Game of Worlds

by DualThrone


Luna: Heralds

The latest object of Master’s experimentation proved to be a young female griffon with features that bore a striking resemblance to those of Grymmilnia. The melding of her flesh with the Void had turned her white plumage black, and the brown a mottled grey, but the twisting of her body didn’t seriously alter her otherwise, certainly not to the degree that Luna had seen in the other expendable griffon mutates. She was still clearly so extremely exhausted that she didn't even stir as Spite hoisted her on her back and carried her out of the Archive. After they exited and walked back to the makeshift camp, Kyra took charge. Most of the changelings who had been sent by her sister to be her guard would be coming with her, while a couple changelings wearing sashes with medical designations stayed behind with a quartet of soldiers to care for the griffoness until they judged her fit to travel, and then travel back to the embassy in one of the conquered cities. That Kyra seemed to feel that four soldiers were enough to keep medical ponies and their helpless patient safe struck Luna as a subtle but clear sign that a thousand years had done nothing to diminish the changelings’ natural capacity in a fight.

Watching the military efficiency with which the changelings broke camp and stowed their gear had given Luna a faint pang of longing for the days that seemed only a few years ago for her, but had in fact been over a thousand. It wasn’t that war was a pleasure; she had no longing for the bloodshed, despair, pain, and most of all the frustration that the well-being of Equestria forced her to drag thousands of ponies from home and family to die over a few square inches of land that would lose all importance by the following year. But for all of its horrors, war was best described as a week of drudgery for a few hours of frantic and lethal struggle, and it was the drudgery that she remembered with fondness. Being in the field, surrounded by her armies composed almost entirely of changelings, let her taste what it was like to be Tia. Her little ponies--and she sometimes let herself think of them that way, even though they were most directly the subjects of their queens--always seemed to perk up when she was around, always smiling, always happy to see her, insisting on bowing to her especially when she told them to stop for the millionth time. The love of the common pony was like a soft, warm blanket always close at hoof and even more than her time at court, where Tias’ smiling and welcoming visage was the center around which everything else revolved, Luna felt like she was really and truly a princess of Equestria when she was out in the field with the Black Legions.

Of course, thoughts of the past made her remember Tia feeling compelled to send Amaryss and her people away, and the absolutely shattered expression on the young, shy monarch’s face just before she walled her sadness off behind a royal mask… and that made her think of the duchess flying comfortably at her left hoof while Rainbow Dash drifted casually to her right.

“I imagine it’s far harder for you than it is for anyone else, Your Majesty,” Kyra said, keeping her eyes forward where Spite was making her preparations for the next blink forward.

Luna looked at her. “What’s that?”

“”Wrapping your mind around the end of my people being the loyal subjects of the Dual Thrones.” She looked at Luna, her expression compassionate. “Around the end of the time when we were practically your personal subjects, your soldiers, thousands of ponies who had eyes only for you and who weren’t just being respectful to you on their way to basking in Celestia’s maternal presence.”

“For me, it’s only been a decade or so,” Luna said. “I didn’t experience my sojourn on the moon as a period of waiting, but as a sort of grand adventure to places I could scarce imagine, escorted through the mists of perfect memory by Nacht.” Although there were times where it seemed just a bit too real to be a memory. I wouldn’t put it passed her, either. “So for me, there were a few years after you were sent away, and then an instant went by, and it has been a few years since my return. During that time, you must have laid dozens of queens to rest.”

“Ten,” Kyra said with a little smirk. “I can’t imagine you’d notice a century when you’ve lived for as long as you have, but our queens have always been long-lived before the heptarchy was consolidated and all of that renewing love came to center around a single queen instead of many.”

“So your sister is only the eleventh queen since Amaryss?”

“And first since Amaryss to make the end of the Exile her intended life’s work,” Kyra said. “We used to kind of tease her about it, how she was so fixated on the campaign stories in the archives, and put in the extra work on her preservation duties. Joked how she wanted to run away from home and become one of Celestia’s hoofmaidens.” She shrugged. “Mind you, it’s not like we thought she was wrong, just silly. When she took the crown, we still thought she had her head stuck in the clouds.”

“What changed?”

“Her actually going through with her plans around Chidi.” Kyra’s expression darkened a little. “It wasn’t a good change.”

“Thought ya called her ‘the best of us’ and were going on about how she was an awesome queen.”

“And I was being sincere, because Chryssy’s plans have all come up aces and with hindsight, I know all of how she rigged the game in her favor. We all do, all three of her sisters and her inner circle as well.” She sighed. “That was far from the case at first. When we heard that she’d guise-locked her second daughter, Chidinida, and sent her away to be adopted by Celestia as a foal, we were… horrified. And angry, very very angry. We thought her fixation had become an obsession, and she’d completely spit her bit. To us, she had endangered a child, her child, for some fantastical dream of reunion with Equestria.”

Her expression became sad. “I wouldn’t speak to her for years afterwards, came all the way to the Provinces as her ambassador so I didn’t have to look at her. Chiti and Thalia scattered to different corners of the world for the same reason; we abandoned our own sister out of anger and disgust, and refused to even listen to her. We paid for it, in the end; when Chidinida returned to Scarabi, a grown mare, beautiful and adored with a fiance that doted on her, we were in our own little holes and got to hear about it secondhoof. Chiti could have introduced herself afterwards since she holed up in the Royal Archives in Canterlot, but neither I nor Thalia have gotten to meet the niece we abandoned our sister over. Poetic justice, I suppose. in 30 years, checking up on her would have been simplicity itself; Chryssy has always been less than a day away by courier and asking after Chidi should have been our chief concern after our behavior towards our sister.”

“But you reconciled.”

“We begged her forgiveness,” Kyra said. “Which she gave immediately, and with lots of hugging. It was… good to have our big sister back. You never really feel how big of a hole someone fills in your life until they’re not filling it anymore. And nothing was quite the same without the kind of intimate communication with our queen that we’d have had if we hadn’t let ourselves get carried away. Chryssy needed all the major powers to be aware of her intent long before anything happened, lest they see that Equestria suddenly had an army again, and their panic make them act without calmly considering what would be best for their nation.”

“And the minor powers?”

“They deserve our sympathy, but if you already have no effect on the strategic picture, you can’t possibly have less than no effect.” Kyra shrugged. “The hippogriffs maintain diplomatic isolation, although they were pleasant and polite to our embassy. The yaks are… themselves. Saddle Arabia is a de facto province of Equestria and has been for centuries so to consult them would be to consult Equestria itself. Sirens wish to be left alone. There hasn’t been a Crystal Empire since before Amaryss’ birth. We largely ignored the Yeti except to draw the same old lines in the sand. And Zebrica… well, they’re large enough to matter but prefer not to, so it’s the same old same old.”

Luna shook her head. “I find it difficult to believe that in all the time that the changelings have been a distinct nation and in formal diplomatic communication with everyone, presumably conducting all the normal affairs of state, the Equestria ambassadors have never once noticed you. Never attended the same dinners. Never had an appointment where they’d be in the same room as the changeling representative. Were never even mentioned by a single ruler of a single nation, major or minor.”

“I can’t speak to the motivations of the dragons--that’s what Thalia is for--and Chryssy has never involved us three in the embassies to the minor powers--she depends on her daughters Lepinora and Tettidora for that--but the Provinces have always regarded us being a separate nation as a particularly delicious comeuppance for Equestria after all the historical conflicts they had with ponies. And since they could further twist the knife, in their own minds, by concealing us from you, they’ve always gone through a truly epic degree of effort to deny you the truth.”

Luna shook her head again, this time in disgust. “And all this time, Tia thought she’d successfully soothed old wounds and buried old wrongs on both sides. Now you tell me they’ve been rubbing their hands gleefully over the Exile.” She clenched her jaw. “After Tia has apologized personally, face-to-face, and offered to return some marginal lands as a gesture of goodwill and mutual peace. After she’s made the griffon ambassadors welcome and seen to their every whim as a gesture of friendship. After centuries of her cultivating cooperation and understanding in the distinctive maternal Tia way, they still cling to old hates and revel in schadenfreude at her expense?”

“I doubt they’re reveling in anything right now,” Kyra said quietly. “This Vorka does not seem a bloodthirsty maniac trying to bathe the Provinces in blood, but I feel the results are they same as if he was.”

“OK, so, question,” Rainbow interjected. “Spite was talking about how he spends hours doing his thing, right?”

“Yes?”

“So how does he take thousands of ‘em, and do the same thing. Wouldn’t it take, yanno, years?”

Luna and Kyra looked at each other. “And on top of that, how does he get all the muscle up here to do their thing? I mean, yeah, makes ‘em, but ta put a wall around the Provinces, wouldn’t he need to, like, bring thousands? An’ set it up so they all close the border at the exact same time, without even a single griffon going through?”

“We know he’s working with someone,” Kyra siad. “More than one someone, really, if you count Grymmilnia and the zambet. What’d Spite say, that ‘the Voice’ had secured a point of something called a ‘lei’?”

“And that he, Vorka, had secured another,” Luna nodded. “Vorka said that a third point was beyond their reach and knowledge, whatever that means, and that there were two other points being managed by someone else.”

“Five points like a… star?”

“If the point that Vorka secured is the Archive, it can’t be,” Kyra pointed out. “It shifts about at various times so unless he can somehow make it go where he wants it when he wants it--I cannot imagine how that would even be possible myself--it couldn’t be the point of a star-shaped network of points.”

“OK, I think I have an eye on the next horizon,” Spite announced, canting her wings slightly so she’d drop back in formation to be near the middle of the group. “Same as the first few times: three-count, brace, and we’ll be through.”

Luna nodded to her, mentally counting one-one thousand two-one thousand, three-one thousand and then braced herself for the disquieting feeling of utter emptiness and shocking cold that marked the split-second dip into what Spite had called ‘the Void.’ She gave herself a shake as they emerged again into the blazing sun of the Provinces and glanced at Spite.

“It seems to take you a great deal of preparation for such a brief leap forward,” she said.

“Pulling mortals through the Void one at a time is quite dangerous,” Spite said. “With a group of a good two dozen, I’m not taking chances of leaving someone behind because I didn’t allow a generous window.”

“Glad we ain’t spending more than a second there,” Rainbow said. “Place’s as cold as buck.”

“If you weren’t put there by the only power that can make you able to survive it, it’s far worse than just cold,” Spite said. “Although I’ll admit I was waiting to make out what the subject of conversation was.” She glanced to either side, looking at Kyra and then Luna. “I’d think that with a world as magical as this one, lei lines would be second nature to you.”

“We may have never heard them called such,” Kyra pointed out.

“Fair point. So what’s the local term for the metaphysical rivers of magic that connect points of confluence?”

“I’ve personally never heard of such a thing,” Kyra said. “Princess?”

“Hypothesis,” Luna said. “The circumstantial indications are overwhelming, but extraordinary magical theoreticians have been trying to test the hypothesis since Starswirl the Bearded. The confluences have been conclusively established since before even his time, but ‘mana torrents’ remain nearly impossible to prove. The most credible theory is that they’re so massive that they simply swallow any spell sent into one before it can be perceived down the line.”

“Well, clearly this ‘Voice’ knows what they are, knows that they are, and has gotten control of one, probably by squatting on a confluence.” Kyra frowned. “And there’s another confluence that ‘Master’ controls in the Provinces. Scarabi is clearly one such confluence--one that has Chryssy, a nation under arms, and Empress Moon protecting it--and I’m sure that Canterlot must be one too.”

“There’s one at our old castle,” Luna said.

“Yes, the Tree of Harmony.” Kyra smirked at her. “Yes, we know that it exists, what it’s for, and where it is.”

“Uh… tree of harmony?”

“Intensely magical tree that the Elements are tied to Rainbow,” Luna said. “So the Evils know they exist and want to control them. But why? I don’t know what the abilities of these Evils are but if the greatest magical technician in Equestrian history couldn’t devise a way to throw enough power at a torrent for it to carry, where are they going to get that kind of power?”

Spite shrugged as she pumped her wings, moving ahead to prepare herself for the next blink forward. “Maybe they’d use some kind of artifact from this world. I’m sure there’s one or two out there that could be used that way.”

“Well the Elements are out,” Kyra said, looking over at Rainbow. “If the baubles protect them from something Spite calls a world-destroyer, I’m sure the interlopers won’t be able to do anything with them.”

“The Crystal Heart is wherever the Empire was taken by the last emperor’s curse,” Luna said. “And the Golden Font has long been lost in such circumstances that I don’t believe the Evils could reach it. The artifacts associated with Starswirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever are locked beneath Canterlot. Granted, Master somehow infiltrated the palace for long enough to recreate Twilight’s hidden room with exactness, but wandering a corridor is a far cry from picking the lock of a runic vault within touching distance of the Royal Guard.”

“And the Alicorn…?”

Luna eyed her. “Your people seem to be aware of a lot of things Tia would prefer stay unknown.”

Kyra grinned, exposing her slightly elongated incisors. “We can look like any pony we wish, including a certain secret-keeping princess. Are you really all that surprised?”

Luna considered that. “I suppose not. But the Amulet will not be an issue. Tia has assured me that she sent it away from Equestria and that even she has no way to be sure where it’s gone. If Tia can’t find something she squirreled away, I don’t believe the Evils will fare any better.”

The changeling royal looked curiously at her. “Sent it away? Did she use that specific phrasing?”

“Yes, in fact.” Luna returned the curious look. “Why?”

“The particular phrase seems to imply that she gave it to somepony and that somepony left Equestria.” She gestured to Luna. “But you’re the only pony I can think of--outside of perhaps Twilight Sparkle--who she’d trust with something so dangerously powerful.”
“My sister has taken many students under her wing,” Luna said. “I’m sure that at least one came along in the last thousand years that she trusted with that particular burden. I can even make a good guess as to why.”

“Fearing the return of Nightmare Moon.” Kyra snorted. “An extremely silly thing to fear, in hindsight.”

“Nacht is a dangerous person,” Luna said. “Tia was completely correct to regard her with fear and caution.”

“But Celestia believed that you and you alone would return,” Kyra said. “She wasn’t afraid of Nachtmiri Mein because she didn’t know she existed.”

Luna frowned at her. “I think I want to stop this line of thought before it goes anywhere.”

“I don’t blame you. So, all the likely candidates to be used to power an attack along the torrents are out of their…”

“What about those ka… kaz… whatever the buck they’re called?” Rainbow said. “The round yellow glowy thing that Lash used on me that made the shadow thing.”

“I doubt something that couldn’t simply kill you outright is powerful enough to force a spell into the torrents and keep its disposition all the way to the end,” Kyra said.

“At the same time, it was able to harm Rainbow, where she seemed immune to the efforts of the zambet,” Luna pointed out. “So it may be possible that one of these kazim stones…”

“It can’t.” Spite was once again flying between Kyra and Luna again. “And I have the terrible feeling that what Grim and Rainbow drove off wasn’t a zambet. It was the zambet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll show you. Brace yourselves.” Luna barely had begun to ready herself for the plunge when they were already out and flying above a landscape that was vaguely familiar--but for an immense dome where the small city should have been.

“...is that a… geodesic dome?” Kyra said, sounding as stunned as Luna felt. “Where did it come from? What is it made of?”

“It’s made of the material of the Void,” Spite said grimly. “It’s one of the first steps a zambet takes when they’ve seized a city: shielding themselves under a curtain of the Void so they might feast without anyone to disturb them save the rare few beings that can crush them as insects.”

Luna narrowed her eyes and overlaid a simple far-seeing glamour over her sight. Her vision jumped forward and she could clearly see the intricacies of the structure, evenly-spaced members with what seemed to be panes of dimmed glass hung between them and laced with deceptively delicate supports. The exquisite engineering of the dome made her pause a moment before she dismissed the spell and looked at Spite. “Kyra was right. It’s far more of a engineered structure than a curtain. It faintly reminds me of...”

“...the exquisite and fine detail work Master did on one of the creations you looked on with a form of second sight?” Spite finished.

“Yes.”

“Zambets don’t bother with detail,” the dragon said. “Their typical mindset is that a profligate use of their power and the material of the Void doesn't matter because they’ll soon have more than enough. The dome is solid, blocking out the light…”

“The sort of reckless overuse of power you find in young mages who haven’t learned how to use only as much of their font as they need,” Kyra said.

“Whereas this looks like one of Twilight’s magical constructs,” Luna said. “Mathematically-precise. A calculated use of power, the product of a technical mind.”

“Exactly.”

Luna swallowed as the implications struck her. “Not a zambet, but the zambet.” Her brow furrowed. “But she was so blatant when she toyed with me. A dime-store novel monster, taunting, egotistical, although still clever. She didn’t seem to understand mortals, trying to hurt me with memories that I’d long since put behind me.”

“It was the same with me,” Spite said. “Arrogant, quick-tempered, unstable… exactly what I’d expect of a zambet.”

“The best guise is the one that shows everyone what they expect to see,” Kyra said. “So what do you know of the zambet?”

“That her name is also ‘Zambet’,” Spite replied. “Beyond that, only legends. That she nibbles rather than gorges. That indulging sadism pleases her, but a pleasure she permits herself in small doses. That the immense power of age and experience is paired with a well-ordered mind, and that she prizes her intellectual detachment. But the most consistent point of agreement is that she doesn’t feed for power, or pride, or intimidation, but to achieve specific goals.”

“Meaning?”

“An ordinary zambet would ignore a timid creature like Fluttershy because she’d be so easy to terrify,” Spite said quietly. “Zambet would apply her experience with Rainbow Dash, realize that Fluttershy’s presence endangers her, and neutralize her first.”

“But the Element protected Rainbow.”

“Loyalty and Kindness are not the same, Princess,” Kyra siad. “It stands to reason that they’d react differently to danger.”

“You say Loyalty reacted by… imbuing her hits with flashes of energy?”

“Yes,” Luna confirmed.

“I suppose it would be in the nature of Loyalty directed by a pony as straightforward as Rainbow Dash to strike out at a foe in front of it.” Spite sighed. “Too much to hope that it would do the same thing for Fluttershy. We should draw closer, see if there’s a weakness in the dome. I doubt there will be but…”

“To what end?”

Spite shrugged at Kyra. “I’m not sure. The zambet I encountered was Zambet playing pretend. I’ve never met her personally, have no specific idea of how she operates, and can’t imagine her creating something so intricate just to advertise her presence. It seems certain that she’s found Lashaal here, however, or she wouldn’t have enclosed the city.”

“Can the construct be broken through?”

“Of course,” Spite said, sweeping forward. “It is of the Void.”

“Cryssy got a message to me about that,” Kyra said, flanking her to the left. “Lots about Dark and Light, and fire and acid, and it all seems to add up to most magic being able to dissolve the Void like the sun does frost flowers.”

“Yes.” Luna moved onto the dragoness’ right flank. “I believe the creative energies of Dark--which seem to be my affinity--affects them as acid and the energies of Light--what Tia has--acts like fire.”

As they drew nearer to the city, Luna could more fully appreciate the deceptively delicate dome that Zambet had made over the city. If she hadn’t come across Void energy before, she’d have thought that the members of the structure were made of blackened steel. As they came close enough to the collassel construct to land at it, she could see that the creature had even gone to the trouble of simulating bolts driven into structural joints to hold the entire thing together as if was an actual structure and actually required physical bolts to secure its pieces.

“Incredible,” Kyra breathed. “Obsessively detailed, as if it actually needs to be constructed the way real steel would be.”

“You’d be surprised how much such random and insignificant details matter,” Spite said, reaching out and tapping the sheet of simulated steel over where the gates of the city would be, creating a hollow clang sound. “A moment please.” The dragoness snapped her claws and a thin jet of white flame sprung from the tip of one of them. She brought the jet against the construct and pressed forward.

The flame sputtered and surged against the ‘steel’ but appeared to have about as much effect as a match flame. Spite blinked several times before she furrowed her brow and the flame became much more intense, so much so that Luna was forced to avert her eyes from the scorching light the magic emitted. After a moment, Spite snorted and the light faded.

“Curse me for an idiot,” she sighed. “You can look now, I’m done with trying to use Light on it.”

The effort, Luna saw, had produced a slight distortion to the pretended metal but otherwise, nothing had happened. She looked at Spite. “I thought that Light…”

“This is why I said that tiny details mattered,” Spite said. “Mathematics and engineering are inherently aligned to Order. The more intricately something is engineered, the more precise the mathematics employed, the more it aligns to the Light, to Order, even when it’s a material that the Light normally burns. Your own magic, however….”

Luna nodded and formed a long black straight blade out of magic and pushed it against the covering. The material instantly melted away before the touch of the dark magic and Luna rapidly carved a hole large enough to fit through with ease and nearly ran straight into a griffon as she stepped through. A startled moment later, she realized that he wasn’t moving, visibly breathing but staring straight ahead, his eye sockets covered with a black film that made them appear to be holes in his head.

“What’s wrong with him?” Kya said, stepping around and looking at the griffon as she circled around to his back.

“I… think he’s been pulled into a zambet fever dream,” Spite said. “But I’ve never seen it done this way before. Victims are usually cocooned in the Void by the feeding…”

“In other words, Zambet just barely used enough material to suit her needs.” Kyra came around the other side and looked at Luna. “I sense a pattern at work.”

“Yes.” Luna walked passed the frozen griffon, looking around the streets at the dozens littering the streets, all standing there and breathing the steady rhythm of sleep. “Is there any way to know where Zambet is?”

“Normally I’d suggest the center of the city but she’s already broken the normal patterns of her kind. I don’t think we can rely on my limited knowledge of zambets to locate…”

The dragon trailed off into silence, her expression becoming puzzled. “Princess, are you feeling…?”

Luna squinted and then closed her eyes, feeling the tingling against her magical senses. “Yes. It’s…. the aura is like standing next to the Tree of Harmony. The power tingles and buzzes like the air right before lightning. It’s…”

“...getting more intense.” Kyra swallowed. “Something really big is building. I think we should put something big and solid between us and whatever is ahead of us.”

The air began to become warmer and the tingling became pins and needles against Luna’s senses. “Yes, I think you’re…” And suddenly, in a rush of impossible cold, they were where Spite had first brought them within sight of the city, except just a few inches above the ground. Luna turned and looked at the dragon. “What was…?”

“I’ve felt something like that before, and when it peaked, some extremely violent…”

Luna saw her mouth continuing to move, but it was if the sound had been abruptly cut off, like flipping a light switch. And then she was flying, except she couldn’t remember having opened her wings or taken off, and she was tumbling through the air as she flew with her wings still tucked against her body, and a rather jagged collection of rocks were approaching at a disturbingly great speed, and her mind suddenly caught up to the fact that something had thrown her into the air and away from the city, and she was about to be smashed against the rocks. She snapped her wings open as she forced magic through her horn to create dozens of layers of thin magic and started crashing through them, each leaving a light tingling on her skin, but each slowing her dramatically. So instead of crashing at full speed into the rocks, she dropped short and tumbled head over tail until the nearest rock stopped her and she found herself upside down and facing in the direction of the city.

She could feel her eyes getting wide as she watched a towering cloud of dust mixed with motes of silver-white magic mushroom over the city, rising hundreds of feet into the air with the faint echo of a bone-shaking roar still echoing in the stillness of the shockwave that had sent her and Kyra flying. The changeling was sprawled almost comically in the sand and dust of the arid lands, watching the mushrooming cloud with the same speechless awe as Luna.

“Ow.” Spite flopped off her feet right next to Luna. “That stung. A lot. I’m pretty sure that even my horns are throbbing.”

“What is that?” Luna asked, not looking at the dragoness.

“Mushroom cloud,” Spite siad. “I’ve seen them a few times, usually from the nice safe distance of over twenty miles away hiding in a bunker. Always kind of wondered what it would be like at ground zero. Now I know. I wish I didn’t. Did I mention ow? Because if I didn’t, ouch.”

“I can tell it’s a mushroom cloud,” Luna said. “Seeing as how it’s a cloud that looks like a mushroom. But what is it?”

“If we were somewhere else, I’d know exactly what it is. Here?” Spite twitched her shoulders in the faint shadow of a shrug. “Ow. And my only guess here is… Fluttershy annihilated Zambet, or at least disintegrated her mortal anchor.”

Luna sat with that for a moment. “I’ve seen the Elements entomb Order’s counterpart, Discord. I’ve seen them practically disintegrate Sombra. They’ve been used to defeat many enemies of Equestria over my lifetime but I’ve never seen just a single one do… whatever that is.”

“Normally, walking straight into ground zero of one of those would kill you where you stood but if the Element of Kindness set that off, I have a feeling that it’s not radiating death in all directions.” Spite started to stand, and then sank back down. “Ow. I think I want to take a nap. A few centuries should sort me out. Maybe a millenia or so.”

“Spite…”

“I’m kidding, Princess,” the dragon said. “But no matter how nice and cuddly I am, being blasted by that amount of unrestrained Light rang my bells pretty good. I’ll be right as rain in a few minutes.”

Luna rolled to her hooves and found, to her own surprise, that she felt fairly steady despite being hit by the shockwave. Kyra seemed similarly uninjured and gave her a look. “I don’t see any more dome, Princess. And if a nice Void thingy like Spite here got scrambled by the hit, pretty sure Zambet got laid out like a sack of apples.”

“Concur.” Luna spread her wings and slipped into the air with Kyra joining her a moment later, her anisopteric wings blurring soundlessly. “Did your sister get you any other messages?”

“About Nachtmiri Mein, but I’m sure she’s already contacted you,” Kyra siad. “We know about the entire sleight of hoof and relationship. We might have always had a different perspective on Nightmare Moon than Equestrian ponies did, but we still required a full explanation from her when she popped in on Chryssy.”

“How’d your sister take that?”

Kyra smirked. “How do you think?”

Luna winced a little. “Full induction?”

“Yup.”

The memory of seeing changelings use that particular weapon made Luna shiver involuntarily. “Doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning.”

“It turns out that an ageless eldrich horror is more annoyed than harmed by being Induced, fortunately for all involved.” Kyra grinned widely as they neared the now-cleared gates and alighted. “They worked it out.”

“Sounds like Nacht.” The griffon they’d run into before was now slumped over in the street, his eyes closed, looking to be sleeping deeply and comfortably, and everywhere she looked, Luna saw the previously-captive griffons similarly sprawled out and resting. The streets weren’t even filled with dust clouds, or the remains of stirred-up dust starting to settle; even the awnings that Luna had seen before the blast seemed undisturbed. “The lack of damage is…”

“...eerie,” Kyra agreed, looking around. “It’s like that shockwave just… ignored everything that wasn’t made of the Void or outside the city walls. How is that even possible?”

“Magic can be attuned such that its effects ignore things within their path,” Luna said. “For instance, attuning it to a particular spectrum so that it slides passed a bin of red marbles and only grasps the blue ones. Advanced students from Tia’s school regularly find summer work on farms so the farmers can dump all the varieties of fruits and vegetables into the same wagon and the student can quickly and accurately sort them into their own bins when they get back to the barn. I suppose Fluttershy did something similar but far more… involved.”

“Yeah.” Kyra looked upwards at the slowly-dissipating cloud of magic and dust above the city. “Dramatic as buck, and extremely precise.”

“Far more than I had expected of the butterfly.” One minute, the street was empty of anyone but the slumbering griffons; the very next, an abomination was approaching at a casual walk. The right side reminded Luna strongly of Lady Fleur de Lis: slim, long-legged, elegant patrician features, one edge of her mouth seeming to be permanently stuck in a tiny smile, eye like an expertly-cut amethyst, and the long horn coming to a sharp point, all rendered in glossy black coat with a stylishly-coiffed neon green mane. The left side was a skeleton with the bone structure of the right side, and nothing seeming to hold it in the correct shape. The exposed skull was scorched and blackened with soot, sharp amethyst light erupting from every orifice, a mass of violet flame erupting from its eye socket with a thing sputtering flame of blood red serving as a pupil. The divide between the two halves was as precise as if it had been cut with a sharp blade and guide, the normal fleshy features of the right stopping abruptly when they reached the midline, like the creature was some kind of living anatomy model.

On the abomination’s back was draped two seemingly slumbering ponies: one, white-coated with long golden hair, was the pony shape that Lashaal used. The other was Fluttershy, her long pink mane draped across half of her face, wings unconsciously splayed out in the way that certain pegasi slept, looking visibly unharmed.

“Surprised?” The abomination asked, her voice silky and pleasantly feminine, the jaw of her skeleton side moving in perfect timing with her mouth.

Luna opened and shut her jaw several times as she stared at what was very likely Zambet. “You’re…”

“...alive,” Zambet finished. “It is not as impressive as you imagine. She made it clear that she was not going to try to kill or otherwise harm me, just shatter my hold on the citizens. Her decision was vexing for the moment, but I have many banquets from which to sup and the loss of some crumbs costs me little.”

Luna furrowed her brow. “You are… not what was described to me. Nor are you what I met outside of that structure Master was in.”

Zambet smiled a bit more deeply. “That was purposeful, Princess. Had you expected a mad beast and met instead a restrained Evil like Nachtmiri Mein, you would have been wary, watchful for some scheme or plan or a deeper purpose. So you were given the witless thrall, one so disconnected from reality that she thought to wound you anew with pains you had overcome, and memories with which you’d made peace.”

“OK, this is neat and all,” Kyra said. “It looks like you feel like the high road right now, and there’s no reason not to walk it with you. But kicking your plot up between your ears is sort of our obligation, since Fluttershy decided to manifest Kindness to the hilt.”

Zambet shrugged. “And when you choose to do so, I shall simply leave. You are strong, Ambassador, and the Princess is very nearly a deity, but anchoring any being of the Void to a mortal plane is a difficult endeavor even with the knowledge of how--and you do not even have that.” She used her head to gesture to the two mares on her back. “Lashaal can likely survive going through the Void unconscious and unanchored. I regret that Fluttershy likely will not. Do you really want to start a fight and compel me to leave?”

“What would stop you from doing that anyway?”

“If I intended it, I would have gone already. Wasting time taunting your foe is a quick way to lose your victory. It is very much the tendency of the limited beasts that constitute the least of my kind,” Zambet said, a touch contemptuously. “I am ancient because I do not reach for more than I can grasp.”

“What does a conversation gain you?” Luna said.

“A gesture of good faith,” Zambet said. She turned sideways and knelt, tilting her body slightly so that Fluttershy slid harmlessly into the dust of the street. She then straightened and turned to fully face them again. “I offer you this Butterfly, unharmed, in return for a service.”

“And what might that be?”

“You will permit me to leave, and not molest me afterwards.” Zambet gave Luna a little bow. “I have business yet, and wish to conduct it without concerning myself with impediments.”

“Don’t suppose we could have the other one too?” Kyra pointed at the form of Lashaal.

“No,” Zambet said. “She is mine, personally mine. It is to me that she swore her oaths, made her promises, told her tales. She carries the weapon she promised to obtain, and I shall take her to where she will render payment.”

“And I don’t suppose you’ll tell us where that is?”

“I do not yet know,” she said. “Otherwise, I would tell you. I know only that the Voice has sworn to seek it out, having secured a confluence of the greater lei line.”

Luna looked steadily at the abomination, and then bowed her head carefully to her. “I will not molest you, if you will give Fluttershy to me unharmed.”

“And the Ambassador?”

“She’s an ally, not my subject. I cannot make agreements on her behalf.”

Zambet snorted amusedly. “How very unfortunate for you.” She took several steps back from where Fluttershy lay. “Examine her as you will to prove that I have done as I agreed, and given her to you unharmed.”

Luna gave Zambet another long look and the abomination rolled her eyes. “Princess, I slipped into your head while you were not distracted. If I intended to harm you, I would not have wasted so much time talking to you.” She nodded at Kyra. “The Ambassador will surely prevent you from coming to harm.”

Luna frowned, but nodded in admission of the point before stepping closer to the prone Fluttershy and reaching out with her magical senses. That the pegasus was unharmed physically was readily apparent: she breathed deeply and easily, her coat had a healthy sheen, and there were no signs of injury. So, too, did Fluttershy seem unharmed within: she did not stir at all in sleep and her dreamscape radiated the same contented peacefulness that it always had when Luna had stopped by to rest a moment in between quelling nightmares. Despite the fact that Zambet had a point--that Luna actively defending against her hadn’t stopped her attack before--Luna decided that fully slipping into the dreamscape while the abomination was standing and watching would be foolish, and she opened her eyes to regard her.

“Why?”

“Destroying something so innocent and gentle would be a pleasure,” Zambet said, her expression of a light smile not budging at all. “A trophy, a symbol of my power, precious, delicious agony like the finest wine. Crippling the Elements, taking one beloved of the deviant, breaking hearts, shattering spirits.” She shrugged. “And all of it a trap. I was baited that way once,” she gestured to her skeletal half, “and I will not be again. I have done what I desired, making my mark and making all those who remain living heralds to proclaim my power, and carrying away the debtor I sought.” The abomination tucked her skeletal leg against her chest and bowed deeply. “Adieu.” And between one blink and the next, she was gone.

And Luna was standing at the city’s gates, looking inwards at the emaciated forms of griffons lining the streets of the city, slumped over stands, fallen atop one another, crowded in the streets as if they’d been struck down instantly as they were going about their everyday lives. The gate guard was leaned against the wall nearest them, his breathing uneven and shallow, sounding phlegmy and labored. Luna glanced down to see that Fluttershy was still laying at her hooves, her body still unmarked, her breathing still easy and natural, before she stepped over to the stricken griffon and reached out a tentative hoof to touch him.

The guard gasped and jerked away from the hoof, falling backwards and striking the ground with a groan of pain. “Who… who’s…” he said in a labored, creaking voice. “Oh… oh, it’s you Princess…” He rolled onto his belly and coughed weakly. “Was the… chase a dead end…?”

Luna looked at him and glanced over her shoulder at Kyra, who was looking completely shell-shocked as she stared at the avenue full of griffons. “No,” she said. “I’ve been gone for nearly four days.”

“Mmm?” He looked up at her blearily. “Four days? But you left just yesterday…” He closed his eyes and shuddered, before visibly forcing them back open. “At least I thought you did. Ugh… that was a strange dream. Thought I went and… grabbed a drink with some friends… spent time with a cute little chick…” He frowned. “Just a dream then?”

“I… honestly could not say,” Luna admitted. “Are you alright?”

He blinked a few times and yawned. “Tired and famished, but I’ve been worse.”

“Incredible.” Luna turned to see Spite standing there, looking at the emaciated forms with a look of genuine awe.

“Definitely not the word I’d use,” Kyra said. “Shocking, horrifying, terrible… all better words.”

“Well, yes, all of this is terrible,” Spite siad. “What I’m referring to is that I saw how they looked mere minutes ago: hale, heart, healthy resting comfortably. Now they’re sickly and starved.”

“An illusion.”

“No mere illusion, Princess,” the dragon siad. “A simple illusion would come apart the moment you drew near to it, and yet we walked into the city and all saw the same thing. This was a displacement.”

“A displace…?”

“I’m sure she can explain it later,” Luna interrupted. “We need to see if they’re all in the same state, see if any are worse. Could you go and bring the changelings and Rainbow here, Spite?”

“Yes.” Spite nodded once and just like Zambet, was gone in the blink of an eye, and Luna turned back to helping the guard into a comfortable position and giving him a brief sweep before turning, grimacing, and starting into the city to see what the abomination had left behind. She carries the weapon she promised to obtain, and I shall take her to where she will render payment, Zambet had said and about where she was going I know only that the Voice has sworn to seek it out, having secured a confluence of the greater lei line.

But where could that be? Luna shook her head as she nosed at the nearest griffon slumped across a stand, the wares that had been resting on it splayed across the ground, getting the same shiver and weak cough, and the same sleepy confusion as to the day. And who is this ‘Voice’ of which Master and Zambet spoke?