Princess Celestia, Diarch of the sun, stepped into the Ponyville Castle-Library. She hadn’t taken even six steps since reading the letter, but it was more polite to walk into the library, rather than teleport and risk scattering the delicate papers everywhere. Inside, she bore witness to something she had known intimately for fifteen years. Twilight, in full study mode. The lavender Alicorn hadn’t even heard her come in. She cleared her throat, “Twilight, I’m here.” At the blank look from her student, she shook her head and lowered it almost to the ground, sorrow creeping into her voice, “Twilight. I wish this hadn’t ever come back up. Discord, I expected. Nightmare Moon even. I never intended for any of this…” she looked at her student, “I am truly sorry. Even the elements might not be enough, this time.”
Twilight raised her head from the circle of floating books, and stared at her mentor, “What?”
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Pinkie Pie glanced at the kitchen that had practically been her home for fifteen years. Not anymore. She couldn’t come back again. A grey-green coat that was six times too big for her mashed her mane and tail flat as she set a note on the counter. Gummy had explained that they NEEDED to see Twilight immediately.
The boots covering her hooves were cold, centuries old leather and brass that dragged at her with every step. Gummy was the only familiar part of the whole thing, sitting atop her back, buckled securely beneath the coat’s saddle-strap.
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Rainbow arrived at the library, watching Celestia herself trot in the crystal door, and followed. She stopped right at the door, Scootaloo standing to her left, opposite the flame tube, just in time to hear Twilight’s utterance. She spoke up, preventing the Princess from responding, “Hey, Twi, you got a fire going in here? It’s sorta unseasonably chilly out here, and I can’t burn anything in my house.”
Scootaloo zipped in and started looking. It was the first time the filly had been inside the new library, and she was caught up in looking around, even as Twilight pointed to the not currently lit fireplace, “Rainbow Dash, it is twenty-seven degrees outside. It is not chilly, it’s not even cool outsi…” she noticed the white suit her friend was wearing, and immediately dropped all of the books she had open, muttering, “nine-oh-eight. Flamethrowers. Can’t feel heat properly. All dead. Basically fireproof, tested to volcano. Celestia?”
“Rainbow Dash, go sit in the fireplace. We will discuss this when I am done figuring out what I’m going to do,” Celestia’s voice was a stilted sort of calm that rode on an undercurrent of fear, “Twilight, would you mind letting me see ALL of your notes?”
Twilight quickly made a spot on the floor for the Diarch and started floating her notes around, absently grabbing Scootaloo off the top shelf and setting her on the floor before she could jump.
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Applejack scrambled away from the corpse, started running, found herself at the river that ran through the orchards, and dove in. The cool water did little to erase the memories of the creature killing a pony in front of her. The creature had been so efficient with the monstrously huge stallion that she was afraid he would come after her. Then he left. What in Tartarus was going on? She needed to find Twilight.
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Fluttershy pushed herself off the grass and spat some more blood onto the grass. His words were sinking in. She didn’t want to kill anyone, but the voices in her head kept telling her to. She shuddered at a particularly violent thought of spit-roasting Angel Bunny, skinned alive and salted, or was it salt? She couldn’t really taste it, since it was just a flash, but she didn’t think she could do that to him. Maybe to some of the more stubborn canines…No she couldn’t think like that. She started slogging back towards her hut, both to clean up, and to grab her saddlebags. It was time to go to Zecora’s hut again, to get a refill.
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Twilight looked at the corrections made to her notes by the Princess, and her jaw started wandering groundward as her eyes twisted in confusion and disgust. “Princess, how could you have done such things? I thought banishment was the worst punishment you ever used.”
Celestia sighed, pointed at Rainbow Dash, sitting comfortably on a bed of burning logs, and shook her head, “I had to. I thought I had eliminated every remaining trace of them. The Germane scientists swore that the 908th had been rendered sterile by their curse. The majority of the 906th,” she pointed at Scootaloo, on her third leap out the window, “Died from complications on landing.”
“Complications?” Suddenly Scootaloo was interested, “What sort of complications?”
“The kind induced by large boulders landing on them. They were all very young. Barely even old enough to mate. I had hoped they hadn’t yet. The same for the 903rd, though even their own scientists believed that the sheer quantity of poisons in their systems had rendered them either sterile, or toxic to their mates. And I personally tracked down every last…”
Randal burst into the library, blood leaking from his shoulder, eyes glowing blue, though the lantern was off. He stopped at the sight before him.
“And, I assume this is the Hyoo-man you found?”
“Yes, Princess. Why?”
She stood, faced him, and went even more pale. It was like looking back into the war. Fire behind him, all around her. Those glowing blue eyes. Those scars. Her tongue slid across her dry lips. She had known him, or his equal, at least. That wound in his shoulder, exactly like one she had suffered when the bastard child had shot her so long ago. The one who had escaped.
“Kill it. We cannot have any more of them crawling out.”
Rainbow injected her own opinion from the fireplace, “Maybe hear him out first. He doesn’t seem all that dangerous. Besides, for a hornless Minotaur, he’s not bad looking. ‘Cept for the scars.”