//------------------------------// // The Fall of Ridead // Story: Terror In Equestria 3: Twilight's Conquest // by StormLuna //------------------------------// Twilight woke up the following morning exhausted. She was tossing and turning all night long while she was having strange dreams involving a power struggle in Equestria. She went over to Shining Armor to tell him about the dreams. "Shining Armor, how do you interpret dreams?" asked Twilight "Well little sis, I think they can either be a warning about the future or simply a fear that you have." replied Shining Armor Twilight said, "Well I had dreams last night about Colgate crushing a rebellion in Canterlot that was led by Prince Blueblood." Shining Armor replied, "I could actually see that happening. Why would a dream about that have you so distraught?" Twilight replied, "Well after they took care of things Colonel Lightning Wasp began to question as to whether or not I cared about Equestria anymore. He even went as far to ask Colgate to challenge me for the crown." Shining Armor asked, "Well in your dream, what did she say?" Twilight replied, "Probably the same thing she would in real life. She said that she had no desire to become the leader and that she would rather be a dentist." Shining Armor said, "You could probably offer a billion bits to give up her practice and never practice dentistry again and she would turn you down. Let's get some breakfast, I'm hungry." Twilight and her brother headed down to the dining hall where they were met by their usual company and Steward LaurFa. LaurFa had a huge smile on her face and looked ready to face the day. Twilight knew she made the right decision. "Good morning everypony!" said LaurFa "I hope you slept well!" Twilight replied, "Not really. I had nightmares all night long but judging from what was in them, that is all they were, nightmares." Starswirl asked, "Anything I can do to help? I am really good at interpreting dreams." Twilight replied, "No, my brother has already calmed my nerves. After we eat there are some things I need to do before we head off." LaurFa said, "I look forward to us having one more meeting before you go. I know you will give me all the information and resources I need to make you proud." Twilight replied, "Yes, I will. We will discuss this in the throne room, after breakfast. No business talk during meals!" After breakfast they headed to the throne room to discuss some final issues before Twilight and her forces took off for Saddle Arabia. "LaurFa, before I go I am going to cast a duplication spell on all of my forces. The duplicates will be staying here with you while the originals will be going with me." said Twilight "Thank you Twilight! I really appreciate that." replied LaurFa Twilight said, "Well there isn't much you can do with an army of earth ponies. You need an army that can fly and has energy of their own." Applejack asked, "So Twilight, y'all are sayin' these ponies in Saddle Arabia are different. How are they different?" Twilight replied, "Do you remember those monarchs that came to Ponyville the second time Trixie was causing problems?" Applejack said, "Yeah, I remember them. They were built very differently and they didn't have cutie marks." Twilight said, "Yeah, but those things they wear on their faces have a bead that goes over their forehead. They use those things to fire energy at their foes. I have read books about them and the formal name for them is horses." Lyra said, "Well I know that with you leading us, we will take them down as well." Twilight replied, "Now that is the Lyra I knew back at the base, confident and strong. Maybe you are leadership material after all. We shall see what happens." Twilight and her recruits headed outside so Twilight could take care of duplicating the soldiers. Twilight motioned for all the soldiers, officers included to gather into an open field off to the north of Maredrid. Once they gathered there Twilight was ready. Dark Night asked, "Twilight, what are we doing?" Twilight replied, "I need to duplicate all of you. LaurFa needs a lot more than a simple earth pony army." "Alright Twilight." replied Dark Night Twilight began to glow a deep shade of purple, her eyes became like laser beams and her horn started to glow purple and black as she recited, "From one to two, two to four and so much more, when one is simple mere, more and more shall appear." Twilight fired a huge ball of energy at her army. Her army doubled at size much to the delight of LaurFa, who now knew that she could do what Twilight put her in charge of doing, which is keeping law and order. "Thank you Twilight, thank you!" said LaurFa as she ran over and hugged Twilight Twilight smiled and said, "You're welcome LaurFa. Anything I can do to help, let me know before we leave." LaurFa replied, "I think this is good." Twilight addressed her army and her recruits, "Ok everypony, it is a long flight to Saddle Arabia. We will be resting along the eastern shores of the Maredetteranian Ocean tonight before heading south to Ridead. Before we leave tomorrow morning, I will cast an armor spell upon us. That energy they use is powerful. Alright, let's get going. Time is a wastin'." It seemed like a very long flight to the northeast coast of the Maredetteranian Ocean but finally around five in the afternoon they arrived at their destination. The place was just as Twilight had read about in books a long time ago. Abundant vegetation, plenty of fresh water and the temperature was just right. "Alright troops," said Twilight "we will eat our supper and breakfast here and sleep here tonight. Get plenty of rest. Tomorrow will be much tougher than Maredrid was. We will be needing an armor spell to take on their forces." "How large is their army?" asked Dark Night Twilight replied, "Well given that all of them have the ability to harness the power in those gems they wear on those things on their faces, they are all potential soldiers. After we crush their monarchs. a massive loyalty spell must be cast, one so powerful it can affect the whole country." Rainbow Dash asked, "Twilight, do you have that much power you could turn an entire nation into Twilight loyalists?" Twilight replied, "I know a special spell that will require a ton of power, but it will affect all within their species everywhere in the world. I hope I have enough power for this. I have some advice though, when I cast it, look away. The light will literally be blinding." "Alright Twilight, we hear ya!" said Applejack The night went by much too quickly for Twilight's forces but way too slow for Twilight as she was just itching to take over Saddle Arabia. When the following morning arrived Twilight gobbled down her breakfast before the rest of her forces even woke up. "WAKE UP!" shouted Twilight "Hurry up and eat! I want to have this done before nightfall!" Her forces weren't happy about being rushed into their meal but hurried and ate their meal before Twilight got too angry. Twilight addressed her forces. "Gather around me everypony. I need to cast the armor spell." All of her forces gathered around her. She began to glow purple as she recited, "The one without armor does not stand a chance, so it is what we must enhance, the unarmed one will likely receive death, with armor he shall continue to draw breath, without armor he will be torn to shreds like a rag but with armor victory is in the bag." Immediately the energy exploded outwards from Twilight and all her forces had very strong armor. With that they sped off towards the south ready to conquer another land for their beloved dark goddess. In Ridead it was Queen Marad's birthday, an official national holiday. In the town square everypony gathered around the palace balcony to see the royal couple as they came out to address them. As they came out to a cheering crowd King Stallad said, "Hello everypony! Thank you for coming here to day to celebrate my beautiful wife's birthday!" The crowd cheered loudly as they both waved their hooves at the crowd. Queen Marad said, "Wow, I am so happy to see you all here today. It wouldn't be the same without you. Without you, there would be no Saddle Arabia, this would be an empty desert with nothing but sand. I want you all to know that I love each and every one of you with all my heart!" The crowd cheered loudly but went silent as a dark cloud shrouded the city. Beams of energy began to fly down from the sky, injuring ponies and covering them in ooze. The horses fired their energy back at their foes but it simply bounced off of them and caused damage to buildings and killed a few of their own. This enraged them further, causing them to fire more energy but it only did more and more damage to their own city. King Stallad shouted, "We're under attack. It has to be Chrysalis and Sombra! Everypony duck for cover!" Right as the royal couple was getting ready to head inside a much larger foe blocked their entrance back into their palace. "Well what do we have here? A couple monarchs that are scared of a few changelings and dark Alicorns?" said Twilight arrogantly "Who are you? You are unlike anypony we have ever seen. You look like a regular pony but you have Sombra's eyes." asked Marad Twilight replied, "You have seen me before. Not in this form, but you have seen me before." Queen Marad thought hard and realized that she had seen her in Ponyville and that she was Twilight Sparkle, a student of Princess Celestia's The queen said, "You're Twilight Sparkle, aren't you? How did you become like this and why did Celestia let you do this?" Twilight replied, "Well, it's funny really. Celestia transformed me into an Alicorn princess and gave me unrestricted access to the archives. I gained a couple of allies, deposed Celestia and Luna, then cast my evil friends into the void, took complete control of their armies, stole the jade Alicorn from Faustica, crowned myself as a dark goddess and now I'm taking what is rightfully mine, THE WHOLE WORLD!" "THE WHOLE WORLD?" shouted an angry Marad "WHAT ABOUT LAURFA? SHE WILL DESTROY YOU!" Twilight began to laugh and replied, "Yes, the whole world. About LaurFa, she is on my side now. She is my steward up in Maredrid now. It won't be long until the whole world bows down to the Dark Goddess Twilight Sparkle." "DARK GODDESS?" shouted Stallad "Yes, Dark Goddess. I will give you two choices, bow down before me or be banished." laughed Twilight Stallad replied, "I will not bow down before you. You are nothing to me and you will always be nothing to me." Twilight replied, "Fine, it is your choice. You can go join Sombra, Chrysalis, Cadence and the royal family from Maredrid." Twilight then pointed her horn at them, she began to glow and a black bulb formed at the end of her horn as she recited, "You have committed treason and that is not in season, you are a threat to me and I simply can not let that be, I can no longer be annoyed so you shall be cast into the void." They had looks of pure horror on their faces as Twilight fired her energy at them and they were sucked into the dark vortex. Twilight went out to the edge of the balcony and shouted, "AT EASE SOLDIERS!" The attack stopped as they had covered all of the city's residents in ooze and leveled a huge portion of the city. The residents realized that their monarchs were gone and that they were now under the power of the dark goddess Twilight Sparkle. Twilight flew up to the top of the castle and shouted, "Bow down before me! I am your Goddess now!" Twilight decided to take care of the loyalty problem. Her forces saw her begin to glow and looked away. She appeared as though she were a bright purple sun with green eyes as she recited, -"From another to me, that is where the horses' allegiance will now be, you thought your old leaders loved you like pie when all they wanted was for you to die. With me all shall be great, there shall be no hate." The spell Twilight cast rocked the very earth beneath all of Saddle Arabia. A blinding purple flash engulfed the entire nation before dissipating. All of their citizens, got up and wiped their eyes, and all over the nation shouted, "ALL HAIL GODDESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE, OUR ONE AND ONLY LEADER!" This brought a huge grin to Twilight's face. She flew down to the balcony and fired a huge beam of energy at them, freeing them from the ooze. They began to cheer wildly at the sight of their new leader. She could only hope they would be just as loyal to the steward she would put in power there as they do her. Twilight decided that because of Lemon Hearts's enthusiasm in Maredrid, that she would put her in power there. She told Lemon Hearts about this and she was ecstatic. Twilight led her out onto the balcony with her. She said, "Fellow citizens of Saddle Arabia. I want to thank you for your allegiance. I do need to let you know something. I can not remain here as I have other realms I need to go and check on. This yellow Alicorn to my left is Lemon Hearts. She is the pony I will be placing here as a steward. She will reside here but I will be the top pony in charge and I will be coming here regularly to check on things, so don't worry, I won't be a stranger." The crowd went wild and chanted Lemon Hearts's name. This brought joy to both ponies. Twilight was thinking to herself, "This is perfect. The realm that covers Singapony, Marelaysia and Neigh Zealand are all one empire, which I will give to Lyra. Then it is off to conquer the final target and then everything will be mine, all mine!" After bowing before an adoring crowd Twilight, Lemon Hearts and the rest of Twilight's higher ups headed into the throne room to discuss the things to come. Twilight said, "Alright, Lemon Hearts, before we leave in a couple of days I will cast the duplication spell on my forces so you will have a good sized army. Then next up is the southeastern empire. This will be very easy as it is primarily earth ponies. In Neigh Zealand, where the capitol is, there are more sheep than there are ponies as they are a leading producer of wool." Lyra asked, "Do you know who you will give stewardship to there yet?" "No, not yet Lyra." replied Twilight "I'm getting hungry anyway. Enough of this talk, let's go and eat." Twilight saw everything unfolding exactly as she had planned. Two targets down, two to go. One will likely be a cake walk and the other would be very difficult, but with Luna and Cosmos on her side, the last one won't be as difficult as it would have been without her.