It was a month after the Crystal Empire came out of its cursed imprisonment; it was also a month after Sombra was defeated and only his horn survived his body of darkness being dissolved.
It was a bright day in the recently somewhat defrosted northern empire; Cadence and Shining were the only two beings around that could defend the Crystal Empire at the moment. It wasn’t to any stretch of the imagination why this exactly was, but it was mostly since a thousand years ago ‘somebody’ destroyed everyone that resisted in a mad grab for power.
So in essence the Crystal Empire had no defenders and only two rulers who were still trying to get things together and their acts in gear.
Shining was already trying to get some form of military started having been captain of Celestia’s guard previously, so far he wasn’t having any luck except one crystal pony stallion who had a special talent in archery. That crystal pony didn’t have much of a fighting bone in his crystalline body and was mostly a trick shooter, but Shining was taking what he could get at the moment.
Standing on a balcony overlooking her empire Cadance sighed; it was taking a lot of work to get them acclimatized to suddenly being in the future like Princess Luna. Staring out in the distance she saw a disturbance at the train station. Using a sight enhancing spell Cadence backed away from the balcony shaking her head sending her pale yellow pink and purple mane wafting through the air as a worried look appear in her magenta eyes.
“Oh no…” Cadance quickly decided to go with the caps lock voice that alicorns were fond of in times of duress to gather attention and be loud. “All crystal empire citizens are to come to the castle immediately, we are under attack!”
In the distance the train station was swarming with changelings, there weren’t a lot of them though. Just seeing Chrysalis launching an attack on her empire was problematic. Cadance knew they had no soldiers to defend it with other then her husband and she didn’t think another blast of love was getting rid of Chrysalis this time as she still hadn’t recovered very well even after three weeks from the last evil intruder debacle. Cadence quickly erected a barrier over the crystal castle as her crystal pony citizens made it to the center of the city.
At least there was one good thing about the crystal empire that Cadence thought was a boon to them. The changelings couldn’t use their transformational magic because of the crystal hearts protection. Sure the crystal heart could repel and destroy the raw darkness that was Sombra, but it couldn’t repel evil that actually had a body and life in it.
“Cadence what’s going on?” Shining was immediately at her side as she made her way down the stairs of the castle to stand with her citizens.
“We’re being attacked by changelings.” Cadence walked out of the doorway to the large open area underneath the castle where the crystal hearts resting place was for all the crystal ponies to see.
“Cadence the doctor said you had to take it easy after that mess with Sombra, using you’re magic at all caused you pain for the first two weeks after that and you were incredibly frail after holding off Sombra. You’re just now recovering from it!” Shining was exceedingly worried about his wife’s health after that event, sure it may have seemed like the Crystal Heart had restored her energy to full but she dropped the act as soon as Twilight and her friends left.
Cadence had been moving around on borrowed magic from the Crystal Heart and it had exacerbated her already bad condition even if it did supplement her for a while. She now had an empire to run making her being able to relax or recover a novelty at best.
“Well what am I supposed to do? I can’t take on all those changelings and they’ve cut off our avenue for getting a message out.” Truthfully knowing the messaging spell Celestia used would have been useful right about now, Cadence was definitely going to learn it if she gets out of this situation. Her magical powers were pretty much all centered on love, which was her own magical field of expertise, she wasn’t a warrior and her husband was better at defense then he was at offense. Trains didn’t run to the Crystal Empire very often except to bring supplies, said supplies were probably on the train that was now stopped at the station having been overrun by changelings.
“Well at least let me help you with the barrier.” Cadence gave a nod and Shining joined his magic to hers with a tender touch of his horn to hers. They were now sharing the burden at least. “We don’t have much food in the castle and all of its crystal berries. They can siege us, but we have time to come up with some sort of plan or maybe some options.”
The surrounding Crystal Ponies started to voice their worries at hearing this, Shining didn’t sugar coat it for them or Cadence.
“Well what can we do? None of the crystal ponies can fight and their not exactly trained for this, the best we’d have would be a militia that would quickly falter.” Cadences eyes turned to the incoming changelings being led by Chrysalis, she saw less changelings then there were at Canterlot. Had she actually killed that many when she and Shining... she shook her head, now was not the time to focus on that as she had ponies to protect. “The barrier I made last time was to hold off one dark empowered spiritual pony king. This is an army Shining and I don’t think they would go away if we ask nicely; they have the upper hoof on us after all. At least we don’t have to hold a city wide barrier this time we only need to hold the castle.”
“Well one option would be to come to some sort of agreement with them, but I don’t think it’s viable. Another would be for all the Crystal Ponies to swarm them, but throwing our people at them would make us look weak and then we might be attacked by something worse like griffons and I don’t need to explain why that would happen. Not to mention the changelings might actually kill ponies this time if Chrysalis is feeling less then generous.” Breathing in deeply Shining Armor sighed and looked his wife in the eyes with a frown. “Look we’re just not in a real good situation here.”
“You can say that again…” A dark voice said with a musical lilt that leads into a laugh, turning to the changeling queen outside the barrier both Cadence and Shining stood together strong even if they had changelings pounding the shields. “It’s only a matter of time, before you’re barrier fails and no one is coming to help you. So give up already, you’re not going to escape unscathed this time.”
It was queen Chrysalis with her black coat, blue green carapace and long blue mane and tail. She also sported two dragonfly style wings filled with holes that also looked slightly ripped, she also had a horn that looked gnarly and jagged.
“We’ll see about that, we’ll hold the barrier till our last.” Shining said still angry at the queen for previously messing with his mind. Cadence just stood beside her husband glaring at the changeling queen.
“Thus we shall wait till it falls and you’re shiny new empire along with it!” Chrysalis reared back her head cackled.
Cadence sat her flank down and Shining followed her lead as they stared at the queen as she paced a small circle outside the barrier licking her fangs.
Two hours later, something finally happened. It sparked an interest in Chrysalis as it was happening on the other side of the barrier, both Shining and Cadence turned to the crystal heart as it started to spin really fast and shine brightly and slowly its light started to shine on a specific spot on the ground.
“What’s going on?” Shining had asked even if Cadence was as much in the dark as he was, the crystal ponies were also perplexed by the crystal heart suddenly doing something. It was just an artifact that protected the crystal empire from darkness, the fact that it failed to stop Sombra previously meant it wasn’t infallible.
Slowly black lines started to etch themselves into thin air, following that color started to slowly appear and something was starting to form. When it was finished, there was an ornate door glowing in a rainbow of shifting colors just sitting there. The odd thing is, it didn’t seem to have a depth to it and it looked as flat as paper.
Cadence confirmed that it was a paper flat door created by the floating crystal heart, soon the door opened and she could only see darkness from the side she was looking from. Walking around and standing next to shining she saw something in the darkness and could hear the sound of clopping hooves. Only it didn’t sound like a normal pony walking.
Slowly a yellow tipped red hoof coalesced and it was followed by the other hoof taking a step forward and then the upper torso materialized. This was followed the head and a pair of green eyes along with the tail suddenly existing along with the ponies two front legs. The pony continued to walk forward on two legs and took one glance around her surroundings.
She was an earth pony, blatantly red all over and with yellow tips. One glance around with her green eyes they settled on Chrysalis and her awaiting army. She walked up to the barrier looking Chrysalis in the eyes.
“Excuse me, but you wouldn’t happen to know a guy named Bugsy would you?” Chrysalis seemed to become angry at the mention of that name.
“Yes, he took a large portion of my hive with him when he promised there was a better way to acquire the love we need. I’m very much disconnected with the lot of them and I don’t care whatever became of them. What of it?” Chrysalis asked in return for answering the strange earth pony that had just waltz through the magically created doorway, looking at her flank she saw three symbols, an egg, a gold jigsaw piece and finally a depiction of the blue backpack that the mare just happened to be wearing.
“Did Bugsy give you my warning?” Now at this Chrysalis slammed angrily into the barrier, putting her hooves up against the barrier in a fit of anger. Even now Cadence and Shining were holding it to the best of their ability and weren’t anywhere near strained yet.
“So it was you!” Chrysalis yelled angrily and with vehemence while pointing her hoof at the pony.
The interfering pony that walked out of the currently closed door that the crystal heart created just quirked an eye at Chrysalis, she looked rather bored that the bug queen was angry at her.
“I’m taking a guess that you’re the princess of bugging people and the reason that your army is so small is because of that list of things to do that I gave to Bugsy?” Looking the queen up and down with indifference the pony continued. “I’ll admit you don’t really seem to be too interested in the survival of your species, if you’re attacking a location I happen to have magically appeared in. After all, that threat I made is to be taken seriously. Okay would someone mind telling me what you call this place? It’s a pretty gaudy.”
“You’re currently in the Crystal Empire and… wait… I know you…” Shining narrowed his eyes at the pony she looked rather familiar to him.
“Did you just say empire? Where I’m from that usually means headaches or bad news, you really should rename the place a kingdom or at least call it a city. Being an empire is just asking for...” Looking over her shoulder at Chrysalis, the pony turned back to Shining. “Never mind, it’s kind of late to be saying you’re asking for trouble at this juncture. Still haven’t heard of an empire that’s just one city though.”
“Now I remember where I’ve seen you from, you were an alicorn, The Princess of Adventure! You’re also known as Kazooie, that nut job pegasus pony that pounded Canterlot Castle with all that pudding!” Shining was angry, but he wasn’t about to divert any magic from the barrier to attack the most annoying creature Celestia has ever met, even Discord paled in comparison when she was around. “What in the world are you doing here? Also why are you an Earth Pony?”
“Really… the pudding is what you remember me for and not being able to truly physically shape shift at will, pull an incredible assortment of strange things out of my backpack or doing the impossible on a general basis?” Kazooie considered this before coming up with something else to say, Chrysalis wasn’t hearing anything she was mumbling. “I knew I should have dropped the nine hundred pounds of smiley turnips from Subcon on that castle instead.”
“You didn’t answer my question what exactly are you doing here, where did that doorway come from and why don’t you currently have wings and a horn?” Shining was so tempted to pull his magic away from his barrier to just strangle this creature he knew wasn’t naturally a pony; it took him weeks to get the smell of vanilla pudding out of his armor and along with a few days to scour it.
“The Princess of Adventure… Shining who in the world is this pony?” Cadence had no clue as to who this pony was, but it sounds like Shining armored was a little more than steamed at her and she certainly didn’t look like a princess.
It didn’t even take a second for Kazooie to start examining Cadence up close and then she looked to Shining Armor and back to Cadence.
“I’m thinking until he dies of old age, you’ll outlive him you know… but you’ll be happy with him even if he is a bit of a klutz and an idiot at times.” Then after stating this Kazooie started studying Shining Armor. “Yep, he definitely only has eyes for you sweet flanks. I’ll throw in a good word for him to be reincarnated faster with the reapers the next time I die. Wait at least twenty years after he dies and search for someone with almost his personality exactly, you’ll find him again eventually.”
Cadence sputtered disbelievingly at Kazooie’s examination, she was the Princess of Love and this pony had accurately deduced the things she had been worrying about for a while now. This unknown pony had a match making talent that rivaled her own and then there was that talk of reincarnation and knowing reapers. Speaking of which the pony identified as Kazooie was looking into Chrysalis’s raging green eyes through the barrier.
“Hmm… you’d be hard to place with anyone, you’re easy to anger, you have no social or leadership skills and you’re really blind to trying new things even if it’s completely beneficial to do so.” After a moment Kazooie studied the angry queen whose bug like wings with holes fluttered agitatedly at her. “Quite frankly you have very few redeeming qualities and its no wonder the only beings left in your entire army are all worker drones who happen to be idiots that don’t know any better. I’m not sure on this, but I think some of them might have a talent for musical instruments.”
Queen Chrysalis looked back at the remnants of her army and after taking a moment to look them over she realized that the mare was right. The only changelings left with her were all complete idiots that still liked her even with how horrible she treats them and they were doggedly loyal to her to boot.
“Stop ignoring me, what are you doing here, why aren’t you an alicorn and how did you get the crystal heart to make a door for you to come out of?” Shining now shouted at Kazooie who actually paid him some full attention for once.
“Excuse me, but did you say something? I swear I can hear blood vessels popping somewhere around here.” Cadence quickly dove on top of her husband to stop him from getting at Kazooie; his hooves were scrabbling at the stone in his attempt to reach the red pony.
“Shining, calm down… we’re still in the middle of a little invasion problem.” Cadence said calmly trying to keep her husband from acting on his instinct to throttle Kazooie, even if she was somewhat asking for it given her nonchalant appearance in the face of a rather dire situation for the Crystal Empire. “Can we use that door to send for help?”
“No…” Kazooie answered Cadence bluntly.
“Well why not? We’re sort of in the middle of a siege here.” Around this time Shining had finally managed to calm down and Cadence slowly stopped straddling him even if she didn’t want to let go. She’d rather not be stuck in that compromising position in front of her subjects.
“You’re new to this whole ruling thing aren’t you? It’s kind of apparent when you have no army to defend yourself with and the current rulers are the only ones capable of defending everything here.” Kazooie closed her eyes and crossed her hooves over her chest. “I came here through that door with the express purpose of scouting out the surrounding area for when the others come through. Running from you’re problem won’t save you, you’d be stuck in another world and the crystal heart would be in the changelings hooves if you went with that action. Besides this was my only way back into Equestria so you don’t even need to guess why it’s not really an option for you at this juncture especially when I’m not willing to open the door for you in the first place.”
“Now I want to know how you used the crystal heart to get here. Also my name is Cadence and I’m the Princess of Love, that’s my husband Shining Armor and the large changeling outside the barrier is Chrysalis. Those over there are the crystal ponies; you seem to be well aware of what changelings are from what you have said so far.” Cadence watched as the figure Shining called Kazooie wandered on her two hooves towards the crystal heart.
“Well now, that would be telling. Ponies, changelings, prince and princesses I am the odd and intriguing Kazooie, Princess of Adventure.” The red earth pony started with flair of her right hoof sweeping in an arc leaving a trail of sparkles behind, she would have continued if she hadn’t been cut off by Chrysalis.
“I’m a queen you fool!” Kazooie just rounded on Chrysalis with a glare.
“That’s miss fool to you princess!” Kazooie stated with all seriousness. “And besides if you were crowned a queen why wasn’t I invited to the wedding.”
“I have never had a mate and though I have tried to marry him, that plan fell through!” Turning to the one pony Chrysalis pointed at Kazooie raised an eye at her.
“So… technically, you’re a princess? I guess you’re really in a lot of denial by this point.” A bunch of changelings and Chrysalis slammed against the barrier following their enraged, mostly a queen, princess.
“I am not in denial, I am the queen!” Looking to Cadence and Shining, Kazooie turned to Chrysalis who was trying to force her way through the barrier.
“If there is anyone that’s a queen around here it’s her, but she introduced herself as a princess so I guess it’s more of a preference for her.” Now Kazooie had two beings who didn’t like her, Shining Armor and Chrysalis after pointing out Cadence as being the queenliest out of all of them. “So… what happened? Jilted at the altar because of Cadence by Shining?”
“Actually it was part of a plot to take over Canterlot using mind control to try and marry the stallion I love. Then she was going to perform a sneak attack at night to capture everybody unaware, it kind of fell through when Twilight Sparkle, Shining’s little sister, saved me and then things just became awkward from there.” After a moment’s thought and a frown on her face, Cadence decided to add her own thoughts to it. “Yeah she kind of was jilted at the altar now that I think about it, I’m also glad that Shining was still a virgin after that.”
“I may be plotting you’re demise, but I’m not that evil.” Chrysalis said blandly. “Would have made some good revenge if that got me pregnant with his foal, but I don’t think I’m ready for motherhood quite yet.”
“So in essence you’re still a princess with a chip on your shoulder and just like proclaiming that you are a queen because it makes you feel better about yourself.” Chrysalis just glared at Kazooie for saying that. “Well what do I do now? I’m kind of bored and I’m feeling responsive to suggestions and possibly quests someone could ask of me.”
Chrysalis knew she had to bide her time, if she tired herself out on the barrier she’d be incapable of taking down Cadence again. She’s taken her down before and she can take down Shining armor too, she was just slightly unlucky that Cadence saw her invasion of the train station to warn her people in time.
“Well you could help us figure out how to get out of this mess.” Cadence motioned with her hoof to her subjects all gathered protectively around the Crystal Heart, she got the hint that Kazooie wanted her to ask for help. “My people don’t exactly have a trained guards as you very well pointed out and we really don’t have any supplies to survive a siege and it’ll be a while before anyone comes looking into our situation. I’d think of a way to repay you for helping us in our time of need.”
“I guess solar butt really doesn’t care that much about what you’re doing then as long as you don’t cause her any trouble. Funny I’d thought she’d lend you some of her soldiers considering her kingdom has a ton of them, then again they aren’t the best at spotting intruders.” Looking at Shining Armor, Kazooie gave a slight smirk. “I after all managed to bypass her guards all the time, launched several successful attacks against the castle and nailed Celestia with a plethora of banana cream pies. So it looks like it’s all pretty much up to me whether or not this ends well for you.”
“Oh please, and what are you going to do? You’re just an earth pony right now!” Shining yelled in her face sending some of her short mane blowing backwards.
“You know, you should really do something about you’re husbands rampant racism Cadence.” Turning to Cadence, Kazooie smiled as she rolled her eyes. “Also I could take all of them and Chrysalis as a so called earth pony… you really have no idea how powerful an earth pony is, do you?”
“Oh and I suppose you can show us? Growing food in here might actually help us out and you might take down a few changelings when the barrier comes down.” Shining said in a tone that pretty much meant he didn’t think Kazooie could actually do anything to help the situation.
“Not only is he a racist, but he’s a underestimating jerk too… why did you marry him again? If I were in your position I would have left him to the changelings.” Kazooie knew she could take the changeling army and she could do it without leaving the barrier too. “Then again he is kind of cute when he’s being dumb.”
Cadence walked over to the mare standing on her hind legs and put a hoof on her shoulder while looking her in the face.
“Can you truly help us?” Kazooie nodded to Cadence as a response. “How would you go about doing that?”
“I have several methods actually. I could do it the fast way, the slow way and then there’s the way where I just beat everyone up. Well except you and the Crystal Ponies, they don’t look happy with Shining since the earth ponies must be distant cousins.” Looking over to the Crystal Ponies they currently weren’t happy with Shining as Kazooie had stated. “As long as you pay me for it, I’m willing and able to beat the ever ‘loving’ tar out of everyone you point me at Cadence. Oh and knocking your husband out on the principle of the matter is now also non negotiable.”
“Um… are you sure you can take Chrysalis and all those changelings?” Kazooie gave Cadence a flat look and nodded once again. Cadence took a few steps away from Kazooie and stood with her crystal pony subjects. “Well if you must. I’ll think of a way to humbly give you recompense for your direly needed aid. That is if you can do everything you say you can, then I promise.”
“We have a deal then. I’m kind of surprised that the hearths warming tale doesn’t just have earth ponies owning both the pegasus and unicorn armies.” Kazooie rubbed the back of her head and stared at the pillar sticking above and below the floating crystallized heart. “I guess none of them quite knew their own strength. Thanks for doing business Princess of Love, this Princess of Adventure is about to show you why you never underestimate the underestimated. I could turn into an alicorn at any time I choose, but I’d rather just stick to the basics for right now.”
Turning to Shining, Kazooie brought up her hooves in a boxer pose and thrust them forward several times while bouncing around on her hind legs.
“Oh come on, you’re just one pony what difference could you make. Even if you are trained for combat I was captain of Celestia’s guard and I could just levitate…” Shining didn’t get any further or have time to focus a defense as Kazooie blurred forward and spun around once before throwing a sharp right hoof to Shining’s skull. She knocked him flat out with one hit.
He flew back and hit the barrier on the far side of the castle and Cadence quickly made her way over to him to make sure he was alright. The barrier surrounding the castle weakened to half its strength and Cadence had to quickly keep it stable. Cadence winced as she had agreed to the non negotiable part without actually questioning it, so she had no one to blame but herself for this.
“And that’s why you never call Little Mac a wimp. I was unlucky enough to do no permanent harm or brain damage. Also, I’ll have you know I make a huge difference everywhere I go.” The red pony stated walking over to stand over the unconscious body of the prince. She slowly turned around and walked towards the barrier where all the changelings were congregating and stopped at the very edge to stare down Chrysalis. “Know this, I’m giving you one clean shot against me and after that… you and every single changeling under you’re command will lose this battle. I did after all send you warning ahead of time this would happen if I somehow magically caught you pulling this kind of crap, I’m not going to kill any of you though. I’m going to thank the magic later.”
“Do you seriously think I’m afraid of you?” In answer to Chrysalis’s question Kazooie stepped through the barrier and stared the self labeled queen down.
Cadence didn’t stop Kazooie from going through the barrier; it wasn’t like she had any better hope at the moment anyway with her husband knocked out by the crazy pony.
“If you aren’t you better be soon… remember you have one shot and here I am completely out in the open not defending myself. Make it count or you’re in for a world of hurt.” Chrysalis leapt back to charge up her horn with a sickly green glowing energy and sent a beam slamming into Kazooie’s head.
Cadence put a hoof to her mouth knowing which spell Chrysalis was currently using on Kazooie, she hoped that Kazooie would be able to resist the mind control. Looking at Kazooie, she could see that the pony in question didn’t even seem to be batting an eye at the stream of energy wrapping around her head. Sure the spell didn’t last long, it needed to be used repeatedly and while in effect it can only be used on one target and that target alone until the effects wear off entirely.
After a moment of complete silence and hearing nothing but the continued hum of the beam in question, it finally stopped surging from Chrysalis’s horn. Chrysalis started to slowly back away with her tail between her legs and her ears laid flat.
Cadence in a sitting position cradled her husband to her chest as she watched on; she really hadn’t expected Kazooie to be faster or more powerful than an average earth pony. Even if he was helping her hold up the barrier Shining could have still put up a good fight if he wasn’t taken down so fast. Cadence stopped feeling as if the situation was as dire as it could have been; in fact it was starting to lean towards the comically depressing. If Kazooie was that fast as an earth pony, then how fast was she as an alicorn with the speed of a pegasus?
“You’re one shot was an attempt at mind control? You really wasted it you know.” Kazooie’s eyes stared sharply into the frightened changeling princess’s eyes along with that of her meager barely battle worthy soldiers, what the changeling couldn’t have known was that Kazooie had a Ribbon Relic equipped alongside a Celestriad Relic in her RPG equipment screen. “Excuse me for what I’m about to do to your subjects.”
“Swarm her now!” Chrysalis called out in a panic.
The changelings surged forward willing and able to please their leader whether she was a queen or a princess. From their point of view the pony standing on her hind legs simply lifted her left leg and stomped down on it. They didn’t know what they hit.
After a mild amount of confusion and suddenly recovering from sudden concussions, the changelings realized a circular wall of stone had materialized in front of them. Soon the wall slowly sunk back into the ground and nothing was behind it.
“I swear it’s like watching Pikmin at work, what with the bringing down walls with their heads and all.” Chrysalis jumped a good twenty feet into the air and started flapping her wings at the voice that was suddenly right next to her. Kazooie just looked up at Chrysalis. “You wouldn’t happen to need a whistle to control them would you?”
“How did you… I don’t even…” Cadence watched as Chrysalis try to form coherent words over the next few seconds.
Cadence from her position saw the wall rise up all around the pony within a split second and then saw Kazooie just sprout out of the ground from a molehill shaped mound of dirt before the ground returned to normal.
“I’m currently an earth pony, the how is not in question here as there is the word ‘earth’ in my current species as defined by everyone here. Is this not so?” Kazooie looked up to quirk an eye at the airborne Chrysalis with a smarmy smirk on her face. “As such you’re not safe as long as you’re touching the ground as with the changelings that have recently suffered head injuries.”
Lifting her right leg Kazooie rapidly stomped it down several times. A snarl of weak stone tentacles sprung up with each stomp to smack around the grounded changelings battering them before encasing them. The other changelings had taken to the air and stayed away from the ground and the stone cage their brethren where now stuck in alongside being completely unconscious and out of the fight.
“Stay away from the ground!” Chrysalis harshly barked after witnessing at least twenty of her changelings were dazed and pinned down.
“You know, you’re not even safe up there.” Kazooie lazily stated. “I would suggest you make this easier on all of us and surrender. If you do I will be a bit lighter when I dish out the pain to your forces.”
“Fool, I don’t even know the meaning of surrender!” Chrysalis stated proudly only to get smacked in the face with something, pulling it away with her hooves she realized it was a book and she looked at the words underlined in the bookmarked portion of it. She read the underlined part out loud. “To cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority?”
“There now you know the meaning and have no excuse not to!” Yep, the crazy transformed bird just threw a dictionary at her. “So what are you going to do now? Run away like a coward or attack me and lose the rest of your forces.”
“We could just attack you from up here with energy bolts. There has got to be a limit to your earth moving abilities.” Chrysalis had brightened up at the idea; she could stay entirely out of Kazooie’s range. Too bad she didn’t know Kazooie could return fire, she was right about the limit on Kazooie’s geomancy though.
Kazooie didn’t want to go alicorn or transform back into a bird yet, she couldn’t very well launch attacks beyond a certain strength using earth pony magic unless her opponents were touching the ground or she was performing a defensive maneuver. She could always fly up there riding a rock, but it would be limited to the size, shape and mass of a surfboard which would also limit her attacks she could do. She could always just use rapid fire golden egg mode, but that would have been boring.
“Well you’re right about the limit of my ability… but I just want you to know this will sting quite a bit. I’ve always wanted to use this spell in an overkill manner.” Soon Kazooie was chanting and holding her hooves in front of herself clapped together.
“Oh what are you doing now?” Chrysalis asked intrigued that Kazooie seemed to be gearing up for something. “Are you even listening to me?”
It seemed as if Kazooie was continuing to ignore Chrysalis and continued chanting, starting to glow slightly.
“Attack her!” Chrysalis fired a bolt of energy and was followed by her changelings and Kazooie persisted her chanting even under the constant barrage of energy slightly injuring her. “Keep at it; she must not be able to complete whatever it is she’s doing.”
All Kazooie had to do was get the spell off and this battle would be over, so she endured while keeping her concentration until she could cast it. It was a well known spell from the video game worlds, only seen in a specific series of RPG games. It was explosively powerful and it was Kazooie’s favorite spell, but the casting time and magic point consumption was murder on her survivability. Of all the black magic to use this one could level most of the surrounding area. She was banking on Earth Pony endurance to see her through.
Cadence watched as Kazooie withstood the power of at least sixty changelings and their queen, for the next two minutes she would be battered and injured and she just kept chanting. Around this point Shining came around.
“Did anybody get the number of that donkey cart?” Shining groaned and felt his wife hug him tightly, he sat up and saw Kazooie being pelted and standing outside the barrier. “What is she doing? Why is she just standing there taking all that?”
“She said something about using a spell.” Cadence answered swiftly.
“But Earth Ponies can’t actively use magic, they use passive magic.” Shining stated slowly watching as Kazooie continue her chant, despite her injuries adding up exponentially.
“Tell that to her, whatever she’s doing now it’s going to be big. Put up a barrier for her Shiny, I’ll hold the castles.” Shining grunted angrily and looked away but then his face was turned back to his wife by her magic and she gave him a cute puppy eyes look. “Please… do it for me?”
“Alright, but I still don’t like her. She did after all knock me out.” Lighting his horn Shining put up a protective field that started absorbing the changeling’s attacks. The next few minutes would strain him a bit. If one were to look up ‘whipped’ and ‘cream’ in the dictionary they’d see a picture of what Shining and Cadence thought was a really good time.
After the ten minute mark of constant chanting Kazooie opened her green eyes and they were glowing brightly. She smiled took two steps forward and raised her hooves to the sky. A bright red shine came off of her body. The end result of a ten minute casting time and losing hundreds of hit points for this one spell. Next time she would cast haste on herself.
“ULTIMA!” Kazooie called out the name of the attack and out of her maximum of two hundred magic point’s pool, she only lost thirty. This was even with the help of the Celestriad relic she had equipped.
Meanwhile far away and in Canterlot enjoying her tea, Celestia sat on the north facing balcony relaxing after having dealt with some of the most annoying ponies alive. At least they weren’t as bad as Kazooie had been. Why just the thought of her being back in Equetria would send her into quite a tizzy.
Taking a sip of her tea Celestia saw Luna fly up in front of the chair she was sitting in to say something and then she saw a huge blast of light from the north behind her sister. The shockwave could be felt and seen from this far away, that light was blaring off into space possibly attracting eyes from across the land. Celestia immediately spewed her tea in Luna’s face in the most unbecoming manner.
Luna instead of getting mad at Celestia just turned to the huge column of light reaching endlessly to the sky. Luna could pretty much predict what Celestia was thinking. Whatever that was, it was more powerful then the elements of harmony and it came from the Crystal Empire. They had to send an investigation immediately.
Celestia slowly stood up and went to write something in a scroll about the beam of raw magical force that erupted from the crystal empire. Before she could even put a quill to the paper she magically received a message from Twilight, she sighed slightly. It had been one month since the crystal empire was saved and now it seemed to have just exploded violently.
Elsewhere somewhat close to the Crystal Empire a mare with a raven mane wearing a pith helmet was just walking out of the temple of an ancient civilization had an artifact that was basically a bejeweled golden unicorn horn sculpture.
She saw the huge column of light in the distance towards where the snowy wastes the Crystal Empire was said to have reappeared at last month. She reached up with her right hoof and tipped her pith helmet over her eyes, she now had something interesting to look into. The bejeweled unicorn horn could wait and so could her next amazing novel based on the death traps she’s recently survived.
“Well Daring Do, whatever created that light has got to be something worth studying and it looks like I have my next adventure settled for me.” She spread her wings, licked her lips and launched towards the east. The crystal empire was an ancient city that still had living ponies and would be fun to explore, though there wouldn’t be treasure. That was unless that blast had ultimately destroyed everything, then she’d be there first to pick up the remnants of a recently destroyed reappeared empire.
In the Ponyville library, Twilight counted down the exact time of arrival for each of her friends, ticking off the seconds she quickly flicked her horn to a nearby window and it opened before Rainbow could crash into it. This was Twilights way to avoid once again having to pay for the repairs. Instead Twilight laments that she had to pick up a book shelf and all the books that spilled on the floor.
Turning to a potted plant Twilight was about to say something the spun around and pointed at Pinkie and quickly bopped her lightly on the nose.
“Hah, knew you’d know I would go for the plant so you could appear exactly behind me to try and surprise me!” Twilight cheered at her prediction of the unpredictable for once, by being exactly unpredictable herself as a bit of irony.
“Wow my Pinkie Sense was right; I did hear something surprising from a friend soon!” Pinkie said jovially bouncing in place.
After a counting down a few more seconds Twilight aimed her horn and focused at the front door, Applejack ran straight through it into another one of her bookcases after slipping on the loose carpeting. Twilight sighed yet again and face hoofed. Counting down from ten, when she finished Twilight turned to Rarity and Fluttershy just arriving through the open door.
“Rarity, please don’t say anything and I don’t want to hear your sparkling commentary when we have a possible emergency on hoof.” The mare in question already had her mouth halfway open before she shut it at Twilights request. Twilight closed the door after Fluttershy slowly ambled into the libraries main room.
“So what exactly is happening Twilight if you’re so well informed?” Rainbow received her answer in the form of a letter from Celestia.
Twilight open the piece of paper and looked through it quickly.
“Something happened to Cadence and my brother. Celestia wants us to go investigate whatever happened at the Crystal Empire or whatever’s left of it, if there is anything. She’s arranged us some transportation and to think they were just starting to integrate more train schedules to and from there.” Looking to all of her friends in turn, Twilight noted they were all staring at her with worry. “Why are all of you looking at me like that?”
“Uh, hello… giant explosion of energy at the crystal empire, shouldn’t you be worrying about your brother and Cadence even a little bit? You know, going all nuts right about now?” Rainbow hoped the jousting grounds had survived whatever that explosion was.
“I’m not going to worry about it until we get there.” Twilight was of course worried for her brother and Cadence’s safety; she mostly hoped that the Crystal Empire library wasn’t damaged. To think all that knowledge suddenly snuffed out because of some random cataclysm.
Fluttershy was silently hoping the jousting grounds hadn’t survived whatever had happed, even if it was slightly mean of her to be thinking those thoughts. She did want to see the tiny ewes again, they were so cute. She really hoped nothing bad happened to them.
Rarity had hoped the crystal ponies were alright, she was going to have so many new clients when the crystal ponies started exploring outside their empire.
Applejack was going to start a small trade agreement with Cadence; even then she still hoped the crystal ponies were okay.
Pinkie didn’t think anyone she liked was critically injured; she wanted to make a party to celebrate whatever it is that just happened there depending on the situation they come across.
“Well I guess we’re waiting for a ride to the crystal empire girls. I’ve already got some travel bags with you guys in mind already” Twilight was not about to say it, but she expected something like this was going to happen eventually. So she spent a bit of time preparing luggage in case of a traveling emergency, she had learned to prepare ahead for this eventuality from Pinkie Pie of all ponies. They had emergency situations more than once a month to warrant it, just like Ponyville’s monster shelters.
Twilight levitated a bag loaded with a medical kit, among other things to Fluttershy. This was followed by levitating a bag loaded with old wonderbolt magazines and salty snacks for Rainbow, a bag filled with fresh apples to Applejack plus a few accessories including a length of rope, Pinkie Pie’s bag was loaded with candy and sugary confections and Twilights own had a few books and some survival rations.
“Okay that’s all very nice, but what about me darling?” Rarity looked hurt that Twilight wouldn’t plan a quick travel bag for her.
“Rarity if I had to plan a ready travel bag for you, it’d require me to steal everything that you own in your boutique.” After a moment Rarity chose to respond to this by blushing in embarrassment, yeah Twilight wouldn’t have been able to exactly plan for her.
Rarity silently admitted she would have fussed over the bag Twilight made anyway and would suggest that she packed for herself. So in essence, she couldn’t blame Twilight or rightfully get angry with her as she already took her thoughts into consideration.
“Fine I’ll go pack; I hope I have enough time to choose out the right hats and matching scarves. It does get a might chilly up there when the crystal heart isn’t warming the surrounding area… kind of reminds me of the hearths warming tale.” After a moment Rarity shrugged off the thought and ran off to pack.
Rainbow shrugged and sat down to read an old magazine while she waited and Fluttershy snuggled up next to her to read over her shoulder. Slowly Rainbows left wing stretched out, it pulled Fluttershy close to her body and even then she didn’t take her eyes off the magazine.
Watching the two winged ponies cuddling Pinkie sighed, why couldn’t Applejack like her like that? Oh well, what mattered was that they were all friends. Still Pinkie wanted Applejack to get some rope and…
It was going to be a while before they reached the Crystal Empire.
Meanwhile at ground zero at the Crystal Empire, none of the buildings were destroyed and the entire area around was cleaner than normal.
The Crystal Ponies were immune to being blinded by bright lights and were just staring at the pile of changeling bodies faintly twitching on the ground.
One of the changelings was still barely able to stay propped up on one hoof and it was the self proclaimed queen Chrysalis. Her carapace was terribly cracked, she had three broken legs and her wings were completely sheared off by the raw magical force, oddly enough her blue mane and tail were completely fine and undamaged.
Chrysalis was slowly bleeding out where most of her body lay and with blurry eyes she looked up at Kazooie who was prodding her own horn with a hoof as she flared her feathered wings. So the red earth pony was a princess after all, was the current thought on Chrysalis’s mind as she labored to breath.
“Note to self, my absurdly powerful spells that have an equally absurdly long cast time causes immediate transformation straight into an alicorn. Ugh, this is going to be annoying when I want to use my more powerful spells as other pony types. Also the crystals in this empire caused such a horrible blinding glare.” After a moment Kazooie looked down at Chrysalis and it wasn’t with hatred. “I think you’ve learned you’re lesson. So on a scale of one to ten how much pain do you think you are in.”
“Does… a hundred… count?” Then Chrysalis’s last leg fell down with a sharp crack, along with the changeling queen struggling to even get out an agonized scream. “Kill… me…”
“Eh, you’ll live. I did nothing permanent, by my definition anyway, to any of your army. If I wanted to kill you or your changelings, I could have just let the spell take you too fast for you to even feel pain from it to begin with.” Kazooie turned to Cadence who was still blinking the spots out of her eyes as she carefully trotted over to them. It was chalked up to alicorn regenerative abilities by Kazooie that Cadence was still able to see pretty well after that.
Shining was stumbling around and was saying something about being blind. Cadence stopped, sighed and made her way over to her husband to drag him over to Kazooie who was standing over a magically maimed Chrysalis.
“What are you going to do to them Kazooie?” Cadence was almost afraid to ask this question, the devastating power that came off of Kazooie was incredible for the ten minute warm up time it took.
“I’ll heal them and then send them on their way, but first.” Clapping her hooves together she started chanting and within seconds she cast her first spell on all surrounding targets to make sure they weren’t permanently blinded. With a green glow encompassing a massive area, Kazooie called out her spell. “Esuna!”
“Hey, I can see again!” Shining said blinking his eyes and looking into Cadences, he heard his wife sigh with relief.
“Now to help the changelings return to some semblance of health before sending them on their way.” Another chant and Kazooie called the other spell to make sure the changeling’s injuries were less severe than they had been, this one had taken a bit longer then her previous spell did. “Curaga!”
Chrysalis felt a jolt shoot through her entire body as it was covered in a mass of green sparkles; she felt there wasn’t nearly as much pain now. That alicorn had so much power… Chrysalis felt something was wrong with her as she stared at the red creature that started to gather her subjects together behind her prone body. She couldn’t move even if her carapace had miraculously recovered and her wings were currently back where they belonged.
“Feeling better?” After receiving a strained nod from the floored Chrysalis, Kazooie smiled. “Good, don’t cause any more trouble then and I won’t have to hurt you like this again… Falcon PUNCH!”
Pulling back her right hoof Kazooie launched it into Chrysalis’s body in the form of a flaming falcon sending her and her changelings flying into the distance and out of the Crystal Empire.
While Chrysalis was in the air she didn’t feel as much pain as she was expecting from Kazooie’s last attack. In fact some really weird thoughts crossed through Chrysalis’s mind as she and her changelings were flying uncontrollably through the air. At least they had a soft landing as they slammed into some deep snow; even with how cold the snow was Chrysalis felt for the lack of a better word… warm.
“You healed them and then you launched them from the Crystal Empire? Well I’m glad that was resolved in a, ahem, somewhat slightly peaceful manner.” After closing her eyes, Cadence had to think on this for a bit before she opened her eyes staring down a bright pair of green eyes. “Well I guess it was no worse than when me and Shining last sent them flying, so what exactly happened to the rest of Chrysalis’s forces if they left her and what does it have to do with you?”
“You’re just now asking about that? You’d probably find them being pet sitters, caring for random animals and running an animal sanctuary or two in Hoofington… and maybe also hanging around the places new red light district.” The look on Cadences face was calm acceptance until Kazooie got to that last one.
“I really wish I hadn’t asked about that.” Cadence muttered to herself red in the face with her wings ruffling a bit at the thought of so many changelings doing stuff like that.
“Can we get this over with?” Shining said tersely.
Turning to Shining, Cadence noticed he had a scowl on his face. Looking to Kazooie now in the form of an alicorn she wondered if her husband was going to do anything drastic. Also there was the fact that she owed Kazooie a great debt for stopping the changeling’s invasion. Sighing Cadence stepped forward.
“Citizens of the Crystal Empire, the crisis is over you can now go about your business while I work out compensation for aid lent by the Princess of Adventure!” The crystal ponies gave Cadence a polite bow and finally started to carefully move away from the crystal heart and the ever present wonder of a two dimensional door it created.
Eventually the shiny ponies all started to trust that everything was okay and then started making an earnest effort to return to their lives.
“Now if you’ll follow me and Shining, we’ll need to discuss some things amongst ourselves.” Cadence noted that Kazooie continued to walk on her hind legs in a smooth manner without trouble. She really wanted to ask, but didn’t know how to bring it up knowing that the question was rather pointless as it seemed to be Kazooie’s preferred method of locomotion.
A few minutes later in the throne room they Cadence was seated with Shining at her side and Kazooie in front of her.
“Okay I’ll start it off since you don’t seem like you’re going to ask me any questions. First off I want safe passage for two to Ponyville. Second I wish for temporary asylum for me and some of my friends who are going to stay here for a few days in your kingdom before moving out to accomplish my goals. Last I would like the anonymity as being the one that saved your kingdom or how I came to be here to begin with.” After a moment Kazooie was now looking at Cadence expectantly.
“Who are the two ponies that need passage to Ponyville? I can give you the asylum and anonymity, even to the point you were never here if need be. I swear on my word as a princess, if asked I’ll say the crystal heart aided us in defending the empire from a changeling attack.” That wasn’t a lie at all; the crystal heart did bring Kazooie to her empire and as such was aided. “I’m curious… just what are your goals?”
“Well there are these two ponies that are waiting on the other side of the door that I came through who just want to go home. If I told you my goals, you probably wouldn’t let me stay here for the next two days I need to scout the surrounding area to build a mini map.” Something didn’t sit right with Cadence about Kazooie’s answer.
“If I can promise to personally not rescind my gift of asylum and anonymity will you tell me your goals then?” Cadence offered as she wanted to know what someone whose specialty was adventuring was going to lead to.
“Only if you can make your husband and the rest of the kingdom promise to do the same, otherwise my business is my own.” Despite the bland tone there was a hint of annoyance in there coming from Kazooie.
“What? Cadence please tell me you’re not going to agree to that.” Shining said immediately.
“Shining, tell me, who wears the dress in this relationship?” Cadence said while smiling sweetly at her husband.
Shining blushed and looked away with a strange look crossing his face and just uttered two words. “You do.”
“I can see why that would be a problem for you, you are quite cunning to bring it to my attention. I Pinkie Pie promise that my empire will allow you your asylum and anonymity, but why do you keep calling it a kingdom?” It was a curiosity, sure Cadence knew Kazooie said something about it earlier, but that didn’t explain why she didn’t want to call this place an empire.
“Well it’s practically a kingdom anyway and an empire denotes negative sounding connotations, also where I’m from everyone tries to avoid empires or any mention of them and you don’t call yourself an empress. The word empire means trouble so I’ll keep calling this a kingdom out of safety reasons thank you… also is Pinkie Pie anywhere around here?” Kazooie started looking shifty and slowly reached for her backpack with a hoof.
“No, but I know her. Now what exactly are your goals here in Equestria?” Kazooie took on a thinking pose and Cadence waited patiently for her to come up with an answer that was hopefully truthful.
“Well… I’m going to rob idiots blind, steal from people’s homes at random, lie about some things or tell half truths when it’s for convenience, cheat whenever I can, get into a lot of fights, take over other countries, annoy solar butt to no end, end up doing a bunch of questionable stuff while drunk, destroy buildings at random, cause tons of collateral damage I will never take responsibility for and eventually take over the world thus reaching my final goal of saving Equestria.” After laying out everything Kazooie couldn’t help but see the surprised looks on her current hosts faces. “Hello, what do you think happens on adventures? Especially when I’m involved? It’s pretty much hectic chaos from here on out so get used to hearing about me when I leave to start building my own kingdom and forces.”
Shining would have said she would never get away with her plans for world domination or at least warn someone of all the stuff she’s going to be doing, but Cadence Pinkie Pie promised… and nobody ever broke a Pinkie Pie promise, they could only bend it. Shining once broke a Pinkie Pie promise and he never wanted to go back there again. He really hadn’t meant the promise before hoof, but he still went through the motions and when he broke the promise Pinkie miraculously found him within two minutes of doing so.
Cadence narrowed her eyes before stopping and smiling.
“Okay then, but can you at least tell me what you’re saving Equestria from by taking it over? Please.” Cadence asked nicely tilting her head to act as cute as she possibly could.
“No, but we can have an alliance. I’m not truly doing all this because I’m evil you know.” Lazily Kazooie stretched out her back and flicked her ears a bit. “Well maybe the world conquest thing might be evil.”
“With the way Celestia tells it, you’d think she crawled out of the underworld to torment her personally.” Shining said quietly to Cadence who quickly shushed him.
“I’ll agree to this alliance, we’ll work up a nice contract later.” Shining just stared mutely at Cadence with a dropped jaw, he was probably thinking she just went insane.
Not that Cadence really condoned taking over the world mind you, but you didn’t just become a princess without earning a title and the circumstances attached to it. She was ready for some adventures right about now after all the paperwork she’s been doing throughout the last month mostly by hoof as her horn ached slightly from its recent usage.
It took an alicorn to know an alicorn and Kazooie was friendly, even if she comes off as a jerk she had a heart of gold that Cadence just couldn’t believe and she could see other ponies hearts in a literal fashion… it was also the loneliest heart she’s ever seen in her life next to Celestia and Luna’s when they weren’t next to each other. Cadence wouldn’t even know how to explain it to Shining how she knew Kazooie meant them no ill will and honestly thought what she was going to do was the right thing.
Finding love might be an adventure in and of itself, but Cadence was the master in that area of expertise in comparison to Kazooie’s incredible power and sense of freedom as a cunning master of adventuring. Cadence just knew they were going to be good friends no matter how annoying Kazooie tried to act around her, apparently she liked making people mad and Cadence could actually understand that bit of whimsy as being a part of who she was.
Cadence just hopes Kazooie’s heart doesn’t darken while she works at taking over the world and she actually believed the adventurous being could possibly do it without killing anypony.
“So where am I staying in this shiny mud hole of a kingdom?” Kazooie asked with a cheeky smirk on her face.
Cadence sighed as she leaned back against her throne; the next few days were going to be long ones as if this one wasn’t already considering they missed lunch because of the changeling swarm.