Fic Cancellation #4 - Continued

After Mareland is attacked, most of the captured ponies are brought back to Paradise Hills. This is the first stop that Lightning’s group takes to free the captured ponies. When they finish their attack on Paradise Hills, they manage to rescue most of the captured ponies from Mareland; however, several of them are still missing, including Lightning’s mother, having been taken to the Fort, which is the slaver’s main base in the region. Lightning then sets her sights on the Fort for her next objective. Once the battle is over, they bring the ponies back to Clinic, and to rest themselves. This is the end of volume one.

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After Lightning rescues many of the captives from Mareland from Paradise Hills, they make their way back to Clinic. The next destination for Lightning then is The Fort. Since Dawn’s hometown is on the way there, they decide to head there first.

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Later in the story, after they leave Clinic again and head for Dawn’s hometown, they come back to the old barracks for shelter, where Lightning meets an alicorn, who turns out to be Pumpkin Cake. She then joins the party.

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The small, unnamed town is home to a very genre savvy scientist, Red Cross. Based solely on the fact that changelings are reported to live in the region, he set up magical alarms around his lab, which go off when a changeling enters. He then intentionally tells this to the group, and he can tell instantly from their expressions that there’s a changeling in their group. He then starts talking to them about his research, and what he needs done, telling them that they’re going to do a quest for him to get him what he wants. When they ask why they should, he says because otherwise he’ll expose the changeling in their group. He then also tells them that they can’t just kill him because he’s so well respected by the other inhabitants, that if they did, they would all turn on them. When they say that they could just leave, he replies by saying that while he’s not much of a fighter, all he would have to do is slow them down, while they can’t kill him. The ruckus would cause the citizens to investigate, and the changeling with them would be exposed by the magical alarms as soon as she enters the lab. When they reluctantly agree to help him, he then makes one of them stay with him as insurance, to make sure that they don’t just run off. He chooses the pony himself, choosing one that would be the least helpful on the mission, but also who they would care for a lot, and couldn’t stop him while they were staying there. He chooses Snowbelle. The group initially refuse, but the filly says that she’ll be fine. When they later return, having completed the mission, they discover that the scientist used Snowbelle as a lab assistant, having her fetch supplies for him. She seemed to have a good time doing it as well. After that, when they’re alone, Lightning asks him if he truly hates changelings, to which he replies if she could blame him, since they’re bloodthirsty savages, who see ponies as nothing more than food. When Lightning retorts that her friend, Dawn is nothing like that, he replies as if he’s confused, and asks if she’s referring to changelings or whatever Dawn is. When Lightning is confused, he points out that second generation changelings actually have more in common with ponies than their first generation cousins, as they’re now even capable of breeding with ponies. He discovered that second generation changelings have evolved more in the last two hundred years than any other species in history, and theorizes that in another few centuries, they will be another type of ponies, like unicorns and pegasi.

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At a point in the story, Pumpkin asks each party member why it is that they fight. Angel says that she fights and she heals, but she heals much better, so she wants to show everyone that there’s a better way. Dawn says that she fights because there’s something that she has to protect, like her friends and family, and that without them, her life’s not worth living. Blitz says that he fights because there are people depending on him and he can’t let them down. Snowbelle says that she wants to fight to prove to everyone that she’s not helpless and that she can do something. Lightning simply says that she doesn’t want to die.

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At a point in the story, the party engages some rogue changelings. They defeat them easily, but Blitz is bitten. It’s explained that changeling venom is incredibly poisonous to ponies, and that Angel doesn’t have the tools to heal him. Suddenly, Dawn steps up, gently bites Blitz on his hoof, administering anti-venom. Blitz immediately feels better and asks what she did. After a bit of stumbling, Lightning just says to tell him, letting Dawn and Angel know that she knows that Dawn is a changeling. She then reveals the truth to Blitz and Snowbelle. Blitz isn’t bothered by the revelation at all, and Snowbelle thinks that it’s cool.

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On the group’s first visit to Dawn’s hometown, to bring her home, Lightning bumps into a pony, who swears that she looks familiar. Lightning realises that this is unlikely, since she’s never been this far out before, and the pony agrees too since she’s never met a pegasus before. She still can’t shake the similarity, and then realises that she looks just like her mother. She points out that Lightning looks very like her mother, except for her eyes, and Lightning says that she has her dad’s eyes. There are also a number of zebras that live nearby, though the ponies don’t allow them to live inside the walls, having an inherent distrust of their kind since the war. This bigotry is also what has kept the changelings from revealing themselves over the years. The bigotry is mainly led by a stallion, who outright hates the zebras, and is trying to convince everypony to shun them completely and drive them away from here. When the group first come to this town, to bring Dawn back to her family, Angel and the stallion argue with each other, through a rewrite of the ‘Bats’ song, in which Angel is unsuccessful to stop the ponies from driving the zebras off. Later in the story, the changelings are finally revealed and everypony is about to turn violent, but Lightning and the group are able to step in and talk them all out of attacking, by bringing up how they have all lived together peacefully for all these years, the friendships they’ve formed, all the good that these creatures have done for them and the town, and all the good they could do now that they don’t have to hide who they are anymore. Fortunately for them, they have much better luck this time, and convince the ponies and changelings to live together peacefully. When they first arrive here and Dawn gets home, she’s so happy to see her parents again, who are relieved to see her again, not caring that the caravan was destroyed. They tell the group that they have their thanks, and Dawn mentions that ‘they know’. Realising what that means and that they still got her home, they then say that they also have their respect. When they first arrive, they decide to rest here awhile, and this town becomes their home base. While Dawn and her family start working on rebuilding their trading caravan, she decides to continue adventuring with her friends.

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When the party reaches the ruins of the city centre, on the way to the Fort, one of the ghouls living in the Necropolis is revealed to be Sunset Shimmer’s father, and Lightning’s ancestor. He is one of the oldest ponies still alive, being a fully-fledged royal guard from before Luna got back from the moon. He was at Canterlot when the pink cloud hit, turning him into a Canterlot ghoul. He wears the old gold Canterlot guard armor, which the pink cloud has fused him to. He uses an old spear as a weapon. When he first meets Lightning and the others, he assures them she’s not Enclave, because she’s actually talking to them. The ghouls then lower their weapons and let them in. After Lightning she takes off her Enclave power helmet, he immediately thinks that she looks like his daughter, Sunset Shimmer; Lightning and her father both have her eyes. He later becomes convinced that she is, and gives her a memory orb that confirms it. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have a recollector on her at the moment and can’t look into it. He just asks her to look at it once she does. When the party is leaving Necropolis, he pulls the other party members aside, asking them to watch out for her. When they ask him why, he says that he’s almost certain that she’s his eight times great grand-daughter. He tells them that it’s her eyes; it’s a family trait that both he and his daughter had, and he also tells them that decades ago, he met a pony, out of the same stable that his son-in-law and his grandson got into, and that he had the same name as his grandson and he had the same eyes, and that he escorted him safely out of the city, so he knew that his family was still out there. When he asks if one of her parents has the same eye colour as her, Blitz replies that her father does. When the group finally begins their assault on the Fort, they find it much more heavily guarded than they thought. When it looks like they’re about to be defeated, Diamond Flash comes to save them. He tells Lightning that he has lived for a long time and that the prospect of dying now after living so long terrifies him. However, he also says that the idea of not doing his job as a royal guard and protecting those he cares about worries him even more. He then steps out into the fighting area, to buy them enough time to escape, while blocking the way he came so that she can’t follow after him. Before he starts fighting, he turns to Lightning and reminds her again to look at the memory orb he gave her. He shows incredible skills at fighting, using an old spear, killing every slaver in the area. However, at that moment, Cipher appears and takes control of the laser defences in the area. He then uses them to vaporize him, killing him for good. After Diamond Flash is killed by Cipher, Lightning and the group realise that they’re not strong enough to penetrate the Fort, so they retreat back to Necropolis. She later gets a recollector and views the memory orb, discovering that he was her great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. The memory is from Sunset’s perspective, and in it, it mentions her name, and that Diamond Flash is her father. The other citizens of Necropolis tell her that he wanted her to have something, which turns out to be a Rarity statuette.

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At a point in the story, Lightning gets shot at with a bullet that’s been laced with killing joke. She survives the shot, but it transforms her into a unicorn. The reason for this is that earlier in the story, she remarked that ‘sometimes she hates being a pegasus’. Another is that she kept going on and on about how amazing her power armor was; but now that she’s a unicorn, she can’t wear the helmet because of her new horn, which means that she can’t use her weapons, so she has to get rid of the armor if she wants to keep fighting, which she does. When she’s first shot at with the bullet, and the joke takes effect, she experiences a terrible headache, from her new horn being pushed against her skull by the power helmet she’s still wearing, and quickly takes it off. When she’s first shot, she’s in bad shape, and Angel can’t do anything to help her. Angel then says that her friend is close by, referring to Life Bloom, and they take her right as she passes out. When the group reaches Tenpony, where they meet up with Clover as well, who joined them there to help Lightning, while they’re treating her, and before she regains consciousness, Angel looks into the memory orb that Diamond Flash gave Lightning. She then asks Life Bloom if he knows about a pony named Sunset Shimmer. He tells her that she was one of the big three in the MAS, and one of the most magically talented unicorns in pre-war Equestria, second only to Twilight Sparkle, maybe. When he asks her why, she tells him that Lightning is descendant from her. When she comes to, she’s in Tenpony Tower, in Helpinghoof’s Clinic. Once she’s awake, everyone rushes to greet her, tells her where they are, and unfortunately what happened to her. She’s told that since Killing Joke is so rare and difficult to study, there isn’t any known cure at the moment, so she’ll be stuck like this. She tells them all that she’s fine and that she can still fight like this. Once everyone has been reassured, they then move on to another point of business. Apparently, Lightning is a descendant of one the highest ranked leaders of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences. They explain the Twilight Society, and how they’re descendant from the old heads of the MAS. However, during the war, one of the heads went rogue from the ministry, moving all her research to Trottingham. There are also none in the Twilight Society that are descendent from her; except Lightning. While they’re still staying at Tenpony Tower, Homage gives her a book titled, ‘The Egghead’s Guide to Magic. All You've Ever Wanted to Know About Magic But Were Afraid to Ask.’, so that she can learn to use magic, and at least make the best out of a bad situation. The next day, Homage meets Lightning at the café, wondering how she’s doing, and how her magic’s going. Lightning responds that she still can’t produce a single spark, and that even Snowbelle is better at magic then her. After that little exchange, Homage says that there’s something that Lightning has to do before she leaves. Lightning asks what and then takes a sip of her Sunrise Sarsaparilla. “You need to get laid.” Lightning almost spits up upon hearing this. She tells Homage to be serious, but Homage responds that she is serious. After making a few jokes about how she would be happy to help her with that, with Lightning again saying that she likes stallions; and even one about the fact that she has a someone in her group that can look like anyone, causing Lightning to ask her if she has any shame. Homage replies with, “Shame? Sorry, but I don’t remember having such a useless thing in the first place.” Homage then says that, all jokes aside, she’s serious about this, and that Littlepip wouldn’t have been able to face everything without her and what they have. With this bit of advice, Lightning finally realises her feelings for Clover, they kiss and spend the night together.

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At a point after Lightning and the group leave Tenpony Tower, even though Lightning said that she was fine after the effect of the killing joke, it eventually catches up with and she breaks down crying. Her friends are all there to comfort her, however. She at one point tries to very painfully cut off her horn, but after she does, it just seems to have instantly grown back. She then mentally notes that a plant somewhere is laughing at her.

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Later on in the story, it’s revealed that Snowbelle is actually a spy in the group. When Cipher and his men attacked Goodsprings, he had Snowbelle’s parents taken captive, and told her that they would be returned safely if she made contact with a pegasus mare, and lured her to him, without them suspecting anything. Snowbelle agreed to this, since to her, she just had to sell out a single pony she didn’t know, in order to save her family. Later in the story, after Snowbelle really bonds with the group, and they find out what she’s been doing, she feels really bad, but Lightning uses this justification to make her feel better; however, how cool she’s being about it actually just makes the filly feel worse. Lightning responds by calling her a silly little filly.

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When it’s discovered that Lightning’s mother is Cipher’s daughter, and that she sold out her town and her family, it’s also revealed that she got cybernetic implants to make her stronger. She now also doesn’t wear her mane in a ponytail, like she used to, which, to Lightning, makes her even less like the pony she knew. When the two of them are in the testing chamber of the stable, her mother manages to pin her down long enough to get the information that they needed for Red Eye’s own ascension. However, she manages to escape in time with her life, though she does end up being exposed to Taint. While the two of them are fighting, and her mother is trying to push her over the edge of the railing, Lightning manages to teleport behind her and buck over instead, and she ends up dangling over a vat of Impelled Metamorphosis Potion. When Lightning turns to leave, her mother asks her to help her. Lightning stops, turns around, and asks why, after everything that she’s done, she should help her. She responds with, “Because I’m your mother, and no matter what I did, that’s not going to change.” Lightning thinks this over and eventually goes over to her and gives her hoof, saying that she will be spending the rest of her life making up for what she’s done. She then tells her mother to detach each of her cybernetics and she’ll float them up. She then pulls her mother back up. When it looks like everything’s peaceful, her mother thanks her and starts putting her cybernetics back on. She then says that she never learns and launches an attack on her; however, as she does, Lightning then quickly pulls out a matrix disruption grenade, and her mother’s hoof collides with it, setting it off, rendering her cybernetics offline and leaving her unable to move. As Lightning turns to leave again, her mother again calls out for her to save her. However, Lightning simply replies with, “I already tried. Sorry, Mom, but I can’t save everyone.” She then turns back around and runs away. Cipher had already transmitted the data to Red Eye, and set the stable to be destroyed afterwards, burying Lightning’s mother as it collapsed. Cipher manages to escape, but Lighting doesn’t dwell on it, saying that he’ll eventually get what’s coming to him, and that a better pony than her will finish him off. While she’s escaping the collapsed stable, she takes the bobby pin out of her mane, letting her mane fall back to how it was at the start of the story, not wanting anything to have to with her mother anymore, and throws it away.

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When everything with the Steel Rangers, the Enclave and Red Eye’s forces has been dealt with, the group heads back to Dawn’s hometown to relax. The changelings are then the only enemy faction left. An emissary from them heads to where they are, with a gift for Lightning, in the form of a radiation talisman. He simply leaves it on the floor as she glares at him to scare him off. After everything that she’s gone through in the story up to that point, Lightning has had enough, and basically becomes numb to everything around her. Against her friends judgement, she says that she’s going to the MAS Hub to deal with the changelings and finish this; alone. They all offer to go with her, ignoring her pleas for them to stay here, or for them to go with her. She then points out the lethal radiation surrounding the place, and that they only have one radiation talisman. Snowbelle suggests making more, but Lightning says that they don’t have time. Pumpkin says that the radiation wouldn’t kill her, but Lightning points out the laser defences. Dawn says that she can get through the radiation and the defences, but Lightning says that that would attract the changeling’s attention. Ultimately, she says that she has to do this on her own, and the others finally, reluctantly agree. Before she leaves, Snowbelle at least gives her Angel’s pipbuck. She then heads off towards her final adventure. She arrives at the MAS Hub; the radiation talisman protects her, allowing her to get close, and the laser defences don’t attack her because her genetic signature is similar to the Sunset Shimmer’s. There are changelings that attack her, but she’s able to easily fight them off. When she enters the facility, she explores the different sections of the building. Among the things that she finds are Shining Armor’s old power armor, which can be worn by a unicorn, which she currently still is thanks to the killing joke. She also finds several log entries by Pipsqueak, and a Twilight Sparkle statuette. She also finds a prototype crusader mainframe, which can hold the memories of a pony of a few years, and it has the mind copy of Pipsqueak, from his colt years. When she reaches the testing laboratories, she meets Major Hurricane again. After the Enclave part of the story is over, Major Hurricane manages to escape. He later makes contact with the changelings, and partners with them to obtain the megaspell. Both sides are really just using each other and will eventually turn on each other once they have what they want. The changelings give him a radiation talisman so that he can enter their base. The Major intercepts Lightning while she’s in the testing laboratories, which still has much higher levels of radiation than the rest of the facility since it was the centre of their tests on the megaspell. While they’re fighting, Lightning tells him that the Enclave has disowned him, so he has nothing to go back to; however, he just brushes it off by saying that he’ll be ensuring the Enclave’s prosperity in the future with this megaspell, and that they’ll gladly welcome him back. When she tries to reason that he’ll never be able to successfully betray an entire army of changelings, he just laughs at this again. He tells her that while changelings and their immunity to radiation are better suited to living in this world, in the decades since the war, they have only gotten weaker, while ponies, who supposedly aren’t suited to living in this world, having only gotten stronger since then. Major Hurricane eventually pins Lightning to the wall and is about to finish her off, when Lightning then uses her magic to rip the radiation talisman from around his neck. The intense radiation in the room then causes him to start melting. Looking down at him after he’s died, she puts the talisman back around his neck, to at least stop him from melting, out of pity. After she’s still wounded from her fight with him, several changelings attack from hiding and knock her out with a memory orb. The memory orb that she’s in is the one that Pinkie made to give her instructions about what to do when she got her, reiterating the message that one person can’t do everything, but if everyone works together and does their own part, then there’s nothing they can’t all do. When she comes out of the memory, she’s in a jail cell, with the changeling watching over her telling her that while she was knocked out, they used her to remove the genetic lock on the megaspell, and they’ll be able to use it soon. Re-energized from Pinkie’s words, she tells the changeling that somehow she’s going to get out of here, and she’s going to stop them. In that moment, Pumpkin shimmers into existence behind the changeling, and crushes his head with her hooves. Pumpkin then unlocks Lightning’s cell, and the door to that room opens up, revealing two changelings. One of them then shoves the other into the wall, knocking him out, and revealing herself to be Dawn. Happy to see her friends again, and realising how foolish she was to go without them, she collects her gear, and the three of them continue on, to stop the changelings once and for all. Pumpkin and Dawn suggest finding the guy in charge, but Lightning tells them that they have to go down to the reactor level, remembering what Pinkie told her. Trusting her instantly, they make their down to the room that she saw in the memory orb, presses the button that she was told about, and the reactor opens up, revealing the power source of the megaspell: King Sombra’s horn. Lightning is about to grab it with her mouth, but she stops when she can actually feel the evil coming from it, and instead just picks it up with her hoof and puts it in her saddlebag, and the preparation for the megaspell shuts down. After she does, the head changeling asks over the intercom what’s going on, and Lightning responds that she’s stopping their plans and she’s coming for him next. While they’re making their way through the facility, they find several ponies that have been captured by the changelings, all of them wearing radiation talismans. They free them all and get them to the exit, and shut down the laser defences so that they can get out. The three of them then head up to the highest level of the tower, and defeat the guy in charge. Once the three of them have control of the facility, Lightning announces her plan. Like her ancestor, she wants to make sure that this megaspell can never be used again, so she makes an announcement over the Hub’s loudspeaker, to all changelings still in the facility, that she’s going to activate the spell, and dump the entire facility in the middle of the ocean. She’s going to make it that after it’s activated, it will wait for a thousand years, so that there will be no residual radiation. She tells all remaining changelings that if they value their lives, they’ll leave now, and not risk dying over something not worth dying for. They need to let go of the past and move on. The world is willing to accept them now, as long as their willing to be accepted. When that’s over, she gives Dawn King Sombra’s horn, and tells her to put it back in the reactor, and then get out of the facility as fast as she can. She accepts and then heads out. When Dawn gets to the reactor, she puts the power source back in, and then contacts Lightning on the intercom. With the power source back, Lightning sets the megaspells parametres and activates it. She gives it ten minutes before it activates, more than enough time for everyone to evacuate. She then tells Dawn to head straight for the exit. Pumpkin tells Lightning that they should move too, but Lightning tells her that she’s not going. She needs to stand guard here, to make sure none of the changelings try to take the megaspell again. If she leaves and someone comes here before the megaspell activates, they could stop the timer and have full control of the megaspell all over again. A changeling then bursts into the room to do just that, but Lightning quickly shoots him dead. Pumpkin tries to reason that if someone has to stay, then it should be her, instead of Lightning. Pumpkin says that her world died two hundred years ago, and she’s not even the same pony as she was back then; but Lightning has fought harder than anyone else for a future, and deserves more than anyone to get to live it. Lightning, however, responds to this that she’s the stupidest pony ever. “You know what I should have done when that changeling handed me that talisman? I should have crushed it in my hooves right then and there. Or given it to someone who would do a much better job than me, without running the risk of giving these bastards exactly what they wanted.” After hearing everything that Lightning said, Pumpkin rejects all of it. She then forcibly teleports her out of the tower to safety, using all of the power from the radiation she’s been soaking up ever since arriving at the facility, calling her a silly little filly, mirroring an earlier part of the story where Lightning said that line to Snowbelle. When the timer clicks down, the megaspell goes off, encompassing the entire facility and the surrounding wall, leaving the whole area blank.

The epilogue is shown from Homage’s perspective. First, she is shown speaking with Mustang, who is now the Elder of the Trottingham chapter, accompanied by Hawkeye, who is now the new Star Paladin. Mustang mentions that he’s agreed to work with the Applejack’s Rangers. Homage also mentions that the reason she’s here is that she’s helping Velvet find a way to cure Fluttershy from what the killing joke did to her, and that Mustang and his men could help. Mustang agrees to help her on one condition. “I know that Fluttershy has done a lot for Equestria, but there’s someone else who has helped us all more, personally, that needs that cure even more. You can heal Fluttershy after you heal her.” Homage then responds, “I know there are some people who would disagree with my decision, especially Velvet, but alright.”

Homage is then later speaking with Shining Armor, asking what he’s going to do now, since he’s technically the only royalty in Equestria left, and some people might be calling for him to rule. He responds that he’s spoken with Rainbow Dash, and the two of them have agreed that, as far as history goes, the two of them are dead. He still wants to keep waiting for Cadance and the Crystal Empire to return, and since now that Equestria is finally starting to get better, it could return much sooner than before. To that end, he’s decided to help Spike with Gardens of Equestria, and finding the remaining Elements of Harmony; hoping that once Equestria is healed of radiation and Taint, along with things getting much better all around, the Crystal Empire will return and he can see Cadance again.

Next she speaks with Dawn, who is using the changelings, who have finally come out of hiding, as well as several first generation changelings who have decided on giving the co-existence thing a chance, to rebuild her caravans, and the whole Trottingham trading company. Her new caravans is called the ‘New Dawn Caravans’. She is also working with Blitz, who she is now married to, who has joined the trading caravan as well, to encourage ponies to work alongside the changelings, to improve things even more. They’re also visited by Clover and Snowbelle, who are now members of the Followers of the Apocalypse, to discuss things more. They mention that they haven’t seen Lightning or Pumpkin since that day, and they begin to think that maybe Lightning wanted things to end this way. They’ve been unable to find her ever since, and they’ve heard no word of her from anyone. While the news is grim, they’re all confident that Lightning is still alive out there somewhere and they all make a promise to all see each other again.

In the epilogue, at the very end, after the final showdown in the MAS Hub, after Lightning’s attempt at a heroic, yet stupid sacrifice fails, she still doesn’t report back to her friends. She instead becomes a mercenary, and is last seen speaking with a merchant, heading off to Hoofington, after hearing that something big is going down up there, now being unable to avoid adventure, contrary to what she was like at the start of the story, saying that war never changes, but ponies do, through the roads they walk. And this road, has reached its end.