//------------------------------// // Madame Alias' Fantastic Pandemonium of Wonders (Diane): The Private Pain of Madame Nopony // Story: Awkward Conversations And Other Stories // by No one is home //------------------------------// Unleash the rage. Diane and her new friends cautiously entered the tent to find their nemesis waiting. "FOOLS, how dare you oppose Madame Alias! I am Nopony, scum pony of Equestria!" The queen of the carnival of sin laid back casually on an opulent couch, smoking an unknow, pungent substance from an ornate ivory hookah. "It was nothing for me to infiltrate your own race. How easy it was for me to gain control of Madame Butterfly's already revolting drones, and turn them against her. Well this now marks the dawn of a new era. For tonight, all innocence in Equus Dies!" The machinery of the brew tent exploded into a musical cacophony of noise, and the motley quartet of would be heros stepped back in horrified awe as the song of the insane Nopony began. "I've got drugs and poison flowing through my veins," the evil queen sang gleefully, "I've got worms and spiders in my brain." The mad changeling manically threw levers on her alchemical contraptions as she declared, "I am Nopony, Madame Nopony!" "I came from a place past time and space, to wipe the smile off of your face." The queens verse taunted, before turning into a scream as she leveled a hoof directly at Diane, "SHE MUST DIE! SHE MUST DIE!" A swarm of changelings poured into the tent walls, leaving the tent itself in shambles, exposing the mad machinery of the Nopony’s toxic brewery beneath the open night sky. The freaks formed a protective circle around the little changeling queen as the drug crazed changelings surged, continuing the song of their mad mistress. "We were all put on Equus to suffer," the changelings sang as Michelle's tendrils lashed wildly. "We each have our own private pain," the changelings sang as Usagi blasted them from the air in gouts of flame. "We must pass this pain onto each other," the changelings sang as Blossom, Louise, and Belle beat them back with hoof and tooth, "The never ending cycle starts again!" "You can't kill me! You won't break me!" The Nopony laughed as he song went on. "Chain me! Beat me! Cut me! Kick me! Whip me! Strip me! Burn me! EAT ME! You'll just make me..." A blast of changeling magic struck the fiend square in the face, and for one moment she paused to scowl at the little queen who stood defiantly by her new friends amid the broken and burned forms of the swarm. But there was only a brief respite before the horrific song continued. "I came to this world to get revenge!" The Nopony’s verse explained. "I'll build an empire of sin!" "I am Nopony!" The evil Queen turned her personal attention on her enemies, "Madame Nopony!" "Come on little filly let's have some fun!" The queen chuckled as she sang, "I'll show you the madness of the grinning sun! YOU MUST DIE! YOU MUST DIE!" In a flash of teleportation the scar-faced mare known as Whatserface, the Nopony's dreaded enforcer was upon them. "You were all put on Equus to suffer," She sang as she dropped from the air and hooves connected with the back of Michelle's skull with a crack. "You each have your own private pain," She sang as a flurry of bolts of green magic drove Usagi the ground unmoving, badly injured... perhaps worse. "I shall pass your pain onto the others," she sang as she tossed the trio into the air with telekinesis before slamming them back to the ground, "A never ending cycle starts again." Diane watched as her defenders fell like dominoes. Hope drained from her soul, and fear gripped her heart. As the Nopony's dread mare of doom approached arrogantly to end her life, she felt something. Rather she tasted it. It was love. It was a pure love, untainted by the Nopony's poison that was meant only for her. It was a love she had not tasted since she had boarded that horrible train. A love that she had feared she would never taste again. It strengthened her. It whispered in her heart that she was strong. That she was wild. That she was free. It filled her with courage. She could break the world if she had too. She could save the world. The world was NOT theirs to break! "You can't kill me!" Diane launched herself forward grabbing Whatserface in her powerful jaws and worrying her like an angry dog. "You won't break me!" Further off, she could taste the sad, worried love of her mother. The space between them so much shorter than the space her mother had already crossed to find her family that they may as well have been embraced. She tossed the broken assassin bug aside carelessly and turned to the Nopony as the battle as truly joined. “Chain me!” Diane held against the assault of a fully powered changeling queen, fueled by the love of a sister who had defied death itself to return to her. “Beat me!” “Cut me!” Nopony’s assault gave no quarter and she could do nothing but hold against it, but she held. “Kick me!” “Whip me!” Nopony struck like the waves of a storm, but she was a rock,held firm by the love of a family that reached beyond space, and time, and death. “Strip me!” “Burn me!” Nopony unleashed a barrage of magical bolts against her, but it was nothing to the love of that fed her strength now. “EAT ME!” The Nopony stepped back, fear in her eyes, before the battered, bruised and broken filly that stood before him. “You'll just make me stronger!” The filly stamped her hoof. The wave of power was nothing spectacular. And at the same time it was something the world had never before seen. It was a wave of love, tiny to be sure, but a wave of love coming FROM a changeling. It was born of an inexplicable spark of empathy for a human floating in a pod. It had altered space, time, and the paths of fate to create an impossible family and the Nopony was terrified. “I- I still have my drones!” at her command, a new wave of changelings appeared, but they seemed uncertain. It was then that the thundering of massive hooves shook the earth and split the night. The Nopony stepped back shaking. Through her massive, broken jaws, Diane Whispered, “You’re in for it now mister!”