A year ago, Cadance was forced to kill her older and beloved brother, Prince Fratello, whom had been taken over by the evil robot empire and tried to destroy and conquer United Equestria. There was no hope of saving him or any chance to make him good again as that sort of magic had no effect on robots. In the finals hours, faced with no other option, and her brother begging and pleading for death knowing fully well the sort of danger he was, and could not be saved… Cadance shot him right through his robot body causing him to fall over and explode while mutter the words “…Thank you!” and he was really gone, and ever since her brother’s ultimate death, Cadance had been having recurring nightmares about losing him all over again and being unable to save him.

One night, Cadance was sleeping in bed alone, and she was tossing, turning, frowning, and groaning. She was having another nightmare about her older brother Fratello…

The skies were red and stormy, and all along the ground there were burning fires and bits of rubble and debris as Cadance ran through the chaos, and there, up ahead, she could see a gang of robots dragging Fratello away. “Brother!” Cadance shrieked.

“Cadance, help me!” he would cry out to her while stretching his arm out. Cadance ran with all her might, but the robots wouldn’t let her come anywhere near them and blasted her back, and as usual, her magic was not good enough to combat them with their magical-proof armor. The next thing she knew, the robots were disappearing through a portal that had appeared and were taking Fratello with them. “Cadance…!” he shouted.

“Fratello…!” his sister screamed as she ran with all her might, but he was gone, and the portal vanished in a huge flash of bright light so blinding…

At that very moment, Shining Armor had just entered the room on his way to bed. “Cadance!” he cried as he ran to his wife’s side to comfort her. “Are you okay? I could hear you from down the hall.”

Cadance caught her breath and decided to step onto the terrace and get some fresh air to cool off. While she was there she took a moment to refresh the spell around the New Crystal Empire, just as she promised every twelve hours. Night breeze was warm and somewhat comforting, but to Cadance it was almost as if she could hear her brother trying to communicate with her as she seemed to hear his voice on the wind calling “Cadance…! Cadance…!”

Suddenly, she couldn’t really explain it, but she swore she was able to see something-- a strange form of light flying along the darkness, and the voice of her brother got louder and clearer to her. “Fratello, is that you?”

The light soon began to fade. “No! Wait, don’t go!” she cried and she moved forward to try and chase it, only to be snapped suddenly back into reality when Shining Armor shouted “CADANCE!!” and grabbed her just as she was about to fall over the edge of the terrace and would have fallen way down below from such a height. Cadance gasped when she realized what could have happened and was quivering softly.

Tears began to fall from his wife’s eyes as she shook her head softly and said “… I don’t think so.”

All Shining Armor could do was hold her comfortingly and let her weep softly. He honestly didn’t know what to do for her.

The next morning in New Ponyville, Twilight received a letter from her brother which expressed his deep concern for Cadance and her nightmares. It really broke Twilight’s heart to hear her sister-in-law was still grieving and in so much emotional pain after all this time. “I don’t think I blame her.” Twilight said. “It’s hard enough her brother is dead, but the fact is she’s the one who ultimately destroyed him.”

Both she and Spike really wished something could be done, but then again Twilight didn’t know what to say or do especially considering she didn’t know what it was like to lose any loved ones or close friends like that. She had her whole family, and all her friends.

“At least you can do some things for others.” Spike said. He didn’t mean to change the subject, but he was still feeling as if he was just plain useless. He wasn’t a strong fighter like the others and he could hardly do much for the planet. He longed to be something more, like a fighter, but despite being thirteen years old, he was still too young to join Starfleet, or even enlist in Starfleet academies.

“But you’re not useless, Spike.” Twilight said “You’re still the best assistant I’ve ever had, and I know someday you’ll be able to do anything you want, maybe even more.”

This made Spike feel a little better, but just then he belched out another letter from Queen Celestia, while at the same time Lightning received one from Grand Ruler.

The letters said that they and all of their friends were to come to New Canterlot Palace at once that day to discuss newer battle strategies to use against Sombra’s forces, but also for training. Their majesties along with Professor Brain had worked hard on special spells and formulas to help for future battles, and today Lightning was to bring his teammates on Starfleet to have this new skill added to their weapons and train with them to get a new feel of things. Twilight and friends would need to brush up on their normal training as well.

After breakfast, all the ponies had met up, and Krysta warped them all to the palace. “Thanks, Krysta.” said Lightning. Krysta winked at him, and they were all announced into the throne room at once. The guards bowed to Twilight and saluted to Admiral Lightning as they all made their way across and made their way to their majesties. They all exchanged bows of greeting, and Grand Ruler dismissed the guards.

They held their meeting immediately. Twilight used her magic to replay footage of the last battle in holographic sparkling images. “That’s enough.” Grand Ruler said, and Twilight made the images vanish. “It would now seem that we know how Sombra intends to carry out his evil bidding.”

“Yes, Master.” Lightning said “The monsters and the shadowbolts are merely used to distract us so we won’t be able to find the heart fragments.”

“Finding the fragments is very important.” Celestia said “However, we can’t allow the enemies to wreak any more havoc on the kingdom.”

“I guess that means we’re just going have to plot more carefully. Maybe even split up the teams?” suggested Rainbow.

“Just imagine how horrible it will be is we let our enemies get any more of the shards.” cried Rarity “What if they assemble the entire crystal heart. Of all the worst things, it would be THE…WORST…POSSIBLE…THING…!”

“Rarity…!” Starla said, telling her to calm down. Rarity blushed in embarrassment. “Oh! Sorry! A-heh-heh…!”

Rainbow Dash had a good point though, and at it was agreed that the next time the others located a fragment and ran into Sombra’s forces, some of the team would fight, while another or others would seek the fragment.

“Yeah, I mean from what we saw these aren’t ordinary beasts.” said Applejack.

“We can’t capture them, and we can’t just destroy them either. Especially if they’re made out of other creatures or precious objects and stuff.” added Fluttershy.

“Ah, but there is a way.” said a voice from a corner of the room, and there stood good old Professor Brain, the royal scientific advisor and genius inventor, and he asked everyone to follow him to his laboratory.

Once there, Pinkie’s eyes glittered at the sights of all the cool and amazing stuff. “Oh, look at all this stuff.” she cried “Look at that. Look at this!”

“Pinkie, please…” Brain cautioned her “Whatever happens, you mustn’t touch anything.”

Pinkie stopped right where she was, like playing freeze-tag, but that’s when a large blanket cover slipped off of what was a robot pony, making her jump. Everyone couldn’t help but gaze at the robot’s facial features. “Fratello…?” Celestia said. “Professor, how did you…?”

Brain explained that ever since the defeat of Fratello, he too had been concerned about Princess Cadance and her traumatic times, and felt that maybe it would be best if she had something that resembled her brother by her side. So, using what he had researched on cybernetics, he built a special robot that would serve as new castle servant in the New Crystal Empire. It was designed to respond and Cadance’s voice and only her only, until it was reprogramed to obey everyone. He could also fight in battle and was armed with weapons and had the power to shoot pulse blasts as his main method of attack, and above all would prove to be just as strong and as powerful as those of the robot empire were.

“Wait a minute.” Twilight said. “You’re saying that thing is just as powerful, and just as resistant to most magic like the robots we fought before.”

“So if we were to engage it in a brawl,
Most of our attacks wouldn’t work at all?” asked Rhymey.

“My dear Spike; the robot is a design of extreme and complex programing, of which only I or very few others are skilled in such arts are able to understand. We are all perfectly safe I do assure you, unless of course somebody with equal skills or a magic powerful enough were to change the robot’s programing, which I only repeat is not very likely.”

Even still, there was one thing bothering him about presenting it to Cadance. The fact that it both resembled her brother, and being a robot, would constantly remind her of everything that happened, he wasn’t sure if giving it to her would only make her feel worse when he really wanted her to cheer up a bit as it broke his heart seeing a beautiful princess weep all the time.

Still, now was not the time to talk about it anymore. It was there that Brain asked Starla, Buddy Rose, Artie, and Rhymey to give him their weapons. He placed them on a conveyer belt and loaded them into a machine, and as the machine rumbled and glowed he recounted what was learned from the battle, and how Lightning managed to knock out all the evil energy from within the monster, thus destroying the evil and sparing the innocent creatures and objects from destruction. Therefore, with the Queen and the Grand Ruler’s help he was able to conjure a magical formula. The principle was simple. Most Starfleet weapons had two basic and primary modes to be set on for the finishing blow; “Capture” and “Destroy” and now they would possess a third functioning mode; “Heal” It’s basic function was to vanquish all the evil magic possessing someone or something, and heal that creature or object back to normal without harm; almost like the magic of the Elements of Harmony when combined together by Twilight and her five friends. However, as Twilight and all her friends would not always be all together at once during all fights meaning the harmony magic wouldn’t be able to work.

This way, Starla, Buddy Rose, Artie and Rhymey had this new function built into their weapons. Lightning already could use the Uniforce, and Dyno and Myte had no hand-held weapons, but knew with the right training they could make their Boom-Boom Flare work just like Lightning and the Uniforce.

The machine stopped with a ding, and out came the weapons “Ah, satisfactory; most satisfactory.” Brain complimented

As much as the weapons didn’t seem any different, the fighters trusted Brain and couldn’t wait to try them out in the dojo. “Well, what are we waiting for?” Lightning said. “Let’s go.” Twilight said, and everyone headed off to test their new weapons.

Along the way, Twilight noticed Celestia seemed a little strange about something. “Is everything all right, your majesty?” she asked.

Celestia gazed at her young pupil. “Why, I feel fine Twilight. Why do you ask?”

Twilight wasn’t sure she was being honest, but decided to withdraw her question. Celestia had not told anyone else that she was being threatened by mail. It wasn’t even certain yet if it could be taken seriously, but she and her husband agreed it was best not to get the others all roused up. Besides, they were royal figures, and like most leaders they always were getting threatened and blackmailed, and would never get any work done if all they ever did was panic, which was a good thing they held reputations for not scaring easy. They intended to deal with this ordeal themselves.

Usually, New Canterlot palace was under tight guard, especially during times of war. Even a butterfly could hardly fly in too close without being spotted by the patrols. Most kinds of invisibility spells and shape shifting wouldn’t work either as the Starfleet visors helped to see through those acts. To get into the palace you’d have to be skilled in the arts of extremely devilish magic, or be able to be undetectable by the Starfleet technology… and that very moment, someone was doing just that; breaking in without being spotted or detected.

Inside Brain’s empty lab, a shadowy portal appeared, and a stranger came through it. It was a genetically altered humanoid demon-corn. She was about the same size as Cadance, only she had pale grayish skin, and wore an evil looking outfit; consisting of a black suit with faded blue outlining, and dark blue cloak. A massive hood was over her head, hiding her face and horn. Around her neck she wore a pendant of what appeared to be half of a golden heart locket, charred and broken.

She levitated off the floor so as not to leave any footprints form her boots. She looked around and saw what she was looking for-- Robot-Fratello.

She hovered over and waved her finger in front of the robot’s chest, magically swinging it open and revealing the robot’s circuitry and stuff inside. She pulled out a small chip from her pocket and began to enchant it with a magical spell in one hand, and activate the robot in the other.

The robot began blinking and vibrating as he came to life, and he spoke clearly and deeply in Fratello’s voice. “Robot is online. Reviewing primary directives… 1: Serve and assist Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. 2: Maintain order… and…har...mo… ny…!”

The stranger had shut him down and began to implant her cursed control chip into his circuitry. “You’re going to be working for me now, and there’s only one thing that I want you to do.”

The robot’s eyes glowed red as it came back to life. “Robot is online. Reviewing primary directive: Two hours after sundown, destroy Queen Celestia. Destroy all who stand in the way.”

The stranger snickered as she closed the hatch. “Wonderful.” Then she reached into her pocket again and pulled out another black letter with a skull on it and made it disappear, which Celestia would read soon.

Before leaving the stranger closed her eyes and thought deeply as she clutched the broken locket around her neck. “She will pay for what she did to you… to me… to us! What I’m doing I am doing for you… my one true love. You will be avenged!” Then she vanished and all the guards outside the lab and all over the palace remained completely clueless of her presence or what she had done.

All the rest of the day, the ponies trained in the dojo, testing their new weapons and powering up their skills both physically and magically with target practice or sparring against fighter-droids Brain had built to serve as targets, but the best method was sparring off against each other.

Celestia and Grand Ruler even sparred with Twilight and Lightning. Lightning did much better in his training, but even so he could never hope to beat his master. Twilight had a hard time keeping up with Celestia physically, and got hit many times, but she did do well in a magical brawl. The teachers even had their students spar with one another. As expected, Twilight didn’t do very well…

She tried to paralyze Lightning with her magic, but Lightning’s many years of extreme and intensive training gave him a strong and solid body, even without his armor on he could just shrug the magic right off so it had no effect. Twilight fired a magical blast, but Lightning just stood and took it as if it didn’t even tickle him.

“Remember Twilight, you cannot always depend on magic alone.” said Grand Ruler.

Twilight understood, but Lightning, though stronger than she was still admired her as a blooming fighter and enjoyed sparring with her as she enjoyed sparring with him. It helped to make her stronger and swifter just as it helped him too, and as a princess in-training Twilight had to become stronger.

By sundown, everyone was real beat from all that training. The friends were all invited to spend the night as they wanted to get just a bit more training in the next day. They all had a really big dinner feast. Princess Luna joined them as it was almost time for her to take her position on night watch. Everyone each ate at least twenty different courses. All that training made them pretty hungry. Pinke even went around taking things off other’s plates going.

She even took a bread-roll from Celestia’s plate, and grabbed a steak off the tray before Grand Ruler could reach of it. Still, everyone took in good humor. Celestia even found time to pull her old tea sipping gag on the servants--

The minute she sipped her tea did the servants refill, so she just made the sipping sound and the servants overfilled the cup causing it to spill out. “Got’cha.”

Soon it began to get dark. Applejack looked across the table. “Aw, will ya lookie there.” Everyone’s gaze fell upon Castor and Leilani in their royal high chairs. The sleepy little foals let out tiny little yawns and began drifting off. “I think it’s time to put them to bed.” said Celestia. Her husband agreed and they excused themselves leaving everyone else to finish up. Brain also had to tend to his laboratory.

Celestia and Grand Ruler dressed their foals into their jammies and put them down in their cribs. Celestia pecked her little angels softly on their heads as they drifted off to sleep. “They’re so peaceful.” she whispered. “They really are.” Grand Ruler said, and he softly pecked his wife on the cheek. They continued to watch their children sleep a few more minutes and then turned to leave, but Celestia stopped when she noticed another black letter was on the diaper table. “Where did this come from?” she asked.

Her husband didn’t know, and they both opened it and read it; it was another threat from the mystery assassin.

Dear Queen Celestia…

Roses are red,
Your blood is too
You’ll see lots of it
…WHEN I MURDER YOU!!

Celestia felt a small chill run down her spine and Grand Ruler gritted his teeth. What puzzled them both was how the letter got in the room in the first place.

As Brain cleaned up a little around his laboratory, he gazed at Fratello and still felt skeptical about giving it to Cadance. “Oh, well, I suppose that if I don’t give it to her, I could always… uh… er… reprogram it and have an assistant around here.”

As he turned to get back to work, Fratello suddenly came to life. “What?” snapped Brain as he watched in confusion as his creation began marching forward “I say… what’s happening?”

“Robot is online. Two hours after sunset, destroy Queen Celestia! Destroy Queen Celestia!”

“What? No! What are you doing?” shouted Brain “Stop this! Go back! Go back I say!” but the robot wouldn’t obey him and just kept repeating his orders to kill Celestia. Brain tried to stop the robot himself, but he got pushed hard out of the way. The robot then smashed through the door and made his way out to find Celestia.

Up in the babies’ room, the alarm woke up the two little foals and they were crying and squealing. The parents scooped up their children and attempted to calm them down. “What’s happening?” asked Celestia. “I don’t know.” said Grand Ruler, and he passed her Leilani “I’m going down there. Stay here with the children.”

The guards were rushing to-arms and heading for where the danger was. “What is that?” some of them would say as they saw Fratello coming at them. They then tried to rush the metal monster, but the robot remembered his orders. “Destroy Queen Celestia. Destroy all who stand in the way.” He raised his arms and fired his pulse-blasters, blasting many of the guards out of the way, and those that got even close got punched and pummeled and their lances broken by the robot’s superior strength. “Destroy all who stand in the way! Destroy!”

The robot sensed where Celestia and activated his rocket boots, enabling him to soar upward and bust right through the ceiling to the next floor and into the dining hall. “Look!” shouted Dyno. “It’s Brain’s robot!”

Twilight’s blood ran cold at the mention of those words. “Destroy Queen Celestia?!”

“We mustn’t let him!” said Luna, and she and all the fighters got up. The tried to transform, but they were all still tired for all the training they had done and it didn’t work, but they didn’t let that discourage them and they all rushed to fight the robot.

“Destroy! Destroy!” It continued to shout. Grand Ruler burst into the room and didn’t have to ask what was happening. “Stop him!” he shouted.

As the robot prepared to take off and burst up through the ceiling again, Grand Ruler fired a powerful blast at him, which hardly did anything at all, just as Brain promised. The robot angrily glared at Grand Ruler. “That… was… a mistake!” and he fired his pulse-blaster again. Grand Ruler dodged, and the blast missed blowing a huge chunk out of the wall.

“Whatever happens, don’t let him find Celestia!” added Luna, and the fight was on.

Lightning high-jump kicked, but the robot batted him away, right into Twilight. Lightning’s friends then tried their attacks…

All those projectiles and blasts contacted Fratello, but hardly did much damage. It also didn’t help that they were still tired from training and not wearing their super suits to amplify the power.

The robot stomped forward shouting “Destroy! Destroy!” and he punched and kicked the fighters out of the way. Applejack tried to lasso it with her rope, but Fratello yanked on the line and whirled her around and around like a hammer throw and tossed her hard into a solid column.

“Oh, no you don’t!” shouted Pinkie as she leapt up and griped onto the robot’s backside. “Got’cha now…!”

The robot’s eyes glowed an angry red and he began swaying and swinging his massive arms to knock her off. “Whoa…! Hey…!” cried Pinkie as she held on tightly. “Destroy!” shouted Fratello as his right hand disappeared inside his arm and out popped a set of spinning sickles. “Pinkie, watch out!” screamed Rarity, and Pinkie leapt off of the robot before he had a chance to strike her.

Brain tried and tried again to make the robot listen to him, but it wouldn’t obey his voice commands, but suddenly, remembering something crucial about the robot, Lightning and Twilight had an idea. “Krysta quick; take Twilight to the New Crystal Empire! I’ll stay here and help out as best I can.”

Twilight agreed to the idea, and Krysta, as confused as she was, she warped herself and Twilight away. “What are you doing?” cried Rainbow “We need Twilight here.”

“Trust me! This just may help!” Lightning said, and they dodged another pulse-blast. “He’s breaking free!” cried Fluttershy.

“Come, fight him with me.” rhymed Rhymey as he Fluttershy and Rarity dashed forth to try and stop him. Lightning joined in too. Lightning managed to grab the long stick the sickles were extended on and pull them out, and Rarity managed to jab her horn intro the robot’s left eye shattering it and causing a few sparks and electrical jolts to bust out, but the robot shoved them all off of him, throwing them into columns and walls.

Grand Ruler, Luna and Rainbow Dash went after him. Rainbow Dashed forth for a sonic rain-boom, but got punched hard and was knocked the other way. “Destroy! Destroy!” shouted the robot.

Luna growled fired a wave of dark energy at him which managed to knock him back a bit, as energy combined with magic was strong enough to work on robots, but the robot was still not even tired and engaged in a strength struggle with Grand Ruler. To Grand Ruler it almost felt like trying to move a mountain.

“Master!” cried Lightning as he watched his teacher struggle hard to push the robot back, but the robot fired his rocket boots and headed up through the ceiling. Grand Ruler gasped as he crashed straight through the hard floor. He was more worried than hurt, for now the robot had a clear stretch towards the nursery. “Stop him!” shouted Grand Ruler.

The guards tried to stop him, but to no avail. The two teams hurried upstairs, but they couldn’t stop him with their powers so weak from all the beatings they had taken, and Lightning didn’t dare use the uniforce for fear of missing and damaging the palace even more or worse, hurting someone else.

The robot smashed down the door to the nursery, and there was Celestia, holding the frightened babies, and Goldwin stepped up bravely trying to defend her, only to get knocked to the side and his mask fell off turning him back into a statue. “Goldwin!” cried Celestia.

There was nothing to stop the robot now as he stomped forth shouting. “Destroy Queen Celestia! Destroy! DESTROY!”

Celestia tried to zap him, but to no avail, and there was no place for her to run. “Celestia!” shouted Grand Ruler. The robot powered up ready to deliver the finishing blow, when a voice suddenly hollered, “Fratello, cease and desist!”

“Cancel attack sequence, and standby.” It was Cadance. Krysta had warped her and Twilight back just in the nick of time. “Way to go girls.” cried Lightning.

It was Lightning and Twilight’s plain to bring Cadance over, since the robot would obey her voice. “If Brain won’t bring Cadance her gift, bring Cadance to the gift.” Twilight joked.

The two of them slapped a high five rejoicing that their plan had worked. Cadance nodded and approached the robot “Fratello!”

The robot obeyed and left the room peacefully. Then Cadance playful stared at Brain “Nice gift Professor. Think you could program it to be a little less violent?” she joked.

Brain was just as baffled as everyone by how all this happened, and promised to look into it at once. The important thing was everyone was safe, and not too many serious damages had been caused, nothing the palace carpenters couldn’t fix, especially with Dyno and Myte there. “Looks like we better get to work.” said Dyno.

Celestia and Grand Ruler stayed behind the nursery to help comfort their frightened foals and put them back to sleep now that the danger was over, but both of them wondered if maybe this renegade robot was all part of some plot. It was programed to obey Cadance, not kill Celestia.

Her husband wouldn’t sugar-coat it. “It is possible. This threat is to seem as no hoax.”

The repairs didn’t take so long, especially with everyone’s help. The holes in the walls and floors were patched and sealed up. The doors were set back into place. Broken glass was all swept up and windows were replaced. By the time everyone was finished, Brain and Cadance came back from the laboratory, having discovered what caused all the trouble. “I removed this from the robot.” he said while holding up a black chip that was not part of the robot’s original circuitry.

The others all felt outraged, especially Twilight for the very thought that someone would reprogram that robot to kill her beloved teacher! Then suddenly, she began to wonder if this was what Celestia was deep in thought about before when she questioned here.

Even Brain didn’t know the answer. The chip he had was a form of programing and was infused with a kind of magic he had never seen before. Even Lightning and Twilight didn’t recognize it and couldn't figure it out. “And I thought you two studied magic constantly.” said Krysta.

The security cameras were checked, but mysteriously, there was no one to be seen, even the x-ray and infrared scans revealed no one. This suggested that whoever it was knew a form of magic so that they couldn't be photographed or appear on camera, a type of magic they knew nothing about.

The laboratory was checked all over and scanned with equipment. There were no traces left behind at all, no finger prints, no footprints, no traceable sources of magic. Whoever it was seemed to have covered their tracks perfectly!

Brain decided to keep the chip and examine it more thoroughly. In the meantime he was happy to announce that Fratello was all fixed up, and was ready for Cadance to take home with her. “I’m only just dreadfully sorry.” Brain said “And to you, Princess, I do hope you don’t think less of my gesture to you.”

“Oh, Professor… I like it.” Cadance said “It’s not going to change how I feel entirely, but it’s nice to know you were thinking of my feelings; all of you.”

Everyone felt happy to hear that, and it was nice to see Cadance smiling again. Now that the repairs were all completed, everyone decided to head off to bed. Lightning, however, wanted to escort Cadance and Fratello back home with Krysta. There was something he wanted to talk with her about.

Once back in the New Crystal Empire. Shining Armor was still on the last hours of his shift before retiring for the night and stood atop Crystal Palace, overlooking the entire empire for signs of danger.

Cadance ordered Fratello to power down for the night. “Cadance, can I ask you?”

Lightning nodded “I don’t mean to do this if it upsets you, but… well… how do you really feel about the professor’s gift?”

Cadance felt somewhat confused herself of how she really felt, but as she said before, “I love it, and I’m glad he made it for me. I know he’s not really my brother but… he looks like him, and now it’s really like he’s back with me.” Her voice was starting to sound sad again as she walked out onto the terrace and gazed up at the stars. “Whenever I look up at the stars, I wonder if Fratello is among them, gazing down at me. I remember all the fun times we had… and how he swore… he’s always protect me… and…” Her voice was tearful now, and she had a hard time resisting the urge to cry.

Lightning hated seeing her like this. Not only did it break his heart, but… it reminded him of his own loses to. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Cadance sniffled and wiped away her tears. Krysta even handed her a handkerchief. “No… it’s all right.” she said as she dabbed her eyes and blew her nose. “Everyone tells me the same thing all the time, that I shouldn’t keep letting Fratello’s death slow me down.”

“They’re right too, Cadance.” Krysta said “We all know how much he meant to you, but you can’t spend all your time grieving. It won’t bring him back, and he wouldn’t have wanted you to spend your life in tears.”

“I know.” said Cadance “But it just seems so hard to let go. He was my big brother, and I really loved him, but when I had to destroy him… it felt as if a part of me died with him.”

Lightning stepped forward. “You feel like you lost your whole world.” The girls turned to face him. “Believe me; I know what that really feels like.”

Cadance felt like she was only just beginning to realize the absolute truth and how her problems weren’t really all that bad. She only lost one or maybe a few family members or loved ones in her life, but everything else stayed the same for her. Lightning on the other hand, he lost all his people, his family, his friends; everything when his birth planet, Harmonious was destroyed. “I’m sorry, Lightning.” she said “I… I guess I wasn’t really thinking about how others have it.”

“It’s not your fault.” Lightning said as he joined her by her side and looked up at the stars. “When Harmonious blew up, and all my people died, not a day or night went by that I didn’t stop to think about it and all that I lost, and I still do, but I try to cope with it, and it helps. Now I have a reason to fight; a reason to keep on living; so that I can help protect others so they won’t likely have to face the same stuff I did. When Unicornicopia and Equestria were destroyed, I knew how everyone felt… but… look at all this, look what we created… in many ways we all learn to move on at some point, even if we ultimately can never put it behind us.”

Lightning then pointed up at a constellation in the sky. “See those five stars? If you look way beyond the center star and kept on going… you’d eventually run into the place where Harmonious once was.”

“Sure…” Lightning said and he closed his eyes and thought deeply, and even though it was against the rules, it was no surprise that Cadance wished that somehow she knew her brother was at peace, and Krysta wished for everyone to someday be at ease with their troubles. “What did you wish for, Lightning…?” Krysta asked. A queer look of depression appeared on Lightning’s face. “I wished for you brother, and my planet back.”

“Oh, Lightning!” Cadance said as she softly hugged him close to her. They both couldn’t have what they wished for, but it was comforting to know that they understood each other, and could at least be there one another like friends were supposed to be.

In our next episode, Lightning, Twilight, and friends are invited to Horn Kong to take part of a cooking contest as judges, where they even meet an old friend. Meanwhile, Sombra sends Phaedra to do a little trouble cooking of her own, and seek out another shard of the Crystal Heart.

How will the team’s new battle strategy work out for them, and who will get the third shard?

Don’t miss the next exciting episode of “Starfleet Magic”

(Next Episode: “Troubles A’Cookin’”)

My Brave Pony Starfleet Magic: Season III

by DakariKingMykan

Episode 3: Renegade Robot