Mike didn’t really have to walk far to find his wife; by the time he’d caught up with her, she was by the elevators, waiting for the next one to take her down to the lobby. She also had a pair of sunglasses on despite the fact that it was sunset, which meant that she’d had an emotional outburst that she didn’t want anyone to see. Unfortunately for her, the custom Oakleys that she owned didn’t quite cover her eyes like the sunglasses that most ponies wore and as a result it wasn’t hard to see the pain on her face.
“Heya, hon,” he said softly to her, reaching out to her, but instead found her suddenly turning around to face him, her eyes now hidden behind smoke-black UV plutonite lenses.
“All he wanted to see was the daughter he’d lost so long ago. Twice.” Her voice was barely a whisper, just a hair’s-breadth above sotto voce. “And that’s all he wanted…and instead, he was rewarded with pain.”
“Dee, hon, it’s not your fault,” he said, reaching out to caress her face, his hand coming to a gentle rest on her tiny muzzle.
She reached up and removed the shades, revealing violet eyes stained with tears. “Mike…who am I?”
“You know who you are, DJ,” he said to her.
But she shook her head. “Who am I? Am I Daisy Jo Martinez, or am I Sandalwood? Am I lying to myself about being human, or…?”
“I said you know who you are,” he insisted, wrapping his arms around her. “You’re the woman I’ve loved for over twenty years, DJ. And I don’t care what you call yourself, or who your parents are – adopted or birth. You’re my wife and the mother of my children. You’re a brave woman who’s put up with more in your life than you should have, you’ve survived things that would probably break a lesser person – and you just keep steaming on.”
“Mike, seriously.”
“I am serious, hon,” he said, holding her. “You have a way of affecting things – you always have. And do you know what that makes you, DJ?” He caressed her face again, saying, “That makes you important. You are important, to a lot of people – both human and not. You’re important to me, to our kids, to your family both on our world and here. And last but not least,” he said, bending down to kiss her, “you’re always important to me.”
As always, that brought a smile to her lips. “I love you,” she said to him, as they leaned into a kiss…
…and the lights flickered out on the building, only to come back on with an uneasy spasm.
“Wonder what that was?” she said, regretfully pulling away from him.
“I’m guessing it’s nothing bad,” he said, though his voice indicated he didn’t believe it.
“With my luck?” the humanized pony asked her husband.
“Yeah, you’re right – let’s go get the others before something stupid happens.”
They had barely made it back to Silversteel’s room when the whole building shook.
“Twilight!” Rarity screamed, moving to the side of her sister. The lavender unicorn was more blackened now than her original hue, and it was clear that she’d expended so much magic that what little she was using to keep them all alive was now coursing through her veins, tearing her apart.
“Rarity….” she gasped. “Let it go….”
“NO!” the white mare shouted, her horn coming alive with cerulean force. “We are your family, Twilight! Don’t you dare give up!” Rarity immediately began to cast a healing spell, the same one that Twilight had been using on them. As the darkness began to fade from the archmagus’ coat, the pearl gray of Rarity’s own began to darken and splotch with black in places as the curse began to take a hold on her.
“What are you doing?” Twilight wheezed.
“Dear, I might not have your prodigious talents at magic but you have taught me a thing or two over the years, mind,” Rarity said, wincing as she felt a jag where the curse began to dig in a particularly painful manner. “You have nopony to blame but yourself if the rest of us have learned to keep up with the High and Mighty Twilight Sparkle,” she said with a smile that she didn’t quite feel. “Applejack, dear, please give me your hoof,” she said, reaching out with her own.
“Ah, sure, Rares,” the one-time farmpony said, complying with her sister’s request. “But why?”
“Because I’m not as strong as Twilight, and what I’m about to do could kill me. Since I’m quite sure you don’t want that to happen, I’ll need to share, the, ah, ‘injurious effects’ with you.”
“No,” Twilight said. “Don’t, please!”
Applejack looked at one stricken unicorn, then to the other one, her face a mask of pain and determination. They were both her sisters, two ponies she’d loved just as much as her own flesh-and-blood siblings. To Applejack, there was no difference.
“Let’s git ‘er done, Rares,” the earth pony said, steeling herself for the damage she was about to receive. “Dunno when that maniac might be back an’ try t’ start somethin’ again.”
“Well, let’s hope that newcomer keeps him busy,” Rarity replied. “But one thing that makes me curious: did she say ‘get away from my mother’?”
Broken Armor prided himself on several things. While he wasn’t the tactician that his eldest brother Blood Armor was, or had the joie du travail that Overcast Night did or the…well, the orgiastic pleasure in her job that Blue Velvet did, Broken Armor took a particular pleasure in being his mother’s hoof-chosen assassin. None of the jobs she’d ever tasked him with failed, and as such, he was rewarded with his mother’s favor, the honor of being one of the more important pepsis of Chrysalis’ brood. And each accolade spurred him on towards greater heights.
But not today. And for the first time in his life, Broken Armor learned that not only was failure a very real possibility, but that there was now the potential that he could lose. And as he was pushed back, slammed against a wall hard enough to rattle his fangs, he was getting quite the education. With a painful crash, he fell back to the floor, attempting to ignore the blood – his blood, for a change – spilling out on the ground.
He looked up at his attacker and saw only madness. She was, like he, a pepsis, though she clearly came from the “Twilight” clutch of siblings. For the most part, with one or two exceptions, the Twilights were the workhorses, the unremarkable ones who served more as front-line troops alongside the normal changelings. Once in a while one would earn his mother’s favor, such as Twilight Gloaming or Ember Sparkle, but for the most part they were disposable carcasses who didn’t have the intelligence to know they were dead yet.
And yet here was one of their number, facing off against him. Somehow insanely gone rogue – and was, if anything, inexplicably strong despite her genetics.
“Stand down now and I just might not tell our revered brother of your treachery,” Broken Armor hissed. He could already feel one of his canines coming loose; he’d have to repair that with magic the first chance he got after finishing this mission. He already knew it’d be a stain on his perfect record; he would end his marks, but it also was an unfitting end to his “one-engagement, one-kill” standard.
“No,” the pepsis before him said. As he looked at her, he realized she looked a bit different than her fellow clutchmates: Her fur wasn’t as spiky as the pepsis norm and her wings didn’t have the usual holes. In fact…upon closer inspection, she didn’t have the bulbous, misshapen horn that was normal for pepsis; hers looked almost like the unicorn standard. Her mane and tail didn’t carry the pockmarks and pits of a changeling heritage; in fact, the only thing that indicated that she was a pepsis at all was her saddle carapace – which also wasn’t scarred, unlike that of his siblings’ – and wings. If anything, she looked like….
….she looks like Twilight Sparkle, he realized, as if she’s trying to be some sort of imitation.
“Did Mother change the plan?” he asked suddenly, wondering if that’s why she opposed him. That had to be it – Chrysalis suddenly decided having a pepsis infiltrate the ponies was probably for the best. Of course, Broken Armor would be confused as to the reason; it wasn’t his duty to question his mother’s reasons – so the only real way to stop him would be through violence.
So it was a complete shock to him when the Twilight came closer to him and said in threatening tones, “You go back to wherever the changelings are and tell them that we ponies will beat them. Even if I have to spend the rest of my life fighting every last one of you, I will protect my mother!”
“I’m impressed. You sound nearly authentic as if you’r….” His words suddenly trailed off as he looked at her – truly looked at her. Her position hadn’t wavered, her stance remained aggressive and angry. The look in her blue eyes was something he hadn’t seen before and something he couldn’t quite explain – but he knew he didn’t like it. Lastly, her wings were flared out in the natural way changeling and pepsis wings spread when they signaled a challenge.
Wait…she’s still challenging me? he wondered, confused.
“Leave now and I’ll let you stay intact,” she warned. “You can be the one to carry the warning to Chrysalis: we ponies de—”
“You dare to refer to Mother so casually?” Broken Armor said, aghast. How could she even conceive of such an action – even Blood Armor himself trod carefully when speaking to their dam and he was by far and away her favored offspring. But to think that this mere slip of a Twilight would even consider such an action? It was madness; it had to be…
…unless she was tainted. He knew that happened from time to time. While it usually happened with the Velvets, it wasn’t exactly unheard of in the other clutches; in hindsight, he should’ve noticed the signs earlier. Displaced from the hivemind, this fool of a Twilight lost her loyalty to her family and in doing so, went through the princely phase, the phase their mother had warned them would have fatal consequences if they weren’t absolutely loyal to her. Now “independent”, the pepsis standing before him no doubt now fancied herself a queen, an equal to their mother – the audacity of such an action was stunning, to say the least.
Broken Armor suddenly eyed the false queen in a new light. He now had an extra mission to perform, one that would truly bring him honor and accolades. Getting back up to his hooves, he started to formulate a plan on how to defeat the pretender before him.
Leaning back slightly, Twilight Sunburn tried to recall all the magic tricks that Faust had taught her in their short time together; most of it had been more educational than practical, since for most of that time Twilight had been in no condition to exercise those skills. But she was capable of learning; fairly quickly, in fact, the former alicorn queen had noted. In truth, Faust had told her, being mentally agile counted in a battle even more than physical or martial prowess; you might not be able to outrun or outfight your opponent, but if you could outthink them, there was nothing they could do to touch you. Plus, from everything Faust could dig up on Twilight Sparkle, she was very mentally adroit, and would very much appreciate a quick-thinking daughter.
Twilight Sunburn had beamed back then at the alicorn queen’s compliment and did so inwardly as she recalled it now. But she brushed it aside just as quickly; to dwell on that could get her killed and she hadn’t come so far to finally see her mother for the first time only to die now.
With a massive column of jade flame before her, her brother-in-genes-only transformed into a gruesome hydra, all spikes, teeth and alien looks that didn’t remotely resemble the wild predators of Froggy Bottom Swamp so much as the nightmarish ones that she’d seen on Wikipedia. She knew he’d changed into that form in order to attack and contain her; with his heads he could try to pin her down and finish her off with bite from one or more of those venomous heads that hydras had…
…Just as she’d suspected. She shook her head inwardly. Idiot.
She called up a spell, as rings of fire began to burn around her, held in place by the mystic gravity of the runes burning through the air. This wasn’t pony magic, but instead the power of dragon sorcery; Faust had surmised that due to Twilight Sparkle’s talents, she’d probably memorized something like this with ease; Faust had told her that she’d counted on the combination of Twilight’s brain and any military talents she’d inherited from her father to save the day; she’d certainly need them now.
“DIE, PRETENDER!” the twelve heads of the hydra screamed in unison as Broken Armor lunged towards his foe, ready to deliver the killing blow—
—only to have the golden rings of Sunburn’s spell ensnare him as she looked at him with fierce determination. Twisting her head, she threw him like a ragdoll, where he skidded across broken tiles and into a heavily-cracked wall. He didn’t have much time to recover as the pepsis mare launched herself at him, charging forth into a battle that would determine the fate of those nearby – and perhaps even all of Equestria.
The room was nothing but dust, debris and smoke. Twisted bits of metal and glass peppered the area, the remains of the equipment inside that had been a mixture of human technology and pony magic, both now nothing more than useless scrap. In the center of the room was a sizable pile of rubble and rebar, the remains of the floors above as they had come crashing down, a result of an explosion. Everything within sight was blackened and charred, the flames having died down.
A second later, the space filled with soft blue light as the rubble was flung in every direction, away from the center of the room, revealing a smoky blue bubble, and the ponies within, one of which powered the spell with her own magic. As the smoke and dust faded away, Sweetie Belle finally released the spell, much to the relief of the ponies she’d saved.
Ignoring the cheers and lauds, she quickly hoofed out of the room, making a beeline for the quarantine ward. This had been an attack, a brutally punishing one, but one easily repelled nonetheless. That meant it was a distraction and there was only one group of targets in the building worth the effort of an expensive timewaster such as what she’d just put herself through.
Racing for the stairs, she knew both teleporting and the elevator were out – the former because she’d be entering a room blind and the latter because human equipment, as had just been proven, was easily sabotaged. Either could potentially take her out of the picture quickly, and with Sweetie now the only hope still standing, she had to make sure that she wasn’t removed from the scene while trying to dash in and save the day. But between her and the stairs was countless rubble and debris; she couldn’t just teleport it away, as some of it probably held the remaining structure in place. She was going to have to find a unique way to get herself and the others out, and then from there, get to her sisters to save them.
She only hoped she could get there in time.
Sam steeled himself for the teleport. While he’d done it before, he’d never done it on a full stomach, and he didn’t want his reappearance onto the physical plane to be accompanied by a…release… of whatever was in his stomach. As he felt his feet hit the floor, he also noticed that both he and Celestia were behind a barricade – and that the local sheriff’s office was already arguing over jurisdiction with the army. The situation was riled enough that when the two appeared, nopony seemed to take notice of their ruler and the human appearing out of thin air.
“Should we intervene?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “I’d rather that you observed this. If you are going to take the position – and I understand your hesitancy at the moment – you need to see what you’re dealing with.” He nodded in agreement and as Celestia quickly cast an invisibility spell on them, he watched the sheriff and the major in charge of the army contingent verbally spar over whose forces were going to go into the hospital to evacuate civilians and relieve the likely-beleaguered army troops already on-site. The major pointed out that the Royal Infirmary was, technically, a military facility and as such the military had jurisdiction. The sheriff then pointed out that as the hospital was in the center of town, any escaped attackers could pose a threat to the citizenry and thus the sheriff’s forces had to act fast. The major then pointed out that meant that it was urgent that the military act immediately to vanquish the enemy to which the sheriff stated that the point was to catch the criminals, not just start a war in the middle of the capital. To which the sheriff then told the major just to shut up and in turn the major stated something unkind about the sheriff’s mother, involving her tail. Things devolved shortly after that.
“And that’s our cue to step in,” Sam sighed. Unfortunately, having been in a few situations like this, Sam knew that turf battles were common between jurisdictions and even more so when over-inflated egos were involved. It was both sad and unsurprising to see that developing here in Equestria; he’d seen enough of it on his native world.
“Allow me,” she said, cancelling her earlier spell and flaring her power to its brightest. The power of her magic turned the twilight hour into dazzling noon as the major, the sheriff and their respective parties suddenly noticed the Princess of the Day amongst them. As they all fell to their knees, they noticed the stern look on their ruler’s face.
“It would seem to me,” Celestia said, her tones carrying the sorrow of disappointment, “that in this hour of need we are all Equestriani and we all have a stake in taking care of our land. Major Barracks, while it is the duty of the Army to protect the realm, it is the responsibility of the sheriff to protect the townsponies. Sheriff Blueline, while it’s commendable of you to be concerned with my ponies, the fact is that this is a military installation.”
“Then that means my people have jurisdiction!” Major Barracks spoke up, giving a look of triumph to his now-sullen counterpart.
“However, Major,” Celestia continued, “since the revisions to the law require posse comitatus to remain intact, I would prefer that a law enforcement agency take over, preferably one at the Crown level as to sidestep any potential problems. Do we have anypony from the Mage Guild on-scene?”
“Not to my knowledge, ma’am,” Major Barracks said, suitably chastened.
She nodded, then turned to the human next to her. “Sam, take whatever ponies you need from either group, then go ahead.” That was met with both the major and the sheriff simultaneously asking “WHAT?” while Sam merely looked at Celestia with surprise. Ignoring the two ponies, she said, “I need someone neutrally-minded to go in there and take care of the issue. That would be you.”
“But I….” he began, only to have her look at him directly. Her eyes said it all: I cannot beg this of you while in public, but please, Sam, I need your help. Seeing that, he nodded and said, “Yup, I guess I can do. Sheriff, give me your two best ponies. Major, same with you. Can someone find me a handgun with a human grip?”
“What, you know how to use a gun?” Barracks asked, eyeing the newcomer with suspicion.
Blueline looked at the human appreciatively. “He’s a human cop – he’s been giving lectures on human law enforcement methods over at HQ the past few days.” The sheriff looked at Sam and said, “I don’t know what her majesty is up to, but I’ll back your play for now.”
“If that’s the case, then here, take mine.” The major handed over a M9A2 with the trigger guard removed. “I just like the feel,” he asked when Sam inquired.
Celestia cast a quick spell on the human and four ponies. “This is a marker spell; anypony trained in magic will be able to recognize it and it’s not easily duplicated by the changelings, so you should be safe in case you run into others within.”
“Roger that,” he said. “Okay, you guys on me. Soldiers, take point. Deputies, stay close behind but give enough room that we’re not going to get boxed in. Let’s get going; there are people in there that need us.”
“C’mon, we gotta get out of here,” DJ shouted as they reentered Silversteel’s room.
Mike looked around the room, quickly assessing the situation. “Hon,” he told DJ, “go find a wheelchair for him. Elusive, can you get Cinnamon out of here?”
“I could, but what’s going on?” Elusive asked.
“Not a clue,” DJ responded as she headed back out the door again, “but I don’t think it’s a good idea to stick around and let Babylon fall down around our collective ears!”
As DJ departed the room, Elusive murmured, “What’s Babylon?”
“Figure of speech, Luse,” Mike said, heading over to help Cinnamon back to her feet; the shaking had unnerved her to the point that she tried to crawl under the bed. “C’mon, Cinnamon, we’re gonna get you out of here.”
“C-can’t move. Afraid,” she moaned from her place by the bed.
“We do this the hard way, then. Can you teleport us out of here?” Mike asked.
“I’m not that strong. I can teleport one other besides myself,” Elusive said, the note in his voice rising as he realized that whatever going on wasn’t just some casual earthquake. “I’m thinking I should teleport myself and my father, Mike.”
“No.” With some effort, Silversteel sat up in the bed and looked at his son. “Get your cousin out of here, son; she’s terrified right now. I’ll take my chances with your sister and her husband.” Looking at Mike, he asked, “I’m presuming you don’t mind.”
Mike moved to the bed to help Silversteel get out of it. “Wouldn’t have come back if we did,” he answered.
“I…I never thought I’d see her again,” the stallion admitted to Mike. “It’s a Celestia-given second chance I’ve got, and I don’t want to waste it.” Mike said nothing, instead merely helping the stallion move his hindlegs to hang off the side of the bed, sitting briefly in a human manner.
A second later, DJ was back, pushing a wheelchair. “Looks like we’re the only ones left on the floor; either they evacuated everyone else quickly or you were the only one bunked on this floor,” DJ said to Silversteel.
“Well, it was meant to be somewhat private, but I didn’t think they’d go this far,” he admitted, as both DJ and Mike helped him into the wheelchair.
“Strap him in,” DJ advised. “We’re gonna have to go down the steps, since the elevator’s probably too unsafe at the momen—”
KRAK
“What was tha—” the humanized pony had barely enough time to get the first few words out before the floor gave way. The trio fell, with nothing beneath them but the ground below, a very painful four stories and two sublevels down towards a brutal death…
…or it would have been had it not been for Silversteel, holding on to a broken edge of rebar with one foreleg, and grabbing one of DJ’s forelegs with the other, even as DJ had her tail wrapped around Mike’s arm, grasping on for dear life.
“Hold on – I’ve got you!” Silversteel shouted.
“Got me? Dude, you just got out of that hospital bed after being in a coma and you’ve got me?” DJ yelped.
“Hey hon, I don’t know about you, but this is not the best place to be for me!” Mike shouted.
“Mike, don’t…move!” she gritted through her teeth. “I can barely hold onto you!” The pain in her tail was excruciating. She remembered the time it had been smashed by Mike’s aunt well over a decade ago; this was worse. She was probably going to need medical attention after this.
“Hold on!” Silversteel shouted from his precarious position. Normally all this weight wouldn’t be a problem, he knew, but he just got out of a coma less than half an hour ago and his strength was at a huge ebb. Even still…it was his daughter’s life at risk, that and her husband’s. He’d lost enough already in his life…he wasn’t going to let go.
“That’s my general plan!” she shouted back. “You have a better idea than being a windchime?”
“I do,” he gasped, “but you’re going to have to trust me.”
“Not like we got a lot of choice!”
Silversteel could already start to feel his grip on the rebar weakening. “Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to let you g—”
“NO!” DJ shouted, the look in her eyes worried.
Silversteel looked down into those purple eyes, seeing the fear in them and the younger face they’d once been a part of. And he saw two other images as well, eyes of gold, eyes of orange and eyes of violet, reminding him of what he’d lost already. And he still didn’t know if two other pairs of eyes yet remained still on this plane. All he could see in his mind’s eye were six sets of eyes, all belonging to females in his life, and he resolved, even it cost him his last breath, he would lose no more.
“I’m going to let you go, but I need you to grab my hindleg or my tail,” he said, moving his left hindleg as close to her as he could; they still felt stiff and weak, as if they were made of wood with sinews of string. “I need both my forelegs if I’m going to pull us up.” Seeing the worried look in her eyes, he said, “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Sandalwood. I…I won’t lose you again – I lost your sisters and I won’t lose you again!”
DJ blinked. Sisters? She figured he was spacing at the moment, and realized now was probably a good time to shut her mouth about that. Instead, she said, “Okay, what do you want me to do?”
“On the count of three, I’m going to let you go and you need to grab on and hold on,” he told her. “I can use my forelegs to pull us up, then!”
“Are you kidding? I’m not that strong!” she shouted. “And Mike’s barely hanging on!”
He gave her a comforting smile. “You’re an earth pony – you’ve got more strength than you know, especially in this family. And you’re a mare – you have better tensile strength in your tail than stallions, so he should be fine.”
DJ had no idea what to say to that, so she merely nodded. Like it or not, she was going to have to put her faith in him – hers and Mike’s lives depended on it. She had to believe he wouldn’t let her down – he’d wanted this chance at forgiveness, and apparently life had decided this was going to be the way he got it.
I have to have faith, she said, closing her eyes to mumble a quick prayer. She figured there were worse things to do while she waited to see if there would be a tomorrow for her. If nothing else, she thought glumly, she wouldn’t be alone this time.
Involuntarily shifting back to his original form, Broken Armor felt nothing but pain as the Twilight repeatedly slammed him against the wall. This Twilight was not only well into the princely phase, but she was completely out of control and presented a clear threat to the hive. Trying to escape wasn’t an option, as she’d either hunt him down or expose him to the ponies and any further attempts at subterfuge would end up being thwarted. No, as much as he wasn’t ready for it, the only thing to do would be to put down this pretender and hope he wasn’t killed in the process.
The blast of her magic smashed him against the wall once more, leaving a stain of green blood against the wall. He felt his carapace crack and a new tear in one of his wings – it wouldn’t prevent him from flying, but it meant he’d have to put more energy into transforming, something he didn’t have at the moment. Deciding that deception was the best course of action, he slumped to the ground and pretended to be unconscious – something that wasn’t altogether difficult, considering that his vision was swimming slightly from that last blow.
As she departed, he focused his magic in preparation for one final strike. All he would need was just one chance, and he could end the threat. His mother already had enough problems building her empire within a den of vipers interspersed amongst the food – she didn’t need competitors to the throne of empress.
Slowly, but surely, he made his way back towards where he’d met the other three. His final strike would cost him his life, he knew…but the damage he would do to Equestria would be nothing short of glorious.
“Hey, that wall over looks like it’s heating up,” one of the soldiers pointed out.
“Okay, find some cover,” Sam ordered. Quickly the human and four ponies pushed over some gurneys that had been abandoned in the hallway; they were absolutely useless for defensive cover, but it would at least give them enough visual protection that they’d be able to get the drop in case of worst-case scenario. All five had their guns at the ready, poised for attack should that be the case.
Meanwhile, across from them, the wall heated up, slagged away, and then immediately was followed by an extensive ice spell designed to supercool everything as quickly as possible. A haggard-looking unicorn mare stepped free, the look on her face worn but determined.
“Sweetie Belle?” Sam stood up, holstering his gun while gesturing for the ponies with him to do the same. “What are you doing here?” She looked as though she was about to collapse, so he moved over to help his friend.
“Thanks,” she said, leaning into him for support. “Anyway, we’ve got some injured and harried ponies down there that could use some support.” Moving back to her own four hooves, she brushed the matted hair out of her eyes and said, “Let’s get them out of there and then afterwards we’ll get going.”
“Look, Sweetie – you’re in no condition t—”
“Sam, my family is trapped down in the basement, and I need your help to get them!” she cried. “I’m good at what I do, but I can’t do this alone,” she said. “I just can’t lose anypony anymore.”
“Hey, hey, nobody’s losing anybody – or anypony or whatever,” he assured her. “Let’s get those folks out of the hole first,” he said, signaling to his own numbers as the first of Sweetie’s contingent began crawling out of the hole, “and then we’ll figure out what to do next, okay?”
“Fine,” she said, her voice somewhere between exhaustion and exasperation.
Throughout his life, Mike had never been afraid of heights. Even as a young teen, whenever he and his family had travelled to Gibraltar back when his father had been stationed in Spain, he loved climbing as far up on the rock as they were allowed to go. At one point during his Academy years, he’d considered going to the Naval Aviation track. And during one of his weekend getaways while he was stationed at Fifth Fleet, he’d gone to the top of the Burj Khalifa, which at one time had been the tallest building in the world.
But, now dangling over a deep pit, held in place only by his wife’s tail, he could see why Applejack had once told him that, with a few exceptions here and there, earth ponies were by and large acrophobic. “You mind hurrying?” he shouted up. “Kinda losing feeling in my fingers here….”
“This isn’t any easier for me!” DJ shouted back. She hadn’t meant to snap at her husband, but she was trying to ignore the pain, as her tail was starting to go numb. Whatever Silversteel had said about mares might be true, but that likely applied to mares embued with the full natural magic of Equestria, something she definitely didn’t have – and even though being on Alter-Earth the past couple of days had made some changes in her body, the agony she felt was pretty much an indicator that this wasn’t one of them.
It also hadn’t helped that she’d panicked for a second when Silversteel had made his suggestion, but in the end, had no choice but to trust in him. So, with no alternative, she let go of his hoof and fell for a split-second, descending far enough in that instant to grab his shin – no, wait, he walks in four-wheel drive, so that’d be a “cannon,” she reminded herself – rather than higher up, which could be potentially embarrassing for a species normally sans thread.
But now she was in a precarious position: her grip was a little better, but it wasn’t going to hold out forever, and even aside from that, holding onto Mike was an extra weight that made things harder that way – and letting go there wasn’t an option either. “Whatever you’ve got planned, I suggest you do it!” she yelled at the stallion above her.
“I’m working on it, trust me,” Silversteel said, closing his eyes and beginning to pull the three of them up. Straining forelegs that he usually didn’t use in that manner, gripping in ways he wasn’t very accustomed to – and probably would’ve been better with human fingers – he pulled up on his purchase for all he was worth, clawing forward with every bit of strength to get back onto stable ground. But as the floor began to crumble around him, he knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
He didn’t care; easy was for donkeys.
Letting the beaten pepsis stallion fall to the floor, Twilight Sunburn immediately changed her focus; he’d been a needless distraction, and time was wasting. She had to get back to her mother before it was too late. Turning and transforming into a small dog, she began weaving her way through the maze of shattered walls and collapsed ceilings that had been part of the antechamber leading to the main room; most of that had been destroyed in the battle between the two and that space had very little maneuvering room left.
As she got closer, Twilight heard frantic screams in the distance:
“She’s going into shock! Do something, Applejack!”
“D’ Ah look like Ah’m a doctor? B’sides, we can’t leave er else we’ll infect everypony else!”
As she approached the pair, the pepsis returned to her normal form, startling both ponies in the process. In any case, Twilight ignored them; her mind wasn’t on their situation right now as there was a pony of a higher priority at the moment. But she did note that both ponies were heavily infected by the consumption spell and….
She gasped: There, on the ground, was her mother, almost completely taken over by the spell. Having seen the spell’s final results, Twilight moved like lightning; instinct had taken over and she had to do something.
But as she approached, the orange earth pony got in the way. “Yer not touchin’ her! Ah ain’t gunna let y’ harm Twi!” she snarled.
“I’m here to help,” Twilight told the strange pony. Something was familiar about her, but she didn’t know why; she chalked it up to the genetic memory she inherited from her father. “Please, let me see my mother.”
“Why are you calling her that?” the other pony, a bedraggled unicorn, looked at her oddly. She was heavily infected as well and also oddly familiar. Whoever these two were, they had been somewhat important or at least memorable to her father, based on the engrams.
“Because she is,” she told the two mares. “It’s…hard to explain right now, but I will later. But for right now, I want to help. Please let me help.”
Both Applejack and Rarity looked at the newcomer. There was no doubt about it: she was one of those hybrid changeling ponies that had been brought up in the past couple of weeks. Cadance had even adopted a foal like the one before them, according to Fluttershy’s last visit. But they never thought they’d see an adult version, and here were two: the one that had attacked them and looked like Shining Armor, and who saved them…and looked like Twilight herself. And here that changeling stood, claiming Twilight as her mother and asking – begging! – to help.
“What’d ya think, Rares?” Applejack whispered. “Twi’s in bad shape, an’ we aren’t doin’ better neither.”
Rarity looked right at the changeling in front of her. There was an oddly timid and fragile look to her despite the fact that she’d taken on that other one of her kind with little effort. She knew that combination of strength and frailty, remembered it as clear as day on a very similar face from decades past. That similar face so long ago had always been so full of confidence when it came to magical prowess and yet so very afraid of the normal travails of life otherwise.
Like mother, like daughter? If only I…. She shut the thought out. Now was not the time to go over that; she’d said her piece and an uneasy truce rested between Rarity and her wayward daughter.
“Can I trust you to help her?” Rarity said, looking firmly at the changeling. “Can I trust that you’ll help my sister?”
Before she could answer, Twilight started convulsing violently. The changeling pushed both ponies out of the way as her horn became bathed in warm pink hues. Gently picking up the shaking, blackened pony in her forelegs, she brought her horn close to the other, Twilight to Twilight. In a broken, saddened voice, she murmured, “It can’t end this way. Please, don’t leave me after I finally found you! You’re the only one I could ever want as my mother. Please!”
Twilight Sparkle lay as still as death in the forelegs of Twilight Sunburn, and both Rarity and Applejack held their breaths, their eyes welling with tears. The heartbroken speech of the changeling sounded heartwrenching, and it cut Rarity to the core: a daughter, or somepony wanting to fulfill that role, begging a still, unyielding (though for different reasons) pony to open her life up to her. The parallels were not lost on the fashionista.
Of course, there was the other fact that whatever Twilight was suffering through, they were clearly going to be next: the magical curse was clearly in final effects on the archmagus, and through their efforts, Rarity and Applejack had only exposed themselves to much worse. When the time came for Rainbow to awaken from her coma, she’d find the blackened corpses of her three sisters as the welcoming sight – not exactly a morale booster.
Through all this, however, Twilight Sunburn continued to ignore the other two, instead holding the still body of her mother in her forelegs. Her heart hurt like never before, like it was going to be wrenched out of her. Everything that she’d suffered at the hooves of Chrysalis and her subordinates, every injury and wound felt like nothing compared to this. “Please wake up,” she whispered to the still pony in her embrace. “I need you.”
Tears welled in her eyes. Why was she destined to suffer like this? What would happen to her next? Was there all that this was, just pain and emptiness? Could she return to Faust if there was nothing else for her? Would Faust even want her back? She knew that she couldn’t return to the hive; that way would be the end of her. But what did she have left?
“Don’t leave me,” Twilight Sunburn begged of the unicorn that would be her parent. And on instinct, something she never knew why, she reached forward, nuzzling the still unicorn and then giving her a kiss on the cheek as her tears fell onto the still, possibly dead, body of Twilight Sparkle.
And then Twilight Sparkle, body still as death, suddenly convulsed and coughed, a sign she was not done yet.
“Twily?”
In a technicolor soup of sensoria, Twilight felt her head spinning. Everything was a fugue of senses that assaulted her and made her shrink away from it all. But it was the single call of her name, by a voice ever so familiar, which caught her attention. Despite the blitzkrieg the riot of colors and lights staged on her eyes, she forced herself to turn in the direction of the sound, to see a beloved stallion standing behind her.
“Shiny?” Twilight suddenly felt all of ten years old again – in a good way. Without any hesitation, she raced up to embrace her fellow unicorn. “How...?”
“Heya, little sis. I’ve missed you too,” Shining Armor said, the warm smile on his face a balm against the sturm und drang surrounding them. “But you shouldn’t be here.”
“Where’s here?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking around as if he was seeing something entirely different from her, “but I know you shouldn’t be here, wherever this place is. You should be out there with her.”
“Her? But Cadance isn’t in the quarantine I was in,” she explained.
“Not talking about Cady,” he said, shaking his head. “You know who I’m talking about: our daughter.”
It was a testament to Twilight Sparkle’s growth and maturity over decades that prevented her from completely exploding into a frenzied shout of “WHAT?!?!?!” at that moment. Instead, she raised a single, solitary eyebrow, Vulcanlike in its nature, to look at her older brother in somewhat of a state of confusion.
“She’s my daughter,” Shining explained, “because she’s the result of what Chrysalis did to me. You know what happened there: There’s hundreds of them, and only one safely made it to Cady. If I…if I were still here, I would do everything I could to make sure that Cady and I took them all from Chrysalis. But I can’t. That’s beyond me.”
“And that’s where I come in?”
He nodded. “This one chose you. I don’t know how or why, but she knew you were going to be there for her, not Cady, though I would have been happy if she did. But she chose you, little sister, and she needs you.” He paused for a second, then added, “And frankly, you need her, too.”
“I know.” Twilight shut her eyes, even though she kept her attention on – her brother? The ghost of her brother, or a figment of her imagination, or some delusion in her mind, maybe even just her conscience, filtered through his image? – him. “I’ve never been good at socializing, and I know that I tend to use my family as a wall against it. Even with the girls and their families as part of mine, all I’ve done is just made those walls bigger.”
Shining placed his forehooves on his sister’s withers. “And that’s why you need her. Years ago, you created miracles just by learning the powers of magic and friendship. But you’ve forgotten something about those lessons, and those around you can’t teach it to you anymore; if anything, they’ve probably picked up some of your habits. But with her, it’s a new start. A fresh start.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do it. I don’t know the first thing about being a parent.”
“And yet you’ve been one to the girls’ foals at times,” Shining reminded her. “And even they didn’t really know how to be parents when they started – nopony really does. But that filly’s crying for you right now and you need to be there for her. Because she’s family, Twily: Not just family in the larger sense that we’ve created, or family in the sense of our bloodline, but…family because she wants you to be a part of her life, and that’s something incredibly special.” He looked deep into his sister’s eyes. “Promise me you’ll do it, LSBFF.”
She looked at him, and smiled. “Anything for you, BBBFF.”
“Well then you’d better wake up,” he told her. “You’re still not in the clear, and there’s others that could use your help, too.”
“Will do,” she agreed. A second later, another thought came to mind: “Wait – which others?”
Feeling every muscle in his body scream in pain as they quivered, Silversteel continued to pull upwards as the weight of two individuals on his leg and the inexorable pull of gravity threatened to undo them all. Normally, this would have been easy as pie for him, both as a well-built earth pony and his insistence on keeping himself in shape due to his career. Unfortunately, he was still recovering from having just left a coma that would have ensured the end of anypony else; he couldn’t deny that the doctor’s suggestion to rest up was the correct one. But things didn’t work out that way and he had to pull his flank out of the metaphorical fire for two very important reasons.
The first was that his family needed him. From what little time he’d spent conscious, nopony had mentioned either Rarity or Minty, and that did not bode well. He needed to know if his wife and youngest daughter had survive the hell that befallen Fillydelphia, and if not, somehow, someway, he was going to take the war personally to the changelings and make them pay in a way that Shining Armor couldn’t have. If rage and anger were to be his only avenue of retaliation, well, it’d make for a nice start.
But the second and more present reason was the life hanging onto his leg, that life in turn holding onto one dear to herself. After so long, some miracle had occurred and she was back in his life again. Fate, Celestia or whatever had given him the chance to prove himself worthy of the daughter he’d lost once, to absolve himself of the errors he’d committed and to make up for the promises he’d broken. Even if more than a bit in overkill, he had this single chance to prove that he could do it – and even if not, the human with her didn’t deserve to be in this situation any more than the rest of them.
There were so many reasons to fail – and only two that mattered for success.
You have your marching orders, Silver, he told himself. Now pull! Reaching for every bit of the earth pony magic within him, Silversteel continued to claw his way forward, both for his own life, and the sake of his family’s.
“Uh guys? Better hurry up!” Mike shouted from below. “I can see something down there and…hey, Dee? Remember that movie we saw last month where the laser cannon was glowing in the dark befor—”
“Hon, I really don’t think this is the best time to bring that up right now,” she called down to him, then turned and shouted up to Silversteel, “Uh, hate to rush you or anything, but….”
“I’m working on it!” he shouted back as he continued to pull up more on the bars. His hooves were starting to sweat and purchase was becoming harder and harder. His muscles, somewhat out of practice for the longest time, burned like fire as they virtually begged him to stop whatever ersatz exercise he was committing. And yet still he continued to go. Because the option was unacceptable – there was no other option.
Several more excruciating seconds passed before the stallion successfully clambered onto a part of the floor that had not caved in. He immediately turned around and, with gasps of breath, pulled DJ up and then lifted Mike as well before collapsing onto the floor, spent.
DJ immediately moved to her feet. “C’mon, hon,” she said to Mike. “We gotta get outta here, and carrying him isn’t going to be easy.”
“No,” Silver gasped. “Leave me. From what I’m guessing, you’re not as strong as the average earth pony, and you’re not going t—”
“Spare me the histrionics,” DJ said, moving to her husband’s side to help him up while she continued to address Silversteel. “We’re getting out of here, one way or another. You owe me some answers, and….” She paused, as if trying to figure out what to say.
He said it for her. “You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you?”
She was still unable to respond, so as Mike got to his own feet, he said, “What she’s trying to say in her usual lack of tact is that….” He stopped as DJ cut him off with a pleading look.
She then looked at the earth pony that had been responsible for her life – and had just saved it. “I…I guess…. Look, I’m a woman of many words – probably too many,” she began, “but this isn’t easy for me to say. So I probably shouldn’t say anything at all.” Instead, she went over and helped him to his hooves, before throwing her arms around him in a tight embrace, one he was all too willing to join in.
“I’ve missed you so much, muffin,” he murmured, his own eyes watering.
“Muffin?” she asked, wiping tears away as she released the hug.
“It’s a long story,” he said to her as he reluctantly let go, “but it’s one that you’ll want to know.”
“Twilight! Rarity!” Sweetie’s shouts sounded through the shattered location as she approached. The room was mostly darkened, and they’d resorted to the illumination of Sweetie’s horn and a quick creation of a flashlight that Sam attached to the pistol. The whole area seemed like creepy and decrepit, as the dark, combined with the damage of the explosion, created an atmosphere of danger that set both would-be rescuers on edge.
“You’re sure they’re here?” Sam asked her, sweeping his light to and fro to look for the safest path through.
“I hope so,” she replied. “And I’m hoping alive!” With a flare of her magic she threw away some parts of the building that had been previous floors; moving it caused part of a nearby wall to collapse and thankfully, it hadn’t been a load-bearing one. Above them, she heard the sounds of voices ringing down from above. “Your ponies are helping with that, right?” she asked the human.
“Yeah. I told Deputy Holster and Private Grassy Glen to meet up with us back at the same location once they’re done sweeping the upper areas,” he told her. “Besides, I wasn’t going to let you come down here alone; DJ would kill me if she found out I let you do that.”
“Thanks, Sam,” she replied as the two continued to move forward. As they entered the final quarantine zone, she called out again, “Somepony answer me! Twi? Rarity? AJ? Rainbow? Are you still here?”
“Hey, we’re here to help,” Sam called out.
To her relief, a voice called back from the dark. “Sweetie, don’t come closer! We’re not shielded!” Rarity shouted back, worried for her younger sister. She could just make out the ivory form of the younger unicorn in the distance, illuminated by the magic of her horn.
“I’m here to help!” was the younger unicorn’s response. “We need to get you out of there somehow before the whole hospital falls down on our heads!”
“Go find Celestia or somepony who can help! Twilight’s down, and we need a heavy barrier caster!” was the response.
Sweetie’s veins suddenly felt like ice. Twi’s down? She knew that Twilight had been the one holding everything together, and if Twilight succumbed to the whole thing, it would be all over. Sweetie fought the tears that suddenly threatened to bury her in despair as terror over the survival of her sisters and mentor and instead said, “No, I’m coming in!”
“No yer not!” Applejack shouted back. “Sweetie, we know yer worried plum sick ‘bout us, but comin’ in’ll only make things worse! Like it er not, yer gonna hafta find Celestia t’ help us get outta this predicamint! Plus, think o’ all th’ ponies in th’ hospital whut still need help! They needja more than we do!”
“But I can’t abandon you!” Sweetie shouted back. “You told me we don’t abandon family!”
“I know, Sweetie,” Rarity said softly. “And I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve made a mistake about that on more than one occasion.”
“Sweetie, let me go in and check on them,” Sam offered. “Spike told me the disease doesn’t affect humans.”
The unicorn looked at him, surprised, though a split-second later she realized she shouldn’t have been. “Are you sure?”
“Look, this is my sister’s family, so…well, I don’t want to let DJ down when I know I could have done something to help. And besides, her majesty tapped me to give a helping hand on this one, so I’m going to do this regardless.”
She smiled. “You know, Sam, you’re one of a kind – you’re going to make some girl very lucky…regardless of what species she is.”
“Right,” he said, moving forward. Not waiting for any further answer, he moved forward, swinging the flashlight to and fro as he moved over to the other side. As he walked forward, he took note of the condition the room was in: no load-bearing walls or pillars had been destroyed, so collapse wasn’t imminent, but with everything above heavily damaged by the blast, it was only a matter of time before everything tumbled down. He was by no means an EOD expert of any kind, but he figured they had maybe a few hours more before things started to get critical.
As he met up with the group, things got strange: There, in the arms of a very unusual looking pony, was Twilight. She was almost entirely covered in what looked like some sort of black fungus or something similar, save for her cutie mark, which was glowing. Behind them, looking equally worse for wear, was Applejack, and the pony that he figured to be Rarity – save for her horn, she had the same facial shape as DJ. Lying on a gurney behind them and sleeping softly, he assumed, was Rainbow Dash.
“Heya, Sam,” Applejack said, coughing briefly. “Wish Ah could say that ‘t’s a better time t’ see ya, but…well, y’know.”
“Yeah, I know. How is she?” When Applejack looked at him bleakly, his heart froze. “No….” he whispered, refusing to believe she was dead.
“She’s not dead!” the strange pony insisted, determination fixed in her teary eyes. “I won’t let it end this way! She’s not going to die!” The pony’s horn lit up once more, a bright hue of yellow, as she tried to feed a sort of energy into Twilight’s body. “Please, Mother….” the pony whispered.
Seeing the look on the human’s face, Applejack added, “Long story, Sam.”
Sam, acting on his training and instincts, bent down beside his fallen friend. “May I see her?” he asked the still-unidentified pony. When she looked at the gun nervously, he immediately nodded, detached the flashlight from the pistol and tucked the gun behind his back. “I just need to check her vitals, is that okay?” When the stranger timidly nodded, he moved forward, checking Twilight’s vitals. As he released her, he let out a sigh of relief. “Good – she’s still with us. Whatever you’re doing, keep it up, gently, okay?” Instinctively he patted the pony – was she some kind of fairy pony of a type he wasn’t aware of before? – on the head and she smiled appreciatively in return.
“Who is he?” Rarity asked Applejack in the interim. “I don’t recall him.”
“You wouldn’t,” the former farmer responded. “That’s DJ’s little brother. He’s a cop, from what I remember.”
Rarity couldn’t help herself. “Is every human she keeps company with a gun-toting lunatic?” Rarity saw her sister’s eyes narrow at that and asked, “What did I say?”
“Rares, y’ just don’ know when t’ quit, do ya?” Applejack said, shaking her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Sam stiffening briefly; there was no way he could have failed to hear that. But he continued to do what he was doing with Twilight, and inwardly Applejack smiled. Whatever the case, Matt and Anna had raised themselves a pair of good kids.
“Okay, from what I saw, while the room’s not in imminent danger of collapsing, you probably don’t want to be hanging around here forever,” Sam said, turning his attention back to Applejack. “We’ve probably got a few hours to get you all out of here, but we don’t want to push it longer than we have to.”
“Only thin’ Ah kin think of is usin’ th’ bubble idea that Sweetie mentioned,” Applejack explained. “But we’re gunna need bubbles fer each o’ us – includin’ Rainbow.”
A thought suddenly came to Sam. “Sweetie, can you cast multiple bubbles?”
A scream was the response that came back.
“Sweetie!” Sam immediately turned the flashlight in the direction of the cry while he reached behind him for his pistol.
“Thanks, Elusive,” Cinnamon said as she started to recover from her panic. “I’m not very good at this sort of thing, not like Mom.”
Elusive laughed. “I recall Aunt Fluttershy saying that she used to not be very good with this sort of stuff either.”
“She wasn’t,” Celestia said to them as she approached. “But she got better, as I’m certain you will as well, Cinnamon.”
“Aunt Celestia? What are you doing here?” both ponies said at once.
The alicorn smiled softly, the reactions of the pair reminding her of how their parents had once been at that age. “Royal duties,” she responded. “The Infirmary is technically part of the palace complex, so I needed to be here. Besides….” While the Princess of the Day did not finish her words, her tone carried all the weight she needed them to.
“Are you sure?” Elusive asked, new concern rising into his mind. Through most of this time he’d been thinking about the immediate sense, his father and his sister, but they weren’t the only ones he had in the Infirmary. Deep below, in the quarantine area, was his mother and his aunts and that was a concern of a whole new level.
“I’ve sent in some troops to look into it,” she said uneasily. She wouldn’t say anything further, for fear of anypony passing by and misunderstanding, but what little she said was enough to get the message across to her niece and nephew. Fortunately, as a trio started to step out of the front entrance of the Infirmary, there was something that could take their minds off their immediate concern.
“You two go ahead. I’ll be along shortly, after I speak to my senior officers on-site,” she told them, as they departed to assist DJ and Mike.
What stepped into the light could best be described as a hellbeast. Vaguely in the shape of a diamond dog, it looked like no diamond dog that ever lived, with a mouth that was mostly razor sharp teeth. The thing jutted forward and roared, and as it did, it swung a rag doll by the head in one of its paws. The “rag doll”, frighteningly enough, was a bloody Sweetie.
“SWEETIE!” Rarity roared in terror.
With a careless shrug, the creature threw Sweetie’s unconscious body towards them. Both Rarity and Applejack acted out of instinct, but knew that the moment they touched her, it would be too late. Applejack took the blow, catching the younger mare, though it knocked her for a loop. As she looked down in horror, she noticed that on the spots where Sweetie’s skin had connected with hers, black marks had appeared, the first stages of the disease. “You rotten varmint!” the earth pony snarled.
“I wouldn’t worry,” the creature said, and the group suddenly recognized his voice. “You won’t live long enough to consider any other thoug—”
Sam’s instincts were to shout out that he was a cop and for the perp to freeze. But as he saw the wounded body of one of his friends and the creature that had hurt her laughing in cruel glee, he ignored the training and opened fire. Thanks to frequent weapons practice for his job as well as a lifetime spent around guns, the shots found their mark, two groups hitting in both the heart and the stomach.
Unfortunately, however, the bullets had no effect as they seemed to melt into the creature’s skin as it absorbed the damage.
“The hell?” the human snarled.
“That was a pathetic attempt to stop me, human,” the monster rumbled, “but at least you tried. I’ll give you a clean death.”
“Everyone behind me now!” Sam thundered, loading another clip in seconds. This next batch had been given to him in an emergency by the REA major; they were military-grade HEAP rounds, with enough of a kick that should make an impact. But they were nothing like he’d ever handled before, he knew, and it was going to be messy if he missed.
And then that’s when things got strange, as a voice shouted out, “You’re an idiot!” Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw as the fairy pony set Twilight down gently, as she looked at him and said, “Please, take care of her – I’ll deal with this.” Not waiting for a response from the human, she strode forward, eyeing the creature with a glance that was nothing short of unadulterated fury. “I gave you the chance to escape, and yet you still haven’t learned!”
“Learned from what, False Princess?” Broken Armor spat. “Learned that you are a threat to Mother and that you need to be dispatched immediately? Learned that once I end you, I can break the Bearers and crush Canterlot’s defenses for once and for all?”
Twilight Sunburn was undeterred. Stepping forward, she snarled, “This is your final warning: tell Chrysalis that we ponies defend our own. If you don’t leave now, you’re not getting another chance!”
The pepsis assassin roared, “I will wear your skin as a cloak to give to Mother! It will be a better end than you des….” He began to trail off as her horn began to glow, the glow suddenly encompassing her body as she took on the mantle of a star. “What a-are you doing?”
“You want to simper to your mother, but I’m going to protect mine!” Twilight Sunburn hissed, as she grew brighter.
“And turning into a flashlight is going to stop me?”
Twilight Sunburn grinned wolfishly. “No, but introducing you to the other side of our genes will!” she announced as she triggered the spell in full, a penumbra of power expanding outwards from the pepsis mare.
The world became insensate with a blinding, searing white, at first. But that was short-lived as the light settled into a soft, warm white, accompanied by something else. Both Rarity and Applejack felt the warmth and comfort of the magic surrounding them, recognizing it immediately: they’d been at ground zero as well the last time a spell like this had been used. The playful motes of magic caressed and touched them, bringing to the fore precious memories that had been buried for so long.
Both mares turned to face the pepsis, knowing what they’d see – and they weren’t disappointed. The face the pepsis wore was undeniably that of Twilight Sparkle, but the determined, self-confident look in those blue eyes…
…that was entirely Shining Armor.
“C’mon, we’re almost there!” DJ grunted as they reached the entrance of the hospital. “You know, you’re Goddamn heavy!” she told Silver. The stallion wasn’t sure how to respond to that, and a quick glance into Mike’s eyes suggested that he should just leave it be.
Fortunately, a split-second later, medical staff joined them and took Silver in-hoof. “Thanks for the assist with the general,” an REA medic told them. “Can’t tell you how much of a blow that would’ve been to morale if something happened to him.”
“I know how that is,” Mike responded sympathetically.
As for DJ, her answer was less succinct: “Um…yeah.” As she let Silversteel go, she felt uneasy and awkward. She knew she’d done the right thing, and that regardless of who or what he was, saving a life was the right thing to do – the Christian thing to do. But having him there, leaning on her shoulder and her arm around him for support, having embraced him in a moment of pure instinct…she couldn’t explain any of it to herself, much less her husband, parents or sons.
Could she forgive him for all the pain and injury of the past couple of decades? Did she really want to? And if that was the case, did she owe that same courtesy to Rarity? She knew that she didn’t want that unicorn bitch in her life, but she knew she wanted Elusive there; they’d only been together a couple of days and yet having him there felt as natural to her as having Sam there. This was especially important to her since she’d helped bring her niece and nephew into the world and she felt an obligation to them.
And then there was Minty – and that in and of itself had its own dimensions. Minty had been married, with a husband and a daughter of her own. If by some miracle they were alive, was it fair to treat them cruelly for Minty’s sins? Elusive said that Minty’s daughter Gumdrop had been a wonderful little filly…and it wasn’t that much of a stretch to think that, at least for the first couple weeks of her own life, DJ had been considered “a wonderful little filly” before fate made her a little girl.
She suddenly felt delicate fingers settle under her muzzle, gently raising her face. “No frowning, okay?” her husband said softly. “No matter what, hon, you did something damn good today. Regardless of the facts, you saved a life – two, if you want to count mine in the mix.”
“You’re not going to let me sulk in peace, are you?” she asked him, the ghost of a smile coming onto her face.
“And why should I?” Mike asked, putting his arms around her.
She sighed. “And you just ruined another potential temper tantrum,” she teased. But she didn’t have much time to relax as she realized two newcomers were approaching. “Hey, you two missed the fun,” she told Cinnamon and Elusive. “As usual, it was involving nearly getting killed, because having a normal life is apparently off-limits for me now.”
“Um…DJ? Is it bad that I can’t tell whether you’re joking or not anymore?” Cinnamon asked squeamishly.
Elusive looked at her affably. “Of course she’s joking,” he replied. A second later, he amended that with, “I hope. In any case, I should let you both know that we overheard the medics and…” He trailed off, not sure what to say, but a second later, he forced the words from his mouth. “Thank you, DJ. I know Father doesn’t mean anything to you, but….”
“Luse, not now, please. Just…just not now, okay? I’m not sure how much more of a beating I can take today,” she said, turning away from her brother. In turn, he looked at her back, wanting to help, to do something to cheer her up or give her succor, but the look in Mike’s said he would take care of it. The stallion nodded somberly and turned away.
Mike said to his wife, “C’mon. Let’s get your tail looked at, okay?” Wordlessly, she nodded; she’d almost blocked out the pain until he’d reminded her and it took a lot of willpower for her not to scream as he scooped her up in his arms to head towards the nearest medic.
As he watched the two head off, Cinnamon joined him and asked, “Are you sure that’s the best thing to do right now? I mean, didn’t you promise to be there with her when she needed you?”
“Cinnamon, you’ve had us all your life, right?” When she nodded, he continued. “Well, what if out of the blue, you had a brother you never knew existed before and tried to make you understand everything about your old family? Sure, you might be interested, but wouldn’t you be a little overwhelmed if it all happened at once?”
“I suppose so,” the pegasus admitted. “But I can’t understand why you’re letting her do this alone. You two are brother and sister. Siblings are supposed to look out for each other, just like Uncle Shining and Aunt Twilight, or Dad did with Aunt AJ and Aunt Bloomie.”
“I know,” the unicorn admitted, “but at the same time, I have to give her the space. She’s probably reliving everything she went through decades ago, and now that I have her on my side…I don’t want to push her away. I don’t doubt Father’s thinking the same thing, and I can only pray that Mother’s had an epiphany on that as well. But I can’t do anything about them. All I can do is my own part.”
The light felt warm and comforting to Sam, as if he was – as corny as it sounded – being in the middle of a bunch of newly-fluffed towels bleached to a perfect white and pulled from the dryer. A few days back, Mike had told him about a particular magical attack that he’d seen Celestia perform on changelings and how it felt like it was being in the inside of the sun. If this was the same attack, Sam guessed it was a very different situation.
Finally, after a few seconds, the everpresent blankness faded away into the deep colors of everyday life. Meanwhile, the pepsis wiped her forehead and horn, exhaling as she said, “Wow – that was intense. Everypony okay?”
“What was that?” Sam asked. “It was like being in the middle of a nuclear blast, except—” Applejack suddenly looked at him and nodded her head back towards Twilight’s direction.
To the surprise of everyone present, Twilight Sparkle, albeit with some strain, was looking up at the strange pony, the look in the unicorn eyes pained but pleasant. “So…so you are real,” she whispered in a strained, gravelly voice, giving the younger mare a weak smile. “For a moment, I thought I…I thought I imagined it all.”
The look on the younger mare’s face was one of surprise as the moment she hoped for was finally coming to fruition. “Mother?” the pepsis asked, the tone in her voice as if she was in a dream she didn’t want to wake up from.
The elder Twilight looked at the younger, peering intently at her semi-lookalike. Finally, another smile crept onto the archmagus’ face as she said, “You have his eyes.” Ignoring the pain, she reached out with her withered hoof as she touched the younger pony’s muzzle. “And you clearly have my looks as well,” Twilight added. “You truly are the child of both me and my brother.”
Needless to say, Twilight’s somewhat confusing statement did not come out as well as it could have. Rarity reacted to the statement with a gasp of shock, while Applejack asked, “Uh, Twi? Wanna explain that one agin?”
“I’ll explain later,” Twilight insisted to her sisters, then turned her focus back to the pepsis before her. “How did you find me? The fact that we’re here is supposed to be a highly-classified secret.”
“Faust sent me,” the pepsis answered specifically. “She told me that you’d need me just like I need you, and that I was going to have to fight to protect you.”
Twilight’s eyes went wide at the response. “You saw Faust?” When the teen nodded, Twilight tried to digest the realization that the pepsis had been directly sent by nopony less than Celestia and Luna’s mother; that fact alone was amazing in and of itself, but the very fact that the ancient alicorn knew what was to come?
That’s a message, Twilight knew. But who’s the message for? Me, or Celestia and Luna? Or somepony else?
Unaware of Twilight’s internal monologue, Twilight Sunburn continued. “She saved me,” the pepsis said with fondness and awe. “She knew I wanted to be loved and that the only way to do that was to become a pony with a family.”
Twilight grinned. “Well, if you needed proof, you just got it.” The archmagus pointed towards the pepsis’ flank, and Twilight Sunburn turned around to see something new: on her hindquarters was a new coloration, blending into her coat. It was both simple and complex – a white, abstract stellar explosion overlaid by the all-too-familiar magenta star of the Clover lineage – but it was undeniable: a cutie mark.
The sign of a pony.
“Is that…?” the pepsis wondered. All the previous times in disguise as a pony she had to imitate one, but never had one of her own, but now….
“The sign of a Clover,” Twilight said, a note of pride creeping into her voice. “Both your father and I have them. It’s a sign that you’re truly my daughter, little one.”
“You really mean that?” the pepsis said in surprise, as if unable to believe this was happening.
“If that’s what you wa—” Twilight never finished her sentence as she was suddenly glomped by a crying, overcome-with-joy pepsis. “I’m guessing that’s a yes, my little…you know, if I’m going to be your mother, I probably should learn your name.”
“Twilight Sunburn,” the pepsis said with a bit of nervousness.
“And that should do it,” the unicorn said, the tan glow of his magic dying down as he finished the spell. Gingerly, DJ swished her tail around, checking for damage; it felt good as new. “Well, thankfully the sprain wasn’t too bad, but the strange thing is, you shouldn’t have had a sprain at all. You’re an earth pony a—”
“Who grew up on Human-Earth, doc,” DJ pointed out, “and has had almost no exposure to magic throughout my life. I’m weaker than the average earth pony as a result.”
“My apologies; I’d forgotten about that. In that case, it’s got to be something else. Maybe you should look into your family heritage, I suppose; you are related to a Knight Elemental, after all, your grace. Well, if there’s nothing else, then I’ve got other patients to look at.” Giving a quick nod to Mike, the doctor headed off, leaving the two in the first aid tent.
”Well, that went by pretty fast,” Mike said. “Did I miss something while I stepped out?” He’d left the tent briefly while DJ had her tail examined – husband or not, patient privacy was patient privacy – and he got the feeling he’d missed a bit by the time he was invited back in.
“Apparently copies of my medical records are on file here at the Infirmary,” DJ grumbled. “I’m betting Twilight had something to do with that. Well, her or Celestia.”
“Maybe Luna? She did spend all that time healing you.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right about that,” DJ said, her irritation deflating. As she got off the medical bed, she sighed. “What now?”
“I don’t know, hon. You tell me.”
“Look, right now, I just want to go home, down two liters of Cherry Coke, grab the nearest bucket of chocolate cherry ice cream and abuse our Netflix account. Been meaning to marathon some Audrey Hepburn films and this is my chance.”
“You?” Mike asked.
“Hey, I’m a woman, therefore I hereby hold the right to do stereotypical woman things when I’m depressed. You’re lucky I’m leaving out the Hello Kitty pajamas and long, teary phonecalls to Erica until our phone bill reaches six figures,” she said with a smile. When he just gave her a lidded look, she shook her head. “Okay, okay, I get it.” She sighed, then continued with, “Look, hon, I honestly don’t know what to do right now. I think I need to talk to my parents.”
“I doubt they’re going to feel like you betrayed them just because you had a very emotional moment with your biological father. Trust me: your parents, are, if anything, still somewhat upset over the whole thing with Rarity earlier today.”
“Was it just today? God, it feels like it happened months ago to some other person,” she answered. “Right now, I really don’t feel like I’m in charge of myself. I feel like I’m in the orbit of a black hole, and that Rarity’s going to drag me in one way or another.”
“She won’t. That’s not you,” he told her. “Look, love, I want you to be happy, but I want you to be happy – it doesn’t do a damn bit of good if everyone else is overjoyed with the end result and you’re the one paying the price.” He bent down and looked her in the eyes. “I feel like I’m saying this over and over and over again, but I’ll keep doing it until it sinks in: in the end, you’re just you, not Sandalwood, or Daisy Jo or whatever you want to call yourself – and only you can really accept who you are. But as long as you want me here, I’m going to be here.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” she said, stretching slightly, “then I have something to do. C’mon, we’ve got to find Elusive.”
“Why?”
“Because something that Silversteel said: ‘sisters’. He said it as though there’s something I should know that I don’t. And maybe Luse isn’t telling me something, or maybe he doesn’t know. But I get the feeling it’s something I should know.”
Twilight Sparkle looked at the pepsis that was now her daughter and thought about the momentous change that was coming into her life, not the least of which was the same problem that she and her own mother had shared: all the times that Twilight Sparkle and Twilight Velvet had been confused for one another, thankfully usually solved by Velvet’s preference for her secondary name over her primary one – it had already been a problem that “Twilight” was somewhat of a common gender-neutral name to begin with.
But there was another issue at hand, and thankfully in her own histrionic way, Rarity solved that: “‘Sunburn’, dear?” the fashionista asked the younger mare. “Who in their right mind would give such a name to a foal?”
“It’s the way all of us were named by Chrysalis,” Twilight Sunburn admitted with a bit of hesitance. “She…really didn’t work on giving us original names – individuality wasn’t exactly encouraged by the changeling queen.”
“Well, I think we can change that, if you want,” Twilight Sparkle told the young pepsis.
A pair of blue eyes went as wide as a foal opening her first gift on Hearths Warming Day. “Really?”
A thought came up to the elder Twilight and, ignoring the pain coursing through her body, she reached up to whisper something in the pepsis’ ear. “What do you think?”
“You mean it?”
The unicorn’s smile was pained but sincere. “It’s a new start for you. May as well start fresh.”
The squee the pepsis uttered was both deafening and adorable as the teen bounced up and down with absolute joy, having received what she felt was a priceless gift from the pony she desired to be – and now was – her mother. The ear-to-ear grin on her face was one so bright and sunny that the four conscious adults in the space couldn’t help but return the grin themselves.
For herself, Twilight Sparkle felt a twinkle in her heart that she’d felt often – but never thought she’d ever feel in this way. For so many years, she loved her nieces and nephews as if they were her own – especially wayward DJ, who Twilight had as much of a preference for as she could for any of her sisters’ foals – but she’d never had the experience of parenthood for herself and had always felt it was something that would never come to pass for her. But now, the maternal feeling swelling in her chest wasn’t one by proxy, delivered second-hoof, but directly and totally for her and just her. It was a nourishing, invigorating sensation and the lavender unicorn had to wonder, if just for the briefest breadth of a second, if this was how a changeling felt – her daughter was half-changeling, after all.
As the pepsis bounded around the area, both Rarity and Applejack moved to their sister’s side. “Twilight, dear, a word, if you please, in private?”
The archmagus steeled herself for what she suddenly expected. “I know what you’re going to say, Rarity, and this is my decision.”
“Twilight, dear, please don’t misunderstand me, but it seems as though you’ve given it no thought at all!” Rarity replied. “Parenthood isn’t exactly something that you can just pick up like a book from a shelf. And this…filly…quite literally appeared on the scene just minutes ago, and you’re suddenly deciding that she’s going to be your daughter? Because she’s the result of the atrocity that Chrysalis committed on Shining, no less? That might make her related, but it doesn’t make her family, darling.”
“As much as Ah hate t’ agree with Rarity in this case,” Applejack commented, “Ah’m gonna do so. Twi, we know how y’ feel ‘bout foals o’ yer own, but innt this a bit much?”
Twilight looked at them, firmness in her eyes. “No,” she said softly. “I know what I saw. I know what I feel. And I know what Shiny told me. He told me in a dream that she would be coming, and that I would need to be there for her.” Twilight’s eyes tracked the bounciness of the pepsis as she moved around with the expressions of a foal. “She needs me…and I think I need her, too.”
“No, dear, what you need to do is think this through. Twilight, you’re a mare of logic and reason – you always have been. This is the kind of thing I would expect from Pinkie or Rainbow, but not from you!”
“There’s ‘nother thing you probably haven’t thought of, Twi,” Applejack added. “Don’t Cadance get a say in all this? She was th’ one married t’ Shining, after all.”
“Cady won’t disagree with me on this one,” Twilight said firmly. “I know she won’t,” she repeated, insistent in her belief.
“Ah’m still not sure that this is th’ best fer ya, Twi,” Applejack replied.
“You already know how I feel,” Rarity admitted. “I think this is a horrible idea, and while I cannot fault the young filly here for her parentage, I’m not sure that you’ve thought the solution all the way through.”
“Because somehow you still think that because I haven’t bothered with dating since Paraffin Wax,” Twilight countered, “that I’m not entitled to a family of my own unless I’m fully married. No – that’s not been my way, and it never will be!” She would have said more, but a glow of magenta filled the room.
“Twilight! Look!” Rarity shouted and Twilight looked at herself. Small wonder she was feeling better: as her cutie mark continued to radiate, the inky black marring of the curse began to melt off the lavender unicorn.
“How…?” Applejack asked, wondering.
“I don’t know!” Twilight said, as she felt the strength come back to her, like a lover’s caress. Mental gears that had been dormant during the crisis, stilled out of desperation and exhaustion, started to turn once more. “Oh my…why didn’t I think of that before? Girls, that’s the cure!” Twilight said, laughing as she got back to her feet and hugged the pepsis. Turning to Sam, she said, “Sam, get out there, and find Celestia – tell her I need the other Knight Elementals, the princesses, and Scootaloo and Bloomie here as soon as possible!”
“I’m on it,” he said at first, though as he looked at Sweetie’s unconscious form, he asked, “Are we sure everything’s going to be okay?”
Twilight, feeling invigorated for the first time in weeks, looked at her sisters, then to her daughter. For the first time in a while, hope had returned to the archmagus’ heart, and the Knight Elemental Commander of Magic had learned a valuable lesson, possibly the first in a long time since her formal apprenticeship to Celestia had ended.
“It will be,” she said, sidling closer to her daughter. “I know it will.”
“Twilight, dear, what on Earth are you talking about?”
“You’ll see,” was all the archmagus said.
“You’d best be right,” Rarity pointed out, “because we now have some extra wrinkles in the whole issue.”
Cadance felt the spell a second before the wave of white burned through the environs. It passed as quickly as it arrived, and for a moment, she felt a familiar presence, one she’d missed every day of her life since his passing.
She gave herself a private, enigmatic smile. Though he’d been gone for fifteen years now, even now her husband continued to watch over his family.
Watching from a distance, Celestia saw as DJ rebuffed her brother, with Elusive feeling sympathetic for her and Cinnamon nearby, confused. While the sun alicorn knew she could do something to relieve the pain for all concerned, she didn’t entirely trust herself in that situation right now, and besides, there were others who needed her ministrations more than them. She opted for the family member also nearby and in need of assistance, as she walked into a hastily set-up tent where Silversteel had been placed for the moment.
As she entered the tent, she noted several medics swarming around him, tending to his injuries and reattaching him to various medical equipment. Seeing her approach, however, made Silver grin. “You know, I do feel much better than the last time you ran into me on my near-deathbed,” he laughed.
She shook her head with bemusement. “Silver, you do that a lot. Besides, I thought that we agreed that I would handle the stupid crises?”
“Times change,” he answered. Finally, as a medic briefly obstructed his vision of her as an IV was attached to his foreleg, Silver had enough and said, “Okay, her majesty and I need to talk – and that means I want everypony scarce, immediately.” The medics got the hint and began filing out until all that remained were princess and general.
Celestia immediately went to go sit by her old friend. “What do you think, Silver?” she asked.
“I’m too much of a stallion to cry, you know that,” he admitted. “But…it was like a dream come true, Celestia. She was there. My little filly was there, and she’s all grown up now and….” The troubled emotions on his face were as plain as day. “She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know about her sisters, does she?”
“No, I don’t think she does,” Celestia told him. “She’s been to the gravesite before – the night before the decision I met Spike and Sweetie, who took her there, but I didn’t say anything and I suspect that they didn’t tell her either.”
The eyes of the “stallion who couldn’t cry” suddenly became a bit misty. “It’s not right. She deserves to know. She should know. Sparkler and Dinky loved her. They didn’t just save the life of an innocent foal – though I’d have been proud of them just for that if it had been just that. They died saving their baby sister. Derpy, too – she of all ponies didn’t deserve that. None of them did!”
“Silver,” Celestia began.
“No. She needs to know. Why didn’t anypony tell her?” His tone became angry and he sat up in the bed. Worrying about his health, she gently forced him back down with a push of her magic.
“Silver, she was only a teenager at the time, remember?” Celestia replied. “Teenagers can be volatile, and she has the mind of a human – they are much more emotional than pony teens. And at that point in time, and I know it’s not easy for you to realize this, but she was being pushed to her breaking point.” Silver went silent as he digested that, and Celestia continued. “With that in mind, what were any of us supposed to say? She already knows that three innocent ponies died saving her; to a teen, that would have been read as that their blood was on her hooves – and Sweetie and Twilight have both told me that’s something that’s haunted her for a long time.
“But what if I’d told her that two of the ponies who died saving her were her older sisters? Then what? That we’d expect her to give up everything she knew out of guilt for Sparkler’s and Dinky’s deaths? I suspect they wouldn’t have liked that thought. And while I didn’t know your ex-wife, Silver, based on how your daughters were raised I suspect she wouldn’t have been too happy about that line of thought as well.”
“Maybe it would have helped her decision to remain,” Silver said, though he felt guilty the moment the words left his mouth – that was a line of thought Rarity often considered and he knew he didn’t entirely agree with his wife on that.
“You know I couldn’t influence her decision back then. As it was, my hooves were tied in a legal battle between the law and my family. I didn’t even want to be involved with it, but the six were tearing apart the country – I had to step in for the sake of my ponies, even if it meant crossing a line that took me years to rebuild with them.”
The two looked at each other for a few more painful seconds, before he said, “Celestia…three of my daughters are dead, and the last one I have just gave me the chance to make things right with her.”
She nodded her head. “I can only hope that Rarity will be willing to do t—”
“She’s still alive?”
Celestia looked oddly at that last comment. “Yes, of course she is. She’s been in a medical quarantine for the past few months, but yes, she’s still alive.” Seeing the sudden look of relief on his face that the love of his life and mother to his last three foals was still alive, she smiled inwardly before adding, “As soon as it’s possible I’ll escort you to see her myself, Silver. You have my word.”
Suddenly, there was a massive explosion of white, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in Canterlot for quite some time.
“What was that?” Silver asked.
Celestia smiled. “I might be wrong…but I suspect Twilight’s gotten creative again.”
He was about to say something further, when Major Barracks entered the tent. “Your majesty, your grace, apologies for the interruptions, but that human you sent in? He’s returned and looking for you, Princess.”
Broken Armor now very much fit his name. He lay on the ground, thrown miles from Canterlot by that damnable strike. He had to make it back to his mother and tell her what was going on. Even if he tore himself to bloody shred crawling every inch of the way back to the hive, he had to let her know about the rogue pepsis!
“There you are,” a dark voice uttered behind him. “I figured you landed around here somewhere.” Broken Armor sighed in relief. It was that strange alicorn that had chosen to take up an alliance with his mother. From what he knew, she was a fickle ally and would have to be dealt with later, but one of his fellow Armors, or maybe the Nights could deal with the issue once Canterlot fell. After all, alicorn or not, she was merely a pony and what pony could stand against changelings?
“Please….” he gasped in a gravelly, strained voice. “Take me to Mother.”
“You won’t live long,” Nightmare Moon told the broken pepsis. “It’s a wonder you lived through that blast, but I suppose that was a wrench thrown in the plans.” The demonic alicorn paused, as if sniffing the air before he eyes widened in slight surprise. “I sense her involvement in this. I should’ve known: even now she thinks she can thwart me.”
“I need to get back to the hive,” he pled, hoping she would see reason.
“No, no I don’t think you do,” Nightmare Moon said, as she changed shape and size, becoming a different pony altogether. And as that pony looked at him, Broken Armor’s eyes widened in fear. The face was familiar to him.
“You’re going to ruin our chance at revenge,” the pony said, placing a hoof on his head. “And I can’t allow that.”
Deep in the Everfree Forest, the screams of a dying pepsis could be heard, followed by a sharp crunch, and then nothing at all. A second later, Nightmare Moon took to the skies, headed back towards her ally’s stronghold.
“And when were you going to tell me about Sweetie?” Twilight asked.
“Well…we would have, but you seemed to be more concerned about your new daughter,” Rarity seethed, her venom at full, “instead of my sister! Oh, wait – your sister, since you stole her from me a while ago!”
“Gals, c’mon,” Applejack said. “This ain’t gunna help Sweetie none. Rarity, what’s done is done, an’ that can’t change. Besides, Sweetie still loves ya an’ is still yer sister – th’ bond don’t change that none. But Twi, she’s right: y’ shoulda noticed.”
“I know,” she said, looking at the frail unicorn as they placed her on the medical bed Rarity usually used. To fix her wounds, they’d had to put her in the same induced coma as Rainbow. Her heart bled; to see Sweetie in this situation was horrific, especially given how close the two had become over the decades. Maybe it was her fault that all this happened.
But then she turned to look at her daughter. Twilight knew she could fix this, somehow. It was what she did, her stock in trade. She was the Knight Elemental Commander of Magic, the personal student and protégé of Princess Celestia. She had to believe this was the right course. “I’ll save her,” she promised Rarity. “Once the others join us, we’ll revive Sweetie and Rainbow, and we’ll finally sort this out.”
“You insisted the others – especially the princesses – come down here? Are you mad?” Rarity exclaimed. “You’ll kill them by doing that!”
“Rarity, don’t you get it?” Twilight replied. “That’s exactly how we’re going to beat this curse! We need everypony here, and we need to talk!”
“Twi, Ah ain’t even gonna pretend Ah know whatcher doin’, but as much as Ah think it’s a mistake…Ah’ll trust ya,” Applejack said. The look on her face made it clear that she had little faith in Twilight’s plan, but something was curing Twilight, and not them. There was a sudden shift somehow, and Twilight had that key.
“I know this isn’t easy,” Twilight replied. “But you’ve got to believe in me. I can do this, and I need you to believe!”
“And you’re sure this is going to work, Twilight, dear?” Rarity was even more suspicious of Twilight’s motives right now, and as she briefly eyed the changeling/pony hybrid in the room, she had to wonder if there was something behind that.
Well, if nothing else, Celestia will talk some sense into her, Rarity thought to herself.
“It will. I know it.” Twilight gingerly reached an arm around her daughter, who had been silently casting healing spells all this time. “It’s because she taught me. Sometimes the master needs to relearn the lesson.”
With more certainty than she felt, the fashionista practically forced herself to say, “Well, if that’s the case, then we are utterly indebted to you, Twilight Sunburn.”
But the pepsis shook her head. “Nope, that’s not me anymore. I have a new name now. From now on, you can call me…
“…Shining Dawn.”