//------------------------------//
// Midnight Sun (Sunshine and Fire, Part 1) 
// Story: The League of Sweetie Belles 
// by GMBlackjack 
//------------------------------//

“So, how’s ‘contact the locals round two’ going?” Suzie asked from her station. 

Before her was Swip’s primary screen, currently displaying two separate feeds. The first was of the angry, churning sun Swip was studying. The second was of Celia, Blink, and Cinder on the surface of a planet. It was hard to see behind the three ponies taking up most the frame, but the heat of the desert behind them was so oppressive it made the air ripple. 

“Depends on your point of view,” Celia admitted. 

“Compared to a normal mission, terribly,” Blink said. “Compared to round one, amazing.”

“To put it simply, they aren’t trying to kill us on sight, but if we’re not under Blink’s Void we’re either terrifying or suspicious.” Celia glanced at her manifested fake horn. “Unicorns here tend not to fraternize with the lower classes, and the unicorns of this version of Trottingham have been decidedly unhelpful. We have a case of extreme racism.”

“At least now we know why you were attacked,” Suzie said, turning to a grumpy Squiddy. 

“Big whoop,” Squiddy muttered, glaring at the ink-soaked gauze around her left hand. “...I didn’t like the desert anyway. Too hot.”

“Were you able to find out if our suspicions about the sun were correct?” Suzie asked Celia. 

Celia furrowed her brow. “It sure seems like we have a Daybreaker situation, but everyone calls the local analogue ‘Tyrant Celestia’, apparently by her request.”

“Odd. Though not exactly out of character for a Celestia.”

“True. The day is eternal. Nopony we talked to even knew what night was.”

Cinder giggled. “The day shall last forever!” She looked very proud of herself, igniting a halo of fire around her head with the extra power the sun was giving her. “We should probably get a set of the Elements of Harmony here to deal with her.”

“Agreed,” Suzie said. “I’ve sent a message to Renee to make sure a full set is on standby. We’ll call them in whenever we deem it necessary.”

“I hope we get to see it,” Cinder said, smiling innocently. “I didn’t get to see Nightmare Moon zapped. I kinda want to.”

“We were hiding under a table when Nightmare Moon was zapped,” Blink pointed out.

“I know! It was a missed opportunity! We could always use more Rainbow Death Lasers!”

“They don’t cause death,” Celia chided.

“Rainbow Death Laser sounds cooler,” Blink huffed. Cinder nodded in agreement before giggling again. 

Suzie nodded. “Well, thanks for the report. We’ll keep monitoring the sun from up here, try and figure out why it’s so bloated. Keep gathering what you can—see if you can find some friendly faces in the desert. If we’re going to ‘Rainbow Death Laser’ this Daybreaker I’d like to have something to give the Aid Division to help them keep society from collapsing afterward.”

“We won’t let you down!” Cinder said, saluting. Celia cut the feed right after.

Suzie furrowed her brow. She pressed a button. “Were you listening, Sweetaloo?”

“I listen to virtually all the conversations,” Sweetaloo responded from the comm. “What is it?”

“Is Cinder doing alright?”

“...I think so. All of us have our ways of coping. She’s doubled down on her childish excitability and comedy. Hardly the worst of coping mechanisms, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you.”

Suzie nodded. “How fake is it?”

“Oh, not much. She really is that excitable, curious filly who wants to see smiles everywhere. I’m actually very proud of her. Despite everything, she hasn’t turned away.”

“Is that because she doesn’t want to, or because she can’t?”

Sweetaloo didn’t respond for a while. “...That’s not my department, Suzie.”

Suzie sighed. “Okay, okay. I want you to keep watching her.”

“I was put on this crew to watch all of you. I’m going to do my job, you can rest easy.”

Suzie’s concerned frown curled upward into a pleasant smile. “Thank you, Sweetaloo. For doing a lot more than just your job.”

“I try.”

Suzie cut the connection, sliding her fingers across the station to call engineering. “Seren, find anything yet?”

“The sun’s wrong,” Seren reported.

“I figured that,” Suzie said, looking at the orb of fire on the main screen. Most Equis suns that weren’t normal stars were calm, serene things of holy light. This monstrosity was bloated, somehow darker around the edges while also shining with extreme intensity. It raged, swirling with fire, chaos, anger. 

“There’s magics inside of it that aren’t supposed to be there?” Seren offered tentatively. “I’m really not sure what the deal is yet. It could be anything.”

“Should we take Swip closer?” Suzie asked.

“Won’t help.”

“And I already don’t like the heat,” Swip added, appearing on screen. She poked at the digital representation of the sun. “My pain is the pain of the shields.”

“Your pain receptors are off,” Seren pointed out.

“It’s psychological.”

Squiddy rolled her eyes. “Give me a break.”

“You’re on break already.”

Squiddy glanced at her injured hand. “Recovery is hardly a ‘break’. Remind me again why I can’t use the medipods?”

“Because I don’t want ink spraying everywhere, kapeesh?”

Squiddy folded her arms. “We better get done with this qui-”

“Something’s happening to the sun!” Seren reported, her rushed typing coming in over the comm. “A magic just latched onto it from the planet’s surface!”

“Is it moving?” Suzie asked.

“...No. Something’s being… extracted?”

Nira was suddenly on the bridge, the dark energy of her teleport obscuring Suzie’s view for a split second. “That’s a dark magic I sense being extracted. From the sun!?”

Suzie watched as the display zoomed in on the bottom of the flaming sphere where the dark magic was coalescing. Once the nebulous mass reached a particular size, it fell to the planet below like a cross between a raindrop and a meteor. The dark energies spread out as they fell, and for a split second, tendrils of smoke kilometers long spread across the surface of the world. This spectacle was short lived—for they coalesced into a single point and were no longer visible with Swip’s sensors.

“I’m going down,” Nira said. 

“Take someone with you,” Suzie ordered.

Nira nodded. “Seren?”

“Ready!” Seren said, teleporting next to Nira. “Dark magic mystery time!” 

Swip teleported the two down, leaving Suzie and Squiddy alone on the bridge. 

“Swip, how’s the sun look now?” Suzie asked.

“Closer to normal,” Swip reported. “Not quite standard—still a bit too hot—but I don’t think there’s really a reason to keep scanning it. Whatever that dark thing was, it was the anomaly. Totally gone now, and unless you want to keep taxing my shields, I say we should go.”

“Right. Return to your pocket dimension.”

Swip focused her energy for a moment and created a portal. The portal quickly disintegrated into nothing more than magical sparks. 

“...Uh-oh,” Swip said.

“What kind of uh-oh?” Suzie asked.

“The kind where someone just jammed dimensional travel. This isn’t some natural phenomenon, I detected an active jamming signal.”

“Coming from where?”

“The capital city where the Everfree Forest should be.”

“I think it’s time we paid them a visit…”

Swip never got to follow that order.

Because the sun decided to attack them.

A focused flare of solar energy flew out of the fireball’s corona, hitting Swip’s shields head on. As advanced as Swip was, she wasn’t designed with the intent of taking a focused solar flare to the face. Her shields failed in half a second and her engines blew out.

She thought quickly—she’d lost control of the shields and engines, but she still had weapons. They were completely useless against a magic star-construct, but they could be used for another purpose: getting out of the way.

She overloaded one of the magitech guns, creating an explosion of purple-pink energy that knocked her body out of the solar flare’s beam. The sun fired again, but she was moving too fast to be hit again. The good news: she and everyone inside was alive thanks to her quick thinking. 

The bad news?

“PREPARE FOR EMERGENCY CRASH LANDING!” Swip shouted. 


~~~


It coalesced into black. 

Perhaps it was better to say it was the essence of black—of ebony, of coal, of ravens. A being of immense power spread out over miles, for a split second allowing the world below to see the full extent of what blackness meant. 

But it was not to last. The darkness coalesced, kicking up immense dust storms over the desert as it did so. It came together at a single point, taking the form of a regal alicorn. Nira and Seren had no trouble identifying her as a Luna from their nearby sand dune, but she definitely wasn’t a normal Luna. Most alicorns would proudly display immense, ethereal manes filled with magic; this Luna wore hers short, with barely any stars visible within. The ends of the black mane were gray and frayed, giving the appearance of being burnt. 

She didn’t look at the Sweeties; she looked at the mare who had set her free. A mare who was, as far as the Sweeties could tell, a baseline Celestia with the usual regalia, pastel mane, and wise eyes. 

The two did not look like they belonged together. 

“...That can’t be Daybreaker…” Seren muttered.

Nira nodded in confirmation. There was no Nightmare here. In either of them.

“Don’t be afraid!” the Celestia said, a fearful waver in her tone. “I’m not who you think I am!”

“I know who you are,” the Luna said, expression uncomfortably deadpan. “I’ve been watching you, when I’ve been able.” Slowly, she smiled—a truly awkward motion for her, as if her face didn’t quite understand the emotion she was trying to express. “Thank you for freeing me!”

The Celestia seemed stunned by this. As the magical energies and dust clouds from the freeing of Luna dissipated, she began to wobble slightly. When Celestia took a knee, there seemed to be no explanation as to why.

Seren and Nira knew better. They could sense the tendrils of power reaching out from Luna and probing the larger princess. 

“I am sorry about this,” Luna said, slime absent. She watched impassively as Celestia lost consciousness—barely struggling at all. “...You’re not the only one with a plan, sister.”

“...Should we do something?” Seren asked.

“No, we don’t understand what’s happening,” Nira said. “But it’s something big. We need to follow them. Send a message to Swip…”

It was at this point the two of them noticed a falling star streaking across the sky. In the middle of the eternal day. It was not difficult for the two of them to figure out what was falling out of the sky. 

“...I’m not getting any responses,” Seren hissed.

Nira lit her horn, expecting to open a portal through which to get reinforcements. Nothing happened—the spell simply refused to work.

“We’re being jammed.”

Seren glanced at Princess Luna—who was currently standing over Celestia and prodding her with advanced magics, oblivious to the presence of the Sweeties atop the dune. “Her…?”

“No. Long-distance, from… I don’t know,” Nira scowled. “We’re not getting help from Swip, we’re not getting help from MU... “

“What do we do?” Seren asked, eyes wide.

Nira glanced at the sun, to the streak of smoke left in the sky by the falling Swip, and back to Luna. “She’s important. We follow her and find out what she’s doing.”

“What about Celia and the others?”

“If you can contact them with your magic alone…”

Seren shook her head. “Too far.”

“Then we stay here. Whatever she’s doing, we need to be here for it.” She watched as Luna took a step back from Celestia. The dark princess now had a soft light about her, a pale yellow taking place of the usual highlights of her body; evidence that she had taken some of Celestia’s essence. She lifted the unconscious form of the alicorn into the air… and teleported away. 

“Got the teleport trace,” Seren said, lowering her staff. “...She’ll probably be able to detect a teleport activating…”

“She didn’t detect me trying to open a portal,” Nira countered. “Still, better safe than sorry… We’ll need some stealth spells.”

“...We need Blink…” Seren said, looking at the ground, sad.

“They can take care of themselves,” Nira asserted. “I know enough to get by. I can turn us into shadows.”

Seren cocked her head, looking at Nira curiously. “...Nira, you and Luna are the only things making shadows in this entire desert.”

Nira looked down. Sure enough, she had a shadow, but Seren didn’t. 

“...Then hopefully she won’t notice a shadow on a sand dune near the edge of her sight range.”

Seren nodded. She began to initiate the teleport while Nira worked with her shadows. The two of them became solid black and sunk into the ground, appearing to the eye as nothing more than puddles of soft darkness within the grains of sand. In most cases this was a very good disguise, but anything looking at them from above would have easily been able to pick them out from the blinding reflections of the sand. 

With a flash of magic energy they left. The dune was once again abandoned, a few stray hoofprints being the only sign anything had been here. 


~~~


Celia, Cinder, and Blink were standing outside Trottingham when they spotted Swip falling through the planet’s atmosphere. 

Cinder put a hoof to her mouth. “Oh no…”

“...I’m going to guess the sun attacked them,” Blink said, hoof on her chin. “Mainly because I don’t want to have to deal with ‘suddenly, aliens,’ right now.”

“Wh… Blink!” 

“They’re fine.” Celia put a hoof on Cinder’s shoulder. “This is not the first time Swip has crashed. Though, to be fair, usually there’s more warning…”

“They’re fine?”

Celia nodded. “I find it hard to believe a random crash will take them out. Nira, Burgerbelle, Seren… there are a lot of us who have clever ways of getting around things, even if Swip wasn’t strong enough to shield them from an impact. Which she is.”

Cinder nodded slowly. “And it would be a little anticlimactic if that was that…”

“It is scary how quickly you’ve picked up on that,” Blink commented.

Cinder nudged her. “You just don’t like thinking about it.”

“Can’t believe you do.”

“Focus,” Celia said, interrupting the bickering. “We need to decide what to do.” She shook her communicator. “I’m not getting any signals, and I was getting plenty before.”

“Swip’s communication array is probably down,” Blink said.

“Yes. But that doesn’t explain why I can't make interdimensional calls.”

“Welp, looks like we’re stuck here and separated.” Cinder tossed her mane back and grinned. “If this isn’t the beginning of an epic adventure I don’t know what is.”

Celia nodded. “We could go try to find them, but for all we know they crashed on the other side of the planet. I can long-range teleport, but I wouldn’t want to risk that.”

“So that leaves us with Trottingham,” Blink said, turning to look at the city. 

The settlement was a paradoxical mix of impressive and shabby. It was a dome of hastily slapped together stones that stood over the desert like a tumor of some kind. The entire city was contained within the dome—a city the three of them had already explored a bit prior to giving their report. One would think a nearly solid dome would provide shade, but the eternal day wasn’t the sort to allow that, insisting that the light be lesser inside the dome, not gone. 

“What exactly are we going to do, though?” Blink asked. “This isn’t the capital, we can’t go beat up the Tyrant from here.”

“There’s a resistance,” Celia commented. “What we heard of as ‘terrorists’.”

Cinder scratched her chin. “Take the Queen down from the inside. I like it. Though we don’t exactly have the Elements…”

“The resistance will no doubt have resources. They will be able to get to Swip and the others. Together we can be a formidable force.”

“So the plan is to waltz right in and become part of the resistance?” Blink asked. “I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re unicorns. You know. High society? The oppressors?”

Celia removed her fake horn and smirked. 

“Okay, fine, most of us.”

“Got any better ideas?” Cinder asked.

Blink furrowed her brow. “I could sneak all the way to the capital and shank the Tyrant. She’ll never see it coming.”

Cinder raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bit… gruesome.”

“Effective though.”

“And would take you forever,” Celia added.

“It’s not like I need food or water like Cinder. I could walk over there, completely invisible, they’d never know anything.”

“And then we’ll need you and you’ll be nowhere to be found,” Cinder countered.

“...Good point,” Blink admitted. “So… Trottingham. I suppose we could try to live normal lives in the city…”

“Blink, be honest, what are the chances we can live ‘normal’ lives?” Cinder asked.

“Slim to none.”

“Yep. We’re going to find the resistance.”

“What—hey! There’s got to be better ideas than that!”

“There probably are, but we’re acting on extremely limited information,” Celia admitted. “Our first trip down here ended in disaster, and this second one has only lasted an hour and has been met with repeated rejection from the locals. We shall return and try to blend in.” She furrowed her brow. “I can fake being an earth pony by styling my mane correctly, but then it would be unnatural to be seen with the two of you. Blink?”

Blink waved a hoof. “There we go, the two of us are effectively invisible to most ponies. Except you. Which, by the way, is hard to do. Selective invisibility: complicated.”

Cinder tapped the ground. “They can still hear us, can’t they?”

“Yep. I’m trying to keep my reserves full, don’t want to be extra flashy. So… don’t talk and don’t bump into anypony!” 

Cinder nodded. “I can do that. Though, Blink, are you sure you can be quiet?”

“You’re a regular comedian, Cinder.”

Cinder didn’t respond. She pointed at Blink’s mouth and grinned.

With a grunt, Blink glared at Celia. Can we get a move on?

Celia nodded, using her magic to carefully comb her mane over her cracked crystal. She trotted back into Trottingham through a ‘gate’ that was little more than a large door. It was both ingenious—the perfect size and shape for a large carriage—and shabby—it clearly needed to be replaced about a decade ago given all the wear and tear. 

There was a guard at the door, but he frankly didn’t care who or what came through the gate, and he definitely didn’t care that Celia looked just like the unusually large unicorn that had left five minutes ago. He just waved her through and went back to his boring, albeit cushy, job. 

The inside of Trottingham was split into two levels. The low levels contained the poor, which was mostly earth ponies with the occasional pegasus here and there. Built on top of these pitiful, ramshackle hovels were large pillars that rose to support the dome, lined with significantly nicer houses for unicorns and pegasi. There were a few green patches in the upper landings, growing food in the lesser light of the inner city. It was a clear sign of the division that existed on this world. Cinder found it depressing, but she knew Celia and Blink had seen much worse. There were significantly fewer ponies visible than there should have been in a city this size, a fact that accentuated the sinking feeling present in the Sweeties’ stomachs. 

Attempting to game the rumor mill as a unicorn had been… problematic. The earth ponies feared the existence of the horn, as did most of the pegasi, and the other unicorns always wanted to know what family you were from and what your status was. Celia was more than capable of lying through her teeth, but it was annoyingly difficult to get information if she wasn’t recognizable to the higher ponies in some way. What they had gotten was thanks to Blink the eternal eavesdropping queen. 

As an earth pony, however, things were different. Intimidating though her stature was, she was one of them, and they saw something in her that captured their imaginations. The earth ponies as individuals may have been meek, hiding from the other races and the sun, but together they had a bustling society based in family, friends, and hospitality to those who deserved it. 

It was not difficult for Celia to insert herself into conversations after she learned the etiquette. She found a story as old as time; one that saddened her every time she heard it. A story of a people who had been subjugated for so long they thought that was how things needed to be. That they were lesser, that they were the scum of the earth. 

But whenever she found a pony who sounded fed up with the situation, gruff, or annoyed, she would press. This was the point at which things became difficult. Most of them would just clam up, refuse to talk, perhaps sputter a few sentences. A few no doubt reported her to the authorities for being a suspected member of the resistance herself, but being able to teleport halfway across the city in a heartbeat ensured nobody was going to find her if she didn’t want them to find her. 

Occasionally, she’d get hints. Rumors. Applejack was the leader of the resistance—though there was some confusion on if she was dead or not. They had a lot of activity in Trottingham, indicating there was a major cell nearby if it wasn’t in the city itself. 

She did this for some time. It was hard to tell exactly how long—the day was eternal and clocks weren’t a common thing. But, eventually, she found something useful. Evidence of the secret settlement. One mare had let slip that there was another part of the city aside from the two seen under the dome. Underground. Out of sight. Protected. 

Celia looked to Blink and nodded slowly. Carefully, Blink lowered them into the ground, passing through several layers of rock… before coming out in a mineshaft. It was currently abandoned, but they were able to see evidence of recent pony habitation from hoofprints and a few loose tools. 

“...I can hear water,” Cinder commented. 

“Underground river,” Blink explained. “Also, shush. We’re still stealthy.”

Celia carefully poked her head out of the mineshaft, catching sight of a much larger cavern. There was a small river running through the expanse, dotted with ramshackle houses that somehow looked nicer than the ones above even though they were clearly cheaper. Unlike above, this cavern was clean, and ponies were walking about in the open—virtually entirely earth ponies. The air was noticeably colder, a welcome change from the constant oppressing heat that had been present even within the walls of the city. 

A true secret settlement. 

Celia made a game plan. She would slip into the town, watch from the sidelines for a bit until she saw how ponies behaved, and then insert herself into the populace and begin chatting the ponies up. No doubt the resistance was down here—if this place wasn’t itself the resistance—and it shouldn’t be too hard to get to somepony who knew something.

Unfortunately she never got to put this plan into action. 

Because a magical explosion tore through several buildings, sending up clouds of billowing purple smoke into the air.

The first sign of an attack. The second came without giving the ponies a moment to breathe—unicorns teleported into the cavern, each one of them with a small dragon at their sides and a sneer on their faces.

Except one. 

An all-too-familiar purple unicorn mare with a pleased grin on her face. As her colleagues began their attack of dragonflame and magic lasers, she spoke with a loud, booming voice. “Ponies of the Apple Underground! Surrender and cooperate and maybe Queen Celestia will find you useful enough to keep alive!” Her smile widened as she added, “I doubt it, though.”

The Apple Underground clearly hadn’t been planning for this attack. A few unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies came charging out, weapons in hoof, but they weren’t in any sort of organized formation. Ponies were gunned down left and right with lasers—or burnt to ashes with dragonfire. 

Celia turned to Cinder, worried that the filly was seeing to much. Much to Celia’s surprise, instead of a whimpering, tearful expression, Cinder was glaring angrily at the local Twilight. “...Celia, why aren’t we helping them?”

“Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“I’m not going to be able to just walk away.” She clasped her hooves together and felt the fire flow through her, the unending day filling her with more flame than she had ever wielded before. “And I think I can do something, for once.”

Celia nodded. “I’ll be with you every step of the way. Your fire is dangerous, be careful to not do what the dragons are doing. Keep it in small bursts, aim for weak but non-vital areas if possible, and whatever happens don’t freeze.”

Cinder hardly looked like a mare anymore. She looked like a living torch. “It’ll be a little hard to freeze like this.”

“Good. Blink, hide as many of the Underground as you can.”

Blink nodded. “I won’t be able to hide either of you. Be careful.”

“We won’t be hiding…” Cinder said, glaring right at the local Twilight and her version of Spike, both watching the battle taking place before them with glee. “We’re going after the Queen’s prized pupil…”

She teleported the two of them away. 


~~~


Suzie kicked the busted metal plate off of her. “Swip, report,” she called, wiping some blood from her face.

“Successful crash,” Swip’s voice responded. All the screens were dead, so there was no face to go with the voice.

“What do you mean by successful!?” Squiddy grunted, pulling herself up off the ground. She was pleasantly surprised to find she hadn’t sustained any further injuries. 

“Nobody died.”

“And what about every other metric?” Suzie asked.

“Well, my engines are fried, half my weapons were sacrificed to keep us from dying, most my external sensors are toast, life support is down—not that that matters—and the biosensor that is working is telling me we’re in the middle of the equivalent of the Dragonlands.”

“This day just keeps getting better and better!” Burgerbelle shouted, kicking open the door to the bridge. Sweetaloo was behind her—one of her wings clearly broken. 

“Glad to see everyone’s okay,” Suzie said. “Sweetaloo, how bad is it?”

“It hurts, but the wing’s useless anyway, so it’s not like I’m much the worse for wear.”

“Lemme guess. Medipods are ruined too?” Squiddy asked.

Swip laughed. “They exploded, spewing their fluids everywhere.”

“Fitting.”

“Is it safe to go outside?” Suzie asked.

“I mean, dragons, but otherwise yeah,” Swip confirmed. “I do have a working turret I can use to defend us if we need to. It’ll work against dragons. ...Can’t exactly move it, though.”

Suzie nodded. “Right. Everyone, suit up. I know we’re injured but we can’t stay here.”

“...Uh, my communication array is down,” Swip said. “If you go very far…”

“We won’t go out of short range until we come up with a plan,” Suzie promised. She took a moment to look at who she had—Burgerbelle, Squiddy, and Sweetaloo. With annoyance, she realized that none of them could teleport. “...Swip? Are...”

“What do you think the answer to that question is?”

Right, teleporters are broken, figures. “Okay, escape tunnel…” She leaned down. Since the ceiling was currently the floor angled at a thirty-degree angle, she was easily able to pop loose the hatch. It led into a shaft large enough to hold a human of reasonable size.

Suzie jumped in, hands first, crawling down the ladder until she was up to her feet. At this point she reached the escape hatch. “Swip, override hatch airlock security.”

“Already done.”

With a nod to herself, Suzie wrenched the door’s handle, popping it open. The brightness of the day blinded her for a moment, but she didn’t let this stop her. She held a hand to her eyes and looked around. 

It was warm, all right, but they hadn’t landed in the desert that covered most of the planet. Swip was currently situated with her tail-end embedded in the ground of a beach, the waters of the ocean keeping the coastal areas wet, although it was still immensely hot. There was greenery here in the form of expansive forests, though even these looked sickly. The only other feature was a large mountain that didn’t feel… right to Suzie. 

Oh, and there were about a dozen dragons curiously examining the gash Swip had made in the ground as she crashed. 

Suzie jumped out, falling the handful of meters to the ground and rolling onto the beach sand. Burgerbelle appeared next to her without an issue, and Squiddy was able to harmlessly land in a puddle of her own ink. 

Sweetaloo had to get a rope out of a survival box and climb down. While she was in the middle of doing so, the Sweeties on the ground got visitors. 

One of which was perhaps the largest Equestrian-style dragon Suzie had ever seen, challenging many mountains in sheer girth. This obsidian black monstrosity walked toward them with strides so large and powerful they hardly seemed physically possible. It had two heads—though a stump to one side indicated there had once been three. The middle head was clearly in charge, rising above the other head that was trying its best to vanish into the dark folds of the body. 

Flying along in front of the black dragon was a version of Princess Luna, carrying two ponies in her magic: a Rarity and a Rainbow Dash. 

“W h o_m i g h t_y o u_b e ?” the dragon asked with a voice so deep Suzie could feel the lower tones rippling through her organs. 

“Burgerbelle, megaphone,” Suzie said, grabbing the somewhat comical object from Burgerbelle’s hands. She turned it on and directed it at the dragon, ensuring it was loud enough for his tremendous ears to hear. “I am Captain Suzie Belle of the League of Sweetie Belles! As you can see, we have crash landed on your planet! We extend our deepest apologies if we destroyed anything in our attempts to stay alive!”

“T h e_l a n d_i s_i n c o n s e q u e n t i a l.”

Good. Suzie thought. “In that case, I don’t suppose this planet has a facility to repair a spaceship?”

“N o.”

“Figures!”

“Why did you crash?”

Suzie turned to the local Luna who was staring at her with cold, wise, but also tired eyes. Lowering the megaphone, Suzie considered her options. She could lie, which tended to backfire since she wasn’t the mastermind Celia was; or she could tell the truth, which might backfire if this Luna happened to be in league with Daybreaker. 

“The sun shot at us,” Suzie decided, going with the obvious response. “We were scanning it because it seemed unusual, and then, well, now we’re here.” 

“...Definitely the Queen,” the Rarity said.

“Duh,” the Rainbow Dash echoed. 

Luna sighed. “It looks like you too have suffered at the hands of the Queen.”

Suzie let out a sigh of relief. “You don’t like her. That’s good.”

“Don’t like her?” Rainbow Dash laughed. “We’re trying to dethrone her as we speak!”

“Well consider us your allies!” Squiddy declared, stomping her foot angrily. “I don’t like getting shot out of the sky.”

Suzie nodded slowly. We were going to help anyway… might as well keep doing that, even if we’re stuck here.

“We needed to go outside and get lives anyway,” Burgerbelle added. 

Luna and the black dragon were staring with uncertainty at Burgerbelle. 

“Hi!” Burgerbelle said, waving. “I’m Burgerbelle! I’ll give you a multiple choice answer for your unspoken question: A) Flat. 1) flat. Flat) Line.”

“...What…?” Rarity said, cocking her head. 

“Corrrrrrrect!” Burgerbelle announced, clapping. 

“T h i s_f o o l i s h n e s s_i s_t i r e s o m e,_a s_i s_y o u r_v o l u m e.”

Suzie held up the megaphone again. “We’re going to help you dethrone the Queen! Though I will need more information first to figure out how we can help with a half-busted ship!”

“I_w i l l_n e e d_i n f o r m a t i o n_a s_w e l l.” 

“Trading stories,” Suzie said, smirking. “Sounds good! I’ll warn you, ours is a bit hard to believe!”

“Trust us, it can’t be weirder than what’s been happening lately,” Rainbow said. 

“I don’t know… they do appear to all be different styles of each other…” Rarity commented, somewhat concerned by this fact.

Suzie shrugged. “So, first off, would you believe us if I told you we were from another dimension?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Y e s.”

“BINGO!” Burgerbelle declared, tossing a ping pong ball into the air. It didn’t come back down. 

“I take it you’ve had encounters with other worlds?” Suzie asked.

Luna nodded. “I myself am not from this world. My sister and I are currently trapped here.”

“Did the sun shoot you down too?” Sweetaloo asked.

Luna shook her head. “Our story is… slightly different than yours.”

“W e_h e a r_t h e i r s_f i r s t.”

Suzie shrugged. “Well, listen up!” She gave the speech about what the League of Sweetie Belles and Merodi Universalis were, quickly moving on to their research of this world’s unusual sun and the subsequent attack.

“...A dark shape released from the sun…?” Luna furrowed her brow. “What could that be?”

“No idea,” Suzie admitted. “We can’t contact Nira right now since…” she gestured at Swip’s wreck.

“I’m fine! Really!” Swip called to them.

“H m m…”

Luna looked at Suzie with calm eyes. “Your… Merodi Universalis would help this world if we could contact them?”

“Yes,” Suzie confirmed. 

“Would you be able to keep the government from collapsing in on itself after the Queen is removed?”

“That’s part of the Aid Division’s job, yes.”

A look of relief crossed Luna’s features. “Good… You’ve suddenly made things much simpler.”

“Should we really trust these guys!?” Rainbow asked. “I mean, it all sounds a little too good to be true! A bunch of… people… fall out of the sky and just offer to help us?”

“They were shot down,” Rarity pointed out. 

“I mean, yeah, but how can we be sure they aren’t some sort of evil empire?”

“We can’t,” Luna asserted. She glanced back at the black dragon overlooking them. “But we don’t have the luxury of choosing our allies in this fight.”

“What exactly is this fight?” Suzie asked. “I need to know the background if I am to help your cause.”

And so Luna told them a story. A story of a normal Equestria, one where Celestia and Luna ruled together, and one where Twilight Sparkle was Celestia’s prized student. They had attended a magic exhibition where one Brainy Bright had decided Equestria would be better off without Princesses ruling—so he had used his invention to send both princesses, Twilight, and himself to another universe, one where the day lasted forever. 

It did not take long for Twilight, Celestia, and Luna to be caught up in the strife of the land, vowing to rid this world of the Tyrant Celestia. Twilight had found five of the six Elements of Harmony—missing Pinkie—and the rest of them had made contact with the Apple Underground. Since Twilight couldn’t find Pinkie, they opted to go for a more direct approach in taking out the Queen. Their Celestia was currently off looking for prophecies that might pertain to the Queen’s defeat, Twilight was working to enlist the help of the Griffon kingdom, and Luna herself was working on the dragons. 

“...Okay, two things,” Suzie said. “One, I’ve worked with many different sets of the Elements of Harmony before, and I think I might have a solution to your lack of a Pinkie Pie problem.”

“...Oh?” Luna asked.

Suzie smirked. “Most sets of the Elements are able to be worn by those who embody their Element. While naturally they prefer the pony they are intended for, others who exemplify the trait can wield them as well.” She put an arm around Burgerbelle and grinned. “Burgerbelle here has wielded an Element of Laughter before. I’m sure she could do it again.”

“Should I start throwing parties?” Burgerbelle asked, suddenly holding several balloons. 

“Maybe later.”

All the balloons popped and wheezed pathetically, prompting a chuckle from Rainbow Dash. 

“That… may work…” Luna admitted. “Though we have not found the physical form of the Elements…”

“Ah,” Suzie admitted. “Well, if you do find them, we have a Laughter for you. In any case, given the presence of… this dragon, I take it you secured the aid of the dragons?”

“...Not exactly…” Rarity admitted.

“T h e y_h a v e_y e t_t o_u p h o l d_t h e i r_e n d_o f_t h e_d e a l.”

“Deal?” Suzie asked. She didn’t like where this was going.

“The current dragon Matriarch has refused to assist us,” Luna said. 

“So we have to steal her crystal thingy and give it to this guy so he can be the dragon Matriarch instead,” Rainbow added. “It’ll be the biggest heist ever pulled off!”

“In a mountain where time flows backward and you eternally get younger and younger,” Rarity added. “Not to mention it’s guarded by the oldest, wisest, most dangerous of all dragons.”

Suzie blinked. “Huh.”

“Tuesday?” Burgerbelle asked.

“This isn’t quite normal enough for us to be a Tuesday.”

“I’m going for Friday,” Squiddy commented. 

Suzie glanced up at the black dragon. It was very clear he’d be a warmongering tyrant to the dragons. No doubt after this deal was over he’d try to lay waste to the planet. 

Luckily at that point the Merodi should be able to deal with him through more direct means. And if not… well, Suzie did have a desperate last resort if she needed it.

“Okay, tell me everything you know about the current Matriarch, the artifact we need to steal, and this mountain…” She rubbed her hands together. “It’s time for a heist.”


~~~


Nira and Seren had been following the local Luna for… they had no idea how long. Time was screwy on this world given the eternal day, and Seren’s magical timers were drifting more than usual. They suspected this was because of all the magic teleportation and transformations they had been subjecting themselves to. 

Not that Nira really cared. Seren might have been starting to yawn, but Nira could have gone weeks without sleep if needed. She could be patient.

What was taxing her patience was not the act of following, no—it was the act of following a mare who seemed to be going in completely random directions with no rhyme or reason. Was she looking for something? Was she lost? Was she just stupid? Nira had no idea, and this was infuriating.

“...We need to try something else,” Seren called from her shadow. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“Do you want to walk up to her and try talking? She’s got the power of two alicorns at her disposal, and she could try to use Celestia as a shield or something. We may be strong, but taking out even a baseline Luna is a bit of an overestimation of our abilities.”

“The bad guys do it all the time.”

“We’re not the bad guys.”

“Well, not me, but you could do it! C’mon, snarl, summon some shadow monstrosities!”

“There are several things wrong with what you just said. First of all, I don’t snarl.”

“Riiiiiight…”

“Second, since dimensional travel is cut off, I can’t do any summoning.”

“...Okay, that is true.”

“Third, I just don’t want to.”

“At least you’re honest!”

“If you needed a positive character trait…” Nira focused her senses on Luna and Celestia. For the first time, she sensed a surge of magic coming from the sun Princess. Was she waking up?

No… she had just received a letter by dragonfire. The small scroll appeared in the air and was quickly snatched up by Luna. She read it, shook her head, and threw it into the sand. She teleported away again. 

Nira took Seren and herself out of the shadow spell. With a flash of darkness, she teleported the letter to them 

Dear Princess Celestia,

I don’t have much time. The Griffon Kingdom is under attack, and if I don’t figure out how to tap into the magic of the sun, any chance of getting allies from them is gone. Anything you can send me—anything—could change the fate of these griffons.The sooner the better. 

-Your Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle.

“We need to help her,” Seren asserted.

Nira nodded. “You go. You’ve studied astromechanical magic, right?”

Seren smiled. “Yep! ...Wait, you’re not coming?”

“Someone has to keep tabs on Luna.” She tapped her horn to Seren’s, forming a magical bond. “You’ll always know which direction I am as long as I don’t break the spell. Come back as soon as you can. But go help Twilight Sparkle.”

Seren took a breath. “Alright.” She hefted her scepter into the air and traced the letter’s teleportation signature back to its origin point. She popped out of existence, leaving Nira alone. 

Nira began to trace Luna’s teleport.  Seren may have been better at tracing than Nira, but it was still well within her abilities to keep up with the alicorn.

But, as it turned out, she wouldn’t need to.

Because Luna teleported back and glared right at Nira. “Found you.”

Nira let out a swear word in a dead, evil language. 


~~~


Blink grabbed an important looking stallion and made him vanish. 

He kept trying to fight until he noticed a magic laser pass right through him. “What the…”

“I made you invisible and intangible,” Blink said, trotting up to him. “You’re welcome.”

He glared at her with distrust in his eyes. 

“I’m Blink. Short version, I’m from another universe and I have the power of Void. We don’t have time for the long version. Tell me who the most important people are here, and I’ll save them. Got it?”

“Got it,” the stallion said, understanding the severity of the situation. “I’m Glint. We need to find Emerald Hope. Green coat, golden mane.”

“Right, right… stay close, it takes effort to be this stealthy in this much of a warzone!”

The two ponies ran through the ruins of the world beneath Trottingham. Lasers, lightning bolts, and dragonfire exploded in all directions. And yet, Glint and Blink were untouchable, unseeable, unnoticeable. 

Moving unhindered like this, they found Emerald Hope easy. She was laying on her side in a ditch, her front leg half blown off. She was unconscious. Blink hid her and turned to Glint. “You’ll need to carry her.”

“We need to treat her!”

“Is she the only one we need to get?!” Blink shouted. “No? Thought not. So pick her up and tell me where to go next!”

“Caramel, a-”

“I know what Caramel looks like!” Blink said, noticing the familiar earth pony fighting a dragon up close. With a pulse of magic, the dragon that had once been only slightly larger than the earth pony grew tenfold. Caramel was bit in half before Blink could do anything.

“...Next?” Blink said, swallowing hard.

“Chequy. Zebra-pegasus, can’t miss her.”

This turned out to be true. The stripey pegasus mare in question was zipping overhead. Blink couldn’t waste time getting her attention—she shot her with a magic laser, singing her flank. The pegasus reacted without thinking, swirling and kicking behind her—annoyed to find nothing there. 

“Good, you’re here, now don’t fly away, you’ll probably die if you do,” Blink said. 

Chequy looked around bewildered until she saw Glint, Emerald, and Blink. “What in…”

“I’m getting as many important people out of this alive as I can. Is there anyone else before we start grabbing random ponies?”

“Brightsmile,” Glint said.

“Brightsmile, yes, direction and/or description please?”

Soon they were running off again. Blink could feel her energy being strained. She wouldn’t be able to hide many more like this…


~~~


Question: how does one steal a magic crystal from a dragon Matriarch? 

There were a few options. 

The first was to use Blink. Unfortunately, Blink wasn’t here, so easy mode was out.

The second was to attack the Matriarch and defeat her directly. Big black and ugly had made it very clear that even if the dragons rebelled, she would still win. The value of the ‘Rock of Ages’ was so much it would cause her to grow even larger than him.

The other option was to attack her while she was inside her mountain and stuck in a perpetually young form, but because the mountain de-aged everyone who entered it, any sort of power advantage would likely dissipate. Suzie had managed to confiscate a pretty impressive bomb from Swip’s arsenal, but that itself was only a last resort since it would probably cause the entire mountain to cave in. 

So if offense was out of the question, that meant they’d have to be stealthy. It just so happened that the local Rainbow Dash was a master thief and had spent virtually her entire life stealing from the rich ponies of Equestria and giving to the poor—a regular robin hood—so at first it looked like they had an advantage in this regard. 

Rainbow had been very clear—the many splitting tunnels that led directly to the Matriarch’s lair were pointless. Nobody would hide something in a maze that expansive where they wouldn’t know there was an intruder until it was too late. So the path to the Rock of Ages must go through the Matriarch’s lair itself. Getting past the Matriarch to even look at those other tunnels was the problem. Luna had admitted teleporting in the mountain would be impossible with all the magic shifting around, so it looked like they were stuck.

Until Suzie explained it was possible to teleport without magic. It had taken a few hours, but Swip was able to walk them through transforming the League’s useless dimensional devices into a pair of wormhole devices. 

Then they were in business. 

They just needed someone to distract the Matriarch. Someone she hadn’t already met that would be able to talk for a long time and remain completely calm in the face of a dragon staring them down. 

And thus Sweetaloo walked up to the Backwards Mountain. She had the teleporter and the bomb hidden away in her mane, easily accessible by her magic if they were needed. She really hoped the bomb wasn’t needed. 

Inwardly, she was screaming. She knew this was bound to happen one day. She was on one of the most active expedition ships in the League, living on board was just asking for something dangerous to happen. A situation where everything depended on her was inevitable. Everyone knew she was not a mare of action, but Suzie had decided she was the best bet for this job. 

Why?

Because she could keep an even, calm face when people were screaming at her and she was afraid for her life. 

It came with the job.

So she walked right to the Matriarch’s lair. She had taken a makeshift boat most of the way through an underground river, and was slightly damp as a result. She had walked the last bit of the way here—wondering if all the tunnels she had passed before arriving held the Rock of Ages, or if Rainbow’s intuition was right that it had to be past the Matriarch’s lair. Could the Matriarch have counted on ponies like Rainbow always making the smart decision, hiding the Rock of Ages in plain sight?

No… Many young, stupid dragons had tried to steal the artifact before. They would not have thought like Rainbow. The Matriarch wouldn’t have risked an idiot finding the artifact simply by not thinking. Sweetaloo realized she needed to have faith in Rainbow Dash. 

When she finally entered the actual cavernous lair of the Matriarch, her expression was one of serenity and wisdom. Though, yes, inwardly she was still screaming. Due to the effects of the mountain, she currently appeared as a young adult. She had been assured the mountain wouldn’t physically split her up into three fillies if she got that young due to overexposure to the time shift, but she was still a little nervous about that. 

“And who might you be?”

Sweetaloo looked up to see a beautiful, almost dainty dragon sitting atop a raised ledge. She was certainly large—easily four times Sweetaloo’s size—but that was small compared to the dragons she’d seen outside with the black behemoth. The dragon had no color to her, but rather was translucent, allowing her inner organs and bones a chance to see the light of her cave. Which, since it was a cave, wasn’t much. 

“I am Sweetaloo Blume, an alicorn from another universe.”

“I seem to be getting a lot of those lately.”

“It appears to be the season for it. I’m not here to ask you for anything.”

“Then why are you here?”

“As a leader of a major nation on this world, you deserve to know about the people I represent—Merodi Universalis, a coalition of over a hundred universes—and what access to the multiverse can do for you. I’ll be willing to answer any and all questions you may have.”

“Interesting…” the Matriarch let out a breath of fire, igniting the ceiling crystals and filling the room with light. “I am not sure what I can expect to gain from this knowledge, but even if it is useless, it is intriguing. Tell me your story.”

And so Sweetaloo began to talk. Her voice always level, her eyes always directly on the Matriarch. She invited the Matriarch to ask questions, to supplement with stories from dragonkind, occasionally getting the Matriarch to talk about herself. And when she was sure the Matriarch’s focus was completely on her young form, she pressed a button on the teleporter device.

For a moment she’d thought she’d accidentally hit the bomb, because no portal appeared. But then she saw a soft green light flash in the dark cave behind the Matriarch. Right, Luna shrouded them in darkness for extra stealth. 

She didn’t miss a beat, jumping into the history of Evening Sparkle herself. 

“Does that name sound familiar, by chance?”

“No,” the Matriarch admitted, hanging on to every word. 

“Shame. There’s likely a version of her in the world right now, if things are following the standard pattern…”

In the cavern behind the Matriarch, Rainbow, Luna, Suzie, and Burgerbelle hid behind a rock. 

“We’re in,” Rainbow said with a grin. “Now we just have to find the rock.”

“My magic scans are fruitless, as expected,” Luna admitted. “Suzie?”

Suzie slapped the data pad in her hand, prompting it to spit out an error message. “Yeah, I don’t know either.”

“Then we must become stealth,” Burgerbelle said, suddenly in a ninja outfit. 

Rainbow nodded, taking the lead. They were soon so far down the tunnel that the light from the Matriarch’s lair didn’t make it to them. Shortly after this point, they came out into another open expanse, this one small and riddled with many smaller tunnels. 

“Right, so, here’s the deal,” Rainbow said. “This labyrinth was set up by an ancient dragon Matriarch who has had tens of thousands of years to perfect her craft at hiding stuff. She’s going to have this Rock of Ages locked away in the best hiding place she’s ever found and she will litter the way to it with traps. Lucky us, those traps will be designed for dragons, and we’ll probably be too light to trigger most of them. Probably.”

“So, which way?” Suzie asked, looking at the dozens of options they had to choose from.

“Well, if I were hiding something, I’d do one of two things.” Rainbow Dash smirked. “I’d choose a tunnel at complete random, or I’d hide it in none of the tunnels.

“None?” Suzie asked. “How?” She noticed she was already getting younger. Soon she’d start getting too small for her clothes. 

Luna and Rainbow were the same way, though they didn’t have clothes to worry about. “I’m thinking secret button or passage or something.”

Burgerbelle was completely unaffected by the time inversion. “Secret passage finder: activate!”

She threw herself into the cavern and landed flat on her face. Nothing happened.

“You’re not Vriska,” Suzie told Burgerbelle.

“...But I want to be…” Burgerbelle grunted.

Rainbow chuckled. “Nah, that’s not gonna work. We have to look for a dragon secret passage. Something she wouldn’t expect a dragon to see or think about…”

“Like a tunnel smaller than any dragon should be able to fit into?” Luna asked, flying up to a small tunnel only slightly larger than herself. 

“Huh,” Rainbow said. “That might be it.”

“The Matriarch herself could fit in here,” Luna observed. “But any dragons who rushed in here likely would not have de-aged quite to her level, aside from already young ones. It is quite the deterrent.” She moved to enter.

“STOP!” Rainbow shouted. 

“Shhhh!” Suzie hissed.

“She was about to activate a trap!” Rainbow hissed, pointing at a completely normal looking rock near the edge of the tunnel. “That would have caved the entire thing in!”

“...Guess this means we’re on the right track,” Suzie observed. 

Carefully this time, they all crawled into the tunnel. All of them were able to stand up comfortably once they were inside, though Luna felt her mane drifting into the edges. Not wanting to trigger any traps by accident, she tied her mane up into a ponytail, forcing it to drift behind her.

“Nice look,” Suzie commented.

“Thank you, Captain.”

“Just Suzie is fine.”

“Mhm…” Luna said, looking forward as they trekked through the tunnel. “Your race is human, you said?”

Suzie nodded in confirmation. “Technically I’m not a ‘true’ human, but nobody really cares about the scientific specifics. We’re the most common race in the multiverse, we have a lot of minor variations.”

“I can imagine. What are your people like?”

“Stubborn. Prideful. Determined. Resourceful. Creative. Often angry.”

“Angry?”

“Most human worlds are marked by war after endless war.”

“And what do you think of wars?”

“...I am a soldier, myself,” Suzie said, frowning. “I wish they weren't necessary. And in most cases they aren’t. But sometimes you’re out of options.”

“You don’t seem to have tried many other options here.”

“I did a risk assessment. Based on what I know about Daybreakers—or, well, I guess Daymare Sun here, maybe—and how little backup I have right now, I decided this was the best bet for success and the safety of my crew.”

“Absolutely brilliant,” Burgerbelle chuckled. “Stealing from a high dragon: safe!”

“It’s a better bet than asking the Queen to pretty-please help us.”

“Very true,” Luna concurred.

“Less talking more sneaking,” Rainbow ordered. They obliged. 

There were a few more cavernous areas along the way—each one with a slightly different trick. Rainbow saw most of them immediately. Misleading tunnel placement. An excess of traps around one entrance. And then there was the one they had to step through the dragonfire to ‘solve’, getting teleported to another area of the mountain.

Suzie eventually had to remove her clothes and tie them around herself, giving her the impression of having multiple capes. She had stopped de-aging somewhere around twelve years old. 

“I hope Sweetaloo’s still fine talking for this long…” Luna commented. She herself was still clearly an adult, but her mane had stopped sparkling and was replaced with a normal, light blue hairstyle. 

“Princess, no offense, but you haven’t the foggiest idea how much she can talk,” Burgerbelle laughed, her body still completely unchanged. “Press button to keep talking.”

“If you’re certain…”

“Aw, pennyfeathers!” Rainbow shouted—an act that looked ridiculous now that she was little more than a filly. “She’s clever.”

“How so?” Luna asked, stepping into the new cavern. This one contained two marble pedestals. One had a marble block the size of two ponies on it, the other didn’t. There was no visible way to progress.

“This is a dragonfire puzzle,” Rainbow explained. “You have to teleport the block from one end to the other. Like, geez, isn’t that difficult?”

Luna nodded. “Controlling short-range dragonfire is exceedingly difficult, from what I understand.”

“So yeah, only something the Matriarch could do. We’re probably going to have to dig through the wall to get around it…”

“Or…” Burgerbelle took a wormhole device out from one of Suzie’s loose pockets. “We can just teleport the block.”

“...Burgerbelle that’s genius!”

Burberbelle bowed. She pressed a few buttons and created a set of portals—one appearing under the block, one appearing over the empty pedestal. There was a soft click and the wall behind the pillars slid down… revealing what they were looking for. Unceremoniously dumped on top of a mound of dirt, there was a bright white diamond-cut crystal that seemed to be rotating every second or so with a faint tick tick tick. 

It was smaller than Rainbow Dash’s eye. 

“So… we just grab it and wormhole out?” Rainbow asked.

Suzie nodded. “Yep. That should do it.”

“Wow. We’re really good at this.”

Burgerbelle chuckled and pressed the button to wormhole out of the mountain.

Instead the two wormholes appeared above the pedestals. 

“...Stars above…” Luna gasped. “When a dragon sets a location for his fire… they lose the old one… tell me your device isn’t the same...”

Suzie swiped the device back from Burgerbelle. “It really shouldn’t…”

MEMORY ERROR. 

“Well… It looks like we’re going to have to get out the old fashioned way.” Suzie let out a deep breath. “...As kids.”

“I’m not!” Burgerbelle said.

“Yeah, I hope you’re ready to fight the Matriarch…”

“I totally am!”

“That’s the spirit!” Rainbow encouraged. “Let’s show her who’s boss!”

Luna bit her lip. They were so close… and yet, it looked as if it was about ready to come crashing down around them…


~~~


There was blood, guts, and death happening in the caverns of Trottingham. 

Cinder purposefully kept that all at her backside. She didn’t need to see it, she didn't want to see it, and she couldn’t let herself see it for the sake of those still alive. She needed to be strong. 

Today, being strong meant tag-teaming the local equivalent of Twilight Sparkle with Celia. 

They had the element of surprise. The Twilight was clearly not expecting anyone to get through the rest of her unicorns, and she definitely was not expecting that someone to be a towering mare dancing on a razor top. She was barely able to raise a shield in time to stop the drill-like weapon from plowing into her. 

“What are you!?” the Twilight shouted, equal parts surprised and fascinated.

Celia tossed her mane back, revealing her crystal. “Would you believe that I’m a mare from another universe?”

The unicorn grinned. “Yes, actually.” She pushed back with her magic, tossing Celia to the side. 

Celia landed on her hooves with a smirk. “Name’s Celia. I’m going to guess you’re Twilight Sparkle.”

“So close. Daylight, actually,” Daylight said with a smirk. “Can’t be named after a time that doesn’t exist.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure dear. You might reach your own twilight before you expect it.”

“Word games? I like you. And I can’t wait to take you apart and figure out what makes you tick…”

Cinder revealed herself by tapping into the power of the sun she had been storing for the past few minutes, unleashing a torrent of fire upon Daylight so intense and bright that Celia had to raise a shield just to keep her eyes from over-adjusting. 

Eventually, Cinder had to shoot a bolt of fire behind her to keep a unicorn from taking her out. She was careful to not burn him to ashes, but she still used enough force to knock him over and into the river. 

This gave Daylight the opportunity to get out of the flaming burst. She had managed to defend against it, but several parts of her mane and tail were singed ever-so-slightly. “How dare you steal the Queen’s holy fire!?”

“Because she’s evil and I don’t like her?” Cinder suggested, deadpan. She threw a fireball into the face of a passing dragon, blinding him enough to crash. 

“Wow! Go Cinder!” Celia cheered. “That training’s really paying off!”

Cinder shrugged—she knew full well it was mostly the sun giving her all this power. If this world had Nightmare Moon instead of Daybreaker, she would probably be just as useless as always. But here… well, she could have some fun. She unleashed another burst of solar fire at Daylight.

“Spike! EAT HER.”

“...Eat me!?” Cinder gawked. She could feel something growing behind her, rising to fill the space in the cavern. Glancing behind herself she saw Spike, all right: the size of a small mansion and growing rapidly. 

The fire-to-the-eyes trick probably wasn’t going to work again.

“Celia…!?”

“Get Daylight!” Celia shouted. “He’s only growing due to a spell!”

“Right!” Cinder dodged out of the way of Spike’s claws—but the wind made her trip and fall flat on her back, dazed. Just before the dragon stepped on her Celia teleported her onto her back. 

“Hold tight!” Celia shouted, spinning on her top toward Daylight. The unicorn was not having any of this—she unleashed a beam of lavender energy right at the two of them, only for Celia’s shield to deflect it right into Spike’s face.

“YOU OAF!” Daylight shouted. “Don’t fall for their tricks!”

“SORRY,” Spike growled, opening his mouth to unleash a torrent of fire.

“NOT TOWARD ME, FOOL!” Daylight let out a scream of rage. “I’ll just do this myself!” She generated a complex magical circle in front of her horn. Celia wasn’t sure what exactly it did, but it felt wrong. There was a soft pulse that had no physical presence—but chilled every pony and dragon within range. It was as if each living thing had to reset for a moment to process that their very souls hadn’t just been stolen by some sneaky demon. 

This dramatic shift made Celia lose control of her top, skittering and falling onto the ground. She recovered within a second, but this still allowed Daylight to get a shot off.

“...That should have disintegrated you,” Daylight observed as Celia shrugged the attack off. “What are you made of?”

“Some pretty exotic materials, thank you for noticing,” Celia coughed—glancing to check that Cinder was okay. She summoned her razor-top again, grinning. “You’re not going to be able to wear me out with magic, Daylight.”

“I won’t have to.”

Spike drove a claw right into Celia’s side, popping out the other end with ease. Nothing came out—no blood, no fluids. The only response Celia made was a wince of pain—followed quickly by a fearful glance at Cinder. “I’m going to be fine, RUN!”

Any chance Cinder had at following the order was dashed when she watched Celia’s body poof into a cloud of soft dust, leaving only her forehead crystal behind. The crystal dropped to the ground and fractured into two parts along the crack Cinder had come to know so well. 

Cinder froze. She would have been able to push through rampant death, injury, and even verbal abuse. But she would never in a million years have been able to keep control of herself after watching Celia be defeated like that. 

“And as for you, little thief…” Daylight said—not that Cinder registered her words. “You deserve death. But I’m going to let the Queen decide how painful it should be.” 

Cinder passed out. From her own strain or Daylight’s spell, it was impossible to tell.