“This looks nothing like the pictures,” Twilight observed, as we passed from the blizzard into the relative warmth of the weather barrier.
A breath caught in my throat. The magnificent crystal castle of my visions, distorted almost beyond recognition by black, irregular growths, like somepony dipped the entire city into a vat of ink, and it crystallized into the very image of repugnance, staining the sky itself with brown.
Someone, not somepony. No pony would ever do something like this.
“In theory, it should be temporary,” Mary the human replied, brushing the snow off her dress and trying to shake the moisture off her hands with thinly veiled disgust.
“I surely hope so!” Rarity interjected. “I know this is no time for having a heart attack, but I feel one is quite justified. I was so sure it’s impossible to make crystal ugly, but I must take that back. This was supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in Equestria, what have they done to it?!”
“Not they,” I corrected her. “Him. King Sombra. Just him.”
Sombra the usurper.
“The crystal ponies urgently need a ‘Welcome back to Equestria’ party!” Pinkie Pie bounced in place. “We can’t start without them! Where is everypony?”
“Good question,” Shining Armor replied. “Squad one, check the houses on the left side of the street,” he shouted. “Squad two, you get the right side. No forced entry. If you meet anypony, approach with caution. Do not separate, always keep at least one other squad in sight. Squads three and four, go up for aerial recon. Our top priority is locating Sombra, but look out for any ponies.”
When our train finally arrived, his short speech to the guard he assembled in formation ended with “We are the last knights of Equestria, and today is the day Equestria needs knights.” It’s so strange to know somepony who can say it with a straight face, let alone mean it. It is stranger yet to know somepony who really is one, no ifs or buts or maybes, in a world which classifies them as fairytales and myth. It’s so strange to be married to that stallion.
It is so strange to be the princess of the fairytale he wrote just for me. It is a dream that one never dares to dream, all the more precious when you suddenly realize that it’s actually real, that it isn’t something you just imagined, that it’s been going on for quite a while. We’re married. The whole of Canterlot danced on our wedding. This crystal city is our happily ever after.
Call it childish all you want, but in the privacy of my own thoughts, I will never stop marveling at all the big and little miracles that we shared. This city is my gift to him, the symphony of everything that is good and pure in Equestria, the place worthy of protection by the most valiant knight in the land. The place for our children to grow up in and go on to make the world even brighter.
If I could only clean it up…
But where are the crystal ponies?… The entire blackened, defiled city was empty, ominously silent and still, and as we moved forward, none of the many doors the guards knocked on opened.
This was supposed to be a shining oasis in the desert of snow and ice. There should be happy ponies going about their lives, courting and cheering, drinking coffee under tents and reading books, showing off dresses and snappy suits, buying and selling, watering flowers and giving them to each other… This was a place of magnificent arts and a triumph of earth pony magic.
A triumph that would have been undone in an instant by that very magic, twisted to the darkest and foulest ends, were it not for Amore’s foresight.
“Something’s else is missing,” I said, once we finally approached the castle. The large parabolic chamber at the base, the snowflake design on the crystal pavement… “I’m sure the Crystal Heart is supposed to be right here. Where is it?…”
Mary the human threw a curious glance at me, but didn’t say anything. Moondancer and Lyra bent their necks down to inspect the snowflake.
The Crystal Heart brooch was missing, too. On the day before the wedding, I combed the entire castle for it, but that was the only thing that nopony could find. In the end, I wore a simple white rose from Rarity’s accessory box. What did the changeling queen want with that thing? If she had to take something, like a common thief, there were hundreds of objects within easy reach that were more valuable or more important. The only pony for whom it was anything more than a piece of ancient semi-precious jewelry would be me.
Why the brooch?
“Mary,” Twilight poked her human friend with a hoof, “you do know where the Crystal Heart is, right?”
“The path starts in the throne room, requires dark magic to open, and consists of lots and lots and lots of stairs and several traps. The topology involved is rather baffling,” Mary replied. “But my knowledge might be entirely worthless, as Princess Cadance just demonstrated.”
“I did?” The sources of her knowledge are murky, even a bit suspicious. But she did lead Twilight to rescuing me.
“You remember the Crystal Heart, and know where it should be,” Mary stated, her misshapen yellow eye scrutinizing me even while the other one was looking at the crystal snowflake before her. “In the mainline version of events, Twilight arrives to a city under siege by Sombra, at least a day after you. Nopony mentions the Crystal Heart except the crystal ponies themselves. Even then, descriptions of its actual function are censored in local literature.”
I threw an awkward glance at my own flank. I always knew that the heart on my cutie mark is not just the symbol of love. I knew this was my destiny all along. Of all the generations, of all the descendants of La Mia Speranza, I was the one that knew the Crystal Empire would emerge during my lifetime, and one day, I would return to the kingdom that Speranza left for her crusade. Celestia spent years preparing me for this. We never knew the day, we didn’t even know the year, but we knew that it is not far off.
How could I possibly forget about the most important relic of the Crystal Empire?…
Shining Armor reacted well before I could. “That’s much more informative than you think,” he said. “All squads, be advised, the enemy is capable of using mind affective spells in combat!” he shouted, his voice amplified by the echoes in the parabolic chamber and scattering out. “Mass amnesia spells are highly likely!”
“Well, that’s a possibility I didn’t consider,” Mary commented dryly as she made the connection. “Yet another one.”
I smiled at her proudly. In a different situation, I would spend a minute gushing about how smart my husband is, but for now, a smile will have to do.
“Any other pieces of wisdom to share?” Shining prodded. “Knowing where everypony is would be useful at this point.”
“Not really,” Mary replied, biting a fingernail. “The story of the Crystal Empire is one where the mainline stays as vague as it gets. By the time Twilight arrives, the crystal ponies are in their homes, even though all of them present with memory loss and post-traumatic stress. Evidently, they can be found, just like Sombra can be expelled from the city without the Elements of Harmony. But I have no knowledge whatsoever of how that actually gets done in any Equestria I’ve heard of.”
“I think I know,” Moondancer suddenly said, looking up from the snowflake pattern on the pavement, her horn lit up. “I don’t understand most of the spells that went into making this, I’m not even sure some of them are spells. But this castle has to be the biggest thaumic capacitor array ever built.”
I almost forgot she was even here. Twilight has collected a whole cadre of nearly invisible friends. The sound of affection for Twilight trailing after her should have made her difficult to lose, but eyes just slide right off these dresses until their owners start talking to you.
Twilight doesn’t see her in that way, and Moondancer does not realize her crush herself, but maybe…
Hush, stop. Now is not the time.
“Thaumic capacitor? Where?” Twilight wondered, looking around the chamber and lighting up her own horn. “Ooh!”
“Yes, you’re standing in it,” Moondancer replied. “This chamber is the reflector assembly that Meadowbrook described in ‘The Cryostatic Creativity of Crystal.’ Not just the castle, the entire city is a huge arcane device. Even the streets are a collector mesh for something. Scaled up. Way up. And I think the spire is an actuator wand. It’s all disconnected, but the individual components should still work.” She looked at me. “Do you think you can charge it, your highness? There are multiple static shield spells it’s supposed to be feeding into.”
“Just Cadance, please,” I replied. “I… don’t think I could do that, not just yet,” I added, after inspecting the working for myself and doing some mental calculations. Without the Heart, unicorn magic would be the only way to power the immense magical construct, and it has never been my strongest suit. I was not born with it. But I could do it for a while… a month ago. After that night, I’m not even sure when would I recover enough to do something like that again.
In the unseen darkness, where no pony dares to tread, he just stood there, waiting for me, shining brightly like the Sun, burning everything he still had for but one last goodbye.
I really am the luckiest princess in Equestria so many times over…
“Your highness? Sir?” a pegasus guard interrupted us, landing right next to us with a heavy sound of hooves on the crystal pavement. “We found them. A mile west, there’s… a stadium.”
“I really don’t like the sound of that…” Mary mumbled.
“Is there anything special about the stadium?” Twilight asked.
“I didn’t even know they have one…” Mary answered. “But… It’s just the right kind of place if you need to keep thousands of ponies where you can see them. What kind of state, do you think, will they be in, a month later?”
My stomach turned. “Lead the way, lieutenant,” I commanded, and stormed out of the parabolic chamber back onto the street.
“You heard the princess,” Shining Armor barked as he joined me, “All squads, move out!”
We advanced at the head of our little army, marching forward in step, a princess and her prince, surrounded by our friends, and I couldn’t decide whether to feel happy at that unity of purpose, or despair at the potential grimness of it. I know what the term “crimes against equinity” means. Things so horrible, that hearing that a pony did them makes you feel ashamed to be a pony.
And chances are, I’m about to see them. I haven’t the heart to ask the lieutenant what he saw. I don’t think he has the heart to tell me either.
We turned into one of the side streets, and suddenly, there they were, blocking our way towards the stadium, ponies. Crystal ponies. My ponies.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
“Don’t they know it’s more fun when everypony is wearing a different Nightmare Night costume?” Pinkie Pie piped up in genuine surprise.
Crystal ponies in black, ominous suits of spiked armor, raven black hair sticking up in a crest over the helmets, slotted visors over each eye, glowing with poisonous green. A grid over the mouth like a muzzle on a dangerous animal.
Arranged in a formation, lances out, and pointing straight at us.
“Oh my goodness,” Fluttershy whispered somewhere right next to me, in a tone of such horror, that I did not need to see her to imagine her terrified face. These are not some loyal troops. I know that glow. I can feel that magic, it’s not even hidden. I have seen an example far too recently for me to forget.
It’s a slave army. They’re not fighting for somepony they love, they do not wish to protect anything, their love song is silent… They don’t remember the love they feel for other ponies. They don’t remember they’re ponies at all.
Ponies have not made war on ponies for nine centuries. The very thought is so alien, that we call a story science fiction just for supposing such a possibility. Celestia spent over a thousand years, mediating, promoting friendship and harmony, teaching us, and Sombra… Sombra would seek to undo all that, and of all the myriad monsters to ever threaten Equestria, he was the one to find the means.
Yet again, Shining Armor reacted faster than I could. “Jousting shields up! Blunt ends forward! Air support, engage at will! Nonlethal spells only! Knock them out, gentlecolts! We trained for this! Charge!”
Even before he finished, the entire mass of stallions in golden armor rushed past us, to the low hum of shield spells, spears twirling in the air and settling in the latches at their sides.
And then he joined them.
“What do we do, Twilight?” Applejack shouted, trying to break through the screech of metal on metal, as the first rows of the charging ponies met each other, just steps away from us.
“I don’t know!” Twilight exclaimed in desperation. “I’m sure the Elements would help, but I don’t know how to direct them against an army!”
“You know what they say, it’s not opera until the fat lady sings,” Lyra tried for a joke. Silly girl, is she still so conscious about her weight? Bon-Bon likes her exactly as she is.
“Are you sure you can just tie them all up?” Bon-Bon inquired.
“Um… No?”
“Then let the professionals work, dammit.”
Right next to my ear I heard a click. “Put that thing away,” I told Mary, who was holding her ugly weapon in her hand.
She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t move, still pointing the barrel of what Spike called a “death ray” towards the sky.
“Put it away,” I repeated. “Even one dead crystal pony is one too many.”
“I agree, but even one breaking through could be enough,” she pointed out. The weapon clicked again, and she hid it somewhere in the pleats of her skirt. “There’s more at stake here than just the Crystal Empire.”
“Trust Shining Armor,” I smirked. “He never let me down. Not even once.”
If anything, I let him down, when I got caught unawares by the changeling queen. She still had to cast a spell on him to keep him under control, even when she had my face. She fooled Celestia, who knows me better than a parent would. She couldn’t fool Shining without poisoning his brains all the way to Hades.
The melee went on, but even though there were almost as many armored crystal ponies as guards, even though they were all earth ponies, fighting to kill, our knights were winning. Every blow that connected would leave a huge dent in armor, scraping the gold off and revealing the dull shine of stainless steel underneath, but still, more and more crystal ponies fell, unconscious, and the remaining ones were getting split into smaller groups, encircled in shields, slowly but surely whittled down.
“Uh-oh,” Spike suddenly said. He stayed silent ever since we went into the city, but now, he was holding onto my leg, and I could feel the little dragon shiver. It did not take long for the reason to make itself known.
A formless mass of shadow, even darker than the ugly crystals covering the walls, was oozing out of the doors of the stadium, spilling onto the street in a billowing cloud. Only the huge eyes, glowing red on green, betrayed this was anything but just a cloud of smoke.
Huge, glowing, with flames of purple leaking out of them like misplaced eyebrows. Staring right at me. Looming over me. A pony head coalesced out of it, a face so much like a pony, and yet, not a pony at all. Ponies don’t have teeth like that.
And then it spoke to me, in a deep, echoing voice that chilled me to the bone, “AAAAHHHHH… THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY.”
“Girls… That has to be Sombra,” Twilight said. “You ready?”
“Been ready the last time,” Rainbow Dash tossed back.
“Just checking. If we use the Elements, there will be nothing left of him. Not even a corpse. Formation!”
I never even saw what they were doing, I was too busy trying to stare the shadow down. But the results were not to be hidden, as a wave of rainbow washed across my field of vision, blanking Sombra out entirely. In a deafening roar, the shadow faded, and a piece of red, ugly, curved horn fell to my hooves.
And then the light in the visors of every armored crystal pony went out and suddenly, all of them fell to the ground, like sock puppets with the hooves taken out of them.
Silence fell.
“That,” Rainbow Dash said, as she breathed out and took in the sight, “was kinda not awesome. It was at least thirty percent more awesome with Discord.”
“I hope it’s not getting any more awesome in the near future, Rainbow,” Twilight commented in an quivering voice. “That was just enough awesome for one day. I think our collective quota of awesome is filled for the entire month!”
Rainbow Dash was about to reply, but I didn’t listen. Instead, I galloped towards the doors of the stadium, now that the way was clear. I knew exactly where I had to be right now, what I had to say, what I had to do. We have so much work ahead of us.
And I had the energy to do that, because I knew, without having to look, that my prince is right there next to me.