Friendship is Magic
“MUA HA HA HAAA!!!”
Twilight Sparkle.
Pinkie Pie.
Rainbow Dash.
Fluttershy.
Rarity.
Applejack.
Present and future.
All lost.
Data stared out in frustration and fear as the drones restrained him completely. His emotion chip was in overdrive, rapidly overloading his systems. He held his mind together, but only by a thread.
The Borg 6 and their counterparts stood together in front of their queen, awaiting instruction. Their individuality had been stripped from them entirely. They were no more than mindless vessels to the collective Borg mind.
“Activate the Defiant’s transporter. Reconstitute our Continuum friend from his ethereal holding cell.”
Lyra clenched in pain as she struggled to lift he rubble off of her friend. Bon-Bon looked worse and worse. She needed to be taken to the hospital straight away.
As far as Lyra could discern from the clouds of dust and rubble all about her, she figured they couldn’t be that far from throne room. Torn tapestries of family houses and broken stained glass windows surrounded her. The ceiling above them had partially collapsed, lying in a pile blocking their path. If they could climb over it, they could escape, but Lyra still had to get her friend out from under all of it first.
She starting digging around Bon-Bon, pulling away smaller bits of debris and rubble from the pile. When she managed to clear away all of the smaller rocks, what remained was something far bigger. A large slab of stone twice as big as either of them was resting rather uncomfortably right on top of Bon-Bon’s back right leg.
“I don’t think I can lift this!” Lyra cried, worry steadily growing.
All around them, the room groaned and creaked with instability. The walls and floors above their heads threatened to collapse at any given moment.
“Lyra, just go! *cough*” Bon-Bon said weakly. “Get out of here!”
“NO!!!” Lyra screamed. “I’m not leaving you!”
Lyra knelt beside her friend and wrapped her hooves tightly around the boulder and heaved.
“HOW MUCH LONGER!!?” Admiral Tomalak demanded. His patience had entirely run out.
His vengeance was finally at hand. He would have his revenge against that starship captain who bested every single plan, scheme, and strategy he made against the Federation.
He now held aboard his ship the very power he would need to thrust himself to the top of the Romulan Empire, or create a new one where the federation still stands. And it was all thanks to this new weapon. But he first needed to fire the weapon and dispose of his greatest rival once and for all!
“Only two minutes, Admiral!” Lieutenant Kitara exclaimed from the lab. Her excitement was also growing equally as ambitious as her aspirations toward the top of the Romulan Science Directorate were about to be realized.
“Good,” Tomalak noted. “Get me Picard. I’m going to enjoy this so much. And target the Enterprise! Prepare to fire the moment it’s ready.”
“Well, well, well, Discord, it would seem your final effort has failed you,” said Celestus, boasting with a wicked grin.
The Draconequus lie still in the arms of two drone escorts. His horns had been covered by an unknown material. Whatever it was had rendered his magical powers null and void.
Discord remained silent. His thoughts were scattered. The only thing that seemed to reach him was the fact that Celestus had called him Discord as her host once did, rather than Q as the Borg queen should know him by. His only hope was that something of Celestia remained, and that somehow, the fight was not yet over.
“Would you like to admire my work?” she asked bemusedly. She gestured to the six ponies, who stepped forth to reveal themselves.
Their fur had grayed from their nanoprobe-saturated skin underneath. It was almost like when he himself had grayed them as he brought chaos to their lives in Equestria. But this was very different. That had always been a test, and their minds were still free. Only their perceptions had been altered. There was no life at all beyond the cold eyes of the six pony drones standing before him. The only things that remained untarnished in condition, but corrupted on their bearers, were the Elements of Harmony.
“With the power of the Elements of Harmony at my disposal, I shall destroy the Continuum and rebuild the universe you and your kind so carefully controlled and manipulated. It will be sculpted into a universe of pure perfection. Think of it…a universe with no war, no discrimination, no pandering species bickering over territory and resources. All life will be the same life. All thoughts will be of one mind, one consciousness. The Borg Collective will become eternal life!”
Discord stared at her incredulously. Not only was she an egotistical monster, but one with the power to destroy the universe. He doubted very much whether she could fulfill the latter part of her plan to rebuild no matter how much control she thought she had.
“So why entertain me then, hmm?” Discord asked mockingly. “You seem to have everything could ever want, so why waste your time on your ridiculous evil mastermind monologue on little old me?”
“I know all too well that we are currently within a static warp bubble. I also know that this bubble has been constructed entirely by you. When you are destroyed, this bubble will collapse and the original timeline will be restored. And I wanted you to know beyond any doubt that you have failed in your goal. You have lost. And without further delay… I think it’s time for you to die.”
“It’s no use,” Bon-Bon tried to convince her friend again. “You need to escape before it’s too late.”
“No! I’m not leaving you!” Lyra rebutted again, lifting hard with her front hooves. When that failed, she tried nudging it with her back. When that failed, she tried bucking it.
“Ow!” Bon-Bon cried out in pain, the boulder pushed deeper into her leg.
“I’m sorry!” Lyra quickly apologized checking to see if she had done more harm than good.
The walls groaned again. The metal frame within a broken window bent downward under the weight until it snapped. The wall broke down sending another wave of rubble into the room. The other walls still held and both were unharmed, but Bon-Bon was covered in a fresh pile of rocks.
“No no no no NO!!!” Lyra screamed, outraged. She cleared some of the small rocks again making it easier for her friend to breathe.
“Lyra. You have to leave. You’ve done everything you could. Thank you, but it’s of no use. We both don’t need to die in here.”
The word ‘die’ shot through Lyra like kicking a hibernating Ursa Major.
“No,” she said plainly and resolutely. She stood back on all hooves and lowered her head. Her face clenched together hard in the struggle. Bon-Bon wasn’t quite sure what her friend was attempting to do.
“I want to congratulate you on the successful battle, Captain,” said Tomalak over the view screen.
“The celebration is a little premature, Admiral. There is still a devastating situation still developing on the planet.”
“Yes, yes. That’s a dreadful problem, I’m sure, but that is no concern to us. But we have fulfilled our little deal and demand that Romulus be put back where it was.”
“I’m sorry, Admiral, but there’s nothing I can do for the time being. As I tried to explain, the situation on the ground is still dire, and the fate of the universe still hangs in the balance.”
Off screen, a Romulan officer took the admiral’s attention away. Tomalak turned to hear the information and nodded.
“Well, well, well.” Tomalak smiled with absolute glee. “You know, Picard, I think I have had about enough of your lies, and for once I’m in somewhat of a position to do something about it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, Picard… FIRE!!!!!”
Lyra wrenched her face into a tight scowl; clenching, straining, grunting like a pregnant mother about to deliver a filly.
Bon-Bon stared at her friend. She realized what she was trying to do, but it was useless. Her horn was go–
The tiniest bit of light shined out from the center of Lyra’s bare forehead. The twinkle started glowing brighter and larger before her eyes. Bon-Bon had never seen anything like it before. Her eyes widened, and her mouth hung low. She was so flabbergasted she nearly forgot how much pain she was in.
The Borg 6, carrying their Elements of Harmony, lifted up into the air as their spell initiated. Borg Twilight’s horn glowed brightly, enveloping the group in the emerald aura of the Borg. The symbol adorned on each element illuminated in the same green light. The spell was nearly ready.
“So long, Discord,” Celestus said calmly.
“Not that! Anything but that! NOOOOO!!!”
The weapon, housed within the lab aboard the Romulan ship was in full gear. Monoceros particles had collected to their peak quantities and were ready to be shunted straight through the Unicorn’s horn, and out into the Enterprise. There would be no hope. No escape. And then the horn vanished.
Something had changed in the Borg 6’s spell.
“What’s going on?” Celestus demanded. “How can this be happening?”
Borg Twilight’s horn changed. The emerald green aura of the Borg’s cybernetics in sync with the Unicorn magic had changed. At the very tip, a violet glow poked its way through. The purple aura spread down the horn into Borg Twilight’s head, but did not stop.
“FIRE!!!!!” Tomalak yelled.
Lieutenant Kitara initiated the pulse. At once, every last capacitor, containing every single stored monoceros particle, released its payload into the device. It shunted down into the horn chamber, with no horn contained within to channel it.
The energy shot through wildly, overloading every system and continuing to spread outwards. The magic infected every system, terminal, and databank. Machinery began exploding within the lab, but the particles did not stop.
“Something’s wrong!” Kitara shouted over the comm.
Admiral Tomalak’s face twisted into a snarl that could melt the face off a child. “WHAT!!?”
The terminals on the bridge began pulsating with electrical and magical energy. Blue and white lightning discharged across, zapping several officers. Explosions started bursting out from every corner of the room and all across the ship, heading straight for the engines.
“AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!” Tomalak raged in unbridled fury as the energy breached their core.
Picard watched aboard the Enterprise as the Romulan warbird burst apart from within. A radiating pulse of magical energy shot out from its center spreading outwards.
“Shields!” Picard yelled as the wave swept over them, but by the time the pulse had reached them, the energy had mostly dissipated, and what remained, bounced lightly off the shields and swept around the ship harmlessly.
The walls creaked their last creak within the castle as they gave in to the pressure of weight of the second floor hanging tenuously over the heads of the two trapped ponies. The walls caved, and the ceiling collapsed. Thousands of tons of debris crumbled on top of them.
Bon-Bon screamed and closed her eyes tight, waiting for quick embrace of death. But it never came. She dared to open one eyelid, looking around to see what had happened. All she could see was this bright white light.
The white light focused until Bon-Bon could start to make out shapes. She found the outline of Lyra standing before her, with her horn somehow returned to her. Magic was shooting out from her with such fury and intensity that it contained the entire building collapse within its grasp.
At once, every last brick returned to its place and rebuilt themselves. Cracks within the stones and bricks sealed tight, and tapestries re-knitted themselves. The large slab lying on top of Bon-Bon’s leg lifted off and returned to the floor above, fitting expertly in place as though it had never fallen.
Bon-Bon felt her leg twinge as the magic enveloped it. She could see the bone sticking out, which nearly caused her to faint right then and there, before she realized the bone lowering gently and painlessly. It was mending right before her eyes. The skin closed over it, and her fur covered that, until the wound was completely gone.
The white light dissipated until all that remained was the mint green pony, who collapsed unconscious to the ground.
The violet aura spread down across Borg Twilight’s body until it spread to every other pony. The green faded all around them until all that was left was the violet aura and six unassimilated ponies.
“This just can’t be!” Celestus cried, outraged and shocked. “This is impossible!”
The full force of the Elements of Harmony shot forth aimed not at Discord, but at Queen Celestus of Borg.
“NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!”
The wave enveloped her and the cybernetic implants caved under the force of the magic. The ocular implant shed from her face where a new eye regrew. The pale grey skin softened until the silky white fur shined through. Princess Celestia stood before them, renewed.