Chapter 5
“She’s awake now. I’ll take it from here.”
Was that…Surprise’s voice?
“Absolutely not, young mare,” scolded a different voice, a stern stallion this time. “We’re medical professionals, and this pony is in dire need of our care. I suggest that you back away from the patient before I have the Royal Guards restrain you.”
“But she’s my marshmallow!” Surprise whined. “I mean, uh, travelling companion. The President of Pinkie Pie’s Party Supplies herself put her in my charge!”
“I find that about as likely as your story about escaping an MMM,” the stallion laughed humorlessly. “Guards, if you would kindly get this pony out of the way?”
What was going on? And why couldn’t Rarity open her eyes? In fact, why couldn’t Rarity even feel her eyes? Why couldn’t she feel anything at all?!
“Alright, Miss,” the stallion said, seemingly speaking to the white unicorn this time. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m a doctor. You’re currently suffering from the effects of a ‘sugar rush’ overdose as well as some minor wounds, but don’t worry, you’ll be perfectly fine. The wounds have already been patched with a simple healing spell, but re-energizing you from the effects of the ‘sugar rush’ will require a bit more attention. Don’t worry, though; you’re in the hooves of New Canterlot’s finest hospital now. You’ve been unconscious for about an hour, but we’ll fix you up in just a few minutes.”
That made Rarity feel a little better, but not much, considering how she couldn’t feel anything at all! All she could do was hear, listening intently to the pony who claimed to be a doctor and Surprise’s protests coupled with some shuffling noises in the background. That must be the white pegasus being restrained by the Guards. The ROYAL Guards, which meant Rarity could contact the Princesses as soon as she got out of whatever form of inaction she was currently trapped in. This brightened up her mood significantly, but knowing that Surprise was in the same room with her had a bit of a counteractive effect on her mood. Sure, the white unicorn was certainly glad that her companion seemed to have escaped the mutant timberwolf without any injuries. That didn’t change the fact that Surprise had done nothing to help Rarity during her battle with the beast, though, so the white unicorn hoped that the Guards weren’t too gentle with their restraint.
“You’re going to feel a slight pinprick of pain,” the doctor told Rarity. “That’s good, because it means your sensory receptors are coming back into action. All I’m going to do is intravenously feed you some healing potion to give you back the energy you lost during your sugar rush. You should be right as rain in a few minutes.”
Rarity did indeed feel a sharp jab of pain and winced, or at least tried to. She then felt the potion suddenly coursing through her veins, filling her up with a sense of well-being that she hadn’t felt since listening to the skywhales’ song. The feeling of the white unicorn’s energy returning to her quickly subsided when a burst of pain ignited her left hind leg.
Rarity tried to scream as her leg felt like it was on fire, but of course she couldn’t. Her leg refused to stay immobile, though, kicking and thrashing violently in spasms of agony. Wait, she was moving it! And she felt it, even if she felt it under an ocean of pain.
Next her right foreleg felt like it exploded, shortly followed by her tail, and then everywhere ignited as if somepony had thrown a match over the white unicorn after dousing her with oil.
Rarity screamed in pain, leaping up from where she’d been laying in the hospital bed. Every muscle in her body seared with heat and aches. Her eyes flew open the moment her mouth let out the screech, taking in everything in an instant. The unicorn doctor in his white coat, Surprise struggling to free herself from the Royal Guardponies in the back of the room, the IV still feeding that potion.
“Good!” the doctor exclaimed, his horn glowing as the IV was removed from Rarity’s foreleg. Instantly the pain stopped, and the white unicorn noted with relieved satisfaction that she could feel everything normally again. “The potion seems to have worked on you splendidly. You should now be as energized as you were right before you took the ‘sugar rush.’ All I can do now is warn you take it in smaller doses next time. The correct dosages are on the instructions on the label, after all. Usually abuse of such a potent gimmick would be cause for a legal reprimand, but according to your blood tests you’d never encountered any kind of Pinkie Pie-related products before. That, I must say, is most unusual, but if it was your first time then I think this little incident can be forgiven and forgotten.
“Now,” the doctor continued. “Normally I would keep you for a few more hours to run some final tests. It’s strictly protocol, and really very pointless in the end. But due to, uh, extenuating circumstances, I believe it would be best if I released you into Royal protective custody a little early.”
“Royal protective custody?” Rarity echoed. “I did want to seek an audience with the Princesses, but is ‘protective custody’ really necessary? Is something wrong?” And how did I even get here, anyway? The last thing I remember was arriving under New Canterlot…”
“It’s just the formal title, ma’am,” announced one of the Royal Guardponies in the back of the room, still struggling to contain Surprise. “We’re to offer you a guarded escort to the palace, nothing more. As for how you got here, you were spotted by one of the sub-city patrols, and we elevated you to New Canterlot before any of the Contagious could get to you. You should count yourself lucky, Miss; most ponies who wander into Old Canterlot don’t come out in one piece. Next time, we highly recommend you use the guarded stairway leading into the New city.”
There was that talk about the ‘Contagious’ again. Rarity was getting increasingly curious as to what exactly this Contagion was that everypony was so worried about. And she certainly would’ve made use of stairs up to the shining New Canterlot if she had seen any. In her crazed burst of speed she must have overshot them entirely.
“Certainly, sirs,” Rarity replied cordially. Though the armor and uniforms of the Royal Guard had changed—drastically—since the white unicorn’s true time, there was still the unmistakable familiarity of the Royal Guard about these ponies. They were large, blunt-looking fellows and quick, sleek-looking mares. Even though the types of ponies who opted to don the armor of Equestria’s only real armed forces was the same, though, the oddness of that new armor was quite striking. It was huge and bulking, for one thing, fitted with hissing joints and hydraulic pistons. These seemed to make up for how hard it would’ve otherwise been for the ponies inside to move. On top of that, the suits of mechanical armor came complete with thick helmets that would’ve fully obscured the ponies inside if their black visors hadn’t been up.
The final touch came when Rarity noticed the Royal crest emblazoned on each of the Guards’ chests. Instead of Celestia and Luna circling each other around a Moon and Sun as the day did the night, now featured on the ponies’ coat-of-arms was a circle of appendages from different creatures. Each foreleg or arm all reached to the center to clasp each other all at once. Rarity saw a pony hoof and the striped hoof of a zebra, as well as the claw of a dragon and all kinds of other forelegs and arms of creatures she didn’t recognize. This certainly was a different time and a much changed nation, but it was good to see that peace was still such a top priority to feature it on the symbol of the country. “When can we depart? I’ve been ever so eager for an audience with the Princesses.”
“There you go with PrincessES again,” the doctor uttered, confused. “At first I thought it was just a slip of the tongue. You do know there’s only one Princess, right?”
“WHAT?!” the white unicorn gasped. “What happened?! Who’s in charge?! What happened to the other Princess?!”
“Are you alright, Miss?” the doctor asked with concern. “Guards, maybe she should be kept for a few more tests, just in case. I’ve never witnessed a ‘sugar rush’ overdose cause symptoms of amnesia.”
“She’ll be fine,” a Guard assured him. “And we can depart immediately, Miss, if you’re feeling up to it.”
“Y-yes, let’s,” Rarity stuttered. She had known Equestria had changed, but WHAT IN THE WORLD HAD CAUSED ONLY ONE PRINCESS TO RULE?! Had one of them been slaughtered in the war that Pinkie’s imprint had mentioned? Was one of them simply banished, like Nightmare Moon had been? “But if I may ask—”
“The Princess told us you would be…disoriented,” one of the Guards interrupted. “Rest assured, the Princess will explain everything once we arrive at the palace.”
Rarity gulped, but nodded. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like this, whatever the outcome was. How could she bare it if another Princess had fallen or been banished? The white unicorn had thought all divisions in the royal family had ceased after she and her friends had used The Elements of Harmony for the first time. It seemed that that was far from the case.
Rarity got to her hooves, thanked the doctor, and trotted out of the hospital room with the Guards. Surprise was finally released and she fell in step next to the white unicorn as if nothing life-threatening had happened. At least she was loyal, even if she was insane as well as useless in a crisis. No, scratch that. Surprise wasn’t useless, she was DANGEROUS. If not for the white pegasus’ messing with the skywhales, they would have gotten to New Canterlot safely before sunset and avoided the mutant timberwolf entirely. This was all Surprise’s fault!
Rarity turned to glare at the pegasus, who, sensing she was being watched, turned and smiled at the white unicorn. After a moment or so of shooting daggers with her eyes to an obliviously grinning Surprise, Rarity gave up with a sigh. Once again, Rarity had to admit that there was no use getting angry with a pony who was too insane to grasp she’d done anything wrong. Nevertheless, the white unicorn did NOT need such a potential threat travelling with her. The first chance she got, she was leaving Surprise here in New Canterlot with an apologetic and explanatory message for Pinkie’s imprint. That was probably best done after her council with the Princess, whichever one was still there, as there would then be more Guards around to keep Surprise from flying after her.
The white unicorn shielded her eyes from the bright light outside as she and her Royal escort stepped out of the hospital. She then proceeded to gawk at the sight the glistening light that was New Canterlot. Everywhere, towering buildings soared into the night sky as if they were reaching for the very stars themselves. Strangely enough, there seemed to be precious few stars to reach for. Rarity dismissed it as all the ambient light of the city blocking out any starlight. And what an ambient light it was.
Everywhere, neon signs glowed and advertised all kinds of products from the various companies her friends had created so long ago. There was an ad in bright electric pink adorning a tower, advertising the very gimmick that had gotten her here to the city and almost killed her in the process. Rarity shivered when she thought that she had come so close to being eaten by one of those Contagious in the destroyed city below.
Atop another building was an advertisement of the company Pinkie’s imprint had sent her here to see. In glowing purple was a ridiculously large sign for ‘Sparkle Technologies,’ displaying what looked like an even more mechanical version of the armor the Guards were wearing. Instead of a visor, this model sported two wide open dark holes for eye sockets. Gears and exposed pipes belched illustrations of steam and whirring motion over a caption that read ‘The new Sparkle drone, now available for domestic use, only 2,000,000 bits!’
“Two-MILLION bits?!” Rarity exclaimed. One of the Guards turned to see what she was looking at and smiled when he saw the billboard.
“I know, I can’t believe it either,” the Guard said. “It’s their cheapest model yet. My wife and I might actually be able to afford this one. It’d be great for help around the house.”
Rarity said nothing, but continued to gawk at the outrageous price. Not even Filthy Rich, the wealthiest pony in Ponyville, had had anywhere near that much money in Rarity’s day. Tearing her attention away from the advertisement at last, Rarity continued to peruse the lights of the city with her eyes.
At long last, the group arrived outside the gate of the grandest, largest structure Rarity had so far seen. It was unmistakably the Royal palace, even if the architectural style had definitely changed in a thousand years. Glass domes containing what looked like exotic plant life glowed at one end while twisting towers with spiral rooftops graced the other, and the arches in between were littered with sparkling windows. The whole place swooped and curved in an upward motion, as if reaching for the skies just like everything else in this city.
Then of course there was the giant force field covering the entirety of the place. Why was there a force field? Was the city under a national threat of some kind? If so, then why wasn’t the force field covering the entire city? And why hadn’t the not-Pinkie said anything about it?
The Guards conferred with the sentries on duty at the gatehouse, and the tall doors and a small section of the force field opened.
“Wait, Miss,” one of the Guards called to Rarity as she prepared to go into the opulent grounds. Rarity turned to see Surprise being barred from entry by two of the Guards, both pegasi, so as to keep her from simply flying over them. A unicorn attempted to restrain the pegasus’ movements further by holding her in a telekinetic grip. “This pony claimed to be your escort from Pinkie Pie’s Party Supplies. Is this true? Or would you prefer that we didn’t let her into the palace? We were only told to escort you, but she may be permitted to join you if you so choose.”
Rarity started to say something, then stopped. She had been planning on leaving Surprise behind in New Canterlot after the fiasco with the mutant timberwolf, but did she really just want to leave the pegasus out here on the street? Biting her lip and then sighing, Rarity decided that it would be better to ask whoever the Princess was to handle Surprise for her while the white unicorn was in the city. She did still have to visit Sparkle Technologies, after all, and Rarity didn’t want Surprise to simply stick around by the gate and then follow Rarity as soon as she came out of the palace. That way, Surprise wouldn’t know which direction Rarity had gone after she began her search for the Disks, and would hopefully return to Pinkieville.
“Let her in for now, please,” Rarity conceded. “My business with the Princess involves her.”
“Very well,” the Guard said, and the others released Surprise.
The group continued on into the palace, the gates and force field closing behind them. As they approached the steps to the grand double-doors that could only lead to the throne room, Rarity felt her heartbeat quicken. Whoever was behind this door and sitting on the throne, their sister would not be in Equestria. They might not even be among the living anymore. The anticipation of finding out the identity of the last Princess was almost killing Rarity, though at the same time she dreaded finding out who had been deposed.
The doors magically opened as the group reached the top of the steps, and Rarity’s jaw dropped. Sitting on the throne and smiling sadly at her was neither Princess Celestia nor Princess Luna, but—
“Cadance?!” the white unicorn exclaimed. The last time she had seen the pink alicorn had been at the royal wedding when the changelings invaded. The Princess still didn’t look a day older than a young mare. “But—what—where’s Celestia and Luna? Not that I’m not overjoyed to see you, you must realize, but...”
“But you were expecting my aunts?” Cadance smiled somberly.
“Well, yes, but—” the white unicorn stammered.
Cadance simply held up a hoof, and Rarity abruptly stopped speaking.
“I know you must have many questions,” Cadance said. “But regrettably I cannot answer several of them. What I can tell you is that I understand your surprise. I myself never expected to be on the throne.”
“What happened to put you there?” Rarity wondered, trotting forward into the room. The white unicorn stopped when she realized that nopony was following her, and turned to see the Guards and even Surprise all bowing. Rarity realized her mistake and quickly dropped to the floor as well.
“You may arise, my subjects,” Cadance announced, and everypony stood up. The pink alicorn rose from her throne and trotted down to meet Rarity halfway in the center of the throne room. The white unicorn wasn’t entirely sure how to react; Cadance had seemed like a very decent pony when they’d met a millennium ago, but that was the first and last time they had ever encountered each other. Rarity only knew Celestia’s niece from her wedding, and so was quite surprised when Cadance pulled her forward into an embrace. After a startled moment the white unicorn hugged her back. It might not have been what she was expecting, but it was still so good to see a real and living friendly face she recognized from her own time. Again, the fact that it was the face of a Princess didn’t hurt either. With any luck, Cadance would provide all the resources Rarity would need for her search, as well as further explanation for what had happened in the thousand years the white unicorn had slept.
“It’s good to see you again, Rarity,” Cadance smiled as she pulled away from the white unicorn. “I had almost given up hope that I would ever see somepony from the old days again.”
“Why ever would you think that?” Rarity wondered nervously. “Where are Celestia and Luna?”
“I wish I could tell you,” Cadance sighed, turning to face the stained glass windows of the palace. Rarity noted that they all displayed different scenes than the pictures of the previous palace, probably all of them based on the last thousand years. “But nopony knows where Celestia is. She vanished after The Solar Empire fell at the hooves of The New Lunar Republic. As for Princess Luna, well…I don’t really know how to tell you this, but—”
“She’s not dead, is she?!” Rarity gasped.
“No,” Cadance said, quelling the white unicorn’s fears. “But it might be better if she were.”
“Why would you say such a thing?” Rarity asked, horrified that she would ever hear a Princess say something so awful about another Princess. “Surely she hasn’t turned into Nightmare Moon again!”
“The incident with Nightmare Moon is long behind the royal family,” Cadance assured the white unicorn. “But…well, I suppose it would be best to show you. I do warn you, though, what you are about to see is not pleasant.”
“Is anything in this era?” Rarity laughed humorlessly.
“Actually, The ULE is prospering now more than ever,” Cadance admitted. “The nation is at peace, and has been for quite some time. Industry marches onward, the advance of magic is accelerating at a rate unmatched by any other age in history, and the standard of living is at its highest in decades. So long as ponies keep to the civilized areas of the country, that is. I’m afraid not all of The ULE is as well off as we are here in New Canterlot, and that’s even with the Contagion.”
“What is the Contagion?” Rarity inquired, getting tired of hearing that word with no explanation offered. “And what’s wrong with the ‘uncivilized’ regions? Why don’t you help them as well?”
“I do all I can to help The ULE,” Cadance assured the white unicorn. “But some things are beyond even the powers of a Princess. And answers about the Contagion must wait, I think, until after I have showed you Princess Luna.”
“Princess Luna is here?!” Rarity almost squealed. “Oh, I would ever so much like to see her!”
“She’s what I was warning you about,” Cadance cautioned. “She won’t be as you remember her, though we hope she will be some day.”
Rarity’s smile instantly vanished at this, to be replaced by a look of fearful unease. What had happened to Princess Luna to make Cadance warn her before they even saw her?
Cadance’s horn glowed, and the warm magical light encompassed both Rarity and the pink alicorn. In a flash, the throne room was gone, to be replaced by a spherical space with a fierce glow at its center. Rarity squinted to see through the harsh light, and cried out when she saw what was at the center of it. There, in the midst of a blue orb of what the white unicorn could feel was a tremendous amount of magic, was Princess Luna. Golden rings etched with glowing runes encompassed the orb, spinning around it so quickly that the dark alicorn inside could hardly be seen as they rushed around her. But the unconscious body inside the concentration of mystical energies was unmistakable.
Princess Luna looked no different than she had in Rarity’s day, but her body was littered with magically pulsing scars. The magic of the orb, fed by the runes on those rotating rings, was fed into those scars. It was like an overhauled version of Rarity’s IV back at the hospital. The white unicorn could only imagine what it must feel like to have all that energy coursing inside you.
“What happened to her?” Rarity whispered. “How long has she been like this?”
“Twilight Sparkle developed many amazing feats of magic in her time,” Cadance explained. “Even more than Starswirl the Bearded. One of those feats was a spell that could convert any power source into magical energy, a feat that was thought to be impossible. With Twilight’s new spell, Equestria quickly industrialized due to all the new raw power we had access to. But about a hundred and fifty years after your friends’ deaths, that spell was taken to new levels it never should have reached.”
The white unicorn listened with rapt attention, nodding her head.
“Ponies discovered how to breach the upper boundaries of the atmosphere,” Cadance went on. “They would build large metal ships and shoot themselves out of giant gas-powered cannons. The expeditions were originally only for research and exploration. But when the first ships returned to Equestria with stars as their cargo, things changed. It was discovered that the stars were tiny yet extremely bright magical balls of burning balefire. If we applied Twilight’s power spell to the stars, we could access more energy than we ever dreamed possible. Thus, star harvesting became a nationwide industry.”
Rarity listened on, not sure how this was relevant. She wouldn’t have even believed it was possible to take stars from the sky before all this, but nowadays she was being surprised left and right. But what did stealing the stars from the night sky have to do with Luna?
“Equestria’s future seemed bright,” Cadance continued. “But there was an unforeseen side effect to all this progress. Princess Luna began to grow weaker, her powers waning as she was wrought with illness. As soon as it was discovered that it was the star harvests that were weakening her, Princess Celestia instantly banned the practice. The threat to Luna’s health had been removed, but the night sky is still healing even to this day from all the damage that was done to it and to its Princess.”
“That’s awful,” Rarity gasped, turning to see Luna once more. The white unicorn had been asleep for a thousand years, but it seemed Luna had spent close to that time feeling her supposedly immortal body wither and hurt. What must that feel like to somepony who wasn’t even supposed to be able to feel pain or the tides of time themselves? When Rarity had seen the scant few stars overhead, she had assumed that it was only because of all the extra light in New Canterlot. Now she knew that there was a much darker explanation.
“It is indeed,” Cadance agreed. “New stars appear every now and then, but something as big as the sky is slow to heal. With Luna’s powers and immortality so severely weakened, we didn’t think she would be able to make it to when the sky was full of stars again. We would have put her in the same stasis spell you were in, Rarity, to preserve her until she could live in safety once more. But your enchantment baffled even the royal sisters. Try as we might, we could not duplicate it, and so made do with the best copy we could manage.”
“This is a copy of the curse I was under?!” Rarity questioned, incredulous. What could have been so powerful to put her to sleep for all this time that even the royal sisters didn’t understand the spell? The white unicorn knew that Celestia and Luna would’ve surely released her from her curse had they been able, but the revelation of how deeply the portents of her enchantment had run was still shocking.
“It is,” Cadance agreed. “It is nowhere near as effective as yours was, though. Where your spell seemed to place you in unconscious suspended animation, making a mortal pony free from the passing of time itself, this spell only slows time.We’re still not sure if Luna will make it to a safe time even with this spell.”
Rarity was silent for a moment, trying yet failing to take this all in.
“I didn’t want to show Luna to you at all,” Cadance admitted, breaking the white unicorn out of her thoughts. “But I have a favor to ask of you. I know that Pinkie’s imprint will have told you about the missing Disks, and I know that you will be looking for them.”
“I’d be happy to help,” Rarity said quickly, glancing at Luna again. “But what can I do?”
“In your journey for the Disks, I have a feeling you will spend some time searching out on the Sands beyond the Walls,” Cadance told her. Rarity nodded, noting how often these modern ponies kept talking about the Sands and the Walls. What exactly were they, and why did they exist? “I can’t travel there myself, or I would attend to the matter personally. All my top Guards and myself are required here in New Canterlot to keep the peace with the Contagion, as well as maintain harmony with the other states of The ULE. But star poachers, illegal star harvesters, still exist out on the Sands. I would be ever so grateful if you could deal with any you come across for me, and especially for Luna.”
“Of course,” Rarity nodded vigorously. The white unicorn was happy to do anything she could to free Luna from that state.
“Thank you,” Cadance smiled. “I knew I could count on a friend of my favorite foal to foalsit.”
Rarity smiled back, glad she could do something to ease the pain Cadance must be under to have witnessed so much distress on the part of her aunts. Not to mention what Luna must have experienced for herself.
“I do have more questions, though,” Rarity started as Cadance’s horn began to glow and her magical aura began to settle on them once again. “For starters, what happened five hundred years ago when Celestia went to war with Luna? Pinkie’s imprint didn’t have time to explain much to me, but I’ve been just dying to know what happened.”
“I’d be happy to explain everything,” Cadance assured.
With a flash, they were back in the throne room. Rarity and Cadance both jumped at the sight that greeted them when they arrived there. All of the windows were smashed inwards. Through their shattered remains thick metal coils led to what looked like more advanced, and dangerous, models of the suit that the white unicorn had seen advertised on Sparkle Technologies’ billboard. The Guards were all either tied up in more metal coils, unconscious under the iron hooves of the mechanical invaders, or worse. Was that…blood pooling underneath the head of one of the Guards? And where was Surprise?
The white unicorn noted that instead of the royal crest of The ULE that the Guards bore on their armor, these new ponies wore something rather different on their suits. The insignia of Sparkle Technologies, Twilight’s cutie mark, was emblazoned on their chests as well as where their cutie marks would’ve been. Beneath the familiar symbol Rarity could spy a motto similar to that of Pinkie Pie’s Party Supplies, only twice as disturbing: ‘Sparkle Technologies does what it must because it can. Prepare for the future with Sparkle Technologies! Nine out of ten products guaranteed nonlethal!’
“What is the meaning of this?!” Cadance roared, furious.
“What’s going on?” Rarity questioned. “What are Twilight’s companies’ guards doing here? How did they even get into the palace in the first place?”
“Those aren’t guards,” Cadance hissed, though the white unicorn could see that all the anger was directed at the metal creatures rather than at her. “They’re Sparkle drones. Robots.”
“What’s a robot?” Rarity wondered, still not seeing how these things couldn’t be guards. Sure, their suits looked even more mechanical and advanced than those of the Royal Guards, and their movement were awfully jerky and regular, but they were still ponies, right?
“It’s a lifeless hollow husk powered by magic,” Cadance spat. “And they’re not allowed on palace grounds! This goes against royal decree! I know you’re listening, Sparkle, and I’ll have your head for this!”
“Sparkle?” the white unicorn echoed, still cringing at the thought of something that looked like it was alive but really wasn’t. It was hard to imagine that those things were nothing more than enchanted gears and pipes, but the more she watched their hollow movements, the less Rarity believed she could have ever mistaken them for ponies. “You mean Twilight’s imprint? I know she must be the one who sent those…things…but why would she break into the palace?”
“Because she’s a traitor!” Cadance announced, stamping her hoof on the royal red carpet.
“I am no traitor,” spoke a voice that Rarity instantly recognized as Twilight’s. Or, rather, the shade of Twilight. If Pinkie’s imprint had been more grounded in reality than Pinkie had been, then what if Twilight’s imprint had deviated from her original personality as well? It certainly seemed to be the only explanation for breaking into the palace with mechanical monsters. The white unicorn still wasn’t sure how they had been able to do that in the first place; how could Twilight’s mental shadow be powerful enough to break infiltrate what must be the most magically protected place in all of The ULE? “I do more to help this great nation of ours than you ever did, my so-called ‘Princess.’ Therefore, it should come as no surprise to you when I come to save the visitor Pinkie’s imprint sent here to see me, not you, from your dastardly ponynapping plot.”
“You think I stole Rarity?” Cadance laughed darkly. “You are a fool as ever, Sparkle. She came to me. She wanted to see ME first.”
“I fail to see how what Lady Rarity wants is of any consequence in this matter,” Twilight’s imprint went on, voice still coming from nowhere. Rarity looked around to try and find the source, but saw nothing until one of the Sparkle drones stepped forward. A panel opened on its head and a hologram sprang out of it, displaying a false image of Twilight’s mental shadow. “What is of consequence it what’s best, and we both know that I can help the Lady Rarity find what she needs better than you ever could. Be not alarmed by my presence, Lady; I am simply shown to you now as a projection of my real self in the factories on the other side of New Canterlot. You will see me in person shortly, after I rescue you from these ponynappers.”
“But I really did come here first of my own free will,” Rarity protested. “I was planning on coming to see you as soon as I had met with the Princesses—er, Princess.”
“As I said, what you think you want does not matter,” Twilight’s imprint insisted again. “What matters is that you come with me. The simple act of my breaking into the palace should tell you all you need to know about whether Cadance or I am more powerful and thus more able to help you.
“Now,” the imprint intoned darkly, turning her attention from Rarity to Cadance. “Are you going to give her up willingly, or do I have to take her by force?”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Cadance roared, her horn igniting and her wings flared in an attack stance.
“We’ll see about that,” Twilight’s imprint chuckled, smiling. Instantly the Sparkle drones dashed forward as what looked like not-so-miniature cannons mounted on their backs began to hum with magical force.
. . .