Chapter six: Conclusion
“Of course, while freeing Discord would provide a useful distraction, it would also remove the only reason that Conformity isn’t attacking Bearers of the Elements of Harmony,” said Star Swirl with a wince.
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Most of Conformity’s bodies disappeared in a flash of magic; those left split into two groups, one chasing Twilight and Rainbow Dash, the other racing towards the palace.
Celestia’s eyes narrowed as she looked up from the roof of the palace. Her eyes flicked between the alicorns Flying towards Twilight and Rainbow before looking down towards those flying into the city.
Twilight turned to see Conformity flying straight towards her. She opened her saddlebags.
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“We can use the saddlebags for two purposes,” Star Swirl explained. “Firstly, we can use them to conceal the Elements of Harmony. Secondly, if Conformity tries to touch us, we’ll need a weapon.”
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Twilight glanced down, pulling a crystal from her saddlebag. She then aimed and threw it at Conformity. The streak of crystal struck home and the alicorn fell from the sky as crystal crept over her body. It was immediately replaced by more alicorns.
Celestia watched the scene above her and scowled at what was happening to her student. She had stayed out of the situation long enough. She appeared in a blinding flash next to Rainbow Dash, already in a defensive stance.
“No!” yelled Star Swirl as her pupils shrank and she raised a hoof. “Princess Celestia! This isn’t part of the plan! We must not risk you!”
Celestia grabbed the closest alicorns in her aura. She turned towards Twilight. “Go!”
Twilight closed her eyes and and let her magic yank herself and her steed through space and back to the Crystal Heart.
“YOU CAN’T HOLD US ALL OFF, CELESTIA!” snarled Conformity.
“Can’t I?” Celestia asked. She then did something she had only done twice in over a thousand years. She let go of the Sun.
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The rest of the Bearers of Harmony ran from their posts around the fair to join Twilight and Rainbow Dash at the Crystal Heart below the palace as a swarm of white alicorns descended upon them.
“STOP! WE NEED ALL YOUR POWER TO STOP DISCORD!” they yelled. “GIVE US THE HEART AND JOIN OUR UNITY! IT IS YOUR ONLY CHANCE!”
Rarity struck one with a crystal, bringing it crashing to the ground.
“FINE!” shrieked the alicorns. “WE’LL JUST TAKE WHAT WE CAN!”
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Celestia rolled her shoulders as she felt a 1989 septillion ton mass lift. The Sun would be fine for now. She could return it to its rightful orbit once she had dealt with the current situation. Her eyes shone with light and flames leapt from her mane and tail. Her body glowed with yellow light and her golden barding grew in plates over her body. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it properly. She had to be careful though. She didn’t want to damage Conformity’s bodies or anything in the Crystal Empire. And her instincts screamed at her to burn her enemies with her holy sun-fire. But no, fire was not an appropriate weapon for his situation. She would have to stretch slightly out of her element. Even light would risk permanently blinding her subjects. She flapped her wings and a gust blew the nearest alicorn away.
Others approached.
Celestia frowned. Stronger weather manipulation would risk the plan. Unless she stuck to lightning bolts and they were too dangerous. Most of her earth pony magic would not have been particularly useful in that situation either. It looked like she had to act like a high speed flying unicorn. She quickly flung a pair of magic bubbles up. She hovered in their centre and attempted to trap some alicorns in the space between them. The inner bubble expanded as the outer one contracted, narrowing the space.
The alicorns snarled and their eyes twitched as they pressed their hooves against the bubbles and one teleported into the inner bubble.
Celestia scowled, barring her teeth in a grimace. Conformity was fast enough to teleport before she had woven a spell to prevent her from doing so. She had to work faster. The sound of Conformity yelling into her brain was going to make that more difficult, especially as she wanted to keep this non-lethal. She fired a net of magic around the alicorn as she began her spell to prevent teleportation.
The net dangled from her horn, hanging by a golden thread of magic.
Another alicorn teleported in as the net began to whiten.
Celestia dropped the net, not wanting to discover what would happen if the whiteness finished its pathway along the rope to her horn. She then fired a blob of golden goo which splattered the second alicorn against the side of the inner barrier. The alicorn struggled as the goo held it against the barrier like an insect trapped in tree sap.
As more alicorns teleported in, Celestia gritted her teeth. The barriers weren’t working. She dropped them and as she continued working on anti-teleportation wards, began to design, thankful that while her sister was the better artist, she was better with puzzles. Celestia was momentarily relieved by the loss of Conformity’s voice in her mind, yet she still had other problems to deal with.
My biggest advantages over a standard pony here are spell versatility and overwhelming speed. thought Celestia. But my speed advantage has been considerably reduced since the point when Conformity claimed to have gained the power of a true alicorn. I hope that is not the case. She is bad enough without authority over a concept. And I will not use my speed to abandon my subjects. Nor can I take advantage of her speed in physical combat without risking both assimilation and harming a stolen body. Illusion is unlikely to be effective against a hive mind and risks the plan as well. I have to choose my spells carefully.
She scowled and ground her teeth as she saw that some of Conformity’s bodies were flying into the Crystal Empire. She telekinetically lifted them to face her, making sure to hold the dragon’s jaws shut and form a bubble around her head to prevent the use of smoke or fire. Telekinetically manipulating a struggling creature is far more difficult simply levitating a heavy object and holding a few hundred struggling bodies, each with far more strength than a typical earth pony, was distracting Celestia from the other tasks she was simultaneously performing. She began to wrap them in chains of magic, form cages around them and encase them in boxes. That bought her some more time. Enough for the basics of her plan to be ready and she could not keep this up for long. It was time to act.
She hastily constructed what she had been designing. A series of walls of magic popped into existence and rapidly assembled around the combatants. It formed a three-dimensional maze of magic, was bigger than the city and surrounded Conformity’s bodies with herself at the centre. She then inverted gravity within the maze. The routes through the maze were complex and while Conformity adjusted to the new gravity, it would allow Celestia to finish her anti-teleportation wards. Conformity would not be able to plot a route through the maze to perform a standard teleport and she would not summon the power to teleport through the walls in time.
Another of Conformity’s bodies appeared in a flash of magic just outside the maze. She then flew through the walls at supersonic speed, smashing them as she went.
Celestia began to turn her head, having just enough time to think that perhaps it would have been better to spend more time on the walls’ impenetrability and less on their intricacy before a hoof smashed through her barding and into her flank.
Celestia’s mostly ceremonial barding crumpled under the impact from Conformity’s attack. The maze dropped and Celestia’s cutie mark flickered away.
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The ponies in the streets gasped as they saw Celestia’s assimilation. More alicorns swept down towards the city as the wave of white crept over her body.
Bodies of Conformity filled the sky and gave ugly grins before diving and poking the Equestrian and Crystal citizens one-by-one.
Star Swirl raised a hoof in fear as Conformity flew towards her.
The hoof was quickly poked as Conformity passed.
She can’t find out the plan! Star Swirl thought desperately and grabbed a crystal, slapping it on her foreleg, stopping the progression of white.
Conformity saw this and turned towards her, slowing the onslaught. One of her bodies then flew back and tapped her on the muzzle.
Star Swirl squinted to watch the newer wave of white approaching her brain, knowing she could do nothing to stop it. The last thing she ever saw would be Conformity assimilating those around her before they had time to implement the plan.
“Now!” yelled Twilight.
The ponies bowed, smiling, charging the city with light. The glow intensified to form a shining beacon of brilliance.
Conformity’s face contorted as she absorbed Celestia’s knowledge of the plan. But she could do nothing about it.
The Elements of Harmony shone in their respective colours and fired a twisting, rainbow beam into the Crystal Heart which travelled along with the aurora of emotional energy into the sky in a cone, adding to its shimmering gleam of energy.
The wall of emotional energy hit the lens and focused in an intense beam onto the mirror, forming a rainbow wave that spread over the continent as an unstoppable wall of brightly-coloured conquest.
Throughout Equestria, alicorns transformed back into ordinary ponies in a shimmering metamorphosis and gently floated to the ground, surrounded by multi-coloured energy.
Discord’s cracks resealed themselves before he had finished his word.
And near a rock farm, a frustrated white ball was once again trapped in crystal.
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Around Equestria, ponies looked to the scintillating rainbow of energy which covered the sky in an aurora.
A green dragon lifted his neck and scratched his head. “Where am I?”
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“Bon Bon! You’re here!” cried Lyra as she pronked over to the cream earth pony who was drowsily getting to her hooves. She then grabbed and squeezed her. “Come on! I’ve got to show you all the crystal ponies!”
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“I guess that a lot of ponies ended up in a completely different place,” said Twilight sheepishly as she gave an awkward grin.
Celestia flew over and landed next to her. “Luna and I will ensure that everypony,” –she looked over to the large, green creature just outside the city borders,–“and everydragon gets home.”
“And we’re already having a crystal fair!” cried Pinkie as she jumped in from out of view. “They can join in the party!”
Star Swirl walked over and rubbed her head. “I’m just glad that we’re all safe.”
“That’s ‘cause your plan worked, Star!” squealed Pinkie. “Thank you! Now I can get my sister back! I need to go hug her! Then we can have a party to celebrate! Oooh! I’ll do that now! Then I can party right away!” She darted off.
“Well, it didn’t go exactly according to plan,” Star admitted sheepishly as she lowered her head.
“There are few times that it will,” said Celestia. “It is important to be able to adapt, but you managed to give us a firm foundation from which we could make those adaptations. Well done, Star Swirl, the Hundred and Forty Seventh.”
“Thank you,” said Star Swirl. “I’m definitely going to discuss this in my book.”
“Interesting,” said Celestia. “What do you plan on researching next?”
“Well, Zecora has promised to give me a few lessons, and I’ve been thinking of doing some travelling outside Equestria.”
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Pinkie let go of the siblings she had been practically strangling. “I missed you so much!” she said. “I was so worried about you! I’m so glad you’re okay!”
“Thanks, Pinkie,” said Blinkie. “I think that I won’t just touch anything I dig up from now on.”
Inkie rolled her eyes.
‘
Pinkie said, “In that case, I also need to plan a ‘My Family is Safe and Blinkie is Finally Going to Start Listening to Inkie Party’!”
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Three days later, Pluto finished off her parchmentwork as she levitated a large, shifting crystal along the passages of Tartarus. “You should not worry too much,” she said. “Celestia has asked me to give you a reasonably nice cell and I actually agree with her on this. At least she is finally letting me do my duty instead of doing something fancy like turn you to stone, or to smoke or to lock you on the Moon or under the ocean. About time too! Nothing has ever escaped Tartarus and every one of our redemption attempts has been successful. What’s more, your little escapade has given her an idea for how to redeem Discord!”
The crystal shook with a boom.
“Do not get so worked up. If she is right, she will have achieved your goal of neutralising that threat! And you can thank yourself for that! It is also likely to mean that your sentence will be a lot shorter than his. I have a feeling that you will be a lot easier than he is.”
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Star Swirl the Hundred and Forty Seventh will return in ... Star Swirl and Stripes Forever