//------------------------------//
// Episode 16: Great and Powerful 
// Story: Harpflank and Sweets: The Lost Episodes 
// by Supersheep64 
//------------------------------//


HARPFLANK AND SWEETS


Created by Arcainum
Written by Supersheep64

Opening Titles


Metropony City! Mighty skyscrapers towering over the millions of ponies going about their lives on the streets below! Working, playing or just taking in the weather, Metropony bustles as only the big city can. But! All is not well in this equine metropolis! Below the streets lies a threat - a threat to the happiness and friendship of good ponies everywhere! And the name of that threat is Luna, the exiled Princess who has returned with vengeance in her eyes! With the aid of Her villainous helper Trixie and her army of terrible Lunatrons, She will stop at nothing to destroy the pony way of life! Standing against her, however, are two heroic mares, known only to the citizens of Metropony as...


HARPFLANK AND SWEETS: EPISODE 16 -  GREAT AND POWERFUL



Scene 1




A cold wind blew through the autumn night, sending dead leaves dancing across the yellowed face of the moon. In the crevices of Metropony, vermin of all kinds scavenged for scraps and sought to hide from the City's neon lights. In a bar two blocks over, the victor of a hoof-wrestle gave a drunken cheer that could be heard in Canterlot. 

On this night, a commanding presence strode through the dismal scum of these streets. Undaunted by the grime, she held her head high, as if commanding the filth to part before her through sheer confidence alone. 

Trixie turned a corner into a narrow alley, resisting the urge to wrap her spangled cape around her shoulders as a nighttime breeze rustled her brilliant sapphire fur. Even when seemingly alone, The Great and Powerful Trixie refused to show weakness, and instead abandoned her mantle to the whims of the biting wind. 

To any other pony, the claustrophobic space and creeping darkness of these back streets would inspire nervousness and unease. Perhaps they would feel a chilling dread tortuously crawl down their spine, slow and creeping like a sadistically minded spider. Perhaps they would be unable to stop glancing over their shoulder, fearing something hiding in ambush as they subconsciously increased the pace of their trembling hooves. 

But not Trixie. Even without her robotic armaments, Trixie had nothing to fear from the night as long as she served it's princess.

And the two Lunar Guards mirroring her steps couldn't hurt either.

As silent and stoic as their diurnal counterparts, the luminescent golden eyes of the twin soldiers penetrated every shadow as they slid through the night. Their bat-like wings clung close to their sides, covering up the glint of their armor as they moved almost unnoticeably through the darkened street. Clasped to the back of their breastplates were a pair of Nocturne swords, short and fast blades forged from the magic of the night Princess herself. Gifted only to her personal guards, these weapons could slice through tank armor and cut the wings off of a moth in mid-flight... Which made them perfect for the stealthy and versatile warriors she made them for.

Being Luna’s right hoof mare, Trixie had every clearance to direct the (admittedly few) members of this rare and elite force, but she seldom ever invoked that right. If asked, she would say that she preferred to rely on the reliable constant of her own technological defenses than the variable skill of a soldier, but that was hogwash. The Night Guard had no variance, due to a training course so brutal that it alone was one of the main reasons they were so few in number.

In truth, Trixie chose not to employ their services because she was still bitter that her Highness seemed unable to forge her nocturne steel into anything larger than those glorified toothpicks. Such a waste of potential on something so low-tech, it... irked her. 

But tonight was different. The mare Trixie intended to meet had... Unusual talents. Unusual enough to force Trixie to take these additional measures, this extra show of force. The Enchantress needed to know that the Lunar Empire was not a force to be taken lightly.

Trixie stepped out into the moonlight, her journey reaching an end in the unloading bay located in the architectural crevice behind an infrequently used Barnyard Bargains Megastore. Trixie swallowed down her nervousness as her eyes were drawn to the shadowy figure hidden completely inside of a dark brown cloak. The exotic mare sat silently by the parked delivery trucks, her obscured face tilted upwards in peaceful meditation.

Even though the Enchantress gave no acknowledgement to the new arrivals, Trixie knew that this was all nothing but mind games... Something that she too must take part in. Intent on making the necessary impression, Trixie stood a moment, letting her cape billow impressively in the nighttime breeze as her guards made themselves visible in a clear warning to not try anything funny.

This stalemate proceeded for a time, seconds stretching on and on until, finally, the Enchantress ceased in her repose. The posturing complete, Trixie turned to her guards and motioned for them to leave. Instantly, the twin stallions stepped backwards, vanishing completely into the shadows.

As Trixie approached her rendezvous partner, she almost managed to convince herself that the Enchantress wasn’t chuckling at this demonstration of force from some of the deadliest soldiers on the planet. In spite of this simple mockery, Trixie never let her composure slip, ignoring the ever-building feeling of nervous tension knotting up in her throat. 

Though Trixie would never admit it, any mare who failed to be intimidated even slightly by the threat of Luna's wrath greatly worried her. 

The Enchantress spoke in her melodic voice, the sound emerging from the striped muzzle barely peeking out from under her hood.

“I see that the Moon’s pet is arriving late. Perhaps you should not arrange meetings if you have too many things on your plate?”

Trixie reigned in her temper. She had a feeling that she’d be doing a lot of that before this night was through.

“Careful, Enchantress. Have you not heard that the customer is always right? I mean, really? You ask me to meet you next to a supermarket, and yet you can’t follow their most holy mantra. It’s a wonder you can stay in business at all.”

The Enchantress took exception to the comparison.

“I am not some pimple-faced youth. I simply reserve my manners for customers that are far less uncouth. It’s no secret that your business I abide... Only because of the payment that none but your mistress can provide.”

Trixie smirked. If the Enchantress was getting pissy, then she must be doing something right.

“Then please, don’t waste my time any longer. The Amulet, you have it?”

The Enchantress tilted her head coyly, motioning out an implication with her hooves. 

“Indeed I have the trinket you seek, but first... You must pay me with the stones most unique."

Trixie’s horn lit up, pulling a small sack out from under her cape. Floating under the Zebra’s nose, she loosened the string, revealing a horde of pale white, dusty pebbles. Trixie could almost sense The Enchantress's eyes widening at the sight.

The reaction was hardly unwarranted, seeing as it was a bag of Moonrock, the most magically pliable substance known to equinekind. The rare, unobtainable stones could be used to store or channel absolutely any enchantment, and the ground up powder was a base for more potions that could be listed in any arcane cookbook.

So valuable were they, that being in possession of the substance was practically like obtaining the cheat codes for the economy. Bankers and Tycoons had been known to abandon their assets at the mere implication of digging up a meteor of the stuff, and powerful sorcerers had often forced their firstborn children into marriage in the hopes of acquiring the merest pebble.

Trixie had to go to no such lengths to acquire her sample, however. By some strange coincidence, the Lunar Empire had the exclusive access to the only major source of Moonrock in the Solar System. 

Trixie dropped the bag into a pair of waiting hooves, glaring slightly in anticipation of a double cross. She was only slightly surprised however, when The Enchantress instead reached into her robes and procured a gleaming onyx necklace, masterfully crafted and beset by a flawless crimson gem.

Smiling genuinely for the first time in... However long it had been, Trixie levitated the Amulet before her, verifying for herself the authenticity of the artifact.

“The Alicorn Amulet... It’s even more impressive than I had imagined...”

It was at this point the Enchantress turned cold, cutting into Trixie’s thoughts with a stern warning.

“Do not be entranced by its deceptive shine. Despite it’s name, the power it holds is far from divine. I surrendered it only because I know that of wielding it, you have no shot. History’s best and brightest have failed to tame it, so what chance have you got?”

Trixie bristled, no longer content to let this impudence slide. She scoffed, her voice laden with hostility.

“Oh, please do tell me! How exactly do you believe that this accessory is going to undo my grand designs?”

The Enchantress raised her head, staring intently as if attempting to pierce Trixie’s head with her glowing yellow eyes.

"You assume that you have the measure of this dark power most tragic... But you have abandoned your calling and taken up machine over magic! Sure enough, this cursed amulet will help you achieve your dark goals, though only at a cost... a cost of your own blackened soul."

Trixie laughed in her face. It was a cold, mirthless sound.

"I am well aware of it's history, Enchantress. I assure you that I have no intention of wearing this abominable trinket. I simply wish to focus it's power into my latest creation and crush my continual adversaries."

Trixie leant forwards, close enough that she could smell the swamp and incense on the Zebra's robes.

“And if you ever insult my magic again, I will show you how Great and Powerful I truly am."

Trixie returned to a less threatening distance, glaring all the while. Oddly, the Enchantress was seemingly unmoved by this.

"I hope so, Trixie... I can only wish you luck on living up to your name. For I fear the whole world has been waiting too long for you to show proof of those claims."

Before Trixie could properly articulate her outrage, the Enchantress cut her off.

"Trixie, a harsh lesson you are about to learn. But for now, our meeting is adjourned."

The Enchantress took a step back, reaching into the folds of her cloak before throwing a potion bottle that shattered on the ground. Trixie shielded her eyes as, in a flash of light, harsh lime green smoke billowed out, enveloping the zebra in an incredibly sparkly shroud.

When the smoke had cleared, the Enchantress was nowhere to be seen. 

Trixie was lost for words.

"B-But... That's my getaway technique! Of all the-"

She trailed off, inwardly calming herself. She began to slip the amulet into her cloak, frowning ever so slightly.

"This amulet better have all the power she says it does..."

"Oh come on Trixie, I thought that claiming to be more powerful than you actually are was a recurring theme with you. You can't break the trend now!"

Totally not flinching at the sound of the intruding voice, Trixie grit her teeth as her quiet night out was instantly ruined. For there, standing atop the derelict supermarket, framed against the glorious moonlight were her most hated nemesi, the most loathsome, despicable, monstrously ugly, barely cognizant, horrendously meddlesome, utterly irredeemable and unhygienically oriented ponies in all of Luna’s great Empire.

Harpflank and Sweets had found her.




Scene 2





A hash light flooded the dark alleyway. Trixie’s cape fluttered in the downdraft from a dozen beating wings as four fully-armed military chariots surrounded her position, illuminating her in the accusing gaze of their side-mounted spotlights. 

Blinded by the beams, Trixie could only feel the hostile intent of the M.A.R.E. agents bearing down on her. Although her maladjusted eyes rendered her unable to see her enemies, with all the anxious tension in the air, one did not have to be a true genius like Trixie to know that there were dozens of guns being aimed at her from all sides.

Although Trixie stood undefended, she was hardly concerned. For all their posturing, M.A.R.E agents were too soft to shoot an unarmed prisoner. Her guards had no such compunctions however, leaving her petty foes quite lucky that they were currently under orders only to reveal themselves when Trixie truly needed their services. 

And why would Trixie ever need protection from unfired bullets?

Squinting, Trixie lowered her hat to shade her eyes, gritting her teeth at the twin silhouettes framed on an adjacent rooftop. The eerie warnings of her supplier faded from her mind as an irritatingly familiar voice echoed down, igniting a fire of hatred in Trixie's soul.

"Well, well, well... The Great and Powerful Trixie out for a midnight stroll... And caught with her Lunatron around her ankles."

Forcing her eyes to adjust to the glare, Trixie hatefully glanced skywards, meeting her foes eye to eye.

"Harpflank and Sweets, still stalking me I see. Do you two ever clock off your pathetic misguided jobs?"

Harpflank just grinned her idiotic grin.

"Not so long as there's still a chance to knock your clock off, Trixie!"

Sweets slumped out of her dynamic posing, looking at her partner with practiced disbelief.

"That doesn't make any sense."

Harpflank pouted.

"We'll maybe if you came up with a witty response once in while, I wouldn't have run out of good ones by now..."

Another voice called out, this one emanating from the chariot hovering in the sky immediately behind Trixie, or as Trixie identified it, the one that was blocking her most pertinent escape route. Showing only a self-satisfied smirk, Trixie turned to face the speaker, beholding a grey pegasus leaning over the side, her own weapon firmly planted towards the immaculate forehead of the unfairly beset Trixie.

“Trixie! Surrender now, or we will be required to exert force!”

Trixie’s smirk only grew.

“So this is the pony who commands my pathetic opposition? Trixie has heard of the blind leading the blind, but I didn’t expect you to embody the saying quite so...”

She tilted her head as she mockingly fluttered her eyes.

“... Literally.”

Derpy’s expression darkened.

“I can see perfectly well that we have you cornered, you hack.”

All of the gathered M.A.R.E agents aimed their guns at her even harder, redundantly re-cocking their weapons in a synchronous ultimatum to stand down or suffer a number of bullet holes in altogether inconvenient places. 

Trixie bowed low, doffing her hat to the commander.

“And Trixie congratulates you on your convincing illusion. As a former performer herself, Trixie can appreciate the effort it took to pull off.”

Trixie twisted her hoof, letting a landslide of small, cell-phone sized devices pour out of her hat and onto the ground. Trixie grabbed them with her magic, spinning them into position, forming a whirling metallic barrier around her as they activated. The tiny machines glowed, not just with the cool blue of Trixie's telekinesis, but with an inner power, causing them to twist and grow larger and more complex, more articulated, more equine.

Sweets gasped in shock, calling out the word that instantly ran through the mind of everypony present.

“Lunatrons!”

The agents opened fire, turning the cramped alleyway into an intense maelstrom of ricocheting metal. As her machines moved in close to shield her from the hailstorm,Trixie threw a capsule to the cobblestone below her hooves, enveloping the entire area in an expanding cloud of smoke.

With no line of sight, the agents could only fire wildly into the cloud like raw recruits, counting on nothing else but potluck to score a hit on their targets.

On their adjacent rooftop, Harpflank and Sweets tensed in preparation, alert for any sign of their longtime adversary in the smoky bedlam raging beneath them. Perhaps it was this alertness that saved them, their super-senses formulating an almost psychic level of detection that alerted them to the deadly blades cleaving towards them from behind.

What is certain, is that if Lyra had not been supernaturally fast and agile, the Lunar Guard would have taken her head as he tore out of the shadows. Lyra spun with the attack, barely twisting her neck out of the way as she dodged. She reflexively struck out in response, landing a glancing blow against his armor that forced him to back off and rethink his attack.

As the warriors disappeared into darkness yet again, Lyra raised a hoof to her cheek, feeling warm blood. She glanced back to her partner, noting as she did that Bon-Bon’s tail was a lot shorter than it used to be.

“Who the heck are these guys?”

To her surprise, Bon-Bon winked at her.

“I dunno, but I can tell you who they’re not...”

Being primarily assassins as well as soldiers, one of the first teachings of the Lunar Guards was to strike fast, strike first and, most pertinently, to always kill your foe in a single stroke. Failing this, the second lesson was to always, always learn from their mistakes. 

Attacking Harpflank and Sweets one-on-one had seemed to be ineffective, so changing tactics, they both lunged from the same direction, their Nocturne blades crossing in a deadly scissor formation as they attacked Sweets from both high and low. 

Bon-Bon grabbed Lyra’s forelegs, suddenly spinning around and hurling her partner between the oncoming swords as Lyra lashed out and kicked both of them in the un-helmeted face.

“...They ain't superheroes, that’s for sure.”

Meanwhile, in the alley, Trixie’s enchanted smoke showed no signs of clearing, as bullets continued to rain down on the perceived location of the villainous trickster.

With ammo running out and absolutely no signs of any progress being made, Derpy’s lead pegasus pilot made a snap decision, tilting downwards as he brought the chariot in close, the steady beat of his and his team’s wings swiftly working to clear away the smokescreen. Eyes widening in shock, Derpy turned to the cockpit, yelling over the noise of the vehicles and gunfire.

“No! Don’t break formation! Don’t brea-”

It was too late though. Wreathed in smoke, six Lunatrons leapt out of the cloud, clinging onto the side of the chariot like a swarm of monkeys. Two of them dived into the vehicle, wresting the weapons from the panicking Agents while the remaining four used the chariot as a launching platform to attack the other aircraft in the cordon. 

Derpy growled out a furious battle cry as the gunfire ceased, only to be replaced by cries of pain and mechanical violence. The last glimpse Lyra had of her fearless leader was the Commander gripping a Lunatron in a vice-esque headlock before her chariot spun out of sight and crashed somewhere a few blocks away.

There was a crash right behind Lyra as the Lunar guard who had been about to shank her was sent sprawling by Bon-Bon hurling his partner at him like he and his armour weighed no more than a battered, featherless pillow.

“Lyra!”

Bon-Bon was pointing a hoof down into the alleyway, drawing attention to the caped mare galloping away unscathed, magically clutching an ill-gotten amulet close to her chest.

“I got it!”

Lyra left Bon-Bon to clear up the small fry as she swiftly gave chase to the fleeing Trixie, catching up with her incredible speed before somersaulting over her head and cutting off her escape.

“Not this time, Trixie! You’re gonna answer for your crimes, be it in court, or at the end of my fist!”

Ignoring that Lyra possessed no such anatomy, Trixie bared her teeth in anger.

“Damn you, Harpflank! Trixie is nopony’s prisoner! Why do you just not know when to give up?”

Trixie’s horn blazed brighter, grasping hold of the various items of trash and refuse dotting the dank alleyway. Lyra expertly dodged side-to-side as Trixie hurled object after object at her in desperation.

“Me?... Have... You... Looked... In... The... Mirror... Lately?!”

Lyra dashed forwards, instantly closing the gap between them. She pulled back a foreleg, power coursing through every muscle. They had been doing this dance week after week, an unending struggle of assault and rebuttal, of peril and rescue, of Trixie endangering everything she cared about. 

All of this strife, she poured into her hoof, ready to finally knock out her nemesis, to finally strike a significant victory against the evil threatening her home. She lashed out, the impact resounding through the very bones of both mares, a rippling shockwave of force that set their nerves ablaze with painful stimulation. Under her hoof, Lyra felt something break.

There was a moment of silence.

Holding her breath, Trixie tentatively opened one eye. Surprisingly, she was still awake. Even more surprisingly, she wasn’t even in pain!

Without a word, Trixie and Lyra met each other with an equally stunned gaze. The two of them blinked out an unaskable question as, with a twinge of fear, they found they couldn’t move. 

In unison, they both traced their eyes down to where Lyra’s hoof had met Trixie’s resistance. Instinctively, Trixie had raised her magic in defence, blocking Lyra’s strike with the only thing she currently held.

The Alicorn Amulet. 

With a sound like the earth splitting, a hairline crack spread across the ruby gemstone. An unearthly glow diffused out from the stone and scorched every surface it touched, an all-encompassing crimson sphere of incalculable magical forces gathering and colliding like an unstoppable tornado of light.

Then it exploded.

The sound was... skin crawling. It was a noise almost as if some ancient, immortal entity had recorded the death throes of whole a solar system, every gut wrenching moment as every planet and star collectively cried out for their mommas before being obliterated into a nebula of eternally-shifting space dust... Almost as if that malicious god had taken that moment of incomprehensible suffering, uploaded it into their cosmic computer, played it in reverse and slapped some creepy reverb on there just to make absolutely sure that the space kids would need extensive counselling to make the nightmares stop after listening to it.

The explosion was like the sun hiccuping. Streams of crimson lightning leveled buildings, half the city’s windows melted, and passing clouds caught on fire. Amazingly though, for all the destruction’s intensity, whenever the magic touched living things, it passed through as if they weren't even there. 

The battle not far away came to a sudden end as the crimson force tore through the combatants like an electrical storm. M.A.R.E. Agents dropped their weapons as they disintegrated in their hooves, and the attacking Lunatrons shook apart like a tumble dryer with a brick inside, breaking into uncountable fragments as they scattered across the battlefield.

Then, as fast as it had appeared, the energy dissipated, fizzling out across Metropony like a pill dissolving in water.

Sparing only a glance for the confused survivors, Bon-Bon galloped over to the crater at the source of the blast. Panicking, she rushed to Lyra's side and shook her like a ragdoll.

"Lyra?!... Lyra!!... Say something!"

Bon-Bon relaxed as her friend groaned in response, stirring as if from a bad dream. As Lyra regained her faculties, Bon-Bon couldn't help but gape at the devastation around them.

“Lyra, what... happened?”

The stunned mare blinked the spots from her eyes as she slowly rose to her haunches. She looked around in confusion.

“I... Won, I guess?”

Bon-Bon conceded the point, quickly scanning the area for any trace of Trixie or her guards. Finding nothing but garbage, wreckage and smashed robot parts, she quietly growled her annoyance.

“It looks like she slipped away again. We need to be more careful in future, whatever she used to escape was clearly way more potent than her usual pyrotechnics.”

Lyra punched a hoof to the ground in frustration.

“Damn it! I had her that time! I had her!”

Bon-Bon sighed.

“Yeah, I know, I know. It’s tempting to just not get our hopes up, but in this struggle... Hope is really our only real defense, you know?”

Though not at all mollified, Lyra nodded the truth of her partner’s words as she rubbed at the headache she could feel coming on.

“Next time, then... Next time...”

Lyra and Bon-Bon blinked as an insistent beeping drew their attention to Bon-Bon’s saddlebags. With practiced ease, she reached in and pulled out their communicator, activating its advanced holographic display. It was only a testament to Ex-Tech practicality that the hardy device had made it through the magic surge in a functional form.

They somewhat recoiled when presented with the sight of burning wreckage and accompanied by the beaming face of their no less disheveled commander interposed in the foreground.

“Are you okay, Commander?”

The dazed mare continued to grin, her eyes roaming even more absently than usual as she swayed from side to side. Derpy’s uniform hung in tatters, leaving plenty of space for her her grey coat to become stained with deep black robo-fluid. Clearing her throat, Derpy brushed oily screws and broken microchips from her singed mane before addressing her agents.

“Ah, don’t worry about me. It’ll take more than some cheap robots to take me out of the picture. More importantly, how did things go on your end?”

There was an explosion behind her as the chariot’s electrical systems ignited, sending the injured M.A.R.E. agents fleeing from the wreckage. Derpy pretended not to notice.

Holding their breath, Lyra and Bon-Bon glanced at each other.

“Well, uh, Trixie got away. Again.”

At the news, Derpy deflated only slightly, her possible concussion working wonders to maintain a positive outlook.

“That’s too bad, but at least we stopped her from getting her hooves on what she came for!”

Lyra blinked.

“We did?”

Derpy just nodded her head, her swaying becoming more erratic as the adrenaline wore off.

“Good job girls. See... See you back at base.”

Lyra had just enough time to see the Commander fall over before she cut the connection and left the confused unicorn looking to her partner for support.

“Am I missing something here?”

Silently, Bon-Bon raised a hoof, indicating for Lyra to turn her attention to that which had passed under their notice until now.
Deep black wings clasped tightly around Lyra’s neck, perfectly framing the ruby gemstone that glinted in the moonlight. Lyra bit her lip, a strange chill creeping down her spine as her eyes were drawn to the gaping crack spindling it’s way across the previously flawless gem. There was an itching sensation at the base of her horn as she watched the sickly red glow leaking from the fissure. 

Tentatively, Lyra raised a hoof to the gem, only to withdraw it in reflex as crimson streams of dark magic burst out towards the limb in a hungry torrent of sparks. Gulping, Lyra looked down at the burnt fur where the magic had touched her.

“Oh... Well that isn’t good.”




Scene 3




Princess Luna loved the dark. She loved it in all of its forms, from the cooling shade of a hanging branch to the absolute void of a sealed cellar. So deep was her fascination with the concept that she even invented a whole half-of-the-day utterly dedicated to it.

It was of great frustration to the errant Princess when she discovered that the patent office refuses to acknowledge Luna’s ownership of her creation. To her outrage, they maintain the stance that in the the millennia since it’s conception, nighttime has ceased to be privately owned and is now become a part of the public domain.

Equally, Luna maintains the stance that she and the patent office will be having some harsh words when her Empire reclaims Equestria. As being the recipient of Luna's regular words has been known to cause permanent deafness in four out of ten cases, the act of receiving her harsh words was somewhat akin to facing a firing squad.

Patent or no patent, Luna was not one to be discouraged from her art... And Luna certainly had darkness down to an art form. Even while forced to keep her gifts close to her chest, her creativity thrived! There was no better demonstration of this than in her own home, where every available inch of her fortress was lit in tribute to her craft. 

Each and every wall was coated in great veils and curtains of darkness, each one a perfect frame to the myriad inviting pools of shadow that ebbed and flowed to and from the alcoves and archways at the whims of an unknowable tide. Shaded bulbs and flickering torches cast soft light along dim passageways while the clunk and hiss of the Lunatron production lines cast long, heavy shadows that rhythmically danced along the floors to the beat of a mechanical heart. Luna built the fortress to never sit still... A reminder to the ignorant masses that the world does not cease spinning once the sun has gone down.

Ever spinning gears, ever shifting shadows, colliding and mutating like a monochrome kaleidoscope... A million and one shades of shade painted across a canvas of conquest. Cast in any other light, Luna's chugging engine of war would be an ugly industrial monster. But, like so many drunken dates, the darkness made it look beautiful.

In the heart of this fortress, Trixie's workshop was the only room that was truly illuminated. Luna could light her hallways however she wanted, but Trixie had no time for her underlings to be stumbling around and banging their shins when they were supposed to be serving her every whim. Here, everything was illuminated in the harsh enlightenment of science. 

Shining in the spotlight of the room was Trixie's latest custom creation. While they had plenty of mass-produced units being churned out every day, it was here that Trixie did her best work, fine tuning each and every Lunatron to meet the specifications of whatever crazy plan she had concocted in that particular week. Her latest half-finished colossus loomed over the henchponies below, surrounded by massive gantries that supported mechanical arms, each one dancing over the surface on a mission of wiring and welding, striving to swiftly bring the giant to completion.

Compared to the brute force of her previous models, this Lunatron was almost elegant in shape, resembling a rather lithe and graceful unicorn mare than the stomping stallions of weeks past. It's polished surface was split with a nexus of white lines, conduits of Moonrock alloy that would focus and channel magical energy into the spiraling ivory horn protruding from it's elegant silver face.

Silver hadn't been the first choice of color, however. Perhaps one could find it in themselves to overlook the machine's resemblance to it's creator as it stood right now, but when her Highness discovered that Trixie had been intending to paint it a particular shade of blue, Luna had decided to veto that particular narcissism before it got off the ground. 

They wern’t called Trixie-trons, after all.

Although this latest face of Luna's campaign would surely strike fear into the hearts of a great many innocent ponies, even they, were they here to witness it's birth, would be forced to admit that this Lunatron was truly an inspiration of equine engineering. But while this marvel of magic and technology was being constructed, two little ponies were sitting on the sidelines, glumly holding their heads in their hooves and kicking at the ground.

Snips and Snails had been put into a time out.

Unable to sit still any longer, Snips squealed in frustration as he threw his stubby hooves in the air.

"This is ridiculous! We're the GnPT's number one assistants! We should be helping build her latest magnificent creation! Not sitting in the naughty corner like a couple of foals!"

Snails blinked slowly, his mouth opening in an approximation of intelligent speech.

"If we're both number one, then wouldn't that make us each nought point five of an assistant?"

Snips furrowed his massive eyebrows and looked at his friend in practiced disbelief.

"Snay-aals! Focus! We have been unjustly accused! The Great and Powerful Trixie is wasting our loyal talents by making us sit this one out! We are being punished for simply being too good at our jobs!"

"I thought it was because we crashed the last robot into a construction site and got it's head stuck in the cement."

Snips blustered, his chubby cheeks flapping in embarrassment.

"Well... That too. But mainly because we're being under appreciated! I think that we should get more respect. When she gets back, I'm going to march up to Trixie and give her a piece of my mind!"

"Are you sure? My mom says that we don't have much to spare..."

"Yeah well, we didn't become the assistants to the world's most evil scientist by listening to our moms, now did we? It was our own smartness that got us where we are right now!"

Snails tilted his head.

"... Sitting in the naughty corner?"

"What?... No! As important underlings! Now come on! We're leaving the naughty corner right now! And we're gonna tell Trixie why she needs us!"

And with that, Snips and Snails leapt to their hooves and defiantly strode from their banishment, fearlessly risking the wrath of their superiors by trotting out onto the factory floor. They made it about five feet before an explosion of light and sound knocked them flat on their rears.

The whirling crimson energy coalesced in midair, imploding non-linearly as a pony-like shape materialized in no logical order before finally collapsing to the ground with a shriek of mutilated space-time.

The Great and Powerful Trixie had returned home.

Trixie blearily opened her eyes, wincing slightly at the blurred outlines of her frequently disappointing henchponies. Snips stood back up, trying unsuccessfully to reduce his shallow breathing and frenzied heart rate.

"Ah- Great and Powerful Trixie! We were just talking about how incredibly awesome you are!"

Snails blinked.

"But I thought we were-"

At that moment, an odd muscle spasm caused Snips to accidentally trip up his partner before he could finish that sentence. The blue colt grinned wider, breaking out into a sweat that could probably be attributed to the heat of the busy construction machinery slaving away behind them.

"I must say, that was your most dynamic entry yet, it er... Really shows off your new cape!"

Trixie blinked.

"... New cape?"

Snips and Snails shrunk back, subconsciously leaning on each other for support.

"Yeah... It really makes you look... terrifying."

Trixie lifted herself to her hooves and looked over her altered ensemble. Her star spangled cape had turned a deep, pulsing red, with each solitary star burning like a supernova. The cape fluttered in an unfelt breeze, dancing and billowing around her without ever impeding her movement. Softly gasping in surprise, Trixie ran a hoof over the material, feeling it spark with energy. Trixie's mind immediately drew up a comparison to a sensation she had almost forgotten, of a day a few weeks ago when she had accidentally brushed past Luna's nebulous ethereal mane and her hoof had gone completely numb for two days. This power... This new power she felt flow through her, it was the same. She could feel it.

Ignoring the terrified colts in front of her, Trixie mused over this change with a hint of nervousitement. She hadn’t been intending to put her own horn on the line by wielding the Amulet’s unspeakable power personally, but it seemed that her hoof had been forced. And besides, now that she had that power, she wondered if even a pony as flawless as her would have been able to resist something this tantalizing for very long.

"Somehow that explosion changed more than just Trixie's clothes... Is this truly the magic of an alicorn?"

Trixie's hoof came to clasp at the gemstone that held the cape around her neck. It too had changed, appearing to be more like that gem of the amulet itself, but with only the faintest hint of it's evil. She cast her senses inward, looking for the answers she sought. The conclusion was just as she feared.

"No... It's only half of the true power..."

She narrowed her eyes in realization.

"Harpflank."

Turning back to the Lunatron being constructed behind her, Trixie cursed her luck. It was designed to draw strength from the physical artifact, and even though she now had the energy to power it, it would take months to adapt the design to draw it out from her living body instead.

"Snips. Snails."

At their master's call, the two colts grovelled before her.

"Y-Yes... Oh Great and Powerful Trixie?"

"Take some of the mass-produced Lunatrons and get Harpflank and Sweets' attention."

Her eyes flashed red for a second. 

"They have something that belongs to me..."




Scene 4





Standing in the doorway of one of Ex-Tech's private labs, Bon-Bon facehooved.

"Do I need to remind you of how this isn't a good idea?"

Lyra craned her head away from the unfeasibly large circular saw inching towards her neck.

"Nah, we're okay."

In a shower of sparks, the razor sharp blade pressed down on the onyx necklace clasped around Lyra's neck. For a few seconds, there was an unholy screech of agonized metal and unbearable friction... Right up until the blunted saw snapped under the pressure. Halfway across the room, Octavia watched her life flash before her eyes as a razor shard of heated metal the size of her spinal cord embedded itself into the wall two feet away from her. Pondering the fragility of life for a second, Octavia soon accepted the cards dealt to her and sat down in her chair with no more rebuttal than a disapproving shake of the head.

Sighing, Lyra partially rolled off the 'operating table' while mournfully rubbing at the unscratched surface of the timeless talisman around her neck. Finding it unmarred, she hung her hind legs over the edge in a familiar way as she rubbed a hoof through her mane.

"Seriously? Why did the sorcerers of like, a billion years ago have to be so much better at building stuff than we do today? We've been trying to get this thing off for hours!"

Vinyl, who had been operating the saw, flipped up her safety goggles and trotted over to where Lyra was sitting.

"Untouched by diamond-tipped blades, super lasers, corrosive acid, crushing force, magical coercion and even the wrecking ball that is the Commander's backside... This thing is a beast!"

Octavia flipped through her notes with a distracted air.

"I still can't believe we actually tested that last one..."

Setting the notes back on the desk, Octavia gave Lyra a look that seemed to say. 'Why do I always have deal with the weird stuff?'

"I'm sorry Lyra, but we've tried everything. Whatever created it, this amulet seems to be functionally indestructible."

Vinyl smirked.

"And yet..."

She tapped the cracked gemstone at its heart, earning a scornful red spark for her trouble.

"... You broke it. I guess whatever mystical funky-junk gives you your powers must be somehow attuned to this sort of dark magic. Are you sure neither of your parents was actually an Eldritch demon?"

Lyra chuckled.

"It would explain a lot..."

Bon-Bon stepped out of the doorway, fully entering the lab as she shook her head.

“Well we can’t just leave that thing as it is, it destroyed four city blocks! We’re only just now getting started on relocating all the ponies it made homeless. It needs to be be removed and sealed away somewhere where Trixie can’t get to it.”

Lyra looked down at the fractured amulet, a disturbingly dark smile crossing her face.

“I dunno, BB... I think I could do a pretty good job guarding it from her...”

Bon-Bon blinked in shock.

“...Lyra?”

Lyra shook her head, a red glow fading from her eyes as she fought down a pang of fear.

“I... I mean, no! We gotta get rid of this!... And it utterly clashes with my costume anyway.”

Not at all comforted by that hasty rescinding, Bon-Bon noticed Vinyl and Tavi sharing a worried glance and called them out on it.

“Alright. What was that about?”

Octavia took a deep breath.

"We've been doing some research into it's history and... It isn't good. Pirates, tyrants, zealots, politicians, jaywalkers... Everypony who ever wore this necklace was some form of crook or monster."

She tried and failed to ignore the desperate looks on her friends faces as she continued.

"... Or rather, they became that way afterwards."

Lyra tugged at the collar irritably, feeling the dark wings digging into her neck.

"So this thing's gonna mess with my head, I kind of gathered that already! I just wanna know how to get it off!"

Vinyl rubbed the back of her neck nervously.

"Yeah... The thing is, every legend we looked into said the same thing... That only you should be able to take it off."

Lyra threw up her hooves in exasperation.

"What do you think I've been trying to do this entire time?! I wouldn't have come to you if I could just freaking take it-ARGH!"

Lyra cringed as the amulet flared in response to her anger, burning her neck with dancing sparks of vibrant red energy. Octavia bit her lip, shuffling her hooves before speaking slowly and hesitantly.

"While we were searching... We also found some other stories. Ones about what happened to other powerful artifacts that, for one reason or another... Became damaged."

She failed to meet Lyra's eyes.

"It seemed to be a trend that such deeply complex magic, once defective, became almost impossible to fix, often... Dooming the ponies affected by them."

Bon-Bon’s ears drooped as she glanced fearfully at her partner. Lyra, however, only became more stone faced at the news.

“Yeah?... Well, that isn’t going to happen to me. I’m going to get this stupid thing off even if it kills someone... Me! If it kills me! Damnit!”

She thumped a hoof to her head, trying to get her mind back on looking for a solution.

“Look, what about that cloaked zebra we saw at the ambush? Surely she has to know something about this?”

Vinyl and Tavi shared a glance.

“...We looked through our database, but the description only matches some rumours about somepony called ‘The Enchantress’. Honestly, you’d have an easier time finding a generous dragon than you would finding any concrete information on her.”

“Then I’d better get hunting.”

Lyra hopped to the floor, only to be stopped by the restraining hooves of her friends. Before Lyra could put her ‘what gives’ reaction to voice, Vinyl appeared in front of her with a nervous grin.

“We, ah, think you should sit this one out, Lyra. What with your predicament and all.”

“Sit this one out? I thought I had some kind of arcane steroids strapped round my neck! I’m stronger than ever, and you want me to sit this one out?"

She snarled, taking on a hateful glow.

"You just don’t trust me to keep it under control, do you?!”

As Lyra made to push past them, Bon-Bon diplomatically reached in and gently pinned her down with her hooves.

“Lyra, get a grip! This isn’t about trust, we just don’t know if it’s possible to control that thing in it’s current state!”

Octavia nodded.

“Yes, it’s not just about power, it’s about lack of balance. We’ve looked over the test results and it appears a large amount of the Amulet’s power has... Leaked somewhere else, leaving you with little more than It’s detrimental effects.”

Bon-Bon let Lyra go, seeing that she had calmed down enough to listen to Vinyl’s part of the explanation in a more rational temperament.

“The Alicorn Amulet is designed to focus the incredible dark magic of the gemstone into the horn of the wearer, but seeing as the stone is damaged and the power elsewhere... The amulet is focusing your superpowers into your horn instead.”

Lyra gave a blank look as she tried to contemplate the ramifications of this new change.

“So... I just have to headbutt the bad guys from now on?”

Vinyl and Octavia shared a look. Wordlessly, Octavia was chosen to be the one to break the news.

“I think she means magic, Lyra.”

Lyra tensed up.

“Magic. I have supercharged magic. Me. The pony who dropped out of magic kindergarten.”

Vinyl scratched the back of her head awkwardly.

“Yeah... I think we should probably keep you in the lab until you get the hang of controlling that power.”

“B-But the city! And Trixie! She can’t... I can’t... I have to help!”

“I agree.”

Everypony looked at Bon-Bon in shock.

“You do?”

“Lyra isn’t going to get any better just sitting here in the lab and stewing in frustration. And if she does lose control? Then I want her close to me so I can calm her down.”

Octavia frowned.

“I really think that that should be the Commander's call to make, seeing as how this situation could easily-”

Alarms blared throughout the building as Derpy’s voice yelled over the communications channels. A unique frenetic atmosphere erupted through the facility as the wailing Klaxons drove agents and staff into a frenzy of focused panic.

“All hooves to action stations! We’re getting reports of multiple Lunatrons attacking the city! Harpflank, Sweets, get out there and stop them! This is not a drill!”

Octavia deflated.

“-never mind.”

Lighting up her horn, Vinyl tossed Lyra and Bon-Bon their utility bags which they caught with practiced ease, swiftly fastening them around their waists as they dashed to the lab exit.

“Good luck, guys! Make sure you don’t succumb to the lure of darkness, it’s not as awesome as it sounds, trust me.”

“Will do!”

The two of them galloped down the corridor, seemingly leaving the heavy weight of the curse behind them. Vinyl sighed, feeling that weight hit her full force.

"We're going to have to read through all those old texts again aren't we?"

Octavia flicked her mane behind the chair as she settled down into Vinyl's workstation, shoving aside a mountain of used takeaway boxes as she logged into the computer with Vinyl's supposedly secret password.

"You are. Double check all of the notes while I head out."

Vinyl frowned as Octavia printed out a list of the books Vinyl had taken note from and hoofed it to her. Rising, Octavia prepared herself for her own mission as she meandered towards the door.

"Why, where are you going?"

"I'm going to head to the Metropony library to see if there are any obscure texts not in the database."

Vinyl huffed, settling in for another marathon cram session as she flicked through the list with little hope or enthusiasm. Finding nothing that leapt out at her, a niggling feeling caused Vinyl took a mental step back and abruptly yelp in realization.

"Hey, these are only the books that I took my notes from! Why doesn't this list show any names of the books you looked through earlier?" 

Octavia shot her a smug glance as she left the room.

"Because if the answer was somewhere in my research, we would have found it by now."




Scene 5




Once Lyra and Bon-Bon had left headquarters and really cut loose, it took them less than a minute to race along the rooftop highway and into the downtown commercial district, where smoke and screams were being produced in equal quantities.

Lyra fretted out a sentence, slowing down enough so that she could be heard over the rush of the air blowing past them.

"Such a big attack, and so soon after we almost caught her?"

Bon-Bon mirrored the concern, also slowing as they shifted into high-alert, allowing their time-tested battle reflexes to take precedence over their haste.

"Maybe we didn't slow her down as much as we thought."

Biting her lip, Bon-Bon let her eyes flit over Lyra's face.

"I'm more worried about how this thing is changing your powers. I can already tell that you're slowing down... What if it removes your physical enhancements entirely?"

Lyra swallowed.

"I don't know... My arcane ineptitude was one of the biggest reasons I got into hoof-to-hoof combat in the first place. I really can't risk trying to cobble together any sort of half-flanked spells. Especially seeing as this stupid Amulet blew a huge chunk out of Metropony already... We really don't need me making any more."

"I hate to say it Lyra, (particularly as it will no doubt become a regular thing...) but you may have to."

Lyra lulled into silence, her thoughts only ending when they rounded a corner and came face to face with their targets. 

Surrounded by smoking buildings, an unusually proportioned Lunatron sliced up the pavement with streams of swirling blue energy. Rather too close for comfort, a smaller, fatter Lunatron stumbled back to avoid it's legs being melted off, tripping over and collapsing onto the apartment that Lyra and Bon-Bon were standing on.

Thinking fast, Lyra and Bon-Bon leapt to safety the instant before the robotic rear-end reduced the residence to rubble. Rolling to a sliding stop on the building adjacent, they scurried back to the edge of the impact in time to see the heavyset Lunatron rise to it’s hooves and shake off the dust and debris.

“Snails! Watch where you’re pointing those things! You almost hit me!”

Further down the street, the slightly taller, skinnier Lunatron turned it’s head in confusion, firing it’s plasma beams and vaporising a small restaurant.

“... Pointing what things?”

The first Lunatron shook it’s head in exasperation.

“No, Snails! It’s the THIRD button on the left, not the fourth! Just... Here let me show you...”

Snips’ machine took a step towards it’s counterpart, instantly tripped over a bus and fell headfirst into another skyscraper. 

Lyra and Bon-Bon watched, bemused as the moronic machine planted it’s hooves on the side of the building, tugging backwards in a futile attempt to free itself from the hole.

It was such a bizarre sight that Lyra briefly forgot about the almost literal noose around her neck and let out a stunned chuckle.

“Luna’s letting these guys pilot her robots... I always wondered what true desperation looked like. I guess now I know.”

Bon-Bon was no less philosophical.

"All of Trixie's meticulous planning, and these guys do just as much damage through sheer incompetence. Well, there's two of them, two of us... If you're sure you can handle this."

"What, me?"

While Bon-Bon wasn't looking, her eyes briefly flashed red.

"...They don't stand a chance."

With that, they departed, picking a target and dashing off in twin flashes of superequine colour. 

For Lyra, there were many things she simply couldn't resist. One, was the call of justice. Another, the thrill of combat. The third... Was when she was presented with a blatant, gaping, golden opportunity for mischief.

The plump, wiggling, wall-sized flanks of the Snipsbot protruding from a skyscraper stockade fell into all three categories.

Lyra set her head down with a devilish grin and increased her pace, zooming along the rooftops at the incalculable speed of sheer awesome. Octavia had often disputed the claims that awesome could be a measurement of velocity, but Lyra knew that meer mathematics could never adequately explain the sorts things that she and Bon-Bon were able to do. Oddly, Octavia had agreed, and further stated that the entire concept of rationalism clearly had no claim in the sorts of things that Lyra did.

As she neared her goal, Lyra cartwheeled, flipping off the end of a building and letting her momentum fling her ballistically towards the bloated backside. At the last second, Lyra stuck her back hoof out and literally kicked the Lunatron’s butt through the building.

Lyra really loved her job.

Landing gracefully, Lyra glanced further down the street to where Bon-Bon was dodging enemy fire. The ever-inspirational Snails had unknowingly left his targeting systems on automatic, doggedly following Sweets’ every movement as she swiftly weaved a dancing pattern across the battered tarmac.

Almost as if she was waiting for the very moment her foe realised the futility of trying to keep up with her super-equine speed, Bon-Bon pounced, striking Snails’ Lunatron in the weak joint of the fetlock with a devastating punch that knocked the entire machine off balance. Utterly upended, the taller Lunatron pitched forwards, smashing head first into the weakened patch of plasma-heated road and sinking up to it’s shoulders as it punched through into the sewers beneath it.

“Hey! Who turned off the lights?!”

While Snails continued to waggle his robotic legs in the air ineffectually, Lyra turned her attention back to the smaller of the two machines. Stumbling back to his hooves, the Robo-Snips glanced back at his attacker and flailed out with a wild swing of his meaty mechanisms.

Leaping high into the air, Lyra felt the rush of air as the giant limb slashed by beneath her. She gracefully flipped in mid-spring, pointedly turning over like a slab of buttered toast re-aligning itself face-first with the ground.

Drawing her own hoof back to strike, she fell from the sky and slammed it right into the Lunatron's face, striking a vertical hammer blow containing all the passion and fury she could bring to bear.

There was a dissatisfying clang of failure as her hoof glanced off the armor plates without even a dent.

Lyra stared at the unpenetrated hull as she froze up in awkward shock.

"Ah. Well that is... Embarrassing."

Lyra lost her grip and slid off the muzzle of the metal monster as it rose to it's full height, suddenly looking a lot less ridiculous than before. Landing on her flanks, Lyra gulped as she saw some imagined glee on the blank face of the Lunatron.

"... Sweets! Could use some help here!"

Yelping, Lyra scrambled backwards, barely keeping a leap ahead as the Lunatron stomped forward, aiming it's heavy hoof steps in an attempt to squash her flat into the ground. In full retreat, she tried to levitate some explosives from her saddlebags, but instead gasped in piercing agony as her green magic was consumed by a wave of amulet-red that conducted right down though her horn and into the squishy interior of her skull.

“No...! Not even a spell so simple?! I-argh!”

With Lyra seized up in feedback, Snips saw his chance for villainous glory.

“It looks like I’m going to be the one to ‘cut’ you down to size, Harpflank!”

He reared up on his robotic hind-legs, seeking to seal the deal with the classic twin-stomp maneuver... But was prevented from doing so when Bon-Bon leapt onto the robot's back and prised open an access panel with her bare hooves. She wrinkled up her muzzle as the panicking colt flailed around, trying to dislodge her.

“Yeah... There’s no way I’m letting my partner lose to a pun like that.”

Reaching into her saddlebags, Sweets pulled out a pair of grenades. Ripping of the pins with her teeth, she tossed them into the opening and jumped clear as the machine’s innards exploded and the giant slumped to the ground in defeat.

Ignoring the puff of escape pods being jettisoned from the Lunatrons, Sweets raced over to where Lyra was shuddering in paralysis, worried by her sudden loss of powers. As Lyra regained control over her muscles, Bon-Bon offered Lyra a hoof, frowning in concern.

"Hey, are you ok?"

Lyra batted it away with a snarl.

"No, I'm not ok! My powers are useless now!”

Bon-Bon took a step back as Lyra's horn lit up with a flicker of crimson magic. She spoke slowly, trying not to provoke a reaction.

“No, they just changed, remember? You just have to use a different strategy until we can get that thing off you, alright?”

She looked at Bon-Bon in disbelief, the red tint invading on her vision.

“Didn’t you see what happened? I couldn’t control it at all! It doesn’t matter how strong my magic is if I’m too much of a blatant failure of a unicorn to summon up one measly spell to defend myself!"

Bon-Bon’s ears flattened back as she saw Lyra’s face express the one emotion most alien to it. That of self-doubt. 

“Lyra, you’re making it stronger. You have to calm down.”

Lyra ignored her, clutching her head as foreign words wormed into her thoughts, the necklace gripping harder as it bit into her flesh.

“Even as a kid, I was too weak to do anything, to be anything. I was always the ‘weird one’, but  really... The only reason I became such an outcast was because that was the only way I could pretend to be any kind of special at all! I can’t even get the hang of the one thing that unicorns are supposed to do!”

Bon-Bon flinched away, each hurt-filled word driving a cold knife through her heart. This wasn’t how Lyra acted. This wasn’t how Lyra thought. That... That bejeweled thing had sunk it’s hooks into her, and with every second she could see Lyra sliding further and further away.

Like Tartarus she was going to let that happen.

"Lyra... You've never needed magic for anything like this before. You've only ever needed it to convey your music, and that's something that you excel at even more than fighting crime. Now, no matter what that amulet is... Saying to you, you're not worthless, alright? Because I know different. We all do."

"But I could do so much more! Have you seen what magic can do? It can change the world, it can do anything!”

Bon-Bon scoffed. 

“Yes, but it’s insanely difficult to use! You can’t call yourself a failure when you’re trying to put a harness on a force that only a few unicorns have ever even scratched the surface of! It’s so unpredictable that even trained mages hesitate to use advanced magic as anything but a last resort. Trying to use it like you suggest is an impossible dream, Lyra.”

“You don’t understand Bon-Bon... You don’t know what it’s like to have a horn.”

For a second, Bon-Bon was too offended to remember that she was supposed to be giving Lyra her support. 

“Oh thanks, Princess Platinum! I suppose you want me to hand over all my food, too?”

Lyra shook her head, her amusement taking her back from the brink a little bit. 

“I didn’t mean it like that, BB. I mean... I’ve known all my life that I wanted to make a difference, do something that matters, stand up and defend our way of life. And all that time, I’ve had the key to a world of infinite potential literally sitting right between my eyes and I’ve not been able to use it for any useful purpose.”

She pointed to the wrecked Lunatron, now actually struggling against the corrupting influence in her head.

“We live in an age of such advanced technology, taking shortcuts and engineering detours to fill the gaps where we can’t figure out how to use magic to do it better. We’ve come so far and so fast, and what am I doing? Still trying to save the world by punching things!”

Bon-Bon shot her a look.

“You like punching things.”

“That’s not the point. My magic is so much more powerful now, but it’s still useless if I can’t use it. I just... I felt like this was my chance. I was going to show everybody that I could be like those great unicorns that changed the world.”

Bon-Bon almost seemed genuinely confused.

"But... You already are, Lyra.”

She shuffled her hooves as Lyra flinched in shock.

“Not just all the lives that we’ve saved, but me specifically. I was an ordinary pony, I never wanted to get involved in this weekly madness... But you inspired me to be like you. To be a real hero. Like you are to me."

There was an extended moment where they just sort of looked at each other. Then Lyra blinked.

“... Seriously?”

Bon-Bon hit her playfully.

“Yes, you idiot. Now cut it out. I’m not having my partner go all ‘path of evil’ on me.”

Lyra’s honest smile chased away the darkness, letting the red energy fade from her eyes as she returned to normal. For now.

Bon-Bon let out a sigh of relief, followed by irritation.

"Do you want to explain that whole ‘not a great unicorn’ thing to me?"

Lyra hung her head slightly.

"It's nothing too bad... I guess every unicorn secretly dreams about being a legendary spellcaster. With all the ways I've tried to define myself without magic, I guess I never really confronted how much I wanted to have that sort of ability."

Bon-Bon frowned.

“In that case then this situation isn’t even applicable. Even if using this amulet could make you a powerful sorcerer, you still wouldn’t have earned that title. Using this amulet to become stronger would mean nothing. It isn’t your power to use."

Whatever Lyra was about to say was cut off by the sound of clapping. They both froze, every strand of fur standing on edge as the air charged with magical energy. 

“For once, you're absolutely right, Sweets! It’s not yours at all... It's Trixie’s.”

They didn’t even have time to turn around. Harpflank and Sweets screamed as Trixie blasted them with all the power at her command.




Scene 6




Being blasted with Dark magic is a lot like having your soul microwaved. The physical effects vary from spell to spell, but the real clincher... The one thing that everypony writes home about is that incredibly nasty supernatural-torture aspect found throughout the entire magical genre. More than anything else you simply cannot ignore the state of absolute suffering brought about by the metaphysical liquid of your very spiritual essence actually boiling inside your own skin. 

The particular spell being cast bore more than a passing resemblance to electricity, bringing burning fur and muscle spasms to her twin victims as it danced from horn to flesh. Trixie laughed at their agony, her new cape flowing faster in response to the magic being used in her attack.

“Harpflank and Sweets... How do you like the Greater and more Powerful Trixie?”

She sent an extra large surge coursing down the streams, causing her adversaries to drop to the ground in pain. She grinned at their screeches, peeking under the brim of her hat as her eye twitched in sadistic fury.

“Not so fun, fighting somepony with unnatural power, now is it? Not so easy, now that Trixie is as strong as she is brilliant!”

Trixie began laughing maniacally, failing to take notice of a faint glow taking shape underneath the coursing crimson energy of the pseudo-electrocution. As if redirecting a stream, the crimson lightning abruptly changed course, bypassing Lyra entirely as it flowed directly into the amulet instead. Feeling her power being drained, Trixie cut off the attack and leered at Lyra irritatedly from the corner of her eye.

That... Was not a part of her plan. But, when dealing with defective talismans, some minor hiccups are probably to be expected.

“So, even a complete failure like you can find some use for the Amulet. Well, don’t get too comfortable, it’ll be mine soon enough.”

Struggling to catch her breath, Lyra shook her head, trying to clear the visions of brutality from her mind as the corruption tried again to sneak into her thoughts. It had taken her by surprise the first time, but now that she had been reminded of what she fought for, she felt like she may yet be able to fend it off. 

Seeing the amulet feed off of Trixie’s attack gave Lyra an idea of why the thing was broken in the first place. She could feel it’s hunger, it’s uncomplicated desire to be whole. She would gladly aid it if it meant that she could be rid of it’s influence, but... If the amulet wanted it’s energy back so badly, why then did the captured energy feel like it desperately wanted the exact opposite? 

Holding strong against the whispers in her brain, she croaked out a loud whisper.

“Trixie... You have the rest of this thing’s energy? Please, give it back! It’s going to tear us apart until it’s fixed itself!”

“Oh, Trixie intends to reunite the halves, Harpflank. But only when the artifact is entirely in my grasp, and you worthless ‘heroes’ ground into the dust!”

Admittedly, Lyra was being a bit hopeful when she assumed that Trixie was putting up any sort of resistance to the corrupting force flowing through her. Shooting a ‘watch this’ look to Harpflank, the villainess turned back to Sweets and redoubled the magical current of her attack, forcing her to curl up in agony. 

Lyra gritted her teeth in anger, letting her hoof slide up to the Amulet. It had nullified one of Trixie’s spells, so despite the pain and corruption it caused, it may still give her a chance to overcome Trixie’s new powers.

“Let her go, Trixie! It seems you can’t hurt me with this wretched thing around my neck, so just give it up now!"

Snorting in affronted rage, Trixie sealed off her spellcasting, trapping Sweets in an electrical cage as she whirled back to Lyra with the red madness in her eyes. 

“You dare to place limitation on my power? Trixie is one of the most brilliant creative minds ever to live! If one method of slaying you fails, she can think of a million... and a billion more, until one of them succeeds!”

Before Lyra could get back to her hooves, Trixie reached out with her telekinesis and plucked one of the limbs from the closest defeated Lunatron. Then, when the weakened mare tried to charge at her, she swung the leg like a bus-sized baseball bat and sent Lyra flying into the side of a building.

Lyra groaned as she flopped from the Harpflank-shaped crater she had made in the side of the 'Metropony: savings and loans' head office. As her vision came back into focus, she beheld Trixie stalking towards her with more than a spoonful of glee in her gloat.

“Don’t you see, Harpflank? Trixie is at last the most powerful pony in Equestria! Not even you, at the height of your freakish superpowered strength could lay a hoof on Trixie right now. And, while that Amulet makes you weaker, when Trixie takes it, she will become stronger still!”

Lyra quickly rolled to the side to avoid a barrage of arcane bolts that blew up the pavement where she was just laying. 

“Then... You wasted a trip, Trixie... The stupid Amulet won’t come off, and you’ll never get a hold of it!”

Trixie snorted, bracing herself as the robotic leg swung in arc over her head and down onto Lyra’s head. Barely jumping away again, Lyra was sent tumbling by the shockwave as the enormous hoof battered the ground behind her.

“Such a lack of imagination, Harpflank... If it won’t come off, then maybe your head will instead!”

She fired another array of bolts, kicking up a cloud of dust as they pounded into the rubble. At first it seemed like they had found their mark, but then Lyra burst from the cloud, darting past Trixie like a rabbit from a bush. Ducking another swing, she leapt through the air and grabbed Bon-Bon, using her momentum and magical resistance to pull her free from the aracne cage constricting her.

Stopping to check for injuries, Lyra was relieved to find that the torture had only rendered her unconscious from shock, with only slightly worse burns than she herself now wore. Leaping to avoid another strike from the leg, Lyra deposited Bon-Bon safely behind a barricade of rubble before darting around and charging Trixie head-on. 

As she took off, she magically reached into both her and Bon-bon’s saddlebags, ignoring the ever-present sting of Dark magic clinging to her horn. Stopping just short of another strike, she cartwheeled around and used the momentum to fling their entire combined stock of explosives into Trixie’s face.

The explosion sent Lyra flying back, skidding to an undignified upside-down standstill right beside her slumbering partner. Lying head-under-hindquarters, Lyra winced at her bruises and brushed her tail out of her face as she surveyed the damage.

The smoke cleared and Trixie was still there. Apparently, a tenth-level forcefield can stand even in the face of Ex-Tech’s lauded blasting gel, a substance so volatile that ordnance using it has been known to cause noise complaints from as far away as the Crystal Empire. 

Vinyl also claimed it tasted great on toast.

Lyra was almost stunned that Trixie had survived that attack. Almost, but in truth her horror primarily came from the realisation that she had launched such an assault with the expectation that she wouldn’t.

She really needed to get this amulet off.

While Lyra was having a crisis of morality, Trixie dispelled her forcefield and stifled a yawn.

“As amusing as this has been, Harpflank... Trixie has other matters to attend to. She still needs to vaporise all your pathetic friends, overthrow this fetid husk of a city, and become supreme ruler of all ponykind!”

Lyra flipped back to her hooves.

“You? Ruler? What happened to the ‘Lunar’ Empire?”

“Oh, surely you know that anything less than absolute authority simply isn’t good enough for one such as Trixie... Once Trixie has the physical amulet, she’ll be powerful enough that she won’t need to take orders from anypony!”

Lyra gritted her teeth.

“Just when I thought you couldn’t be any more of a snake, you go and turn into something like this...” 

She hung her head and gave a shudder of fear.

“Just like I’m going to do...”

“Ha! Don’t flatter yourself, Harpflank. Trixie certainly wouldn’t. They always say you should dream to be the best, but even with the completed amulet, you wouldn’t be anything like the unicorn Trixie is...”

Sensing that the fight would soon be back on, Lyra grabbed Bon-Bon and hoisted her, getting ready to protect her as best she could.

“Perhaps not, and that’s a hope I’m going to hold on to as long as I can.”

“Humph. You really are a beacon of futility aren’t you? Defying me, belittling me, calling me names... In fact, what was that you called me? A snake?”

The red glow returned to her eyes again as she slammed the Lunatron limb into the ground like a posturing sumo wrestler.

“... Well, you’re right about the deadliness, but you forgot one crucial thing-”

Turning her smirk up to maximum, Trixie reached out, plucking the other three legs from the Lunatron and bringing them to float menacingly over her head.

“Snakes don’t have limbs.”

Lyra gulped.

“Oh, horsefeathers.”

Lyra jumped backwards as all four limbs collided, crashing together onto her previous location with a four-way clap that tore the air apart like a hoof-based bolt of lightning. Caught by the thunderous shockwave, Lyra and Bon-Bon tumbled backwards, crashing through the window of a ruined storefront and sprawling on the tiles as they displaced the produce from the shelves that so graciously cushioned them.

Lyra groaned in a battered daze, rolling over in an expanding puddle of spilled milk. There was no time to cry about it though, as their temporary shelter fell under heavy fire, the rhythmless percussion of Trixie’s pounding hooves instantly shaking the foundations of the whole building. Punch after punch rocked the diminutive greengrocers as the quartet of levitated limbs probed the exterior in a whirling flurry of telekinetic thwacks that persistently knocked despite the sign clearly displaying that their open hours ended ten minutes ago.

The overhead lights shot sparks as cracks shot through the ceiling, dust and plaster falling like powdered snow to coat the already ruined foodstuffs in a hastily thickening layer of unsalability. Lyra rolled onto her haunches, struggling to breathe as she felt her necklace tighten, feeding off her fear and frustration. Despite her mental fortitude, the turpitudinous talisman knew an opportunity when it saw one and began to virulently spread through her mind, assaulting her very identity.

“No... Not now! I can’t-”

She slipped on the milk, crashing jaw-first into the ground as Trixie’s bombardment continued to intensify. She covered her head against the falling debris as her eyes changed color yet again. Unable to restrain the fear and anger twisting up inside of her, Lyra felt her horn ignite with cursed red energy.

“I can’t fight like this... Can’t even run away, not as long as I have to keep protecting-”

Lyra’s blazing crimson eyes fell to look at Bon-Bon, laying partially buried under a pile of assorted fruits. There was no two ways about this, she couldn’t fight Trixie when she was this strong... and without her powers there was no way Lyra could get them both to safety. 
That’s when the idea came. An idea forged in fear and uncertainty, an idea dripping in layer over layer of innermost darkness, an idea she loathed with every fibre of her being... But nonetheless, an idea undeniably hers.

For one awful, horrible second, she considered leaving Bon-Bon behind.

Then she screamed.

Collapsing completely, Lyra snaked out with her magic and yanked Bon-Bon by the leg, sliding her across the milk-stained floor to rest by her side. The crimson taint redoubled its intensity as she finally formed that damnable levitation field, wrapping it around a large magazine rack which she used to shield them from further collapsing chunks of shop.

Lyra clutched her skull in her hooves as the weight of the collapsing ceiling caused her to draw further on her reserves of magic. Every synapse of her brain burned with red fire as every passing second allowed more and more of the amulet’s influence to take root in her mind. Visions flashed before her eyes, distorting her memories and showing prospective futures... Every second was another thousand temptations, another thousand perversions... And every single one was framed by blood-tinted tendrils of the deepest malice, pulsing like conceptual veins. 

Lyra cried out, clutching Bon-Bon to her chest as she tried so desperately to keep focus on what is, rather than be dragged away into what must never be.

“NO! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

Dark spots began to appear the corners of her vision as the mental and magical strain overwhelmed her tired consciousness, threatening to drag her away to a world of dark dreams and restless slumber. From outside, the sound of maniacal laughter cut through the thuds of pounding hooves. It melted into Lyra’s ears, sinister and disorienting as it became difficult to separate Trixie’s madness from her own.

Hunched protectively over her friend, Lyra felt tears stream down her face as she realised that keeping them protected from Trixie’s onslaught was killing her just as surely as letting go would do.

"Bon-Bon... Please wake up. I.. I don’t know what to do...”

With a resounding crash, Trixie finally brought the building down completely, bringing every wall and window to collapse inwards atop the sheltered heroes. With a final whimper of pain, Lyra let her magic go, waiting to be buried alive.

Which is why it came as a great surprise when a striped hoof grabbed her by the tail and pulled her and Bon-Bon into a hole in the ground.

Standing in the street outside, Trixie watched in amusement as her puppeted limbs bashed at the building like it was a heavily penalized pinata. As the entire structure collapsed, she let her face light up with manic glee, dropping the robotic legs to the ground as she trotted forwards to drink in the destruction.

“Finally! Harpflank and Sweets destroyed by my hooves... Or at least by hooves that I personally created, and thus are mine by ownership.”

Contemplating the difference, Trixie shrugged as she supposed that she used Lunatron legs more often than those of her own flesh-born body, and so this victory was more hers than any amount of physical combat could provide for her.

Getting back to the moment at hoof, Trixie stretched out her senses to scan at the rubble, experiencing an unholy elation when the scans came back in the strict negative for any signs of equine life.

As her grin threatened to devour her entire face, Trixie hastily glanced around to see if anypony was nearby. Obviously, the area was abandoned as soon as the first cry of 'Lunatron' had cut through the city streets, so Trixie was completely alone. 

Seeing that there was nopony nearby, Trixie abandoned her haughty demeanor and danced in a little circle, leaping through the air as she giggled like a school filly.

"Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes-yes-yes YES! Yes-Yes-YEEEEEEES!! YEEEEES!"

Coming to a stop, Trixie looked around sheepishly before clearing her throat and turning back to the rubble.

"Ahem. Trixie supposes she should at least retrieve the bodies as proof... If only to better torment their wretched friends when she goes on to destroy M.A.R.E."

Nodding, Trixie again lit up her horn, effortlessly channeling immeasurable cosmic power to lift aside the commercial ruins as she searched for the flattened remains of her adversaries. Humming absently, Trixie dedicated a fraction of her arcane might towards improving the aesthetics of the city that would soon become hers. Without even looking, the displaced rubble was shifted into the square behind her where they reformed into a larger-than-life statue made in her image.

Satisfied with what would be the first of many improvements, Trixie returned her full attention to her task. A minute passed as Trixie combed the remains once more. Then a third time. A fourth. A fifth. 

Trixie's eye twitched.

"This... Is impossible! I killed them! I killed them! Where are they? Where are they?! WHERE?!"

She began hyperventilating, red light overcoming her vision.

"Nononononononononono... They couldn't have survived. Trixie is perfect! There is no possible way she could have failed to kill two crippled foes. They must be dead."

Trixie gave a forced chuckle, her nervousness translating through her enchanted cape, making it flutter so fast it looked like the flare of a rocket engine about to undergo liftoff. Despite her self-reassurances, Trixie still felt one inescapable fear lingering inside her, heating her corrupted magic to a boil that she could scarcely contain.

"But... What if... They survived?..."

For the first time in her criminal life, Trixie felt what it was like to doubt in her own abilities. To know full well that she held all the power in the world and yet still fail in the one task that had become her entire life’s purpose to complete. No excuses, no alternatives, just failure. 

A small crack appeared in her horn, splintering and spiraling down the bone as red light pulsed from the inside. Trixie gasped, clutching her head in pain as her immaculate mane fell down her face, the individual strands falling loose in stress.

"Ah... Even in death those two imbeciles are a massive headache."

She chuckled nervously, her hat slumping off-kilter over one eye as she glanced up at her damaged horn.

“No... I’ll make sure... I’ll find their little friends, their headquarters and I’ll burn it all to the ground! Then they won’t have a choice but to face me!”

Feeling her ethereal cape flow around her, Trixie turned and strode from the plaza. Dark chuckles hiccuped their way unheeded from behind gritted teeth as Trixie tried desperately to dismiss the whisper in her ears as being just the wind blowing through the deserted city streets. She stood ramrod-straight, faced ahead in denial, refusing to acknowledge the shape dancing in the corner of her eye. 

Searing red light poured out from the painful fissure in her formerly impervious horn and cast horrific illusions on the ground around her. Trixie refused to acknowledge them, those hallucinogenic lies, playing tricks on her stressed-out and damnably imaginative mind.

And so Trixie ignored the ghostly silhouette following in her wake. Replacing her own shadow was one of a giant, winged mare, dancing like a serpent across the brick-strewn ground. As Trixie led them to their new destination, the spectre grinned, leering at the greater world in abject desire.




Scene 7




When she opened her eyes, Lyra was in total darkness. The clogging taste of dust clung at the back of her throat as she worriedly gasped in the stale, uncycled air. Scrambling to her hooves, she lit up her horn, wincing slightly as the amulet hungrily tightened in response. 

It was impossible to tell how long she was out, but it must have been quite awhile considering that she no longer felt like she was about to lose her mind. Going without magic for so long must have forced the foreign influence to lose it's grip on her thoughts and slide back into the periphery of her consciousness. 

It made sense, in a way. The amulet had no sentience of it’s own, being just a rock and some minimalistic carving... It’s intelligence was her intelligence, it’s mind was her mind, it’s desires were her desires. It was nothing more than evil turned virulent, and sharing the same head meant that it had to fall asleep when she did.

She could still feel it squatting there, painful and unavoidable, like the clingering want of a serious addiction. But for now, it bided it’s time, meaning that she could bear to once again use her horn... If only to find out where she was.

Trying to ignore the worrisome crimson tint of her light spell, Lyra glanced around, the scorching glare illuminating a perfectly cut rectangular tunnel stretching away into the distance in both directions.

The light also revealed a pony lying out cold on the hard stone floor right next to her.

“Sweets!”

Dropping by her side, Lyra checked to make sure her partner was alright. A quick examination revealed no further injuries than those perpetrated by Trixie, leaving Lyra to sigh in relief that her friend would soon recover.

“At least you’re alright... That just leaves the question of where we are, and how we got here.”

“This is one of many secret tunnels used by Luna’s workforce. They stretch all over the city, but all lead back to the source.”

Lyra whirled on the spot, shining her light under the hood of a mysterious cloaked figure. Continuing her expositional rhyme, she barely squinted at the blinding glare despite it being pointed right in her eyes.

“I brought you here, for defeat you were about to face. As strong as she has become, Trixie will not think to look for you in her own home base.”

A spark of recognition flashed over Lyra’s face.

“You! You’re that Enchantress that gave Trixie this thing in the first place!”

She grabbed the zebra by her robes and slammed her into the tunnel wall, red energy overtaking her vision as she spiked in anger.

“Don’t you realise how many ponies you put in danger?! I’m giving you one chance to get this thing off me before it makes me do something that we’re both going to regret.”

The Enchantress hardly reacted, giving Lyra a hard-lipped stare.

“Do not demand things of me, Songstress, for I do not fear your wrath... I cannot repair the trinket, but I can point you on the right path.”

Breathing heavily, Lyra let go of her ‘savior’, having only succeeded in scaring herself more than she had scared the Enchantress.

“Alright... Where then is this solution?”

Ignoring her, The Enchantress brushed herself off and began walking down the tunnel. 

"... Deeper into the cave. Of course. Where else would it be?"

Biting her lip, Lyra hoisted Bon-Bon onto her back and followed her, descending deeper into the earth with every step.

About twenty minutes passed in awkward silence, the cold, damp walls of the tunnel seeming to close in whenever Lyra turned her eyes away. But despite the claustrophobic shadows that lurked in wait at the edges of her sight, Lyra was almost tempted to let the darkness consume her... As the absolute blindness that would cause seemed to be almost preferable to keeping up the light that fed the burning, choking grasp of the necklace searing into her skin.

After what felt like an eternity, their journey came to an end at a colossal door, wedged in amongst the rocky crags. The door was made of a black-painted metal that somehow carried the message of thickness and density through the exterior alone, it's dark surface only split by a single crack and emblazoned with the gleaming logo of a silver crescent moon. Lyra recognised the symbol... It was an image that she had seen time and again and was never pleased to come across.

She felt her jaw drop and turned to her traveling companion in outrage.

“This is an entrance to Luna’s stronghold! Are you crazy? Sweets is out cold and I’m out of powers, and you expect me to walk right into the lion’s den?”

“It is where you will find the answers you seek. Will you turn back just because you feel you are too weak?”

Lyra ran a hoof down her face, growling in frustration.

“Fine, fine. But this thing is sealed tight, and I don’t have the strength to bust it-”

Lyra trailed off when the Enchantress produced a pocket sized keycard etched with a lunar symbol.

“...Where did you-”

“How do you think I found these secret tunnels at all? The mare of night hardly allows me within her walls. So instead, during my deal with Trixie, I stole her master key.”

As Lyra reached out to take the card, The Enchantress slipped it back inside her robes.

“... But unfortunately for you, little pony, I never do anything for free.”

Lyra was far from satisfied at how this zebra was leading her along like this. In fact, if she was in a frame of mind to listen to what the amulet was willing her to do, she would most assuredly take the key by violent force. But, with a glance to the pony she carried on her back, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to come back from the brink if she let that voice get to her. It had already been far too close the first time, and she didn't feel like pushing her luck any further.

This Enchantress was clearly about as trustworthy as a draconic jewel trader, but with the threat of discovery by the Lunar forces, the out-of-control Trixie raging topside and the ancient sorcery threatening to consume her mind and body, she had no choice but to side with the lesser of a sackfull of evils.

“What do I have to do?”

The Enchantress reached into her robes and produced a weathered scroll, which she hoofed over for Lyra to read.

The scroll described an ancient ritual of binding contract, depicting several hoof movements, the promise of one’s own heart as sacrifice, a professed desire for flight and something about the ocular application of frosting. Allegedly, this invocation would irrevocably hold the caster to their word.

Lyra looked at the Enchantress in confusion.

“What the hay is this?”

“Simply invoke the spirit and agree, that on one day of my choosing, you will repay the debt you owe to me.”

“Exchanging one hoodo-voodoo for another... Great, just great.”

Lyra’s ears swiveled around as faint voices could be heard, emerging from back the way they came. The Enchantress heard them just as well, and her frown deepened as a result.

“Luna’s forces grow near... And if you do not choose soon, they will find you here. Whatever the consequences it is that you fear, pick your poison or else lose all you hold dear.”

Cursing her luck, Lyra let Bon-Bon slide to the ground. With no less care, she performed the ritual and incantation, her eyes clenched shut in trepidation. As the final word was spoke, a faint rumble resounded throughout the tunnel, the earth shaking in response to the arcane contract being forged. From further down the tunnel, the sound of Luna’s forces falling over themselves caused the tunnel to echo with dozens of dull impacts, muffled cries of pain and the occasional shrill scream of fright.

Satisfied with the transaction, the enchantress whipped out the keycard, sliding it into the control panel of the door with a minute click. Like a rumble of thunder, the massive metal door slid open, revealing a reinforced steel corridor containing two unconscious henchponies with their pre-prepared uniforms lying in a neatly folded pile next to them. 

Fearing the arrival of the stumbling goons, Lyra quickly darted into the corridor and began hiding the sleeping ponies from sight. 

“This is such a bad idea... As soon as I’m through with this deal, I’m kicking your ass, you know that, right?”

A pause.

“... Right?”

Lyra turned around, only to find that The Enchantress had completely vanished.

“Oh, come on! This is why I hate this stupid magic stuff! Why did I ever think that being a sorcerer would be cool? They’re all such- Arrggh!"

Lyra cut off as the amulet flared up in response to her anger. Hearing the Lunar henchponies drawing closer, she grabbed Bon-Bon and the two uniforms and scampered further into the secret base to hide.




Scene 8




Upon arrival at the Metropony public library, Octavia was reminded of the reasons why their city had the third lowest literacy statistics of any population center in Equestria. 

The first was down to the success of Sapphire Shores' summer hit single 'Whip dat tale Gurrl' and it's crippling impact on the grammatical inclinations of the urban youth. The second was down to the struggling public school system, which had never fully recovered from the horrific textbook shortage of '38, and was even now mostly staffed by substitute teachers, working hard to provide a substitute for an actual education.

The third was that the local library was full of cats.

There were cats on the bookshelves, cats on the tables, cats in the bathroom and cats exploring under the floorboards. There were thin cats, fat cats, fluffy cats and bald cats. Dozy cats, angry cats, playful cats, cats sitting in her lap, cats pawing at her tail, cats rolling on the open pages and cats stuck between the closed ones.

In fact, it was so full of cats that if you took all of the books out from inside the building and put them on a set of weighing scales opposite from the mewling mass of the feline horde, you would have basically invented some sort of literary trebuchet primed to launch all remaining traces of the written word clean out of the city limits.

Octavia was also reminded that she was allergic to cats.

The force of her sneeze measured a full 7.2 on the Luna scale, almost knocking her clean out of her chair and scattering the closest thirty cats to go running back to their litter trays in fright.

As the building stopped vibrating from sneeze, a warbly voice called out from the end of the row and a concerned pony wobbled into view.

"Oh my... Are you ok, dearie? I haven't heard a sneeze like that since my great grandnephew Apple Slice fell into that flour storage silo!"

The local librarian was an elderly, curly-haired mare whose lungs seemed to have adapted to the point where she now needed to inhale cat hair more than she did oxygen. She was kind enough, but lack of equine contact seemed to have knocked loose more than a few wires from her head and Octavia was left wondering if perhaps the cats owned her, rather than the other way around.

Wincing at the lingering pain in her nasal passages, Octavia turned and gave her a weak smile with all the stuffy politeness she could muster.

"I'll be fine, Mrs Delicious. Just something in the air, I think."

"Well, alright, just call me if you need anything."

Octavia smiled and nodded, only stopping to gag as the two of them turned away from each other. With the librarian back to tending to her 'duties', Octavia returned to her research pile, dusting cat fur off the pages as she scanned for any relevant information about artefacts, amulets or mental magic.

It was disappointingly thin on the ground. Much like the records back at base, there was very little concrete information on the subject, instead resorting to third-hoof accounts, wild speculation and massively floral prose that amounted to leading Octavia in circles, futilely chasing her own fairy tail for hours on end.

It had been a bit of a long shot from the start, but in truth any hope of finding an in-depth reference text had gone out the window as soon as she had seen that an entire shelf had been checked out under the name of some utterly inconsiderate and undoubtedly obsessive Canterlot scholar. Considering that that amounts to roughly ten thousand squids worth of printed words, it wouldn't be that far fetched to assume that the cosmic balance of the universe had shifted all of the absent literacy in Metropony onto that one, egg-headed mare in order to make up for the slack.

With a growl of frustration and a sneeze of intolerance, Octavia slammed the final book shut, almost catching the tail of an opportunistic kitty that had come to claim the vacated table for it's own.

Stuffing her nostrils with a pair of tissues, Octavia resigned herself to failure, having found nothing of any help to Lyra in any of the well aged tomes. Picking it up in her mouth, she returned the book to it's shelf, glad at least to be free to leave this cat-infested hellhole.

As the book slid into it's slot, a ginger tabby, having hidden there from fear of loud sneezing decided to take exception to being squished against the back of the shelf and leapt onto Octavia's face in a blur of claws and fury.

The next thirty seconds of Octavia's life were filled with a lot of scratching, sneezing, screaming, hissing and being showered in dislodged books. Her torment only ended when a particularly violent sneeze finally dislodged the feline face-hugger, slumping against the shelves as the cat scurried back to it's 'momma'.

The librarian scooped up the spooked cat, scolding him lightly.

"Now Mr Squiggles! You know you're supposed to keep those claws trimmed with your scratching post before trying to greet the guests! Apologise to the nice lady!"

She held the furball out in Octavia's general direction, where it took one look at the disheveled mare before proceeding to lick itself in abject disinterest. Octavia breathed heavily, glaring out with unfocused eyes between the mussed-up strands of her normally well-brushed mane.

At that moment, Octavia vowed that with the unlimited budget of the royal government, and all of the scientific acumen she herself possessed, that she would someday find a cure for cats.

After ensuring that the demonic fuzzball had wandered off, Octavia offered to help Mrs Delicious clear up all of the books that had been knocked free in the struggle. With eight hooves, it was light work, but as the task came to a close, Octavia noticed something engraved in the wall at the back of the cat-housing shelf.

"What is that? It looks like a horseshoe... But I'm certain it wasn't there when I took these books out of here."

Trotting closer, Mrs Delicious hummed in awe.

"Ooh... Looks like you found one of the legendary literary hidey-holes! I've heard that librarians can go their whole lives without ever finding one of these!"

Octavia blinked.

"A... Hidey-hole?"

"Mmhmm. The stories say that every library in Equestria are filled with these. Whenever a pony writes a book too dangerous or precious to let fall into just anypony's hooves, they make one of these holes. They're supposed to be enchanted to only become visible to somepony who's in dire need of the information contained within. For that reason, I've sometimes heard them be called convenience holes... Though it seems mightily inconvenient for everypony else, if you ask me."

Tentatively reaching out, Octavia pressed against the symbol, retracting her hoof as a panel slid away to reveal an even older and dustier book, not yet touched by the paws of cat-kind. Pulling it out and placing it on the table, Octavia suppressed a squee at the title.

"'The origins of the Alicorn Amulet by Starswirl the Bearded'... Now that sounds a lot more promising."

Though she was filled with a strange surge of hope at the breakthrough, while flicking through the dry, cracked parchment, she felt her concern only deepen.

"The Amulet is a relic from the time of the first alicorns... Powerful and wise beings that shaped the world in the time before modern ponies came to exist. The gemstone was crafted as a... Prison?"

Octavia's eyes widened as she read on.

"A prison for the immortal spirit of one of the cruelest and most vile of their number, who, like all of the first alicorns, has had their name lost to the passage of time. From their perspective, the prison was perfect, redirecting the magic and will of the occupant into the wearer... Meaning that the inmate will be unable to even compose a single solitary thought, rendering them unable to plan an escape, or amass the magic power to do so."

Octavia flinched in horror as she contemplated what it would be like to be robbed of her very capacity for thought. Her horror lessened somewhat when she surmised that it would be a lot like turning into Vinyl. Turning back to the book, she pressed on.

"What the first Alicorns couldn't have anticipated was the effect this amulet would have on modern ponies, as we hadn't come to exist until after the unknown cataclysm that wiped out almost all of their kind. Even though the inmate is unable to directly threaten Equestria so long as her spirit remains within the amulet, the redirection of her will has decidedly negative effects on the wearer, who begins to display traits of a dark and malicious nature..."

Though the book went on at length about the mechanics and craftwork of the amulet's construction, Octavia couldn't help but be drawn back to a few particular lines with growing dread.

"'As long as her spirit remains within the amulet'..."

She groaned.

"The amulet that now lies empty. Great."

She bristled as the communicator in her bags bleeped in insistent defiance to the normal conventions of remaining quiet while in a library. Pulling it out, she cast a worried glance to the image of Derpy that appeared on the holo-stand.

"Commander, you're not going to like what I've found."

Derpy shook her head.

"I don't doubt it, but it can wait. Trixie is making a beeline right for M.A.R.E, and Lyra and Bon-Bon have dropped off the map. I need you back here to work your techno-magic and find them before she uses her new powers to fry us all to a crisp."

"Will do, Commander."

"There's a car waiting for you outside, but you're going to have to make a run for it if you want to make it on time."

Octavia slid the book and communicator into her bags as she galloped to the exit, leaving a flustered librarian and an armada of trodden-on cats in her wake.

As the library returned to a state of anarchy, a curious tomcat prowled up to a recently opened hatch in the wall. Sniffing at the entrance to the hidey-hole, he quickly detected the timeless hum of magic intertwined with the bricks. 

It was an incredible secret, a sacred and untouched piece of history hidden from the world for countless years. It was a pristine slice of another era, an untainted segment of a time that will never be tangible and accessible ever again. If only the hatch could be sealed back up, future generations could look inside and stand in awe at the remaining fragile scrolls and breath the captured air that was once breathed by an icon of ponykind. An alcove like this could only be treated with the greatest of respect and care.

So of course the cat curled up inside and went to sleep.




Scene 9




Earth ponies are resilient creatures. More than any other race, they can discharge magic from their bodies by channeling it into the ground. They can do this with little permanent harm, but when that magic is as intense as what Trixie had just used on Sweets... It can take quite a while.

Bon-Bon’s eyes snapped open with a jolt as she shook off the last remaining trace of nightmarish torture energy and violently awoke. She was in some sort of a changing room, lined with lockers and benches up against dark metal walls. Her instinct kicked her to her hooves before she could even take notice of her injuries... Which were mainly burnt fur and spasmodic muscles with a scant smattering of cuts and bruises thrown in.

The buzz of adrenaline coursing through her had shifted her from the depths of comatose sleep to the heights of a caffeine rush so quickly that she wouldn't have been surprised to be suffering from the bends.

The room only contained one other occupant, which Bon-Bon immediately memorised due to the heightened senses. Unicorn mare, athletic build, slight limp suggesting recent injury... And most pressingly, dressed head-to-tail in the uniform of the Lunar Empire.

In one bound, the henchpony was pressed up against a locker, one red-clad hoof pressed into her throat. Choking for breath, the mare reached up and slid the hooded mask off, revealing a slightly-less hooded mask still on underneath.

“Bon-Bon, stop, it’s me!”

In a flash of confusion, Bon-Bon took a step back and dropped her to the ground.

“Lyra?! What’s going on? Where are we?”

Lyra flinched, motioning the tips of her hooves up and down in a subduing fashion as she checked out of the doorway for passing patrols.

“Shh! Keep quiet! We’re in Luna’s secret headquarters.”

Bon-Bon acquiesced Lyra’s request for silence, Having dug deep inside herself and struck a massive vein of dumb that left her entirely without words.

“... Lyra, why are we in Luna’s secret headquarters?”

Lyra scratched at the back of her neck, trying out various sentence fragments in the hope one of them led to a satisfactory conclusion.

"Umm... Now that’s a... You see... Well, it’s kind of-”

She slumped like a sack of flour, rubbing her hoof into her face.

“... I have no idea.”

Anticipating further protests, Lyra waved her hooves in a wish-wash ‘I don’t want to hear it’ formation.

“It’s complicated, alright? There was this Zebra, she saved our lives, kind-of-sort-of blackmailed me, led us down here and might have been trying to help us for unspecified, sinister reasons. That’s about all I know on the subject.”

Bon-Bon effortlessly slipped into her patented ‘maternal nagging’ expression as she began to chide Lyra for her stupidity.

“So we’re doing a suicide mission on the advice of a total stranger? Lyra, we don’t have time for this! Who knows what Trixie could be up to right now?”

“I know. But we don't have a chance of beating her unless I find some way to remove this Amulet! The Enchantress thought the answer might be here, and it’s the only lead we’ve got.”

“... Alright, fine. But this had better not turn out to be another one of your wild phoenix chases, or won’t be just us who has to pay the price for this...”

Lyra tossed her over the remaining costume, keeping a lookout as she slipped into the deep purples and blues of Luna’s loyal under-servants. Slipping the masks on over their masks, they slid out of the changing room and trotted off down the darkened corridors to find a crowd that they could blend into. 

It was lucky, or perhaps foresight on the Zebra’s part that the stallions whose uniforms they had taken were of a slightly larger build than the two of them. This caused the outfits to fit snugly over their hero costumes and saddlebags with little trouble, though it did mean they they had the very unflattering appearance of having stuffed themselves with too many pies before they turned in for their ‘evil henchpony’ shifts.

Bon-Bon briefly considered asking one of the stallion workers if the outfit made her look fat, just to see the panic on his face as he tried to get out of answering.

Soon enough, the duo came across the main thoroughfares of the headquarters, their persistent nervousness only rising as they came across more and more populated corridors. In way, it was sort of a surreal experience, spending time amongst the rank-and-file of the enemy. There were ponies carrying supplies from place to place, dealing with paperwork, scientists doing science, interns bringing coffee, micromanagers micromanaging, engineers running maintenance, guards guarding and ponies banging their shins and swearing in the darkness. 

Bon-Bon had to bite back a gasp at each new corner from how familiar it all was... If it hadn’t been for the different uniforms and unfamiliar layout, they could have just as easily been walking the halls of M.A.R.E. as the imposing fortress of shadows... or whatever they called this place.

For the first time, she saw that underneath their dark uniforms, these were just ponies like any other. She wondered who they were in their private lives, how they could hide this job from their families, friends and neighbours, and what could have happened to make them so disillusioned that they would sign up to this sort of sinister agenda.

Even so, what wasn’t so surprising was the general lack of friendship in the heart of enemy territory. Nopony bothered to talk to one another, acknowledged their presence, or stopped to see if they needed a helping hoof with their assignments. This worked out well for Lyra and Bon-Bon, as nopony bothered to question their identities or destination. Perhaps in spite of Lyra’s shrill, nonchalant whistling, they passed undetected with no indication that they didn’t actually belong there.

That said, they were completely lost.

Some rooms they entered would contain nothing but bubbling vats of pure concentrated who-knows-what, or blurred malformed figures suspended in tubes of fluorescent liquid evil. Others seemed to be sleeping quarters, kitchens or server rooms, functioning normally with nothing overly evil about them whatsoever. Most irritatingly was the penchant for grandiose entranceways, as so often the pair would make haste for a promising bulkhead, towering over them like the gates of Tartarus, only to find that they led into an underwhelming storage room, an off-duty bar, or one time even a broom closet.

At one point, Lyra had gone to great lengths to deduce what rooms the rank-and-file didn’t go into, unlocked it with her stolen key and entered, only to find a private bedroom filled with nothing but framed pictures of Trixie. Spending no time deducing who it belonged to, Lyra returned to her search, spending only minimal time to scrawl mustaches on the portraits and clog up the executive bathroom with toilet paper.

Eventually, Lyra and Bon-Bon found themselves on a gantry suspended above a cavernous smeltery forging weapons, machinery and plates of metal so large that they could barely guess as to their purpose. The hiss of steam and glow of molten metal bombarded their senses, combining with the resounding clang of the production lines churning Lunatron after Lunatron from their component parts and delivering them into the darkened hangers deeper into the lower echelons of the complex.

Sweating under the heat, and the twin layers of costumes, Bon-Bon leaned over the rail and balked at the prospect of standing up to the armada being formed right below them.

“This is insane... How can Luna keep an operation like this going? And what is she holding all this stuff back for?”

Lyra squirmed, rubbing at the bulge on her costume as she tried to hide how much her amulet was bothering her again.

“Probably for conquering Equestria. As soon as Metropony falls, these guys roll out and take everything in fire and fury.”

“Why wait? What’s so special about this city that she’d hold off until Trixie undermines it?”

Lyra seemed to think for a second.

“Well, we live here. We’re pretty special, right?”

“Somehow, I doubt that that’s the reason."

Reaching the far end of the gantry, Lyra and Bon-Bon ventured down another cavern connecting into the next adjoining room.

“We have to be getting close by now... Trixie knew all about this amulet before she tried to buy it, so logically she had to have some sort of a plan for it, which means she may have some info about it that we don’t know about.”

Bon-Bon nodded.

“We haven’t been to this part of the base yet. If the intel is here, we’re probably narrowing it down.”

The tunnel led out onto another raised gantry, this one overlooking another cavernous room lit only by the most distant of twinkles, spotlights mirroring the night’s stars. In the center of this hall was a colossal spire undercut with a winding trail of stairs, a monumental plateau adorned with an onyx throne of immeasurable opulence, and on that throne... The last pony they ever wanted to see.

Lyra and Bon-Bon hit the deck, peeking out over the lip of their raised viewpoint as they beheld their true enemy for the first time.

“Lyra, is that...?”

“Yeah... Who else could it be?"

Slipping into silence, they observed the resting Princess as she ‘debriefed’ two of her agents. Cowering like jelly metronomes, a battered up pair of unicorn colts groveled at the base of Luna’s throne. Luna glowered at the wibbling foals, her mood souring as she questioned them on their mission.

“SO, YOU SAY TRIXIE HAD HARPFLANK AND SWEETS ON THE ROPES WHEN YOU LEFT?”

“Yes, your Astronomical Princesship! We distracted them like Trixie said, and then legged it out of there when we were about to blow up."

Luna scratched at her muzzle, crushing Snips and Snails under the force of her eyeballs.

“AND WHAT OF TRIXIE? WHY HAS SHE NOT REPORTED YET? IN SUCCESS, OR IN FAILURE I WOULD HAVE EXPECTED HER TO HAVE RETURNED BY NOW.”

Snips, in fear for his every atom, felt his voice squeak up into the ultrasonic frequencies.

“She said she intended to crush all of M.A.R.E by herself... Because she's so much more powerful now and really quite intimidating, but not as much as you, not that that’s a problem of course, but it’s really quite unnerving the way you keep staring and pleasestoplookingatme...”

Calling off her rabid eyeballs, Luna tired of looking at the two imbeciles and dismissed them with a wave of her hoof. Snips disappeared in a poof of smoke, only to reappear a second later, grab Snails by the tail and yank him out of there as fast as he possibly could.

Now seemingly alone in the throne room, Luna punched her throne in fury, shattering one of the diamonds with her godly strength.

“TRIXIE... YOUR TREACHERY IS AS TRANSPARENT AS THAT OF MY WRETCHED SISTER. I KNEW I SHOULD NOT HAVE ALLOWED YOU TO PURSUE THAT THRICE-ACCURSED AMULET!”

She ground her teeth with the all the world-shattering force of tectonic plates sliding past one another.

"ONE TASTE OF DARK MAGIC AND SHE THINKS SHE CAN RULE EQUESTRIA WITHOUT ME. THE FOOL. AS IF I WOULD EVER FAIL TO NOTICE HER NEWFOUND DESIRE FOR MY THRONE."

Shaking her head, Luna rose from the aforementioned seat, bemoaning the arrogance and stupidity of her underling.

"SHE DOESN'T EVEN BEGIN TO REALISE HOW FRAGILE HER NEW POWER REALLY IS. ALL IT WOULD TAKE WOULD BE TO TOUCH THE AMULET TO HER HORN, AND ALL HER NEW POWERS WOULD DRAIN BACK TO THEIR SOURCE."

Lyra and Bon-Bon shared a look filled with mixed elation and surprise. This soon faded as the night princess suddenly turned their way and began walking down one of the gantries leading from the room. Silently, they ducked back out of sight.

"FOR ALL HER FAILINGS, TRIXIE IS A MOST FAVOURABLE SERVANT... IT WILL BE A SHAME TO DESTROY HER WHEN THIS MADNESS BRINGS HER BACK TO MY DOOR."

As Luna disappeared into the dark corridors of her fortress, Lyra and Bon-Bon considered their plans in a hushed whisper.

"Did you hear that? We can use the amulet to defeat Trixie! And then maybe it'll even be repaired enough to let me take it off!"

She almost bounced in happiness.

"We probably should have thought of this sooner. Who better to ask for advice than an alicorn repair service when you need your Alicorn Amulet fixing."

Bon-Bon shared a more cautious agreement.

"... Though this wouldn't really have been the alicorn I'd have expected to help, we do have a plan now. But how are we going to get close enough to Trixie to pull this off?"

Lyra held a hoof under her chin in thought before her face lit up with a devilish grin.

"I have an idea. Come on, I think I know what we can use to overpower her."

Silent and stealthy, they darted out of the throne room, sticking to the ever present darkness as they passed unnoticed through the churning stronghold.

Almost unnoticed, that is.

Luna looked up at the two ponies leaving their hiding spot with a slight smile on her face. Being the master of darkness herself, nopony could match her for hiding unseen, though it was only her superb hearing that had alerted her to their presence. For the first time in a millennium, Luna sighed, dropping her Royal Super-Villain voice for one small sentiment.

"Fair winds on your quest, heroes of the modern day... For while I would sooner see you slain for your interference, you are the only ones that can save Trixie from her own foolishness."

Her eyes flashed with arcane power, a snarl distorting her features.

"AND WHEN YOU NEXT DARE TO ENTER MY PRESENCE, I WILL SHOW YOU WHAT THE POWER OF A REAL ALICORN LOOKS LIKE..." 




Scene 10




In Trixie’s workshop, celebration was underway. The hoard of underpaid engineers in Trixie’s abusive employ had come across a rare reason to rejoice, that being the completion of their overlord’s latest war machine at a most fortunate instance of time where she wasn’t presently there to berate them for taking so long to complete it. 

Though, in her infinite wisdom, Trixie had built machines for the purpose of building machines, the machine building machines themselves still needed maintenance. The drones that had swarmed the Lunatron had needed tweaking and oiling, monitoring and repairing. The servos and hard drives being installed all needed to be checked and double checked, running tests and quality control.

There were files to defrag, screws to tighten, tubes to attach, surfaces to polish, cartridges to be blown on, splines to reticulate and history to delete... All of which had been done, dusted, spit-shined and professionally approved by the most intellectual mares and stallions in Luna’s great army.

Their hard work and dedication had brought a giant metal baby into the world, and with no Trixie around to smash it up, they had a small window of opportunity in which they could be proud of their achievement.

Job done, task complete, mission accomplished, no Trixie. 

Party time.

So, temporarily free from grueling labour and heavy-hoofed discipline, the technically minded goons and sub-goons evacuated the workshop en masse, spraying themseves with champagne and jubilation as they left the completed Moonrock Lunatron on the launching pad. Gleaming in the spotlights, the shining silver giant waited almost patiently for it’s master to return and let it loose on the innocent denizens of Metropony city.

Two loud clangs echoed around the empty workshop as Lyra and Bon-Bon dropped from the upper walkways and onto the withers of the titanic machine. Creeping along the segmented silver surface, they located an entrance hatch which hastily opened at the flash of an all-access keycard.

As they entered the skull-mounted cockpit, Lyra and Bon-Bon found themselves gaping in awe at the convoluted array of buttons and levers covering every available surface. A plush star-specked pilot’s chair stood pride of place in front of the primary view screens, surrounded by numerous reflective surfaces that were angled in just such a way to behold the occupant from every available angle. In the very center of the room, an empty chamber stood silently, it’s purpose heavily hinted at through the network of Moonrock conduits that splintered off of it like neurons and led out of the cockpit to split up the surface of every inch of the Lunatron’s exterior. 

It was incredibly impressive.

Ceasing her gawking, Lyra rubbed her eyes and then gawked a second time.

“Ok, I know we give Trixie a hard time, but this is pretty sweet.”

Shedding her henchpony disguise, Bon-Bon vaulted into the pilot’s chair and slid the master key into the console with a satisfying ‘click’.

“Yeah, we’re definitely seeing how the other half lives today... Bet you never expected we’d be the ones behind the wheel of a genuine Lunatron, huh Lyra?

Lyra leaned over the back of the chair, grinning like a loon as the consoles and buttons began to light up, breathing electric life into the mechanical titan. Throwing her own disguise to the floor, she watched the systems boot up with almost giddy anticipation.

“Are you kidding? This was on my bucket list from day one!”

“Shame we don’t know how to pilot one of these things... I guess her little cronies must be using an idiot-proof model because there’s no way they could get a handle on these controls.”

She hunched over a computer, keying in a familiar communications frequency as she deactivated the safety firewalls.

“... Luckily we know somepony who can make even the most complicated things seem moronic.”

The transmission connected through, dissolving from static through into the frazzled image of M.A.R.E. central command on high alert and the equally frazzled Vinyl Scratch.

“This had better be pretty freaking import- Lyra?! Bon-Bon?! Where the heck have you guys been?"

Bon-Bon chuckled.

"It's a long story, but it has an ending I'm sure you're going to love. Check where we're transmitting from."

Vinyl frowned, then Tapped her keyboard. As she logged in to the Lunatron's systems, her face slowly morphed into that of mixed confusion and glee.

"Is that... A Lunatron?"

"Yup. And we're giving it to you."

Vinyl made some sort of high-pitched squealing sound similar to a deflating kitten. Gnashing her teeth in rampant hunger, she dove head-first into the task, plundering every digital alcove of Trixie’s mainframe for precious data. As she delved through the exposed code of Trixie's hijacked systems, her heavily divergent attention flicked back to idle conversation.

"Killer timing, by the way. Octavia just found out that the amulet was actually supposed to restrain some sort of demonic ghost thing that Trixie is now piggybacking right to our door. This bucket of bolts might be just what we need to to turn the tide."

Bon-Bon frowned.

“That... Would make a lot of sense, but... If the Amulet was corrupting things because it had an evil spirit inside, then why is it still affecting Lyra after the spirit got out?”

“Beats me. Maybe it’s been channeling all that malicious intent for so long that ‘corrupt, consume, destroy’ just became integrated into a part of it’s magical programing? Heck, spells may not be alive, but they have to follow their own logic in order to pull off some of the more abstract instructions we give them. It’s prisoner’s bad influence must have just worn off on it somehow.”

Lyra subconsciously rubbed at the burns on her neck.

“Lucky me... Trapped in a prison that takes it’s life lessons from it’s worst inmate.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you broke it.”

She cackled, rubbing her hooves as she finished her hack, the various technical systems opening up at her hoof tips. 

“And there it is, fillies and colts! This adorable little war-machine is ours for the taking!”

Lyra bounced on the frogs of her hooves.

"Ooh, can we call it a Lyratron?"

Vinyl gave her a hard look.

".... No."

"You're only saying that because you wanted to name it after yourself."

Vinyl huffed.

"That's pure speculation, and dare I say, slander. Shame on you."

Bon-Bon cut between them, cutting short their childish prattle.

“Girls, we’re in a hurry remember? Let’s get this thing moving before Luna’s forces find out we’re here.”

Conceding the point, Vinyl began activating the remaining hardware, familiarising herself with the controls as she did so. Leaning back in Trixie’s chair, Bon-Bon folded her forelegs and spoke the words of a true diplomat.

“... And besides, why can’t we name it after me, anyway?”

Lyra, leaning on the back of the chair, hovered over her.

“Because ‘Bon-Bon-Tron’ is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Before any of them could further dispute the point, Vinyl paused in her tapping, drawing up technologically short as she surveyed the data feed that was pouring in from the foreign machine.

"Uh, bad news guys. It says here that this particular robot needs to be plugged into a magical power source. A big one. Without that, it’s not going to take a single step anywhere."

Bon-Bon grasped at straws.

“There must be something you can do! You’re a technical genius! Do something technical!”

“Sorry, BB. But this thing needs some serious juice to get going. Unless we have that, it’s not going to do anything for anypony.”

While Vinyl shook her head, Lyra scanned the cockpit for ideas. As it took center stage, she was immediately drawn to the mysterious chamber, occupying the space as if calling out for attention. Seeing no other machinery that could possibly be the power collector, Lyra frowned and pensively poked at the Amulet. She got a spark for her trouble, but after everything else the stupid thing had put her through, it hardly bothered her anymore.

“... Then we better give it what it needs.”  

Before anything so pesky as a second thought could even think about passing through her brain, she vaulted into the power core and sealed the chamber shut behind her. A resonating humm vibrated through the metal framework as the moonrock veins pulsed into life, igniting the Lunatron’s silver surface with dancing reflections of blazing red. 

“Oh, ok. Power! Lots and lots of Power! Hold on, I got this, I got this.”

As Vinyl kept the sudden power flow from overwhelming the unused circuitry, Bon-Bon turned in her seat, glancing at Lyra in shock. Pouring into the conduits, the amulet blazed with power, being pushed beyond even it’s own limits by Lyra’s reckless actions.

“Lyra, what are you doing?! You know how dangerous it is to use that thing! It almost crushed your mind the last time you tried!”

She blinked.

“-And for that matter, how are you doing that? I thought you couldn’t control this sort of magic.”

Lyra grimaced as the magic burned at her horn.

“Don’t need to control it. Once it’s in the machine, Vinyl has the reigns. She’s the brain, I’m just the beating heart.”

Bon-Bon pulled a face.

“Great, so what does that make me?”

Vinyl smirked as she inputted the keystrokes that set the enchanted colossus taking it’s first thundering steps towards freedom.

“I always thought you were the soul of the operation.”

Outside in the workshop a whole wall slid away, allowing the hijacked machine to plod slowly down a giant, darkened passage towards the Lunatron launching bay. Settling back in the decadent chair, Bon-Bon crossed her forelegs and pouted, throwing her hind legs on the console.

“So you two get to play with the Lunatron’s movement and weapons, and I’m stuck being it’s morality. I feel cheated.”

She suddenly leaped back to the window as she beheld a disheartening sight... It seemed their little act of grand theft mecha had not gone unnoticed.

“Heads up, we have company!”

Flashing lights and wailing alarms heralded the arrival of three standard-issue Lunatrons, stepping out of side passages to block their path to the exit. Moving into formation, the titanium trio locked into place, bringing all their weapons to bear on their escaping brethren.

Each one was only half the size of the Moonrock beast they were piloting, but when they were pointing that much amassed weaponry at them in such a confined space, the end result was surely not going to end well for anyone involved.

Bon-Bon fretted out a one-word warning to their long-range pilot.

“Vinyl...”

“I see them. Lyra, I’m gonna need a little more juice.”

“More?!... Gah, fine.”

Lyra growled in discomfort as she poured an absolute torrent of energy into the ravenous machine. The power flowed through the conduits, coalescing on the spiraling horn in a tornado of color. Vinyl angled the head down as the magic spewed out, drenching their opposition in a thick, focused beam of ‘no, not today thanks.’ She tilted their skull from right to left, instantly annihilating the smaller Lunatrons and flinging them out of their way.

It was such a devastating and abrupt display of overwhelming force that Bon-Bon fell out of her chair.

“Lyra... You have the power to do that?!”

“Superpony, remember? Power was never an issue... Just ability and... Grrr, endurance...”

She gasped, sweat beading on her forehead. Seeing looks of concern, she waved them off.

“No, I’m fine, alright? Just keep going. We may take big steps, but we’ve a ways to go yet.”

They nodded in agreement. Finally, they reached the exit to the Lunar base. With a flash of Trixie’s card and some of Vinyl’s magic, they stepped onto the launch pad and waited. Intruder alarms continued to ring around the complex as henchponies ran around like spooked chickens in the darkness. Unfortunate underlings, knowing that something was wrong, and yet not knowing what they could do to prevent it. 

With a hiss of compressed air, the platform left it’s housing, forcing the heroic hijackers to happily bid farewell to Luna’s fortress and say hello to the greater evil that lay ahead. 

With gathering speed, the launch pad lifted their new ride up and out of the base, carrying Harpflank and Sweets back to the surface, and the city in peril.




Scene 11




Upon reaching her destination, Trixie was greeted with with lasers.

It wasn’t a very neighbourly thing to do, greeting somepony with lasers. Indeed, it seems a distinct and unforgivable faux pas regardless of whether the guest arrives inconveniently or unannounced. Were this top secret anti-terrorist action response squad to be located in the highly cultural capital of Canterlot, they would be scoffed out of proper society for not extending proper hospitality to a guest, especially when said guest already holds them in low regard for prior rudeness.

In Trixie’s Equestria, she would ensure that all rude ponies be permanently discouraged from such activity.

Grimacing through the pain in her damaged horn, Trixie glowered at the unfriendly building. As soon as she had strode into sight, the mundane exterior of her adversarial base split open in several random, but supposedly tactical areas, revealing an absolute arsenal of missile launchers, sentry guns, the aforementioned lasers, a mortar cannon and a set of high-intensity plasma-emitters that Trixie swore must have been cannibalized from one of her own brilliant creations.

If she wasn’t already in horrible agony, Trixie would have been annoyed by that.

There was a weight pressing down on Trixie’s mind, strengthening with every new pulse of light from her cranial magic-maker. The dancing shadow in the corner of her eye was becoming harder for her to ignore, clawing at her legs like crimson stockings, dragging down every hoof-fall like quicksand... As if pulling her, guiding her every step down a predetermined path. 

She shook her head to clear it of such delusions. The crack in her horn was a more pressing matter, as it affected her very well being. She had run some quick calculations on the rate of it’s expansion, and the worrying results had presented her with a most unfavourable schedule to work with. Though unwelcome in any circumstance, the current nature of her rapidly-approaching deadline wound up making the lasers a most irritating distraction.

Her broken horn violently vomited up a spray of molten sparks like a head-mounted firework shotgun. Stumbling away from the unwanted embers, Trixie concentrated harder, bypassing the faulty layers of the horn as she called on the irrepressible and ever-deepening reserves of power boiling inside her core. 

Despite the worrisome setback, her power and control were still completely unmatched, and she successfully called up a force-field that took the first barrage of explosions and gunfire without a single, undaunted scratch. 

Despite her success in fending off the ‘traditional’ ordinance, the plasma and lasers were a much greater threat, being focused intently on a single point in a futile attempt to break through her defence. 

With impeccable precision, she redirected the lasers back to their source, angling the shield in such a way as to overload and destroy the intricate crystal matrices at their heart. The plasma, she reached out snatched from the very air in front of her... Making somewhat of a telekinetic bucket to pool up the super charged particles before upending it over M.A.R.E. HQ and melting off the entire front of the building. 

Magically reinforced concrete reduced to a pile of sloppy nothing in 3.20 seconds. With that kind of potency, it must have been one of her models they were using. Kind of flattering, really. 

Twitching in fury, she called out to the damaged building that so refused her the decency of revealing a single occupant. 

“Give it a rest, you measly little peons! Trixie is your master now! Lay Harpflank and Sweets at her hooves, and Trixie will spare your pathetic lives!”

Spurning her goodwill, the agents of M.A.R.E. did not appear from their hole. They did not show their faces, they did not beg for her forgiveness, they did not give Trixie the smallest scrap of kindness, denying her the Amulet that she so desperately needed... Needed for the headache that would simply not go away!

Instead, they powered up their childish little magic generators and put up their own force field around the building. Trixie stumbled into a crouch, clutching her head as their blatant, ignorant savagery caused her demure and caring heart actual physical pain.

Or at least she thought that was what happened. It was becoming a little difficult to tell where the pain was coming from by this point.

“You... You cannot do this to Trixie! After all she has done for you!”

She couldn’t quite remember what it was that she had done for them, but she was sure it was a very moving and magnanimous sacrifice. That was the kind of wonderful pony she was, after all.

She slumped against the barrier, gasping at the spectral form grasping painfully at her barrel in sinister conquest. It hurt. Trixie hurt. Shuddering, she limply pounded on the arcane wall denying her passage.

“Trixie is Powerful! Trixie is great! Trixie is both of those things! She... She is both Great and Powerful! Your shield cannot stop... Cannot stop Trixie! Trixie will... Trixie will...”

She sobbed.

“... Please! Please, let Trixie in! Trixie needs... To destroy Harpflank and Sweets. Come out... Come out and face me!”

The force field said nothing, only showing the barest flicker of pony-shapes watching her from the other side. Trixie grit her teeth as her eyes were consumed completely in red energy.

Cowards. Wretched, mortal cowards. Disgusting half-creatures crawling across her world like bacteria. Small, fragile, incomplete things that dared to call themselves ponies. Dared to wear the image of her kind, like a mocking echo of a strangled, dying breath. Used her, overwrote her time and again year after year, body after body, suppressing her with their inane sickening thoughts and petty desires-

"Trixie..."

The crimson shadow faded back into the earth as another hoof rested against the other side of the shield. Trixie blinked as her mind cleared, bringing the pain back into focus once more. Glad to have caught her second wind, Trixie looked up at the faces standing so safe and sound behind their little force field. 

She snorted, shuffling into a sitting position as she glared at the weaklings and their wretched concern-filled expressions. The deficient grey pegasus and her uptight little tech-monkey seemed to be feeling pity for Trixie, weakened as she was by their cruelty. 

It turned Trixie's stomach that these sniveling foals could hide behind the coattails of their freakish saviours and yet still pretend to show care for her wellbeing. Did they also deny a starving mare her food, and then weep when she succums? Did they not know that they were aiding and sheltering the wicked souls that perpetrated all of Trixie’s anguish and suffering?

She sneered at them, already imagining the horrors that would occur once she had broken down their precious little force field and had them completely at her mercy.

"So... Come to surrender to Trixie? Admit her superiority, and Trixie promises to be merciful."

Derpy’s frown only deepened, showing a conflict of emotions over Trixie’s suffering. Octavia trotted up beside her, tapping on the shield as she tried to get through Trixie's delusions and posturing with simple concern.

"Trixie, you can't keep this up for much longer! The amulet acts as a power regulator- without it, your body cannot control the amount of magic flowing through you. At this rate, the side effects will soon become incredibly dangerous..."

Trixie rolled her eyes as if being spoken to by an idiot.

"Yes, Trixie deduced that already... Get the amulet or perish under my own unparalleled might. Speaking of, why don't you be a dear and call your little friends over for a while?"

She rolled her jaw, hissing out a bitter and resentful fact.

"Seeing as they hold my life in their hooves, it seems only fair that you let them know that I hold yours in mine."

Derpy’s eyes flicked over to the crimson spectre waiting and watching from the cover of Trixie's shadow. The spectre stared back, only growing in size as it drained more and more sanity from it's host. Tearing her gaze away, Derpy tried where Octavia had failed.

"You don't need to threaten us to get us to help you. We have no more desire to let Harpflank be corrupted than we are to let you die. We can figure out a way to save both of you-"

"-And then the meek and helpless Trixie goes to jail?"

Trixie rose from her slouch a little higher, sneering in her face.

"Sorry, but Trixie prefers it her way. The way in which she is the only survivor."

Octavia bit her lip and glanced away, perhaps communicating with her foolhardy comrades telling her to leave Trixie to her fate. She turned back one last time, pleading for some sanity.

"Trixie, please... You don't know what you're doing, that shadow is... Is..."

She gasped and backed away, fear sparking in her eyes. Beside her, the Commander splayed her wings defensively and barked orders to the agents further inside. Octavia gave Trixie one last glance before she turned and ran deeper into the complex.

"... I'm sorry. We're too late."

"What are you-"

Trixie felt a tug at her hooves and looked behind her. A great, blood-tinted figure was rising from the ground, still taking on ghostly form, but now undeniably real. The imprisoned alicorn spread her mighty wings as the shadowed legs that clung to Trixie's own snapped free from their bindings... Each one pulling away with the twang of breaking guitar strings as the entity took her first free steps upon the earth since eons before Equestria even existed. 

Trixie gulped as the figure loomed over her, feeling weaker than ever as her horn split open one final time.

"I'm sorry, my Lady Luna... I've failed you..."

Then the alicorn snapped down and swallowed her, and Trixie blacked out.




Scene 12




Using a giant robot to destroy a city is fairly easy. There's a lot of city to hit, and a lot of robot to hit it with. Trying to get a giant robot through a city without destroying it is considerably more difficult, as Vinyl Scratch was quickly finding out.

Trixie had not designed her Lunatrons to move around in a hurry, favouring firepower over agility and size over stealth. As such, the loping jog through the claustrophobic city streets was a whimsical jaunt filled with a great deal of almost-misses and nearly-successful turns that left a rapidly heightening number of 'those will probably buff out' indentations on the impeding architecture. 

Every traffic light was trampled, every vehicle kicked aside, every balcony sheared clean off. It was a glaring showcase of very-nearly-but-not-quite carnage that followed with every bound they took. A bread-crumb trail of barely-tolerable desecration, spreading havok like a Lyra loose in a china shop.

Bon-Bon yelped as they spun round a corner, taking a huge chunk out of a building as they did so.

"Vinyl, that was my apartment!"

"Relax, I didn't hit your floor."

"Yeah, but do you know what it’ll do to the plumbing and electricity? I’m going to have to bunk with Lyra until that gets repaired.”

“Actually, I think we hit her apartment about three minutes ago.”

“What?!”

Ignoring Lyra’s strained death-glare, Vinyl turned to greet Derpy and Octavia, the pair of whom had just galloped into the command center with nervous urgency.

“Hey Babe, what's the situation?”

She slid into view, causing Bon-Bon to flinch as the momentary distraction cost town hall half of it’s roof tiles.

“Utterly dismal. And don’t call me Babe.”

The image of the command center shook violently as an unearthly shriek rocked M.A.R.E HQ. Lights flickered on and off throughout the building as power was drained into the shield generator being tested by the spectral atrocity lurking outside. Octavia only became more worried as she turned to her own computer and began reviewing the arcane data being gathered on the sinister phenomenon that was intently focused on destroying them all.

“Lyra, Bon-Bon. The entity is close to reaching it’s full strength. It doesn’t yet have physical form, so it can’t focus it’s seemingly limitless magic into any functional spells via a horn. But... It also means that we don’t have any way to harm it.” 

Bon-Bon tried to look strong, but secretly curled her tail close around her legs.

“You let us worry about that. You guys just worry about staying safe."

Vinyl chuckled.

“You need your memory checking or something? HQ is built way underground, and is blocked off by a forcefield that I made myself. It’s totally impregnable!”

The base shook again as several of the lights on the consoles began flashing in a most worrisome fashion. 

“... It’s mostly impregnable.”

Before any further worrying could occur, they turned one final corner and beheld the demonic figure assaulting their nice and cozy home fortress. It was the size of four swimming pools, and held equal fluid volume. The imposing red shadow flickered and wobbled like a hologram projected on the inside of a water balloon, it's outline shifting and bubbling like molten iron that's not yet cooled in the mold. 

It’s vague pony shape splattered and scrabbled across the surface of the protective dome like a cat trying to claw it's way into a food can, a frantic and frustrated ineffectual assault caused by a being that possessed all of the power to crack it's prize open, but none of the leverage to do so.

Vinyl aimed the horn of their Lunatron square at the abomination and set her trademark shades down onto her face in manic glee.

"Lyra... Light it up."

Sweat poured down Lyra's face as she acquiesced that request.

"Gladly..."

The city lit up like a nightclub as a beam of red energy shot out and sent the ghosticorn sprawling off the dome like a kitten hit with a hosepipe. The wraith flopped into a standing position, turning to the Lunatron with brutal hatred radiating out of the blobby amorphous mass that substituted for it’s face. Shrugging off the beam of energy like it were a water pistol, the alicorn spread it's ghostly wings and glided towards them like an oncoming fog.

Octavia gripped Vinyl's chair as it advanced, as silent and graceful as a murderous ballerina.

"It's no use, your new magic is too similar to it's own! You might as well try killing a tree with a light bulb!"

Lyra huffed, ignoring the whispers of the amulet burning a hole in her neck. It was just her luck that she had finally found a way to use these stupid new powers, and her first opponent was actually immune to them. Still, she hadn't come this far on powers alone and she rather wanted to remind everypony of that fact.

"That's a nice image, Octavia... But there are a heck of a lot of ways to kill something with a light bulb. Vinyl, aim lower!"

Taking a step back, the Lunatron craned down in an almost grazing position, firing a bolt that blew the road between them up into molten chunks of king-sized shrapnel that flew up in the spectre’s face. They fired again and again, forcing the spectre to halt in order to duck and dive around each individual explosion.

This only worked for a couple of seconds before the spirit got wise to their plan and flew into the air, it's indistinct wings flopping up and down like blobs in a lava lamp as it circled around their shrapnel to come in from a better angle.

Bon-Bon gripped her armrests as she followed the spirit's progress with bated breath.

"Vinyl, it's trying to flank us. Quick, use action plan Beta-Carotene!"

In a blur of spectacular key-boardery, Vinyl quickly uploaded the file for M.A.R.E's extensive combat training protocols and tangentially re-coded the instructions to serve as perfectly calculated, well timed and damage-optimised input commands for the Lunatron's basic motor circuits. The 56-tonne behemoth reared up on it's hind legs, sensors tracking the course of the incoming magical entity as it enacted a routine honed and perfected through thousands of years of martial arts legacy and technological innovation.

So, when the alicorn swooped out of the sky to try and tackle them in the side, the Lunatron spun round and punched her in the face.

The spectre's head rocked back, it's ethereal neck stretching comically as the rest of it's ectoplasmic substance hit the ground, leaving the face behind. Then, all of a sudden, the head snapped back, slingshotting right into their silver face and sending the Lunatron stumbling back into a skyscraper.

Struggling to remain seated in her chair, Bon-Bon began fretting over the info screens as Lyra prised herself off of the glass sides of the power chamber.

"Vinyl, this thing says the hull integrity of the cockpit is nearly failing... The horn-cannon is overheating... And the 'check engine' light is on."

Lyra raised a hoof from the floor.

"... The engine is fine, thanks for asking."

Vinyl cursed, trying to get the Lunatron to stand back up with her frantic tapping.

"Come on, come on... Even Trixie's workmareship should be better than this... What does it take to hurt this thing?!"

Octavia brushed her mane from her face, thinking hard for a solution.

“It’s made of pure energy, but it doesn't really exist in this dimension... In order to interact with us, it has to have some sort of a core to anchor itself to."

She gasped.

"That must be why it ‘ate' Trixie! I’m willing to bet it’s still connected to-”

The Lunatron shook as the alicorn rammed them up against the skyscraper repeatedly. A collossal hailstorm of broken glass tinkled to the road below like the demented jangling of a million wind chimes trapped in a hurricane. Vinyl tried to break free with a one-two jab of their mechanical forelegs, but the spirit oozed under the blows, ducking down and compressing it's essence like a coiled spring before releasing that potential in an upward stab, the ghostly horn extending from it's head to spear clean through the Lunatron's shoulder in a splurt of oil and gears.

Vinyl's shades fell off her face as she desperately punched at the keyboard.

"Nonononono..."

Lyra, who was growing tired of stumbling about in the sealed chamber looked over to shoot worried glance at her partner.

"What?... What's going on? Why aren't we moving?

Vinyl clutched her mane and growled.

"It's damaged the circuitry so much that I can't remote access the controls from here!"

The spectre retracted itself from it's foe, letting them slump in it's clutches. Then, entangling them in it's shadowy wings, it picked them up and threw the Lunatron clean across the battlefield to crash into the force field with a hearty clang. Lyra and Bon-Bon struggled to stand as their giant death-machine crumpled to the ground, now nothing but dead weight, it's strings utterly clipped by one well-placed strike.

Vinyl groaned and held her head in her hooves.

"It's been inside Trixie's head... It must have known where the Lunatron's weak points are and exploited them! We can't do anything now!"

While Vinyl stewed in her own failure, the alicorn floated over to it's defeated foe, eager to crack it open and devour the diminutive and deplorable souls contained inside. However, as it loomed over to strike, the Lunatron glowed brighter in it's red aura and, bracing itself against the ground, reared back and and bucked the spirit back the way it came.

Bon-Bon spluttered in shock as the Lunatron returned to battle, trading blows with the ghosticorn as Bon-Bon felt the energy in the room set her fur on end. Slowly, she swivelled around, following a terrified hunch as she heard Lyra's enraptured laughter filling the cockpit. Sure enough, her partner was now magically directing the robot's movements, eyes aflame with red as she really got into the thrill of the duel.

Bon-Bon felt her stomach drop out of it's housing as her blood chilled.

"Lyra, what are you doing?! You're letting that thing control you again!"

Lyra glanced down at her and smiled. But though her eyes still blazed with power, it was a warm smile, filled with hope.

"No, BB, I finally understand how this all works... Don't you remember what Octavia said? All of the amulet's power came from the spirit. But when I broke it, all that power was gone, leaving Trixie to absorb it into her body. Unable to fill it's normal role, the Amulet tried a different strategy to fulfil its purpose and started converting my powers into magic instead... Before using that magic against me!"

She laughed, looking triumphantly down at her neck as her puppet punched circles around the monster outside.

"You hear that, Amulet? I've figured you out! You're toothless! Trixie took all your big bad mojo away, and you've been playing with my head, trying to trick me into thinking that you hold all the power. But you don't. You may have changed the way it looks, but it's my power! My magic!"

The glow around Lyra's horn flickered and quivered, writhing about like a candle in a draft. Scrunching her face up in concentration, she focused all of her willpower into this one goal. 

"... And my magic only listens to me!"

In a massive burst of power, Lyra's horn reignited like a bonfire, a blinding glare of brilliant emerald that eradicated the hateful red strands futilely clinging to her like weeds. The green energy poured out of her and into the into chamber... Flowing through the apparatus before coursing out along the Moonrock conduits and purging every last trace of crimson tint from the surface of the Lunatron.

Gazing up in wonder, Bon-Bon watched as the amulet sparked and fizzed from the grievous scar along it's surface, snapping and flailing as it's influence was forced back from Lyra's mind. With a final, silent scream, the relic was finally subdued and even it's fractured gemstone faded from ruby into emerald as it submitted to the superior force.

The wraithlike alicorn soon was forced to notice the change in dance partners, quickly realising that Lyra's greater hoof-to-hoof proficiency was a serious threat as the newly-remodelled Lunatron fought her back with a dazzling display of fluid combat moves.

They met in a clash of power versus skill, cold steel versus immaterial goop. Lyra pushed the spirit back with a barrage of stunning punches, each strike seemingly connecting with nothing but still shaking the city anyway.

For all their efforts though, they were doing no real harm to the ghosticorn, which bounced back from every blow unfazed... Much like an immortal spirit really should do if it wants to live up to its title. 

It wasn’t helping that their opponent was only an approximation of a pony, an unsure memory of a real being seen once out of the corner of your eye. Lyra would aim to block a strike from a sweeping wing, only to find it dissipate on contact and a rising hoof catch her off guard from the other side. She would try to bait it into overextending itself, only to find it slide away from her counter strike without leaving a trace. 

The spectre didn’t obey the rules of reality, because it was only half there. It was an noncommittal, untouchable reflection of a shadow being cast by a cloud. It was a distorted whisper, a vague description meant only to carry the gist of what a pony was supposed to be.

And, all too soon, the thing that wasn’t a thing began to turn the tide of the fight.

A ghostly hoof smashed into their chin, raking a large chunk of the Lunatron's already damaged skull clean off. Lyra and Bon-Bon struggled to stand as the cockpit rocked up and down like a bungee cord. It was only by clinging onto Trixie’s chair like a life raft that kept her from being flung out of the new gaping hole that was exposing them to the outside world. 

Before they had time to recover, the alicorn latched onto their Lunatron with nebulous wings and forced the massive wall of her face in through the breach to glare hungrily upon the little ponies inside. Bon-Bon was forced to leap to the back of the room as the chair she had been starting to get attached to was bitten off and swallowed by the indefinable face intruding on their privacy.

“Lyra, watch out!”

Lyra hit the deck as the spirit swung it’s head around, smashing through the glass of the chamber with it’s translucent horn. Gathering all her strength, Bon-Bon lept to Lyra’s aid and flung herself off the back wall to throw a nose-breaking super-strength punch into the looming face of the enemy. The magical discharge of punching such an energised entity stung like an absolute swarm of jellyfish, but it was sufficient discouragement to force the alicorn spirit to lose it’s grip and release them.  

Bon-Bon clutched her hoof as her mane and fur fizzled with static.

"Gah... It's like punching a storm cloud made of bug zappers..."

Lyra shot Bon-bon a look of gratitude as she got back to her hooves. Looking up, she realised that with the power core broken, that meant their Lunatron was immobilized for good this time. Severed from the big metal shell, she could feel her magic return to her body in readiness for it’s next task.

Outside, the spectral alicorn again reached for the hole, this time leading with something a bit less personal than it’s face as it’s searching hoof began to probe at the entrance. Lyra spoke with determination as something occurred to her.

"I have an idea. Now that my magic isn't tainted by evil anymore, it should be different enough from her magic to stun her for a while. Maybe long enough for you to get one good shot in."

Bon-Bon blinked.

"For me to-?"

Comprehension dawned.

"... You're crazy, you know that, right?"

Lyra smirked like only Lyra could.

"How else would I be able to prove I was thinking clearly again?"

The hoof was drawing uncomfortably close to it’s targets, who backed away from it’s search as they led it into their trap.

A glint in her eye, Lyra lowered her horn and discharged the full force of her viridian vibrance into a single, flawless bolt of righteous energy. The blast struck the hoof like a gong, vibrating it’s ethereal non-structure as it’s dark magic rejected and repulsed the opposing energy that it absolutely could not metabolise.

As soon as the spirit seized up in paranormal palpitations, Lyra leapt into action, her horn awash with magical luminosity. She and Bon-Bon locked eyes for a second as her partner grabbed her by the chest and flung her out the hole, hoof stretched as she pierced right through the reaching limb like an equine arrow. Dissipating the limb like morning mist, Bon-Bon’s aim was true, spearing Lyra right into the heart of the wraith where she disappeared with with a phantasmic splash.

It wasn’t a pleasant experience for either party.

Lyra instinctively curled into a ball as she sank into the ectoplasm of the undying ungulate being. She struggled to hold her breath against the shock, feeling like she’d performed an ill-advised belly flop into a frozen lake, only to find the lake was filled with sulphuric acid. 

Being in here was almost unbearable. The ghost was nothing but hatred and cruelty made tangible, all trace of light and love having rotted away under the twin bacteria of time and madness, eating and eating until only the barest bones of a soul remained behind. 

Yet despite this, the spirit seemed to shrink back from her presence... Perhaps a case of indigestion, or an allergic reaction to what she represented, the light she carried within. 

Blinking in the immaterial murk, Lyra kicked off and swam deeper, each stroke feeling like syrup clinging to her limbs in resistance. Lyra glanced around as she swam, looking for a sign... Any sign. 

Eventually, she saw it... A distant light, weakly glowing in the infinite darkness of this lost soul.

The light glowed brighter the nearer she got, close enough to make out the blurred outline of the battered pony it was attached to. Soon enough, she could see her all the clearer... A comatose Trixie, floating in nightmarish solitude. Trixie's battered cloak had returned to it’s lifeless purple state and her fractured horn now glowed like the sun, the protrusion having become so damaged that it appeared on the point of breaking entirely. 

Lyra knew that her hunch must be correct, that that horn was where the alicorn had entered their dimension, and thus was the key to pushing her back out of it again. But as she neared Trixie’s captive form, the entire ghostscape quivered in revulsion, summoning up an opposing current that pushed the two of them further apart from one another.

Denied her prize, Lyra felt the searing gaze of the spirit bearing down on her from all sides. A gaze so old and primal, and yet unable to do anything but try and push her away. With a spark of understanding, Lyra knew then why the alicorn hadn’t destroyed her the moment she slid inside. 

It was afraid. 

The thing that could not be stopped even by death was afraid of her. Afraid to touch her, to crush her, to consume her.

It had seen what she had done, what she was capable of... It had seen that her spirit was one that no other spirit could hope to match. But most of all, it knew the thing she wore around her neck, and that scared it most of all.

She was this thing’s poison, and it’s only hope was to eject her before she reached the heart.

Lyra fought against the flow, trying to claw her way back to Trixie’s side. But the current was too strong, too persistent. For all her efforts, she was losing two meters with every stroke of her hooves.

Lyra snorted her last breath of air out into the ectoplasm as she realised the futility of her struggles. Even if she had her powers, she would never make it to Trixie in time. Luckily, she still had her saddlebags. And her gadgets required no muscle to use.

Lyra whipped out her grapple launcher and aimed it at the receding Trixie. Applying her strengthened telekinesis to the rope, her shot pierced the sinister miasma and tangled around Trixie’s leg, pulling her right into Lyra’s grasp.

Squinting against the blinding glow of Trixie’s unstable horn, Lyra followed Luna’s instructions, pressing the Amulet onto the source of the problem and flinching as a cacophonic can of crazy magic worms opened up right in front of her. 

Waves of spiritual energy and vomit-inducing spatial distortion exploded out like pan-dimensional rats fleeing a sinking universe. The alicorn contorted in shrieking fury as it imploded back into the horn, which shot a beam of light into the Amulet as the spirit was transferred back from it’s state of pseudo-tangibility into the extra-dimensional prison from which it came. 

With one final cry of unintelligible, insane sorrow the alicorn spirit vanished from this world, leaving behind only a flash of light, the faint smell of burning oranges and a concussion wave that knocked Lyra and Trixie out of the sky.

Which was inconvenient for Lyra as the psychic shockwaves caused by the banish-imprisonment had finally caused her to pass out from exhaustion.

Her last vision before blacking out was that of Bon-Bon leaping to her rescue with the biggest possible smile on her face. 




Scene 13




Things returned to normal at M.A.R.E. HQ. The force field was taken down, repairs began to take place on the topside facade and highly skilled disinformation agents got to work explaining away why such a seemingly uninteresting building had a force field generator in the first place.

Lyra was taken back in for testing, and after being rushed out of the med bay with minor (for her) injuries, was then subjected to numerous other tests in the ExTech labs regarding the residual effects of the massive pseudo-spiritual-semi-inter-dimensional-big-flashy-lights event that had happened right on their doorstep.

Lyra swung her legs idly as Octavia rattled off a list of their findings with a mildly optimistic air.

"-And although we can find no trace of the entity with our sensors, given the Amulet's return to function, we can assume the spirit was imprisoned back where it came. This is likely the reason for your re-activated superpowers, as the talisman is no longer forced to defectively draw on them to function."

Lyra sighed in relief, lifting the Amulet from her chest with a gentle hoof. The gemstone had returned to it's former blood-red coloration and the gaping crack had sealed over as if it were never there to begin with. It was such a simple looking accessory that it was hard to believe that it could contain such a monster inside of it. But she supposed that might have been the point of it's creation, a reminder that there can be a monster hidden inside of anyone if you just shine the right light onto them.

Or maybe she was just giving the wretched thing too much credit.

Standing stiffly as she payed far more attention to the test results than Lyra was, Derpy pressed her scientists for the information that she had come down here specifically to hear.

"So if the Amulet is fixed, then Lyra can take it off now then."

Vinyl nodded.

"Yeah, I don't see why not."

Oh right, the whole 'only the wearer can take it off' thing. Admittedly, Lyra had forgotten about that part. Before she could say anything though, Bon-Bon interrupted her.

"Have you guys considered if maybe it would be a better idea to leave it where it is?"

"... What?"

Lyra swivelled her head to look at her as she leaned on the other end of the examination table. Bon-Bon met the confused glares of her comrades with a subtle shrug.

"It's just that Lyra's powers are back now, and the Amulet is still boosting her magic in the way it's supposed to. Normally, it would be too dangerous to let anypony wear it, but now... Lyra proved that she has the fortitude to resist it's corruption. If she kept it, she'd be twice as powerful as she was before."

She looked into Lyra's dumbfounded expression and smiled.

"'Magic can change the world', right? You were already able to manipulate an entire Lunatron, keep practicing and nothing would be impossible for you."

Vinyl set down the test results as the Commander watched with silent interest.

"...When you put it that way, it does sound kind of awesome. Heck, think of all the cool stuff we could build with you casting all hocus-pocus on our materials and equipment."

Derpy sighed and rubbed her brow with a wing.

"How about we make it your call, Lyra. If you think you can handle the responsibility of that Amulet, we can let you keep it."

Lyra gulped, looking between all her gathered friends as she reflexively clutched a hoof around the necklace. Closing her eyes, she silently made her decision before unclipping the latch and yanking it from her neck. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, feeling a great power drain from her body as the Amulet's lustre dimmed in deactivation.

Bon-Bon rubbed a hoof on Lyra's shoulder as she frowned in confusion.

"But Lyra... What about your dream of being one of the world's greatest spellcasters? Don't you still want that?"

Lyra bit her lip, searching for what to say.

“Hey BB... Earlier, you said that I was your hero... That I inspired you to be more.”

Bon-Bon blushed.

“Come on, Lyra... Let’s not bring that up.”

Lyra shook her head.

“No, I gotta say this. Today, you inspired me too. I couldn’t have overcome all that lame ‘inner turmoil’ stuff without you, BB. I knew that I had to stick by your side, like you stuck by mine. And that gave me the resolve to keep going.”

She smiled sheepishly.

“So, I guess I’m saying that you’re my hero too.”

Vinyl gagged a little before Octavia clobbered her with a clipboard. Everypony pretended not to notice.

Lyra hoofed the inactive necklace over to the Commander before sliding from the table and grinning.

"That means, that as long as we stick together, I don't need this Amulet to be the world-changing hero I want to be. I only need to be myself, because that's the pony who made it this far and dragged you kicking and screaming with her!"

Bon-Bon rolled her eyes.

"That's one way of putting it I guess..." 

Derpy smiled in what might have been pride as she tucked away the Amulet in one of her pockets.

"I'll make sure this thing is locked away somewhere extremely secure. Good job, agents. You've done the impossible once again."

They struck up a salute.

"Any time, Commander."

As Derpy, Vinyl and Octavia trotted off to attend their own business, Vinyl could be heard muttering jovially to her coworker.

"Hey Octavia, am I your hero too?"

"I would honestly pity anypony who held you in such regard, Vinyl."

"I'm not hearing a noooo~"

As Lyra made to leave as well, she couldn't help but notice that Bon-Bon was looking incredibly pensive, and lacking in positive spirit.

"Hey, what's wrong? Everything's all cool now. Doesn't kicking the ass of a non-corporeal being older than Celestia get you just a little bit excited and thrilled to be alive?"

Bon-Bon chuckled.

“No, it was a really big victory and all. I’m just... Worried I guess...”

“Worried about what?”

Bon-Bon's ears folded back in recollected fear.

“Well, we saw Luna in the flesh for the first time today. If she had attacked us, we probably wouldn’t have made it out of her fortress alive.”

She rubbed one hoof against her foreleg awkwardly.

“It’s just that... That thing we fought today was just a ghost of an alicorn and it almost tore us all apart... Do you really think that, when we have to face the real deal, to face her... That we could win?”

Lyra scratched at her mane, thinking about what it would be like to fight something like that that actually wholly and unreservedly existed and was at the very astronomical height of it’s strength. It was almost enough to terrify her.

Instead, she clapped Bon-Bon on the shoulder and led her out of the lab.

“Yeah... Of course I do. Together, we're unstoppable."




Scene 14




Trixie slept on a bed of stars. Snuggled in between the gently curling spiral arm of a distant galaxy, she slowly tossed and turned, scattering immeasurable nebula like dust before a breeze.

She had always loved stars, even as a child. Her simple fascination had continued through all the years since, seeing her dress in astronomic attire almost every single day. Now however, she draped herself in real constellations, the limitless majesty of the universe coiling around her as it twinkled in loving embrace.

With all trace of her demanding pride having been worn away in the haze of sleep, Trixie eagerly clutched entire solar systems to her chest, hugging the universe out of instinctual need... An infantile longing for comfort that the swirling void gave back to her in galactic quantities.

Trixie could have lay there forever, immersed in a state of contentment unlike any she had experienced in as long as she could remember. But there was a spark behind her eyes, a lingering echo of the great corruption that was seeped through every bone and tendon of her fragile resting body. The twinge of hatred pierced her like a headache, eliciting a groan as Trixie regretfully prised open her eyelids and gazed uncomprehendingly at the great sea of spacedust gently coiling around her.

“Am I... Dead?”

“Niegh, fair Trixie. Though it was a battle hard-fought, you still have many more fights left in you.”

Trixie rolled slightly onto her other side, blindly following the source of the voice as her bleary eyes struggled to make out the great dark shape laid next to her. Being of incredible will and intelligence, Trixie quickly fought through the blurry haze, perceiving with genius-level deduction that she was in the personal chambers of her Lady Luna, and the Princess herself was the one watching over her. A panicked command to grovel before her shot forth from Trixie’s waking mind, but her battered body remained still, unable to heed that request. Instead, Trixie wheezed out a query.

“Why... Am I... Alive?”

Luna, who had been staring at the far wall, craned her slender neck around to grace Trixie with a motherly smile. The compassion was so foreign to Trixie’s eyes that she almost failed to notice the lack of ear-bursting volume in her monarch’s words.

“After the prisoner was sealed away once more, I spirited you from the battlefield to receive aid.”

She gestured to the swirling starlit mass of incorporeal energy that billowed around Trixie like astronomical fog.

“The divine ether of my celestial tail has been draining your body of the prisoner’s anethemic sorcery for the past three days. You were lucky that the ancient one did not consume you for much longer, or you may not have been able to recover at all.”

Trixie shook her head almost imperceptibly.

“No... I mean why haven’t you killed me? I betrayed you... Tried to claim Equestria as my own. Why have you shown me... Mercy?”

Luna brushed her face with a wing as she gave a smile of reassurance.

“Your mind was not your own, favoured servant. It was my fault for allowing you to pursue the Amulet as a power source. I knew the risk, and yet I approved your plan anyway. Were it not for the modern heroes, I would have sacrificed you needlessly to a foe even older than I.”

Trixie scowled, liquid hate springing to her eyes as she hissed.

“Harpflank and Sweets. Even with all that power, they defeat me...”

She flicked her eyes back to Luna, a desperate need glowing in the depths of her gaze.

“Please, Princess... Tell me, what are they? What are they to perform such feats of impossible comprehension? What is it that lends them their strength?”

Luna looked down, a faint cloud of her usual malice passing over her features before reverting back to gentle concern.

“Trixie, ‘tis time we told you an ancient tale... A tale of the greatest magic of all...”

As she lay paralyzed in loving embrace of the universe, Trixie listened to the words that her ruler had to say. And, as the Princess shifted the world once again into the cool and peaceful night, her eyes that had opened wide in eager wonderment slowly came to a close, until she at last slipped once more into fantastical dreams.


[ Credits roll.

NEXT WEEK ON HARPFLANK AND SWEETS:

“How can we not have anything on this guy?”

“This has to be the coolest thing you have ever built.”

“Why does it climb up walls!?”

“Trixie is growing tired of waiting for you to prove your usefulness.”

“With this, I’ll destroy all trace of the crimes that sour my name...”

TUNE IN FOR THE NEXT EXCITING EPISODE OF... HARPFLANK AND SWEETS ]





Epilogue




Deep underneath the halls of M.A.R.E, an amulet sat in a glass case. The glass case sat in a vault, and the vault was suspended above a pit of magma. Sadly, the magma had to be imported, as Metropony's own geothermal Resources had been entirely drained by the Lunar empire in their mad scheme to create an artificial volcano underneath Canterlot. Fortunately, a little creative spellcasting had kept the rock toastily molten, and blooping away with all the contentment of a cat sleeping on a radiator.

The vault was filled with toxic gas, and both it and the case were laden with hair-trigger alarms that would drop the vault into the magma at the slightest inclination that either had been forced or broken open. As a final precaution, the entirety of this sub-subchamber could only be reached by a hidden elevator that only opened when presented with two simultaneous retinal scans presented at awkwardly opposing angles and reciting a voice-print password keyed in to the Commander's vocal frequency.

In short, the vault was suicidally impregnable to the degree where it was a wonder that they didn't just drop the amulet into the magma in the first place and save on the expense.

Inside the vault, a blinding light faded into existence. Sending out arcs of crackling white energy, the light locked on to a fixed point and pulsed in incremental intensity, whipping the toxic air around in a dizzying spiral as the universe split open and deposited two unicorns to the cold metal floor.

Before the tainted green gas could flood back in, a pale white force field expanded around the intruders, trapping the breathable air they had brought with them and cutting off any outside influence. Normally, force field spells hadn't the density to keep out the minuscule free-floating particles of a gaseous substance, leaving ambitious mages to rely on atuning it to solid or liquid objects when attempting to defend. But for this unicorn, such a specialised spell was well within his abilities. He had invented it, after all.

One of the arrivals clattered up off the floor, a short and pretty mare wrapped in the torn and battered rags comprised of a thousand scraps of diseperate garments. Widening her eyes, she helped the older stallion to his hooves and worriedly glanced at the glass case.

"There it is, Sir... The Alicorn Amulet."

There was the faint jingle of bells as the wizened grey pony shuffled his robes and glared at the hated object.

"Yes, Clover. I can see it. We got my cataracts fixed the last time we traveled to the forty-seven-hundreds, remember?"

The mare huffed, ignoring her mentor as she pulled a startlingly futuristic gadget out from under her anachronistic cloak and scanned the area for further security measures.

"There's no need to get your beard in a tangle. You know how unpredictable large time-jumps can be. It's a testament to my calculations that we got within even a month of the magic surge."

The elderly stallion looked at the innocuous trinket with grim, piercing eyes. He could feel it reaching out to him, tempting him, beseeching him to use it like he had all those millennia ago. He shuddered, for even though it was but a fraction of the evil that it was keeping imprisoned inside, he would never again allow that thing to gain a hold on him.

"... And yet it seems like the power surge you detected has already been contained. I was a fool to leave it unattended in the timeline. I thought that keeping the alicorn imprisoned would be more important than the minor evils committed under the amulet's influence."

He sighed.

"But that only worked as long she lacked the ability to think. Now that she's spent some time outside of her prison, she will have placed a whole host of contingency plans in place to ensure her full escape. I think we need to try a more permanent solution."

Frowning in solemn concentration, his horn lit up in the same pale white as his beard. An unearthly aura lit up around the case and with a haunting, unliving scream the amulet was ejected from the universe, banished to the void outside of time and space. The case, which was only designed to alert if the glass was broken, remained untouched despite failing to protect it’s occupant.

“It is done.”

Jingle-jangling his head back to his apprentice, the bearded wizard steadied himself against the force field as he felt the draining effects of such an unnatural banishment spell. With steely eyes, he watched the play of emotions on his assistant’s face as she checked the temporal readings on her fancy scanning device. The faintest trace of hope... That suddenly gave way to worry, and then attempted to be hidden behind a facade of disinterest. Narrowing his eyes, he spoke.

“Well? Don’t leave me in the dark, girl.”

Clover flinched ever so slightly before attempting to return the device to her cloak.

“The... Anomalies have cleared up. I was right, it was just glitches in the equipment caused by the surge-”

The device was yanked from her grip and floated over to the stallion. 

“Like Tartarus they have... You think you can pull one over on your old mentor? There’s something strange going on in this time period, and I can smell their involvement in the whole thing!”

Clover folded her ears back as she tried to appeal to the great wisdom that he himself had passed on to her.

“Please, Sir... You know I respect you more than any other pony I have ever met, but this line of research... It just goes too far.”

He went silent for a moment, stroking his beard as he looked over the readings.

“... I know. But it is my life’s mission to understand and document every form of magic that exists. It is a quest that has taken me beyond the reaches of time, and alive long past my destined departure from this world.”

He hung his head.

“I have come too far to turn back now.”

Clover looked over at the case, still teeming with the foul taint of corruptive magic even after the forced un-being that had had been cast on it’s source.

“A long time ago, you just had to understand that amulet, too. And it almost destroyed you.”

“Yes, it did. But despite it’s efforts, I learned all of it’s secrets... And now I have destroyed it. My quest is almost at an end. There is but one magic that eludes me, and I think-”

He squinted his eyes at the image that appeared on the temporal scanner that floated in front of him. Two mares in costume, one clad in red, the other in blue... Standing around with their friends, chatting and laughing after a battle well-fought.

“... We may have found the missing link I’ve been looking for.”

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Coming soon: Episode 11 - Heart of Winter!