. . .
. . .
Ponyville
Ponyville was a smoking ruin.
One hoof on a crumbling wall where it met a broken and blasted iron-framed window, Sweetie Belle felt light-headed, dizzy even, seeing it in full, in the light of the new day. When word first came of an emergency, most of the townspeople had hunkered down in Blueblood's manor, abandoning their homes and shops, their farms and farmlands. The once-courtly estate had kept them safe, repelling the changeling attacks again and again: those horrible worms from underground, the diving changelings with their bombs from above, and the attacks coming over the walls again and again and again. Attack after attack left the beautiful walls and facades a smoking wreck, destroying hedges and gardens Sweetie remembered playing in just the other day. Like most foals and young ponies, Cheerilee had kept her below, first in the basement and then in the first floor when the worms came, only occasionally letting them help by fetching water or food for the guards defending them.
Looking out from one of the smashed bathrooms on the second floor, Sweetie could actually see the Ponyville they'd left behind – the only home and the only town she had ever known. The streets were littered with broken carts, twisted wreckage and mangled barricades. Fires burned out of control, gutting rows of colorful buildings. Black smoke choked the streamers and flags that usually danced merrily in the wind. Magical fire occasionally erupted from buildings or streets as ponies and changelings fought over the town.
Green eyes scanned the horizon, searching. It began to dawn that there would be no school tomorrow... the schoolhouse had been hit by cannon fire. Sweetie could see the remains of several guns and their wooden frameworks nearby. The changelings had clearly taken refuge in the building and, Sweetie suddenly realized, it was the very same guards that had defended them for the last half-day that must have destroyed her school in their effort to silence the changeling guns. There were changeling bodies in the playground, left where they fell like broken toys.
Past that, Sweetie could just make out Sweet Apple Acres. There was fire there, too, and flashes of light as ponies and changelings continued to fight over the hills overlooking town. She could see the barn next to Apple Bloom's home, though, and it was collapsed. On the opposite side of town, the other farms were flattened by weather and storm, thunder and lightning, as the might of Cloudsdale fought the changelings in the sky from behind. It was a dizzying dance overhead that Sweetie could barely make out. Her head hurt trying to comprehend it all, and in the distance, she could just barely see the broken spires of Canterlot itself.
Still light-headed, every landmark she tried to see, to reconcile with, Sweetie realized it was damaged or destroyed. The changelings. It was all because of the changelings. Even her home… her parents' home…
It was all gone.
"You see it, don't you, Equestria?" a voice whispered in her ear and Sweetie sniffed and wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hoof.
"Our old magic, our old ways, have failed us."
Sweetie reached up to her little horn. Everypony had magic, but unicorns especially, and what good had hers been? How could magic be magic but still be useless?
"Our nobles have failed us."
Sweetie sniffed, remembering when Lady Antimony had visited her class at school. She had talked about noble ponies, and how they were there to give order and safety to Equestria. But all a foal had to do was look outside to see how badly all that had turned out!
It had all been one Big Lie! Equestria wasn't safe. They'd never been safe.
"Even our Princesses have failed us."
"Even the Princesses," Sweetie couldn't help but think, agreeing with the little whisper. Celestia and Luna were so beautiful and amazing and strong, but why weren't they here? Why hadn't they stopped this?
Everything was gone! Her home. Her school. She still had her family and friends, thank the Pr- thank goodness, but even that was no guarantee. Two times, the changelings had broken through and gotten deep inside the manor. Two times, Sweetie had seen their monsters and their faces as they hissed and bit and reached for ponies. The sound of their hissing would be something she never forgot; the sight of them dragging a pony down and into the ground, even as he fought for his life…
"Little Ponies! Do you want to live in fear?"
How could the whisper even ask that? Of course she didn't! Nopony did.
"Little Ponies! Do you want to be helpless?"
"No," Sweetie said, feeling a spike of a headache under the base of her horn.
"Sweetie Belle!" Apple Bloom yelled. "You done in there?"
"You okay?" Scootaloo asked a second later. "Something really weird's going on."
Sweetie ignored them.
"Do you want to be more than you are now?"
"I do!" Sweetie answered, and she found she wasn't crying anymore.
"Join me." The whisper implored, and Sweetie saw a burning effigy appear in the air before her, shaped like a hoof. "For those with the will. Join me. Take my hoof."
The door to the bathroom swung open. Through a haze, she saw Apple Bloom, her bow ripped but still there so it trailed behind her like a second red tail. Behind her, she saw Scootaloo… her first real friend. They were both holding up better, Sweetie knew. Apple Bloom was always the toughest of them, and while Sweetie knew that Scootaloo was easily scared, she was also always the first to want to prove she could overcome any obstacle.
Their mouths were moving. They were saying something… but Sweetie couldn't hear them.
She turned back to the burning hoof-mark.
"Take what is yours. Take this power! Join me! And never be afraid again."
Lifting her own hoof, Sweetie Belle pressed it to the burning mark.
. . .
(61)
This Platinum Crown : The End of Equestria
. . .
"Vinyl…?"
"Tavi...!"
It only took a second to see Octavia emerge from the crowd behind Lady Euporie's bodyguards. Jumping down from the Party Wagon, leaving the turntable controls behind, Vinyl Scratch galloped half the distance and swept her friend up in a relieved hug. Octavia, normally the reticent half of their pair, enthusiastically hugged her back, nuzzling her cheek affectionately. Ever since they'd been separated, after that whole mess back at the radio station, Vinyl had worried that Octavia would get into some sort of trouble. Exuvia had promised not to let any harm come to her 'precious artists' provided they cooperated, but Exuvia was also a changeling Princess. Vinyl trusted her about as far as she could throw her, magic excluded.
"What the heck are you doing here?" Vinyl asked, both mares-turned-stallions coming apart to legs' length, hooves on one another's shoulders.
"Exuvia let me go," Octavia explained, and smiled softly. "Long story. Very long story, in fact. You won't believe the story I have to tell."
"Ha! And you won't believe where I've been!" Vinyl laughed, and Octavia joined her a moment later. They hugged again, relieved to be reunited and - for the moment anyway - safe.
"I was picked up by some of these Terre Rare guardsmares," Octavia said, casting a quick look at the Party Wagon and the two pinstriped mares atop it, Flim and Flam. "They wanted me to fight and... and I think I was actually going to, but..." She shook her head. "It was all so strange! And what on Equestria's green fields is that... thing?"
"That?" Vinyl chucked and waved towards her ride. "We call it the Party Wagon! You've got to see how tricked out this thing is. I soooo need to get one of my own someday."
To Vinyl's surprise, Octavia didn't object. Instead, she tapped her chin and gave a thoughtful, "hmmm." As if she wanted one, too!
"Come on!" Vinyl said, and called out to the two mares atop the Party Wagon. "Flim! Flam! Let's go see what's going on!"
"A fine idea," one of the twin mares said, the one with the white lick in her mane.
"Lead the way, brother o' mine," the second suggested, following the other as she hopped down. It looked like the fight was over at least.
"And how are you two involved in all this?" Octavia asked, but gasped when she remembered her manners. She nudged Vinyl not-so-subtly, prompting for an introduction. Around them, ponies were still milling around and trying to make sense of the situation, feeling the aftereffects of Euporie's berserker spell.
"Flim. Flam." Vinyl pointed to one and then the other pinstriped mare. "This is my friend, Octavia Melody."
"Charmed," Flim spoke first, and dipped his eyes respectfully.
"Very much so," Flam chimed in.
"Gentleponies," Octavia greeted them, projecting an air of femininity despite being a rather hunky stallion at the moment. Vinyl rolled her eyes. No matter what body she was in, Octy was still Octy, always trying to be refined and proper. Worst of all, in Vinyl's view, was that she didn't even notice how sexy it was. She just did it. Infuriating!
"Anyway! This way," Vinyl said, motioning them to follow her as she moved through the crowd. "Pinkie's right up ahead. I can see her mane."
"Pinkie...? Wait? Just a moment. Is this the Pinkie Pie?" Octavia wondered, frowning a slightly. "The same Pinkie Pie you used to have parties with? The same Pinkie Pie that trashed our old dorm room and left frosting in the pillow cases?"
Vinyl nodded enthusiastically. "That's her!"
"Uh!"
"Oh, come on, Tavi. You'll like her!"
"Yes," Octavia conceded, "I suppose trivial things like that hardly matter now, and-" The cellist gasped as they came through the crowd and saw Pinkie and Euporie together. Octavia pointed accusingly with her hoof. "Just one moment! I know that mane! She was at the Gala!"
"She didn't cause trouble, did she?" Vinyl asked, reaching up to adjust her tinted shades. "'Cause I know Pinkie can be a hoof-full, but..."
"It... well, it was strange, but not too terrible. Lord Blueblood suggested we take requests and picked her, and soon we were playing all sorts of... unusual music," Octavia paused with a thoughtful mein. "No, it wasn't all that bad. Just strange. Especially when the Princess joined in. That never happened before."
"Like I said, Pinkie's a hoof-full, but she's harmless."
"Harmless?" Flim wondered aloud as he trotted alongside her. "After what we just saw, harmless is not the word I would use to describe her."
"She is a mare of unusual talents, brother," Flam argued.
"Are you soft on her, brother?"
"Hardly, brother! It isn't like that at all!"
"And exactly how are you two involved in all this?" Octavia asked them.
"Ah. Well," Flim explained for the both of them. "Some time ago, we signed a contract with Lady Euphoria Mosaic and her sister. It was magically binding, you see?" Octavia nodded, she understood some of the intricacies of unicorn magic.
She was Canterlot born and bred after all.
"Suffice it to say, Miss Pie extricated us from a very uncomfortable situation," Flim went on. "The contract was effectively transferred to her... and... well, afterwards she just let us go."
Octavia blinked, a little confused. "She let you go? You mean she nullified the contract?"
"She said we were free to do whatever we wanted," Flam explained, picking up for his brother. "But she asked if we'd be willing to help her, anyway."
"So you helped her," Vinyl reasoned.
"After some debate and discussion... and after carefully weighing our options, yes," Flim answered, "we decided to assist her."
"It was the prudent thing to do, brother."
"We'll see, brother. We'll see."
Pinkie Pie and Euphoria Mosaic were sitting on the ground, face to face. A circle of ponies had more or less formed around them but at an appropriately cautious distance. Euphoria's guards, also slowly coming to their senses, were just beginning to fan out to keep the crowd from closing further in. Vinyl and her crew slipped through the cordon.
Pinkie looked okay, unhurt despite rushing headlong into the magical jaws of the enemy. Her mane looked a little darker - probably due to the dust - but still poofy. Vinyl saw her rummage around in it with her hooves to fish out a balloon that she quickly started blowing into to inflate. Euphoria was hanging her head, her wild blue mane falling over her shoulders and back. The color of it reminded Vinyl of her own mane, when she cared to grow it long and when it got wet enough to go limp.
"Hiya guys!" Pinkie greeted them with her customary oversized smile. "I toldya I'd be fine!" She wrapped a leg around her new victim's shoulders and pulled her in those. "This is Euphoria! Don't worry! I got her good with the old friendship double-wammy!"
"Don't press your luck," Euphoria grumbled, but there was a ghost of a smile that Vinyl could see, even with her eyes and nose downcast. She held Pinkie's balloon in her hooves with a strange, almost confused expression.
"Hey, so! I wanted to ask!" Pinkie quickly went from wanted-to-ask to straight-up asking, "That contract thingie with Flim and Flam..."
"I don't really have any control over that," Euphoria interrupted her, looking up slightly and brushing her bangs away enough to reveal her amber eyes. "If I did, I'd have taken control of them the moment I saw them. It was Eunomie's contract... they're all her contracts, except Chalice's."
"Ohhhh," Pinkie sounded sad, like she'd broken a promise. She turned to Flim and Flam and shrugged. "Eunomie is more up Twilight's alley. But I'm sure she and Fluttershy'll fix things before you guys know it!"
She tapped her chin with a bright pink hoof, "Hmmmm"ing as much as humming.
"Actually, I wonder what's going on back there?" She pointed her hoof towards the distant but still flying mass of the Hanging Gardens. It floated serene and untouchable despite the fighting and growing pegasi-directed weather-works in the sky around it. There seemed to be some sort of barrier around it, too; every so often it would flash when something struck it.
Her bright blue eyes turned to Euphoria. "You wouldn't be up for a little exposition, would you, party-pal?"
For her part, the noblemare rolled her eyes. "I don't mind explaining some things, but I doubt it will matter at this point. I lost control of the crystal heart prototype, but Alpha won't let that stop him," Euphoria said, brows creasing in thought. "Nothing can stop what we're going to do, now. It would have already begun."
"What are you trying to do?" Vinyl asked, sitting down near the two mares.
"Exuvia talked about Lord Brass," Octavia added, sitting next to Vinyl. "She believed that he intended to destroy the changelings..."
"He was... we are," Euphoria explained, sighing. "We are planning to destroy the changelings. But that wasn't enough. It isn't enough to destroy just the changelings. If they could threaten Equestria like this then others could, too. Most ponies don't know it, or don't care to think about it, but way out past the frontier and the colonies, we have no shortage of opportunistic enemies. I'm sure the Storm King and the Queen of Tears or even the Dragon Lord will hear about the invasion eventually and want to try their luck. The problem was never just the changelings... it was Equestria itself. More than that…"
She frowned, growing a bit hesitant to say more, but after a moment, she continued.
"The problem isn't just Equestria," she said, and there was still a dark ember of fire in her eyes. "The problem is Equestrians."
"The problem is... Equestrians?" Octavia asked, and pointed to herself. "You mean: us? As in the problem is ponies?"
Euphoria nodded. They wanted the truth, ugly or not, and this was apparently it.
"That's it exactly. Alpha wants to save Equestria by doing away with its weak link: Equestrians themselves. He wants to empower them... as many as possible. At least twenty thousand at a bare minimum, particularly younger ponies under fifty. That's what they'll need for a stable long-term breeding population."
"A whaa?" Pinkie scratched behind her ear. "Breeding Population? I don't get it."
"A new race," Flim whispered, just loud enough for the mares to overhear. "By the Princesses... you're talking about creating a new race."
"Another tribe?" Flam fell back on his (her) rump. "How?"
"Is that even possible?" Vinyl crossed her forelegs over her chest. "Transforming thousands of ponies into... into what?"
"Due to our origins, the equestrian body is more malleable than almost any other in nature," Euphoria assured her fellow unicorn. "History already has ample examples... the crystal ponies were magically modified earth ponies, though their physical forms were tied to the original Crystal Heart. The thestrals or 'bat-ponies' were created in The Chaos a thousand years ago out of pegasus ponies, and the same goes for shades and unicorns. To the south, hippogriffs have existed for centuries, but recently, our spies confirmed that they developed a magic to turn themselves aquatic. All three of the main tribes have altered forms that were created in just the last thousand years, and now we have proof that even hybrid ponies are mutable. If the legends are true, before the migration there were even more varieties..."
She took a breath, and steeled herself.
"I know what father plans can be done... because it has already been done," Euphoria stated, and took in the four looks of surprise - and one look of confusion - on the faces of her listeners. "Before we committed to this plan, Alpha created prototype infusions using single-use torcs. We transformed volunteers and tested them. We needed to be sure of what we were doing before..." Her eyes drooped and she focused on her hooves. "Let's just say we needed to be sure."
"All of this was to prepare for the ascension ritual," she admitted, and laughed softly to herself. "I didn't come down here just for fun, you know. I had a mission, too. I was sent down with the prototype crystal heart to make ponies angry and desperate... after a day and a half of fighting for their lives, it wasn't hard. But again, we wanted to leave nothing to chance. My magic would be what pushed thousands over the edge. We needed ponies to be willing to sign the contract when it went out."
"Another contract," Flim growled. After being manipulated by contract magic, the unicorn brothers had little love for it. Nevermind that they had probably used legal loopholes before for personal benefit. No one liked being on the receiving end.
"The Grand Compact is Eunomie's masterpiece," Euphoria told him, smile stabbing at her cheeks for a moment before fading away. "Written into the reforged Platinum Crown and amplified through the Crystal Heart we built."
"The heart connects one pony to thousands," Vinyl realized, momentarily stunned by the implications. "To tens of thousands!"
Octavia's eyes were wide as she saw the grand scheme take form. "Exuvia mentioned that armies were mustering around the city... ponies from all over Equestria!"
Euphoria nodded. "Well within our radius of effect."
"So you guys wanted to turn thousands of ponies into... super-ponies?" Pinkie wondered and smiled. "That doesn't sound so bad! I've always wanted to have a super transformation but could never find enough rings..."
Five ponies stared flatly at her.
"What?" Pinkie asked, pursing her lips. "It's true!"
"You don't understand," Euphoria warned, turning away and hiding her face behind her mane. "But you will, sooner than you think. Defeating me only forced them to move now rather than later."
The gathered ponies turned their eyes upward to where the Gardens floated above a devastated Canterlot. A strange glow emanated from the topmost spire in the center of the Sky Palace. A faint ripple passed through the air, then, and Vinyl and Octavia both held up their hooves as their male disguise began to flake away and disintegrate. Twilight's spell was fading away. Flim and Flam sighed in obvious relief, exchanging nods of approval at the return of their stallionhood… and in the return of Flam's moustache. Everywhere, ponies were returning to their normal form.
"The changelings?" Euphoria barked, addressing one of her guards. "The changeling disguises should still be scrambled. Check them to make sure!" She frowned, facing Pinkie Pie with a grave expression and serious amber eyes. "Until the window of opportunity is lost, the spell will continue. Like it or not, this is the beginning of the end for Equestria as you know it."
. . .
"Update: two thousand, six hundred and eighty and rising."
. . .
"The Field is ours! Victory!" Luna reared up and roared to the heavens, wings flapping mightily as she reveled in the carnage and the thrill and glory of combat. "Victory most glorious!"
Such a battle was this! The clash of hooves! The sting of magic bolt and the glint of steel spear! Added to the chorus of the battlefield were the thunder and smoke of new weapons of war: these marvelous new cannons and other devices wrought by her subjects over the last thousand years. Luna reveled in it! She had not fought thus since the days of Sombra or even the original invasion of the New World! Oh, what a war that had been! Ponies of this Soft Age could scarce imagine the powers unleashed by the hard-hearted might of the Old Kingdoms and the Founders! Oh, to be locked in combat with Knights of the Mighty Helm! To drive into the ranks of Pegasus Shieldsworn!
"Yes! We-"
Though the Princess of the Night failed to notice it, a reddish tint began to fade away behind her eyes. Blinking, she slowly lowered her hooves down to the ground.
"No, no, no… those were dark times, desperate times, a cruel fire not to be rekindled again," she spoke softly to herself, a little thrown by her earlier thoughts. "What came over me? What was I...?"
Luna shook her head, clearing her head of the strange thoughts.
The battle here was very nearly done, the fighting dying down. Cloudsdale's bottomless stream of reinforcements were the key; pegasi were constantly overhead, keeping the changelings grounded and allowing the earth ponies and the unicorns, noble and common alike, to pin the enemy down and grind them to dust. The changeling forces here had either fallen back in disarray or hunkered down in smashed buildings lining the bombed-out roads. Digging them out would be grueling and messy work.
"Well, now!" Lady Rarity trotted up alongside the Princess. "I dare say the tide has turned!"
While a finicky pony, the new Baroness of Ponyville seemed to be surviving well enough with a frazzled mane and coat stained black by spent magic. She had remained in the rear with a rank of unicorns using their powers for support and barrage purposes but had not escaped the fighting, either in duels with the green changelings or depredations by the reds and yellows. Most fortunately, none of the great Tatzlwurms or their brown changeling parasites had seen fit to join their fellows.
"I can't speak for anypony else, but I am utterly spent," Rarity sighed in a mannered, genteel way. Luna smiled slightly on hearing it; she truly would fit in well with the nobility, and it seemed, at least in a crisis, they had truly rallied around her. When the time came for her to wear the Platinum Crown, and it would be reforged eventually, she would have ample support among her lordly peers.
"But the view," Rarity continued, and turned around to take in the sight. "That is what truly takes my breath away."
"It's just Cloudsdale," Rainbow Dash drifted by, coming to a gentle landing next to her friend. The chromatic mare tossed her mane, wiped her brow, and also took a long look. "Though I guess it usually doesn't move this fast."
Above Canterlot, the sister city of Cloudsdale had begun to rise.
Built upon a foundation of ancient clouds, some more than a thousand years old, Cloudsdale was smaller than the mountain-dwelling Canterlot, but no less impressive. Grand palisades and columned courts and citadels peeked out from above the cloudstuff, all patterned in a stark purest white. Color came in ample supply from the rainbows that were the city's trademark. Fountains and cascading waterfalls of it provided a superabundance of color, droplets of it mixing with normal flowing water to produce a stream of tiny rainbow spirals that drifted in the city's massive wake.
Cloudsdale, a mobile city by nature and design, had accelerated at maximum speed towards Canterlot, answering the ancient distress call of her embattled sister. With her, Cloudsdale had mustered pegasi from across Equestria. Many still flew escort, paving the way for the city, enhancing her wake to speed her along. For the first time in generations, the twin sister cities that had survived the ancient war of a thousand years ago were reunited. Luna had no doubt that the sight of the pegasus metropolis emboldened and heartened ponies all across war-torn Canterlot.
With Cloudsdale came the promise that Equestria had not forgotten them; that they were not alone. That help was coming from across the land! That hope had returned in force!
"Equestria, Heck yeah," Dash said, softly, but still loudly enough to be overheard by those close to her. She was grinning up at her home town, at her city, with radiant pride.
"We got 'em on the run! Ho-ah!" Applejack cheered, jumping up to join them. A ray of light caught her golden mane as she breathed a sigh of relief. "They ain't surrenderin' but they ain't fightin' much anymore either." She turned to Rarity and the Princess. "You reckon we got this won?"
"Perhaps," Luna replied, wary of counting her candies before they were in-hoof.
A bugle sounded from far off, and with it, a signal-firework exploded in midair.
"Last we heard, Lord Snow Drift had fully secured the Sky Harbor and all the surrounding venues," Rarity answered, more confident than her alicorn counterpart in speaking for their progress in the war. She took a moment to fuss over her mane, a little moan like cry escaping her lips as she inspected some of the ruined curls.
"Lady Wallflower and Lady Sand Dune were both pushing into the city. I have no doubt those two will buy us the room we need to retake the city," Rarity went on to say with a sniff. "Especially Sand Dune. She still wishes to take Canterlot for herself someday, after all."
"And that sits well with you?" Luna asked, raising an imperious eyebrow at the Element of Generosity.
"Darling," Rarity answered with a little laugh. "I've learned to live with it." She smirked and flicked a bit of smoot off her purple mane. "If nothing else, my new friends will keep me on my hooves."
She gave Applejack a particular sort of stare.
"Much like my old friends, actually," Rarity added.
"Hey now, what's that mean?" Applejack shot back, also grinning. "All ah try and do is keep you honest. Not an easy job either, sometimes!"
"You know what's funny?" Dash asked, wings flapping and lifting her just off the ground. "I felt the strangest thing a couple minutes ago... and now I feel... good. I mean, we won, so of course I feel good, but... this feels kinda different, too. Dunno how to describe it exactly."
"Worry not about such things, Rainbow Dash." Luna felt much the same, but she hid it well, projecting her most regal self as she oversaw the battlefield below from their perch atop the rubble. "Many enemies still await us before our city is free. Many battles remain to be fought."
"I dunno!" Dash argued with a shrug. "I say we've got 'em on the run!" She play-punched with her front legs like a boxer. "This fight is as good as over!"
"There ya go temptin' fate again," Applejack groused, her hoof covering her face.
"Indeed, please stop doing that."
"Verily."
"Whaaaat? What'd I say?!" Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes in sarcastic dismissal. "You guys are always going on and on about me tempting fate or Murphy's Law or whatever." She pointed at them with her right wing. "Sure, a couple times things happened, but that's just coincidence. Total coincidence. Even a broken clock is right twice a day! Don't be so superstitious!"
The three mares stared at her, and then, it seemed, past her and over her shoulder. Applejack even lifted a hoof to point. Very slowly, Dash lowered her wing and turned around. Scattered amidst the army around them, she could see flashes of darkness, a little like changeling transformation magic. But that was impossible. They'd just routed the changelings. She could see panic as ponies ran around, trying to make sense of what was going on around them.
"Darnit."
. . .
"Update: eight thousand, four hundred and seventy-six… and rising."
. . .
"This magic!" Celestia spun around as the ponies in the sanctuary began to lift their hooves, vanishing in pillars of black light. "The magic of the aether?"
The majestic First Princess of Equestria was almost wide-eyed with panic once her mind made sense of what was happening around her. Trotting in a circle, looking around frantically, she saw more and more ponies begin to turn. Up in the rafters and the second floor, only a few at first, but then it spread like a plague. She could hear them muttering to themselves, agreeing with some unknown voice, like a distant chorus. Celestia could only barely hear the few nearer by, whispering under their breath.
"That's right." "We can't rely on them." "I just want them all to go away." "I'll join you!"
"Nephew!" Celestia yelled, turning to the stallion that had saved her and served her so well, especially after meeting Rarity at the Gala and finding renewed purpose in life. He had to sense it too!
Instead, she saw him staring at something she couldn't see.
"Oh ho." Blue eyes blinked before, to her relief, focusing back on her. "Auntie? I do believe we have a problem."
"These ponies," Celestia began, stepping away when one of her own guardponies abruptly vanished into a cocoon of black fire. "Nephew, are you hearing a voice?"
"Yes. One directing me to sign a contract," Blueblood answered, having already dismissed the bargain himself. "Would that I had my lawyer with me, I- oh blast!" His eyes widened and he raced over to where Cadance and Shining Armor lay.
He grabbed her hoof as she reached for something in mid-air.
"Don't," he warned, not letting go even when she tugged at her hoof to free it.
Princess Cadance had been through a great deal. Blueblood understood that. Celestia understood that. She had been kidnapped, tortured, mentally and physically; she had been jailed by her own friends; when she escaped, it was to find the city she had grown up in aflame; then, when she finally managed to corner the source of her suffering, Chrysalis had manipulated her with hateful words, poisoning her and revealing that the love of her life was doomed to die, turning a moment of triumph into despair.
"Let me go, Blue. If I were stronger I'd be able to save him!" Cadance snapped, narrowing her eyes at her step-brother. "I said. Let. Me. Go!"
"You've been to the Vault before, Cadance," Celestia reminded her, quickly catching up to her nephew and standing over the young Princess. "You know the sort of beings that dwell there." She frowned, her tone stern. "There is always a price to pay for more power. Always."
At Celestia's rebuke, at least, Cadance hesitatingly relented. There were tears in her eyes, and not just from the pain. The changeling love poison in her veins was burning out her magic, bit by bit. She lay side by side with the insensate Shining Armor, trying to spend what time they had left together.
"Auntie," she said, softly, almost painfully. "Look around you."
More than half the ponies in the sanctuary's gallery were wrapped in what looked more and more like black wings, glittering with stars. Colored streaks of magic had begun to appear on the first few to transform, just a few solid lines the color of their coats providing outline against the black. Of those few who resisted the mysterious call, they had already begun to huddle together in the lower level, afraid of what was to come. Twilight Velvet was among them, soothingly running a hoof through her unconscious son's mane, providing what comfort a distraught mother could for her dying son.
"Look around you!" Cadance said again, but with more heat and force. "We failed Equestria! That this happened at all… is our fault!" Her eyes crushed shut for a moment, forcing out more tears. "And yours, too! Auntie!"
Celestia visibly recoiled at the accusation, lifting a hoof and wincing. Celestia couldn't say Cadance was wrong, even in her anger and grief. Ponies didn't just look to the Princess for guidance, they looked to them for protection as well, and by any standard she had failed to protect thousands of ponies in Canterlot and elsewhere. Celestia already felt that failure keenly. She had felt it the moment she was cut down at the wedding. She felt it when, immobile and helpless, she saw the changelings slaughtering her subjects. She felt it, personally, when Chrysalis turned to her as a source of amusement and mockery. She felt it when her nephew had risked life and limb to rescue her, for all that she had failed Equestria.
"Maybe there is a better way!" Cadance was desperate for anything, any shred of hope she could cling to. Blueblood held out some hope they could save her, with her alicorn constitution, but Shining… Shining was…
"Maybe this – whatever this is – can save us!" the Princess of Love pleaded. "Maybe it can save Shining!"
"Or it could damn him," Blueblood argued, shooting Celestia a quick look. "Cadance. We have no idea what is happening here! I heard that voice, too. I recognized it. That was Eunomie Mosaic. I don't know her very well, but I certainly wouldn't trust her."
"At this point I wouldn't care if it was Discord himself," Cadance argued back, but then she seemed to deflate. Twilight Velvet had touched her gently on the shoulder.
"Then I will do it," the mother and arch-mage said with steely resolve. "I would gladly trade my life for the chance to save my little colt."
Blueblood grimaced. "A noble sentiment, Lady Velvet, but-"
"…no."
The conversation abruptly froze and all eyes fell back on the crippled Captain of the Guard. It was the first word Shining Armor had spoken since they'd saved him from the castle.
"Shining!" Velvet and Cadance yelled, crowding around him. His eyes were open, bloodshot, but open, and as he raised a hoof, it was almost as if he was grasping for air. Velvet called his name again, sobbing as he seemed to come to. Cadance turned silent, however, when she noticed it.
"What's happening?" Chrysalis hissed, near where Lyra and her aethereal familiar still had her bound. Missing one wing, the Queen had been abusive and unrepentant, mocking the powerless of her captors to save their city or themselves, whether she herself lived or died. Now, though, a distinct note of panic began to fill her voice. "What is this magic? I can't see – what's happening?"
Shining Armor continued to grasp at something, just out of reach.
"He wants this," Cadance realized, and looked up at her mentor and step-brother with tear-filled mauve eyes. They could see her mind was already made up, then and there.
"Are you sure?" Twilight Velvet asked her, when Celestia and Blueblood were left shocked silent. Even in this state, he had heard Eunomie's call?
And worse: he agreed with it?
Celestia's heart broke; her own Captain of the Guard had lost faith, and she could not blame him. Not after all he had endured. Not after he must have seen Chrysalis, captive but unrepentant, in the same room with them. He didn't know, couldn't know, that Chrysalis had set things up to collapse if she died. She had rigged parts of the city with explosives as an immediate threat, and worse, purposefully raised her cruelest and most malicious daughter up to succeed her, so if she died, a slaughter would be the result. Then again, Shining was dying. What sane pony wouldn't reach for any possible salvation?
"I'm sure," Cadance answered her would-be mother in-law.
Velvet nodded back, and together, the two mares took Shining's hoof and lifted it higher. Celestia watched it all, helpless to stop it. For all her power… once again, she was helpless, as the world around her spun out of control.
Shining's hoof seemed to touch an invisible surface, leaving a brief burning imprint in mid-air. Releasing him, mother and wife pushed back to give him room. They had seen what came next.
Shining Armor's eyes widened and cleared as he sucked in a mighty breath. There was only a moment's delay, and then the aethereal miasma began to pour out of his horn, deforming it. He groaned, his entire body convulsing. This close, Celestia could see the miasma cutting a spiral pattern out of his horn along the natural grooves… but much deeper, painfully deeper. The black light expanded rapidly down the rest of his body, and within moments he was completely engulfed by it.
"By the Princesses…" Twilight Velvet wept, and turned to her Princess. "What have we done?"
"This magic," Cadance said, squeaking in pain as she forced herself up on all fours. "Is a lot like what Lyra uses. The magic she got from the torc. It can save him, I'm sure of it."
"Aethereal magic," Celestia explained, her visible eye narrowing in thought. "I warned you of it… but none of this makes sense. Contracts with celestial beings are not shared. Most are jealous by nature. Even when the power of Sun and Moon were shared among dozens of royal ponies, it never had this effect. This is something different..."
The Royal Princess grimaced at her own lack of knowledge. "Luna. Luna would know more, I suspect. She spent more time delving into the mysteries of the dark than I did as a young mare. Though that same curiosity may have abetted her fall."
"Guys!" Lyra blurted out, pointing with a hoof up at the upper level of the underground sanctuary. "Look!"
The first ponies were emerging from their black shells.
. . .
"Update: sixteen thousand, two hundred and twenty-nine… and rising."
. . .
Celestia trotted backwards, carefully, mindfully. Blueblood did much the same, keeping close. Up in the gallery, she saw one of the first ponies to embrace the contract become visible beneath her starry feathered wings.
Her hooves glowed with a pale white light that burned like fire over charcoal, and so did her eyes, her lashes replaced by wisps of white flames. Celestia recalled this pony. She had been an earth pony before, but now she had a highly grooved pitch-black horn, distinct from her yellow coat color, that glowed and crackled with colorless white magic. Her wings, too, though possessing a base where the black merged into the yellow, were as dark as her horn and glittered with faint stars. Most of her mane, too, had been consumed by black, leaving just a few wild strands of the original color un-homogenized.
To her right, another mare emerged, flexing her wings and running a hoof along her new dark horn. A few meters away, a stallion likewise appeared, fixated on his wings. Unlike the others, he spun around, and in the process revealed his flank. There, Celestia could see his cutie mark. It was intact, for which she breathed a sigh of relief, but there were black cracks in the skin around it.
"Auntie, I have a rather unsettling feeling about all this," Blueblood murmured. "Would you think less of me if I screamed like a little filly?"
Celestia met his eyes with a level stare. "Nephew, would you think less of me if I beat you to it?"
"Hm."
"Quite."
Around the royals, all along the second floor and looking down on them, more and more transformed ponies appeared. All shared the same black horns, wings and hooves, wreathed in white flame. All had their manes bleached nearly wholly black with only a remainder of the original color as a thick outline. It quickly became clear that the remaining normal ponies on the first floor were completely surrounded by their former friends and comrades. Those same former friends looked down coldly at the ponies and Princesses below.
"What are they?" Cadance asked, trying to hide her fear. Her wings were spread in challenge, though, and her body language betrayed her.
"Alicorns… of a sort," Blueblood reasoned, still turning around in circles and trying to take it all in. "The body parts don't match, though."
"They are not True Alicorns, like you, Cadance," Celestia speculated, but kept her voice hushed. "That only comes from ascension… from harmonizing with yourself. This process is different, artificial, more forceful; I've never seen the like before."
"Damn it! What's happening?" Chrysalis yelled in the brief pause that followed. "What's happened?"
"Princess!" one of the mares in the second floor finally spoke.
"My little ponies!" Celestia addressed them in turn, adopting a stately pose and regal bearing. "You appear safe. What has happened to you? Could you describe it to me?"
"We were given real power!" another mare answered, a glowing hoof raised in triumph.
"That's right!" a stallion agreed. "I feel amazing! Like I could fight a hundred changelings!"
"Or a thousand!" another mare said with a dark laugh.
"And there must be more than just us!" another added, contemplative. "How many other ponies out there are like us, now?"
"An army!" a young mare blurted out.
"That's right!" a stallion laughed. "And to think: we were so afraid before?"
"I can fly!"
"And I can use magic!"
"-like I could kick down a building!"
"-or crush a changeling!"
"Like a bug!"
Around and around it went, the ponies reveling in their new power, talking amongst themselves. They quickly decided to put their new power to the test: to find and hunt down the changelings and avenge their families and their capture before. Celestia felt the change in the air. Like Pinkie Pie, she also had the emotional affinity that came with being what – in the modern era – was called a "party pony."
She could feel it in the air.
Malice.
Malice and miasma. Her little ponies didn't feel like ponies. They looked like them. They spoke like them. But their feelings and emotions were warped. It was like she herself had been taught so many ages ago: power, especially aethereal power, always came with a price. Somehow, somepony had forged a contract with something in the Empyrean Vault… something with no willpower to manifest itself, but that didn't mean the connection was free of influence. The darkness in the Vault had already seeped into these ponies' hearts and souls.
"Brothers! Sisters!" One of the mares in the gallery spoke up over the others. "We are getting ahead of ourselves. Is there not a changeling right here? The Queen of them all?"
There were murmurs of agreement, almost instantly.
They hadn't forgotten. Not so long ago, when Chrysalis had been brought in, the ponies had demanded she be punished for her crimes. Princesses and Prince alike had talked them down, and having guards around to keep ponies back helped, too, but there had been promises that Chrysalis would pay for her transgressions when the time was right. Preferably when her various doomsday plots had been taken care of. They hadn't even had the chance to use her against her Princesses yet as a hostage.
"My little ponies-" Celestia began to say, projecting her more authoritative voice.
One of the mares above, the boldest one, jumped down. Her black raven-like wings flapped slowly as she descended. There was a cold and cruel look in her eye.
"Justice," the dark mare whispered. "For my son."
"For my wife," a stallion joined her a moment later.
"Justice." "Justice!" "Justice!" "Justice!" "Get her!" "Kill her!"
"My little ponies," Celestia warned, quickly moving towards where Chrysalis lay, minus one wing, blind, and still restrained by Lyra. "This is not justice! Do not do this!"
"Friends!" Blueblood also tried to turn on his most charming with a smile and a soothing voice. "Gentleponies, listen, please. We cannot smite this foul creature – believe me, we all want to – but we cannot until we have unraveled her plots!"
"Stay back," the first mare warned, having landed softly nearby. Almost as an afterthought, she added, "Your Grace."
Boldly, four of the false alicorns stood in front of the two royals, refusing to budge. They spread their dark wings and stamped the ground hard enough for it to shake.
"Uh, guys?" Lyra Heartstrings huddled close by Chrysalis. She had been tasked with being the Queen's jailer, empowered as she was by the lyre. The glowing hand of which was still holding Chrysalis by her horn. For all that, though, she was clearly uncomfortable with how more and more of these false alicorns began to surround her. "Getting kinda surrounded here!"
"Stupid fools!" Chrysalis barked, sensing she was about to be pounced on. "I don't care what magic you've found or what miracle you cling to! If you strike me down, Equestria will suffer! Your city will burn! Instar shall kill your loved ones, one and all! You have yet to see my greatest weapons! Test me and you will regret it!"
By the end, her voice had a frantic and terrified edge to it. She clearly tried to back away, only to bump into Miss Heartstrings.
"Don't you touch me!" she roared, her voice rising in pitch while she blindly pointed a chitinous hoof at figures she couldn't see. "Don't touch me, I said! Did you not hear me? Stay back!"
Celestia, gritting her teeth, prepared to wade in. This could not be allowed to continue.
"Gentleponies!" Blueblood tried to push through the growing throng. With him, their remaining guards also moved to try and control the situation. Before, it had been doable. The ponies had complained but they had ultimately relented.
This time, things were not going to plan.
Celestia saw one of her guardponies go flying, brushed aside by the wing of one of the false alicorns. He tumbled through the air and crashed into an antique table stand. Another tried to use his magic, only for his horn to end up seized by a black star field. Of course, to make matters even worse, these pones would have aether-enhanced magic, too! If their entire bodies were protected by it, and it seemed they were, then this would be tricky, even if she were in her normal state.
"Guys!" Lyra sounded frantic, and Celestia could no longer see her. "Guys! Help!"
Chrysalis started to scream.
Spreading her wings, Celestia mentally prepared a spell. Blueblood flew through the air next, violently rejected while trying to push past a pair of dark mares. As if sensing her growing power, one set of baleful eyes after another turned to regard their Princess. They had not moved against her, but looking at them, Celestia only saw coldness. They were truly not her little ponies anymore. By Faust, they were actually going to fight her.
"WAIT."
The voice came from her right, where Cadance and Velvet sat, staring as Shining Armor's black wings parted. Shining Armor rolled onto his side, planting a burning hoof on the stone floor with a thunderous CRACK. He had completed the transformation quickly, more quickly than the others, and as he rose to his full height, apparently cured of poison and changeling abuse both, Celestia saw his ice-blue eyes flicker behind the crackling white glow that was characteristic of false alicornhood.
"Shining!" Cadance exclaimed, reaching for him.
"My colt!" Velvet was just staring in wonder. "Thank the Princesses! You're alive!"
"I… am better than alive. Mother. Cadance." Shining Armor exhaled slowly, shaking his now blackened mane and spreading his new wings wide. "I am free. I am FREE."
Standing up at his full height, he could almost look Celestia herself in the eye. As a guard, Shining had never been the largest of his peers, but he had always been strong and hearty. This transformation seemed to have brought all that roaring back and then some, though Celestia could see that the dark cracks surrounding his cutie mark were deep and numerous. He turned his head, briefly, and kissed Cadance on the crown of her head by her horn.
"Free at last," he said again, and quickly began to move away from his family.
The throng of transformed ponies around Lyra and Chrysalis parted without a word. Celestia saw their faces: they were all grinning. They knew about Shining Armor and at least some of what he had been through. They all seemed eager to see what he would do. They seemed willing to defer to him. If power translated evenly from their previous forms, there was no doubt he was the strongest false alicorn of them all.
"My dear Shining," Celestia said, soothingly, as she caught the look in his eye at the sight of Chrysalis. "You must rethink this. I beg you. We need her alive, at least for a time."
Shining brushed past her, walking slowly towards the changeling Queen splayed out on the floor.
"Shining?" Chrysalis muttered, and against all logic, she smiled. "Is that really you?" Her smile broadened. "It is you! I can still feel you, my Shining Armor. There is an empty pit where your heart used to be, but it still beats… and your love, your once-sweet love has turned to vinegar. But I never forget a taste."
Blind, and facing certain death, Chrysalis began to laugh. Like a madmare.
"I see. I see. I understand! This is what he wanted all along! I can see it now!" Chrysalis threw back her head and laughed before lunging forward and falling on her front hooves. "Very well! You have my permission! Shining! Kill me then!" She screamed, slamming her right hoof on the floor. "Shining Armor! For everything I've done to you! For everything I've done to her!"
Shining's hooffalls were like thunder as he closed in on her, trailing white fire.
"Do it!" Chrysalis cried, spittle flying from between her lips. "Do it! Let me be your whole world, one last time!"
Looming over her like a mountain, Shining Armor suddenly stopped. For a moment, everyone and everything was still, waiting on baited breath for the violence to come. Shining Armor turned to his left, searching the faces of the other false alicorns, then to the right. Like Celestia, he could feel the bloody-minded anticipation in the air.
"All those times she spoke as if I was not there," Shining said, coldly, addressing his fellow alicorns. "I remember almost every word, now. I have two daughters. I have two daughters!" he yelled, suddenly raising his voice to a roar. "Instar! Ecdysis! Changeling Princesses!"
At his hooves, Chrysalis looked… confused.
Shining Armor trotted in a circle, spreading his wings and gesturing to the other aethereal alicorns. A nasty grin graced his features at what he said next.
"Let's go kill them!"
The other alicorns all roared their approval.
A blink of an eye later, and they vanished into thin air.
Dust motes and sparkles of spent magic lingered in the rays of light as they left, leaving the remaining little ponies, two Princesses and one Prince. Blueblood had crawled back into his hooves, but was clearly left shocked at what had transpired. Lyra was still huddled near Chrysalis, having loyalty kept her magical reins on the Queen throughout the terrifying ordeal. Cadance and Velvet were silent, in various states of shock. Celestia hung her head in dismay.
Too soft to hear, Chrysalis whispered something to herself, holding her head in her hooves. Then her whole body went slack, boneless, like a puppet with her strings abruptly cut.
'You've realized it,' Celestia thought, guessing what had to be going through Chrysalis's mind. 'You've killed them all. Every one of your children.'
"Shining," Cadance said, simply, but rather than give in to despair she took a breath and turned to her foster-family. "We need to get top-side. There's only one pony who could have done this."
"There are still ponies down here," Blueblood reminded her, gesturing to the few who had not lost faith and not given themselves to the contract. They were a frightened lot, huddled together at the edges of the underground sanctuary. Even the royal guards, originally freed alongside them, looked terrified at what has just happened. Worse for them, they had just seen their Captain of the Guards turn along with two of their own number. Flash Sentry seemed to be trying to rally them to negligible effect.
"We must see them cared for, nephew, but Cadance is correct," Celestia answered, spreading her wings wide. "This is madness. Our little ponies have been corrupted, and we must put a stop to it, now, while we can still salvage a measure of control over the situation."
She looked to Cadance for an explanation. "Who has done this to our little ponies?"
"And to my son," Velvet said, very quietly. "I know my colt, and that was not him."
Cadance lowered her eyes, as if guilty.
"Brass," she finally replied. "Alpha Brass."