This story is a sequel to Gloria Celestia

A rumor here, a scandal there, and a peppering of negative publicity can easily provide all the ammunition necessary to take down some of the most powerful players of the Canterlot nobility. But when one party foul too far turns the entirety of the upper class against DJ Pon-3, Upper Crust leads an unrelenting blitz against her, and Vinyl Scratch's world begins to crumble all around her.

Unwilling to let an accident ruin the DJ's reputation on the callous whims of Canterlot's elite, Fancy Pants decides to make a risky investment into counter-culture and help Vinyl get back on her hooves. However, it's going to take more than the prestige of the Kingmaker of Canterlot to get this record spinning again, especially when real royal matters start spiraling out of control.

Edited by: TheAncientPolitzanian
Preread by: Alchemik and Jymbroni
Cover Art by: W. Viloria of Vintage Future Games
Takes place shortly after the events of The Crystal Empire - Part 2
Part of the Silent-verse AU of stories. While not necessary reading, be sure to check out the other stories in the universe:
Forbidden Melodies - Breaking the Silence
Gloria Celestia - The Origins of the Silence
A Peach is Worth a Thousand Problems - The Silly Spin-off for Fun!

Chapter 31 Preread by Wanderer D
Special Thanks to ShutterflyYay for their contributions to the original drafts.
Special Thanks to anonixar for helping ensure accuracy in French with this fiction.
Special Thanks to Stormfox from the Discord server for helping with the costuming research.
Special Thanks to BirdsBooksBrownies for finding many numerous typos

It has been a peaceful few years under the reign of Princess Twilight Sparkle. Ponies are happy. Equestria is progressing. New technologies have appeared, including the first fixed-wing planes. The first intercontinental flights now soar across Equestria, allowing long-distance friends and family to meet up for the first time without an arduous journey or fancy magic.

Earth Ponies are not meant to fly. Rind Watermelon knows this—and it terrifies him—but he will go with his fiancée Smoldering Ember to meet her family in Kiria, realm of the Kirins. It is only a twenty-hour flight away. He just has to look out the window, and ignore that he is in a metal tube hurtling through the sky on flimsy wings.

And there is something on the wing.

It has been a decade since Twilight Sparkle was crowned sole Princess, and Equestria is at peace.

The Crystal Empire, not so much. King Sombra is apparently unkillable, despite all efforts. He returns several times a year to be destroyed, leaving behind his horn and always swearing vengeance. The jaded Crystal Ponies, some literally jade, have grown used to their tyrant attempting to return. Princess Cadance rules with her husband Shining Armor, while their daughter Flurry Heart excels in school. All is well.

All seems well, until Cadance begins to suspect that something is wrong with her daughter after the latest battle with Sombra. Flurry quite literally walks off a blast of concentrated dark magic. What Cadance discovers will shake her family to the core and upend everything she thought she knew about her daughter.

Flurry Heart is evil. If Cadance cannot save her daughter, she must stop her before it's too late.

Equestria and the Crystal Empire have fallen to the Changeling Hegemony, led by the brutal Queen Chrysalis at the head of a mechanized horde of guns and tanks. Princess Cadance stayed in the Crystal Empire; Princess Twilight stayed in Equestria. Chrysalis rules the continent, only defied by Nova Griffonia, the poor Griffon colony in the north.

Across the ocean, the Griffonian Reich pledges to reclaim its lost territory, sundered by revolution a generation ago. While the Alicorn Sisters retreat to New Mareland, Princess Flurry Heart and Shining Armor turn to Aquileia, the Republic born out of the ashes of the Griffonian Reich. The Kaiser of the Reich is only a child, subject to a regent bent on war and conquest.

Flurry knows the Reich and Chrysalis have worked together.

She knows that war is coming to Aquileia.

She knows that Celestia and Luna abandoned her mother and Twilight Sparkle.

She knows that the world is on fire, and she is the last true Princess of Ponies.

She knows she will go home.

Cover Art by Opal Radiance, commissioned by Sunstreaker.
https://www.deviantart.com/opalradiance