Early Next Morning
“Are you sure?” Discord said as he waved his arms to get the chaos flowing; a good night’s rest and he was back to normal.
“Yes.” Stephan said as he crossed his arms, looking over the city from the top floor of the World Trade Center. The one hundred and four floors of the office building now held the entirety of the PHL/UN/EU forces and they were making use of every inch of it. Several floors that had apparently housed a firm of architects had been set aside for Crowe’s scientists and engineers, allowing them to draw up blueprints in peace, away from rowdy soldiers who asked far too many questions or got too touchy with the various gadgets or BFGs they had on display.
And that was just the beginning. Up on the roof, snipers and marksmen were practicing their aim with a set of shooting butts...that had been set several miles away on the George Washington bridge. They drilled in utter silence, their weapons muted by powerful runic enchantments cast on the barrels. No-one would be able to blame them for a restless night’s sleep.
It was the same throughout the tower, and into the PHL bunkers Discord had kindly duplicated below. The boys were back in town, as the music blaring through the radio system (now under the sway of one Vinyl Scratch) could attest, and making themselves very busy.
“Well, putting up an illusion should be simple.” Discord said quietly, looking over the city. “Although for a wake up call, what you’re asking for seems to be a bit much. Still, Luna and I worked quite hard on it.”
“So far, only the various leaders have gotten even a taste of what’s coming. It’s time for the others to have their eyes opened,” Stephan whispered. “Do it.”
Discord began to work his magic, the sky broiling angrily as the chaos master set to work. Stephan felt his muscles clench. As promised, he had spent several fun-filled hours with Trixie in the Plaza hotel: that had been a dream come true.
Now he was watching night terrors coming back to life.
His key staff stepped up to the window beside them, fear filling their hearts as Discord crafted the most terrifying illusion of his career.
Pure Nightmare Fuel.
“I hope this is worth it, sir,” one of his trainers whispered out loud; he was Ze’ev, a heavyset Israeli.
“Me too,” Stephan muttered."Still. They need to understand, or we're all done for."
New York Hilton Midtown
The griffon male woke up with a start, weapon half-drawn at the sounds of unfamiliar whispering voices all around him. His flock had taken up several hotels on the ‘54th Street’ of the massive city. Some of the rooms did not appear to have finished ’cooking?’, as Discord had forewarned. Furnishings were conspicuously absent, and some of the beds were just mattresses, but what rooms had been finished were luxurious beyond belief.
Something about the voices didn't seem right as he drew his sword and stepped out, only to see the shadowy silhouette of what could only be a small human child playing with something on the ‘tv’. When the light hit a patch of air just right, he could clearly see the child, a bright smile on his face.
“Mommy! I thought we were going to Museman today!” echoed the chilling vision’s voice.
The griffon froze up as something walked through him, like a ghost. He shivered, his feathers ruffling and fur standing on end, as the apparition of the child’s mother walked over to the boy.
“We have to wait for your father,” she told him, ruffling his hair.
“Okay!”
The griffon raced for the door, yanking it open and fleeing into the hall, along with dozens of other equally stunned griffons.
Clearly, the visions were not confined to him alone.
“What is going on?!”
“I don’t know! Spirits of the humans haunting us for intruding on their homes?”
“Don’t be daft, these buildings are brand new. No, there is something else at work here!”
They rushed to the window, staring down. Before their eyes, the city had come to eerie life. Street lamps flickered, and beneath their beams of light, it looked bright as day. But the sky above was black as sin.
Human vehicles drove to and fro under the streetlights. People in a wide variety of clothes milled around, talking amongst each other, or fiddling with odd devices that fit into the palms of their hands. Reading books. Yelling into the street. On one occasion, riding what looked like an almost grotesquely oversized pony.
But between the lights, they became shadowy, hazy indistinct figures, only visible when seen from the corner of the eye. They seemed unable to perceive that the griffons were watching them
“And I’ve got the feeling that it is going to be bad.”
The whispering voices were growing louder...
6th Avenue Express Subway Tunnel
The Diamond Dogs, predictably, had taken the subway as their temporary home. They didn’t understand why their leaders and other races seemed so dismissive. How could you not like a race that made such wonderful tunnels? Admittedly, it didn’t have gems, but it had heating! Electric lights in abundance! Tracks thoughtfully laid in advance! Such a wonderful place it was...
One dog named Mack had been happy with it, pouring over the machinery and appraising the standards of construction. Discord had regrettably missed a couple of spots though - an entire section of tunnel had been flooded due to several conspicuously missing lengths of pipe, and long bundles of electrical wiring were still growing their insulation coating.
Those small issues aside, this new home was a paradise.
Mack had gone to sleep in a service tunnel, curled up in wonderfully soft bedlinens ‘liberated’ from a store above-ground, a smile on his face and his tongue lolling out.
‘Maybe dogs will bring down mattresses next…’
He was lurched from those pleasant thoughts by a great clanking and roaring noise, like metal grinding against metal. As his room began to rumble ominously the gem-hound sat up, pickaxe in hand. Not much compared to what the humans...or honestly, the rest of Equus, could field, but it was what he had to paw.
“...bound F train, via the D line…” something echoed tinnily in the distance, oddly audible over the rising roar. “...the next stop is…”
The oncoming wall of noise drew closer and closer.
‘A train, voice had said? No pony train sound like that!’
Was it… was it a predator of some kind? Some dark beast of fire and noise? No… no, likely some human machine.
Mack threw himself out from under his mass of blankets, and rushed to the door that exited onto a main tunnel. No sooner had he done so that something long, silver and translucent screamed by inches from his face, throwing squares of light against the walls of the tunnel.
Dazzled, Mack reached out with his pickaxe and saw the apparition’s apparently solid form divide, streaming across the blade like water cut by the prow of a ship.
A train, he realised! This was the ghost of a human train, or something very much like it!
And then it was gone, blazing away down the tunnel, leaving a strange metallic burning smell behind it.
Mack shivered. He had seen silhouettes in those squares of light...those windows. His fur began to rise, a natural response to a growing danger he could sense, but not describe.
Whimpering, he rushed off to find safety in numbers.
Cathedral of Saint John
Chrysalis woke up among her changelings, the entire hive sprawled comfortably around her, as was natural. In the privacy of a moment she allowed herself a fleeting maternal smile at the sight of one young pupa letting out a small whine as it kicked it hindlegs cutely.
That smile faded instantly, and her sensitive antennae twitched.
Something was wrong. The was magic here, building up around her to vast quantities.
She opened her mouth to rouse the hive, but they were woken for her by a colossal blast of music that filled the entirety of the vast temple they had occupied for the night.
‘An organ...’ she realised. ‘It’s what the pathetic little ponies call an organ.’
Her soldiers and workers jumped into defensive postures, hissing and chittering for their Queen’s attention. Shaken from her reverie she immediately saw what they were reacting to: shadowy figures were entering through the backlit doors, their heads bowed and whispering. One drone found itself too close to comfort for one of the passing wraiths and instinctively lunged, mouth open to rip and tear...only to fall straight through onto the floor.
“Careful now…” Chrysalis cautioned her subjects, not-too gently picking up the embarrassed drone with her magic. “It’s just an illusion spell.”
“Illusion spell?" her chief advisor, Mythuselon queried. “You feel the humans were hiding something from us, or is this more of Discord’s work?”
"Why could it not be both?” Chrysalis pondered. “Knowing how found that human ‘Bauer’ is of practical lessons… I would not put it past him..."
“May God bless all who enter into his holy house on this fair and early morning!” one figure uttered from an elevated pulpit, a wispy hand raised in benediction.
“God?” a drone asked, “Which one?”
“It’s an illusion you maggot!” a soldier beside him snapped, cracking her hoof on the back of his head. “It can’t hear us. And I'm guessing it’s referring to whatever god the humans worship..."
Chrysalis watched with morbid interest. As the shadow-humans bowed their heads and began to pray, she felt a chill run up her carapace.
“Today’s lesson is taken from the Book of Revelations…”
Trump World Tower
Spykoran lifted his head as he woke, sniffing the morning air…tasting the scents of fresh concrete and wet paint. Young, and vibrant...
‘Like Megan, but then, this was a city of her homeworld…’
He looked down upon the glowing city. Many of his kin could be seen resting on dozens of buildings, which to his surprise were supporting their weight with ease. To his amusement he spotted that Wyndblade had tumbled off of her perch in the night: the stately paladin was now lodged between two smaller structures, still asleep.
‘Still so much like she was at hatching…’ he chuckled to himself, at which point something flitted past his eyes, a blinding light suspended beneath a set of spinning wings.
The sight of it prompted a flash of memory...
“What is this thing, Megan?” the young dragon asked, tilting a book held in his claws it sideways trying to make sense of an illustration.
“Oh, that? It’s a helicopter; a flying machine,” the blonde teen answered as she hefted him up on to her lap.
“This thing can fly? You’re yanking my tail!” Spike pouted.
Megan gave him a motherly smile, gently rubbing his spikes with her hand.
“Trust me Spike, we’ve got so many things that you and the ponies of Dream Valley could only ever imagine. I wish I could take you with me to Earth someday....”
“I’m here now Megan….I’m here now…” the Dragon King whispered, acidic tears of sulphur pricking at his eyes as he watched the helicopter fly on, piloted from within by shadowy figures. The ponies had created similar autogyros, but their experimental nature and sheer unwieldiness compared to natural fliers made them mostly a curiosity.
A strange sense of regret filled Spykoran’s heart, realizing that he still did not believe such a thing could fly, and yet here was the proof of concept before his eyes.
Then he felt something deep within, a tingle in his spines and plasma gullet, a deep sense of fear and anger that he had not felt for the past thousand years...
...not since the day when he had awoken to find all of Dream Valley corrupted by Tirek’s Bag.
Overhead the clouds rumbled, and Spykoran turned his face to the sky, and felt his stomach drop.
Gramercy
A pale reindeer doe clad in a silver-blue cloak stood at a window, sadly gazing out over the city. Where her delicate hoof rested against the glass, a spiderweb tapestry of frost had formed. Slowly it grew, until it formed a mirror of ice in which she could see herself.
And then she blinked, and the reflection flickered, becoming a young fawn with eyes of the warmest brown. A tribal tattoo of a blue arrow curved forward across her forehead, coming to a point just above those same eyes...
“Is something troubling you, Lady Elsa?” the reflection asked gently. She had once been an orphaned nomad named Lel, but now she was a part of her...
“Please speak, my Lady… my maiden.”
The Snow Maiden. Oh, how she hated that title.
“It is nothing, dear Lel…” ‘Elsa’ said softly. “I just needed a little time apart...a little time to...be ourselves…”
“You’re beating yourself up again, aren’t you?” Lel responded, sadness filling her eyes.
Elsa smiled. The brilliant young soul knew her too well. But how could she not… Lel was her bearer… her wearer.
“Just reflecting on what a parasite I am… my mind, my skills, my soul… all bound to this silly bit of cloth, dependant on avatars such as you to even live…”.
Discord did try everything he could to save her life, at the behest of her grandfather, but even the Chaos Bringer’s might paled against dark magic of old. And so Elsa Erklass, Princess of the Reindeer, had come unto this new form of existence. Unable to die… and dependant on others to live. Brave, wonderful does…
Anna, her sister, her first…Azalyne, orphaned chieftainess of a distant tribe…Saelita, the warrior bard who sung dreams into reality…
Eleyska, the star dancer mage...Katarae, the peacemaking artiste…
So many. So many.
All them special, of them willing temples in which to house her spirit, each one helping her grow and change and learn...all the way down to Lel, her latest and youngest bearer...
The magic bound them together, bending the donor’s form towards what Elsa had been in life. A frozen moment of youthful strength...
Frozen, but not eternal. In time each of her wearers had passed on… at which point the cloak, born on Arctic winds, sought out the next, noble soul...
Lel shook her head, eyes full of adoration, “Miss Elsa, I do not mind doing this...I was chosen for this… I would not be happy were this not my destiny. You are the grandchild of Sint Erklass; you are the eternal archmage, the ever-growing repository of our people’s knowledge. The two of you have done so much for us, that to serve AS you, to bring joy into your grandfather’s heart, is a life I choose with all my heart.
Don’t hold onto your pain Miss Elsa...let it go.’
Oh Lel. What did she do to deserve such love? To don the cloak was to share in a burden of centuries…lifetimes of struggle, destined to end in a flurry of spent snowflakes...
“But while you choose it, I do not…” she whispered, looking out beyond Lel’s eyes to the beautiful park beyond. Her ear flicked once, her eyes narrowing as she sensed something moving behind her.
‘Miss Elsa…’ Lel whispered, pointing behind her, before her fearful eyes flashed with power, shattering the mirror of ice from within.
The Snow Maiden shivered as her souls reunited, two stars dancing in orbit within her. With a tiny flicker of magic, Lel’s tribal tattoo manifested on her brow, a small reminder of the life that was...
‘We are Elsa, daughter of Sint Erklass. We are Lel, homeless child of Adlaborn. We are the Snow Maiden. We fear no darkness…’
Swallowing, she turned to see a shadow child rushing about the room, it’s hollow laughter echoing all around before.
The Maiden’s eyes flashed, and she frowned. There was no soul here, just a memory brought to life.
As if sensing her, the ghostly after-image turned and ran for the door...running right through her grandfather. His face, normally so full of radiant joy, was now a mask of restrained horror
“Grandfather!” she exclaimed in surprise. It was not right for the Starstrider to be so aghast...as alien and out of place as a full sheet of snow snuggling against a lit fireplace, “What is wrong?”
“Dear Lel, my dear Elsa… Sint whispered as he stood close to her, before raising himself to his full, imposing height. “My Maiden, Lady of the North. Gather the others… there will be no joy and feast this morning.”
“What?!”
“Only cold, hard, reality will be our friend this day.” Sint looked down to his granddaughters, spiritual and adopted, rolled together into one mind. “Be prepared, Elsa. For we will see a glimpse of Tartarus today, and it will not be kind.”
Elsa turned to the window, seeing more shadows appearing on the sidewalks, the carriages on the streets coming to a stop as their faded passengers stepped out and looked towards the sky.
Central Park
The zebras had taken up residence in Central Park, stunned by the fact that such a massive expanse of nature was given space in this city. To see such life, rolling hills and thriving woodland at harmony with cold steel and stone, was wondrous food to their souls.
Shaman Quagga quietly hummed, his rings gently resonating in tune, balanced perfectly atop his spirit stick.
Then he felt Discord’s magic spreading through the area, and opened his eyes, sensing the spell taking hold across the metropolis.
Whispers began to reach his ears, and he turned to see several of his zebras pointing out ghostly figures fading into view. Some ran or jogged, while others were performing strange stretching exercises, or simply sitting on the many benches and tossing invisible items to the ground.
“Elder Shaman, what is this?” one zebra asked as the sounds of the city filtered through the trees. Quagga said nothing as he hopped off his stick, holding it tightly in his hoof.
“I know not what they do, about as much as you,” he replied. “But powerful magic runs through this new land, Illusions these are, cast by hoof or by hand. Doubtless, a lesson of some kind they preach, and it is our lot, to learn what they teach…”
“An illusion? Of what?”
“Of whate’er it is they deem fit to impart,” Quagga whispered, suddenly fearful as the shadow-humans pause and pointed to the sky. “And it will be a lesson that stays in our hearts...”
Alongside the East River...
The buffalo had settled at the edges of the city, where Discord’s magic ended, and streets and riverside promenades gave way to open fields.
It looked downright bizarre, the city coming to such an abrupt end, but the Buffalo had lobbied to make it their own; living on the fringes of two worlds was enlightening.
There was a sudden splash in the water, and Chief Thunderhooves abandoned his early breakfast with a raised eyebrow. Were some of the calves swimming outside?
He walked out to find the truth to be considerably more bizarre. There were shadows of boats both massive and small, making their way along the river, navigating past the islands and bridges of the city. None looked like they belonged to Equestria, as only the smallest of them rode under sail, and none possessed smokestacks as Equus knew them.
“What have the humans done?” the buffalo chieftain wondered aloud. “How can they manage to do this?”
Thunderhooves squinted at the shadows passing by, only to find that he could not see them if he looked directly at them. Only when they were in the fringes of his vision did they come into full view. Lights flickered on and off in nearby buildings, bringing the objects into glorious color for a few moments, only for the artificial light to die and the spectres to melt back into shadow.
Buffalo were stampeding away from the shoreline, either fleeing from shadowy objects, or seeking shelter. Which was hard to find likely, given that the roads they were running upon were also full of full of ghosts, half-seen humans and strange carriages alike.
“I… think we’re seeing what this city is supposed to look like...what it did look like!” Chief Thunderhooves called out.
And then something new caught his attention. Atop one of the buildings was mounted a giant, obsidian plane of glass. Now, it was flickering into life, and upon it was cast a familiar figure.
“Celestia?”
Grand Central Station.
The minotaurs were being careful, of course. The building was magnificent, and even though they were camping out on the marble floor, they were taking great care not to damage the impressive construction.
Many of them were using the platforms below as barracks and messes, though quite a substantial amount remained sat, resting in the atrium. Others were bolder, attempted to figure out how half the stuff in the vast terminus worked, to some success.
A Minotaur named Serkonos suddenly stood up, bull-like head roaming around. His fur prickled, a sign of imminent danger. Something wasn’t right with the world.
A low rumbling issued from the stones, seeming to come from everywhere at once. They were… they were vibrating. Old instincts arose, responses genetically hard-coded to trigger in the presence of a predator.
He was not alone.
Serkonos stared and - THERE! Something was in the corner of his eye, moving quickly.
He twisted to look at it directly, but it flickered away as soon as he glimpsed it. As he peered about, more and more shimmers appeared. They were bipedal, shorter than him, about the same stature as the humans…
No. They were human, he was sure of it.
The low rumble intensified. A babble in a multitude of languages, snippets of inane conversations he couldn’t understand.
With cracking, inexplicable sounds, the lights of the station flickered on and off.
Where the light touched the shadows, they suddenly became hyper-real. One second, the atrium was full of humans wearing clothes, and then in the second that followed, the minotaurs were surrounded by indistinct shadowy figures. He could barely see where they began and the darkness ended.
The city was coming to life around him.
“What house of devils has Discord made for us?” Serkonos wondered, his brethren arising beside beside him, only able to muster a kind of horrified awe at what was happened.
Then… ever so subtly, the atmosphere changed. Several black boxes on the walls, like empty picture frames, began to glow on of their own volition.
Within them appeared Celestia, addressing a gathering of humans. But something about her seemed wrong. There was a suggestion of something stretched a little too far, bent but not broken.
The shadows seemed to ignore what was happening on the screens, as if they couldn’t see it themselves.
“The Conversion Bureaus were set up precisely for that reason,” she pontificated. “To rid you of the violence and chaos that so perverts your inner equines, to set you gloriously free as prosperous, happy ponies, truly alive and aware of the magic arou-”
“What if we don't want to change!?” one of the humans on the screen yelled at her. As one, the whole group voiced its own discontent with the statement, gesturing at the not-Celestia in various ways.
“We cannot allow you to not change… In our recent war with the revived Crystal Empire, Equestria has seen the hurt and suffering that comes with allowing chaos and evil to reign free. You are just as much slaves to your inner demons and destructive technology as my dear ponies were slaves to King Sombra. I regret having to kill him, but I shall not kill a single one of you. Instead, we shall save you, one and all! You here will be the first, and the whole world will see and rejoice with you in your salvation.”
And yet, even through this ghoulish speech, Celestia was… smiling?
No, Serkonos thought. That was not a smile! It was hungry, somehow. It was too wide, too pulled back… too bestial. It reminded him uncannily of a child who was about to get a new toy. Her eyes were the purple of something sick, something diseased, perhaps a bruise.
“What madness is this…?” Warlord Darkhoof bellowed as he strode through the crowd of stunned minotaurs.
“One that holds our path in the future…” Serkonos answered, watching as the shadowy humans seemingly stopped as one, and turned to look at something at the entrance.
His fur continued to prickle, sting and burn...
“One last chance to back out of this,” Discord said as he finished setting up the spell, Luna weaving in a touch of her mastery over dreams. Stephan said nothing, only looking at the glowing city below before giving a single nod. He had planned out the scenario, and the two demi-deities had executed it to perfection
“Do it.”
*snap*
The world shifted...
And then it went mad. Saying it had gone to tartarus would be charitable, even. On the strange boxes, Serkonos could see the human reporters screaming, as Celestia and her royal guards forced something down their throats.
The Potion.
Standing before these boxes (which he now realized were like mechanical scrying mirrors), he saw the shades of countless confused humans, starring in horror at the events unfolding before their eyes.
The potion claimed its victims quickly, warping their bodies. Fur spread up their limbs, their fingers fused together. Their jaws were pulled out past their lips in grotesque parodies of smiles, more fur growing on their faces as their skulls lengthened into snouts. For a second, he could see the horror in their eyes, before the unholy magic of their new bodies took over.
Laughter… a horrid, horrible laughter boomed from the boxes as they cheered for their new forms...while holding down their former colleagues to suffer the same fate.
And then the viewing screen’s exploded, newfoals erupting out of them in a spray of flashing shards...
...and in those flashes, just for a few seconds, all of the shadows came into full color and detail. Serkonos had time to see them realise their danger, to see horror burst across their faces…
...as they were tackled to the ground…
...and ponified.
And then came the screams.
Pegasus ponies with glassy eyes dove through the atrium’s windows, shattering the glass as they attacked. Bandoliers of potion bottles were wrapped around their barrels, each vomiting a thick purple cloud that descended like death. The shadow humans in the station screamed, struggling to escape the madness that had come upon them without warning.
Several pegasi flew ahead and dropped several of the potion phials in the paths of those trying to escape. The shadows in the lead headlong ran through the expanding clouds, before collapsing halfway to the doors as the tainted magic coated their bodies.
They screamed and wailed as they changed, clutching at hands that became hooves, pressing their faces to ground to try and stop the muzzles out. As the fur sprouted they came into colour...and then, laughing insanely, they threw themselves into the first shadow they saw...pinning them down to receive their own ‘blessing’....
“Impossible,” breathed the Warlord, stumbling back as a thrashing shadow staggered through him. “All this from a simple potion? What magic it holds must be powerful...corrupt, infused with darkness. Not even the most insane being would ever use such evil!”
“Something tells me,” Serkonos interrupted, “that this ‘Solar Empire’ doesn’t care. Or rather… the magic’s put them beyond it.”
A dying pegasus newfoal, body torn and trampled in the crush, stared across the floor at one of his ‘converts’, who was curled on the ground, convulsing and coughing up blood as she was reshaped...molded like clay. The glassy-eyed pegasus smiled, watching with undisguised glee as a unicorn took the place of the human female.
“Oh THANKYOU!” she screamed, bounding to her hooves. “Oh YES! YES! YES! YES! I have to share it! I HAVE TO SHARE IT!”
The unicorn mare that had been a human woman spun, her horn ablaze, and unleashed a burst of magical heat that superheated the marble floor beneath one group of human shadows. They tripped as the soles of the shoes fused to the ground, screamed as their hands and limbs were scorched and blackened…
They screamed louder when she approached, hooves hissing on the virtrified stone floor, levitating the dead pony’s bandolier. She tossed it into their midst, and then moaned in obscene bliss, eyes closed and face flushed, basking in their howls…
“Oh! So! Gooood! Soooo gooooood. Serving you feeels so good! Oh! Oh! OH MY QUEEN!!”
One human, however, managed to get out of his shoes, and scrambled along the scorching floor in a desperate bid to escape, screeching as his clothes burst into flames, as he stripped away layers and layers of his feet, leaving steaming blood and layers of skin in his footprints… before the pain became too much and he collapsed into a twitching mass of dying, roasting flesh. Then a giggling earth pony newfoal smashed his head like a steamed potato…
“Come on, come on!” she giggled, unmindful of the screams as she teleported. “Look how happy I am! Wouldn’t you want a smile on your face like mine?”
And the glassy-eyed monsters just kept coming, with no regard for humans lives or their own. Several turned loose lethal magic; unicorns that freezed, burned and telekinetically crushed with indiscriminate force.
Mangling, melting, electrocuting and asphyxiating...they came as if they were limitless - which they might very well have been. They only cared to attack and make more of themselves, reinforcing their numbers with recent converts. No matter how many of them died, there would always be replacements...
It was pandemonium. Outside, Serkonos could see massive skyliners laying waste to New York, firing wads of potion and destructive spells into the streets. Pegasi, either alone or pulling bombardier chariots, swarmed from these skyliners. And by Daedalus, the skyliners were enormous! The largest was perhaps seven hundred feet long… The sky was clouded with them, not helped by the unicorn-reinforced pegasus cloudcraftwork that spanned between them. Chariots disengaged, and mobile blocks of cloud stopped shells of human artillery in their tracks, or at least slowed them. The very sky had become as a weapon.
“Don’t just stand there! Stop them!” one minotaur yelled. Serkonos tried to tell his battle-brothers to hold, that it was a trick of magic, but their horror had taken them beyond reasons. He watched as that horror fueled their anger, as they charged through the running shadows, straight at the newfoals, bellowing a war cry as they descended...
...only to fall flat on their snouts, their weapons passing harmlessly through air and shadow, their battle cries strangled as they tumbled to the ground, some sliding across the floor and slamming into the sides of building.
“Hold you fools! Hold! We can’t do anything to them!” Darkhoof yelled in support of Serkonos. “We can but watch! And remember...”
And so the minatours watched as they saw the newfoals surround the few shadows that remained shadows, slowly dragging them down with their growing numbers, and adding them to their horde...
Helpless to stop it...
Even without her abilities to detect love, Chrysalis could just feel the emotion filling the temple in which she and her hive had sheltered. Some were filled with adoration, the hearts and eyes turned towards the cross displayed upon the altar. Others came seeking hope...came in fear...came in uncertainty...came in desperation.
And a few, were fixed on the beautiful stained-glass windows, watching what Chrysalis imagined to be light filtering through. She could not see it, but… still. Her imagination wandered, wishing she could clothe herself in such beauty...
And yet… there was a curious stillness in the air. A fevered, gasping sense of peril behind the smiles and frowns and frantic whispers. As if the shadowy humans were somehow deceiving themselves.
Then the doors slammed open, screaming shadows pouring in to try and escape the hell outside. Some bore weapons. There were explosions, and a series of rapid staccato noises that might have been human weaponry...
“Queen and Mother… what is going on?” one hiveling asked, as the numerous changelings began to back away.
“I don’t know, stay behind me,” Chrysalis cooed softly, placing herself in front of the hive. After the fiasco at the Canterlot Wedding, she could not waste any more of her...children.
On top of that, the human presentation had shaken her confidence, ever so slightly. Mythuselon was here to ensure she played nice to the others, but that wouldn’t just let over a thousand years of hatred to end in a snap.
The whispers grew in volume, the air thick with tension as several of the shadow-humans began to bar the doors with the wooden pews. Fear began to spread, as the sound of wings began echo all around, not the comforting hum and buzz of the hive, but heavy, featherly and disgustingly soft.
The shadow on the platform tried to rally the the rest of them to join in him prayer, to lend strength to those fighting in the name of their defense.
"I run to you, Lord, for protection. Don’t disappoint me. You do what is right, so come to my rescue. Listen to my prayer and keep me safe. Be my mighty rock, the place where I can always run for protection. Save me by your command! You are my mighty rock and my fortress. Come and save me, Lord God, from vicious and cruel and brutal enemies!”
Many of the humans continued singing, almost chanting, even as others - the ones who bore ‘firearm weapons’ took cover behind the remaining pews. Some of them un-holstered pistols, or readied short two-handed weapons not entirely unlike Griffon rifles, though they were presumably far more advanced. Those closer to the altar continued to pray, bent over, tears streaming from their eyes. They were choking, coughing between verses, stumbling over the words...
There was a large bang at the doors, and many let out shrieks. All prayer and sound was cut off, a terrible silence holding sway for an instant, before the doors exploded open, flying debris crushing and maiming several of the defenders and prayers.
“YOUR FALSE GOD LEADS YOU ASTRAY! JOIN THE LIGHT!” a newfoal screamed as he stormed into the building, screams of terror erupting as he brandished a bottle of purple liquid
“WE WILL BURY YOU!” one human with a heavy pistol yelled, aiming at that newfoal. He fired, and his aim was true. The automaton’s head exploded, his blood splattering over the splendid (but increasingly threadbare) carpets and cassocks, which were growing ill-maintained before the eyes of the changelings.
But the newfoal was the first of many. Very, very many. Pegasus puppets plowed through those radiant stained-glass windows, and no matter how many were killed it seemed like five more replaced them.
The horrific truth being, that for every newfoal killed, five had been freshly spawned to carry on its monstrous mission… Some would survive, their minds able to grow, their mangled souls able to settle. Most would not.
“YOU DARE PROFANE THIS HOUSE OF GOD?! DEMONS BEGONE FROM THIS SACRED LAND, BY THE POWER OF-ARGH!” the ghost in the lectern bellowed, only for an earth-pony newfoal to ram him from behind with enough force as to smash him through the pulpit’s paneling. Then it tossed a phial down onto him, which shattered on his face.
The man screamed, clawing against it in a futile effort.
“...our father… UGH! Who art… in… Equestria! No! NO! Hallowed be thy Mane… thy Kingdom Come… thy will be done… upon Earth… as you decreeeeeeeee, My Queeeen! Your loving evangelist Sol Invictus stands ready to serve… and pray… AND WORSHIP YOOOOOoooOOOOuuuU!”
Surrounded by this horror the changelings huddled together as close as they could; while they could not feed off of one another they could sense each other’s emotions, and were struggling to not lose control of themselves in what was rapidly becoming an all-you-can-eat buffet of fear, sadism and abject terror.
These things, these newfoals...they just kept coming, kept attacking with a drive and single-mindedness against which even the perfect unity of the hive paled in comparison. It was disregard for life on a massive scale, no mercy for pony or human alike… the only ones that escaped the madness were those that Celestia needed, such as the Elements.
“Go to hell, you merry-go-round toys!” another human yelled. "And fuck your cock sucking queen!" He opened up with fire, his rifle shooting forth thunder at impossible, blistering speeds, each retort blurring into the next. Newfoals died by the score, crumpling onto the ground and crying out how they had failed their Queen, yet still trying to crawl towards their targets, disemboweled and bleeding.
One woman was curled up in a corner with two small children, desperately holding onto them as the smiling newfoals surrounded them, her tears and pleas for mercy rewarded only with the Gift of ponification.
A similar scene saw an adolescent human girl with her hair wrapped in a scarf shooting the newfoal that used to be her little brother, much to the disgust and rage of the other quadrupedal ‘evangelists’. She only scowled and backed slowly away, shielding several worshippers who were fleeing through a side-door, reciting to herself a prayer in a tongue alien to Chrysalis. Before she herself could escape, a newfoal jumped behind her and slammed shut the door.
The girl turned, saw her doom, and scowled in disgust.
“Allahu Ackbar…” she whispered, before she put her gun to her temple and shot herself in the head.
The blast of its bullet echoed with ominous finality, one of the final bursts of sound in a temple now almost entirely full of the walking dead...
The last shadow standing collapsed in front of Chrysalis, sprawling across the colourful rays of light cast by an unbroken window. Where that light touched him, he came into full colour. He cross was worn around his neck, and an elaborate stole was draped around his shoulders.
Sweating, gasping, backing up almost into the hive, the human fearfully faced an advancing newfoal.
“Father Mayhew, please!” he pled. “Find your faith, fight this evil...DON’T DO THIS TO ME!”
“Solomon Mayhew is dead...I am Sol Invictus now, and I have seen Her Light…” the newfoal tittered, toying with a phial of potion held under one hoof. “The false god can not save you…only the Goddess can bring salvation.”
“God has forsaken us…” the human whispered, before the newfoal ‘Invictus’ crushed the phial underhoof, and kicked the puddle of goop into his face…
The screams lasted for only a few seconds...before something new climbed to its feet.
“I see! I have found True Faith! I AM TRUE FAITH! I SEE! I SEE! I BURN IN HER FIRE AND I SEE!”
"YES! We all burn with her fire! And now we shall burn this false idol!" Sol Invictus decreed, pointing up at the altar, behind which was mounted an effigy. "It is an affront to the One True Monarch who brings the sun to the sky, the Holy Sun which the apostate Abraham turned his back upon!"
Chrysalis did not know the meaning behind the effigy, a likeness of a bearded man who rather horrifically had been nailed to a tree, but she felt a terrible numbness inside as she watched the newfoals tear it down.
“Come down, oh come down Ye King of the Jews!” they screamed and whooped, dancing on its crushed remains.
A sacrificed King...and here was she, burdened by the ghost of a sacrificed Queen...
“It took about three years. The tainted love moved through your body like a cancer, slowly killing you from the inside out. Younglings and elderly died quickly once Newfoals began to appear in Equestria. The healthy were slowly deteriorating away, and they begged you to leave Equestria to start anew… but it was too late. You were already tainted, and dying.”
Chrysalis remembered the haunting words clearly, which almost teased her of this horror before her. See could see it now. The false love, the broken souls, the deadly emotion that killed her entire hive. She was almost glad to have been told that little record remained of the last days of her ‘sister’s’ hive, that there was no changeling from which to inherit the memory. She could almost imagine it - wings crinkling and yellowing, chitin cracking and growing eggshell-thin. Organs deteriorating into paste within bodies, Changelings that were little more than slurry leaking from their exoskeletons.
Her counterpart’s hive members had sacrificed themselves for her, even as they were rotting from the inside. Only for it to be all for nothing, to die in a strange other world, the last of her kind. How had her counterpart been able to bear that? Ruined on virtually every level, dying among those that were simply other
This was the enemy, the enemy that poisoned an entire hive by simply existing. Killed the hive that just barely survived the purge that the Tyrant Sun sent out to destroy them. The changelings hissed and bit at the newfoals, even though it was doing nothing, while others looked to her for guidance.
‘But they weren’t just a poison to Changelings,’ she realized, in a rare flash of empathy. This was a poison to life itself.
“Queen Mother… What do we do?” one changeling pleaded, staring at the ghostly flames spread across the entire building, the cheers of the new foals all around. Their laughter rang hollow, unsettling…
...a chorus of the damned. It was impossible to tell if they were crying or laughing, exultant or begging for release.
And for the first time in her rule, Chrysalis had no answer to give them.
Here endeth the lesson...
Mack whimpered as he saw another strange train pass, its smashed windows covered in purple goop. Within he could see shadows fighting desperately with the monstrous newfoals, their screams echoing and howling as they hurtled away into the dark.
His pack growled at a few newfoals that had somehow made their way down to these tunnels, the dogs unable to stop them from moving towards the stations...taking more shadows into their fold.
Off in the distance, he heard a crash, a cacophony of twisted metal and screams, broken glass and fire. His pack backed away as one train slide into view, grinding along the tracks on its side... somehow taking out the pillars, and yet not at the same time...almost as it was a spirit. The metal carriage came to a stop, moans of agony and pain echoing from within, a recording voice cruelly mocking them.
“...this is an F train…”
“Go honey, hide… please,” the human woman asked. Her voice had a wet, rasping sound. It sounded distinctly unhealthy, as if she’d sustained some grievous injury.
“Mommy…”
“Go sweetie… Mommy will be okay. Hide!”
“...the next stop is…”
A child crawled from the wreck, woozy with confusion, almost certainly concussed, bleeding from his ears, face streaked with tears. The shadow boy, who flickered into life under the guttering lights, had barely stumbled away from the wreck before the sounds of running hooves began to echo down the tunnel. He looked around, desperately trying to get his bearing.
But he had no time. The newfoals had arrived.
“NOOO!” he heard the mother screaming from the wreck. “Alexander, RUN!”
Mack saw an earth pony rushing at the boy, vial of potion gripped in its mouth. The gem-hound rushed to intercept the shadow pony, ready to kick and bite, only to pass through and trip on the rails. He scrambled to his paws, watching as the rest of his pack tired to block the newfoal. Watched them fail, as he had failed…
“NO! NOT MY BOY! NOT HIM! STOP IT! STOP!”
And so they stared in horror, powerless and impotent, as the pony threw his vial at the child. It shattered over him, his body warping and shifting towards that of a pony foal…
His face changed to one filled with terror to one filled with false cheer on it, even as his fingers fused together, fur spread up his limbs like creeping fungus, and his eyes grew wide, so enormous it seemed impossible that they fit in his skull.
Finished, he made a giddy little dance, before slowly, like a possessed toy, he turned towards the train. Every movement was incremental, with slight but noticeable pauses as he turned, each muscle tugging at him like a puppet-string.
“Are you my mummy?”
The new foal’s yellow eyes were screaming out, darting from side to side, as wide as dinner plates, and yet his face smiled. He trotted towards his mother, ever so slowly...
“Are you my mummy?”
What followed was unspeakable, unbearable. Mack whined as he closed his eyes and covered his ears, balling up to try and shut out the screams and laughter, to no avail.
"Muuuummy..."
"Muuuummy..."
Quagga watched as his people wept, watched as the shadows fell like wheat before the scything rush of the newfoals; they had tried to help, but could do nothing.
...the shadows had all stopped to stared at the sky, some pointing and others raising strange devices up in front of them, as if composing a picture.
Then came the airships, hundreds of them descending from the clouds, unleashing its cargo of new foals. Some of the shadows realized what was happening and fled, others stood stock still in shock and confusion.
These were the first to die…
His warriors, his Ojore, had raised their spears and shields and roared as one, several of his witch doctors fished out potions and threw them at the new foals in an attempt to stop them before he finally reeled them back in.
“Cease! Desist! We cannot assist!”
They were forced to watch as the shadows slowly fell to the newfoals.
Over and over again, they watched the scene play out.
The shadows ran, and the newfoals chased.
The shadows fought, and the newfoals prevailed.
The shadows died. Their corpses rose.
Rose again in pony form, and stampeded towards more humans.
They filled containers of whatever they could with potion, charging at whatever humans they could find. He saw scenes of horror wherever he looked-humans jumping from windows, either splattering against the pavement or being picked up by pegasi to be ponified. Humans and a smattering of ponies with their advanced weaponry, holding off entire streets only to be crushed under the waves.
Human machines, vaguely reminiscent of the biplanes he sometimes saw (Except they had one set of wings and were sleeker somehow, with no propellers, and yet it was the first comparison he could think of) flew over his head, only for newfoals to throw themselves into slots where he presumed engines to be, leaving the planes to ram into buildings. A newfoal throwing himself at a mounted gun and hugging its heavy, mounted barrel, the bullets shredding him, and yet, even as there was a giant bloody hole in his abdomen, he didn’t let go. Even as streets were painted red with blood, as newfoals climbed over walls of their dead comrades, they refused to stop charging.
“A lesson we all take to heart…” Quagga looked to the sky, where mechanical flying machines were attempting to fight back, only to fall to sheer magical and numerical might. “To scar, and burn, and truth impart...”
“NO!” Spykoran roared as he watched the dragons take to the aether, their roars of frustration and anguish ripping the skies asunder as the airships unleashed entire armies, swarming the city below. Fires and explosions ripped throughout the city, the sound of screams and fighting ringing out below. “It’s an illusion, you fools!”
“How can they not try, father?” asked an agonized Wyndblade. “We have taken this city as our nest...and now beasts come to harm it...how can they not try to defend, futile as it is?”
The dragons began to grow more and more furious at their helpless situation, unable to do anything as the shadows fled and fell...as the new foals attacked the helpless humans of this nest.
Their nest! Their humans!
A dragon’s pride is founded upon his hoard, and his clan...an affront to either was an insult that could not be tolerated. It was instinct and culture at war with harsh reality.
Spykoran watched as a large object, a plane if he remembered Megan’s lessons correctly, plummeted from the sky, one engine in flames while teams of pegasai held the nose up and the tail down at such an angle that the wings could not catch the air...
Every flier understood the nature of a stall. This was methodical, calculated, cold, and utterly deplorable.
As the craft dropped, he saw letters painted on the side, spelling out a horribly ironic word in Prench.
‘Volee…’ he thought numbly. ‘...it means ’flight’...’
Several of his dragons soared up to catch the plummeting machine, Wyndblade’s paladins among them, but it passed through them as if they were the ghosts, leaving them to cry out in rage and regret as their eyes followed it...down.
The pegasai released the plane, and free of their influence it regained self-control, nosing forward to steepen the dive, attain lift, and recover from the stall...
“No…” he whispered aloud. “You don’t have enough altitude.”
Neither he nor his daughter could look away as the immense machine belly-slammed into the roof of a building, exploding and dousing the entire street below in charred metal and fuel.
The resulting screams were almost mercifully silenced as the building collapsed, snuffed out in a crunch of steel and stone.
He watched as the helicopter at which he had earlier marvelled spun out of control, new foals and shadows fighting within as it slammed into the side of a tower and snapped off its delicate dragonfly-wings, falling like a rock the rest of the way down. All it did was give the newfoals fresh opportunity, the squadron of abominations rushed into the hole the crashing helicopter had made in the side of the structure.
Dark purple clouds began to fill the sky, spreading out from the Equestrian airships, and demented cheers filled the streets as potion began to rain from the sky.
“They will burn for this!” Wyndblade swore, flushing so bright that her natural red and blue colouration could be seen beneath her enchanted silver scales.
Gold flames licked at the back of her open mouth. “They will all burn for this travesty!”
Spykoran felt the stone break away underneath his grip, bright green flames dripping from his maw as he watched the death and destruction continue.
‘Yes my child… Child of Megan… Children of Earth… Vengeance will be yours.’ Spykoran vowed as the two of them roared in despair and hatred.
Elsa wept as she watched the shadows fall to ground, their screams filling the air before morphing into laughter and cheers. Laughter and cheers that sounded empty and eerie; almost forced.
“Grandfather…” she whimpered, seeing one new foal plunge through a window, tackling a terrified shadow, “We must stop this… Please… we must do something.”
Sint could only stare on as more newfoals passed through the window, rushing through into the building. From beyond the hall they could hear the terrified screams of many a child.
“What…” he whispered. “My Maiden, what can we do? This is not what is, this is what was..."
Elsa struggled for an answer, and found none. All of her experience and magic was worthless now…
‘No, there is something…’ she realised, and stood tall, her two souls, and the echoes of those lives she had shared in before, singing a single note of defiant outrage.
“We watch, Grandfather!” the Snow Maiden declared. “We watch, and do not forget! You are right; this is what was, and what will continue to be if we do not commit to this war with all our souls and strength!”
The mighty stag stared at her, saw the wisdom of centuries almost to match his own in her eyes. His expression grew stern, and he nodded.
“As you advise, my Maiden.”
Elsewhere Sint could hear his kin desperately trying to stop this slaughter, putting up shields and spell-fire.
But the ageless Sint Erklass, Bringer of Gifts and Joy, Father of Hearths Warming, godfather and guardian to the sun and moon, did not waste his energy.
Instead, with the doe that was his granddaughter and chief counsellor beside him, sharing strength, he stood by and watched the deaths of countless children.
Hours later
The griffons stood in silence on the rooftops, a ghostly rain shrouding the city as the sounds of fighting slowly died down.
Queen Hedwig, Prince Tobias, and Commandant General Ironclaw stared, not a word escaping their beaks.
The illusion had lasted for hours. What had started as a glimpse of a normal day in the life of a human metropolis had turned into an hours-long horror show of nightmare rutting with atrocity.
They had tried to fight in the first hour, only to realize that nothing they did had effect. And so they had overseen every atrocity committed against the humans, unable to do more than look on as mind-numbing horror wrapped around them all.
“Mother…” Tobias whispered at last, expression inscrutable, but his voice trembling with rage. “Gilda...an orphaned counterpart of my daughter...She is here, fighting for humanity and the life of her dying kingdom, witnessing this everyday.”
His head fell, drooping in shame. “How could I leave her alone with something like this?”
“You did not, Tobias,” Hedwig growled with righteous conviction, black wrath dripping from every syllable. “She is at home, living a life away from the chains of royalty, enjoying a normal life as a griffon citizen. Our counterparts died not by their own claw or decision, but were slaughtered for opposing this evil. Their souls burn forever glorious in the aftersky, and shall watch over her forever. Queen Gilda does them great honor, and herself as well.”
She spun, whipping off her helm and transfixing her gathered subjects. For Hedwig Esterhaze, queen of the griffons, needed no diadem or crown to command their attention.
No, she did it by her eyes alone, eyes that blazed brighter than any mere gemstone.
“This is what we fight!” she roared out, shaking them from their stunned stupor. “This is a lesson for all of us to learn! We fight as one, or we die alone!”
She pointed to Central Park, where the newfoals cheered as they dragged a shadow pony and human to the center of a growing crowd. All of them jeered at the pony as they dragged her across the ground, while the stumbling human was herded along behind her. Then the newfoals closed rank, cutting off all avenue of escape, as a single colt trotting up to the shadow human with a smile.
“You’ve been veeeeery, very naughty…” the mutilated child said, his voice a deranged singsong screech.
The human looked to the pony, gave her a single nod.
“And now, you will be punished…”
"Oh shut up!” the human roared, before pulling out a hidden pistol and shooting the monstrous colt between the eyes. He quickly trained the weapon on the captured mare and pulled the trigger, freeing her in death. Then the shadow put the weapon to his own head and pulled the trigger one last time, a defiant look on his face.
The gun jammed…
The newfoals descended…
The human screamed, frantically pulling the trigger…
The sky went black.
“What you see is not something that happens every once in a blue moon.” Stephan’s voice echoed through every street, as the cheering new foals slowly faded away and the city repaired itself to its pristine condition. “This is something we, humanity as a whole, have seen and suffered on an almost daily basis. Every small village, town, and city is under threat of attack almost all the time. Our enemies keep ruthlessly pushing, in greater and greater numbers. We’ve lost an entire continent and all but about six countries in another to the newfoals, home to some of our largest cities and greatest cultures. There are almost no countries that can be said to have had peace."
“Many of you would think that this is a cruel and cheap method in securing your help, but this is the reality we face. Some of you have seen what we fight… and now you know what we live. This is the world we live in and we are asking, no, begging you for your strength.”
“This may offend some of you, but… when we made contact with your unspoilt Equus, many of us did not wish to request your help. It seemed impossible. A trap. Too insane to be real. But we chose this because of what Marcus and Equestria achieved at Boston, and because…. we can’t do anything else anymore, really. Even with our technology, the PHL magic, our manufacturing powerhouses running 24/7, we are still dying. Our only other options were to hurl ourselves on the fire in an all or nothing last stand, throw every weapon we had at them, or….”
His voice trembled slightly.
“...or destroy our entire planet, killing everyone, just to spite the Solar Empire.”
He let that sink in. Everyone who could hear him stared at one another in abject horror, unable to believe that such levels of desperation existed. There was cutting off one’s beak to spite one’s face...but not this...
“This… isn’t our last chance so much as it’s our only chance. We’re on the ropes and I don’t think we have the strength to keep fighting on our own. We’ve sunk low as a species, but only because of what we’ve been put through.”
Stephan’s voice cracked somewhat at that, but regained its strength as he continued on.
“I would rather show you what you will face now, than throw you headfirst into the unknown. You will experience firsthand evil at its deepest; it doesn’t care for its armies nor the people under its rule. All it cares about is wiping us out and moving on to the next world, leaving nothing behind but a planet of corpses in its wake. And the world it creates is no better. Our spies in the Empire report food shortages, overpopulation, pollution, poverty… only brainwashing and terror hold them together. We are all of us, on all sides of this conflict, caught between hells..”
“Please… help us. Help us stop this evil before it spreads. Stop this evil before it can gather enough strength to simply steamroll over any opposition.
Help us remind them that there are more things between Heaven and Hell than are dreamt of in their small philosphies...there is Earth, there is Equus...there is us...and we are strong!”
“My Queen, my Prince! I give my sword and my pistol to this cause! I will stand against the darkness!” Ironclaw roared as he pulled his Tsumerai katana out. Following his lead, all of the griffons around him unsheathed their own weapons and hurrahed with him.
Across the city their roars were joined by those of the dragons, diamond dogs, and minotaurs, each voice angrily demanding that justice be served.
The Zebras and Buffalos began to chant, their sorrowful songs turning to righteous fury. A glorious psalm promising retribution.
Chrysalis and the changelings were strangely quiet, but the looks of hatred upon their faces and the angry buzzing of their wings spoke volumes as to their feelings.
The reindeers looked lost for several minutes before Elsa scowled…
Many of her bearers had been mothers...some had lost family. All knew the pain of grief. Even Lel, an orphan, knew the grief of loss…
Between them, her composite life knew the pain of all sides of this conflict. And they those echoes and memories resonated with fury that any being, beast or bastard would willingly choose to inflict such pain.
Anger filled her, an anger she had never felt before rushing through her as she mentally focused on that alternate Celestia, the mad Tyrant that was happily crushed humanity’s hopes and dreams...that replaced the future with a scorched desolation and calling it a righteous peace. Who had destroyed the reindeer of her own universe, who was…
Words couldn’t even begin to describe the depths of evil and depravity of that monster for killing off her people, for killing numerous innocent children of all races...
Elsa stopped in her tracks, and looked back to see her grandfather staring at the sky, his ancient, timeless eyes searching for an answer, devoid of their usual twinkling optimism. It seemed like his years had caught up to him in this moment.
The Sint Erklass of the alternate Equestria was dead; killed by the very being that he saw as a daughter. The Tyrant destroyed and trampled on the very being that brought unity and Harmony to Equestria.
His eyes were now narrowed with determination and, most shocking of all to the Snow Maiden, rage.
He looked to Elsa, and they mirrored each other’s steeled conviction.
“Reindeer of the North!” Sint bellowed, turning to his assembled children. “For centuries, we have striven to be peaceful, to bring true harmony all across the world. What you have seen is, for lack of a better term, the true essence of the evil we have always opposed: that which seeks to destroy all that is good and beautiful. We have seen what those murderers that call themselves righteous have done to our counterparts. Right now, we have seen what they are doing to all others - human, pony, and too many more to name. And what’s worse is that our Equus, and all it’s peoples, our precious friends and neighbours, are next upon the list to receive this accursed ‘gift’. This is an evil that cannot be bargained with. It cannot be reasoned with. It does not feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until all that breathes is a slave, chained and bound to its twisted will. For our counterparts, for humanity, for all the races of Equus and their children, for harmony itself, we will fight! And we will bring them to their knees for their crimes!”
Elsa stepped forward, and Sint kneeled below her.
“My Maiden, Counselor of Ages and Speaker for All, what have you to say? Will you bless this crusade?”
She kissed him gently upon the brow and bade him rise. He turned to his assembled herd.
“Children of Adlaborn, harken unto your Snow Maiden!”
Elsa stood tall, the outrage of mighty souls blazing in her eyes.
She made her judgement.
“Have They Been Naughty, or Nice!?”
And the reindeer roared, stomping their hooves to the ground.
Across the city, everyone vowed that they would give it their all. They would not retreat, or surrender, or stop until this evil was stopped. They would make absolutely sure humanity won its fight.
Baltimare
“GRAH!” the unicorn threw the paper away; it fluttered down behind her as she breathed deeply. “Monsters! All of them! Do they not see?! They create murdering machines, pollute their world, industrialize slaughter!”
There were pictures on her walls. Machines, horrible, un-Equestrian things on wheels with massive rotating blades, clearly intended to be driven. There was a machine with a conveyor belt that let into a large set of buzzsaws, a huge funnel on top for the remnants of whatever they were meant to carry to be spat out. A machine on treads with a metal arm extending from its body, a huge appendage somewhere between a pincer and a heavy, crushing jaw at the end. Scattered all around them were dead ponies with X’d out eyes, and scrawls of black pencil clearly intended to mimic blood.
Monstrous things. The potential to hurt, to slaughter and pulverize was enormous. These blueprints were spread across Equestria, their meanings lost to time, but their purpose couldn’t be clearer.
Humans were abominations of the highest order and needed to be put down. Or, at the very least, made better. But they had corrupted the Princesses, and swayed those other dregs that dared call the beautiful and fair Equus ‘home’ to their side.
Only ponies were true, and honest, and...kind. Only ponies...
And then they had the audacity to reject the perfect gift the other Equestria was trying to bestow upon them. Purity...in liquid form.
“That blue alicorn is just Nightmare Moon in disguise. No doubt she planned for this! She brought the chaos fiend and the animals into her little plan, manipulating her own sister to call for them. But where is she now!?”
Catseye growled as she glared at the image of a human wielding a strange spinning blade in his grip, poorly-drawn body parts everywhere, arrows pointing at the item in its grip with the name ‘Spinning Chain Blade’, grizzly inked-in blood splatters a testament to the destruction it could do.
“Where is she...where is Celestia, why isn’t she striking down this treachery!” she bleated, scowlingly ascending up the stairs to the main floor, locking her basement study behind her.
She picked up the morning newspaper, half-charred from where she had tried to incinerate it in the fireplace in a frenzied burst of rage. She scowled at the front page fullspread image, depicting that the eyesore of a city in the distance, squatting on sovereign Equestrian soil, defiling the beautiful Neighagra Falls. The backstabbing editorial inside had the audacity to praise this ‘NYC’ it for its massive size and scope, comparing it favorably to Manehatten or Fillydelphia. Several areas had been closed off at the moment, due to its status as a military base, though a human spokesperson had claimed ‘it would be his pleasure’ to open the gates to everywhere when the time was right.
‘Filthy scumholes, both of them! Unclean! Tainted by that ‘Multiculturalism’ manure! This is Equestria! Ponies Only! No animals! No…’
She mentally hiccuped.
‘...no bastard hybrids!’
Grinding her teeth she crunched up the broadsheet and hurled it back into the fireplace. Tears leaked from her eyes as she tried to generate a magical spark from her horn.
“Idiots, all of them!” she rambled. “Can’t they see what they’re getting themselves into? Just like that stupid unicorn, ‘Liar’ Heartstrings. Calling them great and wise, what a crock. Probably her counterpart is nothing more than a whorse willing to lift her tail for them...a slut!”
She finally managed to ignite the paper, uncaring about the bits she had spent on it. The flickering light it generated threw a faint light on a picture hanging above the hearth. A picture of a bold, smiling unicorn mare, radiant as the sun.
‘...a slut willing to lift her tail for an animal...sire his abominable spawn…’
It was the only picture she had left of her mother. Every other one featured…him. Those offending images had been scratched out and burnt long ago.
And yet even now, she had reminders of herself every time she looked in the mirror. Before, she had to endure. When she was old enough to escape from those torments that plagued her, she took it.
Changed herself to fit.
To be a part of this perfect society and enjoy it for what it was worth.
‘Look, look at that pony, mommy!’
‘Hush, don’t stare!’
Catseye shook her head, wiping away the tears angrily as she shoved her skeletons back into their closet.
*knock knock knock*
“What? I never get visitors...” she blinked in confusion, before walking to the door and opening it to reveal several cloaked stallions. “Y-yes?”
“Doctor Catseye, my name is Icewind,” a pegasus said, looking out from underneath his cloak. “I believe you know how much danger Equestria is in now that these humans walk the land. They fled from judgement, and it is our duty to ensure they don’t escape from it. They have attacked our dear Princess Celestia-”
“Really?!” Catseye gasped. “I’d thought that was just a rumor!”
“Oh no, it’s real,” Icewind said. “And to make a bad situation worse, she’s welcomed them. I believe that it’s a plot by Princess Luna - or should I say, Nightmare Moon.”
“... Yes… yes,” Catseye said. “I thought something was off with how easily Celestia welcomed her back.”
“She has a coup planned, I’m sure of it,” Icewind continued. “Celestia’s momentary disappearance? The humans being given such precedence? They’re her army to take over and enforce her new rule, and take our world for their own. Me and my compatriots… we reject that. We shall reveal their duplicitousness, and bring Equestria back to its natural state!”
“And what am I needed for?” Catseye asked.
“I’m a big fan of your work, of the truth that reveals what others refuse to see,” Icewind said, almost coyly.
For the first time in weeks, Catseye smiled as she stepped to the side and opened her door to her new “friends”. She then said, “Gentlestallions, we have a lot of work ahead of us.”
