Chapter 1: Princess Celestia
5 years later in an alternate Equestria, the ponies of this universe were not having a particularly thrilling day either. Applejack was currently running for her life through the streets of Canterlot while being chased from the air by Nightmare Moon. The corrupted form of Princess Luna was trying to blast the orange farm mare from the sky, but kept missing.
Applejack híd behind an abandoned cart before reaching under her hat and pulling out a large apple. She was saving it for later, but the sudden life or death situation had overwritten her plans. She peeked out from behind the cart and saw Nightmare Moon closing in on her and preparing to blast her away along with the cart she was hiding behind. Waiting for the right moment, Applejack jumped out from behind the cart and threw the apple straight at the corrupted alicorn. Nightmare Moon tried to blast her, but the apple landed on her horn before she could fire, getting impaled on it and the magical energy caused it to explode, temporarily blinding the alicorn with it's fluids. Applejack took advantage of the situation and bucked a barrel she had found lying nearby, sending it at her foe. The object hit and caused Nightmare Moon to fall out of the air.
Meanwhile at a lower section of the city, Rarity was busy with Prince Blueblood, but since neither the fashionista nor the snobbish prince liked to get themselves dirty, this duel was progressing at a much slower rate. They've mainly been throwing minor spells at each other before quickly dodging, but it has already tired them out. They were not much for physical confrontation.
Above them, Twilight was trying to subdue Discord. It was not easy because no matter what attack she was throwing at him, he kept turning it into something whimsically chaotic, but otherwise harmless. Just now, he had turned a magical energy beam she fired at him into a line of party spray foam which ended up falling back on Twilight, tying her up and pulling her down to the ground. As she struggled to get out of it, she looked up at the draconequus floating above him.
"What's with you, Discord?! I thought you have changed! What are you doing throwing your lot in with Sombra?!" she demanded.
"Oh, don't get me wrong. I've really grown a soft spot for you ponies, but once in a while, I need some good old fashioned chaos to kick back." he replied. Twilight glared at him and used a teleport spell to get above Discord. Having finally freed herself from the solidified party foam, she quickly flew around Discord a couple times and tied him up with it. Before the draconequus could to anything, Twilight used a strong knockout spell that sent him down towards the ground. He ended up crashing right on front of Rainbow Dash and Cadence who just arrived on the scene. Twilight landed right in front of them.
"Rainbow, Cadence, how are we doing?" she asked.
"Applejack has dealt with Nightmare Moon and Blueblood won't last much longer either." Cadence replied. "I think we should finally head towards the castle and take the fight to Sombra. I had to leave Flurry Heart there and as much as I trust Starlight and Trixie to keep her safe, I don't how long they can last."
"She's right!" Rainbow Dash agreed. "Let's go before Sombra throws something else at..." she was interrupted by a huge crash right in front of them. "...us." she finished in exasperation. In front of the trio, Tirek was standing, ready to attack. Twilight didn't wait for that and flew at the behemoth to attempt a preemptive strike, only to be effortlessly swept away. Rainbow and Cadence winced upon seeing it.
"That must have hurt." said Rainbow. "Maybe a combined assault would have worked better."
"Well, that's Twilight for you." Cadence replied. "She sometimes forgets she can't do everything by herself." Tirek turned towards them.
"Sombra has given me the magic of dozens of unicorn mages. The two of you can't stop me." he warned, getting ready to charge. Rainbow Dash scoffed.
"You just watch us, meathead." she said as she and Cadence leapt to attack.
Meanwhile in the throne room of the Canterlot Castle, Starlight Glimmer and Trixie were doing their best to hold back an approaching King Sombra, but even when their spells were potent enough, they were kept being distracted by Lightning Dust zipping around over their heads, throwing them and their spells off balance. And if that wasn't bad enough, Pinkie Pie and Big Macintosh who were sent to them as backup have been captured and brainwashed by the crystal tyrant into fighting alongside him. Pinkie brought her party cannon and kept firing at the two mares with various party devices that she gave a deadly makeover and Big Mac, being massive as he was just kept going with all of their attacks bouncing off of him.
"I can just hear Twilight complaining about what took us so long to clean up this mess." Trixie whined as she fired another magic bolt. Starlight rolled her eyes.
"Twilight isn't like that. She knows that no matter how powerful we are, we are not miracle workers." she said. Trixie opened her mouth to say something in return, but then the two mares saw Sombra channeling his magic into his horn to attack. Exhausted as they were they could only retreat and take cover behind a throne where Flurry Heart have also been hiding.
"Where the heck is the Princess?" Trixie complained. "We're getting our flanks handed to us here!"
"She had to check the statue garden to make sure Sombra didn't bust anyone out of there. She'll arrive anytime now. Until then, we'll have to hold the throne room and protect Princess Flurry Heart. I'm sure the 'Great and Powerful Trixie' can handle that with my humble assistance." Starlight mocked.
"Trixie hates you." that was the only response she was given.
In the Statue Garden, Celestia and two of her guards were doing a prisoner control. Celestia was glad to see that no one was missing, but all throughout the whole procedure, she couldn't shake off a bad feeling. She felt as if she could be attacked anytime, but she dismissed it as a side effect of the battle raging on in the city.
"All of the 'statues' are accounted for, Your Highness." a grey pegasus guard reported. "No disturbances."
"Except for this one over here." said a white unicorn from a few meters away. "I don't remember this one being here and it's not on the list either." Celestia raised an eyebrow and walked over to the statue the guard was talking about. It had obscure features, but the figure was familiar. But before she could inspect it further, the statue began shimmering with a faint yellow light which became brighter and brighter until Celestia realized what was about to happen.
"GET DOWN!" she yelled at her guards as she jumped in front of them and activated a shield spell. Just in time as well, as the statue exploded with blinding yellow light, sending rubble everywhere. The two guards stared in horror.
"This statue wasn't a prisoner." Celestia scoffed. "It was a trap."
"Still as bright as ever, aren't you Celestia?" came a mocking voice as a yellow unicorn with red and yellow colored mane walked out from behind the bushes. Celestia glared. Her bad feeling had been vindicated.
"Sunset Shimmer." she growled.
"I'm pleased you remember me, princess." The yellow unicorn snarled as she sent a huge blast at the princess and her guards which sent them back several meters and knocked the two stallions out cold. Celestia stood up and went to confront her former student.
"Just when I thought you couldn't sink any lower, you join up with Sombra? After everything I taught you about harmony and friendship? After everything he'd done to the crystal ponies?" Celestia was disgusted with Sunset's actions. But the unicorn just scoffed in return.
"He sees my true potential! Something you never did! Under his guidance, I'll become more powerful than any of your protégés ever became! Especially that soft hearted fool you replaced me with!" she spat, firing another bolt at the Princess. Celestia was prepared this time, so she evaded with ease. She walked up to Sunset to subdue her, but she surprised her by charging at her and attacking her physically by pressing their horns together. Before Celestia could react, Sunset spun around and bucked her in the head, making her stumble back. Taking advantage of this, Sunset blasted her again, this time successfully.
Before Celestia could get up, Sunset teleported next to her and bucked her in the side to stop her from getting up. As she struggled on the ground, Sunset blasted her again, this time against one of the statues in the garden. She then blasted the statue's lower half, causing it to fall forward, and it almost crushed the princess, but she managed to teleport away in the last second. Sunset started looking around for Celestia, but she didn't see that she had teleported above her and was now hovering above her head in the air.
Deciding that she had entertained this entitled whelp long enough, Celestia summoned light from her horn and drew a ring of fire around the unicorn who was so shocked that she couldn't even teleport away. Celestia descended down on top of Sunset and held her down until she could use a knockout spell on her, sending her into unconsciousness. She then put out the fire to walk away, but not before giving her former student one last, condescending look. "You never cease to disappoint, Sunset Shimmer."
On the streets of Canterlot, the heroes were trying to deal with the rampaging Tirek. Spitfire and a few other Wonderbolts flew circles around him and they actually managed to create a tornado around him and lift him into the air. Before Tirek could use his enhanced magic to break free, Rainbow Dash flew through the wind carrying Applejack with her and threw her at the monster. Applejack thrust her back hooves forward to deliver a healthy kick at the monster's head which made him fall back on the ground. He landed on the top of a building and stumbled backwards, and through the Wonderbolt tornado, he didn't see that he was stumbling towards the edge. Before he could catch himself, the Wonderbolts used their wings to push him off. A few moments later, he was lying in a crater at the bottom of the building right in front of Shining Armor and Fluttershy who only recently arrived on the scene of the battle.
"And once again, the fight is over before we could have made ourselves useful." Shining complained, referring to himself and the entire Royal Guard. "Sometimes I wonder if the princesses even need us when they have you girls." Fluttershy gave him an encouraging look.
"Don't sell yourself short, Shining. You and the guards did an admirable work at getting those civilian ponies out of the city before the they could get hurt. The losses would have been great without you. That's more important than winning the fight." Shining smiled at her in gratitude, but somehow it made the shy mare back away. "Oh, I'm sorry if that wasn't comforting enough. I'm not very good at giving a pep talk..." Shining just laughed, shaking his head at Fluttershy's antics. His amusement was short lived however as he heard a moan coming from Tirek who came to and was now standing in front of them, ready to attack. Shining got in front of Fluttershy protectively as he lit up his horn, but before he could do anything, a purple blur flew past him and pushed Tirek far away from him. Shining Armor sighed as he realized what happened.
"Like I said, I don't know why the princesses need us." He then turned to Fluttershy. "Come on, let's help the others wrap things up." Fluttershy nodded and they headed off.
Back inside the throne room, Starlight and Trixie were unfortunately not doing as well as the outside group: they have both been incapacitated and tied up along with Princess Flurry Heart. Sombra stood in front of them with a triumphant smile.
"That was a good warmup. But Celestia should really be here by..." before he could finish, the door of the throne room was swung open and the alicorn princess in question walked inside. Sombra smiled smugly. "Perfect timing."
"It took me almost two minutes to get past your shadow barrier. Not bad." Celestia admitted. She then lit up her horn and destroyed the bindings holding Trixie and Starlight. Pinkie tried to fire at them with her cannon, but Trixie conjured up a giant plug and shoved it into the deadly party instrument. Instead of firing, the cannon flew backwards, taking Pinkie along with it. The two mares then launched themselves at Big Mac together. Sombra, unhappy with the turn of events, decided to deal with the. other two before the princess. He turned to Lightning Dust. "Take care of this." he said, pointing his hoof at Celestia. Lightning glared at him.
"That wasn't the deal, Sombra! You promised me Rainbow Dash!" she's been wanting Dash's head ever since the events at the Wonderbolt Academy.
"And you promised me quality assistance against Celestia's forces! If you want me to deliver, do your part!" he barked before marching off towards the brawl in the background. Lightning wasn't happy but there wasn't much she could do. She faced the princess, who was rather unimpressed with her opponent.
"I suggest you rethink your allegiances, Lightning Dust. A Wonderbolt reject against an alicorn princess is hardly a fair fight." Lightning scowled.
"Good. Because I don't do fair!" she snarled as she flew at the princess. Celestia tried to subdue her quickly, but Lightning Dust's reputation wasn't undeserved, she was perhaps even faster than Rainbow Dash. Before Celestia could unleash a spell, Dust interrupted her with a quick punch. After a few moments of unsuccessfully trying to blast her away. Celestia changed tactics. The next time she saw Lightning fly at her, she summoned a force field around herself. Lightning dust flew straight into it at high speed, which wasn't pleasant. She ended up sliding down on the side of the force field onto the floor. Celestia lowered the field and aimed her horn at the rogue pegasus.
"Last chance, Lightning Dust. Join me against Sombra and I will grant you pardon." But Lighting wasn't finished. She sprinted under Celestia and delivered a kick into her stomach with both of her back hooves. Celestia winced in pain, but before she could recover, Lighting flew over her and aimed her back hooves down towards her.
"I will break your back!" she exclaimed, descending down towards the alicorn, but Celestia managed to recover in time to summon another force field and Lightning Dust bounced off of it and landed back on the floor. This time, Celestia didn't wait for her to recover.
"You should have taken my offer." Celestia said calmly as she used the same knockout spell as she used on Sunset to incapacitate her.
"Good help is so hard to find these days." Sombra said from behind her. Celestia turned around to see the crystal tyrant standing in front of her with an unconscious Big Mac, Starlight and Trixie behind her. Flurry Heart was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Flurry?" Celestia asked angrily. Sombra rolled his eyes.
"Oh, please. I have better things to do than chase a scared filly around this castle." the princess glared at her, causing Sombra to smirk with a raised brow. "What is this, Celestia? Are you mad? Are you actually going to attack me or waste more of your time and breath to offer me forgiveness and reformation?"
"I may be a forgiving spirit, Sombra, but you're stretching my patience dangerously thin." she lit up her horn and blasted a spell towards Sombra, but he countered with a shadow spell of his own. He then turned into his shadow cloud form and started slowly advancing towards the princess. Celestia collected all of her power and blasted a huge wave of sunlight at the black and grey mass, but she could only blast away a small part of it. Celestia tried blasting again and again, but she could only punch holes on the cloud and was forced to keep backing away from it. Deciding she's had enough, Celestia flew up and summoned every bit of strength she had left. Her entire body began vibrating with majestic yellow light and once she saw the shadow cloud coming to a halt and it's eyes closing to protect themselves from the blinding light. Celestia then flew straight at the cloud and when she flew through it, it exploded. Celestia landed on the floor and an utterly agonizing, exhausted and beatan Sombra landed behind her.
Before Sombra could recover, Celestia took the rope she freed Starlight and Trixie from and tied him up with it. Once the crystal tyrant had been dealt with, she went to help the others. She woke up the two unconscious unicorns as well as the two brainwashed earth ponies with the additional bonus of breaking Sombra's mind control over them. And to her indescribable relief, Flurry Heart had also came out from her hiding place. She then took out a small crystal and used her magic on it to summon Twilight Sparkle's image in front of her.
"Twilight, the throne room is secure. How are things at your end?" Twilight gave her a reassuring smile.
"All done. Luna is freed from the corruption and we've rounded up Tirek, Blueblood and Discord. We're currently escorting them to the statue garden." Celestia nodded.
"Good. My guards will be waiting for you with Sunset Shimmer and I will be along shortly with Sombra and Lightning Dust. Some timeout in my statue garden will allow them to ruminate on their actions today."
"Let's just hope this timeout will prove more productive than the last." Twilight added. "I'll see you there." the image faded and Celestia was about to go check on her injured little ponies when she was interrupted by a dark chuckle from Sombra. She turned towards him with a raised brow.
"Pray tell what is so amusing about your current situation, Sombra?" she asked. Sombra looked up at her and smiled evilly.
"Oh, I'm just thinking about tomorrow's headlines in the equestrian newspapers: 'Canterlot falls', 'Changelings kill thousands'." Celestia looked dumbfounded.
"Changelings? What do changelings have to..." then it clicked in her head. "This... This attack was just a distraction, wasn't it?" she asked with her eyes widened in horror.
"Took you long enough to figure it out." Sombra smirked. "As we speak, that idiotic Chrysalis' changelings are finishing setting up the explosive crystals I provided them at major points of the city. Chrysalis is all but ready to detonate them." Celestia was about to demand more information, but before she could, Lightning Dust came to and freed Sombra from the ropes. Celestia went to intervene, but Sombra blasted her back. "Don't worry, Celestia. Me and my crystal slaves will be more than happy to rebuild Canterlot once I've reclaimed my empire. With a few tweaks to resemble my glorious self more of course." He then lit up his horn and before anyone could do anything, he telported away along with Lightning Dust.
"They couldn't have gotten far!" Starlight exclaimed. "Sombra is still recovering! I can track them!"
"No!" Celestia said. "If Chrysalis is really about to blow up the city, we have to focus all of out attention on her! I'll start tracking her, you go and warn the others!"
Sure enough, on a square in the middle of Canterlot, right in front of a statue of Celestia herself, Chrysalis was done setting up the explosives. "Sombra wasn't kidding. These things are unstable." She said as she slowly and carefully placed the last crystal on top of the others with her magic. "Excellent! All set!" she announced with glee. "Now then, all we have to do is..." she was interrupted when a ball of yellow light appeared a few meters next to her and as it supsided, Princess Celestia herself walked out of it. Chrysalis smiled. "Right on time." she then turned to the two changeling drones standing next to her. "Leave us. I'll handle this." the drones nodded and flew off, then Chrysalis turned back to the princess with a jovial smile.
"I knew it was too much to hope that that failure of a student of yours can handle you." she said. "But at least now we can have one final dance together."
"This dance will be a solo one Chrysalis. I'm here to stop you." Celestia said, marching towards the changeling queen. But before she reached her, Chrysalis' horn lit up and the crystals at the bottom of the statue began shaking.
"Not so fast. You wouldn't want me to bring this entire city down because you can't stay put, do you?" Celestia cast a concerned look towards the crystals before she looked back into the eyes of the changeling queen standing directly in front of her face.
In the distance, Twilight Sparkle and the others have been closing in on the location of the two leaders and the crystal bomb.
"There they are!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
"We won't make it in time on hoof!" yelled Applejack, turning towards the winged ponies in the group. "Use your wings!" Rainbow Dash nodded at her and took off with Twilight, Fluttershy, Cadence and Spitfire alongside her.
'Keep her talking, princess.'
"Why are you doing this, Chrysalis? If you destroy Canterlot there will be no love left for your changelings!"
"There's plenty of love left in Equestria. And with you and all of your pets removed from the picture by a single boom, there will be no one left to stop them from turning your country into an all-you-can-eat buffet." Chrysalis gloated. "In fact, I like this plan so much that I think I'll just do it before you or your ponies can mess it up for me."
The next few moments seemed like they passed in slow motion for everypony involved. The light on Chrysalis' horn grew sharper and the crystals that made the bomb began shaking more and more. The winged ponies slowly closed in on the changeling queen as Celestia lunged forward in a desperate attempt to stop her. And then, the air began to sparkle around them. Celestia and Chrysalis were too busy with each other to notice, but Rainbow Dash, Cadence, Applejack and Shining Armor all saw it. Blue light began to surround them as their surroundings became more and more blurred and before they knew it, they disappeared from next to their comrades. Along with the alicorn and the changeling.
Celestia saw herself laying on top of Chrysalis in the middle of the same square they were just seconds ago, but it looked... different somehow. At least the city was still standing. That was good. But Celestia was certain that some kind of change had taken place. The buildings, the streets, the statues, they were all darker and more grim looking somehow. And on the flagpole in the middle of the square, there was a flag that definitely wasn't the one Equestria used. It was a blue flag with a purple star in the middle that seemed to have an eye in the middle of it. It was rather ominous.
As Celestia examined her surroundings, Chrysalis also picked herself up and since she was alive, she knew the bomb had failed. Strangely, she was not very happy about it.
"This was the last time I did business with the Crystal Empire." she growled in frustration before turning to Celestia. "Just what did you do to us, sunbutt?" Celestia simply couldn't bring herself to respond. This entire place just felt... wrong. She had a terrible feeling. Even worse than the one she felt just a few moments ago when Chrysalis was about to blow up Canterlot. Said changeling queen was about attack the alicorn to force some answers out of her, but she was interrupted when a large group of pegasi flew over their heads. They started circling above them and soon they were followed an equally large group of unicorns. They wore armor reminiscent of the Royal Guard of Canterlot, but it still looked different. It was dark blue and had the same star with an eye symbol on their chest.
The guards surrounded the two mares. The unicorns lit up their horns and the pegasi aimed spears and crossbows at them from above. "Celestia!" cried one of them. "Get on the ground and put your hooves over your head! If your horn as much as twinkles, we'll open fire!" Both Chrysalis and Celestia were extremely confused by this. Though the former's surprise was much more pleasant.
"Well, how about that?" she asked both herself and Celestia in amusement. Celestia didn't waste any time. Instead of going along with their demands, she summoned all of her remaining strenthg and lit up her horn so brightly that the guards that surrounded them all had to drop their weapons and cover their eyes. Taking advantage of this, Celestia had enough time to cast a teleport spell and disappear. Chrysalis did the same, except she transformed into one of the guards from the crowd to slip away unnoticed. Celestia had one last thought on her mind as she left.
'Sweet sister, what nightmare did you cast upon me?'