Letters From a Little Princess Monster

by Georg

95. Tripartite - Part Thirteen

Trixie had been having a very bad day, but not the worst she had ever been through.  It said something when facing a millennia-old force of darkness was not a unique event.  If this kept up, Trixie was going to start a color-coded stress scale.  

Sombra would be a dark purple, tending to puce, although the scale was changing every moment.  And there was an additional changeling problem standing on the balcony of the magical Crystal Empire castle that she was trying to ignore.

The unusual moose-like changeling who had appeared out of the broken crystal when Green Grass had tipped it over was still not saying anything, much like her nervous husband.  Their silence was perfectly fine with Trixie and looked like it was going to last for now.  Shining Armor had merely accepted the colorful changeling’s presence like a shadow, and Princess Cadence let her quiet smile over her newborn’s presence expand to include the new interloper.

Trixe was not jealous of the foal.  Well, maybe.  Trixie was going to deal with this later.  Right now, her attention was acutely focused on the Trixie-destroying problem at hoof.

“I could have sworn I saw something on that tower,” she mused.  “The kids are still in the castle, right?”

The bug started much like he had been poked in the carapace, then spoke in a beautiful voice which reminded Trixie of mint chocolate sauce on top of a banana split.  “The Forbidden Tower,” he gasped.  “None may approach it and live.”

“Yeah, that would attract them like gnats to a candle,” mused Trixie.  “And I just saw a flash of magic up there.”

“Twilight doesn’t have any magic left,” said Green Grass.

“Then it has to be some other magic,” said Trixie rapidly.  “That can’t be good.  But the kids are probably getting the Crystal Heart right now, so that only leaves—”

“Without the Reliquary, it cannot be brought to life,” said the colorful changeling.  “Without the love of the ponies, it cannot attain its full power and destroy the dark magic of Sombra.”

“Details, details,” crabbed Trixie.  “I think I saw another flash.  If that’s an evil trap, it isn’t very strong.”

“Sombra’s magic draws upon the power of its victims—”

Trixie quickly added over her shoulder, “The kids are a giant ball of magic short-circuits.  Any trap that tries to power itself from them is going to get indigestion.  I hope.”

“They threw something,” said Green Grass abruptly.

Trixie whirled to look.  “Spike!”

As much as Trixie liked to think she did her best thinking under pressure, a little prep time always helped.  A warning, like “Hey, we’re going to throw Spike off a tall tower” would have been really useful about an hour ago.  A wave of helplessness swept over her, only to be mopped up and jammed into one corner of her busy brain for later consideration when she had time to panic.  Spike was still ascending so she had a few more precious seconds to evolve into an alicorn, or for Spike to finally grow the wings he had always wanted, both of which were complete non-starters.  Princess Powercheeks was still too wasted from her troublesome brat-birthing, Shining Armor’s horn was covered in black crystals that prevented him from nearly any magic, and the new chromobug was too much of an unknown factor to pitch him after a falling baby dragon and hope he actually could catch.  But…

“Throw me,” gasped Trixie in a rapid string of words.  “Throw me now before Spike falls any more and hurry up you idiots THROW ME NO—” 

The abrupt departure of Trixie, boosted on a dragon-intercept course by bug, stallions, and princess, left the castle balcony almost silent.  Or at least until Green Grass asked, “So, how does she land?”

“Spikie!”  Rarity thundered out of her hat-selling stall in a cloud of splinters, with her eyes focused on the purple dot of flying dragon above.  All around, the rest of her friends burst into action also, galloping through the snow at her side as they headed in the direction of Spike’s landing splat.  Rainbow Dash lifted into the air briefly with a blur of ice-clogged feathers, only to land hard and resume her rapid gait.

“I can’t reach him before he hits!” gasped Rainbow.  “Too cold.  Can’t fly.”

“Stop yacking and keep running,” gasped Applejack, who had built up a slight lead out of the group.  Maybe we can—”

There was a blur of eyeblinding-orange above, intersecting with the falling purple dragon and changing their mutual impact point.  All five ponies dug in their hooves in a spray of snow, turned, and sprinted down a different road as fast as they could run.

“Consarnit!” swore Applejack.  “We still ain’t gonna catch her before she goes—”

The orange blur vanished in a brilliant flash as it neared the cold crystal pavement, leaving the five mares skidding to a halt in the snow again.

Trixie liked to say the advantage of impending death is it sped her thinking process and left very little space in her mind to consider little things like fear and panic.  Some might say that was because there was no space in that small noggin.  Spike was certainly one of those some.  He clutched the Crystal Heart with all of his draconic strength, taking only one brief glance downward through the blowing sleet and snow that managed to spot Rainbow Dash and her friends galloping in the direction of his soon-to-be-impact crater, but too far back to catch them.

He closed his eyes, quit screaming or at least screamed quieter, and just held onto the Crystal Heart as hard as he could.  Anything else would distract Trixie, and since she was the only pony who stood a chance of saving him, snark would have to wait.

This is going to suck.

For a teacher, a door stop, and a bug, they had considerable throwing power.  Then again, Trixie was fairly certain Cadence had boosted her trajectory slightly by alicorn magic, or at least refined her aim to cross vectors with Spike in a few short seconds. That did not give her much time.

One inviolate rule of teleportation was that velocity going into the spell had to match velocity going out, or there was a near-certainty of chunky salsa.  That’s the way Trixie preferred to think about the complication, although the vast⁽*⁾ quantity of books she had researched since her first successful teleportation preferred to use the more disgusting description.  There were no exceptions, no variations, and no way she was going to survive this unless she came up with something fast.
(*)Vast is relative. For Trixie, both reference books reached and surpassed that word.
— 

The feeling of impact and Spike’s warm body clutched to her chest helped.  The first time she had ever cast an instinctive spell was during Twilight Sparkle’s dramatic deconstruction of the testing tower, and although an invisibility spell had been rather useless for her and Spike in the short-term, it had been quite useful over the years since.  If she screwed this one up, they both were going to die, and the Crystal Heart would probably be smashed into splinters.  If Trixie could not think of a way to save them, Twilight Sparkle— 

Twilight Sparkle could fly.  Trixie could not, and had no chance of evolving in the next few seconds.

Twilight Sparkle could do anything with a spell.  Trixie had taught her how to cheat, so she could probably turn the velocity of a teleport into—

Velocity.

Vectors.

It was so simple.

A cascade of magic flowed across her horn and body in an unstoppable wave, and Trixie vanished with a loud cackle of “Loophole!”

Applejack and the rest of the group finished skidding to a halt again in the snow, only to turn and look in yet a different direction when Fluttershy pointed behind them and said, “hey!”

They slowly looked up.  Then slowly down until a bright blue light flashed.  Then slowly back up again until there was another flash of light.  And stopped.

“She ain’t never gonna let us live this one down,” muttered Applejack.  “Come on.  Let’s go find out what she done so she can brag about it.”

Green Grass was burned out.  He had bedded a princess, killed a Windigo, and just now went face-first into an ancient lost kingdom’s protective shield and lived.  Now he saw Trixie arcing out into the city after catching Spike and all he could think of was… nothing.

“She’s dead,” he said out loud instead when the sharp blue flash of light replaced the plummeting bright-orange unicorn.  He could not help but lecture, a probable side-effect of being a teacher.  “The kinetic energy carried into a teleport has to come out or—”

A small noise from below grew until an orange blur rose up past the balcony and higher, sounding vaguely like, “Wheee!”

“That… was different,” said Cadence.

“Heeeelllp!” screamed Spike as he plummeted past the window again, being held firmly by a laughing unicorn.

“Be right back!” she called out from below.

Shining Armor tried to burst into action, but all his horn gave out was a few weak sparks.  Cadence moved in his absence, using a flash of her magic to rip a cord from a nearby curtain and forming a loop with a few rapid motions.  This time when Trixie rocketed up past the window, she gained a quickly tossed lasso, which jerked her to a halt above the balcony, following by slamming her to a halt on the balcony as Shining Armor yanked on the cord and dashed further into the room.

“What a ride!”  Trixie staggered to her hooves, shrugged off the loop of cord around her neck, and began to pry the Crystal Heart out of Spike’s terrified grasp.  “Told you the kids would find it.  Now come on. We need to go put it in the reliquary or whatever before Sombra finishes bashing through the shield.  Come on!”  Still holding Spike and the Heart, Trixie turned for the stairs and vanished, leaving the exuberant and fading chatter from below as the only indication she had ever been there.  “Do you think Feathergait got a picture of that?  Because I’m not doing it again without…”

“Who was that?” asked the colorful changeling, who seemed just as stunned as Green Grass.

“I’m not sure,” said Green Grass.  “But I think we should go with her so she puts the magic thing in the right place, right-side up.  And you said something about it needing love to get started?”

“Go with her,” said Cadence in a soft whisper that had not been directed at Green Grass.  The magic she exerted to save the arrogant blowhard seemed to be about the last spark the alicorn was able to muster, and she barely moved from her comfortable position around her bright-eyed foal. “Both of you,” she added.  “Speak in my stead.  Bring courage to their hearts.”

“And hurry,” said Shining Armor.  He sagged down onto a cushion next to his wife and breathed heavily, the mass of dark crystals on his horn glimmering in the fading light that spilled in through the balcony.  “I can’t keep up the barrier any more.  You don’t have much time.”

There was a soft flash of green changeling magic and two Princesses were in the room, one tired and disheveled holding onto her newborn foal, one tall and noble with a rather confused expression.  ‘Cadence’ looked once at Green Grass, swallowed, then turned for the staircase with him at one side.

“Trixie!”  Despite a substantial lead, Applejack found herself in second place as the group reached the crystal castle doors and a grinning orange fool came galloping out into the open courtyard.  Rainbow Dash reached Trixie first, skidding to a halt in the blowing snow and rattling off words just as fast as she normally flew.

“That was awesome the way you poofed from there to here and popped up in the air and never seen anything like it even at the Wonderbolts shows and you found Spike and the heart-thing at the same time!  Can you do that again?  Did you see it, Princess Cadence?” she added in the direction of the alicorn who followed out into the crowd of snow-covered crystal ponies huddled around the castle.

“The Crystal Princess,” echoed from dozens of ponies as Cadence looked around the crowded courtyard, wide-eyed and hesitant.  The glittering inhabitants of the Crystal Empire began to edge closer while looking up at the turbulent sky which was torn asunder with an almost constant chain of lightning mixed with frozen bursts of snow.  “We’re saved,” sounded some of their voices.  “Place the Heart in the Reliquary, Princess.”

A close observer may have been able to notice several of the voices sounded a lot like Trixe.  Nopony was paying that close attention.

“Behold, ponies of the Crystal Empire,” announced Trixie, holding the Crystal Heart above her head in a glow of blue magic.  “Your Crystal Princess will now place the Heart—once we have pried the dragon loose—into the Reliquary.  Come on, Spike.  You can let go now,” she added in a quieter voice.

Spike shook his head and did not open his eyes.

“We’ll just put the Crystal Heart into this— Where’s the reliquity thingie?  Oh, over there.  We just put it in and Sombra goes away, right?”  She eyed the sky where deep cracks had appeared in the dome over the Crystal Empire and darkness was billowing in, then rammed the stone into the indicated holder, only to have it fall out.  “It’s defective!” she growled.  “All that work and we get a dud heart.  Spike, help me with this.  And let go.”

The disguised changeling moved closer, keeping her voice low as Trixie and Green Grass attempted to de-dragon the Crystal Heart, assisted by the rest of her friends.  “He’s breaking through, and the Heart isn’t reacting.  It should be glowing with love, and I can’t feel a thing!  Why aren’t you terrified?”

“I don’t have time,” snapped Trixie.  “I’m scared out of my wits and I’m going to go have a screaming fit as soon as this is all over, but right now we need to get this worthless hunk of crystal working!”

The changeling hesitated, then looked at Trixie’s friends.  “She can’t be serious?”

“Yes, she is,” they all chorused.

Applejack took a glance around at the terrified crystal ponies, then back at her friends, who all had enough Trixie-experience to be less-panicked than one normally would be when an ancient force of darkness and evil was hammering away at the fractured citywide dome overhead.  Then she looked back at the nervous pink alicorn and added, “You ain’t Cadence, is you?  Changeling?”

He/she nodded briefly.  “Thorax.”

A howling screech sounded from above as ebon clouds boiled through the cracks in the Crystal Empire’s weather dome, forming into vague shapes of a huge flame-eyed unicorn who flew in vast circles above the terrified crystal ponies.

“CRYYSSTTAAALLSSS,” hissed the apparition.

“And that’s Sombra,” muttered Trixie with one last jab of the inert hunk of heart-shaped crystal into the indicated mounting point.  “Obviously.  Yeah, this isn’t working.  Say something inspiring to the crowd, Lovebug.”

“What?”  The changeling recoiled from his/her terrified study of the boiling sky and hissed in a low voice.  “I don’t know how to inspire anycreature.”

“Everypony gets on stage for the first time sometime,” said Trixie right back.  She glanced around the courtyard at the other frightened crystal ponies staring transfixed up at the sky as Sombra’s darkness swept across them again and again.  “All you need is some time and you’ll have these rubes eating out of your little pink hoof.”

Trixie jerked her horn in an upward direction, toward the swirling darkness.  “That poser is toying with them, innocent ponies who did nothing to deserve this.  Still, you’re probably not going to be able to do your lovey-huggie schtick to make this worthless hunk of rock work unless… We need a distraction.”

“Princess Cadence is with her,” said Featherweight, adjusting the focus on his camera.  It had the longest lens in his bag, which gave the wisecracking pegasus the best view of the ongoing mess.  The rest of his friends were watching the coils of darkness surge through the cracks in the city’s weather dome and twist into the shape of the evil unicorn, although they could not help but listen.

“Cadence?” said Monster.  She turned from her study of the ancient tyrant’s return, which reminded her so much of uncomfortable and pleasant times, and squinted at her distant teacher.  Teachers.

“Trixie’s doing something… weird.  Even for Trixie,” said Featherweight.  “Here.”

Monster took the camera and squinted through the viewfinder, ignoring the exaggerated sounds of choking that Featherweight always did when the camera strap tightened around his neck.  It said something that Applejack had given up her precious hat for Trixie to wear.  It was not clear exactly what it said, but the fact was important, much like the strange dance and waving she was doing.  The motions were exaggerated far beyond what Monster recognized at first, but she caught onto one of the rare lessons Trixie had given in non-magic-magic in short order.

“Important,” she murmured under her breath.  “Distract.  Very dangerous. Very.  Big distract.  Flash.  Style.  Very very important.”

“It’s a code?” said Conch, looking back and forth between the distant waving unicorn and the nearby nervous alicorn.  “Why do we want to be a distraction?  Sombra is ignoring us right now.”

“But he’s flyin’ around mah sister,” said Apple Bloom.  “She must be skeered.  She let Trixie take her hat!”

“Besideth, how could we be a dithtraction?” said Twist.  “He’s a big thupervillain.  We’re little.”

“We’re the Elements of Harmony!” said Scootaloo, hopping up off the ground and hovering for a moment.

“He doesn’t know that!”  Sweetie Belle waved a hoof at the swirling dark clouds.  “Besides, we left the Elements of Harmony in that cave.”

There was a brief pause, then all six friends looked at each other.

“He doesn’t know that either,” they all said together to Conch’s complete bafflement.

Despite the flurry of activity that their plan required in such an incredible short period of time, Monster still had the time to feel fear.  There was no need to supervise the making of their superhero props, because Sweetie Belle had comendeer… commanndder… convinced Conch to help them chisel replica Elements of Harmony out of the leftover crystal scattered around, and his little hooves chipped and splintered the chunks into recognizable shapes in short order.

That left only one thing remaining that she feared above all else: She needed to be Twilight Sparkle.

The faux tiara bit into her head with the sharpness of newly chipped edges, fitting around her ears perfectly just as if Rarity had made it for her.  Sweetie Belle did not have the same talent with clothing as her big sister, but she had been helping with gems for so long and working with Spike that they had become almost second nature to her.  

Conch likewise may not have known anything about the city, but he could cut effortlessly right where she pointed, and seemed to be incentivized by the swirling presence of Sombra so near.  He was a friend, even though she could feel something totally different about him.  A new friend, someone who Twilight Sparkle should attract and encourage where Monster could only destroy.  A good friend, supportive of her other friends, protective of the defenseless city, able to take the abuse and give all the good things a friend should.

“He’s getting closer to Trixie,” said Featherweight, adjusting the focus on his camera and taking several shots.  “She’s really putting on a show.  We better hurry.”

“Places, everpony,” said Apple Bloom, who had put on her own glittering necklace.

“And try not to hurt him,” said Twist.  It made her heart twist inside to hear Twist’s concern.  She had to say something in return that Monster could say without effort, but it hurt Twilight Sparkle.  But maybe it was something that was supposed to hurt, without which she could never be Twilight Sparkle again.

“There’s no Sombra in there,” said Twilight slowly.  “It’s just a hollow shell, filled with rage and hatred.”

“Thtill, don’t hurt him.”  Twist sniffed and put on the glittering necklace that Sweetie floated over to her.  “Pleathe?”

“I’ll try,” said Monster.

She was trying her best to be Twilight.  Monster hurt things and ponies when she fought, except…  Fighting Nightmare Moon as Monster had only made things worse.  It wasn’t until she stopped fighting and listened to her friends that she was able to help Princess Luna.  Monster could have fought Starlight Glimmer, but Twilight had the idea on how to defeat her without hurting her.  Monster had even been tempted to fight Tirek, but Twilight and her friends had defeated him easily by thinking instead of fighting.  It was like the time Featherweight got them all into a water balloon fight and Monster could not understand why it was so important that the balloons exploded nicely when they were thrown.

So she fixed them, then for several hours afterward, apologized.

Bruises healed, friends forgave, and Twilight was a far better friend than Monster.  As her friends gathered around, that warmth enveloped her and helped her think instead of just attacking without a plan, much like Trixie liked to talk about her friends and their roles in helping her make far better decisions.  For as loud as she was, Trixie had a deep streak of insecurity much like Monster in reverse.  Bold on the outside, frightened on the inside, while Monster was filled with fear and could barely feel the little sliver of courage that she had found in her heart, cradled with as much care as possible and allowed to grow over time.

If Trixie could rise up above her insecurities and make the impossible into drama, fling herself into the unknown to save her friends, use a teleportation spell in a way that Monster had never thought of before, then Monster could call upon her inner Twilight Sparkle in the same way.  

It would have been easy to think of Twilight as some entity other than Monster, but she had read books in the library saying how dangerous that was, and after she had split herself into three parts it only made more sense.  The part of her that was Twilight was the part of her that was Monster, grown together, changing together, and bound together with the love of her growing number of friends.  Not only ponies, but griffons and dragons and…

She gave a sideways look at Conch and considered.

Her friends were in trouble.  Now he was a friend too, willing to help and available, unlike Trixie far below at the castle doors, too far away to offer advice and obviously frightened as the swirling darkness swooped closer with every pass.  If they had some water balloons, they could launch them almost all the way to Sombra from this altitude, but all they had was bits of crystal and their own voices.  None of her pony friends were very loud, certainly not loud enough to be heard over the roaring storm, but…

“Conch,” she said quietly.  “You have a very powerful voice.  If Featherweight told you what to say, could you get Sombra’s attention? I think I know how to stop him gently without anypony getting hurt.”

Except me.

“Any more bright idears?”  Applejack snapped futilely at her precious hat as it went flying in the freezing wind, seeing it lost to the snow and darkness in the blink of an eye.  Crystal ponies were gathered around them like maple syrup crystals around a stick, and King Sombra’s dark ghostly form swept closer with every circle he made above their heads.

“Give Twilight time!”  Trixie ducked as Sombra made a particularly low pass, then glanced upward at the subdued shape of the tower as a shrieking voice cut through the howling wind like a razor.

“USURPER!”  The mighty voice echoed around the unseen buildings of the crystal city and captured the attention of every trembling pony, along with the dark spectre of Sombra.  “KNOW THAT YOUR FOUL REIGN IS AT AN END.”  There was a pause.  “THE POWER OF THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY BANISHED YOU ONCE!”  There was another pause.  “COME AND FACE YOUR DOOM!”

It was not exactly a burst of warm air, but the wavering collection of shadows that had once been King Sombra drifted in an upward direction away from Trixie, and the freezing chill that had been soaking into her heart lifted abruptly.  “Right,” she rasped.  “While he’s distracted, let’s get the Crystal Heart into this socket-thingie.  Spike, let go!”

“What was that?” gasped the little dragon, although he did not slacken his grip.

“Don’t ask questions until after we’re done and spooky there is banished again.”  Trixie heaved against Spike’s chubby fingers, but her eyes shifted in the direction of the tower.  “Where did the kids get the Elements of Harmony?”

Rarity squinted into the blowing snow.  “They certainly look like the artifacts.  It’s difficult to tell at this distance.”

The swirling malevolence that was Sombra seemed just as confused, sweeping around the tower in wide arcs that left trails of inky dark smoke in his wake.  The rest of the crystal ponies were both calmed and transfixed by the upcoming conflict, and gathered around Trixie’s game of Pry-The-Dragon-Off-The-Artifact like fans at a sporting contest.

“Who are those foals?” asked one.  “What do they think they’re doing?”

It was too good of an opportunity to pass up, and Trixie started her spiel before any of her friends could interrupt.  “Those are no ordinary children,” she announced in a loud voice.  “That is Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends. They are the only beings able to use the Elements of Harmony against the forces of evil that threaten our world.  Together they banished the evil of Nightmare Moon and brought our beloved Princess Luna back from exile!  They are undoubtedly responsible for breaking King Sombra’s curse upon your beautiful city, and they are about to destroy him forever.  So somepony help me get this crystal wizgidet⁽*⁾ into the holder!”
(*)Trixie was a firm believer that dictionaries crimped her style.
— 

There was more than a little snap to Trixie’s words since the Crystal Heart was heavy, particularly with a fat little dragon holding onto it and ice underhoof.  It did cause movement among the gawking audience, even in the direction Trixie wanted, although all the tugging they could do failed to dislodge Spike from his new favorite friend.

“Somebody get a prybar,” muttered Rainbow Dash as she managed to get one foot free and held onto it.  “I’ve got an opening here.”

“No problemo!”  Pinkie Pie bounced up to the struggle, plucked one feather out of Rainbow’s ice-clogged wings, and began to apply it vigorously to a draconic foot.

“Ouch!” declared Rainbow, although she kept her grip on Spike’s twitching leg.

“It’s too late,” wailed one of the crystal ponies, pointing up at the tower.  The swirling mass of darkness that was Sombra drew itself together, facing the array of small ponies with glittering… whatever they were.

And struck.

With a howling screech, Sombra sent a cascading wave of dark magic sweeping over the top of the tower.  It was so powerful that Trixie could feel the concussion of the blast through her hooves, and the tower shook, sending splinters of glittering crystal in all directions and filling the air with smoke.  In moments, there was nothing visible but the flash and rumble of combat filtering out of the cloud, and blotting out Trixie’s hopes of ever seeing Twilight Sparkle alive again.

It was really a simple water balloon problem.  Experience showed Monster was not gentle enough to reliably throw a balloon without having it explode all over and getting everypony in the vicinity wet.  Filling them was even harder.  Precision and control allowed all the water to go inside, protecting the fragile membrane which in turn protected the water-filler.

Thankfully, Monster had seen this before, had done this, both from when she had first unwisely attempted to draw on the power of the sun to when she destroyed the changeling’s hive.  During each of those she had drawn the power into herself, destructively in many regards, but she had seen Nightmare Moon absorb the power she had foolishly poured into her, and more recently seen the way Tirek had attempted to draw out her magic.  Without any way to resist Tirek’s spell, she would have been drained to exhaustion in Tartarus, but she did not have a rowen tree or the blue madness flower now, so she had to improvise from her experience.

Conch had performed his role perfectly, with such volume that even Monster had been surprised for a moment.  It only reinforced her suppositions at his origins so she extended her protection even more over him.  When Sombra released his spell and she soaked it up, even a tiny fragment of leftover darkness could ignite something in him that she was unwilling to face right now.

And then came the blow.

Alone, Monster would have brutally fought the darkness, torn the magic from the ancient tyrant and blasted back retribution tenfold.  With her friends all around her, she could not.  They would get hurt, and Monster would do anything to keep that from happening.  She ‘rolled with the punch’ as Apple Bloom would say, stepping forward to catch the first edge of his blast, then skidding backward along the snow covered roof of the tower as she turned the magic against him in a direction he did not, could not expect until it was too late.

She only touched the very edges of the magic much like a balloon membrane, wrapping around the darkness and bringing it inside separate from her own essence, then taking that fringe of his essence and using it to draw more, and then more.  At first, he did not seem to notice, blasting away with more powerful spells, but then realization made him recoil much like the time Sweetie Belle’s father had taken them all fishing and they had hooked an actual fish by accident. 

Monster dared not ‘yank the line’ for fear of breaking their connection and leaving some small wounded fragment of Sombra to escape.  Besides, that strategy was too close to the way Nightmare Moon had taunted Monster into a fury-filled barrage of magic.  To overwhelm the mindless shadow of power that had once been a pony, to tear that dark magic out of his form would have been a cruel reversion to her old self, and it would hurt Twist’s heart.  So Twilight reeled carefully, drawing his power between bursts and concentrating on keeping that dark power from contaminating her own, much like Twist could keep the cherry filling inside a tart without having it gush all over the outside.

Her stomach rumbled at the thought.  She made it a promise that food would be coming just as soon as the evil tyrant was subdued.  After all, victory parties afterwards were practically a tradition, and Pinkie Pie was here.

Other than missing dinner, Monster could not allow even the smallest of distractions from her twofold attempt to draw in the power of Sombra and protect her friends in the process.  It should have been far more difficult, an agonizing process that ripped her will to fragments while she fought viciously against the temptation to grasp the power and use it.  

Friends made all the difference not only to Monster, but to each other.  Twist was becoming more confident while Featherweight was less reckless, Scootaloo could almost fly, Apple Bloom spent far less time worrying about how she was not measuring up to her siblings and more time helping all of them, and Sweetie Belle could do magic, even if she could not cook.

And Monster no longer felt the clawing demand for power, no matter how much the darkness that had once been Sombra tried to tempt her.  She drew the corrupted magic in, sequestered into its own partition and held it much like the ‘thermos’ that the kind old unicorn in Canterlot had shown her.  He had seemed so protective, so needing of his precious steaming tea that she had paid close attention to his words and was rewarded when his sad eyes had brightened as they shared a small cup together, with one of Twist’s chocolate biscuits.

Now, her renewed magic never actually touched Sombra’s darkness, but kept a space around it like the vacuum protected his tea from the dangers of the world.  And she was making an extremely large magical thermos, far larger than she thought possible by the time she had brought in the last of his dark magic and the screaming fury of what had once been a king died away into nothingness and drifting dust.

“We’re alive?” asked a much smaller-looking Twist, looking back and forth while just barely moving her head.  “Whew.”

The tiny dragon on Sweetie’s horn looked up at Monster, put its thin membranous ears flat back, and hissed like a microscopic tea kettle.  “Bookwyrm, what’s wrong?” asked Sweetie Belle before looking up.  And up.

“Mine!” declared Featherweight after clicking off several more photos.  He squared up against the astonished Conch, extended one foreleg in Monster’s direction, and announced—

“She grew!” blurted out Conch.

There was complete silence on top of the tower for a moment.  Then Apple Bloom put one foreleg around Conch’s neck, nudged him toward a slightly less occupied corner of the tower roof, and said over her shoulder, “Um… Monster.  Can we have a few minutes or…”

“I’m good,” whispered Monster.

It was close to the truth, and did not seem to be too much of an imposition on her friends, who were all looking up at her with various expressions ranging between awed and astonished.  She took some time to evaluate her situation while Apple Bloom was lecturing their newest friend on the importance of allowing Featherweight to get the proper pun out on time.  

It took some consideration to recognize the changes that had come over her outsides with the addition of a huge simmering bottle of dark magic being stored inside.  For starters, she was far, far taller, towering over her friends much like Princess Celestia’s bigger sister.  And the purple of her dyed coat was gone, shifting into a shimmering silver-black that glittered in the darkness, giving out enough light to illuminate the top of the tower in a shadowless glow.

It was far different than what she could see of the distant crystal castle and her other friends gathered in front of the castle by unicorn hornlight.  They were still wrestling with Spike and the Crystal Heart, trying to get them separated so they could be put into their correct places, but that was less important to Monster than the changes in her own body.

She extended an ebon wing and spread the feathers, marveling at how powerful and magnificent they felt.  With wings like these, she could ascend into the night sky and take Sombra’s corruption far, far away from her friends, perhaps even visit the ethereal voices she had heard singing from the great darkness among the stars.  They should know how to destroy the corrupt magic, because she did not have a clue.

Perhaps Monster could fly there as a last resort.  For now, Twilight Sparkle was going to have to ‘deal’ like Trixie said.

“Okay, Conch an’ me had our talk, and he’s got somethin’ to say.  Featherweight, you listening?”

“I’m taking an awesome picture,” he said tersely, looking through his camera bag for a shorter lens.

“I’m sorry for stepping on your lines,” said Conch with a hunched neck and a tendency to look at the slick ice under his hooves.  “What did I step on?”

“You don’t see it?”  Featherweight fixed a short lens on his camera, took a step dangerously close to the tower’s edge, and aimed at Monster.  After tweaking the focus for a moment, he let go of the camera and moved forward to put one foreleg over Conch.  Monster picked up on her unspoken cue and held the camera perfectly still while Featherweight arranged the rest of their friends, then posed with one hoof pointed upward at Monster.

Monster took the picture.  Featherweight proclaimed, “Monster!  You grew some!”  Then Monster took a second picture to get the image of all of their friends facehoofing.  She had to admit it was a very groaning pun, and would probably get him covered in pillows in the near future, but worth it.  At least to him.  And in some secret recess of her heart, it was yet another building block in her growth as a friend.

“Now that we have that out of our systems,” started Apple Bloom, “yew ain’t gonna be like that forever now, are you?”

“No.”  Monster swallowed.  “Dark magic.  Have it trapped.  Can’t change it without getting changed even worse.”

“Like a giant burp,” said Twist.

“Or a fart,” said Featherweight.  “You really don’t want to let one of those fly around other ponies.”

“More like having to go pee,” admitted Monster.  She shifted uncomfortably.  “Trixie would know how to fix this. Can’t go to her.  Might let it go.”

All of her little friends nodded with unspoken thoughts of peeing the bed when they were much, much smaller.  Featherweight was the first to move in Trixie’s direction with a buzz of tiny wings and an immediate stumble over a nearby splintered piece of crystal.  “I can’t get airborne,” he gasped.  “Still weak from the trap.  Can you hold out long enough for us to run down the tower ramp and get Trixie?”

“Huh-uh,” grunted Monster.  She shifted uncomfortably.  “Worse when I move.  Like pee.”

“Well, we don’t wana leave you alone,” said Apple Bloom.  “What are we gonna do?”

Trixie really did not have time to watch the fight.  She could feel it enough through her hooves as the ground shook and the sky flashed with lightning.  Besides, she was busy prying Spike off the Crystal Heart, and that would have been a hard task for an octopus.  Her friends were helpful, but there were only so many hooves that could wrap around one dragon, even with the Crystal Empire citizens helping.

And then…

It was very quiet, the type of silence that snuck up on a pony in gradual steps until it just was all around her.  It was a happy kind of quiet also, not like the proverbial ‘silence of the grave’ or ‘dead silence’ would be.  More like the silence one got when reaching the top of the mountain, or laying down a straight flush on the table.  It was a winning kind of not-noise, that came with a slight breeze to blow away the smoke and dust surrounding the tower, and the sight of Twilight Sparkle and her friends.

Who were all doing some sort of dance.

It was stranger than seeing the timid little alicorn grown up to Celestia’s size and glowing, because Trixie was getting used to Twilight Sparkle doing particularly odd things with her body.  Really, it would have been surprising not to have the alicorn transformed somehow, so the shimmering darkness and silver that lit up their tower like a torch on fire was normal-abnormal. The movements they were making, though…

“Look like they’re all standing on an anthill,” said Applejack.

“Oh, no!” Fluttershy stopped prying on Spike’s fingers for a moment.  “I hope they don’t hurt any of them.  Ants are so fragile.”

“It’s the Pee-Pee dance!” declared Pinkie Pie.

“Could they be signaling the lack of a proper bathroom on the tower?” asked Rarity.

Trixie ignored the discussion while holding the Crystal Heart up in her magic, then released it along with its draconic attachment as the importance of something she had been ignoring soaked in.  “It’s absorbing my magic.  It’s absorbing my magic and turning it into sparkles!  King Sombra hid the Crystal Heart because it was the only thing that could hurt him, but it’s not a weapon.  It’s a refiner!”

There was a long silence that included the crystal ponies all around them.

“She means it turns one kind of magic into another,” said Spike without releasing his grasp.

“Oh,” said just about everypony around them.

“We can use it to refine his dark magic into the crystal magic that protects your city,” declared Trixie.  “If the Heart had been active when Sombra ruled, it would have weakened him, like a bunch of critics in the back of the audience, sniping and making crude comments—”

“Focus,” murmured Rarity.

“So we have to get the Heart working again, quickly.”  Trixie finally looked up at the tower and the small dancing ponies on it, along with the uncomfortable large shadowy form of an alicorn towering over them.  “Make that NOW!  She’s in trouble!  Twilight Sparkle can’t hold all of that Dark Magic for much longer!”

“On it!” said Spike, who turned around and began fitting the Crystal Heart into the Reliquary.  

“The rest of you…”  Trixie turned to the crystal ponies surrounding them and words failed her at the depth of trust she could see in their glittering eyes.  With her friends on all sides and Spike vigorously fitting the artifact into the thingie, words were completely insufficient to meet the demands fate had shoved upon her.  So she let something else do the talking for her, something that swelled up inside without her control and burst out unexpectedly.

Trixie had never really given herself to a song before, heart and soul, but it was needed tonight, so she let everything fly.  She could feel magic bend to her will, the instinctual ability of unicorns twisted in a way that every pony could emulate, growing with every note, swelling until it filled the city to bursting.  It was better than having the spotlight shine down on Trixie during a spectacular trick, even better than the rare occasion when Princess Celestia patted her on the head and said she was proud.

She could vaguely see the shimmering crystal magic of the Heart reach out to the tower, wrap Twilight Sparkle’s immense dark form in crystalline light, and draw the darkness out in a long thread that connected to the Crystal Heart’s glowing alcove and made it glow brighter.  Even closing Trixie’s eyes did little good because the light permeated everything, right straight through eyelids and bodies in a transformational surge that held her still throughout the whole song until the music faded out and all Trixie could see was afterimages of her friends.

Trixie was slightly disappointed that she could not spread her wings, because if anything could have led to her inevitable alicorn transformation, that had been it.  Still, the experience had been extraordinary, if featherless.  The crystal ponies all around them were glittering like diamonds, nearly translucent from the magic that had been released by the Crystal Heart when it digested Twilight Sparkle’s captured dark magic.  And to Trixie’s surprise, her friends were likewise glittering and sparkling, from Thorax, the strange moose-bug changeling, to Shining Armor, Cadence, and her baby, who Trixie vaguely remembered including in the song.

Maybe even with the right names and titles.

Maybe.

It should have been a time when Trixie could bathe in the adoration of her loyal fans, sign a few autographs, go get sloshed at the local bar, but no.  There was a new element to her ongoing stress-test.

“Bravo.  Encore.”  Discord stood just a short distance away in the middle of a group of astonished crystal ponies, clapping his mis-matched hands and smiling. “I underestimated you.  Everypony else saw a no-talent blowhard, so that’s all I expected.”

“Well, you were half-right,” said Spike.

Trixie ignored the little dragon as much as she could.  The mismatched Draconequus was the greater threat, even if he was just as much of a pain in the rump as her constant companion and critic.  She shoved her well-earned panic fit back into her cluttered collection of nervous breakdown topics with the rest of them and focused on the maximum confidence she could project through a superior sneer to conceal the fact that she had absolutely no idea on how to beat him.

“Twilight Sparkle beat all three of your little games, Discord.  Now buzz off, before we use the Elements of Harmony on you again.”

“Trois games?”  Discord held one claw across his chest and rolled his eyes in the palm of his other paw.  “Mademoiselle, I think you may have missed one.  Or a few more.”

He pointed up.

Trixie looked up.  She immediately wished she had not.

All around the outside edge of the city’s broken weather shield, wispy white figures perched on dark clouds and stared down with cold eyes.  Hundreds of them, in groups and individuals, stretching up into the sky as far as she could see, with the unbroken glow of glittering blue eyes staring down at her.

Trixie had an appropriate metaphor to use for this occasion, something sufficiently sulfurous that it should melt the entire Crystal Empire into glowing lava, but unfortunately, Rarity managed to speak first, and condensed her response into far fewer words with far more exasperation.

“Windigo,” she snapped.  “Oh, come on!”