Outpost Epsilon
6 November 2551 1825 MST
Viery Plateaus, Reach
Corporal Martha Simmons was trying her best to hide her fascination with the scene before her. While listening to Princess Celestia’s synopsis of the culture of Equestria, a name which seemed fairly uninspired to say the least, had been interesting in its own right, it paled in comparison to watching said princess work her “magic” across the entire gathering of unicorns. After a brief warning that the process might feel uncomfortable, possibly even invasive, she enveloped her horn in the same golden light she had used to fuse two bed together barely an hour ago. Then the lights started.
One by one, each horn in the crowd lit up, though only for a second or two, and each light was unique. Every color of the visible spectrum was represented several times over, including a few blacks and one that seemed to skirt the edge of ultraviolet. Some glowed so bright that those next to them had had to close their eyes to avoid being blinded, while others were so dim that they could barely be seen, especially amid the afterimages of the brighter lights. The entire scene reminded her of fireworks, with all the shades and hues 26th-century chemistry could dream of and then some, and the occasional dud which still plagued the industry after all these millennia.
And it’s not even halfway over. Despite decades of heavy cynicism, that thought brought forth a small, slightly unhinged smile as the flashes of light neared her position.
Princess Celestia was grateful for this chance to get a more intimate view of the humans-turned-ponies. A unicorn’s magic was so tightly entwined with its special talent that even the brief sampling of magic she was doing now gave her a fairly good idea of the skill it supported. In addition, sampling so many talents at once offered a reasonable estimate on the kind of skills the humans favored. So far those skills seemed to fall into two frequently overlapping groups: The use, maintenance, and occasionally production of technology beyond her understanding, and the efficient destruction of almost anything under almost any circumstances. Though occasional oddball talents, such as artistic design and culinary preparation, managed to remind Celestia of ponies she had known back in Equestria, the most common outliers from these groups focused mainly on stealth and secret-keeping.
Even amid the intermingled confusion and horror of observing the humans’ collective skillset and the peculiar feeling of déjà vu, the princess couldn’t help but be astonished by the power many of the present unicorns held. Some of them even rival Twilight Sparkle for sheer magical potential! And this one, with a talent of focused destruction! I’d better keep a sharp watch on her. Wait, wasn’t she one of my escorts? Taking note to oversee that individual’s training personally, she continued cycling through her simple little magic observation spell. Given the number of ponies she still had to use it on, she could suffer little in the way of delays.
When her turn finally came, the first thing Martha noticed was the presence that suddenly appeared within her own mind. Despite her own professionalism, she almost panicked at such sudden, extreme invasion of her privacy. Fortunately, the presence, which was doubtless Celestia’s doing, seemed to know exactly what it was after, and proceeded to a part of her brain that hadn’t been there the last time she had checked. Once it got there, it took hold of something, presumable the part that controlled her “magic,” and activated it.
The resulting sensation was something for which “magic” was the only proper description. Nothing else could do justice to the sheer power emanating from her forehead at that moment. Power the blinding light encompassing her horn managed to convey, both in its mighty strength, and its uniquely dangerous coloration: brilliant red incased in a near-invisible shell of silver. Even if it hadn’t been a manifestation of her own being, she knew immediately what it resembled. Fire and a blast wave. An explosion. My magic is an explosion. Oh hell yes.
As the princess’s spell receded from her mind, it somehow left a message behind. Your gift is an exceedingly dangerous one, and one that would be very… messy should you lose control of it. I suggest you keep to the basics until an appropriate lesson can be devised.
With the foreign presence gone, Martha felt compelled to try to activate her magic on her own. Just as she was about to achieve that, however, she remembered where she was, and realized that activating what she had moments before described as an explosion while in a crowd of her own shipmates and comrades was perhaps the epitome of a bad idea. She was still determined to figure out her magic at the soonest possible moment, but that moment would have to wait.
With that in mind, she relaxed to enjoy the lightshow as, one by one, the rest of the Guam’s unicorns were introduced to the feeling of magic.
Outpost Epsilon
6 November 2551 2030 MST
Viery Plateaus, Reach
After she finished observing the unicorns’ magic, Princess Celestia had called the ones she had decided to teach so that she could gather their names. There were thirty-two in all, far more than she had originally intended to work with, but she was confident in her ability to handle anything that might come up, though not so confident that she wasn’t wary of the unicorns that specialized in death and destruction.
Now that she had her students, only one final detail needed taking care of before she could start planning her lessons. “Captain Arnold, I believe it is high time I was told what exactly is going on with you humans.”
The captain was sitting at his desk, and had been doing mildly important, if rather dull paperwork, though paper had long since been phased out of the process. He had known this was coming, but would honestly rather be doing said paperwork than carry out this conversation. “You’re going to have to be more specific. Us humans have a lot of things going on.”
Celestia was annoyed by the obvious dodge, but pressed on regardless. “I mean, since I first encountered you, I have been met with suspicion and hostility. I understand you’re at war, but that doesn’t explain why you direct anger and fear towards me, who was done nothing to provoke it.”
“Ah yes, the war,” the captain sighed, as though resigned to some fairly unpleasant fate. “The war is exactly what explains it. You see, twenty five years ago, we were attacked without warning by a collective of alien races that calls itself The Covenant. Ever since then, they have torn through our territory, killing tens of billions across hundreds of planets. Every force we have gathered to stop them has been shattered, and every ship of theirs that we destroy is replace by three more. We’re losing this war, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. And if you are somehow an ally of the Covenant, trusting you could be the last mistake we ever make.”
Celestia was surprised by this news, and not just the ridiculous numbers the captain was giving. The very prospect he was explaining confused her. “Can you not make peace with this Covenant?”
To her surprise, this caused him to bark out a laugh as devoid of humor as a hangman’s noose. “No. They’ve been abundantly clear on that point.” He tapped on a keyboard embedded in his desk, and an image appeared between them, floating in the air.
In the image, a strange bipedal creature was bound to a hospital bed by metal bars. Purple blood was oozing from cuts and gashes in its scaled hide, as well as from its mandibled mouth, attesting to severe internal injuries. It was staring at something beyond the edge of the image with a look the sent a chill down her spine. Captain Arnold pushed a button, the image began to move, and the creature spoke. “Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instruments.” The fact that it spoke rough Equestrian was odd, but Celestia was stunned at the sheer malice dripping from every syllable, a feeling that only grew as the creature, the monster, strained against its binds, bending the inch-thick metal. Just as it was about to break free, a shot rang out, and the beast’s head exploded into a purple mess.
She was still staring in disbelief when the image disappeared, and the captain continued speaking. “As you can see, the only options we have are win or die, and we aren’t winning. So yes, we’re afraid. Afraid that the miracle we desperately need won’t be coming. Afraid that our entire history was a wasted effort. Afraid that after ten thousand years of blood, sweat, and tears, we never mattered in the first place. Then you come around, the only non-human to ever speak to us as something other than a roach beneath your heel, and you expect us to put aside the most reinforced xenophobia we could ever have developed to give you a chance? No offence, ma’am, but we’re too busy with the gun at our head to risk a knife in our back.”
For a while, Celestia didn’t respond. She was still trying to comprehend it all. The hate that had oozed from the creature with its blood. The fear, anger, and, buried beneath it all, the hopeless resignation the humans lived with. The idea that anything could be so recklessly vicious as to purposely wage a war of annihilation. Then, an image flashed within her mind, sneering at her from the face it had stolen from her own sister as it declared its intent to bring about nighttime eternal, and the end of life as a result. She remembered how the monster had bragged about how it had seduced and manipulated Luna, and how it claimed she was powerless to stop it. She remembered how, without the Elements of Harmony, she would have been. Above all, she remembered the hate she allowed herself to feel only for that shade which called itself the Nightmare, even after Luna was freed from its grasp and she began hunting it down wherever it fled. That beast was the only thing she had ever truly wanted to kill, to annihilate with her own hooves. This Covenant is no different, no more willing to consider the lives it takes, no more able to be reasoned with. Their only difference is the scale of their atrocities. When at last she spoke, she was surprised at how calm her voice was, considering the maelstrom of fury she wished she could unleash upon the alien butchers. “Captain, you have my word that Equestria will aid you however it can.”
Captain Arnold simply nodded at this sudden change in demeanor before speaking. “I’m glad to hear it, and from your reaction, even I can tell that you mean it. You can start by making sure those unicorns become the best damn spellslingers you can make them. Then we’ll be able to talk diplomacy. Who knows? Maybe this “magic” is the edge we need to win.”
Royal Canterlot Castle
November 7, 2011 1:30 P.M. Canterlot Local Time
Canterlot, Equestria
The throne room still felt empty without Princess Celestia sitting in her usual place. It would doubtless be years before anypony could enter this room without staring sullenly at the golden seat which would never again be filled. For some ponies, it seemed as though the sun would never truly shine again, though it continued to rise and set as it always had. For the young unicorn now sitting before the vacant throne, that would almost doubtlessly be the case.
Twilight Sparkle had been the princess’s personal protégé for more than half her life. In fact, she had been studying under Celestia’s watchful gaze since she had discovered her talent for magic, and earned her Cutie Mark in a fit of arcane chaos. She had grown up with the princess as a friend and secondary mother figure, not a symbol of regal authority. She remembered how, just over a year ago, the princess had “tricked” her into making the best friends of her life, and even rescuing Princess Luna from whatever curse she had been suffering from. She remembered seeing Celestia, as cheerful as ever, barely a month ago, judging at the Equestrian National Dessert Competition.
Then she had received a letter from Princess Luna in the middle of the night, requesting her presence in Canterlot on urgent business. She was given barely an hour before being picked up by one of the royal sky carriages, and arrived to a visibly distraught Luna trying, and failing, to raise the sun on her own. Twilight was immediately asked to allow Luna to use the near-bottomless supply of magic that, as the bearer of the Element of Magic, she apparently had access to. That morning marked the first time in almost ten thousand years that anypony besides Celestia herself had raised the sun.
Later that day, she had been present as Princess Luna announced to all of Equestria what had happened that night. Just like that, Princess Celestia, who had been there unfailingly for more generations than anyone could count, was gone. Everypony was speechless.
The funeral was the biggest gathering of ponies in Equestrian history. It had actually been held in the valley below Canterlot, because, as Luna herself had said at the time, “Celestia didn’t wish to be placed on a pillar, admired from afar as something beyond reach. She always wanted to join everypony at your own level, as your own friend.” The event lasted long into the night, as hundreds of ponies of all ages and occupations came forward to speak of how the princess had touched their life. Even Discord was, for some unidentified reason, given a chance to speak; a privilege that was swiftly revoked as he proceeded to weave a tale of tropical fruit and lewd innuendos wholly unrelated to the matter at hand.
Eventually, the time came for the sun to be raised, and as Luna and Twilight left to take care of this duty they now found themselves with, the rest of the gathered crowd took this as the queue to disperse, returning to their lives as the sun rose on what would doubtless be a new era. However, as she was leaving, Twilight looked out over the gathered mourners and noticed something out of place, a sore hoof even the colorful party hats Discord had sprinkled throughout the crowd couldn’t measure up to: a smile. Not the sad smile of somepony remembering good times past, but the gleeful smile of somepony who’s birthday had come early, bringing with it a present as delightful as it was unexpected. The most shocking aspect of this smile, however, was the fact that it adorned the face of Twilights old foalsitter, Princess Cadence.
After helping to raise the sun, Twilight told Luna about what she saw, only to be informed that, if anypony had an excuse to smile, Cadence did. After all she was getting married soon, to Twilight’s own brother and the Captain of the Guard, Shining Armor. Twilight quickly rushed to congratulate both of them, and while her brother was as loving and proud as he always had been, Cadence was definitely different. She was aloof, haughty, even contemptuous, and she didn’t even recognize their secret greeting, gazing on with confused annoyance as Twilight performed it by herself. It was like that wasn’t even Cadence anymore! Even the color of her magic had changed!
Twilight was worried. Cadence was one of her oldest and most cherished friends, and the idea that she could have changed so completely, and into such a horrible pony, was frightening. So Twilight did what she had always done when something frightened her: research. She spent hours in the royal library, reading about all manner of personality-altering plagues, stopping only to fulfill her new duties as co-sun raiser, and to observe Cadence for any of the symptoms described in her notes. After more than two weeks with no results, during which a threat was made against Canterlot by an unknown force, she found something that seemed to fit the bill wholesale.
“Changelings are a race of magical parasites known for their practice of abducting and replacing ponies to feed off the love of those close to them. Though they can take on and maintain the appearance of anypony almost flawlessly, they often rely of excuses, distractions, and, on occasion, mind-controlling spells to remain undetected, as they are, for the most part, horrible actors. In addition, they are unable to duplicate their victim’s unique magical aura, instead having a sickly green color of magic. They thus avoid replacing unicorns wherever possible, preferring to prey upon earth ponies and pegasi. While it is theorized that Changelings congregate in large swarms when not impersonating ponies, no evidence for such behavior has been found, and anypony who has gone in search of it has returned in failure or been replaced by the very creatures they sought.
If you think someone close to you is a changeling, this simple spell will reveal their true nature: …”
Thought Watch’s Guide to Perplexing Pony Personality Shifts
This was it! There was no other explanation! With renewed confidence, Twilight began following “Cadence” around one last time, this time with a camera and note pad to record her evidence. She took pictures of the green magic and perhaps the most insincere smile she had ever seen, wrote down the imposter’s excuses of how she was “stressed out about the wedding,” or “still torn up about Aunt Celly’s disappearance,” and, as the final piece, caught the Not-Cadence cast a spell on her brother that made his eyes go all spinney and green.
With this evidence in her possession, she had called the changeling/Cadence, as well as Shining Armor, Princess Luna, and a few guardsponies she had befriendedover her years as Celestia’s student, to the throne room so that she could confront it. They would be arriving any moment now.
As if on cue, the main door was thrown open, and in rode the miniature Discord on a rainbow unicycle. Growling in annoyance at the mood-ruining interruption, Twilight seized him with her magic and chucked him out a window. It took about ten more minutes until the ponies she was actually waiting for all arrived and the unveiling could begin.
“Now I’m sure you’re all wondering why I called you here,” she began as she flicked an errant bit of mane out of her vision. That was something she was having trouble getting used to. The more she helped to raise the sun, the less her mane looked like hair, and the more it looked like a flowing mass of pink. According to Luna, whose own mane was starting to resemble Celestia’s, this shift was an unavoidable side effect of maintaining a celestial body.
“Yes we are,” her brother replied. “Because some of us have to perform vital duties for the defense of Equestria.” The annoyance in his voice was highly uncharacteristic of him, and Twilight briefly worried that he was a changeling as well until he excused himself out onto a balcony to charge his whole-city shield, using his normal-colored magic. I guess the stress is getting to him.
“Yes, well I’m sure some of you have noticed that Princess Mi Amore Cadenza has not been acting like herself lately,” she continued as Shining Armor returned, only to be interrupted by Princess Luna.
“I’m sure she is simply under stress. We all have been as of late.”
Twilight was mildly annoyed herself by this dismissal, but had honestly expected it. “That’s what I thought too, at first, but after two weeks of research and observation, I have come up with another hypothesis: that the Princess Cadence before you today is actually a changeling!” The outcry against this accusation was also expected, but hearing her brother’s disappointed tone still stung. Unsurprisingly, it was the Cadence lookalike that was yelling the loudest. Eventually, Twilight decided that the yelling was not going to subside on its own anytime soon.
“Everypony calm down! Please!” Through the volume-enhancing powers of the Royal Canterlot Voice, a technique Twilight had decided to study after observing Princess Luna using it on her Nightmare Night visit to Ponyville, the gathered ponies soon settled down, though Princess Luna seemed somewhat miffed at being subjected to her own spell. With everyponies’ attention, Twilight continued. “As I said, this is merely a hypothesis at this point. Fortunately, I happen to have a quick and easy test to prove it one way or the other. If I’m wrong, feel free to subject me to whatever punishment you see fit.”
As she focused her magic to perform the changeling detection spell, Twilight found her confidence rising at the nervous look on the supposed-princess’s face. However, the moment the spell left her horn, the changeling sprang into action, revealing its true form to be significantly larger than the diagrams Twilight had seen, and firing a powerful beam-attack spell at Shining Armor. Before anypony could react, the captain of the guard was blasted across the room, and the changeling was forcibly enlarging the draconequus-and-unicycle-shaped hole in a window and making good its escape. As the guards chased after the fleeing changeling, both Twilight and Princess Luna rushed to the still form of Shining Armor.
They were both relieved to find him still breathing, albeit somewhat shallowly, and Twilight Turned to Luna in hopes of gaining some enlightenment as to what just happened. “Princess, what was that? It was bigger than the diagrams said a changeling should be.”
The Princess of the Night didn’t respond. Instead, with a look of dawning horror, she raced out onto the balcony Shining Armor had recently vacated, and looked out at the sky. To the east, a black cloud was rapidly approaching. She took flight and, with all the volume and authority her Royal Canterlot Voice could provide shouted, “Guards! To Arms! Sound the alarm! Changelings attack from the east! Keep them out of the city, or we shall never get rid of them all! Citizens! Retreat into your homes! Do not allow anypony in until the threat has been dealt with!” Within moments of the announcement that echoed across the entirety of Canterlot, the city erupted into frantic action. Guardsponies donned their armor and prepared for the nearing swarm, or helped to carry provisions for the scrambling citizenry as they ran to their homes or those of whichever friends were nearer. By the time the shield dome began to crack under the weight of slamming changelings, the only ponies evident in the streets or skies of Canterlot were adorned in shining metal plates. Then the dome shattered, and the changelings began their comet-like charge at the city below. The Battle for Canterlot had begun.
Author’s notes: Behold! The biggest chapter yet!
When I first started writing this fic, all I knew about the season finale was that it would involve a wedding. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it also involved a war! Go ahead! Imagine it! Got that picture? You’re nowhere close. When I saw the season finale, I thought to myself, this is perfect! I’ll only have to adjust a few scenes, and the whole thing will become 20% awesomer! So I did, and it is.
Meanwhile the Guam’s ponies are learning about magic, so I thought I’d share my own thoughts on the subject. Magic isn’t just unexplainable by science; it’s actually a manual override for the universe itself, one I made excessive use of setting up the events of this story. Beings native to the MLP universe, as well as those forcible integrated into it are naturally able to access this override, though only Unicorn-type subspecies and certain other creatures can actively use it, and, depending on what they’re trying to accomplish, certain amounts of power or focus will be needed. Focus is gained over time by studying how magic works, while power in inherent upon birth, and can only be enhanced through powerful artifacts. As the author, I have unlimited amounts of both.
And yes, I take a personal hand in shaping the worlds I write about. Doesn’t every author?
Post-revision Notes: Longest chapter, now longer! Very little substance was actually added though...