Somewhere, Rainbow Dash screamed. It was angrier and sadder and more broken than Pinkie had ever heard.
Applejack’s wavering voice came next, “Now hold on, Dash. Let’s talk this through, Sugar.”
“Yes.” That was Rarity. “Girls, I simply can’t believe that Twilight would abandon our dear Spikey-wikey over something as trivial as a little spat. Surely something else is wrong?”
“Of course something is wrong!” Pinkie Pie spat. It shot out of her mouth like boiling venom, burned on her tongue like bitter burnt sugar. “Twilight doesn’t want to be our friend anymore!”
Twilight didn’t want to be her friend anymore. Pinkie Pie doubled over, curling in on herself while her happy poof drooped into a curtain all around her. She clutched her stomach like a dying mare – her tummy just hurt so much, worse than any after-party binge ever, and it felt like she’d swallowed glass, and it was so, so hot and she couldn’t breathe because– it was true this time, it was real, the worst nightmare she’d ever lived through, tumbling everything into a suffocating, cold, rock gray. Twilight, one of her bestest friends in the whole world, was angry at her because she messed up and didn’t want to be friends with her anymore and she was moving away forever now and–
No.
Pinkie Pie sniffled. Somewhere in that suffocating darkness, like a balloon trapped over her head, she felt Fluttershy hugging her. She hugged back. She and the others were saying something, arguing maybe, but in a moment of clarity she ignored them and forced herself to focus more than she ever had. She had to; this was important!
Pinkie Pie wasn’t stupid. Or, well, she knew that other ponies thought she was crazy and kind of dumb sometimes, but she liked to think that, if nothing else, she knew all her friends like the back of her hoof. Yeah, she messed up sometimes, like when she got too excited about something and talked and talked, and that made ponies like Fluttershy really uncomfy since they didn’t like too much noise but– she tried. She tried so, so hard to be Pinkie Pie, party-throwing extraordinaire, friend to everypony.
Back in Ponyville, she kept a ton of valuable friendship and party-based info on everypony in town. Actually, now that she thought about it, it probably was a literal metric ton of paper. Pretty close, at least. She especially had a whole bunch of papers crammed into those filing cabinets dedicated to her five best friends, including Twilight. And one of her biggest notes, written in sparkly red gel pen at the top of Twilight’s file – like Fluttershy’s rule of not ever, ever being pranked until she was emotionally tough enough to handle it – told her one thing. Twilight loved Spike. More than almost anything. She was practically his mama. Rarity was right: she would never ever, in a bajillion years, ever leave Spike when he was still a baby if she had a choice.
Something was wrong.
Pinkie mumbled to herself to focus as she stared at the linoleum below, wracking her brain to think back over that last interaction with Twilight. While she might forget things easily when she got super excited, Pinkie actually had a really detailed memory (how else could she ever hope to remember where all her party supply stashes in town were?). So she clearly remembered that Twilight had gone all stiff and acted funny after their hug. At the time Pinkie had just thought that maybe she was still a little grumpy after the whole incident with Princess Cadance. But could it have secretly meant something else? Was she sick? Oh, or maybe–
“Her eyes,” Fluttershy whispered hotly into her ear.
Pinkie jumped up. She grabbed up Fluttershy with a scoop of her hooves. With a lurch of her heart, Pinkie’s skin was crawling and something itch-itch-itched at the back of her skull. Fluttershy was onto something – something bad.
“Wh-What did you say, Shy?” she coughed, loud, to give the pegasus a little boost to her boasting. Pinkie’s mane was quivering.
All around, everypony went quiet. Even poor Spike, who was clawing at his tail the same way he would his Rarity plush after an awful nightmare, turned to Fluttershy with wide, watery eyes.
“It’s just,” Fluttershy started with a breath. She didn't seem nervous about being put on the spot, not to her friends, not about something as super duper important as Twilight’s wellbeing. Her stare was icy cold. “Do you remember? When Twilight was accusing Princess Cadenza of all of those nasty things, she said that she’d cast a spell on Shining Armor that made his eyes… um…”
Oh, ohh, Pinkie remembered! Twilight had made this really silly face and wiggled her hooves all around; Pinkie Pie helpfully demonstrated.
“Right. And, well, I just couldn’t help but notice that the whole time Twilight was talking about… m-moving away, her eyes were sort of, um, green-looking. I thought I was just imagining it at first, but now…”
Pinkie Pie dropped her funny face with a whimper. She nearly vomited. Something sour dropped to the pit of her stomach, cold and hard. Not only had she forgotten a really, really important lesson about paying attention to Twilight’s anxieties, and then left her to be so sad and throw a pity-party all alone but– what if they had been wrong?! What if Cadenza was actually a scary evil pony, and they didn’t believe Twilight so they just abandoned her, and now an evil enchantress had gone and put Twilight in a crazy trance and made her hate them all? What if Cadenza had hurt Twilight because Pinkie Pie hadn’t listened to her friend?!
Applejack snorted and clapped a hoof to the floor. The straw she’d been chewing on was shredded to confetti at one end. “Now hold up, y’all. Maybe Twilight was right – and if’n that’s true I hate to suggest otherwise. But we ain’t got any proof and the wedding’s about to start any minute now. If we go runnin’ in guns blazing and flinging accusation like Twi did, we’ll just end up kicked out just like she did.”
“But if she is right then we can’t just sit around and do nothing!” Rainbow Dash snorted.
“I ain’t sayin’ that, Rainbow. Just… we gotta take it easy on this one ‘til we figure out what’s going on, is all.”
Rarity wiped her mascara into a smudge against her white cheek, then nodded with a hum. “Agreed. We shouldn’t make the same mistakes Twilight has, on the chance that this is all simply a horrible misunderstanding. But we shan’t abandon Twilight either. We’ll need to keep our eyes open and prepare for anything, darlings.”
Pinkie gathered herself up, breathed deep and heavy like she’d seen Twilight do before when she was stressed.
Twilight was a good pony. She was smart, and brave, and one of her best friends in the entire world. It was Twilight who taught her to believe in her friends above all else; when they used the ELements of Harmony to blast away the yucky corruption tarnishing Princess Luna’s soul; when she led the pony conga during that fateful surprise party. Pinkie Pie believed in her and her beautiful heart, no matter what. If Twilight had been corrupted by some dastardly Pink Snooty due to Pinkie’s own mistake, she would do anything, anything, to make it right and bring Twilight home again. She would fight, hold onto that last scrap of friendship by the skin of her teeth, ‘til her very dying breath. Or, somehow, if Twilight really was just mad at them all and wanted to move back to Canterlot and not be friends anymore?
Pinkie Pie would apologize. For everything. Again and again, and hope that Twilight would find it within her heart to forgive that sin. And if, in the end, it would make Twilight happier if Pinkie would just leave her alone, well… she guessed, if it would really, truly make Twilight happy… she would have to let her go. Twilight was such a good pony who had done so many incredible things; she deserved that peace.
No matter what, Pinkie Pie decided, she would make Twilight smile again.
Twilight choked down the butterflies in her stomach, and with a twitch of her horn readjusted her Best Mare sash. With a thought, she widened her smile– but then, did that make it look fake? She didn’t want it to look fake. She just barely resisted the urge to fidget or pace in place.
It was just so nerve-wracking. Of course weddings were already stressful, and now she had this secret hanging in her chest. From her place at the head of the wedding hall, Twilight peered out over the oceans of ponies packed into the tidy pews, and saw that even now some of them were fitfully glancing at Shining’s sparkling shield. It was hard enough just to get the tiny town of Ponyville to accept a zebra who had done nothing but look kind of spooky and scrape up a hole in the dirt; what would all of these ponies do, how would they react, when Cadance revealed that she was secretly the queen of a species they were terrified of? At the first sight of one they’d already panicked and thrown up a giant dome over the whole city, for Stars’ sake!
Twilight hoped that her old friends and Princess Celestia, at least, would accept Cadance as she was. After all, they were her friends and bridesmaids, and Celestia was practically her family; surely they couldn’t turn their backs on her now? Twilight gulped dryly, then turned to look at them.
If the girls and Spike were still upset at her after their argument earlier, they at least had the good sense to bury their animosity for the sake of Cadance’s wedding. Their dresses had been pressed crisp and pristine, and their make-up was tidied up enough that you couldn’t tell they’d been crying. Even Pinkie Pie, who Twilight honestly expected to still be a sobbing mess (or at least a gray, grumpy lump on the ground), was presentable. Her mane was still noticeably not-poofy, but to compensate Rarity had slicked it upwards into a tight, neat bun which complimented her headdress and even lent her an air of sophistication that, frankly, Pinkie Pie had never had before in her entire life. There was still a tiny bit of smudging around her lashes, and if her little twitches were any indication then she wasn’t exactly all-together, but Twilight reasoned that the other ponies were far away enough that they probably wouldn’t notice at all in the face of Cadance’s beauty. Or, well, she really hoped that they wouldn’t notice. And that none of the cameras would be focused on Pinkie’s face. Everything had to go well tonight, it had to! They couldn’t afford to worry about the press ragging on Pinkie Pie’s presentation on top of everything else, darn it!
Pinkie Pie’s eyes shot to the side and met her own, burned hotly into her. Twilight’s stomach lurched. Her heart pounded up into her throat; surely Pinkie Pie wasn’t going to break down or try to say something to her now, was she? But her bristling coat settled as Pinkie Pie just… smiled at her. It wasn’t exactly a happy or pretty smile; her lips wobbled around her teeth so much it looked like she was picking something out of her teeth, and she was desperately blinking her eyes to fight back tears. Still, it was clear that Pinkie Pie was at least trying to keep it together.
Twilight gave a tiny smile back. Or, at least she tried to; did it still look fake? Pinkie Pie seemed satisfied with it, at least. When she turned back to the crowd, Twilight snorted in relief to herself. Well. At least she didn’t have to worry about that crazy mare causing a huge scene during the ceremony.
Speaking of which… Twilight jolted. Across the aisle from her, Fluttershy pivoted to stand in front of her bird choir, her hoof held up like a conductor’s wand. The crowd, who had been excitedly whispering amongst themselves and jittering in their seats, muffled all at once. A silence filled the wedding hall, broken only by a few coughs or a whining foal.
It was starting. Twilight’s throat spasmed. Oh sweet Celestia, it was starting!
Her head spun. She and Cadance hadn’t even had a chance to discuss any kind of plan before this. How was she going to explain herself to the crowd? And when? Did she expect Twilight to interject? Should she have some kind of speech prepared? Oh Stars, she shouldn’t have been wasting so much time worrying about Pinkie Pie of all things; she should have been making mental notes of what to say!
A boom of music exploded all around, a sudden cacophony of melodious noise that echoed out against the cavernous walls of the hall. Everypony jerked back to stare at the giant ornate door at the opposite end, then it creaked open to spew out a march of flowerponies, and then the Cutie Mark Crusaders hopped through in their dresses and– Twilight’s heart throbbed alongside the beat of those twinkling, chiming wedding bells. It was happening. This was really happening! All of a sudden Twilight just felt so weak; she flushed with heat, and her head swam sickeningly as all the bright flowers and banners and noise and pressure all smashed into her still-ebbing headache. Still, Twilight buckled down. She bit her lip, widened her stance, tried not to vomit all over the carpet. She could do this. Cadance needed her. She just had to–
Cadance.
The alicorn stepped into the hall, regal and pristine. Twilight’s breath ripped out of her chest as Cadance stepped primly out onto that carpet, pink and gold and glittering in the pale light. Unlike before, when her distress dulled her to nothing but grays, now she shone with impossible radiance. Her mane billowed behind her from beneath her tiara, radiating out an intoxicating magical aura of twinkling, luscious green. She pushed out her chest and put on a wide grin that burned as pure white as her gown. Then, with a shift, her steps transformed from a delicate stride to a happy bounce, her wide wings and neatly-groomed tail and long, flowing train all rippling in time as if they, too, felt her composure. No, not composure – confidence. Cadance was excited, of all things!
Twilight drooped as all the tension fell from her withers. She couldn’t believe it. Cadance – beautiful, kind, brave Cadance – didn’t seem scared at all anymore about revealing her true form. Instead, she charged in head-first, fully prepared to finally be herself.
Twilight nearly let out a giddy laugh, but caught herself and smashed a hoof to her smile instead. Had Twilight’s reassurance really helped that much? Did her support really mean that much to her? The thought made her light-headed.
From that point, as the ceremony commenced, Twilight didn’t feel the worry at all. The fact that she’d been so worried at all actually felt sort of shameful. Sure, this was a huge moment for Cadance, but even if everything went as badly as it possibly could, there was no reason to doubt. She and Cadance’s bond of friendship would get them through anything, no matter what. So Twilight allowed that tingle of anxiety in her chest to fizzle up into excitement. This really was happening. Cadance was happily prancing down the aisle, to embrace her real self and marry her true love – and Twilight was her Best Mare, with front row seats to watch it all happen!
So she let herself settle back and just watch everything unfold. Cadance walked down the aisle. She stared longingly into Shining Armor’s eyes as Celestia spoke. Vows were shared. Cadance and Shining pressed together in a beautiful, loving kiss.
Then everything went green.
Rainbow Dash shot out her wings for balance as the entire world shook. All around her, her friends and everypony in the wedding hall stumbled and broke into screams– then there was the shattering. A noise like a million mirrors busting into pieces filled the air as shards of pink rained outside, then a cacophony of buzzing and yelling and a horde of chittering hooves thudding onto the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, Rainbow spotted the hole-filled bodies of some kind of monster spewing into Canterlot from a hole in Shining’s shield spell.
Rainbow snorted and snapped her head to glare at the Princess at the same moment she erupted in emerald green fire.
On the other side of Shining Armor, who was wobbling around with eyes a sickly green, a pillar of fire shot into the ceiling before dying into embers to reveal–
A bug? Rainbow Dash blinked. The Princess, once a baby-pink alicorn with a dainty face, was now replaced with something that reminded her of the beetles that Fluttershy collected as a filly. Equine, but covered in a hard chitin and fluttering with moldy, moss-colored wings and a ratty mane.
Rainbow clenched her eyes and teeth, her chest going hot. Stupid! She was so stupid! Her friend had been right, and she’d bailed on her, and now there was a big bug-thing in the wedding hall and who-knows what outside and it was her fault! Then, with a snort and a flick of her tail she figured, so what. She messed up. It was done, and she couldn’t go back and fix it. What she could do was kick this bug into next Tuesday morning and fix whatever freaky thing she’d done to Shining Armor.
She barely even listened as the changeling – or whatever Celestia said it was – rambled on and on about how she’d brainwashed the two unicorns and was going to take over Equestria and yaddah yaddah yaddah; it was all stupid monologue, just big talk before the Elements kicked her chitinous butt. Instead she flicked her eyes all over the ugly thing, scanning its carapace inch for inch to find some sort of weak spot she could buck. Hay, more than anything she wanted to punch her right in the face, but maybe if she bucked her right in that crooked horn, it would fizzle out the spell she had over her friend’s brother.
Whipping her wings to life, Rainbow reared back and prepared her shot. Ignoring Applejacks hiss at her, she coiled her legs, took a breath–
“No. You won’t,” came a booming command from her left. “You may have made it impossible for Shining Armor to perform his spell, but now that you have so foolishly revealed your true self, I can protect my subjects from you!”
Rainbow Dash smirked in grim satisfaction as Celestia smashed her horn against the changeling’s with a sick crack. Hay, even the Elements wouldn’t need to lift a hoof – finally, their own alicorn Princess could show off her stuff and squash this thing, no problem!
Celestia, with a shout, flared her massive wings in a flash of sunlight. In two giant flaps she was suspended in the air; her head cracked backwards with the force of her own magic as her horn burst into yellow fire, then a beam as thick as Rainbow’s hoof shot, boiling, from the tip. Rainbow watched as it flew towards the changeling Queen, as the heat from it neared her own green horn– but wait.
The changeling’s horn bubbled with green magic, but she didn’t try to shoot her own lazer beam. Her eyes didn’t widen at the sight of Celestia. She was… smiling?
“Stop!” somepony yelled, and then Twilight Sparkle was jumping forward.
She threw herself in front of the changeling, nearly collapsing to the ground in a desperate attempt to block the beam hurtling towards it, and threw up a purple shield in front of her. The bubble blew out to cover both her and the changeling, and then Celestia’s fire tore at the front of it with the ripple and steam of magic meeting magic. Twilight grit her teeth against the force of the blast, and flared her horn even brighter against the onslaught.
With a choked gasp, Celestia cut back on her magic. “Twilight–”
As the beam trickled into nothing, the changeling towering over Twilight brought her hoof to a wobbling chin. “Oh, Twilight, I told you! Why do they have to ruin my special day?!”
For a moment, Rainbow Dash was flabbergasted. Why in the hay would Twilight protect this thing?! Had she not just heard it brag on forever about how its evil plan was coming to fruition?! She was the one who came in screaming that Cadenza was evil in the first place!
Twilight, with an exhausted sigh that shuddered down her back, dropped her shield. She glared at Celestia, and at Rainbow and her friends – and her eyes…
Rainbow felt the breath leave her. Her chest thudded. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie had been right. Twilight’s eyes spun with the same green as the changeling’s horn.
“Please, everypony,” Twilight gasped, “I know that she might look scary, but this is the same Cadance you all know and love. Honestly…”
Twilight swallowed in on herself, turning her sorrowful gaze to the floor. Then, with a snap, that emerald green stare burned into Celestia so hotly that Rainbow thought they might all catch on fire.
Twilight whinnied, “I expected more of all of you! I know this has been stressful for everypony, but it was all of you that taught me about the magic of friendship in the first place. Why can’t you extend that same hoof of kindness towards a changeling?”
Rainbow Dash stomped her hoof to the floor with a whinny. She wasn't sure what exactly this changeling had done to her friend, but it must be bad for Twilight to ignore the – well, everything about this whole situation. Maybe not all changelings were bad, but this one? She was oozing green mist and literally had a twisted smile on the side of her face!
Celestia, her eyes wide with shock, slowly shook her head. Rainbow hadn’t seen her look so shaken since Princess Luna came back from the moon.
“Twilight, my pupil,” she started, throwing a hoof out towards Twilight, “you must understand. The changeling has invaded your mind and–”
“Cadance has done no such thing! She only wants to be accepted for who she is!” Twilight spat.
“That’s right,” she laughed, licking at her slavering jaws, “even your precious Twilight can’t resist my magic! Oh, Ladybug, why can’t Celestia just leave me be!?”
Celestia’s face contorted in rage, the fire of her magic burning even brighter as she opened her mouth in a snarl– but before she could say a word, a beam of neon green light was barreling towards her. With a grunt Celestia doged the first blast with a flap of her wings; the green fireball impacted the wall, exploded into a cascade of shrapnel and ashes behind her. With a grin Cadance fired another energy beam. This time Celestia was prepared, and her whole body rocketed back as steam and heat pulsed from her horn. The two streams of magic clashed with a hiss and a high-pitched whine, and the colors swirled together in a wave of energy that echoed through the whole hall.
Twilight surged forward on shaking hooves, her eyes widening with grief.
“No!” she screamed, the noise ripped out of her chest so fiercely it sounded as if her throat might bleed. “You can’t hurt her!”
Then Twilight leaned forward, grinding her hooves into the carpet. Her muscles coiled tight, her eyes screwed shut, and–
Rainbow’s jaw dropped open, her wings popping open with a snap. Twilight fired a beam of magic. At Celestia.
A ragged gasp tore throughout the crowd, screams rippling throughout the hall, as a burst of lavender struck Celestia in the chest. The Princess screeched out a hollow noise, something breathy and dry, and her own magic sizzled like a dying candle. As purple light spiderwebbed across her veins and sent her spasming stiffly in the air, her own energy dropped from the sky. The changeling’s beam shot forward like a bullet and struck its mark; a sound like an exploding star filled the hall, then Celestia… fell.
Her crumpled body fell to the ground. Her tiara came loose from her head, tinked coldly across the tiles.
Before Rainbow Dash even realized it she was flying. She rocketed to Celestia’s side in an instant, stared slack-jawed at her sparking ashy horn.
“The Elements of Harmony,” Celestia murmured, her eyes rolling back, “You must get to them and use their power to defeat the queen!”
Rainbow Dash didn’t even think, just nodded. Elements of Harmony? On it! She tuned out the cries of terror rattling through her skull, the rumblings of chittering hooves shaking up her hooves into her spine, the feeling of guilt bubbling in her chest; all that mattered right now was getting the Elements and kicking some bad guy’s butt, and she’d done that before!
She shared a look with the girls, then turned to the front of the hall with a determined flick of her tail. First things first, she needed to get Twilight. The Elements wouldn’t work without her, and they’d need somepony with powerful magic to unlock the vault. And sure, Twilight was super mad at all of them right now and also brainwashed by some gross bug-thing, but Rainbow could handle that. If she couldn’t rely on Twi to come willingly…
She spotted Twilight standing shivering in place, her eyes still screwed shut at the impact of her blast. When she opened her eyes, still so green, she stared dully to where Celestia’s prone body lay, her jaw dropped to her chest and her tail flicking, as if even she couldn’t believe what she’d done.
As Rainbow flapped closer, Twilight turned to her with a defensive scowl.
“You don’t understand, Rainbow! I had to! If you all would just listen to me, I– hey!”
… She’d just have to drag her kicking and screaming!
“No time to talk! Gotta get the Elements!” Rainbow shouted, scooping up Twilight in her front hooves.
She grunted as Twilight immediately started to fight her; the unicorn wiggled wildly in her grip as she flapped her wings, throwing out her hooves in every direction and jamming her sharp elbows into Rainbow Dash’s gut. Still, Rainbow held on. She had to, or else her mistake would never get fixed.
She caught up with the others, just barely resisting the urge to give Twilight a good slap across the head as they burst from the hall and streaked across the rumbling ground.
A crowd of chattering, black bug-ponies buzzed in close, their fanged mouths clicking and shrieking. All around the changelings swarmed, their chitinous bodies blotting out the sun as pink shards of magic toppled from the air. One changeling broke from the nearest cluster, hooves extended, emerald fire licking at its hooves and horn as it dove through the whistling air. It rocketed down in a plume of flame like a bat from Tartarus, and impacted the ground next to Rainbow Dash in a spray of dirt and stone, a smoking crater in its wake. The bug-like thing, curled up in the hole like a coiled snake, let out a raspy hiss, its fangs glimmering in the light.
When Rainbow Dash bucked it in the mouth, Twilight gasped and wiggled even more fiercely.
“Stop it!” she spat, hooking Rainbow in the jaw with a flailing hoof. “What in Equestria are you crazy ponies doing?! Can’t you see these are just Cadance’s friends?”
Rainbow Dash groaned. She felt like tearing her hair out. “Can’t you see that ‘Cadance’ totally wiped your brain?!”
Rainbow Dash shot off again before Twilight could say anything - she squealed in Rainbow’s arms as the air whistled around them, and more and more changelings impacted the ruined ground on all sides. Their friends drew in close as the swarm poured in from the failing shield and–
“I said stop!”
Rainbow Dash was hit by a ton of bricks. That’s what it felt like, anyway. One moment she was soaring through the air low to the ground, the wind stinging her cheeks, and then she was stopped dead as if she’d thrown herself into a wall. Something cold and heavy constricted her chest, and her gut twisted as pressure poured over every inch of her body.
With a blink, Rainbow Dash saw a field of twinkling purple, tinged with something off-color, enveloping her hooves. Twilight was using magic on her, levitation! Only, no, that wasn’t right, because–
Twilight had grabbed Rainbow Dash in her magic plenty of times, usually to drag her back from doing something stupid. Hay, she’d even tugged her away, off in some teleportation spell. It was always kind of weird, tingling against her flesh and swooshing her stomach, and in the case of teleportation she even got singed black to the ends of her mane once. But always those were simple side effects of magic use, not on purpose, and the cool energy waves themselves were super gentle, washing across her skin like a hug. This– Rainbow Dash squinted as what felt like stones dug into her wings, crushing them in a vice as she tried to move them. When she pushed against the magic, Twilight pushed back with force, and it felt like her legs were quaking down to her very bones. The magical waves, usually so soft and airy, felt like ragged icy claws dragging at her skin.
Beside her, Fluttershy whimpered.
Rainbow Dash grunted below her breath, the air crushed from her lungs at every wriggle. This wasn’t right! Twilight would never use magic like this against her friends– or, hay, even if they weren’t friends, Twilight wouldn’t do this to anypony unless she was defending herself. This just felt so wrong.
Cadenza, or Chrysalis or whoever the hay she was– she’d really messed Twilight up. Bad. And– Rainbow Dash snorted. It was her fault.
Rainbow wanted to scream. She fought as hard as she could against the magic, pushed against the wall of spikes digging into her flesh as far as she could. As she rasped in a gasp, spittle flying down her dry throat, the telekinesis only crushed in tighter, shivering harsh against her ribcage. Rainbow bared her teeth anyway, desperately creaked open her trembling lips with a hiss.
“T-Twi…” she started.
Twilight smashed her mouth closed with a click of her teeth, one that rattled all the way through her jawbone.
“No! Girls, this is just ridiculous. You’re coming with me to talk this through with Cadance, now!”
As Rainbow and her friends floated, cold and hard as stone in Twilight’s grip, Rainbow Dash couldn’t even apologize.
She’d failed her friend.
Celestia lay a smoldering wreck at her hooves, laid to waste by Chrysalis’ power.
Her darling puppet came packing in the other Element bearers as if they were old, broken toys.
Already, her swarm, her starving Hive, was beginning to feed on that delectable supply of love dripping from these pathetic ponies.
Chrysalis gave a fanged smile. She laughed, so content and husky and clicking in the back of her throat.
This day had been perfect.