“What happened?” Thistleroot asked as they landed.
“Canterlot’s front gate came down. The changelings are pushing into the city. And I think something’s wrong with the evacuees.”
Thistleroot swallowed. “Well, we should move further into the city if the changelings are coming, right?”
“Somepony needs to make sure the princess knows about the evacuating townsponies.”
Thistleroot sighed. “We’re running toward the front lines, aren’t we?”
Scootaloo shook her head. “Thistleroot, you know a lot about that forcefield, right?”
“Well, it’s not really a forcefield, but yeah. I did a report on it for my advanced magical freque—”
“Good. You two go figure out why it’s not working. I’ll go find the princess.”
Thistleroot hesitated.
“What?”
“Well, maybe somepony else should go find the princess. Uh, the changelings don’t exactly adore you.”
“Don’t look at me,” Mimic said. “They consider me a...” Her face soured and her voice fell, “a traitor.”
“Well, I mean, I could, if somepony has to...” Thistleroot said, trotting in place nervously.
Scootaloo gave him a quick smile. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”
“Err, the last time you promised to stay safe...”
“Neither of us know anything about the force field,” Scootaloo reminded him.
“Oh, well, I guess that’s true,” Thistleroot said, a faint hint of relief in his voice. “Dampening field, not force—”
“Just go. I promise I’ll be okay.” Without another word she sped into the air, leveling off just above the rooftops.
Thistleroot watched her disappear before giving his head a quick shake. “Alright, you heard her. To Canterlot Tower!”
*****
“Fall back to West Cedar Street!” Princess Celestia ordered, pausing to unleash another pulse of white hot magic. The battle was taking its toll on her. A patch of her coat had been singed on her right side, and a cut on her left flank stood out against the white. It had been so long since her battles with Nightmare Moon, Discord, or Sombra, she’d almost forgotten what real combat was. “Tell Oaken Shield to move his company back to Gilded Gate Park and hold it. We’ll join him there.”
The changelings made another rush, but the royal guard caught them with a dozen streams of sparks. One of the changelings made it through their lines, but was immediately repelled by a solid buck from an even more solid earth pony.
“Civilian!” Somepony called behind Celestia.
Celestia growled in frustration and threw twenty changelings back with a single spell. How hard is it to run away from the fighting? “Get them out of here!”
“Princess!”
Princess Celestia turned to the source of the voice as Scootaloo barreled past the royal guard trying to stop her. She looked thinner, and her coat was dingy, but she looked unharmed. She held a stone square under her right wing. “Princess! It’s me, I have to—” Scootaloo cut off as the guard grabbed her from behind and started to drag her away.
“Leave her,” the princess ordered, and the guard backed away. “You’re okay.”
“Yeah, but there’s no time to explain. I need to tell you before—”
“CELESTIA!” Lirian’s voice called out over the gathered changelings. In a single move, every changeling began backing away, and the fighting stopped instantly.
“Before that,” Scootaloo mumbled.
“Shining Armor,” Celestia said urgently, “Send for the elements. I’ll keep her talking.”
Lirian strode forward past the retreating line of changelings. Her blue mane was held back by a tiara made of shining black metal, and over her chest was a breastplate made from the same material. Around her neck was a silver chain holding five gems, each a different shade of gray. “And Scootaloo, what a surprise. I was sure you’d have died in the Mad Lands.” Lirian’s paused as her gaze fell to the stone seal under Scootaloo’s wing. “Is that...” She shook her head. “Well, come on then, Celestia,” she said. “No more soldiers, just the two of us for Equestria.”
The princess gave a heavy breath and stepped forward. “You could have avoided many injuries if you’d shown yourself earlier.”
“Oh, believe me, every moment I had to wait before wiping the arrogant smile of your face has been just torture,” Lirian said, circling toward Celestia’s right. The princess answered by moving left. “But we had to wait until everything was just so.”
“Be ready,” Celestia called back to her guards. “I can’t protect you all and fight her at the same time. Respond to any threat to yourselves with crushing force.”
“Oh, Celestia,” Lirian pouted. “You don’t think I’d stoop so low as to cheat, do you?”
Celestia paused before turning her head toward the guards again. “And back up a few steps, just to be safe.”
Lirian’s pout turned into a real look of anger. “Fine.” Her horn flared with green fire and the fight was on.
*****
Two guards stood outside Canterlot Tower.
“We can probably take them,” Mimic whispered.
“Yeah, no. Unless one of them is part tree, I’m pretty useless in a fight. You’re a changeling, shouldn’t you want to sneak past them or something?”
“Well, if you can think of somepony they’ll let just waltz through, feel free to share.”
*****
“Halt, Canterlot Tower is off—” the guard snapped to attention with a sudden gasp, “So sorry, Miss Sparkle, I didn’t realize it was you.”
“Yes, well, don’t make the mistake again,” Mimic said as she and Thistleroot climbed the steps up to the tower.
“Nicer,” Thistleroot whispered.
“Er, I mean, if you don’t mind, your, uh, Princess Celestia has an important task for me inside the tower, so if we might pass?”
“Of course. Open the doors.” The two guards stepped aside as the doors were pulled open with magic. Thistleroot nodded in thanks as the passed.
“They didn’t even think to check if we were changelings,” Mimic whispered as they began climbing the stairs.
“They all think the field is working,” Thistleroot said.
Mimic shrugged. “Climb faster. The sooner we’re out of here, the better.”
Thistleroot had always thought Canterlot Tower was a majestic piece of architecture, but seeing it from outside didn’t give one a feeling for how ridiculously tall it was, and the soft unicorn was breathing heavily after only a few minutes.
“Nine hundred forty-three,” he counted another step, “Nine hundred forty-four.”
They climbed the last step (Nine hundred eighty-seven) and opened a plain wooden door to the top floor. The room beyond the door was pitch dark. Thistleroot concentrated a moment, creating a magical aura around his horn for light.
“Brighter,” Mimic said, “I still can’t see anything.”
Thistleroot obliged, but the room beyond remained untouched by the light. Thistleroot lifted a hoof and slowly passed it over the threshold. The moment it crossed over, they lost sight of it in the shadows.
“That’s...” Mimic started, leaning back.
“Cold,” Thistleroot said as he started to pull his hoof away. Something thin wrapped tightly around it. “Uh...” The thin something pulled, and Thistleroot was thrown into the room. It took him only a moment to pass through the shadows and into a brightly lit room on the other side. He twisted back just in time to see Mimic pulled through a wall of darkness, gripped by thin black chords.
Four specters stood around the door, shadows pouring down their sleek black bodies and pooling on the floor before stretching out to hold Thistleroot and Mimic. They showed off their odd, pointed teeth in amused grins and hissed with laughter.
Beyond them was a bare room with plain walls and windows. At the back was an opening leading out to a balcony. In the center of the room was a large matrix of rune carved metal and burnt, blackened gems. Thistleroot recognized it from pictures in his textbooks. It was the field generator. Energy was stored in the crystals and ran over the carvings to produce the dampening spell. More energy could be forced into the carvings at the risk of damaging the spell matrix and bringing down the shields. The generator was cold and lifeless.
Five ponies stood stood around the generator, horns glowing fiercely. Their eyes were closed and they shivered uncontrollably. Long tendrils of shadow stroked their faces and backs, all originating from the specters.
“Thistleroot, I was hoping to see you today.” A dark blue unicorn with a silver mane stepped into the room from the balcony. “And Twilight, I really didn’t expect you to come. I thought you would be out there, helping your beloved princess.”
“Star Shine,” Thistleroot said, voice unnaturally high. “Aren’t you supposed to be rotting in prison right now?”
“I have friends in high places,” Star Shine said. “I suppose you want to know why the field isn’t working?”
“It’s kind of obvious that you destroyed the gems powering it,” Thistleroot said.
“Well, yes. But don’t you want to know why nopony noticed?”
“I’d guess the unicorns are just being mind controlled to bend light around the city to make it look like it’s working,” Thistleroot said. “Some kind of specter induced nightmare?”
Star Shine gave Thistleroot a flat look before sighing. “Throw him off the balcony.”
The tendrils of shadow whipped up around his legs and lifted him high into the air.
“Gah,” Thistleroot called. “Wait, you really don’t want to do that!”
“I really do,” Star Shine said, turning back toward the balcony. “Call it my token revenge for sending me to prison.”
“If you do this, Princess Celestia will know,” Thistleroot said as the specter holding him crossed out onto the balcony and lifted him over the edge. His limbs jerked as he struggled against the shadows holding him, his heart fluttering. “Oh wow, that’s high.”
“Stop,” Star Shine said just as the tendrils released Thistleroot. Thistleroot felt a jolt in his stomach as gravity took over.
He fell for less than a second before the tendrils whipped back around his legs, jerking him to a stop. “Ow, ow!”
The specter looked at Star Shine questioningly.
“He made a good point,” Star Shine said. “Somepony might see the body and alert the princess. Just strangle him instead.”
“ThePrincessCastaSpellThatWillLetHerKnowIfWeGetHurt!” Thistleroot blurted as fast as he could before the specter could cut off his air supply.
Star Shine’s face soured. “You’re bluffing.”
“Possibly,” Thistleroot admitted. “But can you really afford to risk it?”
The next second stretched out over an eternity for Thistleroot. “Bring him back inside,” Star Shine said. “We’ll kill him later.”
*****
Celestia ducked under a blazing fire and struck out with her own magic. Blinding sunlight flashed, and when it faded, both the princess and the queen had been thrown back.
Celestia recovered first, landing on her hooves and sending a bolt of energy toward the falling Lirian. Lirian’s magic exploded around her as the bolt hit, and an unseen force tossed Celestia into the air. Before she could recover, Lirian was upon her, hammering at her with changeling fire. Celestia rolled through the air and caught the changeling queen with a wing, forcing her back enough for the princess to get her bearing.
Celestia pumped her wings twice to open space between them and bore down on her with intense golden magic. Lirian answered with a spell shot from blindly upward, and both fell once again.
Celestia flashed away, appearing on the other side of Lirian and taking her by surprise with a bolt of energy, hammering into her side. As the bolt made contact, Celestia gasped and was forced to the ground.
Lirian rolled to her hooves and sent another torrent of fire, catching Celestia off guard and forcing her further back. Celestia frantically threw another sunburst, sending Lirian and herself sprawling.
They both forced themselves up, gasping for breath. silence fell over the clearing. The changelings watched on in excitement, waiting for their queen’s victory and the order to take Canterlot. The ponies watched in shock as their princess was matched spell for spell.
“You understand, don’t you Celestia?” Lirian hissed as they circled each other. “I can see it in your face. You know you can’t win. Anything you throw at me will be thrown right back.”
“An echo shield,” Celestia said, using a touch of magic to wipe blood from her eye and seal a cut just below her horn. “I wouldn’t have expected you to be capable of one.”
“It was a group effort,” Lirian said. “Ponies, changelings, wendigos, specters, all working together. Such a disgusting show of camaraderie, you would have loved it.”
“And a modified version of the Elements of Disharmony worked into it, so that even our greatest magic can’t bypass it,” Celestia said.
“Rose is quite clever for a pony,” Lirian said. “It’ll almost be a shame when I have to get rid of her.” Lirian strode forward, head held high, a look of triumphant victory on her face. “Nothing you can do will work. Any spell you throw at me will be thrown right back,” She said again. “You can’t win.”
Celestia swiped a hoof at Lirian just as she came close enough, sending the the changeling queen tumbling into the corner of a nearby building. Lirian fell in a crumpled heap and tried to stand, head swaying and eyes unfocused. Celestia was on her in a heartbeat, charging forward and dashing Lirian against the wall so hard it cracked. Lirian slipped around Celestia’s back, hammering Celestia with changeling fire. The princess ducked against it and turned. Lirian jumped aside, avoiding Celestia’s horn by inches.
A disturbance in the crowd distracted Scootaloo from the fight. A few dozen feet away, the guards had broken up. Twilight Sparkle and her friends stepped into the clearing. Scootaloo’s heart soared at the sight of Rainbow Dash. Rainbow’s eyes made contact with hers, and after a brief flash of shock, her mouth turned up into a cocky grin. She nodded at Scootaloo, and Scootaloo could almost hear her sister’s confident assurance, We’ve got this.
She moved behind Celestia again, horn alight, but the princess was ready. A sturdy buck sent Lirian sailing across the street and into another building. She fell to the floor and surged upward. Her horn flared as she sent a volley of flaming missiles toward the princess. Celestia ducked side to side, dodging the bolts by inches and closing the distance. Lirian threw up a wall of fire in desperation. Celestia hunched her shoulders, closed her eyes, and simply stepped through it. The smell of burning fur covered the square.
Lirian tried to scramble away, but Celestia was on top of her. With a swipe of her hoof, she knocked Lirian’s head back and the queen collapsed. Celestia lifted her leg, Lirian shouted, “No, please,” and the princess’s hoof came down.
Lirian’s horn shattered under the force of the blow.
Just like that, the fight was over. Scootaloo couldn’t help but smugly recall Mimic’s words. “Dead weight.”
The gems around Lirian’s neck flared to life, and she rose from the ground as her eyes began to glow. Princess Celestia lept back and sunk into a defensive crouch.
To her left, Scootaloo heard Twilight call out, “Girls! Now!” A beam of rainbow magic shot from Twilight’s horn and swirled around Lirian.
“No!” Celestia was moving, not toward Lirian, but toward Twilight and her friends.
The light faded, and seven statues stood in the clearing.