Saving Equestria

by Damaged


The Show - Part 2

Applejack's hooves pounded the trail through The Everfree Forest. Tears leaked from her eyes, and they were tears that she neither could nor would stop. "Dagnabbit Rarity. When'd you end up bein' the brave one?" Her choked words only brought more tears.

The forest was stirred up by the rush of nearby magic. Timber wolves howled, and even a manticore roar penetrated the looming trees to Applejack. Never before had the terrors of The Everfree made Applejack feel safe, but today they did. Timber wolves, manticores, cockatrices; they were all a barrier between her and what Trixie Lulamoon had become.

"Halt your running hooves, and tell me what danger this proves?" Zecora, wearing her full shamanistic regalia, stood in the middle of the path. Applejack hadn't seen her through her tears, and it seemed to the mare as if the zebra were a great monster of The Everfree.

"Zecora!" Slamming her hooves into the ground, Applejack sighed in relief. "Please tell me Trixie ain't got to you, too?" She looked at the strange mask Zecora wore and shuddered a little; the pattern on it reminded her of a timber wolf head.

Seeing the worry in the mare's eyes, Zecora tilted her mask up and back. "This is all that showmare's fault? It had the feel of an angry colt…"

"Definitely Trixie. She came into town and just… she was makin' them all act crazy an' do what she wanted them to." Shaking with the horror of all her friends turned against her, Applejack shed some more tears.

Zecora reached a foreleg over Applejack's withers and pulled the smaller mare into a hug. "Did another pony manage to flee, or is it just us, you, me, we?" Guiding her friend, she led the way back to her hut.

"Derpy got hit the worst. When Trixie came into town, she did somethin' real strange to her. Then her coltfriend rushed out and tried to defend her—he's a changelin', Swift Stride Ah think was his name—her magic didn't seem to work so good on him, but that was changing. Quick as a shot he took off with Derpy clutched tight." Remembering the event made Applejack have a little hope. "If her magic don't work so good on the bugs, maybe they can come and defeat her?"

"Of war you have not seen much, to rely on it is a major crutch." Zecora's rebuke was undone by her tone, her own experiences robbing any outwardly directed harshness. "You were at Sombra's downfall where ponies milled like cattle, how many lives were cut short by the battle?"

A grim reminder flared in Applejack's memory. She recalled how many ponies and changelings were reported undone in the various skirmishes. "They could still help somepony get in and… and stop her." Applejack clung to the hope that the rising of "Queen" Trixie could be stopped without bloodshed. "So what can we do?"

"Pragmatic and ready to plan, together we will do what we can." That the mare was still able to think of fighting back filled Zecora with hope; she was always fascinated at how resourceful ponies could be.


All the hive knew who Swift Stride was; a master infiltrator, guardian of both the hive's young queen and its only princess. So when he practically crashed into the main doors of Canterlot Castle, action was taken.

"Please! I need to see our queen!" Swift clung tightly to the snarling creature his fillyfriend had become. Two big guardlings stood their ground while another infiltrator raced off as fast as possible. "Derpy?" Pulling the mare away from him, Swift almost lost his grip on her.

Big, leathery wings spread out, their claws slashing at Swift's body. Derpy was panicking, and needed to get back to the only important pony in her life. "Where is my queen? Where is Queen Trixie?!"

"Derpy, stop!" Swift fought back against Derpy, but unlike the mare he sought only to restrain without hurting.

Stomping into the courtyard, Chrysalis could see her drone wrestling with the strange pony. "Swift! What is going on?" As she rushed over, other drones approached. Appreciating the support, she nonetheless would have rather kept things less open.

"Trixie Lulamoon arrived in Ponyville." At the look of confusion, Swift clarified, "A traveling performer who had met with a rough audience. She came back and her power… She did this to Derpy, and mind-controlled her."

"Mind-control? How did you get away?" Chrysalis gestured to one of the guardlings in the crowd. "Drip, please come and lend your expertise." She waited for the undersized guardling to make his way through the crowd. "Can you sedate her?"

Drip nodded to his queen. "Of course, Queen Chrysalis. Sedating her without overwhelming her body completely and killing her, is another thing." He stepped up beside Swift, and had to dodge a claw swinging at him. "Heavy! Get over here and hold this mare for me."

"I'll hold her!" Clenching his teeth against the repeated slashing claws on his chitin, Swift Stride was almost in tears. "I couldn't protect her…"

Making her way through the crowd with a lot less problems than Drip did, Heavy Lift practically stalked forward. Her frame was big enough that it dwarfed even the guardlings at the gate. "My Queen, Infiltrator Swift Stride." She gave a bow to the former, a nod to the latter. "What's up, Drip?"

"Little miss fury of claws here needs to be held very still while I knock her out." Drip still didn't approach Derpy and Swift. "How about you help Swift Stride keep her steady so I can do this?"

"Like old times, Drip?" Heavy moved into the danger zone around Derpy, and ignored the sharp thumb-claw that lashed out to rake down her chest. "She is a feisty one. Special somebuggy?" Her words were directed to Swift, getting his attention as she brought her weight in from the side and carefully lay down atop Derpy.

"Yes… Yes ma'am." Swift barely registered one of the heroes of the Northern War lending him assistance. "She got zapped by some strange magic, ma'am." He watched as Heavy Lift secured Derpy's new wings down against gray fur, planted her heavy limbs on each side and just held still. "W-What do you want me to do?"

"Hold her head." Drip approached now, trusting his life to the biggest guardling of the hive. "I need to clamp my fangs into her neck and hold still. Each time I give her more venom, I need to wait to see how she takes it."

Swift did as instructed, bracing himself and pinning Derpy's thrashing head down. "Please be careful with her." He barely got the words out before Drip bared his fangs and struck. The action of driving his long, hollow fangs into the mare had to be a sharp one. Once the small guardling with the over-productive venom glands latched on, it was obvious that he was having some effect.

Twilight Sparkle made it to the courtyard in time to see Derpy Hooves struggling under the weight of three changelings. Her blood started to pump, but one of her best lessons learned had been to evaluate before doing rash things. "What's happening?" She approached Queen Chrysalis, knowing that it was her word that was law.

"A pony arrived in Ponyville, and she used strange magic to twist Swift's friend here. She is also mind-controlling ponies." Chrysalis watched as the furious gray mare slowly relaxed. "I am having Drip sedate her so we can decide on a course of action."

Her mind racing, Twilight gasped in excitement. "Wait, don't fully knock her out yet!" Her magic flared and Twilight popped from one place to another with a rush of teleportation magic. Looking around, she oriented herself with where she had come out. "Sweet Dreams! Sweet, wake up!" Trotting through the rooms she stayed in while at the castle, she found the drone in her bedroom, curled up on the bed like a cat.

"What's going on?" Sweet blinked his bright blue eyes at Twilight and yawned. But rather than a rational answer, he instead was floated into the air on a cushion of purple magic. "Twilight?!"

With her charge on her back, Twilight shook her head. "No time to explain, Sweet. Hold on!" Another rush of power and Twilight, with a screaming dreamling clinging to her back, appeared back in the courtyard with a POMF of magic.

"Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh…" Sweet Dreams trailed off when he realized he was looking directly at his queen. "T-T-Twilight! I said not to do that!" Despite his queen-and-mother being present, the shock of being teleported still upset Sweet a lot.

"There is a good reason I made you a princess, Twilight Sparkle." Chrysalis quickly picked up Twilight's plan. "Sweet, you have plenty of venom?" The drone in question nodded, his outrage overwhelmed by his queen's words. "Good. Bite this poor mare so that we might have some hope of finding out what happened to her."

"Exactly!" Twilight stepped closer to Derpy, her eyes glued to the weakened, most gentle pony she knew. "I am so sorry, Sweet, but she needed you as quickly as possible." Using her magic, Twilight lifted Sweet Dreams up from her back and set him on the ground.

Yawning widely again, Sweet walked on wobbly legs towards where his much larger siblings restrained the gray pony. "What's with all the muscle? She doesn't look so menacing."

"Tell that to Swift Stride, and he is her special somebuggy." Heavy kept her weight over the pony, but didn't have to press down as much to hold Derpy in place. "Haven't had much to do with you guys. Dreamling, right?"

Sweet was quick, almost uncannily so. His white fangs flashed and a small bite mark was left on Derpy's shoulder. "Yeah. Now ease her out completely." He couldn't stop another yawn, and leaned down to rub his cheek along Derpy's shoulder, where he had bitten.

Drip hadn't had time to get to know any dreamlings either, and the speed with which Sweet Dreams worked astounded him. Keeping his eyes rolled up to the top of his head, he watched as Sweet curled up beside them and promptly fell asleep. Focusing back on Derpy's heartbeat and breathing, Drip leaked a little more venom into her.

Relaxing into his own dream-plane was the easiest thing Sweet could ever do. Falling asleep was as simple as breathing, for a dreamling. He waited, and in the dream world time got all kinds of stretchy, so it seemed like a week to Sweet before the portal appeared. Wreathed in burning black-green fire, the portal into Derpy's dreams was not an inviting-looking target. "The things I do—"

"Sweet Dreams." Princess Luna was suddenly beside Sweet. She had easily made her way from the overarching dream world into the dreamling's own personal plane, since she had his permission to. "What is going on? Do I need to wake up?"

Stretching, his form shifting to a much more muscular stallion, Sweet shook his head. "A changeling from Ponyville arrived with an injured pony. Some kind of mind control that seems to not affect changelings." He looked at Luna, his form putting him at the same size as the alicorn—at least in his dreams. "Which is why I must ask you not to follow me."

"That looks like King Sombra's magic." Luna gestured forward, slightly amused at Sweet's need to change his form to be an equivalent size to herself. "I don't understand how this can be. Maybe an artifact, or a spell?"

"Princess Luna, this is what a dreamling was born for." Striding forwards, Sweet gave the Princess one last look—even daring a wink—before stepping into the fire.

The actions of the dreamling started to make sense to Luna, and she widened her eyes in surprise at what she figured out. "He is trying to impress me?"

A swirling vortex of purple fire tore and ripped at Sweet Dreams. Memories of Princess Celestia's dreams came to him, and the changeling railed against it. The fire wasn't cleansing, like the Princess' had been. The flames licked and tried to burn his chitin, but Sweet was in control of the shared dream. "Where are you?"

The dimmest whimper caught Sweet's attention, and the changeling focused on that direction. Swooping through the nightmarish flames, he spotted a caged pony. The horrific fires flickered and reached into the cage, trying to contact the pony. Everywhere they touched her, they left raw, sizzling welts.

Derpy was alone, trapped in her own head, and nothing she did could stop the pain of fire from burning her. She had given up trying to dodge it, her mind weary and weak. When a voice had cut through the flames, she screamed as loudly as she could. When the strange changeling appeared in the fire, she thought it was just another way it was going to torture her.

Sweet reached the cage, and touched a hoof to the lock. It wasn't complicated, he could open it, but something about its construction seemed inconsistent with the dreamscape. "You made this cage." When the pony didn't answer, Sweet expended a hurricane of energy to shove the fire away. "You made this cage to hide in?"

"Y-Y-Yes…" Derpy was, for the first time since Trixie's spell had gripped her, not being assaulted by burning flames. "Who are you?"

"I am Sweet Dreams, and this," —Sweet gestured around the cage— "is not a sweet dream. What did this to you?" Rather than risk opening the cage, Sweet instead built walls around it, sealing another layer around the both of them. The moment he was done, flames rushed in and started burning the wall.

"Trixie…" The moment Derpy through the name, an image of the mare she thought of as her friend appeared. "She cast a spell on me with her eyes! It hurt so much…"

"Is this what she looked like when she did it?" Building the image up more, feeding it energy, Sweet built it into a rotating likeness of Trixie Lulamoon. "Was she wearing anything else?"

"Oh! Yes!" Derpy focused on the image, and the hat and cape were gone, replaced with a heavy cloak. After a moment of further thought, she added the strange amulet Trixie had been wearing. "Just like this!"

Sweet studied the amulet, but didn't recognize it. "Hold on a second. The best thing about dreams is…" He reached out with his forehooves and plucked the amulet from the fake Trixie's neck. "… if you can think it, you can do it."

Derpy's eyes widened, and despite her condition watching the clever changeling work rose her spirits. "But… what about this?" She gestured a hoof at the walls of her self-imposed prison.

"Those walls will only hold as long as I am in here, and I need to leave to show Princess Luna what this is." Sweet Dreams took a deep breath. "But there is something else. This is your dream, Derpy."

"S-So? Can't you just sweep all this fire away?" Derpy looked up at Sweet, and immediately saw in his eyes that he couldn't. "The fire is going to come back, isn't it?"

"Yes, and no. A dream like this cannot be broken in one go. So," —Sweet Dreams snapped a hoof, dispelling the cage— "I am going to teach you some tricks. This is your dream, and despite all my power, I can't affect it in quite the same way you can. Would you like to learn?"

"W-W-Won't it take too long? You have to get that to Princess Luna." Derpy pointed at the amulet.

Reaching up, Sweet booped Derpy on the nose. "We are in a dream. The fire might burn, and we might be asleep, but in here years can pass before you wake." Stretching his power, Sweet dilated the dream-time, stretching it out like pasta noodles. "Now, first thing; imagine a brick. It is a strong brick…"