This Platinum Crown

by Capn_Chryssalid


Chapter Forty Five : This Day's Aria

- - -

Baby, baby, naughty baby,
Hush, you squalling thing, I say.
Peace this moment, peace, or maybe
Nightmare Moon will pass this way.

- - -

Crescent Moon opened his eyes, the pale glow within them obscuring the normally wheat colored irises. He lowered his face, blinking repeatedly and slowly shaking his head. Bit by bit, the white glow faded away, leaving behind only a faint trace of green. A moment of disorientation came and went before he looked towards his wife and spoke. There was a reason ponies called him the ‘Night Light’ of Canterlot.

His mastery of the ‘Far Seeing’ spell was beyond dispute.

“Amazing,” he said, hushed and clearly awe-struck. “She did it. Lady Star Light was just there, and she confirmed it. Twilight did it. She beat him.” He gave a sigh of relief that left a shudder through his entire body. “Oh, oh sweet Celestia… our little filly… what was I thinking…?! Letting her put herself in this kind of danger? Cruciger could have – at the end he almost – it was…!”

“Calm down,” Twilight Velvet ordered, and his fatherly anxiety and relief gradually faded, returning to the standard obedience she preferred he show in private. The changeling that was Twilight Velvet felt her wings stir, restlessly, beneath the veneer of her skin. The Queen had warned her about these ponies. Their power was undeniable. They were dangerous. Far above and beyond their more mundane kin, they were dangerous.

The ones here were neutralized, for the moment, but clearly still a future threat. They all had to die. Every one of them. Twilight Sparkle included. It was the only way for changeling-kind to be safe. The smart thing now would be to use her disguise to sneak in and slit the throat of the Element of Magic while she was still unconscious. Pin the blame on the Terre Rare somehow. As a tool, trying to keep use of her was… dangerous. Too dangerous! Why couldn’t the Queen see that?

On the other fang, if she was caught in the act…

Twilight Velvet shuddered at the thought. No. She would stick to the plan. In the end, for all their power, these ponies were still just food. Fodder. Cattle. Nothing here was beyond what the Queen had predicted. There was no cause for alarm.

“Come,” she commanded, turning away from the dueling ground. Her husband followed close behind. They had a wedding to prepare for and a daughter to finish breaking in. The rest, she would leave to her kin, when the time came.

- - -

(45)

This Day’s Aria

- - -

Baby, baby, she's a giant,
Deep and black as ashen coke,
And she breakfasts, dines, defiant,
Every night on naughty folk.

- - -

“Rarity? Princess?” Her father rapped gently on her door before nudging it open with his right front hoof. “Your mother asked me to talk to you…”

The door bumped against the back of a chair, offering a hint of resistance to being opened fully.

“Rarity,” Magnum’s tone became more stern, but at the same time, a little playful. “Are you going to let your poor father in? You know how rude it is to talk through a door, don’t you?”

He waited behind the door, fully able to push it open despite the chair propped up against it. Rarity didn’t have a lock on her door – nopony in the family did – and after a couple seconds of silence, he could hear the sound of a filly finally pushing the offending chair out of the way. The shuffle-shuffle as it dragged over the rug, and then the squeak as it ended up on the hardwood floor near her desk and toy chest, all passed as he waited patiently outside her room. Finally, he was rewarded by seeing his daughter’s nose peek in through the crack in the door to nudge it the rest of the way open.

“You can come in,” she told him, her eyes downcast. “Mom wanted to take my Ruby away,” she tried to explain, gazing up at him with dewy blue eyes.

“Why don’t you show me Ruby?” he asked, and let her lead him over to a small bed of pillows and towels. On it was what she had been protecting from her mother: a makeshift nest for a small red egg.

“This is Ruby,” Rarity said, sitting next to the egg she had found. She tried to float it with her horn, but small as she was; her magic was too weak and refused to manifest itself. Instead, she gently shifted it on the nest with her hoof.

“Did you find Ruby on the ground?” he asked, taking a seat close enough to be supportive but far enough away not to seem threatening. At the question, she shrunk into her shoulders, not responding. “Rarity? Tell your father the truth, now.”

“I was just coming back from school when I saw it,” she explained. “I think a pegasus pony must’ve knocked it out of the tree. Ruby was the only egg… the only one left.” She reached under one of the towels to retrieve a clearly broken mess of woven straw and twig. “I was gonna fix it…”

“Oh, Princess,” her father said with a sigh. He gently patted her on the head, his hoof settling on her little indigo curl of a mane. “I know you want to fix things, but even if Ruby hatches, we can’t take care of her here.”

“What about her parents?” Rarity was already convinced it was a she. Much like she was certain her new brother or sister would just have to be the latter, given how ‘icky’ most colts were in her eyes. “They’ll take her back, won’t they? If we can’t…”

“We can’t,” he had to be sure she understood that. His wife had been very clear on that fact. Rarity’s expression was downcast, but she was also mature enough to be resigned when both her parents agreed on something.

“And Ruby’s parents won’t take her back, either, not once she’s been taken out of the nest,” he explained.

“Why not?” Rarity asked, frowning.

“Because she won’t smell like their egg anymore,” he said, and pulled her a little closer for a hug. “The best thing we can do now is take her to Rose’s house. She’ll take care of Ruby, and you can always visit her there as she grows up. Okay?”

Rarity muttered something under her breath.

“What was that?” he asked, giving her a playful nudge. “Come on, ladies don’t mutter, now do they?”

“I said Miss Rosebay is a weird pony,” she answered. “I wish I could raise Ruby myself.”

“Everypony has their special talent, and Miss Rose’s is taking care of animals,” he reminded her. “Come on. Find a nice box for Ruby and you can take her there. I’ll walk with you.”

Rarity nodded, sullen but obedient, and gathered her things. It wasn’t very long a trot from their house to Rosebay’s outside town. Rarity and her father took their time, passing by a familiar face on the way through the town market. Little Applejack was out with her big brother, and both siblings stopped to stare as Rarity trotted along with a small packing box in her mouth. Applejack had only just come back from Manehattan, to hear the talk about town, where she had been staying with some rather well-to-do relatives. Her brother, Big Macintosh, seemed to be reintroducing her to a few of their business partners.

She had to be back in town for good, then, and getting into the family business. Watching the duo, Rarity privately wondered when the other filly had gotten her cutie mark. It must have been in the Big City. How lucky Applejack was! Manehattan was supposed to be the most exciting city in the world, except for maybe Canterlot. The two fillies eyes met for a second or two, and then Applejack’s attention was drawn towards her brother and the adult he had been talking to.

Rarity picked up her pace to try and keep up with her father.

A ways outside town they found their destination: a small cottage that had been made over into a home for animals. Well-tended gardens grew vegetables in abundance, just beyond a small bridge over a clear blue creek. The cottage itself was slightly raised up off the hills and ground below, on a sort of elevated mound dotted with warrens and holes for ground-dwelling critters. The ancient thatched roof was overgrown with grass and weeds, but Rarity noticed some of them had been trimmed. Rosebay’s old cottage used to be sort of smelly and scary with how overgrown things had become. It seemed a bit cleaner now.

Her father knocked on the door for her, and soon enough Rosebay opened the top half of the door to talk to her guest. She was an old earth pony mare, with a weathered-gray mane braided behind her neck until it fell limply over her left side. Rarity held Ruby’s box closer to her chest, not really wanting to give her up to the old mare. Who said that Rosebay had to take care of all these animals anyway? It seemed like a stupid rule. Anypony could do it. It was just like having a pet, she was sure, and lots of ponies had lots of pets!

“A new apprentice?” her father asked, and Rosebay pulled open the bottom half of her door. Just behind the old mare, hiding behind her legs, even, was a lanky butter-yellow pegasus with a pink mane.

“Fluttershy,” Rosebay introduced her, forcing her out into the open with one hindleg. “Say hello, now.”

“H-hello,” the young mare said, all but forcing the word out. It came out as little more than a squeak and she even ended up closing her eyes as she said it. It took a second or two before she dared to take a look, glancing first up at Rarity’s father, smiling amiably, and then at his daughter. Then at the egg she carried.

“Oh!” Fluttershy gasped, trotting up to the younger filly. “Is that a Chiffchaff egg?”

Rarity let the suddenly very excited other filly take the packing box out of her mouth so she could examine the egg and broken nest within. She got a sense that there was more to it than just ‘the parents don’t like the smell.’ She overheard her father explain how she had found it, and something about a ‘migratory bird act.’ So a pony had to have a license to take care of wild animals? It still seemed like a stupid rule. Rarity made a vow, then, that if she ever got the chance, she’d get rid of all the stupid rules.

“Her name is Ruby,” Rarity told the other filly. “Are you sure she’ll be alright?”

“We’ll try and collect her parents, but even if they’ve left, I’ll take care of her!” the young pegasus assured her with a smile. “Don’t worry!”

Rarity returned the smile, a little more comfortable with this new filly… and a little curious where she came from. “Are you new in town?”

Fluttershy seemed to grow self-conscious again at that. “Um. Well. Y-yes…”

She held out her hoof. “I’m Rarity!”

“I’m… Fluttershy.”

Years later, her shy friend would direct her attention towards a nest built on the ground in the crook of a tree’s roots near her parents’ house. As it turned out, Ruby had been a female, but the nest probably hadn’t been knocked out of a tree at all. Soothing Ruby’s defensive mate with a few soft words, Fluttershy had gotten Rarity close enough peel back a curtain of ivy and reveal that her little egg now had eggs of her own.

- - -

Chrysalis’s breath was labored in the moist, fecund air.

Closing her eyes, the One True Queen sighed and gestured for her attendant to finish writing the letter she had just dictated. Her body contracted and she grimaced while she watched her daughter sign her name – Princess Cadance’s name – to the paper and seal it with wax. The signature was followed by the stamp of Her Serene Highness, the sigil of the crystal heart, to confer the rights and sacred inviolability of the document.

It was so very useful having Cadance’s authority within the Equestrian hierarchy, though the foolish mare hadn’t made much practical use of it. Chrysalis had found herself working almost around the clock to repair the dignity and reputation of the pony she impersonated… to make her enough of a political force in the country that what she wanted to get done could get done. Foalsitting had accomplished none of that. The stupid alicorn was honestly better off rotting in a crystal prison; she had accomplished so little with her worthless life. In mere months, Chrysalis had done more with her name than Cadance had in a decade or more! And this was only the beginning.

“Foal-sitting… how ironic, now that I think about it,” Chrysalis, devoid of her disguise, chuckled.

As she lay on her stomach, she felt the last of her young leave her body.

She turned to count the children from this clutch, squirming around her chitinous hooves. Thirty two. She had thirty two new daughters for the swarm, and the great New Biscione Hive. They weren’t much to look at when they were first born… what ponies would call an infant changeling was just a grub-like larvae, black, segmented, without legs or wings or even much of a face, really. They had no real thoughts in their little heads. All they knew, blind and hungry, was to squirm towards something warm and imprint on it.

That something warm being an unconscious pony, bound and cemented with changeling wax into a depression in the cave. She was an earth pony, taken from a town far away. Earth ponies, her changelings had learned, were more hardy than pegasus ponies or unicorns. They required less care before they expired, and they lived much longer in poor conditions, making them much more convenient hatchery fodder. As the larval changelings latched into the unconscious mare, crawling over her and nibbling tentatively at her skin – their mandibles too small to break the surface, but the instinct to bite still present – Chrysalis sighed in contentment.

When Equestria was dust, she planned to replace her system of tiny, hidden hatcheries with one or two vast mega-complexes… perhaps under Canterlot, where they would be most safe. There, thousands of changelings could imprint on hundreds of captive ponies en masse. Laying so many larvae would be a terrible chore, though, so to meet the scale of reproduction she imagined it would probably be necessary to bump one or two of her daughters up to… sub-Queen status. Yes. She could even call them ‘Princesses.’ Why not? Her fertilized daughters could do all the tedious laying while their mother handled real affairs of state. Better still, a number of daughters all vying for the top spot would make them all the easier to manipulate and keep under control.

And from such humble beginnings… an army would be birthed, to darken the skies of the world.

Helping one of her larvae up and onto the captive earth pony, Chrysalis ducked her head and gently kissed the grub. In so doing, she marked it. Out of the thirty two children of her body, she picked out three others and also gave them a kiss. Her attendants would know which ones she wanted separated. When the time came, a pinch of royal jelly would make them potentially fertile, unlike their sterile drone sisters. The Queen’s Kiss would make them the leaders of this brood. The others would look to them for guidance, and they would compete for their mother’s favor.

Chrysalis took care to create no male-children. When the time came, yes, and only then, she would give birth to a few… and keep them for herself. Only she – only the QUEEN – could create a Prince of the Swarm, and so long as she had a monopoly on that, no daughter and future usurper would dare to oppose her. She would not be as careless as her mother had been. After all, she was far superior: the herald of a new breed of changeling. Her reign would be long and she intended to enjoy every minute of it.

Holding out her hooves and raising her tail, she let her attendants wipe her clean.

All the while, she kept her eyes on her new children. Not long after sampling the prey they were to imprint on, the newborn changelings crawled off and started to spin. Each one would wrap herself in a little silken bundle: a cocoon. Within that cocoon, the larva would develop into a pupa, and in time, that pupa would hatch into a young changeling nymph. A “ponyform” nymph, in this case, they took their rough shape from what they had been in contact with as a larva.

So the changeling lifecycle went.

They were ovoviviparous. The fertilized eggs remained within the mother, hatched, and ‘birthed’ as larvae. Chrysalis sniffed in amusement. She had an infinitely easier time of it than equine mothers did, from what she had seen. Her sweet children were a born one-tenth the size of the balloon-like monstrosities pony mares had to push out. The whole experience looked utterly horrifying. Chrysalis couldn’t imagine how any of them survived the experience without splitting down the middle. By comparison, the changeling way was far superior. Far, far superior. As would be expected of a superior race.

‘Thirty two foals in… what? Twelve minutes? Beat that, mares of Equestria!’ Chrysalis thought with a snigger. Her attendants descended to wait nearby and the Queen herself rested her head between her forelegs. While there was no real need to stick around anymore, she found she liked to watch her newborns weave their cocoons.

“Baby, baby, naughty baby,
Hush, you squalling thing, I say.
Peace this moment, peace, or maybe
Nightmare Moon will pass this way.”

Her voice was the only sound in the dank burrow, soft and melodious as she sang.

“Baby, baby, she's a giant,
Deep and black as ashen coke,
And she breakfasts, dines, defiant,
Every night on naughty folk.”

A silly rhyme.

“Baby, baby, if she hears you
As she gallops past the house,
Limb from limb at once she'll tear you,
Just as pussy tears a mouse.”

A pony rhyme.

“And she'll beat you, beat you, beat you,
And she'll beat you into pap,
And she'll eat you, eat you, eat you,
Every morsel snap, snap… snap.”

Chrysalis smiled lovingly at her little cocoons, scattered around the floor. Her smile faded, somewhat, as she searched for another nursery rhyme to sing… only to be reminded that they were all pony rhymes. Pony songs. The changelings had none of their own. Her own mother, the previous Queen, did not and could not sing. It was a trait that seemed to have cropped up in her and her alone, of all the world’s changelings and of all the world’s queens. Of course, then, she would only have equine songs to sing. Such was the sad state in which changeling-kind currently found itself.

“We will come up with our own… in time,” she whispered, and closed her eyes to sleep, surrounded by her progeny. “And I will teach you how to sing. Sing our own songs…”

- - -

“Baby, baby, if she hears you
As she gallops past the house,
Limb from limb at once she'll tear you,
Just as pussy tears a mouse.”

- - -

This was the creature?! The filthy creature that killed my babies?!”

Chrysalis was at the low point of what had been a frothing rage, her membranous mane frazzled and pooling, limply, from her lowered head. Crackles of stolen magic danced along the contours of her jagged horn.

“Bring it here!” she screamed. “NOW!

“My Queen!” “At once!”

The two changeling guards heaved, and the body hit the floor in front of her. Chrysalis sneered at the corpse, eyes full of murderous hate. Dead red eyes stared back at her from above a yellow beak. The creature’s feathers were tinted with flecks of crimson blood from the fight only moments before. She could see that her vengeful guards had already beaten and stomped and gored the beast, both before and after subduing it. They, too, wanted revenge for their unborn sisters… murdered in their cocoons! Not even given a chance to hatch or molt or understand who or what they were…

A cockatrice.

An egg-eater.

Chrysalis took a ragged breath and, with a downward swipe of her hoof, sliced open the creature’s scaled belly. It didn’t take long for her to find, in the stomach, what she had been looking for. Her babies. Her poor babies. Her precious daughters. These things had eaten them. Pecked right through their soft cocoons and eaten them!

Cradling a ruined strip of black and green in her hoof, Chrysalis let it slip from her grasp and arched her neck back, eyes closed. “Aaa! Aa. Aah.”

She snapped her teeth, hard, clenched her jaws tight, trying to regain control of her frothing anger and overflowing hurt. Still, a pained cry escaped her lips, despite her best attempts to keep control. “Aaa. Aaa. Aah…”

Green eyes suddenly snapped open and Chrysalis screamed as she brought a hoof down on the head of the dead cockatrice. She screamed and howled and cursed like a banshee, punctuating every outburst with a new act of violence. Her chitin hooves smashed the chicken-like skull of the monster, then the ribcage. With the belly already opened to examine the contents, what was left of its entrails quickly spurted out from the cavity, staining the floor with foul ichor, coils of it tangling around her hooves and the holes in her legs.

Still, Chrysalis struck, again and again.

The beak snapped, and her two guards winced at the sound. The legs and the body soon became a broken mess of flesh and scales, the tail twisting and thrashing involuntarily at the cockatrice’s body broke in a dozen places. The head and the face took the brunt of her rage, however, and soon the upper half of the creature was all but unrecognizable. Only when there was nothing left larger than a hoof did the Changeling Queen slowly begin to get a hold of herself.

She didn’t feel it, but there were tears on her cheeks. Instead, she screamed, “Towel! Water!

The guards remained in their place, but lower ranked – unarmored – drones quickly scrambled to do her bidding. The water came from a pool and a couple jugs reserved for hatchery use. The towel, also, was for hatchery use, for cleaning newly emerged nymphs of membrane. The commercial products stood out against the black and green of changeling wax that lined the walls: tiny bits of transplanted commercial Equestria, coopted for changeling use. Chrysalis said no more to her underlings. Not until they washed her hooves of blood and bits of cockatrice brain and skull.

“This will not do,” she stated the patently obvious to them, once she felt sufficiently restored to her appropriate dignity. “Not at all. You say these cockatrices killed all our hatchery guards? There must be more than just this one.”

“We believe there to be at least three, maybe as many as twice that,” one of her guards replied, lowering her head and her eyes. “There are many tracks. We have accounted for all the hatchery protectors and caretakers. All were petrified. Even… even the pony. Most seem to have been caught entirely by surprise, given their expressions.”

“The fools,” Chrysalis hissed, her anger ebbing and receding with every breath. “Fools! We are right on the border of the Everfree! How could they been taken by surprise by these disgusting, mindless creatures?!”

“They do grow quite large, my Queen,” the other guard quietly argued, as if to excuse the failure of her fallen sisters, their shame frozen in stone.

“I want these creatures to pay,” Chrysalis ordered it with cool, glacial fury, the rage from before finally buried beneath a civil veneer. “Do you understand? Hunt them down. Any cockatrice you find within a mile… within ten miles… within the entire forest! You eviscerate it. You…! No. No, no, no. That… would attract too much attention. No.” She shook her head, rethinking her earlier outburst. “Calm yourself, Chrysalis. We must not draw attention, yet. We are not ready.”

Her anger was well placed, but it couldn’t cloud her judgment. Not her.

“Search the forest,” she told them with a slow, measured voice. “Bring me a blood-stained beak for every one of your sisters who died here. The Everfree is a vicious place, so let our retribution be equally savage. When you are done, hide your work from prying eyes and return to me.”

“By your will, Great Queen!” Both changeling guards saluted, and turned to spread the word.

“The rest of you…” she went on, addressing the unarmed and unarmored changeling drones that attended her, “We are abandoning this hatchery site. Burn everything. I don’t want to see this cursed place ever again!”

Even as they began to follow her orders, the Queen’s eyes settled on her ransacked hatchery floor. All around the frozen stone earth pony, her face contorted in a final scream, were the remains of the changeling cocoons. Tattered silk lay strewn around the room and the floor, pecked or scratched open to reveal the vulnerable pupa within. Unprotected, some had been eaten whole, others pulled into pieces. None had grown to be even as large as her eye. Thirty-two dead children.

Thirty two lost…

Chrysalis tried to remind herself that, as terrible as this was, she had more children, still. Thirty two had been lost here, yes.

But more than four thousand lived on to carry out their work.

Turning to leave, Queen Chrysalis gave no further thought to the petrified pony in the center of the room. She did not notice that, while the living equestrian had been held down with wax, this one was not. Soon, fire consumed the hatchery. The cavern was collapsed, burying the lifelike statue and the story behind it.

Until the wedding.

- - -

The present

- - -

It was sometimes hard for Rarity to reconcile the supposed ‘most powerful unicorn in Equestria,’ capable of wielding magic almost beyond the comprehension of anypony else, with the sweet, unassuming lavender mare that was Twilight Sparkle. Standing at the jamb of her friend’s room in the field hospital – one she had practically to herself – Rarity exhaled in mild annoyance as a rush of bodies squeezed roughly past her. Honestly, would it be too much to excuse oneself before barging in?

“Twi-light! Twi-light! Twi-light!” Rainbow Dash cheered, flittering into the air so she could adequately pump her forelegs.

“Oh! Oh! That was so awesome! Pow! Zip! Zowie! Bok! Biff!” Pinkie hopped up into the air, spun, and released a cloud of confetti sparkles, punctuated with multi-colored cardboard signs sporting various sound-effects. “Zr-zr-zrm! Giga horn-drill! Paaaaa-zooow! Brrrb-brrrb-brrb…” Rather defiantly flipping her tail at the laws of gravity, she then fell to the ground at a severely reduced rate, repeating the depowering ‘brrrb-brrb’ sound all the way.

“Poof!” she finished, hitting the floor on her stomach like a falling leaf.

Only to pop back up and rotating like a turret, firing cones of confetti in random directions. “Pshew! Pshew! Pshew!”

“Alright, now, we get the idea, sugarcube.” Applejack tapped a hoof to Pinkie’s head, and she squealed.

“Awww! But I have so many more funny noises to make!”

Twilight Sparkle was all smiles from where she lay in what very much looked like some sort of mud-bath. She reached out to bump the tip of her still-clean hoof with the flying Rainbow Dash, and then to more properly touch hooves with both Pinkie and Applejack. They could all see she was alright with their own eyes, but touching her hoof and feeling it for themselves clearly brought relief to her worried friends.

“Twilight,” Rarity said, hanging back if only for a moment longer. “I brought a few friends of ours along. I hope you don’t mind my arranging for them to be flown in.”

“Who…?” Twilight’s eyes widened as she saw the pair peeking in from the outside. “Spike! Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy waved, happily, but also kept from rushing in. Spike felt no such constraints, and with more manners than most ponies, slipped past Rarity to run towards the Canterlot unicorn. While he went on about how worried he was about not being around when she fought – Twilight had insisted he remain in Ponyville until the situation with the duels resolved itself – Fluttershy tentatively re-entered the circle of friends to fuss over their injured member.

Twilight was quick to assure them that they had nothing to worry about and that she was fine.

Being Twilight, she then went on a lengthy lecture about how she was submerged in a crystalline bath to restore her magic levels, which had been severely and almost critically depleted during the duel. What looked like sandy mud was actually a magical slush, or slurry, that infused magic back into her body at a controlled rate. Naturally, Rainbow Dash had then tried to touch the strange soup and gotten shocked enough to frazzle her mane and send her to the floor with a surprised yelp. She’d bounced back up a second later, her mane still frizzy, but to the laughter of her friends.

“Actually, it tastes pretty good!” Spike commented, licking one of his claws.

“It does?” Pinkie reached for the bath, too, and got shocked just like Dash had a second earlier. “Yowie Ow!”

“You should probably stop doing that,” Twilight delivered the advice with a dry note, even as she removed Pinkie from contact with her medical bath. “The tub is an insulator, so you can’t touch it if--”

“Oooo!” Pinkie fell back onto her rump, holding up her forehooves. A bit of electricity crackled between them. “Lookie lookie! Do you know what this means?”

“It’s just static--”

“It means we can absorb unicorn powers from this gunk!” Rainbow Dash jumped to the wildest possible conclusion anypony could. “Right?”

“Exactly,” Pinkie Pie agreed. The two made a mad lunge towards the now perplexed Twilight’s bath. “Superpowers!” They both cheered. “Gah!” Oof!”

“As if’n you two weren’t enough trouble as it is,” Applejack muttered, teeth firmly clamped down on Pinkie Pie’s cotton candy tail.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Rarity said, her magic doing much the same with Rainbow Dash’s chromatic tail. Both mares had fallen short of reaching Twilight’s tub, and ended up ignominiously face down on the floor.

“But I wanted to become Pink-Neato, Master of Magnet!” Pinkie bawled, still weakly reaching for the rim of the bath.

Twilight playfully batted her hoof away. “No. Superpowers for me only.”

“Lame!” Dash grumbled, propping her head up with her hooves squished into her cheeks.

“Power… overwhelming…” Fluttershy whispered, both of her front hooves dipped daintily into the bath and her eyes aglow with arcane power. “Oops!” She quickly withdrew. “Sorry! I, um… couldn’t resist…”

“A mud-bath like this is very extreme, isn’t it?” Rarity asked, releasing Dash’s tail and sitting down closeby.

“Minerals,” Twilight corrected. “Not mud.”

“A mineral bath,” Rarity said with a grin. “Did you really expend all your magic back there?”

“Back in Cloudsdale, we’ve actually got cloud-baths for this sort of thing,” Rainbow Dash chimed in, also sitting up and for the moment being serious. “Complete magical depletion, huh? That’s rough! This one kid in flight camp burned out like that and they had to take him to the hospital. He couldn’t fly for weeks.”

“Are you sure you feel okay?” Fluttershy asked, carefully holding the back of her hoof to Twilight’s forehead, just below her horn. There were a few stitches there holding together a short slash of a cut.

“A little tired,” Twilight admitted, and batted Spike’s hand when he tried to slurp up another claw-scoop of the gem-infused mineral bath. “Stop that. I’ve been soaking in this for more than a day!”

“So what? It still tastes good,” Spike muttered, but didn’t try and eat any more. “Fine…”

“Anyway, I feel fine,” she went on, now surrounded by a knot of her closest friends. “The doctors said I’ll be up and on four legs in another day or so. You guys don’t have anything to worry about. Really!” Twilight smiled confidently at her Ponyville family, gradually weaning them off their concern for her health. “I hurt worse back when I was trying to figure out how Pinkie Sense works! I’m fine!”

For a few seconds, they nodded and circled her in silence.

“Yeah! Twilight!” Pinkie cheered, wrapping her forelegs around the unicorn’s neck.

“We’re all just relieved ta hear that,” Applejack explained, taciturn but left with a load off her chest they all shared watching their friend fight the two titans of the Terre Rare family. Who could be anything but worried, watching their friend vanish into an otherworldly cloud for hours, only for her to reappear and fight another ferocious duel that involved falling castles, barrages of cannonfire, beams from on high and a veritable field of magic that could crush the breath from a pony’s lungs? When that lavender streak had finally fallen from the sky, knocking Cruciger out of the air and shattering the castle he held aloft like a baseball bat, who could do anything but worry?

The doctors had tried to assure them there was no problem, but…

“Hey, um,” Twilight spoke up, looking around the room, “not that I’m not happy to see you girls… and my parents were here right before you came in, but… where…” Her lower lip slipped into her mouth, nibbled anxiously between her teeth. “Have any of you seen Alpha? Alpha Brass, I mean…”

Spike scratched his head, clearly not able to help answer the question, and the mane six around him all exchanged looks.

“He was here not too long ago,” Rarity finally told her. “Just after they brought you in, darling. You should’ve seen him, insisting on staying by your side! It was so romantic!” She raised a hoof to her mouth to cough, her good news tempered by what she had to explain next. “He… he sort of… left after that, it seemed.”

“He left?” Twilight asked, looking to her friends and pressing them for more. “What do you mean he left, Rarity?”

“I don’t exactly know,” Rarity admitted, lowering her eyes.

“He wouldn’t just leave,” Twilight said, raising her voice a fraction. “I want to see him, but nopony… nopony knows where he is! Nopony is telling me! But he wouldn’t just leave without…” She seemed about to rise out of her mineral bath, but sunk deeper into it, more weary than she had insisted. “Without talking to me. He promised me. He promised…”

“Ah’m sure he’ll be back soon.” Applejack rested a hoof on Twilight’s back, a little careful not to get a shock from the magical slurry-bath. “It must’a been something right important ‘ta drag him away like this.”

“Like an emergency!” Pinkie helpfully added. “A super big catastrophic world-ending apocalyptic reboot-causing emergency!”

“That’s not helping, Pinkie,” Dash muttered.

“Maybe he’s just away setting up a surprise party?” Pinkie wondered instead, and Twilight actually laughed.

“That would be the day,” she said, but sighed, resigned to the fact that she wouldn’t be getting many answers. “I’ll have to ask him about that magic he used later,” she went on to say.

“What magic?” Dash asked, hooves at the edge of the bath. “More crazy unicorn stuff?”

Twilight shook her head. “It was his voice. He used his voice…”

“Like he yelled really loud?” Pinkie asked, continuing the barrage of questions. “Oh! Oh! Was it dragon-speak? Or was it like an elf? Did he have sing-song-y magic?”

“Dragonspeak?” Spike rolled his eyes. “Like that’s an actual thing.”

“Actually, Pinkie isn’t wrong,” Twilight mused, to her friends’ surprise.

“What?” Dash asked, groaning. “Really?”

“Even a shot in the dark hits sometimes!” Pinkie explained, sticking out her tongue.

“Maybe,” Twilight amended her earlier words. Settling against the back of the tub, she shook her head. “I don’t know what it was, exactly. He said something and my body filled with magic.”

“Can you do that?” Applejack asked, sounding skeptical. “Make magic happen with yer voice?”

“With an incantation like I did during the duel, yes,” Twilight explained. “You recite the spell formula as a set of phrases. Technically, anypony can cast any spell using an incantation, but this was different.” She tucked her front legs up, tight against her chest. “It had to be similar, but… it was so different… like helium in the air and helium in a balloon. A word that wasn’t a word. I don’t know…”

She sunk a little deeper into the bath, closing her eyes and letting her mane fall over her face. “I really want him here…”

“Ah’m sure he’ll come around,” Applejack assured her. Rarity remained silent.

“Yeah! Don’t worry!” Dash chimed in, a little bit of her confidence helping to draw Twilight back out of the revitalization bath. “Heck, if you need me to, I’ll go get him right now! How far could he have gotten, anyway?”

“I’ll sniff him out!” Pinkie promised, making a production of sniffing the air and the ground. “Oh, wait!” She popped back up with a pout. “I don’t know what he smells like…”

“Twilight,” Spike said, simply.

“Nevermind, I guess,” the Element of Magic relented on the subject, shaking her head again. “What about Lord Cruciger and Lady Star Light? Nopony’s told me much about what’s going on outside.”

“Lady Star Light took Lord Cruciger to her laboratory to treat him herself,” Rarity answered, having opted for silence for most of the get-together. It was, she realized, somewhat suspicious of her in retrospect. Not that she would call herself ‘chatty’ – for a Lady most certainly did not gossip beyond what was polite and proper – but she did have her opinions and little hesitation in sharing them with others, especially her friends. Her silence now had really been…

Well, there were potential distractions, heavy on her shoulders and always in her thoughts.

“I heard somepony say he’s a killer robot cy-pony!” Dash remarked with a dark chuckle.

“Like the Ter-mare-nator?” Pinkie asked, blue eyes wide at the apparent news. “Or the Six-million-bit Mare?” A hoof flew to her lips to cover a small gasp. “I had no idea!”

“He ain’t no cypony,” Applejack argued. “Did’ya forget that Lady Star Light’s a doctor, herself?”

“Um… what’s a cypony?” Fluttershy asked, utterly lost in the conversation.

Rarity felt content to just sit and listen.

Twilight. Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash. Pinkie. Applejack. It was nice, even if only for a few precious moments, to just enjoy their company again. Twilight describing the duel she’d gone through first-hoof; Rainbow Dash continuing to try and prove this silly ‘cypony’ theory she had heard from camp gossip; Pinkie Pie describing how she would have to find a way to sneak into Lady Star Light’s research lab to throw a party for the two defeated nobleponies, preferably without knocking over any dangerous world-destroying experiments; Applejack trying, always trying, to be a voice of reason; Fluttershy just sitting there, listening, happy to be surrounded by her friends, safe in the fact that they were all okay.

It was so wonderful just to be there.

It was so nice to forget about the changelings, about how her Blueblood had been replaced, about the chaos he had caused in just a few weeks tearing apart the Canterlot Duchy and threatening open war with Neighpon. It was nice to forget about how she couldn’t even dare to spend more than a day with him, in the house he had built to be their home, and how she always had to keep somepony nearby to make sure he wasn’t able to warp her mind. Rarity felt her jaw clench, but hid it expertly.

If not for Twilight… if not for her little conspiratorial sisterhood… she could have bedded down with that horrible imposter and become his plaything, all without even knowing it. A burning ember of hatred smoldered inside her, burning hotter the more she thought of what could have been, what was, and even what needed to be. She hated, too, that this situation made her feel this way.

Rarity wondered if Twilight felt the same, with her brother being where he was. They both had to live with the fact that, every night, the stallions they loved were Celestia-knows-where, utterly at the mercy of the monsters they had agreed to keep quiet about. That every day those changeling demons were taking what Rarity knew her Blueblood had tried so hard to build and perverting it. That he could even be dead, for what little she knew. And worse. At least they knew Shining Armor was alive.

And they let it happen.

Because it was The Plan. Because it was what had to be done. Because… it was what he would expect of her. For Equestria. There was no higher calling. In this, Sand Dune, Antimony, Blueblood, nobleponies who hated one another, were all united in purpose. But how much happier would she be… how much unburdened by worry could she be… living her old life, putting the finishing touches on her dresses for the wedding, unaware of what was to come? But that ship had sailed. Rarity wasn’t sure she would go back, even if some magical time traveler gave her the choice. Ignorance was far from bliss.

“Lady Rarity,” a voice whispered in her ear. A slip of paper floated into her hoof. The courier withdrew just as discretely.

Rarity glanced at the paper for just a moment, and neatly folded it closed.

“Rarity,” this time it was Twilight who called her. “Are you okay?” she asked, already knowing more and guessing more than any of her other friends could. “Is something wrong? You’ve been so…”

“Quiet!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Super-duper introspectively quiet!”

“Something up?” Dash asked.

“Rarity?” Applejack inquired, also slowly coming to a realization when she noticed the slip of paper.

Spike and Fluttershy remained quiet, but she could almost feel their concern for her, a warm bloom in her chest that came with a small pang of guilt. Her worry would never entirely go away, but she had taken the precautions she felt she had to take, and more. They were better prepared than they could have been in most any other circumstance. What was left was simply to go forward, boldly, courageously, and with the utmost dignity.

“Just a little rendezvous I need to attend to,” she told them, smiling not just to throw off suspicion, but out of genuine appreciation for their concern and their love. “Applejack? I’d be delighted if you could come with me.”

“I figgered as much,” the apple farmer agreed, adjusting the angle of her stetson. “Lead on.”

- - -

“You appear upset,” Antimony observed, and as astute as she was, she seemed acutely unconcerned.

“Do I have reason to be upset?” Rarity countered, entering the room with long, stately strides.

“I do not believe you do,” the other noblemare replied, gesturing towards a table covered almost entirely by a topographical map of the area around both Ponyville and Canterlot. In all, it encompassed about a third of the entire Duchy. Pins with slender crystal ends pierced the map, fixing it in place onto the table and colorfully outlining areas of interest.

“Then my own feelings can be put aside in the interests of cooperation,” Rarity said, her tone frosty but conciliatory. Antimony was, even now, not a mare to be taken lightly, especially in her own element and where and when she had the clear advantage. She could be reasonable, Rarity knew, or she could be ruthless to a degree none of her friends would likely imagine. What separated the two was whether she felt she could work with another pony or if she had to force their compliance.

Antimony inclined her head respectfully, finding the meaning in what was unspoken. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Alpha Brass had disappeared when he did. Rarity had always known some sort of conflict would take place behind the curtain, what with how Twilight’s duel had turned out, and she had left the details of it to those involved. Either way, a jaded part of her believed, she stood to benefit: Alpha Brass supported Twilight, and Twilight was part of The Plan, so if he emerged in control than it was a victory. If Antimony instead found a way, then she was also a part of The Plan, and they still had what they wanted: the forces needed to defeat the changelings.

She also knew, well, that Antimony seemed to have little love for her older brother. There was just no way to prevent some sort of reckoning between them. Rarity just worried for Twilight. Antimony had to see that, too.

“You can assure our mutual friend that my brother will, Celestia-willing, be able to see her sometime after the wedding,” Antimony explained, and said no more on the subject. “Before we begin, would you like a drink? Antonovka brews an interesting black tea from her homeland.”

“A drink to calm my nerves would be much appreciated,” Rarity replied, pulling out a pillow to sit daintily before the war table. “I brought a friend of mine and would like her to attend this meeting as well, if that isn’t a problem? I believe you know Applejack?”

Antimony nodded, and a faint magical aura appeared around her horn, permitting one more pony to enter. Applejack entered a few seconds later, tentatively probing the flap of the tent with her hoof. A subtle barrier had been erected outside, preventing entrance and befuddling eavesdroppers. To outside observers, the bronze tipped tent appeared mundane and certainly not enchanted.

“Howdy,” Applejack greeted Antimony, who nodded very slightly, and then waved to Antonovka. “Hey, there, everypony. Hope this ain’t an imposition?”

“If Rarity trusts you to sit in on our meeting, then I have no problem,” Antimony said, also sitting primly opposite Rarity. “General Antonovka had spoken to me of you, Ser Applejack, and your cooperation with us is not unappreciated.”

“It was a two way street,” Applejack replied, sitting down with rather less formality to Rarity’s left. “She was honest with me, so I was honest with her. Though Ah can’t say I can wrap my hooves around all this family politics. Shoot, you folks do more feudin’ than Apples n’ Oranges at their worst. Heck, Ah reckon the Carrots and the Peas get along better than you ponies, no offense.”

“None taken.” Antimony certainly did not seem defamed by the remark, though Rarity suspected the provincial reference had gone over, or rather under, her head. Either way, she made no effort to further explain herself or touch on the subject Rarity had obliquely broached before asking that Applejack be invited in.

General Antonovka set a beautiful vase-shaped black and white copperware samovar down on a small saucer. Rarity was familiar with it, and the sort of tea it brewed, as Blueblood had a number of tea sets for every possible occasion. He often rotated between them, and between different tea ceremonies, to keep in practice for diplomatic meetings. Rarity had learned by example, broadening her own experience in the process. It was something she had already put to use as Ponyville’s Baroness, welcoming guests from far off lands.

Rarity and Applejack sat, patently, as Antonovka carefully lifted the teapot from on top the hot samovar with her teeth, the heat from the boiling water and extinguished embers within rising up into the pot. The embers, Rarity could guess, came from dried pinecones, given the pleasant smell in the air. The teapot itself was used to brew a concentrated tea called ‘zavarka,’ which was then diluted to individual taste by the hot water in the samovar, via a small, elaborately decorated tap. A platter of white sugar, honey and jam was also left in reach for adding to the tea, along with fresh thinly-sliced lemon. It reminded Rarity of a certain stallion she knew; he preferred his black tea with milk and ginger, a taste acquired from his time among the griffins.

Antonovka presented and filled three crystal tea cups then one for herself, each one held in a silver-plated nickel ‘podstakannik’ – a sort of metal cup holder – intricately worked with floral motifs, hearts, and the ubiquitous sigil of the Terre Rare: the bull’s horns and the eight pointed star. Though any unicorn could sip tea from even the hottest cup using her magic, it was rather rude to do so in company, especially non-unicorn company, or so the old tradition went. Hence all were expected to drink with their hooves, and the podstakanniks made it much easier to hold onto a rather hot glass full of freshly brewed tea.

A little guiltily, Rarity enjoyed stretching the moment out.

As much as she loved her friends, she loved high society just as much… or almost as much. When these crises were all over, Rarity hoped, she could gather her new friends and her old ones together and enjoy tea just like this, in a beautiful room with beautiful dresses, and there would not be a whisper of war or battles or duels. They would gossip and nibble on teacakes and try on an ever growing assortment of fabulous hats from every corner of the land. If she could conspire to make that happen, just once, it would all be worth it.

Some day. Not today. But some day.

“The royal wedding of Her Serene Highness, Mi Amore Cadenza, and Sir Shining Armor,” Antimony said at last, taking one last sip from her dark tea, flavored only by a hint of honey and a sliver of lemon. “Will take place in three days. Twilight Sparkle will require twenty more hours to recover. You will only have one day to prepare before you are summoned to the city. Is everything in order on your end?”

“I took care of all that I could before I came here,” Rarity replied. With a tiny spoon, she stirred in a bit more white sugar into her tea. She liked it sweet, but still tasting of the tea itself.

“Ah’ve got a few reservations of mah own, for what that’s worth,” Applejack spoke up, well aware of the company she held at the moment and the fact that she had only been brought fully into the loop after her talk with General Antonovka. “Heck, you ponies can probably guess what I’m thinkin.’ Rarity here already threatened ta stitch my lips shut, and I agreed ta keep quiet like she wants, but Ah still want to just speak mah mind. Ah don’t know if it’s such a great idea keeping so much’a this secret. There’s gotta be other ponies we can let in on this, right?”

“If we reveal the enemy now…” Antimony began to argue.

“Ah know. It wouldn’t be pretty.” Applejack severely understated the potential nightmare that was an Equestria infested with changelings on every level, at least in Rarity’s view. If the changelings went to ground, it would force the entire country to look inward, and not in an introspective, contemplative manner.

It would be the bad old days of warlock and enchantress-hunts all over again.

“Ah can’t say I have any better ideas, and like ah said, Rarity’s already sold me on the necessity of it,” she went on to assure them. “Ah just don’t like that we’re leaving so many ponies who can’t fight stuck in this big’a mess. Ya know, I was gonna take Apple Bloom to this weddin? Apple Bloom! Well, you can sure as heck bet that ain’t happenin’ now! But there’s so many others we’ll be lettin’ be in harm’s way…”

“None of Ponyville’s foals will be anywhere near where the fighting is to take place,” Rarity said, though it was something Applejack already knew. In the most technical of terms, it did look a little suspicious; canceling the field trips into Canterlot for the wedding, but it was a calculated risk. If the changelings were looking that closely at them for signs that they knew about the attack, then so be it.

“That isn’t a problem is it?” Rarity asked, and she hoped Antimony didn’t make a fuss over it. Keeping up appearances was one thing, but risking their little sisters and the town’s children… that was another.

“A precaution like that is understandable,” Antimony answered, but didn’t smile despite her understanding. “Apple Bloom, was it?” She mused, half lidded eyes blinking as she thought back. “She was the little one with the red bow... the filly who asked me repeatedly about my cutie mark?”

“Yeah, that sounds like her,” Applejack muttered, blowing on her tea and still finding it too hot to drink. She’d taken a generous spoonful of apple jam to flavor.

Antimony smiled at the memory and nodded. “As I said, I don’t object. Nopony will notice a dozen or so fillies and colts. As for the rest, the young and the helpless ponies of Canterlot, we will only be able to do what we can. It is far from perfect, but we believe the changelings will move to capture those who are no threat to them. This works in our favor. Now, if you are set on your end, I will outline mine.”

She pointed to two tight groupings of pins far from Canterlot, near the very edge of the map.

“The forces of Lord Blueblood, who we know to be a changeling,” she explained, hovering her hoof over one cluster of pins capped with sapphire. “Roughly two thousand ponies strong, a little less than five hundred are professional guards and free company with any experience. Most important is that the Prince has not-so-subtly transferred Canterlot’s impressive Air Fleet away from the defense of the city. He commands the army from one of these airships, and I find it likely that he has installed changelings in most positions of power.”

Her hoof moved to cast a shadow over a group of topaz pins.

“Duke Yama of Neighpon. He has brought two thousand ponies to escort his daughter to Canterlot, where she is to answer for her alleged attempted murder of the Prince. Most are earth ponies, and they are expected to be well trained and well drilled... a formidable force. Neighpon takes its security very seriously due to piracy and their reliance on sea trade. Though it is not on the map, I have also confirmed that the bulk of Yama’s fleet is currently outside the sea fort guarding the bay of Los Pegasus.”

“Those two… ain’t really gonna fight, are they?” Applejack asked, leaning forward over the table.

“The point of contention will be here,” Antimony explained, her hoof coming to rest on another part of the map, south of Canterlot, between the Everfree Forest and the mountains: a natural choke point. “There is no getting around this area if one is to approach Canterlot by land from the west with such a host. Lord Blueblood will confront Lord Yama here and demand that he escort Lady Yumi to Canterlot. Yama will have to either stall for time, give in – which he will not do, as Yumi is his only daughter and heir and much beloved – or he will have to push, forcibly, through Blueblood’s line. Were I this changeling, I would take care to insert a few of my own into my army’s ranks, to ensure that shots are fired, provoking a battle.”

“Why? Why do all this?” Applejack frowned down at the map, as if she could somehow scowl the two armies into behaving like rational ponies.

“To tie up or preferably cripple Canterlot’s defenses,” Antonovka spoke up, her cup of tea between her front hooves. Her expression was stormy, also frowning, but that just seemed to be how she normally looked. “I believe Lord Yama will not want to fight, not if it can be avoided. Nor does he truly wish to comply with Princess Celestia’s mandate to send his daughter to the city. Within the timeframe we are dealing with, and without outside meddling, it is likely that the two armies will simply stare each other down.”

“Oh,” Applejack said, a little relieved. “Good…”

“That is, until the wedding begins,” Antonovka added.

Applejack still didn’t quite see. “What then?”

“Then, darling, when the changelings launch their attack, that false Prince will do the same,” Rarity answered, bluntly. “He will order his army to attack Lord Yama’s army, to retrieve Yumi for trial. He will say that Yama is stalling, because he is, in fact, doing just that.”

Applejack shook her head. “But… no. If that’s true, then…”

“Blueblood’s forces will be broken and rout,” Antimony described, coldly. “Thousands of ponies on both sides will die, further weakening Equestria, all while the changelings sack and enslave the population of Canterlot in the confusion. Their only expected resistance will be the Royal Guard, which they have already infiltrated. Canterlot, both the City and the Duchy, will be destroyed in a single day and a single night. Neighpon, too, will be savaged terribly. All with minimal risk to the changelings themselves.”

“Weakening the enemy through infighting,” Antonovka remarked with a huff, “It is an effective tactic, especially when combined with a surgical strike that takes out an enemy’s leadership. Aside from the Stable of Lords, a great many nobles and dignitaries will also be present for the wedding. With Canterlot fallen, the entire country will fly apart as everpony looks to their own defense, too afraid to mount a counter-attack.”

Applejack fell back onto the floor, her hindquarters missing the pillow.

“It is not a scenario we will allow to come to pass,” Rarity promised, reaching out to touch her friend’s foreleg. She turned to Antimony. “Is it?”

“Of course not,” the Prench noblemare answered with a smirk. “I plan to take Canterlot myself one day, whole, intact and in all its glory.”

“So?” Applejack asked, sucking in a steadying breath. She wasn’t a fearful pony, not when it came to the kind of dangers that could be faced and given a good kick in the nose, but this sort of thing was out of her depth. Still, she felt the confidence Antimony had, that Antonovka had, and most importantly, that Rarity had. “What are you plannin’?”

“Simple,” Antimony replied, taking a brief sip from her tea. “We assassinate Prince Blueblood.” Seeming to enjoy saying it, her smile broadened by a twitch, and she amended herself, “The changeling that is impersonating him, that is.”

Applejack let out a low whistle. “Ah… guess that’s one way ‘ta do it…”

“The problem is the other changelings that could impersonate him and give the same order.” Antonovka’s steely gaze fixed on the cluster of pins. “The assassination will have to be public, leaving nopony in doubt to the fact that he has been killed. With the Prince gone, and this fact known to his entire army, there will be no battle. Even if the guardponies loyal to him want to avenge his death, they will have no organization and no mandate to act independently.”

“By the time they start to stir, we will have already decided the issue here, in Canterlot.” Antimony tapped her hoof down on the castle-city that was at the heart of the map. It was also the heart of the country and the heart of equines everywhere.

Canterlot was the beacon of Celestia’s Light. Literally all of Equestria radiated out from it.

“How will you do it, though?” Rarity asked. “How will you assassinate Blueblood? You never explained to us--”

“It may be best if you do not know,” Antimony cut her off. “Of greater importance is how we will retake Canterlot itself, once the changelings have invaded in force.” She gestured with a sparkle of magic towards the ruby-capped pins near Ponyville, representing her forces, then to the small trio of pins in Ponyville, capped with indigo.

“These Diamond Dogs,” the Prench noble wondered, sounding skeptical. “Are you certain their intelligence is reliable?”

“While not what I would usually call perspicacious, they do have a solid knowledge of what lies underground.” Rarity smiled, both happy to be able to contribute again and in response to Antimony’s perplexed expression. “You just need to know how to charm them a little, darling. Call it a mare’s touch.”

Antimony quirked a delicate eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really,” Rarity insisted. “If I’m reading this map properly, then the tunnels they’ve discovered for me are… here… here… here…”

She began marking routes along the map with black string, wrapped occasionally around uncolored pins. What she revealed, speculatively, was a series of tunnels, all leading towards Canterlot. There were at least half a dozen of them.

“We will need to destroy them,” Rarity concluded, looking over her hoofiwork. “If they can enter the city from those tunnels then they can escape from them as well. Every one of them will need to be closed… by force if need be.”

“Sapping is nasty, dangerous work,” Antonovka pondered the map, her brows knitting closer in an actual scowl, and not just her usual stern-faced glower. “Ponies are ill suited for work underground, even at the best of times. We could collapse the shallowest tunnel from the surface, using spells, but the deeper ones…”

“We won’t be alone down there,” Rarity promised them, looking around the room at the three mares who shared the table with her. “Have faith in my friends like you have faith in me. Quite a few of my friends may be… uncouth by your standards,” she admitted, and Applejack chuckled, giving a brief, “hear, hear.”

“But even the roughest gem has value and beauty in it,” Rarity beamed, grinning like a schoolfilly. “All you have to do is give it a chance to shine!”

Antimony snorted, very softly.

But she consented, as Rarity knew she would.

“Canterlot,” the noblemare stated, her hoof hovering ominously over the image of the city, now surrounded by pins and lines in black and gold. “In three days, the matter will be decided. There is no middle ground.” Her half-lidded eyes searched her comrades for any hesitation. “You would all be wise to remember that in the days to come. In three days, by the grace of the Princesses, we will either vanquish…”

Her hoof stamped down on the city.

“Or be vanquished.”

- - -

“And she'll beat you, beat you, beat you,
And she'll beat you into pap,
And she'll eat you, eat you, eat you,
Every morsel snap, snap… snap.”

- - -

“Sister.” Alpha Brass stood up, elegant and refined as always, despite the enchanted chains around his forelegs. “I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”

“Brother.” Antimony entered the pillared room with her usual finery. A bold crimson cloak streamed over and followed the contours of her back, and fine golden filigree threads beaded and wove through her dark amethyst mane. “I do apologize for those… I should have told Gewitter to remove them once you were secure.”

“Apology accepted, of course,” Brass replied, approaching the edge of his cell.

Cell, though, was not an entirely appropriate description of where he was currently being kept. Four overlapping barrier walls shimmered semi-transparent but entirely un-breachable, the four intersecting corners of the square prison made of enchanted iron etched with runes of warding. Similarly, Alpha Brass’ hooves made crackling noises as he walked along a similar floor of magic, as strong as any of the four more obvious walls. Four unicorn stallions sat in recessed bowls in the floor, channeling magic directly into the special containment cell. Glowing blue lines in the smooth granite floor provided visible confirmation that the magical conduits were flowing properly, splitting and combining and overlapping to empower the spells involved.

Within the cell itself he was permitted a medium sized, but comparatively luxurious, bed, a writing desk, pens, ink, papers, a small library, a porcelain lavatory, a table for eating, and a small cabinet of wines and clean water. It was, perhaps, the stateliest prison in Equestria, one fit for even a royal …or for a troublesome magic-loving Element of Harmony, depending.

Antimony reached through the magical barrier and undid her brother’s restraints. He cooperated rather amiably. The shields were attuned, it seemed, and she could pass in and out as she pleased. Brass and his magic, and anything touched by his magic, could not. He had not so much as fiddled with the cuffs put on him, and so they eased out through the force field without so much as a crackle of protest.

“Much better,” he said with a smile and a bit of relief.

“It is unbecoming for a Terre Rare to be so ignobly chained,” Antimony agreed, putting the shackles aside. “Thank you, also, for not causing undue fuss when Gewitter brought you in. I feared you would make a commotion and end up hurt in the process. She holds you responsible for Sirocco vanishing, you know.”

“You can show your appreciation by bringing me a small cask of that delicious zap apple cider I’ve heard so much about,” Brass replied, floating over a pillow to sit on, a discrete distance from the barrier-wall of his cell. “Besides, you’ve gone through a lot of trouble to get your hooves on me. It would have been inappropriate to cause a stir that would accomplish nothing but getting ponies hurt.”

“I am very glad you saw things that way.” Antimony had no pillow to sit on, but there were padded rugs for the mages on ‘guard duty.’ She brought one over and took a seat with a sweep of her cloak. “You won’t be confined for too long. Only until after I deal with the situation in Canterlot.”

“Ah,” Brass mused, as if only then figuring it out, “the changelings.” He smiled.

“They must be destroyed. In that, I think we are both in agreement?” Antimony inquired, and he nodded, companionably. “Good,” she continued, seeing he agreed, “but I also know you have some ulterior plans… plans I have no intention of seeing come to fruition.”

“I understand. You think you can stop whatever I intend to occur by keeping me locked up during the crisis,” he stated, and didn’t sound impressed. Or off-put. “What makes you think I am anything more than an intermediary… a facilitator… for likeminded ponies? Like Twilight Sparkle, for example? Why would I need plans of my own when I can just have others do such work for me?”

“You always have an angle, brother,” Antimony reminded him, her eyes half-lidded but still piercing. “The fact is that I cannot trust you not to act in some way.”

Alpha Brass made a bit of a production of sighing, wearily. “It hurts me, as your older brother, so be so distrusted. I am a stallion of peace.”

“So you say,” Antimony replied, unmoved by the theatrics. “Yet for a pony of peace, who claims to disdain ‘unnecessary violence,’ it very much looks to me like you played a part in setting up the duel that took down our father.”

“I said ‘unnecessary’ violence.” His response was casual, but ice cold, and devoid of remorse.

“No problem with necessary violence, then?”

He returned her half-lidded stare with turquoise eyes, as if such an insipid question was beneath either asking or answering. Instead, he shrugged, and asked, “Father is alive, I trust?”

“Mother is keeping him alive,” Antimony answered, “Just like before.”

“Good,” was his response. A pony could believe he was happy his father still drew breath. That pony would be wrong, at least in Antimony’s assessment of her brother’s thinking.

“Good, because it occupies both mother and father?” she asked. “Whereas if father had died, mother would be on the warpath? That sort of ‘good?’”

Again, he returned her stare, feeling no need to dignify the question with an answer.

“I am not as cruel as you imagine me to be, sister,” he finally said, when she drew out the silence that followed. “But I understand why you feel the way you do.”

No, brother,” Antimony snapped, raising her voice just a fraction. “You never have. You never will. It isn’t in your nature. Maybe once it was, but not anymore.” She made to stand and leave and he nodded slowly, mildly accepting her rebuke without argument or complaint.

On the verge of leaving, Antimony added, speaking without turning around, “I will have your cider delivered with your dinner tonight. Good bye, brother.”

“Fare well, sister.” Alpha Brass watched her go. “Visit me anytime.”

- - -

Queen Chrysalis held the letter over her study’s beeswax candle, the light from the burning paper casting a pale orange glow on her stolen features and an incongruous equine shadow against the far wall. The other Hives were all in place, and her forces marshaled for the greatest swarming in changeling history. They all merely waited for her signal and for the fall of the last remaining threat to their invasion: Princess Celestia.

Letting the last few embers of paper from the incriminating document fall into the disk around the candle, the false Princess laughed. After so many years of silent struggle and sacrifice, things were finally in place. With this letter, the swarm was committed, utterly and irrevocably.

Her wedding would mark the end of one era, and the beginning of another.

The Era of the Changelings…

No. Not the era of the changelings. The Age of Chrysalis!

“This day… is going to be perfect!
A day when changelings rise and claim what we are due!
For this future I have planned,
For my children I command!
Break our masquerade and these equines one and all subdue!”

-

Princess Celestia sat alone at the table, her already tiny family now completely absent. Before her stretched a feast nopony could hope to finish by herself, prepared by the finest chefs in Equestria, but with nopony to share it with. Luna was in seclusion, Blueblood off confronting Neighpon, and Cadance preparing for her wedding.

“This day we pray to be perfect,
A day ponies rich and poor come out to cheer.
A Princess rising like a star,
Little Cadance has come so far.
Yet I worry, for ill tidings have reached my ear…”

-

Rarity stood before a mannequin, concealing a layer of thin banded metal armor with blue and gold fabric. The corset vanished beneath a short train of light and sky blue, wave-like golden lace, the same color she had reserved for her hoof-wear. It was hardly the ensemble she had imagined wearing to a Royal Wedding, and she wondered which of her friends would be the first to notice the dual-functionality of the dresses she insisted they take with them.

“If only it could be perfect,
A wedding like my own, I’ve dreamt of for so long.
For he is on my mind this eve,
My lost Prince I must retrieve,
To join this noble sorority in which I fear I don’t belong.”

-

Antimony sat, contemplative, as her father lay on mother’s operating table. Cruciger had always been the greatest force in her life, and through it all, he had been as unassailable and unbeatable and unflinching as a mountain. Now the face she had so often turned to, searchingly, for a glimmer of a smile or a hint of pride lay disturbingly serene and comatose. Mother had a strange alchemical contraption over his missing eye and crystals knitted into pressure points across his body. It was a state of weakness she knew he would never want her or any of her siblings to see.

So she left, before mother noticed she had snuck in.

“A platinum crown and throne,
For this I battled on my own.
I thought my strength unmatched,
In the end my dreams dispatched…
How could she have made me stumble?
Like no other, she has earned my ire,
Yet a part of me has come to admire…
For the weak to defy the strong,
Could it be that I was wrong?
What more must I cast aside to feel that crown upon my brow?”

-

Twilight paused before the steel and silver chariot. Her parents had already taken off, leaving just her and Spike to follow close behind. Brass still hadn’t appeared or even sent word. Though she had recovered her magic and her strength, she could feel an ache in her chest whenever she dwelled on the thought of his unexpected and unplanned absence. Still, there was nothing to do but go forward. In the end, whether they met again before the wedding or not didn’t change the plan in the least. They had their army.

Looking up to the far off mountainside, she could see the edge of Canterlot, crowned in thin mage spires, like candles on a cake.

“I never wanted power,
For a noble’s life is sour.
No more am I just learning,
Into this life I’m returning.
Is this what the Princess really wants?
But my brother is in trouble,
And all of Canterlot to rubble,
I have to act and protect my precious friends!
Now on my shoulders the fate of Canterlot depends…”

-

Sitting alone before a teakwood desk, hooves folded neatly in front of himself, Alpha Brass eyed the glowing walls of his prison. Dipping his quill into a bottle of black ink, he returned his writing.

“In a cage or in a grave,
A droplet cannot stop a wave.
The fire inside has already been lit,
In blood-shed they will commit.
It won’t be long before you see.
This has gone far beyond you and me.”

-

Euporie slowly ran her hoof along a plane of bronze, the frontal face of a pony-sized box bearing the letter lambda: a V with the angle pointing upward. Her amber eyes lit up with excitement at the promise of what was to come.

“I heard it might get a little scary,
And the fighting a little hairy,
So why not smile, smile, smile,
Happiness makes life worthwhile!
Don’t you think?
Better yet, don’t think.
I’ll just make you all grin, grin, grin,
And unleash the real you that lies within.”

-

Eunomie appeared in a flash of light, before two of her step-father’s mage guards, the faintly glowing embers of the teleportation circle still etched into the ground. Like Euporie, she wore a dress for the grand wedding ceremonies, and like her twin sister, and many attendant nobles, she came bearing gifts. One, she motioned to a servant to carry to her carriage. The other, a petite wooden case the size of a hoof, she lifted with her own magic.

“I have always aimed to do my best,
Without complaint or rude protest,
Clumsy, artless, no finesse,
These negative traits do I suppress.
Feelings I can’t show, put to your task,
Do you see the ‘me’ beneath this mask?”

-

A gilded cage was the only way to keep the birds from flying away. Like the caged bird that was her cutie mark, Chalice knew she belonged with them. It was pointless to think otherwise. It was hopeless to expect things to have turned out any other way. Friends… like Fluttershy… Chalice knew she had already given up the right for anything like that the day her bodyguard and friend Marin died. The day her life changed. The day she shackled herself to that cursed torc.

Trotting slowly over to the aviary’s door, Chalice noticed a folded letter.

It bore the wax seal of her brother. Of the Marquis. Of the only family who truly understood her. She opened it with neither delay nor occasion, her pale white magic searing through and breaking the wax. The petite unicorn’s eyes skimmed over the letter, digesting the words and directions and committing them to memory.

“What starlight strikes,
Does not survive.
If all else fails,
I am to leave…”

Even as she re-read the orders, a starry black devoured the paper, dissolving it like salt in water.

“…none… alive.”

- - -

Chrysalis-as-Cadance lowered the veil over her eyes and took one last look at her reflection in the mirror. All three bridesmaids were with her as her equine make-up artists and other specialists flittered around the room, making sure she looked perfect for her wedding march. A faint hint of blush here, some more powder there, all while the wedding planner reminded her to smile for the cameras and lights. This wasn’t just a wedding after all; it was a grand public spectacle.

Finally, the meddlesome ponies left, leaving just the Princess and her bridesmaids.

“Are you ready?” she asked them, slowly making her way to the door.

“Ready,” Twinkleshine replied, nodding.

“Ready,” Minuette agreed.

“Ready,” Lyra said last.

With the train of her wedding dress swishing behind her, ‘Princess Cadance’ entered the church.

“Then let the games begin.”