Chapter 3
“Hey!”
“Quit shoving!”
“Watch it, will you?”
Twilight ignored the ponies’ cries of protests as she butted her way through the crowd, finally emerging from the equine sea at the front of the throng. The raised platform where the Princesses usually addressed Canterlot had already been set up with three guillotines, three black-clad, hooded stallions standing at the ready beside them.
Twilight gulped.
It hadn’t been easy getting into Canterlot. The train had arrived late last night, and every single pony exiting had been thoroughly spell-examined and questioned about their intentions for arriving at the capital. Like most ponies, Twilight had said she was here for the execution—she didn’t need to elaborate any further. The spell-examination had been the most nerve-wracking part of the ordeal, though. Twilight had had to convince not only the eyes but also the magically tuned senses of five master-level unicorns that she was indeed nothing more than a nondescript pegasus. Thankfully her newly empowered alicorn horn was just as good at conveying illusions to the other senses as it was with fooling the eyes.
Beyond the examination station had been the Royal Gate, where fully-armored guards looked down on Twilight and all others entering the capital with suspicious, hooded eyes. Inside Canterlot was no better—guards in full war gear flanked every corner, as did the WANTED posters bearing Twilight’s crudely malignant image and the penalty for not turning her in.
Everywhere were hung banners of bright red, each bearing a black ‘X’ over a the symbol that had become the most feared image in Equestria other than Celestia’s willingness to eradicate anypony who had anything to do with the emblem: Twilight’s cutie mark.
At least it hadn’t been hard to figure out where the execution was to take place. Twilight just had to follow the flow of the crowd, as everypony in Canterlot was headed towards the Royal Square, where the Princesses usually addressed the crowds with messages of successful crops and peace throughout the land. Today, though, was going to be quite different. For the first time in Equestrian history, an execution was to take place.
And that execution was to take place any minute now.
Already Luna’s Moon was setting, though the lunar Princess herself was nowhere in sight, and the bright red at the edge of the sky heralding Celestia’s dawn was quickly bleeding over the horizon. When the Sun had finally peaked over the horizon, the prisoners were scheduled to be brought out. When Celestia had chosen to rise the sun so that it sat on the edge of the world like a silent spectator of the events about to take place, the guillotine’s blades would drop.
Twilight gulped again.
“Feeling nervous?” Discord asked her.
“What do you think?” Twilight retorted.
“I don’t blame you,” the draconequus added hastily. “I’d be worried if you weren’t. But just stick to the plan, and everything will be settled before Celestia has time to set the sun for the night. Because, as well you know, if we succeed, she’ll never be able to set the sun again.”
“I suppose all the unicorns in the land will have to go back to performing that duty then, huh?” Twilight wondered.
“Actually, I was kind of thinking that you—”
“No, Discord,” Twilight said sternly, resisting the urge to stamp her hoof for emphasis. The outer settlements of Equestria might not be able to recognize a magically-induced tremor when they felt one, but Celestia and Luna would sure feel the telltale magic in Canterlot. “I free you, we free my family, and then we take down the Princesses. No part of the plan includes instating a new one.”
“If you say so,” Discord said uncertainly. Then, his voice suddenly urgent, the draconequus announced “Look, here they come!”
The sun had just barely tickled the sky with its flames when Celestia and Luna stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the Royal Square. All the ponies, including the executioners, bowed. Twilight had to force herself to do the same, and so was just a fraction slower than the rest. She hoped the Princesses wouldn’t notice.
“Arise, my loyal subjects,” Celestia announced. The ponies did so, and the solar Princes continued. “I wish that we were meeting here today under circumstances less grim—”
Twilight had to stop herself from snorting.
“—but a grievous error has thrust its ugly head into our utopic society. The unicorn formerly known as Twilight Sparkle has turned her back on me, on you, and on all ponydom. She has committed crimes against the state that cannot go unpunished, crimes that, if left unchecked, would lead to the ruination of all Equestria. It is for this reason that we have enacted the severest of punishments on all those connected to the conspirator in order to quell her plans against the peace we have worked so hard to maintain,” Celestia continued. “It is for this reason that the traitor’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Sparkle, as well as the draconic familiar known as ‘Spike’ are hereby sentenced to death.”
Celestia nodded to her sister, and the dark alicorn shouted “BRING OUT THE PRISONERS!”
The executioners stood at attention as two more black-clad guards marched out, tugging a trio of two chained ponies and one caged baby dragon between them. The two ponies, one male and one female, each had a black hood over their heads as well as the chains linking their feet. Twilight had no doubt that inhibitor rings were also shackled to their horns beneath the veils. Spike was gagged in a metal mask that Twilight could see was ripe with enchantment to prevent any fiery means of escape through melting the confinements.
“Discord?” Twilight asked.
“Yes, Twilight?” Discord asked calmly, knowing what was coming.
“Don’t try to hold me back this time,” Twilight commanded. The new alicorn’s statement held no room for negotiation.
“I doubt I shall ever have to hold you back again,” Discord replied. “Have at them.”
“Know this, my subjects,” Celestia called out once more as the prisoners were marched to their respective guillotines. “I do this with a heavy heart, and a sorrow that you all should have to live through times so dark that such resorts as these are necessary. But know this also—no pony shall ever come between your Princesses and her subjects. We shall stand united against this menace. We shall stand strong, ready, and ever-striving towards a brighter and more peaceful future, free of tyranny, free of treachery, and free of the bloodshed of any pony!”
The crowd burst into cheers, any fears they may have had about their Princesses going over the edge with this new militant brand of ‘protection’ vanishing to the back of their minds at the warmth of their ruler’s comforting—or perhaps that doubt of these new actions was simply swallowed by the fear of speaking out against them.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Celestia.”
Abruptly the crowd fell silent, and every pair of eyes in the Square darted to the speaker. Twilight had not spoken above a normal speaking tone, and yet everypony at the event had heard her. Her voice, magically amplified, echoed off walls and rang through ears, causing the blood-red banners to waver.
Twilight stepped forward, and her illusion fell away, revealing her in all her alicorn splendor. She was still but a young mare, no differently proportioned than she had been as a unicorn—but her larger wings flared out, sparkling with the intensity of a magic far beyond that of any unicorn, and her horn, sharp as a sword and nearly as long, glowed with the spark of fire hot enough to put Celestia’s Sun to shame.
“There WILL be bloodshed in the future, Celestia,” Twilight went on. “Yours.”
“SEIZE HER!” Luna roared, and the guards flocked to Twilight like a mob of angry crows, covering her in a dog-pile of violent, trampling bodies. Twilight burst from the throng like a flaming arrow shot through paper dolls, and the burning figures of the guard were flung aside to crunch sickeningly on the cobblestones as their skin melted and their eyes burst.
Twilight, her horn still burning bright, skyrocketed into the air, the flap of her wings blowing the blood-red banners askew as the ponies below screamed in terror and tried to flee the Square. But with a flash, a magical barrier stopped them, trapping the ponies inside.
“No, my subjects,” Celestia ordered, a sly smile playing about her lips. “I want you to see the execution of the real criminal here.”
“So do I,” Twilight smiled darkly.
“Your insolence has brought you thus far,” Celestia called to Twilight from the balcony, stepping off it and rising into the air with a mighty flap of her own wings. In fact, it was the first time Twilight could remember seeing the solar Princess use them. Luna joined her, and the two Princesses watched Twilight with a mix of hatred and grim satisfaction.
“Your magic is strong, my ‘faithful student,’” Celestia mocked. “But you are still inexperienced as an alicorn. And, even if you were, there are two of us and one of you—you have neither the time to learn to use your newfound skills nor the skills in the first place needed to defeat the two most powerful beings in the history of Equestria.”
“But you’re NOT the two most powerful beings in the history of Equestria,” Twilight retorted coolly. With a spark of her horn, Twilight’s last illusion fell away, and the armor studded with the Elements of Harmony was revealed. All six gems were glowing brightly, and the air around Twilight glimmered as they sparked and burst into brilliance.
“IMPOSSIBLE!” Luna cried.
“How can you have the Elements of Harmony?!” Celestia shrieked, but just as quickly regained her composure. “No matter—you may have the most powerful magic in universe on your side, but you don’t know how to use them all at once, and the Elements are useless without all six powers combined. We know how they work, and each Element only works for the bearer chosen. We can feel that they have not all chosen you.”
“They don’t need to,” Twilight called. “My friends are more than happy to help me.”
“Your friends are dead,” Celestia sneered. “Haven’t you seen the posters? You killed them all.”
“No, Celestia,” Twilight spoke calmly, though her body shuddered with rage. “It was you who killed them all.”
A gasp rose from the quivering ponies below.
“So what if I did?” Celestia snapped. “So what if I murdered all of Ponyville, or even all of Equestria? You are all ants compared to the combined power of my sister and I—we can rearrange information as we see fit, can bend you to our will like puppets on a string. After this is over, all the sniveling ponies below will go home and tell their descendants for generations to come how their beloved Princesses saved them from the evil that was Twilight Sparkle. All they will remember is our victory, and your death!”
“Death is nothing to the Elements of Harmony,” Twilight repeated what she had learned, so much in such a short time. “You may have killed the bearers—but they are far from gone. I am not alone. My friends are all here with me, and they shall help me free a new friend I have made, another innocent victim of your tyrannical self-centered obsession with your own power.”
“No—” Celestia tried to say, her eyes lighting up with fright as she realized the full implications of who Twilight was referring to.
“Discord!” Twilight shouted, turning to face in the direction of the Royal Canterlot Sculpture Gardens. “The Elements of Harmony have imprisoned you, but on this day, they set you free!”
The Elemental gems, which had been casting lights like a star at the heart of a prism, now exploded into a rainbow of pure color and shot in an arc past the royal sisters, over the heads of the terrified ponies below, through the roofs and shops and walls of Canterlot, and into the stone heart of a statue frozen in a position of fear.
The statue glowed for a moment, and then it cracked. The cracks spread, and the crumbling of stone fell away to reveal the living, breathing, immortal hide of a chimaera at once overflowing with the elation of freedom of the burning fury that cried out for justice.
“I’M BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Discord cried, this time not in Twilight’s head, but in clear, old-fashioned sound that radiated over the rooftops and burrowed into the frightened brains of two suddenly terrified Princesses. Instantly the sky grew filled with pink clouds rushing in from all horizons, Luna’s Moon was ripped free of her grasp and flung in front of Celestia’s Sun to create the blinding darkness of an eclipse, and torrents of chocolate milk poured down onto the crowds of Canterlot. Everypony in the city knew it could only mean one thing. “Did you miss me?”
Celestia jerked around at this last utterance to find herself face-to-face with Discord the draconequus, spirit of chaos and disharmony. And, for the first time in her existence since she destroyed his people and his land, the solar Princess saw something other than mad melancholic anger in his eyes. She saw clear, focused rage.
“I’ve missed you, Celestia,” Discord smirked, relishing the fear he saw in the Princess’ eyes. “Did you miss me?”
“GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER!” Luna bellowed, darting forward to jab her horn into Discord’s side. The draconequus’ skin didn’t so much as flinch, much less give under the pressure of what was the entire force of the Moon smashing into his hide in the form of one concentrated point.
Twilight was glad, just as with the Elements, that Discord was on her side rather than the other way around.
Discord’s claw whipped out without looking and grabbed Luna’s horn, causing the Princess of the night to cry out in pain as he wrenched it off her scalp with a bone-splattering CRACK. Holding it up to the chocolate rain, the horn was filled from the top-down with a scoop of ice-cream, which the spirit proceeded to lick absentmindedly as he watched Celestia try to back up against the wall of the palace. Luna, meanwhile, had her eyes rolling back in her head as she watched Discord continue to use her horn as an ice-cream cone.
“What’s the matter, Celestia?” Discord chuckled. “Don’t have your precious Elements to help you anymore? Oh, that’s right, they’re on MY side now, along with the student you so lovingly betrayed. What was that you said to her back in Ponyville? I was listening the whole time, you know. I think it was something along the lines of ‘You couldn’t save your friends because you were too DUMB.’ Well, Celestia, you made a mistake twice as big. You not only decimated my entire kingdom, my entire people, just because it didn’t suit your orderliness, and earned my desire for revenge. Oh, no. You had to top even that, didn’t you? You had to go against the very Elements themselves, the very things that put you in power in the first place—and you had to kill the closest friends of the one they wanted to lead the entire nation after you. You had to earn the opposition of a force more powerful than I could ever hope to be. You had to earn the rage of the next chosen Princess, and all the Elemental power that entails.”
“But she doesn’t know how to use the Elements all at once yet!” Celestia protested as Luna fainted to the balcony below. “She is not the chosen bearer of them all! I can sense that she is still only the bearer of the Element of Magic! The others are still connected to something else—”
Celestia’s face went cold.
“Now you get it, don’t you, Celestia?” Discord smiled, showing the mismatched teeth of a thousand different predators. “You may have killed the other bearers, but you didn’t get rid of them. And now they all want to ‘dethrone’ you, so to speak. And by ‘dethrone,’ I of course mean erase from the very fabric of this reality. Between you and me, I’ll let you in on a little secret—you are most royally bucked. NOW, TWILIGHT!”
Discord darted forward and grabbed Celestia by the neck, his other arm reaching down and snatching up Luna’s unconscious form. The draconequus thrust both Princesses out in front of him, holding them steady despite Celestia’s panicked thrashing to get away, and Twilight flew higher into the sky, the Elements blaring with multicolored light.
“Princesses Celestia and Luna,” Twilight spoke, though all present could hear that she was not the only one speaking. Five other voices wove their way in and out of Twilight’s speech. One was scratchy, one was quiet, one spoke with an accent, one spoke with poise, and one spoke with almost a giggle. “You have violated the harmony of this universe. For this, you shall be immortal no longer. You shall be erased from the pages of history. In generations to come, nopony shall ever remember the fact that you ever even existed.”
“NO!” Celestia shouted.
And then, in a burst of light, the Elements of Harmony unleashed a beam of intertwining rainbows that shot through the air and struck through Celestia and Luna, leaving Discord unscathed, and blasted into the castle behind. As the palace crumbled in on itself behind Discord, everypony in the square could see that Celestia and Luna had disappeared.
A peal of laughter rang out though the crowd. A cackling cacophony of cold, cruel jubilation.
“It worked! I can’t believe it worked!”
“WE TOO ARE MOST PLEASED TO SEE OUR PLAN COME TO FRUITION!”
Twilight looked up, and Discord swirled around in the air.
“No, it can’t be—” Twilight whispered.
“Nice of you to dispose of those illusions for us, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia laughed, safely encased in a bubble of protective magical energy floating where the palace had once stood, never having been outside the palace for the entire ordeal. Luna stood beside her, and between the two Princesses, the real Princesses rather than the illusory ones Twilight and Discord had just destroyed, stood the shackled forms of Twilight’s parents and Spike.
Twilight glanced down to see that the two ponies and a baby dragon she had thought were her parents and Spike were also dissipating, their illusions fading as they were no longer needed.
“Also so nice of you to waste the power of the Elements doing so,” Celestia continued. “As you know, they’ll take a good while to charge once more after a blast meant to destroy two immortals, with or without your precious friend’s life-forces tied to them. And, although we must admit we didn’t expect you to use the Elements to free Discord as well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Because if either of you make one move, we slice off the heads of your family here.”
Celestia gestured to Mr. and Mrs. Sparkle and Spike, who quivered back at her movement. Twilight saw the fear rampant in their eyes, as well as the confusion she herself had felt when Celestia turned on her just the same as she had turned on three innocent and once loyal subjects.
But Twilight also saw the awe and wonder in their eyes as they looked up at Twilight, the pleading hope that she would save them. But there was another emotion present, something that made Twilight quiver with a fear she had never known, for she saw herself in those eyes, her own reflection—and it scared her just as much if not more than Twilight could see she was scaring her own family.
Even with Celestia and Luna’s horns at their throats, Mr. and Mrs. Sparkle and Spike, bound and gagged, were looking up in awe, hope, and fear at their daughter and closest friend.
Instead of a lavender alicorn, Twilight saw reflected in their eyes a white-coated semblance of rage that had little resemblance to the self-image Twilight had of herself. Instead of a purple mane and tail streaked with pink, Twilight now sported burning columns of flame erupting from her scalp and rear. Instead of deep violet, Twilight’s eyes were as blood-red as the flaming wings flapping at either side.
What had she become? Was this the being Twilight wanted to exist as, be remembered for? A burning personification of fiery loathing and hate?
No. Twilight did feel all those things, deep in her heart, for all Celestia and Luna had done—for all they were even now threatening to do.
But Twilight was not a mare of malignance who simply acted on nothing but her flaming, angered impulses.
Twilight was a calm, organized, planning, studious, determined, magically gifted young mare who loved books and reading and, more than anything, her friends and family. She would let neither herself nor Celestia and Luna turn her into anything but who she really was.
And, if she was all that, then she wasn’t about to blindly rush in to whatever trap Celestia and Luna had planned for her next. Like she had wanted to do since the moment the solar Princess betrayed her, and like she had just done in a void attempt to save the very people she loved.
This time, she would think.
Twilight would defeat Celestia and Luna her way—the only way she knew how.
She would outsmart them.
“Renounce your ties to the Elements and we let your family and your pet live,” Celestia demanded, her horn still poised at Mr. Sparkle’s neck. “Then come quietly into custody and everypony can forget this whole ordeal ever happened.”
“You and I both know that whether or not I renounced the Elements, it wouldn’t make any difference in the end,” Twilight called back. “They’ll never leave me alone until I’ve done what they want me to do, just as they’ll never leave you alone until you’ve done what they want you to do. Which, in this instance, is die.”
“THEN WE SHALL KILL YOUR FAMILY!” Luna roared, and made to plunge her horn into Spike’s throat.
“Wait!” Twilight screamed. Luna halted, but just barely, drawing the tiniest smidgen of draconic blood from a whimpering Spike. “I also know that you’ll kill my family anyway, whether I submit to whatever prison you have planned for me or not. You cannot threaten me with the deaths of your only bargaining chips. Once you kill them, you know I’ll have nothing left to lose, and Discord and I will escape you to return once the Elements are fully charged. THEN we’ll end you.”
“So it appears we’re at a stalemate then,” Celestia stated. “We can neither kill your family nor let them live. Even without the Elements, you are still magically stronger than both of us with Discord on your side, but even he wouldn’t dare attack us when the slightest move would result in the death of your family. But don’t think that he restrains himself out of any compassion for you, Twilight Sparkle. The spirit of disharmony and chaos seeks to serve only himself, and wishes only to avoid your vengeance should his action result in your family’s deaths.”
“Discord and I both want the same thing,” Twilight spat. “Justice. He would no more allow for the deaths of my family with me as a threat as he would if I had already been captured.”
Discord nodded firmly.
“Are you really so blind, Twilight?” Celestia laughed. “How many more lives will you allow your stupidity to end? The draconequus is using you the same way he always used anything and anypony he could to get what he wants. He wants us out of the way, and nothing more—he couldn’t care less about helping you, and the moment this is over, however it ends, Discord will turn on you in an instant.”
“Don’t listen to her Twilight,” Discord cautioned. “She’s just trying to get to you. I should know, she’s using one of my own tricks.”
“She won’t fool me,” Twilight smiled. “Not ever again. Because although I don’t have the raw power to destroy you two Princesses and save my family, even as an alicorn with the Elements of Harmony and Discord as my ally, I do have something you will never have.”
“And what’s that?” Celestia sneered, not a trace of fear in her eyes despite what was about to happen to her.
Twilight almost smiled at her old mentor’s flagrant exemplification of the very things Celestia accused Twilight of being—stupid and dumb. But the alicorn saved that for later. It would spoil the surprise if pulled out to soon, after all.
“The opposite of what you’ve accused me of being, Celestia,” Twilight almost laughed. “You thought that with all your power and my stupidity, you could get away with whatever you wanted. You thought you could kill my friends, turn Equestria into a fear-ridden police state, and threaten my family. But you’re not even close to being right. You have more power than I ever will—you have my family as hostages and you have the united power of day and night, a magic strong enough to even prevent me from teleporting. I couldn’t hold a candle to all your power even if I tried.”
“WE ARE GLAD YOU FINALLY REALIZE THE FUTILITY OF YOUR RESISTANCE,” Luna roared. “NOW, SURRENDER AND—”
“Wait, Luna,” Celestia cut her sister off. “If we’re so powerful and our victory is so certain, then why are you smiling?”
Oops, it had slipped out. Oh, well. Twilight assumed that it would still be quite a surprise.
“Because,” Twilight sneered herself, relishing the uncertainty she saw in Celestia and Luna’s faces. “Even power has to bow to knowledge sometime. And not only was I one of the most gifted unicorns in the history of Equestria in terms of magic—I was also one of the smartest.”
“So?” Celestia spat.
“So I figured out how to undo you entire anti-long-range-teleportation barrier with a single, simple spell,” Twilight smiled all the more broadly, unable to help herself anymore.
“WHAT?!” Luna gasped.
“No,” Celestia tried to convince herself. “You’re bluffing—”
Twilight’s horn sparked, and in that instant, the very air seemed to shatter. All throughout Equestria, windows shuttered, some broke, the bells in towers rang untended, and the magical reverberations of the massive broken spell fell down across the land like transparent snow.
“Quick, Luna, kill them before—” Celestia tried to get out, only to turn and see that Mr. and Mrs. Sparkle, as well as Spike, were gone. All that remained of their ever having been there were empty locks and chains. “NO!”
“Yes,” Twilight smiled. “I’ve hidden them in a place you’ll never find. And now, for a teleportation a little more long-range…”
. . .