Disclaimer: I do not own Hasbro, My Little Pony or any characters, places, or events in the extended cannon, although it would be awesome if I did.
In His Memory Chapter Six:
Infestation
The Canterlot Royal Gardens were a beautiful place, I was reluctantly forced to admit. Reds, yellows, blues, violets, and every color between danced and weaved across a backdrop of vibrant green. Hedges cut into the air, forming twisting passages that you could get lost in for hours without going through the same place twice. Expertly carved statues reached into the sky, depicting scenes of heroism and bravery.
And in the center of it all was a prison of stone, holding the second-most dangerous enemy the Equestrian people have ever had.
“A strange place to meet,” Luna commented as she landed next to me. The guards that surrounded us pointedly ignored our conversation, starting their own. My meeting with Luna was to a backtrack of rumors ranging from which noble slept with who to a strange stallion some say claims to be a thousand years old. “I would have gone with his statue in the Everfree.”
“What better place to have your enemy surrender but the location of another enemy’s prison?” I asked. “Also, Canterlot is heavily populated. I doubt he’ll try anything when an entire city is just outside the door. Not the same kinds of things that he would do in the middle of the most dangerous forest in the world.” Plus, Dad's statue was there, and I couldn't bear to see that damaged.
“I didn’t say it was a stupid place to meet,” she said. “Just strange.” Her eyes locked onto Discord’s statue. “And to think that all this time, he was a victim, not an enemy.”
“We all roll the dice,” I said. “His just happened to turn up bad. There’s always that chance.”
Luna tapped her chin. “Chance. I haven’t seen him for quite a while. What’s he been up to?”
“Last I heard? He was heading into the Everfree with Gilda. That was before Dad started. . . his thing. They haven’t come out yet. Whether that’s due to them being dead, to fucking busy, or vice versa is yet to be determined.”
“We should send a group into the forest, find them and inform them of what happened.”
“I highly doubt that Murphy doesn’t know about Manehattan. There was a ton of magic being used, more than was used to kill the Senate. If he wanted to help, he could have.”
She shook her head. “We all have limits on what we can do, Star. He can’t—”
Our very pleasant conversation was interrupted by a flash of light. Starswirl stood right next to Discord, two of the most dangerous threats to the nation in close proximity. He stared at us for a few seconds before saying, “I was expecting to have been hit with a spell already.”
“I used most of my magic yesterday casting that spell,” I explained. “Then I lit your puppeteer on fire. I’m a busy mare, Starswirl, and you aren’t special enough to warrant conserving my magic.”
“My puppeteer?” He arched an eyebrow. “There is nobody tugging my strings, Star.”
“You know what’s funny? Celestia said the same thing. The Librarian reaches far and grasps much.”
He froze. “You know of the Librarian?”
“ ‘Know of’ her? I just told you I set her bitch ass on fire.” His eyes widened. "What, you two buddy-buddy? Got some freaky mind-realm dream-rutting happening?"
"Do you realize what you've done?" he exclaimed. "You met the entity responsible for the creation of Celestia, Luna, Discord, and Chance—as well as the entire universe—and lit her on fire!"
"She threatened me." I shrugged. "When that didn't get her what she wanted, she threatened those around me. So I set her on fire." I paused for a second. "She seemed enamored with that Tapestry thing. Maybe I should have lit that on fire instead."
"You are lucky you didn't," Luna said. "The destruction of the Tapestry of Fate means the destruction of our entire universe. At its basest level, the Tapestry is your mind trying to comprehend fate."
"She showed you the Tapestry?" Starswirl asked quietly. He shook where he stood, face carefully composed neutrally. "I am supposed to have been the first mortal to see it. I am supposed to be her right hand. Me!"
Just as things started to get interesting, the screams began from the city around us. For his credit, the murdering bastard had the decency to look surprised. I whipped my head around to see black forms in the sky, swooping down to grab, attack, or even just terrorize the ponies on the ground. Pegasi were doing their best to keep the bugs away from their friends and family, but they were outnumbered.
"No, this wasn't the plan!" Starswirl growled. He barked at one of the insects as it landed. "What's going on here? Chrysalis ordered no attack!"
"Chrysalis is an idealistic fool," it replied. My eyes widened as I saw the crack on its face. This fucker. "And you are the outdated product of a bygone age." It grinned as it swung its head to look at me. "How nice of you to get three of the ponies most dangerous to my plans all together in one place." A shadow fell over us as hundreds of bugs swarmed into the garden. "Tear them apart. Slowly." The swarm descended as the leader vanished in a flash.
I was much less surprised than them as the insects slammed into a translucent blue shield. What did surprise me is that their constant barrage started to cause cracks to form. Luna winced as the barrier started to pull more magic than usual, no doubt causing a headache that wouldn't go away soon. A flash signaled the arrival of my teacher. “This is why I shouldn’t leave you alone for five minutes!”
"Strike, get Star out of here,” Luna ordered. “Something's wrong, they shouldn't be doing this much damage to my shields."
“No. I’m not running from a few bugs,” I insisted.
A shield of lighter blue pressed up against Luna’s. Starswirl grunted inside of it as spiderwebs started to race across it, letting us know that either he was actually under attack, or just a good actor. For half a second, a small hole opened in the barrier. “Get out of here,” he growled as he shot a beam of magic out through the hole, shutting it quickly. Any damage he may or may not have caused to the swarm was repaired near-instantaneously. “And take Star with you! My actions killed her father, I won’t let her die because of them too.”
Luna’s eyes narrowed in sync with mine, though for different reasons. “What do you mean, ‘her too’?”
“There’s no time to explain!” he snapped. “Take her to the old capital. The old, old capital.”
“What’s wrong with Everfree?”
“It was my escape vector if things went south,” he replied. “There is no way that they aren’t waiting for me there. We’ll talk more when we’re safe.”
Luna’s glare never faded. “What are you planning?”
“Just get out of here,” he growled, grunting as his shield started to crack and splinter. “We don’t have the time to argue about this!”
Luna snarled as her barrier started to bend inwards. ”Back, insects!” she yelled loud enough to hurt my ears as a wave of magic washed away from her, knocking the bugs back and letting her reform her shield. ”Begone!”
“Get out of here!” Starswirl snapped. “I can’t get rid of them until you’re gone!”
Luna gave me a look that told me everything I needed to know. “Don’t you dare—”
My world was replaced with crumbling towers and buildings half-buried in the sands. I stood on a circular platform, raised just enough that it didn’t have any sand left on it save that stuck in the cracks and weathered lines. A quick look around showed me two things. One: I was on the coast with the city stretching out until the waves carried over them, and two: Luna and Strike were right next to me.
“What the shit?” I shouted. “We’re ponies, we don’t run from bugs!”
“When the bugs are our size, outnumber us by easily three hundred to one, and drain our magic more than anything we’ve ever seen, then yes, we run,” Strike said. “Don’t let blind hatred keep you from seeing the best way in a situation.”
There was a faint “pumph” sound from the direction away from the ocean.
“What was that?” I asked, whipping my head to look in that direction. “Was that Starswirl?”
Luna’s eyes lost focus for a moment. Then they lost focus for a bit more than a moment. “He didn’t,” she said.
“Didn’t what?” Strike asked, beating me to the punch. “Stop them, betray us, or something else?”
“He destroyed half of Canterlot.”
—*~*~*—
After a few hours had passed, I grew bored with kicking decrepit walls in impotent fury. Luna and Strike had set up a small camp; I recalled something about letting me rest until my magic came back, or something along those lines. I didn’t much care. I had failed. I failed Canterlot by letting Starswirl destroy half of it. I failed my people by letting hundreds, possibly thousands of them die. I failed myself by failing my father.
Was I destined to always be a failure?
I didn’t even notice that we were moving until we passed a small town. Everywhere, insects piled ponies into carts, preparing to transport them to gods-know-where. It took seconds for every damn bug to be disintegrated, leaving behind dust and grateful villagers. Luna made noises about me needing another day of rest to get my magic back, but I still didn’t care.
With an alicorn and a War Mage pulling me along, the trip from the sunken city to Ponyville took barely five days. Luna said that she didn’t dare teleport us again, not knowing what else the bugs had done to our magic. Whatever.
To my relief, Ponyville seemed to have held off the infestation better than the village we passed earlier. A few black shapes flitted around on the horizon, but no other bugs were to be seen.
However, we were challenged the second we came to the attention of whoever was watching the road. “Halt! Who are you?” a mare asked, stepping out onto the road.
“I think it’s pretty obvious who I am,” Luna said.
“You’d think so, but with changelings invading everywhere, we can’t be too sure,” the mare said. “I need some proof that you’re who you say you are.”
Luna sheepishly looked back at us. She got two stares in return, one blank and one confused. “The fun has been doubled,” she said, blushing obviously, even through her dark coat.
A smile threatened to split the mare’s face. “Princess! Good to see you. Twilight instructed me to send any of you her way when you arrived.” Her smile fell. “She said to send you to her before Rainbow Dash. Rainbow said the opposite.”
No. I'm not dealing with this shit. “Send a message to both of them,” I growled. “Tell them to meet us at my house, but don’t tell them the other is coming too. I’m not dealing with this anymore.”
The mare blinked. “Alright.”
As she wandered off, Strike asked me, “What do you plan to do?”
“Knock some sense into them,” I said. “I don’t care if they like each other or not, they can’t be actively working against each other. Not when we can be taken out with a single well-placed changeling. We don’t know how many other cities have avoided being taken over, and we need to keep Ponyville as a base of operations to cleanse Equestria.”
—*~*~*—
"You said you wanted to–you," Twilight growled as she walked into my living room, catching sight of Rainbow Dash on the couch.
"What are you doing here?" Rainbow asked.
"Ah, good," I said, pumping as much cheer into my voice as I could, "now we can start."
"What do you—" Rainbow started.
A wave of magic picked her up off the couch and slammed her into the wall. Twilight followed closely. I held the two in place, despite their best attempts at escaping.
"The fuck, Star?" Rainbow exclaimed.
"I'm not as nice as Rarity," I said. "She tried to rekindle your friendship to get you working together. I'm not even going to make the attempt. Frankly, I could care less. Hate each other as much as you want. Just don't let your hate fuck up what I'm doing." I let some fire—real fire, not the heatless stuff I usually make—spread in the air in front of the two. They squirmed, but between the wall at their backs and my magic holding them in place, they couldn't escape. "Your feud already cost me the life of my father, if you fuck up anything like that again, I'll leave nothing of you but ashes. Understood?"
Their lack of a reply annoyed me. Twilight's whimper of fear annoyed me more. I flashed the fire bigger and hotter as I shouted, "Understood?"
"Yes!" Rainbow shouted. "Okay? We'll work together!"
I looked over at Twilight. "Just let me down!" She cowered. "I'll do it!"
A smile worked its way onto my face. "Good."
—*~*~*—
I spent the next while building a wall around most of Ponyville with Strike and a few of the locals. It helped me keep my mind off of the events in Canterlot, even if it was nigh-on useless against our flying enemies.
I finally grew bored of moving dirt around on day four. Strike caught on instantly, and pulled me off to the side.
“I know you,” he said. “I know how dangerous it is for you to be bored right now.” He looked around, relaxing as he didn’t see what he was looking for. “I’ve been scrying the area around us, and while it’s not my strong suit, I think I found the general area of a changeling nest.”
My ears perked up. “Then let’s burn it to the ground,” I growled, stomping a hoof on the ground.
“For once, I agree with your aggression,” he said. “Luna wants to adopt a ‘wait and see’ policy. She said we don’t have the strength to go on the offensive unless absolutely necessary. They’re too close for caution. What we need now is action, and you’re the only one I am willing to bring along with me.”
“And when do we leave?” I asked.
“Now.”