Twilight didn’t waste any time. More rested she might have been, but she was still tired, injured, and just noticing that she was hungry as well. She didn’t fancy a fight with Celestia knew how many of these creatures and whatever else might be here. Her horn glowed yet again, and she vanished from her hiding spot, reappearing on what she judged to be a particularly stable piece of the building’s roof. From here she could get a good look around and spot the best way out. And get some badly-needed fresh air.
Unfortunately for Twilight, she’d neglected to account for the brief flash her spell created. This, combined with the cloudy night, meant that she was easy to locate. What had been a handful of enemies suddenly became dozens as half the corpses in the village seemed to stir at her presence, rising from the wreckage where they lay to converge on the little building from all directions.
Twilight’s ears folded down. “Well, this… isn’t good.” She scanned the crowd, then looked out at the flat grasslands beyond, punctuated by the occasional hill. “Nowhere to run. And I’m sure they’ve got more endurance than I do, especially like this.”
It hardly took any time at all for another thought to occur to her – she was in the perfect tactical position to fight them. There was no stairway to the roof, and she didn’t spy anypony who looked like they could fly. They’d have to climb up to get her the hard way, and she could just teleport to another building over if they made it that far. Twilight perked up a bit at the revelation, then aimed and fired. A purple wall of force leapt down from Twilight’s horn and smashed into a trio of the advancing zombies, crushing them like so many insects under some godly flyswatter. Rotten flesh and flow-smelling liquid flew everywhere, one drop just missing Twilight herself. She suddenly found herself grateful for her empty stomach as she wretched involuntarily.
To Twilight’s surprise, the zombies ceased their movement. For a moment they all stock still. “Did I scare them? Can you scare the dead?”
The creatures’ abdomens began to expand and contract rapidly. They doubled over under the evident. Twilight was even more confused, but raised a protective purple sphere around herself, just in case.
All of a sudden one of the rotten bodies expelled something black onto the ground below it. “Is that an attack?” She’d seen the hydra’s lethal vomit, but if these creatures could do it too why were they aiming at the ground? She looked harder at the black stuff. It wasn’t burning the ground, like acidic bile had done. In fact, it appeared to just be sitting there, moving internally like some horrible little black lake.
All of Twilight’s questions were answered the moment it left the ground. A dull buzzing slowly rose in volume. Thousands upon thousands of tiny little black dots hovered a few feet above ground, before hurling themselves at her. She hit them with a beam of deadly purple light, but dozens more of the swarms were already out, flying her way in their millions. The first made contact with her shield, and she could see them clearly.
Little black beetles, with dull, hard-looking carapace and green eyes tinged with unnatural light. Nine spiny legs culminated in sharp, hooked feet that skittered across her defense and on the roof below. Tattered wings that didn’t look big enough to carry their weight somehow carried them aloft. Outsized pincers visibly dripping with some kind of venom grasped at her bubble by the thousand, trying to force their way through and sink themselves into the unicorn. Twilight blasted them with spell after spell. Hundreds died to each shot, but there were plenty more, while Twilight’s limited stamina was already wearing down. She lost all view of the world beyond as a field of black enveloped her.
Twilight backed off, trying to somehow shake the swarm. She didn’t get more than a few feet before one of her hooves met empty air. She still couldn’t see anything beyond the seemingly endless beetles trying to gnaw their way in to consume her. She swallowed, fighting the urge to panic again. Instead, she drew on what energy she had, her protective sphere rapidly expanding on her command, as Cadence and Shining Armor had done at their wedding. Just as it had been there, the swarm went flying in all directions, crashing into buildings, debris, ground, or even the utterly still zombies below.
But Twilight was still tired, and only one unicorn. The swarm hadn’t gone far, and in the moonlight she could see that the insects were quickly picking themselves up, reforming into smaller swarms again. She’d only bought time, and not much at that. And her energy was already drained, badly.
Panting, Twilight looked around, desperate for some means of escape. The building was still surrounded from every angle, and she felt even less like fighting than before. She could teleport, but that was energy intensive and had a limited range. The bugs would still get her again before she could get far.
“Come on, Twilight. Thinkthinkthinkthinkthink…” She looked up at the moon overhead, as if begging the princess of the night for an answer. She could have sworn she saw some tiny dot in the sky briefly silhouetted against it, but then it was gone. She could hear the insects already starting to buzz again, signaling each other. Twilight’s eyes widened as she hit on a solution. It’d take most of her energy, and was risky as Tartarous, but if she stayed where she was she was dead within a few minutes anyway.
Twilight closed her eyes and strained, even dismissing her barrier as she poured all her energy into one more spell. Her body was enveloped in a small cocoon of purple energy. Her horn glowed intensely, then stopped abruptly. Twilight gasped for air like a drowning pony. Sweat poured down her neck as she opened her eyes, praying it had worked.
On Twilight’s back sat a beautiful pair of butterfly wings, not dissimilar from the ones she had once given Rarity to walk on Cloudsdale. She had no idea how long this pair would last or if they could even fly at all, but it was now or never as the buzzing rose in her ears.
Intellectually, Twilight hadn’t the foggiest idea of how she was supposed to move her muscles to fly. As she willed the wings to move, she found she didn’t seem to need it. Her analytical side was already brimming with theories as to why this could be, but she ignored that for the moment as she jumped into the air. The wings caught the air currents easily, and she rose. “Higher, higher,” she thought as she willed them to beat as fast as they could. She was already well past the flight ceiling of most insects, but Twilight Sparkle was taking no chances as she flew high into the night sky.
…
Celestia and Luna flew as fast as they had ever done, covering more ground in hours than most could have done in weeks. They had remained in Fillydelphia for just long enough to exterminate the major concentrations of Chaos forces, then hurried back across Equestria, minds ablaze with thoughts of what might have happened in the absence. Discord’s statue, the Elements, the mirror, the refugees, the guards… Had the wards on the city been penetrated? They hadn’t felt anything, but that was no guarantee.
To their great relief, the two royal alicorns made it back to Canterlot after a day and a half of flight to find it intact and even somewhat less crowded than when they had set off. It was still night when they arrived, received by a delegation of Royal Guard that had obviously been thrown together at the last minute, led by a disheveled-looking Shining Armor. They saluted the two as they landed.
Luna wasted no time in getting in the captain’s face. “What has happened?” she demanded. “Is the city safe? Has there been any disturbance? Break-in? Attack?”
Shining Armor looked confused and half-asleep. “Yes, no, no, and no, your…” he paused for a moment as his attempts to suppress a yawn failed. “Your majesty,” he lowered his head and ears, looking embarrassed at his breach of protocol.
The sisters ignored his poor etiquette. “Tell me, captain, you are sure about this? Nopony has seen any cultists, scouts? There have been no riots or attempts to break in to the palace?” Celestia asked in a calm but stern tone.
The unicorn’s head remained hung as he shook it. “Not that I am aware of, your majesty. In fact, the Canterlot has been calming down as we’ve sent refugees east. No signs of enemy presence have been seen, and we have scouting patrols as far away as Ponyville.”
Luna hadn’t backed off from Shining. “Look at me when I’m talking to you: have you received any word from the guard at Manehatten? From your sister perhaps?”
Shining did as commanded and looked the darker alicorn in the eye. “Not for a couple of days. The next messenger was supposed to arrive this afternoon, but we haven’t seen them.”
The two sisters shared a look.
“That will be all, captain.”
Shining Armor looked more confused as the two brushed past him and his men without another word.
…
A small figure stumbled up the road to Canterlot. Covered in dirt, bruises, and blood, her magnificent mane roughly torn and entirely missing in some areas, the once beautiful unicorn mare now looked the picture of a beaten pony. Her tail was almost gone altogether, reduced to a small stub of hair trailing miserably. Her hooves were split and cracked, black in areas from dried blood. Her head hung low, eyes barely open.
Her stride was weak and halting as she climbed the mountain road. She collapsed more times than she could count, further smearing herself with dirt and cutting herself on rocks. Her hooves felt like somepony had driven nails into them, her muscles were on fire. She’d bee walking for hours, days even. Still the warm glow of the distant capital urged her onwards, her mind simply repeating one mantra over and over.
“Must make it. Must make it. Must make it.”
The mare stumbled again as a voice called out, “Halt, who goes there?”
The mare tried to answer, she really did, but all that came out of her throat was a hoarse wheeze. She hadn’t had any real amount of water for days now.
A pair of earth ponies in the uniforms of the Royal Guard cautiously approached the distant figure, spears lowered, suspicious of some enemy trick but loathe to fail to aid a pony in such dire need. The figure only made pitiful noises as they tiptoed closer, until at last their lantern shone on her properly. The guards gasped in recognition.
Rarity stared up at them.