“Honesty, Generosity, Kindness, Loyalty, Laughter, Magic. Honesty, Generosity, Kindness, Loyalty, Laughter, Magic.”
Twilight Sparkle repeated the mantra of the six Elements of Harmony over and over as she waited for the fragments of the jewels to reassemble themselves. Her friends watched with growing worry, while each of them occasionally looked to the latest epicenter of the battle. After many minutes without success Twilight gave an exasperated growl, “Nothing I’m trying is working!”
“It’s not an issue with your magical prowess,” Rarity commented as she rubbed her chin, “nor is our friendship in question at this point, so what could the issue possibly be?”
“Maybe she needs to give Discord another monologue on friendship?” Pinkie Pie offered.
Rarity gave her an incredulous glare, to which she shrugged, “What? It seemed to work pretty well last time!”
Twilight reached out with her magic and seized as many of the fragments as she could and began to try and force them to join into the necklaces and tiara she knew they could still be. Her horn sparked frenetically as the shards seemed to fight her every attempt to reunite them.
“Twilight, stop!” Fluttershy declared firmly as she reached out for her shoulder, “If you keep going like this you’ll hurt yourself.”
“I don’t understand it,” Twilight exclaimed in frustration as she released the fragments, “We all saw that Discord broke the Elements and that there was still power left in them afterward. They should naturally want to return to their whole state, but somehow it’s like they don’t want to be rejoined!”
Applejack scratched her head through her hat, “Ah don’t know gems sugarcube, but wouldn't they've turned grey or somethin’ like they were when they were last broken?”
“No: the Elements were only that way because they had been dormant for hundreds of years,” Twilight replied as she shook her head. As she thought about it, though, she slowly stopped shaking her head altogether and looked down at the fragments with fresh eyes, “So, if they still have their color, they still have their power, but they aren't coming back together. What if…”
“ ‘What if’ what?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Twilight looked up at her friends, “What if they still have their power, but it’s been transferred to somewhere else? If they were to reform, Discord could just break them again. What if the Elements are giving their power to something or someone else?”
A pegasus flew overhead, almost grazing Rainbow Dash in her rush to get wherever she was going. A Changeling drone passed her on the other side as well, and she cried out in surprise. As she watched them fly away, she noticed that the both of them had been turned to a grey color. Looking further ahead of them with her sharp eyes, she saw that they as well as others who had been touched by Discord were making their way towards a cyan colored shield on the other side of the square.
“I think I have a hunch who that someone might be, Twilight,” she commented as the others turned towards the direction she was looking in.
Princess Cadence jumped out of the way of her godfather’s charge with a surprised gasp, causing him to stumble and fall clumsily over the upturned bricks in the street. As she ensured that the shield protecting herself from the now absent Discord and his puppets was holding, questions began to tumble out as she thought aloud, “What are you doing here, Bunsen Burner? What’s wrong?”
“You took her away from me once,” he angrily yelled at her as he picked himself out of the dirt and straightened his glasses, “Was that not good enough? Is it some sick desire of yours to reopen old wounds you’re responsible for?”
“Cadence, let me in!”
She looked to her right quickly to see Prince Shining Armor blasting away the madponies outside her self-imposed cage. His coat was its usual pearlescent white. She opened up a hole large enough for him to quickly squeeze through and then snapped it shut right behind him.
Bunsen Burner finally took notice of the Prince’s arrival, and his anger surprisingly grew, “So it’s just like usual, eh Celestia? You can’t be bothered to do things yourself, so you get others to dirty their hooves for you, leaving you just as ‘pure’ and ‘blameless’ as ever!”
“Celestia?” Princess Cadence asked in bewilderment.
“Bunsen,” Prince Shining Armor tried to calmly get the older stallion’s attention, “You’re not well. This is Cadence. Whatever your grievance is, we are willing to listen, just calm down-“
“What is there to be calm about, Captain?” he asked as his mood rapidly shifted to one of sadness.
“You recognize me?” the Prince asked in surprise.
“You don’t know what it’s like: being part of a greater whole, only to have your better half taken from you. How could you? You’re just a colt; untouched by the sadness of the world, your youthful innocence still intact.” Bunsen Burner collapsed, his head lying in the dirt, tears beginning to stream down his cheeks, “My Lily is dead. I trusted my teacher with everything, and in the moment when I needed her most of all-“
His silence hit the Prince like a sledgehammer to his chest. He thought back to his own confession to Cadence, and how he had been willing to lock her up to protect her. The soldier looked at the scientist lying in the dirt, and he came to realize something about both himself and the old stallion. Crafting thick magenta manacles with his magic he placed them around each of the earth pony’s hooves. The old stallion’s demeanor reverted to rage when he realized what had just happened, and he struggled against the cuffs. “I can’t claim to know you or what you’ve done, Bunsen,” the Prince solemnly declared as he turned and walked toward his wife’s side, “but I think I understand you a bit better.”
“You should’ve learned from my example, Captain,” Bunsen Burner called out as he fought his restraints, “the Princesses are dangerous, no matter which one you pick. Taking their side only leads to a shattered life and broken promises!”
“I’ll take my chances,” he shot back as he glanced at his wife, “Come on. Let’s go.”
Princess Cadence reached out and grabbed him with her forehoof, causing him to turn back and look at her, “I’m not leaving him; not like this.”
“There’s nothing we can do for him right now. With Discord still loose-“
“You don’t understand,” she replied as she looked back at the crazed old stallion panting into the dirt as he tried to right himself, “he’s the one who sent me the package with my mother’s necklace.”
Prince Shining Armor looked at Bunsen Burner with a new set of eyes for the second time.
“He’s my godfather,” she finished quietly.
He continued to look at the old stallion, and then slowly he looked at her.
“I know this is going to be hard,” he declared softly, “but we have to leave him like this for now. For whatever reason you can nullify Discord’s power, and that’s our first step at trying to imprison him again.”
“But Shining-“
“For right now you need to give him up,” he gave her mane a sweet stroke as he looked at her sadly, “just like I did for you.”
The Princess glanced at Bunsen Burner, then to the chaos happening outside her protective shield, and then back to her husband. Her heart was tied up in knots, and she felt like she was being pulled in every direction with no slack whatever path she chose. She cleared her throat and tried to form a coherent sentence, but all that came out was a very shaky “I”.
There was a full silence for several seconds as she still tried to decide on what to do, but it was interrupted by another calling out of her name.
“Cadence!” Twilight yelled as she tried to fend off an attack by an insane unicorn.
“Twily!” the Prince yelled as he ran towards the edge of the dome shaped forcefield, “What’re you doing here? Where are the Elements of Harmony?”
“There’s not really time to explain it all well,” she said with a grunt as she tossed her opponent off herself, “but we think the Elements have transferred their power to Cadence. She’s the only one who can undo all the damage Discord’s done!”
The Princess herself rushed over as Twilight was speaking, “What about the ones he’s touched: how do we cure them?”
“Princess Celestia taught me a spell the last time he got loose that gives them back their sanity, but I don’t know if it works on complete strangers! It needs an emotional bond to restore the affected ponies back to the way they were before!”
She put the tip of her horn to the shield, and her magic sparked against it. Seeing what she meant to do, the Princess opened the shield enough to touch her horn to Twilight’s.
A mad Changeling jumped on her from behind and tossed her to the ground.
“Twilight,” the Prince yelled before he teleported outside of the shield to come to her aid.
Princess Cadence didn’t sense what was happening around her; her mind was absolutely enraptured by the complex magic that she was quickly analyzing, comprehending, and then remembering. She quickly galloped over to Bunsen Burner, who had at least gotten himself into an upright posture and had been slowly hobbling towards her.
“Are you going to kill me?” he asked venomously, “I can’t lie and say I thought you were above such petty acts of vengeance. After all, it was just a few centuries ago that any besmirching of your name and image was a punishable heresy.”
Ignoring his ravings, the Princess lightly touched his forehead with the tip of her horn, and cyan light spiraled out of it into Bunsen Burner’s brain. She remembered the stories he had told her of her parents, the stiff but meaningful hug she had received from him, the goodbye he had given and obviously reneged on. Color spread back into him from his head, to his muzzle, to his forelegs and then to the rest of his body.
Even as memories of him entered his mind, memories of her she could have never known before suddenly ignited inside her own mind. Her father, a unicorn with light blue coat, was reading a bedtime story to her beside her bed, while she watched Bunsen Burner’s hooves scribble down a complex chemical compound, then scratching it out feverishly.
It was now morning and she stood beside her father, watching as her mother, a purple pegasus, coached the younger version of herself on how to gain enough lift to fly.
It was a dark room, sparks fell from the ceiling, her mother lay dying in Bunsen Burner’s hooves.
“Protect the love of my life,” she whispered with her final breath in her Mustangian accent, “Protect Mi Amore Cadenza.”
She watched Bunsen Burner’s hooves approach her body, the one she recognized, and saw that she was still breathing, but very shallowly and rapidly.
As the visions ended, Bunsen Burner’s eyes came into focus and blinked heavily. Reality replaced illusion, and he saw his goddaughter standing above him with tears beginning to fall from her face.
“Cadence,” he exclaimed in a near whisper.
The Princess, having been lost in her own world of emotion, looked down rapidly to see the old stallion was rid of his madness. “Shining,” she called out to her husband, “Bunsen’s cured! You can release him now.”
“Got it!” he yelled from outside of the shield, and he quickly lifted the enchantment to place it on the crazed Changeling he was struggling with.
“I have something I need to take care of,” she declared as she spread her wings and lifted the shield surrounding her, “Discord-“
“Of course,” he replied as he watched her ascend, “Go.”
Looking down at him with temporary apprehension, she then rocketed away to find the troublesome draconequus.
“I have plans of my own for that wretched snake,” he angrily growled to himself, and he spat on the ground at the thought of Discord. He looked in the direction the Princess had yelled to for her husband and caught a glimpse of Prince Shining Armor wrestling another unicorn to the ground and restraining him with his magic. He galloped towards him, taking care to not trip on anymore rubble than he already had, “Captain!”
Something hit him from the side and pinned him to the ground. He tried to twist his body over so he could buck his assailant off with his hindlegs, but his opponent only hissed at him and stamped on his chest, knocking the wind out of him.
“Captain,” he called out weakly from under his Changeling enemy’s hold.
“Bunsen,” the Prince called back as he rushed over to clear the possessed bug off the scientist, his magic telekinetically launching the drone into the air.
“Need...teleport,” Bunsen Burner wheezed as he got to his hooves and tried to fill his lungs again.
“A teleport? Teleport where?”
“Discord’s chamber, ” he declared, then tapped the tele-beacon hanging around his neck, “not on the network. The Mechataur’s still down there.”
“You’re as good as there,” the Prince said with a nod, then he braced himself and lowered his horn, “Just don’t move.”
Magic surged in an arc off of his horn, and in a flash of magenta light Bunsen Burner was several hundred feet underground. After the momentary vertigo wore off, the old stallion glanced around the large domed chamber: the Mechataur was still where he had left it, standing near the open hangar-like doors. The black and green weeping willow and the surrounding shrubs that had been near the center of the chamber were missing.
“Maiden,” he called out loudly to the Mechataur, “are you in there?”
No response came.
“She must have returned to the lab to rejoin with her other half,” he mused, and he galloped towards the doors. Skidding as he turned toward the hallway he ran as fast he could toward Lab 009, hoping that the ghostly human and Barrel had made some progress on the Marigold hybrid compound. “A human,” he scoffed to himself as he breathed heavily, “who’d have thought I’d need help from one now after all I did just to lock away another?”
“We’ve managed to synthesize about a half dozen canisters of the new compound,” Barrel said as he tapped the aforementioned items in passing, “The process was slower than I would’ve liked, but it’s all we could make in the time we’ve got. How’s it going up there?”
“It’s pandemonium,” Bunsen Burner replied as he stood on his hindlegs and lugged the first canister on the cart next to the table, “I can’t rightly anticipate who’s going to win. The Changelings seem to be as focused on defeating Discord now as we are. The Elements have been destroyed by Discord, but something about Princess Cadence seems to be able to cancel his power.” He loaded the second canister, and then the third, “It’s almost like we’re not in a battle, but some sort of experiment: reactants colliding together to produce some sort of solution.”
The Maiden silently watched them as they loaded the fourth and fifth canisters, but as they were about to load the final one, she waved her green transparent hooves rapidly, “Wait! Hold on!”
“What? What is it?” Barrel hurriedly asked as he turned to her.
“That payload is 8.45 ounces lighter than the others.”
Hoisting it back onto the table with a grunt from both of the stallions, Barrel dexterously unlocked the lid of the payload and spun it open: the vial containing the new compound was missing from its housing.
He shook his hooves in confusion, “I don’t understand! I know I put it in there. It’s not like it could’ve vanished!”
Bunsen Burner shrugged a little and began to push the five canisters out the door of the lab, “Five will suffice, but sweep the lab for the missing vial: we can’t afford to have unaccounted for chemicals of any kind. As for the Maiden and I, we have a war machine to pilot.”