk down and hid away in the nearby bushes. Everyone went to one of the open training grounds for the guards after that incident. It was a large square of brown dirt surrounded by a flimsy wall of wood better suited for holding in large livestock. Anyone could go through them, but that was the purpose. Several guards were leaning against the fence and cheering on comrades wrestling in the middle. When the captain saw who was coming, he shouted to the others to stop immediately and salute.

"Captain, I need to assess this pony's fighting capabilities," Celestia said.

"Who, this--Wow. That's...a lot of battle damage," the captain cringed.

"Must I really fight them? They are clearly far too inept to be even fighting the young ones of my home," she winced. 

"What?!" the captain roared.

Celestia tried to reason with the stallion. "Captain, please. She's--"

"Alright, then. We're going to do this like a real battle. I'm keeping my armor on and using my magic and sword. You use whatever. I'm not letting some damsel with a few nicks in her fur mock my troops."

Twilight scoffed at him and donned her armor, all while Celestia had facehoofed. The two hopped into the arena, much to the cheering of the guard. Twilight sat in place, had a foreleg wrapped around her spear, and leaned her head against it while the guard prepared himself with stretches. 

"Alrighty then, little filly. I'm going to show you what proper training from the Royal Guard can accomplish."

Twilight didn't react to the charge nor the yelling of the stallion coming at her, but when he tried to jab at her with his sword, she moved her spear slightly towards the middle of the impact and stopped his sword.

"You're too single minded. You'll never be able to fight dragons and ejge this way."

"What?"

Twilight ducked and sweeped at the stallions legs, making him face-plant into the ground. The lavender unicorn casually moved away from him while the stallion punched the ground and jumped up.

"Fine. I was being easy on you, thinking you were just full of yourself, but now I can see that you have some form of training. Then I'll use my magic as well."

The stallion created a blinding flash of light and charged into Twilight, expecting her to be incapable of seeing, but she blocked his sword strike and brushed it aside then punched the stallion in his neck and jumped away.

"Ah! How?!" he yelled.

Twilight tapped her helmet. "Film made the oil pouch of a dragon. Helps filter bright lights."

"The what of a dragon? You're making that up!"

The stallion attacked Twilight once more, but this time, he went for consecutive blows rather than a single, decisive attack. The lavender unicorn spun her spear around her neck and forelegs to block every strike the stallion threw against her and would hit his horn when he tried to summon any magic, causing him great pain and destabilizing the spell. The captain's anger was growing to extreme levels, so much so that he bounced away from Twilight and blasted her with a powerful ball of magic, destroying almost the entirety of the training grounds, creating plenty of smoke, and nearly killing several guards that were present. Had Celestia not been there to pull them out of the way, they could have well died.

"ARE YOU INSANE?!" Celestia bellowed.

"I...uh, I," the captain stuttered.

"YOU NEARLY KILLED EVERYPONY THERE! It will be a miracle if the mare is even alive after that, anyways! She had important subjects we needed to learn, and you let your anger--"

"That's all you can muster?" a voice spoke from the smoke.

"Wh--" Celestia tried to formulate a sentence but couldn't.

Twilight was still standing in place, and she hasn't received any damage from the attack.

The captain lifted a hoof and, trembling, pointed it limply at Twilight. "H-how?"

"Something like that wouldn't be able to pierce armor made from dragon scales and leather."

"DRAGON?!" Everypony shouted.

"The more I learn from her the more questions I get from her. Yet...I haven't felt this curious about anything since I was a young filly," Celestia thought to herself.




Elsewhere in Equestria, far away from Canterlot, another portal opened up in the countryside, but a tiny pony did not come through it this time. Instead, a large dragon punched through and crashed into the land below. She rubbed her head an groaned in pain.

"So that is what time travel is like, huh? It's painful." She looked around to see a lush, green, hilly plains around her with a few groups of trees breaking the uniformity of the lands before her.

"I haven't seen lands like this in centuries, and there is even a small village over there. A good place to start and learn exactly where I am, but first."

The dragon focused hard and her body started to shrink down and crush itself. After much cracking of bones, she was finally done. Gazing at her forelegs, she saw that they still had the length of a pony's despite still ending in sharp claws, as well as a long tail ending in a tuft of fur.

"I haven't used this form in just as long. Time to get started," she said to herself.
> Comfort? What is 'comfort'?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Well, yeah. Don't you fight dragons regularly? Or ejge? You're high in these mountains, and this place isn't really as fortified as I would like it to be."

Celestia scratched her head. "You keep saying that you fight against dragons and ejge, but why would they be attacking you?"

Twilight glared at Celestia from the corner of her eyes and looked away. "I'm only explaining that to Celestia."

One of the guards sat on his haunches and squeezed his spear in anger to the point of its wooden body snapping in half. He looked at it, bewildered by what he had just done. One of the captains noticed and started chastising him for it. 

The captain Twilight had just fought stepped forward next to the white alicorn. "But she IS the princess!"

Twilight scoffed at the captain who grit his teeth in frustration. 

"Fine. Let me ask something else."

"What?"

The stallion pointed at Twilight's armor. "Is that really made from dragon leather and scales?"

"Yes."

"Why not just use ejge scales? They're just like dragons."

Several of the ponies around nodded in agreement. 

"Ha. HA!"

"Why are you laughing?"

"Dragons and ejge aren't even REMOTELY similar!" Twilight spoke in a mocking tone. "Tell an ejge it's a dragon and you can be certain that you won't live long enough to be corrected."

"T-then what's so different about them?"

"The ejge's scales aren't tough like a dragon's. In fact, they give little-to-no wind resistance. It's ideal for the pegasi, but not for us ground troops. Not only that, but at the speeds they can go thanks to the scales and their powerful wings, the scales become lethal and capable of slicing through everything due to the wind pressure that forms around them."

Everypony around gasped in awe.

"H-how...It's practically impossible to even see an ejge. How do we know if you're not lying?"

"You don't, but my spear here and my armor should be proof enough."

Another guard stepped forward and spoke with an accusing tone. "How do we know you just didn't stumble onto a scale or the corpse of a dragon?"

Yet another guard slapped her comrade behind the head, pushing his helmet over his eye. 

"You idiot! Dragon scales and hide start decaying the second they die. They lose almost all of their toughness right then and there. She couldn't have survived the captain's magic if she tried."

The ponies started to grumble at each other about whether Twilight was telling the truth or lying, much to indifference of the lavender unicorn. Celestia face-hoofed at the display but was pulled out of her embarrassment briefly by Sparkles holding several pieces of paper.

"What is it? Is there a problem that I don't know about?"

"No. I was just doing some basic data gathering, and it seems that she doesn't have any known diseases. In fact, she seems to have a few immunities to diseases of today, like hoof rot." The pegasus tapped her hoof a few times on the ground and pulled in her lips.

Celestia raised a brow and smirked. "Yes?"

"If we had some more samples of her blood, we could study her immunities and make vaccines against the diseases in the future."

"Hm. While that is logical, it's best we leave her and her blood alone for now."

"If you say so, your highness."

"Now then, Twilight, was it?" Celestia said as she approached the lavender unicorn.

"If you can guarantee me that you won't harm the guards here or anypony else in the castle, then I can give you, at least, a basic room for your needs while you stay here and until you leave. HOWEVER," Celestia glared at Twilight and lowered her head to eye-level. "If you can't guarantee such a thing, this time I will ensure that everything you currently have on you will be confiscated, and you will rot in the dungeons for the rest of your life. Am I understood?"

Twilight was scarcely intimidated and grinned back at the alicorn. "Showing your true colors, huh?" Her taunting didn't last long and she backed away. "Fine. I agree. It doesn't mean I won't try to not kill you at any point, however."

Celestia laughed at the remark. "I think I can deal with you whenever you try to kill me." She turned her back to Twilight and started walking towards the castle. As she did so, however, she gave Twilight one final piece of information. "Anywhere you go, however, you will be escorted by at least four of my royal guards, so do not expect to be able to sneak off at any point you're with us, understood?"

Celestia continued her way after that warning and let Twilight simmer in place. The guards were still fighting while the captains remained stoically fixated upon the scarred pony. Sparkles walked up towards Twilight in various bits of hobbling and hesitated to get her attention, but did so anyways.

"If you would follow me, there's a room that's ready for you in the castle." She cleared her throat and readjusted her saddle bags. "A-and it's one of the few currently fully built and decorated."

Twilight peer over her shoulder to see the doctor shrinking under her gaze. She seemed terrified of the armor.

"I would be more than happy to see my room." Twilight followed the medic accompanied by guards of her own following close by. "I hope the stones aren't too wet. I can't stand sleeping on wet stones."

"What?"

"What 'what'?"

"We don't sleep on stones."

"Oh. Gravel, then?"

"No."

"Bones? Sometimes we have too many bones after a battle and have to sleep on them," Twilight joked. "They can be quite pokey, though." She rubbed her back with her tail after saying that. "But at least dragon bones bend with the body shape."

"Bones? Of course not!"

Twilight shrugged and followed the pony through one of the many open spaces within the castle's walls and climbed the wooden steps upstairs, taking her helmet off in the process. The walls were still a barren gray and no decorations were up yet. At least the windows were placed and keeping all the cold air outside, not that Twilight really cared. The unusual warmth within this finished section of the castle was something she didn't like. It reminded her too much of dragon's breath and the environments in which draco-ponies lived.

The doors flanking the hall had yet to be installed and were placed neatly against the opposing walls of the rooms for future installation. Only a few had been installed, and Twilight was brought into one of them. Two guards remained outside while the other two accompanied the two mares into the room. The lavender unicorn looked around cautiously. The room was identical to the rest of the castle, but there was furniture here. A large bed covered in a puff, pale-blue comforter with two large, white pillows covering the width of the mattress, and considering the mattress was the as wide as a pony was long, they were very huge. A room on the side led to the bathroom for all the necessary conveniences, and one small desk placed underneath a small window just left of the bed. To the right of the bed was a small night stand topped with a circular pad and a red stone floating above it. The pad had a wide, circular base that narrowed slightly for a very short increase in height, at which point it collapsed into a shallow bowl shape. Its metallic surface reflected the red stone floating above it and rotating at a gentle pace in the air.

"What is this thing?" Twilight asked while she poked the bed.

"That's a bed."

Twilight looked back at the pony with a blank expression, then stared at the bed again and poked it.

"This feels WAY too soft to be a bed. Sure, the harder workers get straw, but it's extremely itchy. I have no idea what this is."

Sparkles rubbed her temples in annoyance. "Just...step onto it and lie down, then see what you think." Before Twilight could do so, Sparkles immediately called to her. "NO! Take off your armor first."

Twilight shrugged and complied. It took several minutes to unlock the buckles and hooks of her armor and let it drop heavily next to the bed. The spear, however, was wedged in between the small night stand and bed in a manner that would prevent its removal without making a modicum of noise. The second Twilight stepped onto the bed, she faceplanted onto the pillows and fell asleep, causing the doctor and guards to quite literally jump several feet back and slamming against the wall in sheer shock.

"H-how did she fall asleep that fast?!" one of the guards yelled.

"I don't know, but...maybe one of you can grab that spear of hers and we can keep it hidden before she starts going on a rampage after she wakes up," Sparkles suggested.

"How do you know she'll do that?"

"I don't. It's a precaution."

"Fair enough," the other guard said.

She rotated her shoulders and cracked her neck in preparation for her task. Carefully, she tiphoof'd towards the spear and made sure to muffle her breathing as best as she could. She made sure Twilight was sleeping and slowly stretched out to grab the spear, which she managed to. Now, she had to pull it out of its lock. Unfortunately the precise nanometer the spear moved alerted Twilight who flicked the foreleg of the pony off the spear and punching its owner in the face. The guard keeled over and rolled around in pain with her muzzle clenched between her hooves.

"AHHHHHHHH! My muzzle!"

The remaining guard and Sparkles looked down at the pony reeling in pain then at Twilight who was gesturing that she was watching them before melting her face back into the pillows.
> Shrooms 'n Grubs
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Wake up!" a guard ordered Twilight.

The lavender unicorn groaned and rolled onto her side in protest. The guard narrowed his gaze and dived below the bed line. Twilight ignored him, hoping he went away, but she was sorely mistaken for the only thing that happened was her being rolled up in the blanket of her bed and pushed onto the floor.

"Hey!" she shouted. "What's the big idea?!"

"It's dinner time. You slept a day, practically."

"Oh, food? Alrighty then!" She hopped up and practically melded with her armor and spear. "Let's do this."

"If you'll follow me."

Twilight went back through the deep corridors of the castle and enjoyed the cool wind blowing into her face when she reached the incomplete, lower hallways. Finally, she was brought in front of a room kept behind deep brown, wooden doors with rounded tops. The mare pushed the doors open, or, more accurately, smashed them open, eager to see her meal. Her eagerness was quickly replaced by disappointment, although her nostrils were assaulted by a variety of crispy and deliciously sour aromas. Within was a very large, rounded table with ample space around it for at least three ponies to walk side-by-side. Celestia sat directly across the entrance and was flanked by many ponies, griffons, and even some rams. On the table was a wide assortment of different plants and fruits, ranging from meals made with the more common apples to those made with more exotic fruits like the smelly durian. They had all been stuffed into fancy bowls made of blue and green crystals or put onto plates of a china with little flower motifs on their surface.

Twilight scratched her head in confusion. "What's this supposed to be?" she asked.

"Humph. Who is this pony, princess?" a mare asked. She was wearing a wide dress whose sleeves and bottom were lined with frills.

"This is Twilight Sparkle. She..." Celestia paused for a moment and withheld her stress as best as she could. "She is a dragon hunter."

A loud brouhaha between the nobles erupted at the table discussing the matter. Twilight ignored them and prodded some jelly and watched it wobble. She looked towards Celestia with both a disgusted and baffled expression. "This is food?"

"Yes, Twilight. It's jelly. It's a tasty dessert."

"Really?" The mare kept her left hoof under her chin as she scanned the table, then poked at something else. "And what 's this?"

"Th-that's hay," a ram answered her. "Were you born in a cliff? Did you eat rocks?"

"Sir, manners!" Celestia chastized. "Twilight, you don't know what hay is? It's very common."

The pony shrugged in response, giving Celestia an idea. She grabbed a nearby plate and pulled it in front of Twilight.

"Do you know what these are?"

"No."

"These are apples."

"What? But these are yellow."

"They come in many shades and flavors, Twilight. They're a favorite of most ponies." Celestia pulled the plate away and pushed another where the last had been. "And what about this?"

The unicorn shrugged.

"This is tomato soup. This is one of the most basic fruits available."

"Um, I don't mean to interrupt, but a tomato is a vegetable," one of the ponies interjected.

"No. We've been through this." Celestia moved her forelegs in stiff, horizontal motions. "It's a fruit, not a vegetable."

"It's a vegetable! What kind of 'fruit' doesn't taste sweet?"

"You're basing the flavor on the botany?"

"Yes!"

"That's not how it works! Tomatos grow above ground. Most vegetables are roots!"

"Then what the hell is a cabbage?!"

"Uhhh--"

"Oh hey, a griffon."

"GAH!"

Twilight had sneaked up towards a white griffin with black claws and a black beak wearing black armor over his torso. He was befuddled by Twilight's actions.

"Oh hey! Griffons. You know, we used to have griffons, then they were killed by the ejge after their nests were attacked." She jumped onto the griffon's back and grabbed his wings.

"Let go of me you lunatic! What is she even talking about?!"

"I know this one thing you can do with griffons."

An audible crack resounded and the griffon fell flat onto the ground with his eyes set apart and his tongue sticking out.

A white griffon with a blue tip on her beak and claws pushed Twilight away. "You killed him!" she accused.

"Pfff," Twilight brushed the statement aside. "He's fine. He's just paralyzed." She looked back at the female with a gleam of evil sparkling in her eyes. "I could o it to you too, you know?"

The griffon's lower beak trembled and she slowly backed away from what she perceived as a threat despite it being Twilight's way of 'playfulness'.

"Twilight! Behave yourself."

"Why? What's wrong?"

Celestia groaned loudly and facehoofed. "What did YOU eat, anyways?"

"None of this weird," Twilight lifted a leaf drenched in dressing and let it sloppily fall back onto the table. "goopy stuff. We didn't have access to the surface lands."

"Wh...Then what did you eat?" the same mare from earlier asked. 

She leaned forward against the table, eager to hear the tale. That eagerness was ill placed.

"Well, since we lived next to a cave and had a minimum of land to work with, we mostly ate things  from there."

"Like?" 

"Mushrooms, moss, lichen, and bugs."

They were startled. "B-BUGS?!" all the members yelled. 

"Well, yeah," Twilight shrugged nonchalantly. "They're a great source of protein, and they're EXTREMELY juicy and crunchy." Twilight licked her lips in response to the idea while the guests and even Celestia started turning green. "One of my favorite meals is a scarab patée. The dough is soft, but the insides are ALLLLLLLLLLL crunch and full of tasty mushrooms. It's especially fun to pull the wings off and nibble at them. They last a while, so you can suckle on them as well to help you go through hunger later on."

The vast majority of the ponies there had vomited their entrails while a few others had passed out. Celestia, on the other hand, was somehow paler than usual. An extraordinary feat considering she was completely white.

"Okay, Twilight. We-Hurk!" Celestia put a hoof to her mouth and swallowed. "Eugh. We don't need to know more."

"Why? I really don't understand your problems, I mean, spider-cicles. Mmm-mmm!"

That pushed Celestia overboard, causing her to vomit what one could assume were rainbows. As for the dragoness that passed through the temporal tear, she had reached the village and was admiring how life was like back when. Her favorite past time was taking a cup of tea with some cake just outside a quaint little café with a back area allowing the pony to see the grassy hills flowing with life and being brushed by the wind as it flowed forth. It reminded her so much of the ocean untainted by the aquatic dragons and water ejge. 

She took in a whiff of her tea and sighed in satisfaction. "I did miss this sort of life. The altercations between those draco ponies for my favors are so...annoying and become routine after a time."

A servant pony with a pale blue coat, and a deep, blue-purple coat, approached the dragoness. He wore a tuxedo and had so much cologne that it was a wonder the dragoness could smell at all. The stallion lifted up a fancy, white tea kettle with one hoof and raised it over the mare's tea cup.

"Would you like more tea, madam?"

The dragoness raised a hoof and shook her head. "No thank you. I have yet to finish this and I want to savor the flavors."

The stallion bowed and backed away slowly. "I am just pleased that a legendary kirin chose my humble establishment for her rest. You have brought great luck upon my establishment."

The 'kirin' laid her head against her hoof and smirked a bit. She felt both bemused but also insulted. "I'm not really a kirin, but..." The kirin sat back on her haunches and started mixing in the cubes of sugar she just added to her tea. "Well," she spoke as she bit into her slice of cake. "I like your abilities with baking and tea preparation." Some team slid down her mouth to clean the cake stuck in her throat. Licking her lips and wiping her mouth soon after, the mare stood straight in front of the waiter, towering over him. "What if I could promise you a better life than this? You would be granted great power and would have a rich assortment of..." She looked away momentarily and mumbled under her breath. "What was the currency again? Of mitts!"

"You mean bits."

The dragoness looked off to the side, embarrassed. "Right. That's what I said."

"No, you said--"

The stallion found his mouth covered by a clawed hoof of his favored 'kirin'. "Do you accept or not?" she asked him. She watched his eyes move about as he thought harder and faster with every pressure applied to him by the mare. 

He pushed her hoof down. "What is my assurance that you aren't just promising more than you can deliver or that you simply didn't escape from the nut factor?"

The dragoness looked at the café behind them and; with a terrifying and echoing, low-pitched growl, spat out a torrential cone of fire that engulfed and destroyed the café with ease. 

"Oh. I accept your offer."

"Good. I'll assimilate the others here as well so that you don't feel 'lonely'," she teased with a devilish smile.

> Harpoon the Whale
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everyone had to leave the dinner room for some fresh air and to let the staff clean up the biohazards left behind. Twilight still ate what food was given to her as she still wanted to feel what food was like in this time without war with the dragons and ejge, no matter how soft everyone seemed to be. The mare returned to the castle yard where she started to train with her spear in hoof-to-hoof combat, fighting imaginary adversaries while the patrolling guards and brick-layers continued their tasks. Further away in the mountains stood a wooden watchtower where two guards were busy falling asleep.

"I'm bored!" the first guard complained.

"Nothing is ever going to happen anyways," the other rolled over onto her back. "I mean, even the few that still protested against the tribes living together-" the mare started pretend coughing. "-disregard we've been together four about five hundred years now--".

"Ha. That's true. They're not here anymore. They were banished from Equestria."

"Meh." The mare's eyes widened at a sudden realization then tightened as a devilishly wide grin stretched across her muzzle. "Maybe we'll get attacked by a dragoooooon! Ooooooooh!"

The stallion backed away. "Stop that. You know I hate dragons."

"Vicious claws and teeth approaching you ever slowly, just waiting for you--"

The entire tower was torn over before she could continue torturing her colleague. Luckily, their armor protected them from the collapsing timber, but it didn't take them long to realize what it was.

"Something's coming from the distance," a watch guard at the castle shouted.

Several of the patrolling guards gathered below him near the walls, curious, but also worried.

"What is it?" one of them asked.

"It's a...It's a dragon."

"Oh, well that's not a problem. They tend to fly around here and--" 

A huge fireball cut the pony short when it punched into the barracks, tearing them apart and lighting the remains on fire. The ponies all scrambled around before several captains and sergeants brought them back to their senses. Many fire fighting and archery teams were formed to extinguish stray embers and live fires. The archers climbed several of the wall segments that had already been completed and aimed at the dragon who appeared to be leaving. One of the sergeants galloped towards Twilight's training spot and angrily called out to her.

"Twilight, what are...Twilight? Wherea re you?"

"What's going on, sergeant?" an archer asked.

"I don't know. I can't find the dragon hunter."

"Great! Right when we needed her."

"It's turning around!" another archer shouted.

The strings of dozens of bows strained against the arrows and the hooves pulling them back. They waited for the flying monster to get close enough and let loose a flurry of arrows. Unfortunately, having no experience with dragon fighting, the ponies didn't realize that their arrows would only bounce off the tough scales of the dragon, and said monster amused itself by swiping its club tail into the wall segment. Stone shards and ponies flew in all directions over a short distance, and the dragon found it hilarious, but its amusement didn't last long as a ball of white light punched into its stomach and left wing, destabilizing it and tearing the scales off its underside. 

Having lost its balance and feeling a searing pain on its belly, the dragon was incapable of keeping to the air and crashed into the ground. When it got up, it could only see and maybe even feel the pitiful attempts of the ponies trying to kill it with their arrows. It yelled again when a burning sensation engulfed its wings. Someone has set its wings on fire, letting the thin skin flaps tear to shreds like paper.

"A dragon," a female voice spoke.

A claw swiped at where the dragon thought the voice was, but all it hit was air and grass. The dragon growled with frustration when he heard the voice laugh at it.

"You're not even a fully grown dragon!"

"Pin it down!" a sergeant ordered.

The ponies barreled towards the dragon who tried flapping its damaged wings away, and it nearly succeeded, but Twilight had other plans for it, and fleeing wasn't one of them. She had been hiding underneath its wings the whole time, sneaking there after shooting the dragon and following the moving shadow of the wing so as to remain perfectly hidden from the creature's sight while it was preoccupied. Standing on her hind legs as best as she could, the mare threw her spear into the dragon's exposed belly and, with the help of some rope, allowed Twilight to just barely hold on to the weakened dragon. Several more guards ran up with javelins, doing the exact same thing. The dragon was finally pulled to the ground and had its arms, legs, wings, and mouth bound.

One of the guards took off his helmet and wiped his forehead. "That was...surprisingly easy," he commented.

A captain slapped him behind the head. "Easy? She's the one who did everything!" She pointed at Twilight. "All because of that weird weapon. I didn't even know dragons were immune to arrows. I just thought they were resistant, seeing their size."

Twilight ignored the compliments of the ponies around and climbed onto the dragon's back, disappearing behind the folded wings. After sounds of a scuffle, a dracopony was tossed onto the floor, groaning in pain and attracting the attention of the guards.

"What in the hades is that?"

A mare grabbed the blue dracopony's leg and examined it. "Why does it have claws and scales where there should be fur and a hoof?"

Twilight glared at the creature who saw her approach and immediately tried to get away, but with the wounds the dragon hunter inflicted upon his legs, he couldn't do much except imitate a caterpillar. "This is a dracopony," she hissed as she stomped on her victim's hind leg. "It shouldn't be in this reality. It must've followed me. Plus," she chuckled. "This is barely a juvenile dragon. Look at it. Its horns have barely grown out of its skull, its limbs are thin and lanky, and this species' red scales are still copper colored. It's barely even the size of a fully grown dragon."

The captain cleared her throat and approached Twilight. "Well, then let's take him in for questioning and--"

"Dracoponies only deserve death, so that's what I will GIVE!"

The lavender unicorn raised her weapon but was stopped by gold-tinted magic.

"STOP!" Celestia bellowed. The alicorn landed next to Twilight and nudged her away gently. "I will not have you kill either of them.

"Then how am I supposed to get my new armor and weapons, Imposter Princess?"

Celestia blinked slowly and left her mouth agape. "That's my new name?"

"Yes."

"Hm."

Celestia rolled her eyes and shook her head, preferring to ignore the comment and get to the draco pony who was protecting his face from the alicorn. Upon closer inspection. Only his left foreleg was covered in scales and had claws growing out of the hoof. The rest of the body was still very pony like despite having patches of cerulean blue scales here and there. A dragon 'antler' was growing out from the right of his head and his pupils were starting to morph into the classical reptilian slit. With his heavy panting, Celestia could see that many of his teeth became sharper and more predatorial.

"It is alright?" she soothed the dracopony. "I won't hurt you."

"I just did this because she forced me to," the dracopony stuttered.

"Who forced you to do this? How were you even capable of riding this mighty creature?"

"A green and blue unicorn mare. She's as tall as you, Princess. She said I would have a great adventure if I followed her. I didn't understand what she meant!" The stallion started wailing in tears.

"It's alright, my little pony. We're all here to help you, but we need to keep you in the dungeon for your and everypony else's protection."  Celestia faced her guards and started giving orders to them. "Sergeants. Captains. I need some of you to divert into small groups that take the wounded to Sparkles' clinic. I know that you have already diverted group for fire fighting, but now I need you to get some of the masons and architects to assess the damage. I also--"

Celestia was cut short when she heard a scream. Twilight had her foreleg in the chest of the draco pony and her spear held high.

"Twilight!"

The lavender unicorn mare looked at Celestia with open eyes and an apathetic expression.

"We need him! And I still need to help him any ways I can."

A badly beat up guard approached the princess and reported to her. "Princess Celestia, she already killed the dragon."

"She what?! Twilight! Please! Don't do this!"

The lavender unicorn casually lowered the blade of her spear at a slow -yet regular- speed towards then into the skull of the dracopony despite his screams of pain, and only pulled out just as slow when he was dead. At that moment, Celestia felt genuinely terrified at the expression Twilight made, and the sunset behind the lavender unicorn only compounded upon the growing cold and darkness the alicorn felt as she gazed into Twilight's eyes. It was so benign. So emotionless. So carefree. There were no regrets in them nor in her physical movements. With one quick slash, the blood on the blade was wiped off and thrown into the grass. The princess realized to just what extent Twilight hated dragons and whatever was associated. She wasn't just a hunter; She was a soldier, and a veteran instilled with hatred grown from her own experiences and losses.
> Dragoness' nest
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Princess?"

Celestia felt paralyzed and only watched as Twilight casually dragged the corpse of the dracopony towards the juvenile dragon's, tossing the pony against the beast's neck. She followed this up by using her spear to break the scales of the body of her 'trophy' and gather them all in a pile. Sometimes, she would have some difficulty getting the spear through, but that was it.

"Princess? You need to focus. Come back to us!"

"Huh?" Celestia blinked a few times. "Sparkles?"

"Yes. I heard a commotion, then your guard came to get me, so when I saw the dragon on the floor, I rushed over."

Twilight hadn't noticed, but the nobles from earlier were watching her from the windows of the castle's completed floors as was the staff.

"So...She wasn't kidding when she said everything she had was made from dragon stuff and she killed them. I'm..."

"She killed him."

"I can see that. That's pretty impressive, protecting us."

"No. She didn't do it to protect us. There's something darker at work here." Tears of empathy started welling up inside the white alicorn. "She killed him, and he just wanted pity."

"The dragon?"

"No!" Celestia cried. "That pony at the neck of the dragon."

Sparkles walked in front of Celestia and did her best o see what she was talking about, then tried to adjust herself in every area she could. "Princess, I'm not as tall as you are so I can't-Oh. I see it now."

"He wanted pity. I needed to imprison him for bringing the dragon, but he had information I needed. When I had my back turned, she just...she just looked at me and slowly pushed her weapon into his skull."

Sparkles felt a weight on her throat but recomposed herself. She had done and seen much worse when operating on patients.

"You knew she was a hardened warrior, though, Princess. You should have seen this coming."

"I know, but," Celestia wiped the sweat off her forehead. "to be so...unfazed by the action of murder. It's unthinkable."

"She didn't grow up in our lifestyle. The act might have become synonymous with survival, if not every day life."

Celestia was locked in thought. "Then why didn't she try killing everypony else?"

"She's clearly not here for that, and I think that, if what you said is taken into account, she might only be interested in killing dragons, but then why did she kill that pony?"

"She killed him a 'dracopony'."

"Dracopony?"

"Yes. He had patches of scales in his fur, his pupils were becoming very reptilian, and his left foreleg was entirely scaley with claws coming out of his hoof."

"Really?! I need to get that body away from her and study it."

Celestia grabbed the medic by the shoulders. "Why?!"

"To study it. I might be able to help you help others like him if you let me determine the cause."

The princess let go of her subject and dropped to the floor. She felt terrible for her sudden outburst. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be acting like this. I should be--"

"It's okay, princess. We're all ponies and, personally, I think that your outbursts show you as still being very much like us, so it could help ease the minds of those who are still afraid of your power."

"Oh. Well. Thank you?" Celestia didn't really know how to respond to such a bizarre 'comforting speech'.

Sparkles left the princess and slowly approached the dragon's corpse. The cracking sounds of scales being pulled off of the skin disgusted her and made her ears fold back in protest. Twilight was still nonchalantly collecting the scales, a pile of about thirty of them having already been gathered into a short pile next to the dragon's belly. In fact, she was humming joyously and was singing under her breath.

♪~If we don't kill the dragons then they'll kill us
For better or for worse we'll stand together and interlock our legs as shields
We are the protection against the fires and the claws
We are the ones who survived the coming apocalypse

To kill the dragons and the ejge is the goal of everypony who lives, died, and will be
We few who still have the fires of pony kind within us will breathe it onto the flying lizards
And with a death cry will they all fall to the lands in ashes, letting the world grow once more
Letting our people build their fabled towers again and be plentiful in food and land

The dragons will be no more and the ejge will serve us whole
Until then, our spears shall be driven into their throats, tearing their fires from their souls
Their wings shall be plucked, making them as us
Their claws will be removed, giving us the edge in battle

Do not forget the dragon queen who keeps us up at night
Corrupted beyond her wishes yet unknown
She spreads that vile dream through our kind
But with our stoic and stubborn eyes
She won't hypnotize~♪

"I really need to work on that," Twilight chuckled. "That was terrible."

"You can sing?"

"They are our tales in songs to inspire everypony during the raids."

"Raids?"

"Well, they aren't technically raids, but, whatever." She pulled out another scale and tossed into the pile. "And there's another one."

"So...That thing, there," Sparkles pointed towards the dead pony. "That's a dracopony?"

"Yup."

"What were you going to do with it?"

"Eh." The unicorn shoved her spear into the pony and leaned against it momentarily. "I was going to burn it. Dracoponies, when dead, have a bizarre susceptibility to fire."

"Do you know why?"

"Don't know don't care."

"So..." Sparkles tapped the ground gently several times. "Do you mind if I take the corpse?"

"Do what you want with it. Desecrate it, hang it, put the head on a pike and toss the corpse in a river. Shoot, empty it, dry the body, then fill it with candy for the foals to hit. I don't care."

Sparkles was perplexed. "That was bizarrely specific."

"Are you taking the body?"

"Y-yes! Of course. I just need to get the necessary to move it."

The medic hurried quickly to her clinic, excited. "I can't wait to dissect that thing. I haven't gotten anything new since we found a dead griffon. I could help everypony else sickened like him, too."

The dragoness was lying on her back, her legs spread apart, and looking at the sky. She was enjoying herself a bit too much, especially for one Twilight considered to be the greatest enemy of all pony kind.

"Oh, it's nice to see a sky not filled with flames and smoke." She took in a deep breathed and sighed gleefully. "I haven't gotten to breath air this clean in so long, either. It does a mare good."

"Dragoness?" a dracopony called.

"What is it?"

"We lost contact with the juvenile dragon you subjected as well as the other ascended."

The 'kirin' sat onto her haunches and hummed in thought. "It seems that I found where Twilight went." She looked across the distance and grinned evily. "It seems she's at Celestia's castle." 

"Do we...Do we go there and kill them?"

"No, you fool. That would be a stupid idea. I need them."

"Why?"

"Those reasons are my own, now get back to finding dragon eggs for me." She tapped her claws together as she spoke. "I need to raise and build a dragon army for what is to come in the shortest amount of time possible." 

"Yes, m'am."

She watched the little draco pony gallop off towards the town that had been torn down and converted into a gigantic, dome-shaped nest comprised of various different types of wood of different sizes, shapes, and colors. Several of the dracoponies had gone further afield to a small gathering of trees and cut them down, bringing them back and using them as an assembly of yet more parts for the nest. Wagons filled with five dragon eggs were being brought back from a wide area, ensuring a great flexibility and environments for the dragon army the dragoness was going to make.

"Hm?" Her relaxation was disturbed by the sight of a winged serpent in the sky. "What is that doing there?"

The creature flew down in rapid spirals and landed in front of the dragoness in barely a few seconds. Its body was a sickly green but the scales it had were extremely clean and smooth. Unfolding its wings, the dragoness saw that they ended in five digits at the tip, which the creature didn't hesitate to slam onto the ground around her. Its body extended back to a tail which ended in a blade-like extension that its species saw no need to use. It had a long, thick neck connected to a head devoid of any eyes. Draconic and long in appearance, this thing could be confused for a dragon, if not for its lack of limbs and many other features. Upon the head devoid of eyes were two mouths, rather than one, with a mouth where one would expect it to be and another at the level where eyes would be. 

"What's an ejge doing way out here?" the dragoness wondered.

The creature only growled at her in response.

"You ejge really aren't that big, are you? So puny." She scratched the back of her head. "I'll show what a true draconic being looks like."

The 'kirin' stood up and took in a deep breath. Her body started to expand and the dragon features that she hid within her body started pushing out as well until she was finally twice as big as the ejge which was, in comparison, five times as big as a regular pony. However, despite the display the dragon queen made to it, the ejge did not care. It pushed itself far away with its hand then bolted at its target and flew away just as quickly. The dragon queen did not have a chance to react, let alone see what just happened and keeled over in pain before reverting to her smaller form to minimize the pain. The ejge had slice clean through the right of her stomach and poisoned her, and none of this went unnoticed by the draco ponies.

"My queen!" dozens shouted.

"We must get you medical attention!"

More of the dracoponies arrived with first aid kits and started cleaning the wound while others used whatever means available to suck the poison out of the deep cut. The 'kirin' pushed them away and, with some difficulty and a hoof on her wound, stood up and limped away from them.

"I was unprepared and overconfident. I didn't realize that was a swamp ejge, but...what was it doing out here?" 

"You shouldn't move!" a dracopony told her. "You're hurt and poisoned."

The dragon queen queen glared at the pony and bared her sharp teeth. "You've already cleaned much of the poison out. Let my own body heal itself up and develop antibodies to counteract the poison if this ever happens again," she spat.

"But--"

"LEAVE ME BE!" They all started scuttering away until she pointed at two mares and a stallion. "Except for you three. I have a visit to make, and I want you to make me a dress worthy of royalty."

"Y-yes, my queen," the three responded and bowed.



> Royalty Incarnate
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sparkles rushed back to her clinic with the corpse on a roller, clearing at least some of the mess made by the fight. Meanwhile, Twilight was still peeling off the scales of the dragon and had finally finished with its right side, letting her continue on the back. Preferring to meditate on the subject, Celestia decided to let a few night shift guards take care of watching her, and went off to her bed for a good night's sleep and some thinking of her own. After about four hours of hard work, Twilight had managed to get all the scales off of her 'trophy' and started hacking away at what would soon be leather. The sight was something of interest to two of the guards who were as close to the dragon body as they thought they could get.

"Why is she doing that?" the first asked aloud.

"She's obviously cutting it up."

"I said 'why', not 'what'."

"Oh. Uh, maybe she's going to make us dragon armor?" the mare smiled sheepishly. Her colleague didn't have the same sense of humor and stared at her, obviously irritated. "What?"

"Yes. I'm sure us getting dragon armor would be a priority of some pony who just MURDERS casually!"

"I don't murder casually," Twilight shouted in response. The two guards sucked in their mouth with an 'eep' after hearing what Twilight just said. "Don't think that I'm deaf just because you're all the way over there and I'm working at night." The lavender unicorn spat on the floor. "I can last far longer than you when it comes to spending weeks without sleeping."

"WEEKS?!" the two guards shouted in unison.

Twilight jumped off the dragon with a large slice of skin twice as big as she was and looked at the guards. "Yes?" She tilted her head in confusion.

"You're seriously acting like you don't understand." Twilight's eyebrows scrunched up further and the guard facehoofed. "We can't do stuff like that. What kind of aberration are you?"

"What do you mean? It's natural for ponies to be able to stay awake for days on end."

"No it isn't!" the other guard bellowed.

Twilight waved her hoof down at them. "Pffff. Then you aren't doing something right. Everypony where I come from can last two weeks without fully sleeping. We just need, like, an hour of rest, at best."

"So...what, you have 'tales' to tell us?" the pony mocked.

Twilight raised her eye brow and turn her head slightly. "Only if you want to hear them," she taunted.

As soon as she was awake, Celestia rushed into the yard using the stairs, forgetting she had a shortcut called 'wings' on her back. She was expecting some sort of disaster while she slept, but sighed in relief and felt her heart nearly stop as her whole body relaxed. She still felt a little sick to her stomach, however. A large contingent of guards, both of the night and day shifts, were gathered around the dragon either on the floor or the completed wall segments, and listened to Twilight's tales. At least, they had gathered around what was left. Twilight had, quite literally, stripped it of almost everything except its bones. There were still a few organs inside the diaphragm , but she was busy scooping them out as she talked, preparing to chop them up or dry them or whatever it was she did to them. Celestia could see a tremendous pile of scales and stretched out leather on the floor accompanied by several dozen jars full of dried organs or some put in various liquids.

"How did she dry them out at night?" Celestia wondered.

As Celestia moved forward, she saw Twilight lift a tan-colored pouch of sorts and point it at an organ on a platform made from bone shards. With the help of what appeared to be a black stone shaped like a tiny, hoof-frog sized dodecahedron, and a stomp, firing came out of the sac, heating the air under and around the organ.

"Huh. That's very strange. Twilight, I would like a word with you," Celestia said.

"Not happening, imposter."

Celestia's left eye twitched. She was getting very tired of being called an imposter. "I just wanted you to go into the city below and experience what are," She cleared her throat, " 'time' has to offer."

The lavender unicorn stopped her actions briefly and tapped her chin while she exaggerated a pensive expression. "Why should I? Is this another ploy to get me to turn my back and let you stab me in it?"

"What?!" Celestia screamed. "No! Of course not!" The mare's body twisted in rage. "SPARKLES!" she shouted. The little mare rushed right next to Celestia. "What is it, Princess?"

"Take Twilight and a small contingent of guards to the city below. Let her SIGHT see."

Sparkles slowly reeled back and started squishing herself into the ground. "Watch your...ehm...blood pressure."

Celestia was twitching all over as she attempted to control her rage, which was failing miserably. In response, Sparkles flew towards Twilight and three guards and pushed them away from the dragon and the giant skeleton and boosted away from the castle. The guards had removed their armor, rather stupidly, to be more comfortable when listening to Twilight's tales, making them 'naked' as they were rushed to the city. Several hours later, Celestia drank some tea in front of her yet-to-be flower garden and sighed in relief. She did love her tea and found it extremely relaxing. 

She inhaled the floral aroma of the brew and a wide smile gradually gained ground upon her face. "I love linden tea. So soothing and sweet. It's my absolute favorite tea."

Her moment of relishing in flavors was interrupted by a loud slam behind her. It was a gigantic green and blue dragon who kept its right arm held up by its left and grinned at Celestia. "Hello, Princess Celestia."

"A dragon that can talk?!"

The dragoness chuckled and gradually shrank herself into the unicorn giant she had become known as by her new subjects of the past. "Why yes. Many dragons can talk."

Celestia stood up and didn't remove her eyes from the mare in front of her. "Who are you?"

Sitting in front of Celestia, the mare slouched over and fanned her face with a hoof. "It was awfully difficult flying over here. Could I have something to drink, first?"

"Certainly," Celestia complied when she sat back down. She grabbed another cup and poured the linden tea into it. "I've never seen a dragon that could transform before," she commented as she slid the cup to her 'guest'.

"I'm not a changeling, if that's what you're worried about."

"Changeling?"

The dragoness did not respond to what she deemed a bizarre comment and took a deep inhale of the tea's aroma before letting the liquid swirl over her taste buds over and over. "Mmmmm. Linden tea. It's my absolute favorite!" She looked at Celestia with a rather cute and innocent smile that nearly reached her ears. "Say, how do you get your mane and tail all mystical and floaty like that?" She grabbed her green mana and passed her hooves through it. "My mane is as long as yours and I can't do that."

"Who. Are. You," Celestia insisted once more.

"Oh, I thought she came here and told you about me."

"Who is 'she'?" Celestia asked.

The dragoness frowned. "Don't play coy. We both know she's here."

"Twilight Sparkle?"

"The very same!" the 'kirin' cheered.

"And you know her how?"

"Why, she must have told you about me and my great deeds."

Celestia came to a sudden realization. "Oooooh. you're the self-proclaimed 'dragon queen'."

"I am NOT self-proclaimed!" she raged.

"Considering everything I've been told, I have a better reason to believe Twilight Sparkle than you." Celestia pointed at her guest.

"Hmph. Be that as it may, you'll certainly change your tone in a few months."

"A few months? Why a few months?"

"Well, I have nothing to share to somepony who isn't willing to listen to me and would rather listen to a murderer."

"She might be a murderer but she doesn't corrupt ponies and send dragons to kill whatever they see."

"Oh please," the dragoness waved her hoof and rolled her eyes. "That juvenile couldn't kill a thing. I subdued it. Trust me, I kn--" The kirin keeled over and grabbed her side.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I was just cut by an ejge."

"You need medical attention!"

"I've had worse. Trust me when I say that it will happen sooner than it is supposed to. The ejge have become active much earlier than they were supposed to." The dragoness chuckled and looked into the distance. "Oh, Celestia. You were always the more 'loving' kind of pony."
> Making my way uptown
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What is this?!" Twilight asked.

"That's a silk cover," Sparkles answered.

"Oooo. It's so soft. Is that how silk is?"

"Yes, Twilight." 

Sparkles and the three guards were leaning against the store's walls. They were inside of a fancy tailor's store that rose to three different floors, each with their own style and 'setting'. The first floor was cut into an 'Ocean-Spring' setting and had its walls painted to represent the rising and crashing of the waves accompanied by flowers of various colors and types. There were clothes, blankets, rugs, and tapestries with every color imaginable as far as the eye could see, and considering this store was big enough to hold sixty ponies in a straight line, that was reasonably far for the naked eye.

The ponies meant to guard Twilight were completely exhausted. The mare acted like a hyper-active filly in a candy store since they entered Canterlot. Now that she was more comfortable with her surroundings and had managed to settle into what she was unfamiliar with, the lavender unicorn had started to scan and analyze every crevice and crack that the city possessed, much to the displeasure of her 'guardians'. 

"Can I help you...soldiers?" a haughty unicorn asked. "Have I violated a degree of some sorts?"

His coat was candy-red and his mane was a pale pink bordering on white with a single fuchsia stripe going diagonally from the bottom-left to the top-right -when facing him- through his mane and tail. His eyes were also a pale pink and he kept a rather higher-than-thou expression on his face despite not wearing anything, unlike most Canterlot ponies and griffons.

"Oh no, nothing like that," Sparkles reassured.

"Then why are you dirtying my wall with your filthy bodies?"

Sparkles' kind expression turned to an irritated-yet-calm one that screamed 'Oh really?' on its own. One of the guards spoke before she could say anything and pointed towards Twilight who was spinning around with blankets and scarfs.

"We're guarding her!"

"You mean the one ruining all of my clothing?"

The lavender unicorn boosted towards the five, terrifying the store owner. "I want all of these! They would make a great battle banner if I found an appropriate war sower."

"...What?" The store owner recomposed himself and adjusted an inexistant bow-tie. "You want ALL of these?"

"Yes! What task do you mean to perform in exchange?"

"T-task? I just need bits."

"Dragon bits?" Twilight rubbed the back of her neck. "I don't know. I just got them, and dragon bits, even if they're juvenile, are extremely difficult to come by, let alone acquire. I'm not sure that would be a fair trade."

There was a long pause between the two, with both Sparkles and the guards getting crushed by the guilt of forgetting to tell her to not talk about that stuff.

"N-no. You have dragon bits? I thought they didn't use money."

Twilight blinked a few times. "What's 'money'?"

The store owner twitched uncontrollably for an entire minute. "Where have you been? Under a lake or something?!" he roared.

"No. I've been--"

Sparkles put her hoof over Twilight's mouth and smile sheepishly at the stallion. "How much are all of these worth?" she asked.

"Ah. Someone who isn't crazy. Well." The unicorn ripped the garments out of Twilight's grip, and she started thrashing in rage about the 'magic'. "Most of these come from the east, particularly these tangerine-orange blankets and scarfs, but these ones come a more recent cultural acquisition from the south-east. If I must be honest, I don't believe you would be able to afford them. They're quite expensive."

"Try me," Sparkles taunted.

The unicorn raised an eyebrow and bluntly answered. "They're one million five hundred thousand bits, rounded up."

The mare's jaw nearly caused an earthquake when it dropped onto the floor.

"Is that a lot?" Twilight asked.

The tailor looked at her then walked around the mare and nodded. "If you want to buy something from my store, I have more basic dresses for about a hundred bits."

"Really?" a guard asked.

"Yes. I have to appeal to all classes to make money, but there are limits to the social standing. Money is money, after all, but I still have some reputation to uphold."

"That's still pretty costly."

"Take it or leave it."

Sparkles pondered on the subject then went to Twilight. "Twilight, would you like a dress, at least?"

"What is a...dress? Some kind of armor?"

"No, Twilight, it's something you wear. You know, to look good."

"I have my armor for that."

Sparkles drove her hoof across her face. "No. It's to look nice for a special occasion or for somepony."

"But I have my armor," Twilight repeated.

"It's this," the tailor showed. 

He levitated a dress made from converging shades of night time blues and purples. The darkest shades of blue started as a ring around the next and gradually went down in rings to a bright purple at the skirt line. Twilight leaned closer to it and acted like she was thinking but immediately turned tail and left the shop.

"Not one for dresses, I see," the tailor commented. 

"I guess not."

"Normally, I would be appalled at such behavior, but today has been rather slow and I welcome the small bit of distraction she gave me. Thank you very much for that."

"You're welcome," Sparkles hissed.

"And do tell her that her armor looks very...ahead of its time, if not a bit bleak."

The guards found Twilight looking at books and studying their contents and construction, intrigued with how they were made. She was standing in front of a large, wooden stall where a griffon was selling books that came in all shapes, sizes, and color.

"Yes! Do come closer. I have books from all over the world which I and dome friends have helped translate," the griffon shouted when he saw the ponies exit the store.

"I can't believe these are used for writing in."

"Why yes. These 'books'," he grabbed one and showcased it next to his beak. "Are a recent invention and will facilitate lecture and might inspire the creation of stories and facilitation of documentation."

"I'm so used to scrolls. Do you think this might catch on?" 

"I certainly do young...veteran miss."

Twilight lifted an eyebrow at the slurred 'compliment' of the salesgriffon. He seemed uncomfortable with her appearance, if only that.

"Riiiiiight. Well, I have more to discover," Twilight said.

"Okay. I hope to see you another day. My books are always here!" he shouted.

Twilight pondered as she walked down the white streets of Canterlot. The buildings flanking the streets of Canterlot were all white, with quite a few of them being worked on by earth ponies and pegasi to give them more color and uniqueness. Several roofs were also seeing their straw replaced by roof tiles. Various sweet aromas were filling the mares nostrils, but being a stranger to such odors, she ignored them, unlike her contingent who drooled at the mouths as soon as the smells reached them.

"I thought they were supposed to be more primitive," Twilight thought to herself. "Well, technologically, we ARE still more advanced. Perhaps it's just the little things like 'books' that we lost over time...Then again," Twilight looked up to see ponies building a tall, brick house and laying its foundations. "Perhaps..."

"Twilight!" Sparkles called out. "I'm a medic, not a tour guide! You need to stay near me so you don't get lost and cause a ruckus again. I think the tailor recognized you."

"And?"

"And?! You shouldn't do things like that."

Twilight shrugged in response and looked over to the three exhausted guards and approached one, lifting his head up to hers with the hilt of her spear. "Say, you're a bat pony, aren't you?"

"Y-yes. What's it to you?"

"Huh. Bat ponies died out in my time."

"What?! Why?! How?!"

"We kept telling you that trying to escape during the night was pointless as some species of dragon and ejge could see in the dark and would fight even then, but you would never listen." Twilight a put a hoof onto his shoulder. "Do your kind a favor and try to prevent that from happening."

"How?!"

"I don't know. They're your people. I'm here to prevent the whole thing from happening, but if I fail, you'll get to warn your people not to try and do something so--"

A deafeningly loud roar attracted everyone's attention skyward where a royal-blue ejge, the size of a dragon, was flying through the sky accompanied by a group of normal ejge. The ponies in the streets stopped to look at that, with many a pony, be it a young child or aged senior, wondering what they were, but Twilight knew.

"The Royal Ejge? Here?! Now?! But I still have a few weeks! This isn't normal!"

"Twilight?" one of the guards called. When Twilight burst off, the guard called to her again. "Twilight!"

"It's headed towards the castle. What's there that interests it so much?!"

Fifteen minutes later, the mare galloped into the castle grounds and continued circling the premises to see if anything had happened, but what she saw didn't really seem all that better than seeing that the royal ejge had done nothing anywhere. Right in front of her was a vexed Celestia and a more-than-happy 'kirin'. The guards were hot on Twilight's trail this time and managed to follow her, but not without becoming completely out of breath.

"Princess?" Sparkles asked between gasps. "Who is your new guest?"

"Hi, Twilight!" the kirin waved cheerfully.

"YOU!" the unicorn exploded.
> Alliance?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight let loose a flurry of orbs at the dragoness, narrowly missing the kirin dodging off the walls and rolling around. Celestia wasn't as adept at the movements as her guest seeing as she was hit in the face by an orb, blowing her back and destroying her tea cup in the process.

"Princess!" everypony screamed in terror.

"Oh my," the dragon queen laughed. "Looks like you hit your guest square in the face with your little toy."

"Why won't you get hit?!" Twilight growled.

Twilight's target chuckled in response and back flipped away and over two more shots fired by the magic weapon. The mare growled loudly and galloped over to the queen in order to kill her and cut her into pieces. The dragon queen responded by breaking off a leg from the table and using it as a makeshift staff. Meanwhile, Sparkles and the guards rushed over to Celestia to help her up.

"Princess, are you okay?" Sparkles asked.

The princess struggled to sit back up and looked on to see the two fighting. She put a hoof to the right side of her face, and when it was forced off by Sparkles, the group could see that she was severely burned. Even her mane had been damaged by the stray shot, and it didn't seem like Twilight and the dragoness were stopping at any moment.

"Let me go," Celestia spoke in a crackled tone.

"But Princess, I need to--"

Sparkles was pushed away by the alicorn and looked on to see Celestia casually walk towards the fighting group. She erected a magical barrier around herself that deflected the strays fired from Twilight's lance into the ground, sky, and walls all around. Celestia's horn started building up an increasingly vicious amount of magic of a yellow tint, and the closer to got to the fighters, the more violent and apparent the build-up became until it was held no longer. The two combatants were blasted away with a force strong enough to tear away at large heaps of ground beneath them distort the gravity around them. This caused the two ponies to spin in a circle then smack against different surfaces and be compressed them. In Twilight's case, it was underside of a tower roof and, in the case of the dragoness, the walls of Canterlot Castle.

"Wow. I forgot how you could do these sorts of things,' the dragon queen noted. "But, I've gone past this sort of weak spell." 

The kirin's claws glowed a color similar to Celestia's magic before unleashing their own abilities, shattering the spell Celestia had brought upon the two who wronged her. Shocked at the display, Celestia remained inattentive for but a second, which was enough for the dragon queen to slide underneath her and punch the mare in the stomach. The kirin followed up by grabbing onto Celestia's legs as she slid further down and twist them violently, making the pony flip and slam onto her side.

"PRINCESS CELESTIA!" the guard contingent screamed in horror.

Suddenly, volleys of arrows and a large amount of ponies from all tribes rushed towards the one who would attack their benevolent monarch. The dragoness stood onto her hind legs and welcome them with open forelegs, a demented smile on her face. 

"This reminds me of the good old times!"

Twilight was still stuck to the wooden, conical roof of the stone tower, and she was feeling an immense pressure on her back due to the dent in the construct. With a bit of effort, she managed to tab her left hind leg which released a strain of energy through the armor, effectively shattering the spell.

"Ugh. We built our armor to counteract the spells the dragon queen puts on us, Celestia," Twilight mumbled to herself. "Do you really think that would keep me trapped here?!" Twilight yelled before jumping back down.

The lavender unicorn got to see the guard contingent and the alicorn fighting against the dragoness in her dragon form, but they weren't a match for; Not because they were far too weak, but because they were inexperienced with fighting dragons. This showed -rather painfully- in them shooting the juvenile with simple arrows and then again doing the same thing with this fully grown adult whose scales were even thicker. Twilight watched further as, out of nowhere, a blue mass slice the castle's walls as it jettisoned towards the dragon queen who shrunk back into her 'kirin' form just mere microseconds away from having her head sliced off. The walls of the castle that had been cut started compressing into a singularity, cutting and collapsing everything around it into nothing. The blur impossibly turned around on a dime and landed in front of the whole group, stomping around angrily and tossing ponies around as it searched for the dragon it had seen. When it nearly stomped on Celestia, several of the guards charge at it with their spears, but Twilight came rushing in to stop them.

"DON'T TOUCH IT!" she yelled.

Startled, one of the ponies tripped and lost hold of their spear, although it did hit the ejge. However, like the walls, it too compressed into a singular point. The ponies scrambled away from the gigantic, blue creature as much as they could. The dragoness did the same and took Celestia with her to hide behind the bushes while Twilight galloped towards the ejge and waved her weapon at it.

"Ejge, there are no dragons here!" she yelled.

The two-mouthed head of the creature lowered itself to her to have a better sense of her being. Having no eyes, the ejge had an unknown method of 'perceiving' their surroundings. Its 'hands' and the long extensions growing out the back of its wings, perpendicular to the finger bones, twitched aggressively.

"I killed the only that came here. Its' over there," she pointed towards the corpse. "I'm still harvesting it. You might have sensed a dragon due to the odors."

The ejge stomped over the mare and towards the skeleton, observing it and the pieces and poking them just to be certain they weren't fake. When it was done with its evaluation, the giant looked over its shoulder, exhaled a distorting haze from both mouths then flew away back into the distance where other ejge rejoined it. Twilight sighed in relief, lowered her helmet, and wiped her forehead.

"Well, looks like that was a successful distraction," the dragoness chuckled as she brushed some debris and arrow shards off of her body."I was honestly hoping that it would kill you."

"How could you SAY something like that?!" Celestia was appalled. 

"By using my mouth, voice, and a bit of air."

"What happened to your face?" Twilight asked.

The princess put a hoof to her scorch marks and  hid away. "You did this, but it will mend itself eventually was some medicine and my healing magic."

Twilight frowned intensely and rolled her eyes. "It'll also leave a huge scar on your face. If I'm going to kill you, you should be in proper shape. Follow me."

Celestia had no real reason to distrust Twilight, but she did keep her guard up. She was surrounded by her guards, and even Twilight couldn't fight so many at once. The lavender unicorn dug into one of the jars, covered her left hoof with some pinkish jelly, then approached Celestia's face and smeared it onto the burn surface of her skin.

"There's. We use that in my time to heal burn wounds. Dragons have a grease residue just between their skin and scales that regulates extreme temperatures, hence why they can survive through infernos without being cooked alive."

"Thank you," Celestia said.

"Now that this is over, I have a proposition for you, Twilight," the dragoness cheerfully explained.

Twilight glared at the kirin with a rage unknown to mortal kind. "What do YOU want?! Why are you even here?"

"To get reacquainted with the Celestia of now and to talk with you."

"Why? You sent that dragon after me."

"Be that as it may," the Dragon Queen paced in a circle. "I did that to track you down. I know that a juvenile couldn't stop you."

"Then what is it that you want?"

"A temporary alliance. You and I both have a reality that we don't want to be in any longer, and I am making a dragon army just for the occasion."

"A dragon..." Twilight's eyes started pacing as she looked at every idea coming through her head. "Wait, so YOU'RE the reason why the Royal Ejge came here!"

"The what?" Celestia spoke.

"The Royal Ejge. That dragon-sized, royal blue serpent is the Royal Ejge; the most powerful of all ejge."

"So that's what an ejge looks like, but why did we never see them before?"

"Because--"

"Because they aren't interested in areas polluted by unnatural architecture, much like the dragons," the dragon queen interrupted.

"As DQ interrupted, both of them stayed away from the general populace, including the royal ejge. The ejge are actually very peaceful when dragons aren't involved," Twilight explained.

Celestia turned to face DQ and frowned. "Then why did you say that, in your timeline, all of civilization was destroyed?"

"Because it was. The King Dragon doesn't care about pony architecture and is more than happy to stomp over cities and castles just to reach some ejge elseways."

"King Dragon?"

"It's not 'elected' like those giant dragons and their weird staff," Twilight explained. "This one is a literal king among dragons and is twice the size of a normal dragon."

Celestia looked at her castle and gulped audibly. "And considering a dragon is almost the full size of my castle..." She turned back to face the two ponies, worry obviously on her face. "Then I suppose the Royal Ejge dies in a battle with it?"

"In the contrary," DQ smiled. "The two are more than evenly matched. It's their weird powers that cause most of the trouble." She pointed at the wall that had been compressed into nothing. "The Royal Ejge has some bizarre power over gravity, and anything it touches compresses things into singularities. It can even fire its power as a ball of gravity." DQ mimed the ejge opening its mouth with her hooves around her head.

"And the King Dragon?"

"I don't know," Twilight said.

"I can explain more," DQ said," But I want Twilight to hear out my proposal."

The lavender unicorn sat on her haunches and crossed her forelegs. She was very skeptical. "Fine. What's your proposal."

"Well, as I said, I've been making a dragon army of my own. However, to beat the King Dragon, we would need to ally with the ejge."

"The ejge and dragons? You're dreaming."

"Precisely. You can find an ejge nest, convince them of the area the King Dragon awakens at, then, as the ejge start to fight, I'll bring in my own army to take out the dragon reinforcements. We'll be perimeter guards."

"What tells me you won't just go in for the scraps after the battle ends if we win?"

"You don't, but it's still better than the alternative."

Twilight took a moment to think on it, then spoke to the kirin. "Then you'll come with us since you, apparently, know where the King Dragon's awakening point is."

The kirin shook her head in disagreement. "I can't go. I'm a dragon, did you forget? I'd rather not be torn to shreds, otherwise we all lose."

"Then I'll take the Imposter with me."

"What?" the surroundings ponies gasped.

"Haha! You think she's an imposter?!" DQ stepped next to Celestia and hugged her close. "See any family resemblance?"

Celestia looked at her and tears started to well up. "Luna?"

The dragoness groaned and rolled her eyes. "Yes. I'm your sister. Dumbass."

"Then who are you?"

"Someone who lived here just as you did. Same family tree, but," she booped Celestia's nose. "just not the same timeline."

"Stop doing that," Twilight growled. "If you can't come, then you best be able to direct me to where I need to go."

"You can go wherever, Twilight. The ejge like places as isolated from civilization as possible. There might some water edge in a lake to the north-west about four days from here by hoof." DQ joined her fore hooves and dropped her head to look at Celestia from below with a daunting, growing grin. "I take you can take care of the rest?"
> Sea Breeze
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With an insane amount of reluctance, Twilight, Celestia, and yet another contingent of guards descended the mountains to the valley far below to follow the river to whatever body of water DQ spoke of. Sparkles was charge by Twilight to keep her 'trophies' in good shape for when she returned. The unicorn had much to do with them when she came back, and much of it involved the guards of 'Imposter'. The river they were following passed through a natural half-pipe shaped canal filled with moss that had been dug thousands of years ago when water first arrived in the area. 

Everything around the river was a blinding green with but a few trees, bushes, and flowers growing around because of the nearby mountains preventing any proper growth in the area. The rocky colossi lifted the verdant green plains up, preventing anything from rooting itself properly, and this could be seen by the large plethora of dried saplings littering the ground.

One of the guards waddled up to his ruler to ask her a question. "Are you sure everypony will be alright without you?"

Celestia flicked her hoof down. "Yes. The Council was there to make sure that everything went smoothly before my sister and I reached of age, and it's already a good sign of the new members over the years as you ponies have yet to notice my absence."

"You've left before?"

"Of course! I need my rest as well. Just because I'm immortal does not mean my health and mind are immortal as well. I need vacations as much as the next pony."

The guard nodded in agreement and rushed forward to rejoin the other guards. Twenty guards had been tasked with guarding their monarch and formed a semi-circle in front of her. Twelve unicorns and earth ponies watched the lands, six pegasi floated in the air and rushed to whatever area they perceived a potential threat from, and two more guards stood behind the princess. As for Twilight, she was aggravated at the sight of so many ponies risking their own lives to protect one of them. She never saw this kind of display in her own time. In fact, when there were extreme threats around, the most important pony in the area, be it a general or the supervisor of a mining operation, would put themselves in front of the threat to let the others escape or prepare for battle. She simply didn't understand the fixation the ponies of this era had over a single entity whose title was not earned but, rather, offered by the general populace. In fact, she didn't even understand why a title caused such a reaction. 

"Ponies are supposed to earn their title and live up to it, not have it thrown onto them and revel in the 'glories' that entails. A title without acknowledge and worth is a meaningless jumble of sounds," Twilight angrily whispered under her breath."

The first night, the guards set their tents up in the river canal. They were capable of doing this due to the river having somehow dug itself a natural pipeline beneath the riverbed. Several feet away, the water leaked through a wall of moss and continued its progress unhindered but filled with many more minerals than it previously had. Celestia's tent, unlike the squarish and enclosed red tents of the guardsponies, was a grand and enormous construct of pure white with floral borders of pink. The size difference was understandable, but the 'divinity' of it disgusted the lavender unicorn. Twilight went further ahead to separate herself from the 'blind' ponies and keep watch of any potential threat and to gather river water from the natural filters through the ground. 

On the second day, nothing else happened aside from some bizarre, shadowy creatures jumping out from the shadows of the extremely few trees surrounding them river. They, surprisingly, numbered in the hundreds, and they were creatures that Twilight had never seen before. With some careful teamwork and magic spells, the shadows were destroyed before any casualties were incurred. Some hours later, a small dragon flew above everypony and threw a rock at the lavender unicorn. It wasn't any threat and was immediately cut in half, but that was the purpose of such a benign attack. There was a letter attached to it that had been almost spared from the attack, save for a corner and some letters.

"If you meet living shadows, it means that it is getting closer. I didn't mention it (on purpose), but the King Dragon and Royal Ejge were awoken at the same time, rather unintentionally, by a gigantic abomination that roams the world with no purpose. The shadows it leaves behind are extremely aggressive and will stay around for about ten days before dissolving into nothing.

love,

Your future Queen."

There was a little image of the queen winking and blowing a kiss at the recipient. The lavender unicorn stuck her tongue out in disgust, crumpled the letter, then tossed it in the air to incinerate it. It felt too convenient and rushed that such information and events would suddenly coincide. Twilight started digging through her memories while she walked. She needed to remember all the tales she had heard up until now.

"The stories and books we recovered all mentioned that the King Dragon and Royal Ejge both awakened at the same time, like many times before, but we were completely wiped out by the them. On occasion, the two would wake up at separate intervals before disappearing again." Twilight stabbed a timberwolf in the chest and obliterated it. Her air of ignorance to the creature surprised the guards, but what hadn't shocked them about Twilight at this point? "They woke up at the same time, but I wasn't here for that, and neither was she, and that dragoness is a crafty one." Upon understanding what the dragon queen had been doing, Twilight cracked her jaw and kept a massive frown on her face. "Well," she whispered to herself. "Now I know why the Royal Ejge is already awake. She's been doing something in the wild that's been agitating the ejge and dragons. Still, she knows I wouldn't be able to say 'no' since we need to fight the dragons as far from civilization as possible." Twilight growled angrily.

As the dragon queen said, it did indeed take four days to reach what was a massive sea, something that surprised Celestia as she had never received any word about a sea being this far into the lands of Equestria.

"Princess Celestia, this is uncharted territory," one of the guards noted. "If we can chart the area and take it back we can expand the cartographic knowledge of your lands."

"You mean 'our' lands," Celestia smiled.

The guard blushed and averted her yes. "You humble me, but these are your lands, not mine."

Twilight sighed. "Stupid ponies. Learn to stick up for yourself. Stop blushing at her just because she has a blindingly and unnaturally white coat. You're not feeling embarrassed. You're feeling all the sunlight cooking your brain."

"Then do so, my little pony. Take those you think would be best for this task."

The pony saluted her and rushed off. Celestia took the time to look around and study the landscape. The sea was quit enormous and wide, filling her view when she was still several meters away from it. Flanking the lake was a very thick forest with ivy somehow growing from it and going into the water. Far across the 'pond' were several more mountains, albeit very young and small ones. The sky was cloudy with only a few rays of sunlight coming through, but not enough to make the chilly air any warmer.

"I hate the cold," Celestia complained as she shivered. Next to the lake was a slab of flat, grey stones sitting atop each other where Twilight had perched. Celestia walked up to the lavender unicorn to see the mare looking down in the water and occasionally hit it with her spear. "So...how DO we call these 'ejge'?" the alicorn asked.

"I..." Twilight sighed. "I don't know. We never talked with them before, preferring to kill them just as much as we tried to kill the dragons."

"What? But the Royal Ejge from before?"

"That was a fluke. I gambled and won. There's no way we can kill it because of its size and bizarre powers."

A grin formed on Celestia's face. To compliment this, she sat on her hind legs and put her hooves on her haunches. "You care about us, don't you?"

"No," Twilight answered with a cold demeanor. "It would've killed me as well. You're just secondary objectives."

"Whatever you say. You're the expert at this," Celestia answered calmly. The two waited a while, watching the guards take measurements and write down everything they learned about the area. "How are we going to do this?"

"I don't know. I'm assuming this sea is very deep." Twilight leaned over and gazed into the darkness deep below the surface. "They must be all the way down there."

Celestia tapped her chin and nodded to herself. The alicorn flew above the sea and started focusing magic into her horn.

"You can't force them out with magic, Imposter," Twilight sighed.

A full halo of light appeared behind Celestia and beamed sunlight directly into the sea, illuminating the sunken lands deep below. Everypony leaned in closer to the sea and braced themselves. They all expected something to occur, but for the longest, most stress inducing time, nothing did occur. That is, nothing occurred until Celestia upped the ante and created a stronger ray of light, exhausting herself, and moved it around the seabed. It got the attention of the inhabitants who angrily swam to the surface of the water and stayed there for a while as they sped back and forth to see who it was that was annoying them.

"Huh. It worked. I didn't think what you did was possible." Twilight was quite impressed, but she still hated Celestia.

Now all that was left was to speak to the inhabitants of this sea, and hope they weren't in too bad a mood.
> Counselor
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A violent expulsion of water nearly punched both Twilight and Celestia far into the surrounding forests, but the alicorn's reflexes were trained enough that she erected a barrier around herself just in time while Twilight managed to jump out of the way. At least ten of the water ejge left the water to fly around and evaluate, with better view this time, what was aggravating them with intense rays of sunlight. The lavender unicorn jumped back onto her stone platform and slammed the hilt of her spear into it. One of the ejge paid heed to the action and looked down while hovering in place. These ejge were blue, much like the Royal Ejge, but their color was a much brighter shade of sea blue. 

"Ejge! I must speak with you!" Twilight roared at the creatures.

There wasn't much reaction from any of them, but the guards were getting quite on edge and started huddling together and taking out their weapons.  Celestia flew down next to Twilight to inquire about the situation, although her exhaustion caused her to nearly fall into the sea after landing.

"We got them out, but now what? Can they really talk?" Celestia asked.

"Yes. It all depends on them whether or not they want to talk with us, but I have a few ideas on how to get their attention." Twilight looked up to the ejge and started yelling. "We need to speak to you so you can relay a message to your Royal Ejge." The ejge did not react and continued to fly around the sea.  "It concerns the awakening of the King Dragon!"

Just the mention of the name saw the flying serpents freeze in place and glare at Twilight...as best as they could. The first ejge that fixated the lavender unicorn dropped into the water below, splashing the two ponies on the platform. Its wings smashed into the ground around the stone, allowing the creature to lift itself up from out of the water.

"We know where the King Dragon is going to awaken." The ejge craned its head slightly at Twilight's words. "We want to form an alliance with you to kill it and prevent an apocalypse from destroying all of our people." Twilight gestured to everyone near her.

The silence perturbed Celestia. "Twilight," she whispered in Twilight's ear. "This isn't working, and I can't stay here forever on a 'leisure trip'. They clearly won't--"

"What does the small mammal know of the dragon's location of awakening?" the ejge responded with a booming voice.

The ponies were all startled by the sudden revelation of speech performed by the creature. Its voice wasn't low-pitched as one would expect, either. Instead, it was in an octave just between normal males' and females' with an faint echo at the back of the throat.

"The 'small mammal', as you call me, doesn't come from this time. I come from the future." Twilight lifted her staff to let the ejge view it better. "Since your kind stays far away from ponies, and these ones didn't even know of your existence, my armor and weapon should be enough to prove to you that I'm not lying as nopony in this time is even remotely capable of hitting an ejge at full speed."

There was a long pause while the ejge analyzed the information given to it and checked the veracity of the pony's statements. "You are right, mammal. We have avoided your kind for long, and the shock demonstrated on the one with growths on both back and head while such emotions are absent from your face prove that you know of our kind, among other things."

"Good."

"However, we cannot trust one who would wear and use our flesh and scales as armor and weapons."

Twilight's eye twitched. "This may come as a surprise to you," she growled and pointed her spear at the ejge. "but it's your kind that ruined mine! We take all we can get, and if you haven't noticed, only my weapon has ejge scales used for it. The armor is mostly dragon hide."

"That is not my concern."

"Yes. It most certainly is."

Both mouths of the ejge bared their teeth as it growled angrily at Twilight, but the pony did the same thing, and the two butted heads slowly. It would have been funny to see such a small pony confronting something that could eat her in bite were it not in such a dangerous situation. Celestia pushed Twilight away with her left hoof and made a loud gulp. She took in a deep breath and forced the widest smile she could muster.

"Oh, great beast of the sea, I am Princess Celestia, monarch of the ponies of Equestria." She bowed respectfully.

"Poh-nees?" the ejge mimed.

"Yes. Ponies."

"We will save that information to transmit to our future generations," the ejge said calmly. An ejge behind it dived back into the sea afterwards.

"We need your help in killing the King Dragon, or, preferably, just stopping it altogether."

"The King Dragon can be killed."

"But I would prefer--"

"The filthy dragon, much like our own greatest, will always be reborn afterwards."

"You don't call it a 'Royal Ejge'?" Celestia inquired.

"Royal Ejge? Befitting title."

"The how did you know what we meant by 'King' Dragon?"

"The dragons also call it a 'king'. They have a bizarre fixation on your languages."

Celestia seemed rather disgusted. "I'll take note of that..." She regained her composure and addressed the creature once again. "If we don't join hooves, er, talons...limbs, then we'll both see destruction on a level never before seen, and I know from her actions that this future IS immediate!"

"But why should we fought for her?"

"You shouldn't. You're not fighting FOR anypony. You're fighting WITH us! We BOTH share in the responsibility of keeping our respective races alive and prevent future generations from going through battlefields ruled over by dragons and ejge just to get an apple."

"If you are right, what assures me that the poh-nees will be of any help to us?"

"We can use magic and create spells." Celestia proved this by recreating the spell from earlier, but at a much smaller level and for far less time. 

"Magic? Interesting, but if it is only for cumbersome purposes, then we have no reason to join arms."

"You're quite stubborn," Celestia groaned. "We can use more than just 'annoying' magic, but I am exhausted right now when I tried to get your attention."

The serpent remained silent for a moment. "Then tell us the location of the 'King' Dragon's awakening, and we'll consider."

Celestia recalled that DQ had not told them the location and played on this. "I'm sorry, but I refuse."

Most ponies, if not people in general, would erupt in pure rage and speak of their positions and power as a justification for acquiring the knowledge, and Celestia braced for this. Yet, it did not came. The ejge was rather calm and collected. "Then we have no reason to ally."

"But without the alliance, neither of our people will leave unscathed. Would you REALLY like to be known as the one who had a chance to stop everything before it started but refused to do anything for it?"

"Psychology will not work on me."

"Then I'm afraid we are at an impasse."

Celestia's stubbornness made the ejge laugh internally. "I will bring this information to the greatest specimen regardless."

"If I have any additional information regarding the King Dragon, then I'll come here as fast as I can to deliver the message."

The serpent took to the skies and burst away at speeds inconceivable by the ponies. Celestia turned around to see Twilight held down and muffled by nearly all of the guards. The alicorn lowered herself to the mare and smirked widely. Twilight didn't like her 'I did better than you' face and wiggled under the pile of ponies atop her and tried to curse at the alicorn, but the words only came out as muffled noise. After traveling back to the castle, Twilight checked on her trophy to see it perfectly intact.

Sparkles left her clinic to check on everypony and noticed Twilight wasn't there but next to the dragon corpse, something she should have expected from the beginning. "Okay, so you all came back," she said when she joined the unicorn. "So now what? Did it work?"

"Yes. As for what's next, well." She turned and faced the guards and slammed her spear into the ground. "It's time to teach them how to hunt dragons!"
> Dragon Queen's Fun
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Dragon Queen was lying in an arm chair made from twisted straw placed inside of the enormous nest sitting where the town of her arrival once was. It was easily fource the size and height of Canterlot. It had to. There was no way a place like that would be able to hold fully grown dragons. Its walls were sturdy but peppered with holes of various sizes and serving as windows of sorts. With so many windows, the purpose of the hive wasn't really apparent as they exposed the entirety of the inside and all the floors.

"I'm bored!" the dragoness complained. 

In front of her, on a floor made of a dark brown wood covered in charred straw, sat a few hundred draco-ponies. They all had worried looks on their faces and looked to each other after their queen's exclamation.

"I mean, I had my fun messing with Celestia and Twilight." She stretched herself over the arm rests and let her back band and sink onto the seat. "Yet...now there's nothing left to do. The ponies of now are so boring to play with and turning you all into draco-ponies grew tiresome five centuries ago. Now I've got these dragons I have to raise and train, but they haven't matured fast enough yet." She rotated and laid her head n the arm rest and let her forelegs droop off the furniture. "Ugh. All these ideas in my head." She put her hooves to her head and gestured it exploding outwards. Her crowd was even more perturbed than just a few seconds ago.

Dragons of all shapes and colors filled the dome, with the eggs being at the highest point to have as much sunlight and heat as possible while the hatchlings, juveniles, and so forth. Each floor was specifically designed for each age step of the dragon life cycle and while the time to wait for the full growth should be in the years, as with most animals, the dragoness had her fun in manipulating their growth using her magic. It wasn't something that was liked by the ponies of her time, let alone ponies at all, not to mention the rest of the species in the world, but the dragoness didn't care. She wanted her army as fast as possible to fight and preferably kill the King Dragon.

"Maybe Twilight will die during the battle. Hopefully, Celestia won't. I still need her when Luna comes back," DQ spoke quietly.

She rolled off of the seat, slamming hard onto the ground and startling the crowd in front of her, but the dragoness wasn't hurt by such things. After all, her magic managed to heal her cut would quite fast, and with yet more exposure to swamp ejge venom, she developed even more antibodies, and it would improve her survival later on when the battle was finished.

"Mmmoff moff marr memmst mmtch mmmf mmmgs mming?" Her face was face the ground, muffling her speech.

"What?" one of the draco-ponies asked. 

The dragoness tilted her head slightly and looked upwards. "How is our latest batch of dragon eggs doing?"

"Oh-OH! They're doing great! You've been doing a fantastic job, my queen."

The kirin rose immediately onto her haunches and threw her forelegs cheerfully into the air. "Great!" she cheered. "Will they be ready by the time the King Dragon awakens?"

"You'll have about two thousand fully grown dragons by that time and a few other thousand will still be juveniles." The draco-pony scratched the back of his neck. "I honestly don't think it's a good idea to get the juveniles into the war. Don't you think it would be best to keep them until after? They'll be ready to bolster the losses of your forces, and then some, and we'll be there to command and grow them."

"What makes you think I'm sending in the juveniles?" DQ asked from the floor. 

"Well, what about the dragon you sent with one of us to Celestia's castle? It was a juvenile."

"Oh, pfffff." DQ stood back up and wobbled playfully from left to right. "That was just to send a message. There's no reason I would have sent a simple juvenile anyways." She looked away and put a hoof to her mouth. "Although, honestly, I wasn't expecting to see Twilight there. I thought they would have jailed her in the dungeons. Anyways! I want to see the adults and how much they've grown." Her cheerful face took an extremely dark turn. "And to see which ones feel like 'rebelling' again."

The adults were on the second floor, directly above the draco-ponies and DQ. They were easily reached by small stairs dotted all about the first floor, and upon reaching the second, one was met with a roof so high the room might as well have been a mountain cave from fantasy tales. Several enormous openings around allowed the dragons to come and go as they pleased and bring back whatever treasures they felt like collecting, although the Dragon Queen was not exactly loving of gold and jewels.

"What is this?" she asked a giant purple dragon.

"What is what?"

"This pile of gold. It's several feet in width and height."

"And what are you going to use it for?"

"To eat?"

"Dragons don't eat gold," she sighed.

"Uhhh...To hoard?"

"To hoard why?" she asked inquisitively. The dragon couldn't give a proper answer and started sweating nervously.

"Get rid of it all," DQ ordered.

With her back turned, the dragon took the opportunity to growl at her and cover his hoard. "No. It's mine!"

"Are you sure about that?" she wondered.

His answer was a loud roar. The Dragon Queen's answer was returning to her true form turned to roar at the dragon in return. The other dragons stopped their activities to see the confrontation and watch who the victor would be. The adult dragon tried to claw the dragoness but found his arm intercepted and a palm slamming into his throat. With his airway blocked, the dragon fell to the ground, gasping for air.

"Every DAY I have to do this with you. EVERY day!" The dragoness rotated in place to view all of the dragons. "WHY?! You know full well you'll never win against me. Stop this foolishness and get rid of those useless rocks and metals. They distract you and ruin the training regimens you're supposed to be going through."

While she stomped away, the choking noises of the dragon grabbed the dragon queen's attention and she facepalmed. "Oh! Of course!. I forgot about you." With just a flick of her finger, a small dart of magic hit the dragon in the throat, healing it and allowing him to breathe once more.

Back on her chair as a kirin, the dragoness pondered about what she would do after the King Dragon was killed. Perhaps she could kill the Royal Ejge. It would be in a weakened state, after all, or perhaps she could simply wait for her juveniles to mature until her army of dragons was big enough to wipe out the individual pockets of ejge darted around and allow her to conquer and subject the ponies under her rule. After all, without her, ponies can't survive in an age where the apocalypse is active. What's to say another apocalypse won't occur after that? This is an entirely new world, one created the precise second she and Twilight stepped hoof onto the lands. After removing the debris, it was entirely possible that a plant could grow in that spot where it was never capable of growing before. The dragoness preferred to uproot the sprout before it had a chance to grow and spread all over the walls, and the best way would be to have her 'gardeners' active day and night.

"Hmmmm," she thought. "Maybe I should go ahead and mess with Celestia and Twilight's heads a bit more. I didn't think they'd be this dense, though. You all think nopony recognizes me because of the way I act?" she asked her draco-ponies.

Most of them made various noises of uncertainty, although one still gave an answer. "What do you mean? You are our queen! The Dragon Queen!"

"Yes yes," DQ waved her hand in annoyance. "I know that, but I mean, does anypony recognize my APPEARANCE? I wasn't always the Dragon Queen you know and worship, after all."

The crowd shrugged and shook their head, prompting DQ to facehoof. "I see it really is my body and personality. I thought that making it this way would have become painfully obvious, but, whatever. I'll have to make do with your stupidity." She clapped her hooves together. "Alrighty then! Time to plan on new ways to mess with the ponies of this time and Twilight Sparkle as well. Any suggestions?"
> Twilight's Training Regimen
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upon their return, Twilight set up a training course for the guards to follow while she fashioned heavy armor from the scales she gathered. She still needed some for her own needs, such as repairs, but there were enough scales to out fit at least a hundred and fifty ponies with dragonscale armor and still have some left over for repairs. The course she created only comprised a few hay bales shaped like a dragon's belly with several red dots painted in various areas. There was no real purpose to this other than to help the unicorns develop their magical talents regardless of Twilight's thoughts of such things. The pegasi were training themselves to carry heavy weights at increased speeds and during longer times while the earth ponies were undergoing a similar training but for resistance to strong wind pressure, and the non-combatant unicorns helped them with this by creating strong gales around the ponies' bodies while they laid down on an elevated platform.

Celestia, meanwhile, felt stress growing within her. There was only two weeks left until the King Dragon was awoken and she didn't know what to do. The Dragon Queen had sent her a message about the location of its awakening and she, in turn, informed the lake ejge about it, and repeat did the messaging go. The main issues was: How as it all going to happen. Pacing back and forth on her balcony, the alicorn would gnaw on her finger nails if she had any. Shoot, she would gnaw on her hooves if she didn't need all four legs to walk appropriately. She might have been immortal, but if she had to live through a world where everypony was going to die agonizingly because they were caught between a rock and a hard place, then how could she live with herself. She needed to save some of them. She wouldn't be able to save them all. It was in all of their best interests after all. Yet...when she leaned over the rail to take a peek at Twilight sharpening her tools and teaching another group of guards the best techniques for fighting against draco ponies and how to stay on a dragon when you've latched on, she couldn't help but feeling a little bit of hope. She knew how Twilight's timeline played out, but how would this one work with so much more present? And what were all these living shadows? They kept appearing in greater numbers in the lands around Canterlot and they would only increase in number the more days went by.

"Are you okay, Princess?" a voice asked.

Celestia bounced in surprise and spun around to see the source of the voice. It was an elderly mare of a pale green color and with a mane and tail of orange. "No...I must be honest," Celestia sighed. "I am terrified of what is to come."

"Oh?" the mare set a tray of tea cups and a tea pot on a small white block next to the door. "And why is that?" she asked kindly.

"Because...Because I am afraid. I am afraid of of what is to come."

"Then you are afraid of the unknown." The mare chuckled. "I would think somepony like you would never worry about such things."

"I may be immortal, but I am not invincible, and just the thought of me leaving you all alone to fend for yourselves when this war occurs..." Celestia put a hoof to her stomach and frowned. "It makes me sick to my stomach."

The mare grabbed the tea kettle with her mouth and poured its contents into one of the cups then handed it to Celestia. 

"Just because you fear the unknown does not mean it is inherently bad."

"But--"

"Princess Celestia, if I may, you have seen more generations of ponies than I have. In fact, I recall seeing you when I was just a wee filly of four years, yet here I am by your side as an old mare of sixty-two. You have seen my ancestors when they were young, and even their's when they were at the same age, yet you seem oddly stuck in the past." Celestia stared into her tea. "Is it because you miss those that have passed? Is it becoming an obsession?"

"It's not becoming an obsession," Celestia replied. Her voice had an undertone of growing aggression that the servant would be remiss to ignored.

"You say that, but you said, yourself, just now, that you would rather keep everypony alive with you and that you didn't want to leave us."

"Yes, but--"

"But what, Celestia? What do you fear?"

"I FEAR BEING ALONE!" Celestia shouted. Luckily, the guards did not notice the outburst. "My sister is stuck in the moon, corrupted by her own emotions, and I am an immortal being capable of moving astral bodies!" Celestia pointed at the sun. "If I have nopony to watch over, then I have nopony at all."

The servant took a sip of her own cup of tea and slowly spun the beverage around its container while she savored the liquid herself. "So you fear fighting this inevitability just because you don't want to be alone?" The servant chuckled. "Princess, you don't need to worry. I have grand children growing up, and you will see them with you always. In fact, you're our only link to our ancestors and our past. It's one of the reasons we all look up to you...Andnotriseupinrebelliontooverthrowyou," she whispered.

"What?"

"You can't stay stuck in the past, but you can't ignore it either. You must look forward, but as you do so, you must look back as well to make sure your cart didn't drop anything. This is the joy of life for some."

"To ignore history is to repeat its mistakes?" Celestia asked.

"Exactly! You know history better than any of us, and because of that, you're more than capable of confronting a problem before it even happens. Plus, you might be getting older, but we're not getting any younger. With your guidance, we and our descendants will always have a vast amount of knowledge and a way to overcome obstacles."

Celestia was starting to perk up from the speech she was being given. She realized that this wasn't the first time she was having issues since Twilight arrived, but she was determined to evolve from this and never doubt herself again.

"And I won't be able to do anything without you all. It's a mutually beneficial relationship."

"Uhhh..."

Celestia grabbed her servant by the forelegs. "If we survive this, I'm making a school dedicated to the acquisition and sharing of all knowledge gathered by Equestrians and, possibly, beyond."

"Huh. That's not a bad idea. In fact, that's a fantastic idea!" the servant cheered. 

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to rush to Twilight Sparkle and have her punch the pity out of me."

"WHAT?!"

Before the servant could protest, the alicorn had already rushed off into the castle and away from sight. Below, Twilight flipped a guard onto his back by using his own spear against him.

"Idiots!" she scolded. "I already told you that draco-ponies have increased strength compared to a normal pony. If you keep thrusting your spears like a skeleton then you'll never be able to fight them off!"

One of the guards leaned to his comrade and whispered in their ear. "What the Abyss does that even mean?"

"YOU!" Twilight pointed at the guard who jumped backwards and raised his hooves in terror.

"WHAT?!"

"You have something to say?"

"N-no, m'am!"

"Then why are you talking right now?"

"What? But you--"

"I don't like your tone. Clip the roots from your moss-covered rear and come sparring with me. We'll see if you can do anything other than grow leaves."

The grow looked at his comrades, silently pleading for help, but they all averted their eyes, leaving the guard to fend for himself. A loud thump garnered their attention and caused the summoned guard to drop his jaw by pure surprise.

"You think you can train me, Twilight Sparkle?"

The lavender unicorn huffed in bemusement. "And what does somepony who doesn't even know how to kick a pebble know...about..."

Celestia was wearing armor all over her body, and it wasn't just a sheet of folded metal covering certain parts of her body. It was a very complex one. The entire armor was covered by a very thin sheet of melted gold to give anyone the impression that it was pure gold. This would give anyone knowledgeable in metallurgy a false sense of superiority due to how 'soft' gold is. The helmet surrounded Celestia's entire head, but the jaws were separately attached, almost gluing against the alicorn's mouth. This allowed her to open and close her mouth without hiding it behind the usual design of a full-plate helmet. Her neck was comprised of a multi-layer construct with a white brush extending until it reached the back. The front of the neck had a white losange melted into the metal with various lines extending horizontally from it then curving upwards to disappear below the brush. Her leg armor was segmented much like her neck armor, but the knees were covered with horizontally placed white losanges; and her shoes were shaped into a sharp, forward facing point, giving the sole a shape of a tear drop. Her tail was also covered in armor with a white brush serving as a tail replacement while worn. As for her body, the chest piece held a white, six-pointed star shaped jewel for jewel regalia. The armor extended onto the wings where they somehow coated the feathers as well, giving them a nice, golden hue.

Twilight smirked at the sight. "Wearing a bit of metal won't help you survive anything, Imposter."

"Then teach me."

"What?" Twilight was taken aback by the request.

"I want you to teach me how to defend myself. I already know how to use magic, but I don't know how to use proper melee techniques. I need you to teach me."

Twilight cracked her neck a few times then stared intently at the alicorn in front of her. "And should I refuse?"

"Then I will be more than willing to beg you for your teaching services."

Twilight huffed. "Then expect to be treated with the same disregard as these worthless slackers."

"I don't exactly approve of you slandering my guards, but...If I must."

"Good, NOW LET'S START WITH BUILDING OUR BODIES! TWENTY PUSH-UPS IN TWENTY SECONDS!"


> Darkness Overwhelming
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"This is the mountain range?" Celestia wondered.

"Seems like it. It's what the witch said," Twilight responded.

It was the fated day, one that everypony at the castle had been preparing for. An enormous group of ten thousand ponies had been gathered from all around to Equestria to be sent to a line of mountains far to the east and over the borders. The long walk had nothing on the training and workouts Twilight had forced upon the guards who still ached all over. Celestia, though, took the brunt of the pain. Because of her animosity, Twilight put Celestia through multiple, personal workouts and sparring sessions. Regardless of her armor, Celestia had still been bruised and severely wounded on several occasions, but she used her magic to mend the broken bones and torn skin as much as possible

"Alright," Celestia confirmed. "Everypony, prepare yourselves. Pegasi and earth ponies need to stay behind while the unicorns and Twilight's dragon hunters attack the King Dragon and whatever retinue of its appears."

There was a quiet sound, and the sky was only a bit cloudy. It wasn't a setting for anything 'dramatic' that could occur, but it did give a bit of a chill to everypony despite the warm temperatures. 

"Princess!" one of the guards called out. "The ejge are here!" 

In quite literally every direction, the flying serpents came. Filling the sky in a plethora of rainbows, they hovered around the mountain range, awaiting the awakening mentioned by the ponies. The ejge grew restless over time, and a weight in Celestia's throat grew. She was nervous and worried that the dragon queen lied about the occurrence being on that very day. For several hours, everyone waited, and for several hours nothing happened, then the boredom and suspicion of the ejge was destroyed by the arrival of dozens of shadow serpents crashing into them and throwing them down onto the surface of the mountain.

"It's here!" Twilight shouted. 

The dragon hunters Celestia mentioned only numbered twenty, but they were fierce. Twilight fashioned special armor for them and left all the spares behind. Why she would do that when she made enough for a hundred and fifty ponies was due to her personality and expectations. However, because of her choosiness, these ponies were the near equivalent of her comrades from the apocalyptic times.

"Get ready. You'll all see the fun we have to put up with in the future, but this will only be a tastler of it all."

"Tastler?" a guard wondered.

Her comrade answered. "I think she means 'sampler', but I'm not sure in what context."  

"She mixes up a lot of terms, doesn't she?"

"It's not really her fault. I mean, she--"

The guard stopped after a powerful quake rumbled through the ground, followed by another and another in slow intervals. The ponies and ejge looked around for the source, then witnessed not the only the source, but the incoming shape of it. It was an immense beast of pure black color surrounded by a swirling mist of shadows gradually rising above its head like a swarm of flies. Its two long, bony arms reached all the way to the floor and dragged along it. Attached to the heads were quadruple-segmented claws that served as fingers and whose size were about the length of a four story building. The main body was long, wide, and hunched over as though the beast were in pain. The head connected to its long neck was pyramidal in shape, with the two rear corners curving inwards and the top corner bent left and back. Mid-way across the head, the flat surfaces rounded out into a half-cylinder, and upon this shape were three, pure-white eyes that were practically closed. Whatever the creature was, it didn't like the sunlight. It was a unique, tripodal creature, but the leg structure was incorrect, for lack of a better term. The frontal leg was the shortest of the needle-like appendages with the rear two being longer than its main body and pushing it along. Because of its size, the creature was easily capable of walking along the top of the mountains.

"What in the world is that thing?!" Twilight shouted.

"I have no idea!" Celestia turned towards Twilight and grabbed her intently. "I told you: We haven't surveyed most of Equestria. I can't know everything!"

The ponies watched helplessly as the ejge fought off the shadowy creatures that broke off of it every time they tried to hurt the creature. The monster seemed more annoyed and whined when they would try to slice it.

"It seems very unhappy," one of the dragon slayers noted.

"Of course it is. It's being attacked by those things," another answered sarcastically.

"No. It was already miserable before. I could see it."

"Great theatrics, huh?"

Twilight and the surrounding ponies jumped back in surprise. The Dragon Queen had teleported right in front of the dragon ponies and was eating a carrot, by the looks of it.

"How did you--" one of the slayers tried to ask.

"Teleportation spell."

"Is that the 'shadow' you mentioned?" Twilight asked.

"Yes. It is the Yuhis."

"Yuhis?" The lavender unicorn scratched the back of her head in confusion. "I've never seen it before."

"That's because you foals were hiding in chasms and caves. The Yuhis travels along mountain tops and thick forests. I've seen it wander about the mountains in our time before."

Celestia interjected herself. "But it doesn't get attacked by the dragons and ejge?"

The dragoness laughed loudly, nearly dropping her carrot. "Don't be absurd. They DID try to attack it before or even ignore it during their many fights."

"You used the past tense."

DQ pointed her carrot at the alicorn and nodded in agreement. "Very astute. Yes," she started as she put her meal back in her mouth. "The Yuhis, as I learned the name from an almost-intact library, is a Hecatonchires class."

"Hecatonchires?" Celestia repeated.

"Yes. It's above titan class."

"ABOVE?!" many of the ponies bellowed.

The kirin reeled in pain at the sudden explosion of sound. "Yes. Don't howl like a timber wolf." She adjusted herself and smiled again. "The only creatures in the world unaffected by the 'apocalypse', as this foal calls it," Twilight frowned and threw the dragoness a glare "are the hecatonchires. This is one such beast, and it seems that it was attracted to Equestria to look for food and shelter."

"Shelter? From what?" a slayer asked.

DQ remained silent and instead opted to point at the sun.

"It's afraid of sunlight?"

"Yup. At least, that's what I've concluded. However, as there's nothing big enough for it, it wanders eternally across the mountains, hoping to find what it seeks on the tallest peaks. Plus, the more they attack it, the more of those shadowy creatures are going to come. If they keep doing that, the creatures will become innumerable and barrel towards us. I hope that doesn't happen until--"

DQ's sentence was interrupted by the sound of roars. The sounds came from dragons coming from over the mountains and attacking the ejge. Another, more familiar roar came after a blue bolt of lightning sliced through four adult dragons, causing them to compress into  singularity.

"And there's the Royal Ejge," Twilight observed.

Everyone keeled over after yet another roar deafened nearly everypony and caused most of the fighting to stop. 

"What's with all the roaring?" a guard complained.

The mountain peak started shaking, attracting the attention of the Royal Ejge who bolted in front of the giant of nature and waited patiently. An enormous, golden claw erupted from the peak and slammed into the back of the Yuhis, making it shuffle forward uncontrollably and causing more of the shadow creatures to come forth and start chopping at the dragon's arm. Irritated by the small pains being afflicted upon it, the golden reptile erupted from the mountain top, throwing debris everywhere. Celestia and the unicorns joined together to create a wide shield of magic to shield themselves from the incoming mountain pieces.

The King Dragon was completely golden in color and twice the size of a fully grown, adult dragon. Its claws were enormous and its body was extremely bulky. Two large horns stretched out from the top of its head and pointed backwards at a slightly elevated angle. It was a very blocky looking beast, and to announce its reawakening, the dragon belched out its flames in the air. They took the appearance of golden flames surrounded by a crackling bolts of yellow. Most ejge and dragons managed to dodge the breath of fire, but not all were so fortunate.

"Incoming plasma!" Twilight shouted.

The kirin focused magic into her claws and released it upon the shield, reinforcing it immensely and allowing the King Dragon's fetid breath to bounce off the bubble and onto the ground to the right of the group. Most of the guards backed away in horror when they saw the golden substance, both solid and liquid, melt through the ground.

"Huh?" the dragoness hummed.

The Yuhis had actually spun around to backhand the King Dragon, blasting it out of the mountain peak and interrupting its shout. Several more of the smaller shadows came off of it and started to attack everything in sight, including the mountains. A wave of them rushed over the rocky giants and towards the group of ponies, causing Twilight to grip her spear in bizarre eagerness. Celestia put a hoof to the mare's shoulder and shook her head.

"Looks like we'll be having a multi-way battle instead of simply two-ways," the Dragon Queen said. She was bouncing in place and being as giddy as ever. "I love multi-way battles! And we'll be having titan classes fighting a hecatonchires class, too!"

"To Hades with your 'classes'. They're all monsters in my book!" Twilight spat. "And they will all die for my future!"
> Greater than Gods
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As ejge, dragons, and shadow creatures fought in the air, every unicorn assisted their allies by forming groups of three and sending out focused balls of magic into the air to explode into multiple fragments which would then explode once more. They created fragmentation flak, and it was surprisingly effective against the dragons who were slow and cumbersome and could not flee fast enough when they saw the balls coming. Twilight and her dragon slayers were readying their weapons while pegasi remained on standby to carry them to the cluster of death currently flying in the air. Several fireballs exploded all around the landscape, damaging it tremendously, but they were simply charring some dirt in comparison to the corpses falling and crashing against both mountainside and hill. The shadow creatures were no exception, but with their varied bodies and sizes, the damages inflicted but their falls were minimal, and there would be no trace of their remains which melted into nothing.

"This is fun!" The dragoness clapped her hooves enthusiastically.

Her joy didn't sit well with the guards who fidgeted nervously in place. What they saw was like a battle between gods-No. It was something else entirely. The Yuhis, taking advantage of the quarreling between both the Royal Ejge and King Dragon, grabbed the golden titan by its wings as it started to fly with them and threw the beast over its shoulders, causing it to crash violently against the ground and create a localized earthquake. The Royal Ejge didn't take too kindly to its duel being interrupted and sliced through the Yuhis. While the serpent phased through the creature, it still howled in pain, and, judging by the way its voice was toned when it did so, it was filled with misery at the situation. For Celestia, it seemed to regret its actions against the King Dragon.

Twilight watched carefully for an opening between the battles and explosions, then it came. "THERE!" she shouted.

The dragon slayers jumped up to grab the pegasi's hooves and fly up into battle. Two thousand more regular soldiers did the same but weren't as fortunate or well-timed as the lavender unicorn and found themselves swatted out of the sky, or worse.

"Oh, there she goes," the dragoness cheerfully pointed out.

Celestia rolled her eyes and groaned in annoyance. "We KNOW, DQ."

Twilight forcefully pulled herself out of the pegasi's grip to land on the neck of a dragon currently battling three ejge and plant her spear into the nape to prevent herself from falling off. The action did not go unnoticed and the dragon howled in pain tried to grab Twilight and throw her off. Unfortunately for it, the ejge were preventing such an action while Twilight carved off the scales and aimed at the exposed flesh below.

"Och. You're a big boy aren't ya?" Twilight said. "I'll be able to make so much with your body."

Several blasts fired from her spear into the neck caused a rather gruesome situation. The best way to describe it would be in saying the dragon couldn't keep its head on with the whole situation. Twilight hitched a ride on one of the ejge and jumped down to stab the leg of yet another adult dragon. On instinct, the giant threw its arm upward, but Twilight couldn't get off with the momentum. She was lodged into its arm. To rectify this, she fired another blast of energy from her spear and blew herself off the dragon. As she didn't really cut off any scales, the attack had no effect on the draconic giant which intercepted Twilight with a full breath of fire at pinpoint range. The unicorn hunkered up into a ball, letting the fire skim off of her armor, and skim it did. The dragon's brief moment of surprise gave the mare the opportunity to stab the dragon's extended snout and shoot through its nasal cavities multiple times. It fell slowly to the ground with a veritable volcano of smoke coming from its insides. Twilight galloped along its body to jump off a wing just before the momentum of it folding upwards was lost.

She took this opportunity to look around and see that her hard work had born her fruit of great quality. The few dragon slayers were slicing their way through the dragons and their teamwork allowed them to do this much better than Twilight currently could despite having her 'superior' equipment. Back upon the mountains, she could see that the Yuhis had grabbed an adult dragon and just crushed it within its grip. It threw the corpse far away from it and hit a few darting ejge in the process. The King Dragon and Royal were currently wrestling; Claw and wing put into it all. They constantly tried to bite at each other and expel their element at the other but failed miserably every time. If it weren't a war, the streams of golden lava and balls of blue, gravity distorting energy would've been a beautiful energy. Below, Celestia and the guards were fighting away the shadow creatures, and Celestia's personal touches to Twilight's style was more useful than she initially thought. The alicorn charge her armor with magic, and with every it performed against an enemy that would connect, a tiny explosion of magic would cause them to dissolve immediately, and if it didn't, the creature would be blasted backwards into its brethren.

The battle lasted for several hours, with the Yuhis often grabbing the Royal Ejge and using it as a weapon to smack the King Dragon away. The hecatonchires grew tired of the battle and wanted to leave, which it did when it saw that the King Dragon and Royal Ejge would not back down and were too embroiled in their rivalry to stop, so it discreetly walked away. Well, as discreetly as a two hundred-and-twenty meter creature could be. This didn't result in less shadow creatures as they were still present and needed to be rid of as soon as was considered possible.

Twilight had killed around fourteen dragons on her own and her dragon slayers had killed around twenty-one total. While they outnumbered her 'kill count', the mare did everything on her own. The ejge were as exhausted from the battle as anyone else, but it didn't matter. As long as the King Dragon and Royal Ejge fought, all parties would fight, but both 'leaders' were heavily wounded. There was one thing Celestia noticed when she had was allowed a brief moment of laxity in her fight: The Royal Ejge would not attack when one of its kind was in the way, but the King Dragon had no such qualms. For someone like Celestia, this seemed like it went further than a deeply ingrained hatred for one another. Twilight and the other slayers used the ejge and dragons to hop towards the King Dragon and harass it as much as they could. The giant didn't respond kindly to this and belched out its stream of plasma in all directions, melting literally everything it touched, but Twilight had trained everypony for this, and they held on.

"We all went through this scenario back at home," Twilight thought to herself. "First, we destroy the wings to hamper its aerial capabilities and further risks of 'bombardment'."

They slayers all gathered around the wings and started chopping away at the thin film but couldn't manage. Twilight and the few other unicorns started blasting away with spear and explosive magics respectively.

"Some of us stay on its head to distract it enough that it can't concentrate on its wings. Too much pain."

What Twilight mentioned was true as well, and the slayers were doing their best to irritate the giant, but the Royal Ejge wasn't going to wait for them to finish and took the opportunity to slice through a single area on the chest of the King Dragon where it had been constantly pounding on, and it cut through the wound cleanly. Its element started compressing the area, but the King Dragon's own element plus its own willpower prevented the element from continuing. Amusingly enough, it hadn't noticed that its wings had torn to shreds and that it was not falling to the ground. The ponies went along for the ride, and with a deafening 'thump' and lifting of dust, the dragon was now on the floor. The giant rolled around the floor to crush the ponies, but they all managed to get away in time to harass the monster even more. Unfortunately, the bombardment the Royal Ejge performed coupled by the spells of the unicorns slowly sapped away at its life, and no matter how much of the land it destroyed and lifted up with its claws, it could not stop the attacks. After a few more minutes of receiving all of the attacks, it fell to the ground. Twilight jumped on its muzzle and glared it straight in the eyes.

"This is what happens when you mess with my future, monster," she spat.

The tired eyes of the King Dragon focused once again and it glared at Twilight, the pale iris of its becoming a blindingly bright, electric yellow. Twilight did not falter, but it was the first time in her life that she felt genuine terror, and it was with this final staredown that the King Dragon finally fell. The dragons and ejge weren't done with their battles, as were the shadow creatures, but the Royal Ejge landed next to its rival with a few hops and skips. It clawed at the monster one last time and lowered itself to 'see' Twilight and observe her briefly. She was still staring at the dead eyes of the creature. Everypony else, on the other hand, were cheering wholeheartedly and throwing their weapons in the air in joy.

"Congratulations, Twilight!" Celestia cheered. "You've saved us all...but...what's going to happen to you now?"

Twilight hopped off the Dragon's snout and landed in front of Celestia. "Well, I guess that, now that my future is no longer, I'll cease to be." She gave a half-hearted smile. "Well, perhaps you won't become the traitor as I expected."

"I won't forget you, Twilight," Celestia smiled back in return.

Everypony waited for the disappearing to happen, but it didn't. The rabble of confusion was stopped by a loud snorting ollowed by hysterical laughter.

"Why am I not disappearing? Why aren't you disappearing?" Twilight asked the dragoness.

She was answered by another snort. "Oh wait, you're serious." The dragoness face-hoofed. "You stupid foal. That's not how time works!"

"How would you know?!"

"Because I've had more than enough time to study it and the works of others' myself. The PRECISE 'smallest' second we entered this timeline created another, which should have ALREADY destroyed us if we're to believe you, so the 'avoiding the past' stuff," the dragoness mocked. "won't do anything."

"Then why are we still here?"

"Because our timeline remains. All we did was create another reality we belong to as well as we're an integral part of its creation." The Dragon Queen's cheerful demeanor suddenly turned darker and more serious. "...But I refuse to have you in my brighter future or part of its creation."

DQ roared loudly and summoned a flock of fresh dragons to come in and attack both dragon and ejge alike, but the Royal Ejge did not budge and watched Twilight carefully. Twilight tried to resume her battle stance, but all of her efforts in fighting made her far too exhausted.

"Ahhh!" The dragoness laughed. "The spirit is willing but the body is weak. Don't worry," she reassured. "The body AND the spirit will become weak in just a second, and I'll do it with this form for the additional bit of humiliation!"

She pounced at Twilight to crush her head with one of her claw-hooves but was intercepted by Celestia's wing armor. The alicorn glared at the dragoness with vicious intent. She wouldn't back down from this. Like it or not, Twilight was one of her ponies now, and she cared immensely for each and every one of them.
> But Why?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Dragon Queen leaned against Celestia's hoof and closed the gap between their muzzles. Both glared intently at each other but with different purposes. Celestia's was filled with a righteous determination while DQ's was filled with a bloodlust and 'divine' need to accomplish her goals. 

"Why are you stopping me, Celestia?" the Dragon Queen asked.

"Because Twilight is one of my subjects."

The dragoness scoffed and kicked away from the alicorn. "She's nopony's 'subject'. She, along with her comrades, are only a plague upon our own world and refuse to join me to ensure the survival of our species. I'm only doing what's right!"

"Doing what's right?" Celestia shouted with anger. She charged at the dragoness and missed her strike but managed to block a fireball with her wing again. "I saw what you did to them. You transform them. Twist them. They're not ponies anymore; They're just little toys to you!"

The dragoness responded to this by charging into Celestia and using her sharp teeth to grab the alicorn by the foreleg and toss her against a large boulder next to them. The Royal Ejge watched intently while Twilight breathed regularly to recover as fast as possible.

"Their previous forms were 'toys' to everything and everyone! You never lived through what I lived through and you never will thanks to my plans! I had to change them to let them survive in an environment no longer viable to pony kind."

Celestia summoned several floating lines that appeared phased out of existence. Flat bubbles of light floated around these lines as if they were under water and letting loose vast quantities of gas. The kirin knew exactly what they were and dodged away from them as best as she could. Each line they would collide with another would warp the space around them, confusing the victim of their whereabouts and leaving them open to attack.

"And then what, let everypony else die?" Celestia fell to her side after being hit in the face with a large rock. She stumbled back to her hooves and showed that she wouldn't back down. "What you did was warp them against their will and use them. You didn't give them the chance at better lives! You enslaved them!"

The Dragon Queen bared her teeth in pure rage. Using her unique magic, she focused the spell into her forehooves then let it loose onto the white alicorn. She didn't have time to react and found herself flipping backwards at phenomenal speeds. Dazed and on the verge of vomiting, Celestia found herself being lifted by her throat and face-to-face with DQ. The dragoness used a transitional period between dragon and pony form to be able to stand upright.

"I did what was necessary! You weren't there!" she shouted in rage. "I saw everything. I saw the King Dragon awaken and start destroying everything around it while dragons gathered. We couldn't stop them. We were powerless. Even I was powerless in front of that abomination." As she reminisced, her grip tightened around Celestia's throat. "The dragons were reshaping the world to better suit their new leader, but they encroached on the ejge's territory. That's when the true apocalypse started."

Celestia channeled the magic in the dragoness' claws and morphed it temporarily to let false lava flow through her veins and burn them from the inside-out. She fell onto her hind legs, looked at her hooves, then back at the alicorn having coughing fits.

"That won't stop me either!" She yelled. "We struggled like you did. The minotaurs and griffins were predators and better at hunting than you or I! They were the first to start hunting the dragons, but when the ejge arrived, they mistook them for additional enemies and made even more!" The hooves of the dragoness audibly sizzled as they healed while Celestia's coughs calmed down. "Just outside of my home, I saw the battle raging in my own lands and it was about to hit my home. I looked in every tome I could then found the right one!" DQ looked up and gave a disturbing smile. It was almost like she was going insane or, rather, already was. "I used the forbidden spell I was given not for me, but for them!" she gestured to all the ponies around her. "I survived the ensuing battle that destroyed my home, but didn't manage to save anypony. When I saw later that ponies had survived I extended a 'claw' to them. After all, if I could get such power, couldn't I give it out in return?"

"But in return, you waged war on everypony who refused your alleged 'gifts'."

"They weren't 'gifts'," the kirin corrected. "They were requirements of survival! You wouldn't send a pony in the desert without water, would you?!"

"Don't use fallacies to forward your arguments!" Celestia shouted. They both readied themselves for another confrontation. "Who even are you?! You say you saw it all, but how?"

DQ shook her head in disappointment. "Because I was YOU at one point!"

"What?!"

"Are you serious?" She frowned. "I gave several hints. I even made it painfully obvious that I was you at one point!"

Twilight limped forward and smacked the kirin gently on the rump with her spear. "Then why was Celestia depicted as a black alicorn associated with the stars?"

Twilight was bucked in the jaw by the pony who scoffed at her. "I'm surprised you would even mention that now when you didn't before. Still...That was my sister after she returned. My link to the elements was destroyed and so the spell dissolved faster than it should have. The mare who should've gone berserk and tried to get rid of me as I did her saw the devastation to the world." The kirin rubbed her chin and started thinking. "I'm guessing something snapped in her and almost returned to her original form, but because of her appearance and her well-placed love for me, she adopted my old name and passed herself off as a figurehead for ponies everywhere until I found her and got rid of her."

Celestia's pupils shrunk at what the mare in front of her just said.

"Well-placed? Her love was ILL placed!" Twilight corrected.

With a flick of her wrist, the kirin created a localized explosion that flipped Twilight away from her. "Oh, shut up, you," she calmly ordered. "Like you would know."

"You...You killed your own sister?!" Celestia was on the verge of crying.

"Pfff, yes. Why are you crying? She betrayed us! You should be grateful!"

"G-grateful?!"

"Yes! She betrayed us once then betrayed us a second time!...Ah...but wait." DQ smiled sheepishly. "Oh, she didn't even know it was me. Ha. She did fight bravely though. Oh, if only if only."

Images flew through Celestia's head and her imagination was running wild. She was seeing Nightmare Moon returning to the world then returning to her original self and approaching ponies to help them with her knowledge and vast powers.

"How?" Celestia muttered.

"Oh, she was teaching some ponies how to fabricate better weapons with easier techniques, then I found her amongst these ponies I later granted a better life to. She was SO feisty!" DQ laughed. "Still, she didn't listen, so I just killed he--"

The dragoness couldn't finish her sentence because Celestia started bombarding her with stones of magic that gradually increased in size until they became house sized. Exhausted, the mare fell over. She was glad it was finally over.

"You broke my wings!" DQ exclaimed. 

Bloodied and bruised, the dragoness climbed out of the immense crater Celestia had created and limped on three legs. "I don't remember that spell!"

"That's because..." Celestia gasped between breaths. "I went through special training you never went through. One thing I know for certain is that I'll never be you! You might be 'me', but you aren't the same one as I am now. You're a lost and corrupted version and I disown you."

DQ winced in pain and glared at Celestia. "Then I'll show you why nopony ever managed to kill me!"

The dragoness resumed her original form and glared down at the ponies below her. In her rage, she forgot one of the two things capable of taking her down was right next to them, and in her heavily wounded state, there was no way she would be able to deal with it. The Royal Ejge sliced through the dragoness and landed right in front of her. Cringing in more pain, the dragoness toppled over, landing heavily on the ground. Her 'soldiers' witnessed the event and flew to her aid. While the Royal Ejge wanted to stop them, it was too exhausted to do so, hence why DQ did not compress into a singularity from her wound. Together, the four dragons managed to fly their leader to safety, and all but the ejge dispersed.

Celestia looked at the Royal Ejge and smiled while it tilted its head slightly. "I hope this improves relations between our two people," she struggled to say.

The alicorn awoke in a single, plain white room in a hospital bed surrounded by doctors catering to her every need. She was wrapped in bandages and had a magic locking ring placed on her horn. 

"I'm back at the castle?" she wondered aloud.

"Yes, Princess," one of the doctors answered. "We were worried that you would never awaken.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"About three days."

"Well," she chuckled. "That isn't much." She rubbed her head and groaned in pain as she recalled the events that had transpired. "What about the guards?"

The doctors and nurses looked at each other and their expressions weren't that of a sour satisfaction. "Only three thousand three hundred and fifty-seven of the ten thousand survived."

Celestia covered her face with her hooves. "And what about Twilight?"

"Oh, she and her dragon slayers survived the battle as well. So, that's one positive."

"A good positive is that there were still survivors."

"Well, yes, but--"

"Anything else?" Celestia interjected?

"Well..."

The guards had a 'thank you' present for Twilight in the form of the corpse of the King Dragon that had been brought to the castle with extreme difficulty. The Royal Ejge even left one of its scales for her, having voluntarily plucked it off its body and placed it atop the mare. Despite having multiple fractures, Twilight immediately rushed to make a weapon out of the ejge scale and armor out of the King Dragon's once she had awoken and learned of the 'gift'. It was unprecedented. She had two of the most powerful materials in the known world. Still, she was forced back into her bed multiple times, although Sparkles and everypony else had trouble keeping her in bed, even with straps.

Three months later, as Twilight finished the final designs for her armor and weapon and wore them proudly, a temporal portal opened in Canterlot where she came through. The unicorn, Celestia, and many others rushed to see it. It was the same stallion that sent Twilight through in the first place.

"Twilight, is that you?" a white stallion asked.

"Yes!" she cheered then winced in pain.

"What are you wearing?"

"Armor from the skin and scales of the King Dragon."

There was very loud and resounding 'WHAT?!' that came from beyond the portal. "That's amazing! How did the battle go?"

"Well...That's a long story..."

"Twilight," Celestia interrupted. "Who is this?"

When she came into view, the stallion immediately became hostile. "What's the traitor doing here?!"

"Not this again," Celestia sighed.

"It's okay. While she IS 'her', she didn't follow the same path. This is the original Celestia.

"...I don't get it."

"Celestia, this Marble. Marble, this is Celestia." Twilight faced the alicorn again after her little presentation. "He is the one who sent me back in time," Twilight explained.

"I see. Pleased to meet you," Celestia smiled.

"I can't say the same."

"What are you doing there?" Twilight asked.

"We wanted to know if you were successful in your mission and what you were planning on doing."

"...Well..." Twilight scratched the back of her head.

"We're not forcing you to return. We're doing fine either way. You already helped another timeline survive, and the 'us' of that time will not have to deal with the horrors we have."

"Wait, you knew that we wouldn't disappear?"

The stallion frowned in disappointment. "I told you that before you left."

Twilight scrunched up her face and stomped forward. "Is there a way to bring you all here?!" she asked.

"I...Well...I don't supposed it's impossible, but..."

"But?"

"We're about three hundred in total, and many of us are in the caves, still. To bring us all, including our city, to that time would require a power equivalent to the output of the sun."

"Then let me worry about that," Celestia smirked.

The stallion was about to protest, but Twilight stopped him with a gesture to "zip his lips'.

"However, we cannot bring your city with us. You can, however, bring parchments, scrolls, books, and anything else you have that contains your knowledge to allow you to rebuild in the same comfort as before."

The stallion leaned and looked at Twilight with a befuddled expression. "Book?" he wondered.

"I'll explain later."

"Then give me a minute. We're currently under another siege."

Celestia's whole body glowed a bright sheen of gold that engulfed the portal as did the energy being used on the other side. The stallion did say that bring Twilight back would be a problem for the 'wizards of old', and Celestia could still be considered as such. Everypony that had gathered around to see what exactly was going on were completely blinded. The spell Celestia was using lasted for a solid five minutes, then everyone was dropped in front of the lake where the war had taken place those few months past. The stallion and all of Twilight's companions rubbed their eyes and looked around, confused. Many of them started jumping everywhere in panic hen they noticed they were on grass, while others simply fainted. All of her work and efforts amounted to this one moment, and it gave her more than she ever wished for. Twilight's smile nearly reached her ears. This was a new temporal tangent, but with new tangents came new events, and because of the Dragon Queen's meddling, a few things were going to have to be taken care of before anything else.