//------------------------------// // Chapter 58 - The Battle of Canterlot Part 3 // Story: A Journey Unthought Of: Revival of Chaos // by Hustlin Tom //------------------------------// As she and Serana tumbled through the Void, Princess Luna could feel her powers reaching dangerous new lows. She could sense the particles of her gaseous form evaporate away into the nothingness around them, and once again she felt fear grip her. If they didn’t escape soon she would die, and the screaming human in her company would be lost for eternity. Time is short, the Princess heard the Conductor declare in her mind, Much has transpired since you left our home. A second assault on Canterlot is being made by the Changelings. Though she entered the humans’ portal before you, you will arrive back in Equestria before your sister. I will hold her back as long as I can. If you do not pursue victory by any means, the city’s forces will be overwhelmed, and all will be lost. The key to your success is just a thought away. A portal yawned opened beneath the two passengers as they fell through the full nothingness. Serana was still hysterically yelling and whimpering as they sank towards it. Princess Luna spread her substance underneath the flailing human like a great cushion, reached into the deep recesses of her mind, and commanded with all her telepathic power, SLEEP! Initially resistant to the command as she continued to reach around for anything solid to hold onto for dear life, the poor distressed woman finally drifted into a sleep deeper than she had ever known. Once they had finally passed through the threshold of the gateway’s edge, reality’s acceptable laws once again took over, and Serana fell through the weakened Princess’ fog. Cursing to herself, she reconstituted into her equine form, and darted down beneath the still slumbering woman as she fell towards the Everfree Forest below. Having caught her newfound responsibility between her front hooves, Princess Luna struggled to gain altitude as she made for Ponyville. The further she traveled, the less she felt like she was a weary old mare. It’s just like before, she thought to herself with a sigh of relief as she moved telekinetically moved some of her now corporeal hair, the magic of the land is strengthening me once again. But not nearly fast enough, Nightmare Moon replied, If you go out in this condition you’ve brought us to, we will be no more than a winged unicorn; a very weak winged unicorn at that. The Princess mulled over these words of caution in conjunction with those given by the Conductor. The thought passed from her temporarily as she spotted a large orchard and barn not too far from the forest edge, and she descended as quickly as she could manage. As she approached the large red barn, she saw an equally large wreck of a burned home just a little farther away. A group of three earth ponies and a Pegasus filly were all picking through the devastation. Princess Luna’s heart stopped: How much had changed since she had left? How long had it been? To her, her journey across the universal streams hadn’t even last a full two days. By Tartarus, she swore, how long have we been away? “You four down there,” she called out loudly as she approached from above. The Apples and Scootaloo turned to look up at the one who addressed them, and they couldn’t believe their eyes. “Is that?” Apple Bloom asked in hushed tone. Big Mac nodded with wide eyes, “Eeyup.” “Well Ah’ll be,” Granny Smith declared with a chuckle and shake of her head. “What’s that she’s carrying?” Scootaloo asked with an inquisitive blink. “Looks mighty like Adam’s kind,” Apple Bloom replied, “but different.” “Citizens, please help me!” the Princess called out to them as she unsteadily hovered above the ground with her sleeping cargo. Big Mac rushed to the approaching Princess and presented his back to her. She in turn rolled Serana onto him, and then landed on unsteady hooves. “Yer Majesty,” Granny Smith said with as good of a bow as she could give. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo quickly glanced at the elderly pony and copied her action, while Big Mac nodded respectfully. Princess Luna exhaled a small breath, and then stood tall, exuding a practiced aura of confidence, “I am sorry but I have very little time, and what I have must be spent wisely. I ask that you would watch over this being. She is under my oath of protection, which I cannot yet fulfill. I ask that you would keep her safe until my return to you.” “As you wish, Yer Majesty,” Granny Smith declared with a stiff bow, her joints starting to offer their complaint to her. The Princess nodded, and she then turned towards Canterlot. As she and the others looked, a large magenta colored shield began to take shape around the city. “The Captain’s defensive magic,” she breathed, “I’m not too late.” Her horn lit up with her deep blue energies, and in a flash she disappeared. She reappeared just twenty feet away, both horizontally and vertically. Flapping her wings desperately as she initially began to fall, she stabilized herself and began to fly to Canterlot as fast as she could. It appears it’s to be the slow road for me today, she thought. Stop ignoring the obvious, Nightmare Moon chided her more beneficent side, We both know that it doesn’t have to be this way. The Princess stopped midair and began to listen. You know as well as I do that I’m your more powerful half in terms of magic. The millennial astronomical alignment that made us powerful enough to confront Celestia may have come and gone two years ago, but I can still draw some of its power, giving us the vigor we need in this battle. And all I have to do is hand over control of our body to you, the Princess finished the thought, Unacceptable. Nightmare Moon scoffed and waved her hoof to emphasize her point, Am I not still bound by the Elements? Am I not bound by an oath on the spirit of our mother to seek unity with you? Face it, little Lulu, the only thing hindering us now is your holding onto the past! She then angrily snarled, momentarily turning away from the Princess’ presence before returning, Look to my actions in recent memory: we tried to save the sister we once despised together. We were doing it to help the ponies we both equally hated for so long together. Now, we must face these invaders together, or we will both fall. She then spread her forehooves wide in a confrontational manner, What’s it to be, Luna? Shall Equestria live on, or will it burn? The Princess’ face darkened as she thought very carefully on those words. Fluttershy had seen Fancy Pants fall to the street unconscious from afar. She was struck cold with the fear that her gentlepony friend might not get back up, and she rushed towards him. Two Changelings pounced down and stood between her and him. It was always a rare occasion for her, sweet and kind to the very core that the demure pegasus was, to get angry. This proved to be one of those moments for her. She didn’t stop as she ran towards her enemies, and she snorted in rage, “You are not getting in the way of me helping my friend, do you hear me?” A great yell escaped her lips as she barreled through her opponents like they weren’t even there, sending end over end through the air. When she reached Fancy Pant’s still form, she quietly gasped. A deep gash stretched across the length of the left side of his muzzle to near his ear. Blood was steadily dripping from the wound down his white fur and into his recently reacquired mustache, which rose and fell slowly. He was still alive. Fluttershy’s anger compounded as she gazed down at her friend’s injuries, and then she noticed that four Changelings now begun to surround her. “Don’t you DARE COME ANY CLOSER!” she shrieked at them, and they actually fidgeted when she did. She took deep breaths as she stared at them one by one, her wings now flared, “You will not touch him again!” The four bugs looked at each other, pausing and blinking sporadically as they did. Slowly they flew up and away, retreating to bother some other pony who was less crazed and easier to pick on. Still shaking from both a mixture of fear and righteous anger, Fluttershy slowly lifted Fancy Pants up into her hooves and flew away, taking him to some place nearby where she could treat his wounds. “Y’all burned down mah home,” Applejack hit a Changeling with a buck from her back legs. “You destroyed my dream and livelihood,” Rarity exclaimed as she delivered a flying kick to another bug, then turned and backhoofed one of his allies, “You put my little sister into harm’s way!” “And mah entire family,” Applejack roared as she clubbed their two heads together, “Y’all didn’t think there’d be no consequences, now did ya?” “HEEYAAAAAA!” Pinkie Pie shouted as she flew through the air with a blast of her party cannon. In her hooves she tightly held a gardener’s trowel, and on her head was a thick helmet that partially obscured her vision. She swung at a Changeling as she flew by it, catching it by the head and sending it flying unconscious into a nearby wall. As she twirled through the air and began her descent, her Pinkie Sense alerted her to another opponent that would be close very soon. Sailing back towards the ground, she reached out with one forehoof. Another bug sailed by underneath her, which she caught by the neck. It tried to compensate for the addition weight it was now holding, but it didn’t have time. The drone fell towards the street below, buzzing forlornly as it went. Before it hit the pavement and skidded along its way, Pinkie Pie jumped off with a twirling backflip. Just before she landed on her hindlegs, her helmet still on her head, she swung at yet another Changeling with her gardener’s trowel, launching it backwards unconscious. “You just got dominated, Buggo Flapkins!” she yelled as she tapped the end of her trowel on her helmet. Twilight Sparkle, meanwhile, was firing concussive spell after concussive spell, but found they were not as effective as they had been in the last brawl with the Changelings. “Of course,” she thought aloud as she found a brief pause in her fight, “They’ve adapted a resistance to that particular enchantment. That must be why they got up so quickly after they all got electrocuted by the lightning hexes earlier.” Her mind began to tumble along a course of logic as she looked around the battlefield. She could see every Changeling, and this perplexed and worried her, “Why are the Changelings fighting us undisguised? Their shapeshifting is one of their most useful assets, so why are they making it so easy for us to identify them now?” Unaware of her surroundings, a Changeling tackled her from behind, pinning her to the ground. She involuntarily yelped in fright as it bared its teeth at her. A bright magenta heater shield slammed into its side, forcing it to stumble over its intended prey. Prince Shining Armor leapt over his sprawled out sister and charged the now recovering Changeling. Using his shield he caught his opponent, pinned it against the ground and began to slam the construct repeatedly on top of it. “DON’T. TOUCH. MY. SISTER!” he roared, emphasizing each word with a blow. With the bug down and out, he dissipated his magic and stood to catch his breath for a few seconds. He then rushed back to his sister, who had picked herself up and was dusting herself off. “Twily, are you alright?” he called out as he ran up to her. “I’m alright: don’t worry big brother,” she replied. She looked once again to the battle going on around them all: Rainbow Dash was intentionally colliding with her enemies in midair, using their falling bodies as a spring board toward her next target. Umbra and Nox were taking on six Changelings at a time, but they both held the highest knockout count of those ponies on the upper terrace. Princess Cadence had switched out her ethereal bow and arrow for a thin bladed rapier. She was managing to hold her own for the moment, but she looked like she could use some help. “We’re coming, Cadence!” the Prince yelled as he rushed to his wife’s help. “Shining, wait!” Twilight yelled as she ran to catch up to him. “What?” he replied as he constructed another shield, as well as a complimentary sword. “The Changeling’s usual plan is to hide behind a disguise and create confusion, so why are they suddenly shifting strategies? What’s different now?” A fist made of several tons of metal slammed into marble, trying to pin an enormous bug to it like it were a plaque for an insect collection. Bunsen Burner’s titanic enemy, which he had mentally dubbed ‘The Locust’, ducked and skittered around his exo-golem, and reached for his back-mounted weapons. The Mechataur’s port side thrusters activated and spun it around on the spot as it did a small jump off the ground. The Mechataur’s servos groaned as they caught its arthropodial foe’s arm as they tried to reach down, its armored fists had a strong hold on the monstrosity’s thick upper set of plated biceps. Bunsen Burner had meant to crush his enemy’s arms and eliminate the threat to his back-mounted weapons, but the carapace of the creature was stronger that he had thought. Its upper set of arms struggled against his hold, its claws spasming as they futily tried to reach for and rip apart his grenade launcher, ending the threat of the earth pony’s Marigold Option. It’s lower and smaller set of arms clawed at the Mechataur’s armored torso, but this wasn’t having much of an effect. “Target its shoulders!” Bunsen Burner yelled up to the Maiden. The Mechataur’s machine gun whirred to life, and it began to unload hot lead straight into the Locust’s right shoulder joint. The creature shrieked in pain as the bullets passed underneath its protective shell into its fibrous muscles. It tried to climb up the Mechataur’s body, placing its front set of spindly appendages on the exo-golem’s metal legs. “Mr. Black! Assist!” the old stallion yelled into his comm unit as he wrestled his exo-golem and his opponent’s around into the assassin’s sights. The Locust’s upper body rose above the Mechataur’s horns, its left arm almost within reach of its target. A loud crack filled the air, as the griffon sniper’s Marigold tipped bullet burned through the air straight through the back of the Locust’s head. Rather than going limp like the two fighters had expected, the creature’s upper arms immediately reached for its head and it wailed in pain. Its sharp claws reached for the hole located there, and it almost seemed like it was trying to scratch at the burning, irritating sensation it was now feeling behind its eyes. Momentarily stunned by the Locust’s seemingly bizarre survival of a headshot, Bunsen Burner released the distracted creature’s arms, circled behind it, and slammed the gigantic machine’s structure on top of its lower body. The Locust shrieked in agony as its four legs twitched and squirmed underneath the weight of its opponent. Bunsen Burner took the creature by its mangled right shoulder joint with one arm, forced its torso down with the other, and pulled outward very hard. With a sickening pop the large right arm of the creature came free from its socket entirely, and hung in the Mechataur’s fist twitching. “Firing canister now,” the Maiden called to her co-pilot as she loaded the chemical grenade into its launch tube and fired. “Make it three,” the stallion called back, “I want to be certain this thing doesn’t get up.” Thick orange smoke plumed around the two titans, but no matter how much the Locust tried to squirm out from under its opponent’s hold, the Mechataur forced it back down. “Weaken their forces! Strike down their commander!” Queen Chrysalis bellowed to her troops as they swarmed around General Blitz Hammer and Lieutenant Swiftfeet’s ponies like many tentacles that grew more taught by the minute, “Once their officers lie dead at my hooves, victory will be ours!” The Queen stood atop one of the numerous marble labyrinth walls that now littered Canterlot’s entire surface. Her view of the battlefield was excellent from this vantage point, and she could indeed see that her Hive was giving its all to accomplish her orders. Even with the RSD’s experienced commandos aiding the Royal Guard, it was only a matter of time before their position was overrun. As she continued to tantalize over her eminent victory, she felt two Changelings nearby that she did not expect to appear in this battle. Two inky blobs climbed up and over her wall and stopped at either side of her, and from out of each viscous mass slowly emerged Falena and Papillon. “My humblest apologies, my Queen,” Papillon gave a curt nod to her superior, “but you must stop your assault immediately!” “You don’t have any idea of the power that you hope to unleash or how it will affect us all, and you certainly don’t have the means to control it!” Falena shouted without any attempt at decorum, “For the love of the stars, you are playing into the clutches of literal Chaos! The world can’t afford to see Discord rise again!” The Queen angrily glared at Falena, and then her gaze slowly shifted towards Papillon. “I must admit that I never thought you would turn traitor as well,” she quietly seethed as she stared down at her most diminutive Candidate. Papillon scoffed and smirked at the Queen, but then her face turned dead serious, “If anyone’s the traitor it’s you, Chrysalis. This plan of yours was just about getting your revenge on these Equestrians; it was never about the Hive.” Falena took a step forward, which caused the silently enraged Queen to return her attention to her, “If you have any decency at all left, you will forfeit your crown to us, and we will sort out your…mess.” The rogue Candidate’s thoughts ground to a halt as she now carefully scrutinized Queen Chrysalis. Her aura was strong, and she was the powerful telepathic signature in the area, but she felt smaller than usual. She didn’t have her usual gravitas or erratic mood swings. She wasn't herself: this wasn’t Queen Chrysalis. Papillon had picked up on the same unusual behavior and froze as she realized who that meant the ‘Queen’ really was, “Pupa.” “We’ve been duped!” Princess Cadence blurted out as her psychic link to Falena translated the Changeling’s thoughts to her. “What? What do you mean?” Prince Shining Armor asked as he held his guard up while facing off against a Changeling drone. “The entire attack was just a distraction!” she yelled out as she made a swipe at one of her own assailants. The Prince processed the information for a full five seconds, and he could almost swear that the drone in front of him grinned. Foregoing honorable combat, he telekinetically launched his opponent into the air away from him and ran. His head whirled all around looking for his communications pony, only to see the radio he needed abandoned in the street on its side with no sign of its operator. He hurriedly picked up the transmitter and yelled into it, “Defense Chamber! Do you read? The surface attack is a diversion! RSD may be compromised! Repeat, the attack is a diversion!” The message went out across all frequencies, including the Mechataur’s channel. Bunsen Burner’s eyes widened in alarm, “RSD is compromised?” Wasting no time, he made his exo-golem stand up and stride away from the Locust’s corpse, running as quickly as he could to the nearest entrance to the RSD underground, “Defense Chamber, this is Dragon’s Bane 1! I’m securing the Black Vault!” “Hold on! Hold on!” Ditzy Doo yelled back across both channels as she rolled her chair towards the monitors that kept track of base security. She only just caught a glimpse of several dark shapes slipping through the cracks between the floor and armored doors leading into a heavily armored chamber. “Don’t bother going to the Black Vault Bunsen Burner! They’re already in Discord’s chamber!” “Discord?” the Maiden exclaimed from within the console of the gunner’s seat of the Mechataur, “What are those idiots doing?!” “Give us a straight shot to the Mad Adder’s chamber right now!” Bunsen Burner desperately yelled as he got the exo-golem to leap up to the top of one large marble wall with the help of its thrusters. It ran across the length of the winding white maze to one of the upper terrace’s supply lifts. “I’ll do what I can!” Ditzy Doo replied as she forced the lift to emerge up from the street with a flick of a lever.