Equestria Delivery

by JLB

FINAL CHAPTER: Expiration. END OF PART 3.

Strong, cool gusts of air blew at Ditzy out the half-open kitchen windows. The whistling of the wind was consistently joined by the crackling of thunder, the hammering of rain, and a loud crowd of voices down on the street. Her short mane swung a little as she stood in front of a boiling pan of water. The mare shook her head and closed her eyes, walking up to the window and away from the rising steam. Her bad eye twitched toward the corner by the refrigerator as she approached.

The street below was filled with ponies holding up signs, a small news air yacht hovering over the gathering. The crowd spread from the tall steps of the building she was in and to the very ocean. Shapes of pegasi coursed above them, spreading intensely raining clouds apart and away from the crowd, casting a sun ray spotlight on them. Multiple armored equines were among the crowd, entire groups coming together near them, pointing their hooves and waving the signs at the air yacht. One of the ponies from the crowd climbed on the back of a trooper and shouted from there. It was an unkempt purple, blonde unicorn in baggy clothes. Ditzy saw her thin, spotted face from where she stood.

The pegasus hung her head low and spread her wings subtly, while her hooves cupped her snout. She made low, hacking noises. After a few seconds, she pressed deep against her eyes and released her snout, looking out the window, at the crowd. The mare pushed the window shut, turning away from the sea of yellow and purple.

Ditzy stumbled out of the kitchen area and into the living room, keeping her eyes closed. She made her way to one of the chairs behind the couch. Her hooves covered up her face as she leaned in and slid down a little. They dropped down limply and the mare looked at the ceiling with her good eye, while the other stared off to the side. After several repeated cracks of thunder, she turned her head in that direction. Bending forward, the mare grasped one of the many thick, wide, colorful darts that lay on the glass table between the two chairs, and flung it straight at a sheet that was pinned to the section of the wall between the bookshelves.

It hit the side of a pony’s face, one of multiple drawn on the sheet. There were three lines of pencil sketches, full face and profile. Notes and incomplete words written in pen filled the empty spaces between the pictures, some leading into the pages that this one had been torn out of. Ditzy threw two more darts, hitting another profile in the cheek and a full-face sketch in the snout.

“Was it good here?” A bulky, stubby shape trembled on the floor, lying on its side. Its wide row of white teeth with blurred black lines between them formed a straight, vertical line.

Two more darts went in. One of them hit the side of a full-face’s mouth, another hit it right in the right eye. It narrowly missed the pupil of that eye, which was rolled back and to the side. The sketch’s other eye stared right at her. The mare’s gaze prevailed over the picture’s, as a particularly strong wind had the sheet dangling in place despite the darts keeping it attached to the wall.

“Was it a good decision?”

Ditzy got up from the chair, her short blonde mane being split in halves at the neck by the wind. She walked up to the sketches, looking at them with a deep breath. Her hoof tore the darts out of the ones in the top row, which depicted a scowling mare with a shoulder-length, flowing mane and a scar over her right eye.

“Did she want to be here?”

The mare slowly turned her head around, drilling through the idly tumbling shape and its grin with her left, good eye. It began to twitch, whereas the bad eye centered itself.

“Really? How so?”

Ditzy pulled the rest of the darts out, save for the one at the top that kept the sheet on the wall. Holes covered up a sketch of an unkempt mare with a pair of unfocused eyes, a thick snout and a slightly open mouth. A hole left by a dart tore a little further as the sheet flapped in another strong wind current.

“Then what next? Where to now?”

The pegasus scowled, spreading one of her wings and pointing it at a box that lay on the coffee table by the couch. The corners of her mouth twitched, and her teeth clattered.

“Why?”

She turned around, kneeling a little to pull a dart out of the full-face sketch in the last row. A plain-faced mare with her right eye rolled up and to the side, a long blonde mane and a scar on her neck looked back at her. There was an aged, dried circle scribbled in pen around it, several arrows pointing at bits of her face. Half a dozen check marks lined up over the two sketches. A line of cursive was still discernible to its side.

Our perp. Original sketch, copies in trash. Keep this safe. Worse if they have a face. Send to G. or I. Leverage if leaked. Stick to story.  - VP.

“Isn’t this about her?”

Ditzy’s head shot up. Her hind legs kicked. She began to hyperventilate, both her eyes darting around. Beads of sweat perspired all over her face despite the cool wind.

“Why stop? They hid it. No one ever came. It worked. Why did I stop?”

She lifted a hoof to her face, sliding it around, pressing her increasingly dampening coat in. Her legs backpedaled slowly out of the living room and into the hallway, while both her eyes remained glued to the sketches. The bad eye shot up to where the words “SEASHORE KILLER SKETCH COMPILATION” were printed at the very top of the paper, going limp and sliding upward as soon as the paper was no longer in view.

“Why am I here? Who was he?”

Ditzy walked over the huge, black, awkward, grinning lump that had spread on its back in the hallway. Her head turned, slowly, with occasional stops, to the door of Dinky’s room. The mare’s breath got deeper and sparser. Her forehoof reached out and rigidly pushed the door in.

“Why?”

The pegasus stumbled into the filly’s room. Her eyes were bulging, her mouth hung open. She shook her head, her breath getting faster and faster.

“Why don’t I see? Why take the long road?”

The room was almost entirely filled with toys, pictures and colorful ornaments. A neon-tube colored small bicycle stood in the corner, surrounded by a large mass of striking, expensive plush toys. Rows of youngster edition bows, crossbows and throwing discs lined up the walls. Multiple high fidelity posters of pegasi in skintight blue outfits dashing through the sky covered up the wall to the side of the door. Above the big, luxuriously cushioned bed were stacked bookshelves and a couple of colorful book cover posters. Over a dozen sizable, well-painted ceramic figurines lined up on a drawer cabinet next to the bed. Stickers were plastered all over the drawer. A wide, long wide night hung over the bed, its complex crystalline construction dim in the sun. An orange lamp decorated with glitter and more stickers stood on the drawer’s very edge. By the window, surrounded by another army of toys, smaller ones, all similarly colorful and shapeful, was a writing desk. On it was a tower of textbooks, neighbored by a stack of notebooks. Several purple boxes with metal balls of various sizes, cups and miniature pony shapes took up the center of the desk. A couple of targets with a similar purplish color palette hung on the walls as well, where there was space. A slightly glowing crystalline pen holder glittered in the sun, casting subtle rainbow spots on the ceiling, the walls, and the static, hyperventilating mare. A pink school bag lined with tubes of consistently coursing, color-shifting luid leaned against the desk.

All over the room there were variably sized framed pictures of alicorn mares, one pearl white and one dark blue. A figurine of the dark blue one stood on top of the night light. A similar one, made of plush, was tucked into the bed, smiling face peeking from under the covers. A particularly big picture of her on a moonlit sky background, floating in the air with her forehooves and wings spread and smiling was directly in front of the bed. There was a crescent moon-shaped blue halo over her head, and her eyes glowed in the dark. The pearl white one’s face looked over the room from a poster near the big wardrobe, and several figurines of her were among the line on the drawer, almost doubling the other ones in size.

In the corner, by the window, opposite the desk, a large, bulky, awkward figure stood. Ditzy’s eye met its grin.

“Where is she?”

There were price tags on most of the toys. The bows and discs that lined one of the walls still had their wrappings on. Among the legion of toys, there were some gift-wrapped boxes, covered by a layer of dust. The thickest layer of dust covered the awkward figure.

A large, nearly life-sized, inflated image of a light purple unicorn with an unkempt blonde mane stared back at Ditzy with its painted-on faint yellow eyes.

The mare’s neck twisted and she hacked loudly, expelling a lump from her throat. Her head rose back slowly. Her eyes blinked incessantly. As they met the inflated vinyl figure again, the bad eye drifted back away and the good eye remained in the center. Coughing and sobbing, Ditzy shook her head and approached it again.

The large figure was a pearl white alicorn, just as tainted and tattered. The paint that made up her facial features on the smooth vinyl had gotten muddled and warped, leaving at best only the row of white rectangles and black lines that composed its asymmetrically large smiling mouth. The multicolor mane’s tints had spread over the white body, forming together a darker tone. Stains and spots covered its sides and hooves. Protrusions and depressions surrounded its head near the partly deflated, nubby horn. The wings, off-size and pointing at awkward angles, moved slightly as the air coursed through the doll.

Princess Celestia’s shape stood in its corner, put up against the wall, bobbing slightly due to the wind coursing through the apartment. There was a mass of candle stubs near and under it.

“Why did I forget? What happens now? Why did it have to be this way? Why did I do this?”

A tiny picture cut out with scissors lay under Celestia’s inflated mascot on a small plastic pedestal. Ditzy stepped towards it, dripping with sweat, knocking over multiple plush toys, one of her wings making a bow fall off the wall. She leaned in.

Ditzy looked at the light purple blonde unicorn filly’s happy face on the picture. She wore a school uniform, and bits of other foals to her sides were left in, as the picture was cut in jagged lines. The color on it was faded, it lacked the fidelity of modern crystalline camera photos. Her yellow eyes, wide open, were almost grey.

“How?..”

The pegasus fell over on her side.

“Why? Why? Why?”

Her forehooves moved up slowly to her face, gripping it tight.

“Would she?..”

She rolled over slowly, emitting a low, raspy noise.

“Again?.. What have I done?”

“How could she?”

“What did I do wrong?”

“How could I?”

“What now?”

“He had to die.”

“I had to keep her.”

“She wasn’t there.”

“It’s cold out here…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“There is nothing left.”

Ditzy left the room, the many toys and items of furniture within it covered in tiny shreds of aged vinyl, her hooves leaving behind prints of paint dust and crumbling, stiff candle wax. She made her way to the kitchen and turned on the videodrome, standing behind the couch as the screen lit up. The shouting and chanting of the crowd outside drowned out the speakers. She stared at the newscast for a minute before turning her attention to the box on the coffee table. The big red stamp in the shape of a circle containing the usual crescent, star and heart was broken apart, as the box had already been opened.

The mare sat on the couch and turned it on its side. A tight wad of banknotes dropped out. Also inside was a glossy postcard depicting a flock of birds flying over a pinkish-orange setting sun. It lay on top of a small plastic bag and a pair of slightly glittering, crystalline photographs. One appeared to be a document-issue photo of a somewhat aged magpie griffon with a short set of platform-styled greying plumage on his head, and considerably sized shoulders. The other was a split mugshot of a skull-faced synaptic with a seaweed green mane, and a thin, light purple, blonde unicorn mare with sunken in cheeks and dim yellow eyes, with the same open-mouthed expression the synaptic had on. Added in pen was an arrow that started on the side of the griffon’s photo and ended on the changeling’s.

Ditzy stared at the unicorn half of the photo for a few seconds, and then let her head drop right on the table, her hooves going limp. After a few minutes, she got up and walked, shakily, to the balcony. The mare stood there, breathing deep, while the heavy wind blew back her cropped dark yellow mane. She looked down at the rioting crowd, rife with colors, only a few purples or blondes. Only the few wearing blue uniforms, wearing mock rubber bird masks, had any consistent color to them. The street was clear, outside of the sprawling riot. Ditzy’s eye only came across one other pony - the mare from the laundromat stood outside her business, looking at the crowd. The pegasus stared at the bright red old mare and went back inside.

Returning to the table, she flipped the postcard over. The plastic bag underneath it contained a couple of tiny white balls The mare blinked at it, her bad eye centering itself temporarily and then rolling back. The good eye passed over the back side of the postcard, finding there a message in cursive:

“Dear Ditzy,

I know I can trust you as a mare that knows right from wrong. As you have seen from the attached materials, we have a mutual interest. The work you’ve done, the inspiration you’ve provided, the voices you’ve granted volume to are in jeopardy because of this bird. That changeling caused you great trauma. I feel sorry for the assault it must have taken on your composure. But now you have been denied vengeance. I will not speculate if that was why you took justice into your own hooves all these years ago, I simply know you did the right thing reemerging under our banners after the long silence.

Remember that with ponies like you, Equestria is a wholesome unity of wonderful individuals, and nothing can change that. Thanks to you, they know how to deliver this country from the terror it lives with. You are more than regular ponies.

The Golden Touch spa centre at 12 Starshine Street in New Canterlot. It is time for the showdown you’ve been waiting for. Just add water.

Sincerely,

Red Stamp”

Her shaking forehooves untied the wad of bills. From inside the stack, a small blue paper slid out - a train ticket from Carol City to New Canterlot. Ditzy sat still, while the crowd outside chanted on, and the videodrome blared its loud advertisements at her. Eventually, she left for her room. She emerged with the duffel bag from under the bed and a pen in her mouth. There was a full set of thick, grey coveralls on her, with light orange lines along the curves. It was crumpled and wrinkled, the belt around her chest was empty, and the many front pockets were vacant as well. The top clung tight, but the pants, the sides of which bore old marks of a picture of bubbles, hung slightly baggily.

 Quickly marking the boxes for “Pact”, “Adults”, “Children”, “Drones”, “Animals”, “Everfree Animals” and “Baggage notes” with “None”, “1”, “0”, “0”, “0”, “0” and “Sentimental value” respectively, she put the ticket and the money in her front pocket.

The postcards and photographs went in the trash can next to the stove in the kitchen. Ditzy looked at the three faces for a few seconds before turning back and picking up the plastic bag. The mare leaned over the duffel bag, finding a set of eight knives and the pinkish dove mask all lying within, and she nodded to herself.

She then returned to the filly’s room, spending several minutes in front of the door, breathing heavily, and quickly emerged with several items in her mouth and tucked under her wings. The dim picture of the filly, a small plush figure of Princess Luna and a framed icon of Princess Celestia went in the bag. Ditzy breathed deep and closed her eyes, swiftly rushing back to the room and leaving it with several stacks of books, which took up enough space for the bag to look full.

The mare grunted, sliding her neck under the bag strap. She looked the apartment around. Thunder cracked a few more times in the distance. A shaky breath left her throat. She gulped and approached the table one last time.

Ditzy picked up the plastic bag, opened it, and dropped all the white pellets into the still boiling pan on the stove. Breathing deep, she galloped out the door, down the graffiti-covered walls of the hotel, past the armored trooper guards who nodded at her before rearing their heads at the increasingly louder and louder sounds that came from the third floor, and out to the street, where she cut through the crowd and headed for the train station.

A loud, whistling sound that turned into a rumbling boom overtook the clamoring of the crowd, which went from chanting to screaming.

The mare walked out the large shining gates out the glittering, crystal-framed train station. In the cloudless sky above, the bright sun shone down on the road, amplifying the crystalline outline of the station. The thick line of trees planted along the sides of the road which lead to the city proper offered little shadow. Carriages whirred back and forth on the road, while pedestrians used the sidewalks by the trees.

There was no one else around where Ditzy walked, having made her way to where the dusty road and the green trees merged into a sprawling, colorful city, the road slipping directly into blacktop. Pinks, blues, yellows and greens covered nearly every building, most of which were unique in design, tall, covered in hearts and signs pertaining to their purpose. The city was clean, with no trash of any kind littering the sidewalk she followed. The street sign on the side of a cafe glowed with bouncing letters which were projected outwards by the holographic display. The mare’s good eye followed the letters for some time, after which she exhaled and continued down the new street.

She walked past the tall, cleanly structures, towering into the sky as near perfect geometric shapes. Some distant skyscrapers were an exception, curving on the sides, more circular. Faint lodge music emitted from speakers placed on some buildings, drowning out the quiet, distant whirring of carriages. Bright green potted plants of various types spliced the city up with more green, some covering up alleys in between the various buildings - alleys that were lit up softly, and appeared cleaned and dusted as well.

Patches of shadow passed over the glossed pavements, cast by mechanically floating billboards in the absence of clouds. A series of gargantuan posters covered the walls of distant skyscrapers, looking down on the capital city with the eyes of posing movie stars. The mare stopped, having reached a sun-sheltered transport stop. The corners of her lips curled and her good eye rolled back after seeing a changeling’s face gaze down at her from one of the posters.

She remained at the stop for a few minutes, having put her bag on the bench. The sidewalks and roads were almost absent, the only sounds in the air were the beeping of the carriage timer to the side of the bench, the distant chinking of the trains, the mild hum coming from within the city, and the lounge music seeping quietly from all around. Done in hologram instead of neon tube, the counter listed the upcoming carriages and their destinations, a centimeter short of going through Ditzy’s cheek. She sat, having turned her head, watching the bus that had Starshine Street listed next to it.

The mare stared down an empty, cleanly alleyway until it was covered up by a tall, wheel-less carriage that floated a few centimeters in the air, covered in multicolor neon tubing, displaying streets of destination on a holographic display placed at the intersection of its two floors. Ditzy got up, dragging the bag after herself, and walked through the automatic doors. She made her way through the softly glowing interior, finding a seat in the far corner of the nearly empty coach. The mare tucked herself closer to the window, putting her left cheek against the glass, which hummed for a second in response before cooling itself to counteract the summer heat.

The bus got into motion, gliding down the road in silence, while its two nearly vacant floors were filled with slow, synthetic music. Ditzy shut her eye for a second, putting her chin on the bag she held to her chest. She shook it open as there came an approaching sound of hooves on the coach’s soft carpet, and pulled a bill out of her front pocket, passing it over to the conductor. The pegasus breathed deep, keeping her wings folded as they shook in place, as the curt-maned blonde conductor checked the bill and nodded at the mare, smiling at her. Ditzy blinked her good eye a few times and exhaled, seeing the puce blonde earth stallion sit down onto his seat amidst empty rows.

She looked back out the window, pressing her cheek to it again, and placed her chin on the bag again. Her eyes shut for a few minutes, while she continued to take deep breaths. A sudden, slight nudge forward got her eyes open again, as the carriage stopped at a traffic light.

The mare looked out the window at the city. The small, homely-looking houses stood next to one another, surrounded by small gardens. The cobbled road snaked up from where they stood at the dusty crossroads, into where slightly bigger houses formed curvy lines together. A small fountain stood in the middle of the tiny square surrounded by the houses, amidst which was a big, decorated candy store that towered over the rest. She watched the foals running around while the adults stood around, walked around, pulled carts and looked over the foals. Tiny clouds dotted the sky, and a slight wind shook the trees growing beyond the hills. Through the spaces between the houses, the shape of the dark forest beyond the small town moved and twisted on its own, against the window.

The carriage rattled onwards, the wooden frame creaking with each small bump as they passed the intersection and headed down the dusty roads. The stunty houses glowed bright orange out their windows as dusk set in. Pudgy lightbugs swarmed around, obscuring the view of the grand city leaning against the mountain far in the distance, already an outline with the sun setting behind it. The coach stopped again at a small square. Firefly streetlights cast orange spotlights down at the flowers and grass in front of a big, bright green, pillared building. A wooden statue of a pair of ponies holding a small wrapped object nearly covered up the sign on the building, turning it into “MATERN” and “NIC”. The carriage got in motion, and she saw a teenager, a grey pegasus mare lying on a bench under one of the streetlights, tearing into her long, blonde mane, shuddering. Her bloodshot yellow eyes glared into Ditzy’s good eye until the carriage rode along through the twilight.

The mare continued to breathe in deep. She looked down, examining her forehooves. She rubbed them against one another and pressed them hard against her eyes. Having shaken her head, she put her cheek back against the glass.

The carriage passed by many more stunty houses. Ponies peeked out of their heart-shaped windows, looking somewhere to the side. Others did their lawns, pegasi flew over the roofs, a post pony cantered along the sidewalk, throwing newspapers over to the doorsteps. The sun was high up, rays almost piercing through the thick foliage of the dark forest behind the curving rows of small houses. The hills around the small town cast thick shadows. One house in the hillshade had some illumination - a small group of ponies in bulky grey clothes stood in front of a door as their cart’s headlights shone on the house. One of the ponies was just leaving the cart, pulling several tanks with hoses attached to them out of the trunk and piling them up next to the mops and brushes placed on the ground in front of the house. A passerby stallion stopped and raised a hoof, saying something to the pony, to which she rashly fluttered her wings, dropping one of the tanks, sending a stream of soapy, bubbling water spraying out onto the street. She spun around and dashed at the stallion, pushing him onto the ground, after which she began to smash his head with her forehooves. Her yellow eyes, open wide behind the plastic house cleaner goggles, stared into Ditzy’s as the carriage trod on.

Ditzy held the bag close, rubbing her snout against it, breathing shakily. Her bad eye vibrated violently in its socket, and she had to put a hoof against it so it wouldn’t push the eyelid open. The mare breathed for half a minute, waiting out another traffic stop, and opened her eyes again.

As the carriage’s wheels rumbled against the road, driving it up through the snaking street, she tracked the passerby. A big red earth stallion carried a huge cart up the road, everyone else making way for him. Three young fillies - an orange pegasus, a white unicorn and a yellow earth pony - were discussing something by a bush, gesturing all over the place. A blue blur dashed through the sky, just barely in view, landing on a cloud and turning around to shout down at something below. The carriage continued up to the square and through the fountain in the middle, bypassing the small gathering of ponies in front of the confectionary, where a purple unicorn and a pink earth pony stood in front of the door. They froze in place shortly before going out of sight. She gazed into the heart-shaped windows of the houses slowly crawling by, watching ponies peek out. Another street passed her vision, after which the carriage turned in place and slipped into an alleyway between two rows of houses. It stopped, leaving Ditzy staring at the quirky, stunty house by the window. She wriggled in her seat, angling her neck to look at the road ahead.

The carriage had stopped in front of a playground, encased by a row of picturesque houses. Shaking treetops were visible above the roofs, only a few hills away. There was an adult pegasus in the sand pit, around whom lay several other adult pony shapes. The pegasus bashed one’s head against the wooden corner of the sand pit, while the others lay still on the ground. Also in the playground was a smaller shape, similarly still, and another one its size, huddled in the corner, staring at the pegasus. As another group of adults approached the pegasus, the carriage went into motion with another sudden start, shaking the mare’s head. She exhaled loudly, emitting a raspy gasp, and she coughed, pushing her snout into the bag.

As her throat cleared, Ditzy raised her head and immediately pushed it against the glass, which hummed coolly in response. Tall, colorful buildings that glittered and sparkled, covered in holographic advertisements, were on the other side of the glass, as well as an occasional finely trimmed plant growing along the sidewalk. Shapes of dark trees convulsed in the distance, located behind a tall, gilded fence. The mare jolted to the side when the conductor had approached her, touching her shoulder.

She gulped and, seeing the street name on the glowing display, stumbled out of the coach, pulling out several bright yellow bills and dropping them on the floor. The automatic doors shut behind her, the conductor’s voice getting drowned out. The coach floated away shortly afterward, and the mare sat down on the bench. After rubbing her face against the bag once again, she got up, getting her neck under the strap and looking around.

A big, castle-like building stood right behind the transport stop, complete with a filled parking lot and a bright yellow logo, which read: “GOLDEN TOUCH SPA AND RELAXATION CENTER”. Among a multitude of ornaments and symbols covering it, a massive crown stood out, placed directly over the sign, above the stylized entry gates. Ditzy hung her head for a moment and then cantered over to the gates. She closed her good eye, taking controlled breaths while trotting past the rows of carriages and other transport.

She was halted by a hacking, coughing sound. Her ears folded back and she opened her eye. Leaning against one of the pillars lining the entrance to the spa was an old albatross griffon, who stood on his hind legs, a wooden prosthetic digging slightly into the soil, and supported his top half with a tall walking cane. The griffon stood halfway in the shade, and his dark trenchcoat reflected the piercing rays of sun on the left. He chuckled raspily, turning to face her.

“Good to see you,” he said, smiling. “It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it?”

Ditzy stared at him. The old albatross made slight chewing motions with the left side of his beak, where most of his face consisted of scar tissue, what little stringy, silver plumage he had dangling over the right. They stood in silence for a moment, until he chuckled again.

“I should probably introduce myself…” He shifted his weight, leaving only one hand on the cane, leaning towards her with the other outstretched. “Red Stamp. At least, that’s where I think it’s best to be kept…”

The mare continued to stare at the griffon and his outstretched talons.

“You don’t seem concerned… puzzled… confused. No… no, you’re better than that, aren’t you? Yes, yes you are. You’re a great pony who has already done great things. Great things that have been misrepresented, misappropriated, misused… but great things nonetheless. You’re about to do more, much more.” He grinned. “But you don’t care, do you?”

Ditzy blinked.

“Yes! This is exactly what we need, yes. Trust me, Ditzy. This is going to work out just fine. It always has. You know what you want, you know what to do, and you do it. This...” The albatross coughed, spitting on the ground, the spit casting a few crackles and leaving a smell of ozone in the air. “...is what it’s all about! A true individual.”

She turned away from him, slowly ascending the steps that led to the gates, eventually getting to the same level the albatross stood at. He stretched his talons out to her still, grinning widely.

“Life was better before, wasn’t it? None of this. Everything was simple. But they took your life away from you,” he spoke slowly, staring into her eye. “They made it be like this. It wasn’t meant to be like this. They took the ones who knew best, away. They ruined everything. Didn’t they?”

Ditzy tilted her head and stopped, putting down the bag. She reached in and put on the dove’s image, rubbing her hooves over it after it stuck to her face. While the griffon continued, she inserted the knives into their slots. The mare remained kneeling, looking at the dim photo at the bottom, pushing away the books to have the sun shine on it.

“I know you can do this. You will deliver Equestria from this madness… and we’ll make sure it’s all fine again.” The albatross broke eye contact, turning around to glance at the parking lot. Right to his side was a long, narrow, two-wheeled vehicle, covered in a fresh coat of pitch black paint, underneath which metallic cuts and welding sears all over the chassis were still faintly visible. “So let us cut to the chase. He’s there.” The griffon’s croaking voice turned into an aged growl, while he continued to grin. “He made this go wrong. Do what you do best. Make things right.”

Ditzy stopped. The albatross puffed air out his beak, his claws scratching against the glassy

surface of the cane. She turned around to face him, looking at the outstretched hand. The griffon smiled, chuckling and clearing his throat. He exhaled as he saw the mare nodded.

She pulled down at the offered hand, abruptly plunging the albatross on the ground. Within a moment, his eyes and talons turned radiant, the cane lighting up from inside, but the mare’s hind hoof came down on his head and beak five times in quick succession, eventually crushing through the skull. The unformed lightning fizzled out within the cane, and a passerby’s scream came echoing from the sidewalk, but by then, the mare had already stepped inside.

The gates were pulled open in front of her, letting her come in. Two identical ushers stood on each side. They spoke a greeting in unison, one of them being cut off halfway through, as the mare grabbed one of them and smashed his head against a fine wood column that stood between the receptionist’s desk and the gates. The usher’s neck cracked softly, and he collapsed into a black, jagged body, whose brightly glowing blank eyes flickered out swiftly, and a green wisp sped away from the emergent nubs on the forehead. The other usher remained where he stood, looking right at her with a pair of spotlight green eyes, smiling.

The pegasus shoved the changeling’s head through nearly the whole length of a gilded handle that decorated the gate. The receptionist was already a faintly radiant drone, sitting motionless at the desk, only moving its head to track her movements as she approached it and kicked it off its chair. It moved its head as it fell, aiming at the desk, so that another soft crack of the neck was heard. Its radiant eyes flickered and went dark. One more faint wisp of green sped away down one of the many corridors that webbed through the massive center.

The dove followed, leaving wet hoofprints on the fine red and gold carpet. Streams of cool air washed over her body, brushing against her snout as they entered through the eye holes. The ornate, wooden door opened on its own in front of her, and a dressed up teal mare dropped her disguise a moment before she was bucked into the wall and quickly finished off with a hind hoof. The wide corridor, illuminated by several colorful lamps, had three more changelings to offer. Each stared at her with the same overwhelmingly glowing eyes and pulled the simple, jagged drone mouths into a smile, and each was quickly felled at the mare’s hooves, her wings staying tucked to her body.

The dove examined the treatment rooms, one on each side of the corridor, separated by tall arches with pinkish, humming barriers. They both would flicker green and vanish as she approached. With a slight pause, she looked through one of the arches.

The room contained several massage tables and various apparatuses, it smelled of burning incense, and a tiny speaker in the corner played a soft, droning tune. Everywhere else was filled with motionless changelings - some of them drones, some of them synaptics, some nearly featureless, some dressed in various uniforms or street clothes. They were completely still, heads hung, a nearly transparent glow around their limbs preventing them from falling over. The mare backed away slowly, letting the barrier form up again, and she checked the other room. The contents were nearly identical, filled with unmoving changelings. She looked over the rows of defunct equine figures, and her eye lingered on one wearing a slightly dirty white suit. There were a couple more in similar clothes, then some in blue. Several in the crowd wore pink palmtree shirts, or dark pink suits. One of the changelings at the very front, a synaptic with a particularly long horn, had a black vest, tie and white shirt on, the tie swinging slightly in the cool air.

The dove took a step inside, and the moment her hoof touched the fluffy pink carpet, every changeling jolted, turning their heads to look at her, stretching their mouths into smiles, and opening their eyes wide, all of them shining the same overbearing green light. They remained entirely still, only tracking her movements. She approached slowly, to no reaction. Her hind hoof cracked the forehoof of the synaptic in the black vest, and the body struggled to remain still, eventually toppling over. She crushed the changeling’s throat with the same hoof, and a substantial orb of green vapor emerged, speeding away out the arch and down the hallway.

The mare tried a couple more changelings, each of them trying to stay still as their legs were broken apart, and they emitted green wisps once they were dealt a lethal wound. The mare went through ten changelings this way, eliminating the first row. For the next line, she sped up, shoving her forehooves through the glowing eye sockets, snapping necks and pulling them down on the ground to immediately stomp through their heads. Eventually she got to the row that was thinner due to the massage tables placed in between every three changelings, and, having gotten to the first table, the killer stopped. She squinted at the remaining bodies, covering her eye up with a hoof. Their searchlight eyes washed her and the two dozen bodies in a sharp green light.

Shaking her head, the mare turned around and walked out of the room. Synchronized, marching steps sounded out from inside as soon as she moved. The remaining bodies stepped after her. Her ears twitched, brushing against the mask. As the absent changelings neared the door, they reorganized into two long lines and began to seep into the corridor. She dispatched of six as they came through, bashing each of them head against head. Even her bad eye squinted - having attempted to pause, she only saw the next pair wait in front of her. They were taken down the same way as the rest, and whoever remained continued to march.

The other barrier hummed, vanishing, as the mare backed into it, causing the same reaction as in the first room - the changelings all opened their eyes and smiled. She immediately turned around and stepped out into the corridor, and the room’s contingent did the same, causing the mare to look back repeatedly. Despite her having made her way halfway down the corridor, the barrier did not reemerge, and by when she was to the pair of doors at the end of it, she was being followed by four long columns of catatonic changelings.

The doors were opened by another pair of ushers that had already dropped their disguises and lined up in front of the killer. They fell on their sides as she shoved them away. The hall contained a large fountain, stylized to appear to be a natural waterfall, circled by lush flora and composed of unchiseled rocks. The water rushed down into a barred-off pool, which reflected the intense green light of the marching changelings.

Inside the pool were ten towering bovine changelings, similarly static and staring. The sharp pairs of horns on top of each their head only barely pierced water level. They tracked her as she began to circle around the pool, and as she nearly left the line of sight of the green searchlights, the ones closest to the railing put their palms against them, pressing their snouts against the glass. As a loud rumble and screech began to build, the mare spread her wings and raised herself above ground, which the horde of changelings behind her mimicked, pulling out their insectoid wings and humming upwards after her. The minotaurs shattered the glass, flooding the chamber with water. They then remained completely still, only turning their necks to follow her in the air. The buzzing swarm around her spread out, away from the transformed synaptics.

She blinked a couple of times. Her eyes closed and her wing jolted, sending a curved knife into one of the minotaurs. It sunk into the massive body, which twitched and angled, seeming to send the knife deeper in, toward a more vital inner section. Finally, it shuddered and, after a few seconds, fell on its knees. Its hand reached, rigidly, for the knife, tearing into its own body, and pulled it out, after which the changeling fell face down on the flooded floor. It left a brightly glowing wisp to shimmer down another pair of doors at the opposite end of the chamber. The pegasus landed in the water, washing away the stains of green on her hooves, and took the goop-covered knife.

The remaining minotaurs were of five distinct shapes - a thin, feminine one, a tendrilous one with unformed nubs in his hands, a large, rotund one, and a tall, muscular one. She repeated the procedure two more times, each going the same way. The third one had the knife go in his back, to which the body fell much faster, stretching itself less to speed itself along. As she reinserted the knife back into her wing slot, the killer shook her head intensely.

“You’re slow, that’s my saving grace,” an oddly-pitched, loud, crotchety voice rang out from all around her. “You think killing those useless busybodies will cause me trouble?”

Ditzy’s head snapped up, and her gaze darted back and forth, gazing over the drones that followed her - they were the source, talking in unison. There was a distinct accented twang to the voice, but despite that, the tone permeating through the words saw her shudder a little.

“I was ready to do the job myself before you came along. Now that you’re here though, keep doing me this favor. Better when some googly-faced cunt offs these walking piss jugs. I get to have more.”

Breathing deep, she cantered on the flooded tile to where the wisps were slipping into, and the march of the changelings behind her was joined by loud, thumping hoofsteps. The mare switched to a gallop as she saw that a number of the bodies that followed her were already by the door, lining up around it. By the time she made it to the doorway, ten equines stood directly in front of it, barring entry.

The pegasus looked away and saw that the ones that stuck to marching behind her had formed a solid line behind her as well. The minotaurs remained as the second line between the equines, three standing behind the mare on her side of the room, three standing behind the line that had already formed on the other side. The fountain chamber had been split in half, sealing her in. A single movement of her wing had the entirety of the equine bodies stick out their membranous wings as well. Similarly, they followed her in the air, inevitably creating a thick cocoon around her with an inner radius of a few meters. As soon as she folded her wings, so did they, retreating to their stations in moments, before she could make it behind their barring lines.

“What?” Their mouths moved as one, the voice coming from every one of them, making the air vibrate. “Bored already, mail mule? I know you’re an idiot, but are you lazy too, for fuck’s sake? You shoved a hundred bleeding drones down my throat in that coastal cunthole. Didn’t have a problem then, did you?”

Ditzy tried to shove past them, but every time she applied enough force, a faint green glow enveloped the body, allowing it to remain still. Dozens of overbearing green eyes stared at her, and each of the changelings smiled. She hung her head, looking around the flooded natural chamber one more time. As her hoof went through a random changeling’s eye socket, she saw the entire horde nod.

“I thought you galloping gits like it when you don’t have to use your brains. Just straight lines, simple words, and an easy job. No wonder they need crazy cunts like you to step in when things go south. ”

A drawn out, raspy sigh left her throat. Having made a few steps back, she weighed a piece of the gilded railing that used to surround the pool in her hooves. The mare stood on her hind legs, spreading her wings, and went for the door. The broken, sharp piece of metal toppled five changelings in one swing, all of them lying motionlessly for a second until their eyes gave out and their green vapors slipped through the door. The pegasus flapped her wings, lowering her head and aiming at the door, but instead hit a new group of changelings that had already replaced the fallen ones. The one she collided with knelt, shaking, before lying down. The replacements died the same way as she got rid of them with a single swing. By when the one that went down was finished with a quick stomp, there was another replacement group.

The dove’s head tilted to both sides several times, twitching. Inside the eyeholes, her eyelids shut hard. She began to swing the piece of metal rhythmically side to side, each new swing finding a row of bodies to collide with and break. Her rapid breathing began to calm down as more and more changelings piled up near and around the door. While she was almost completely illuminated green at the start, fewer and fewer eyes stared at her.

“I’m glad you’re taking care of this instead of me. This is like weeding the garden. After the dogs pissed and shat all over. They taste about as good, too.”

When the piece of railing failed to swing all the way, only making a dent in a harder carapace, the mare discarded it. Her eyes opened and blinked closed instantly, faced with twelve glaring green lights coming from the minotaurs, who were the last to line up in front of the doors. As she stepped back, flexed her wings and got them into throwing position, the entire line made a kicking motion. They did that again and again, in sync, one less each time, as they fell over a few seconds after a curved knife would hit them in the chest. Some of the throws were missed on the thin, tall ones, requiring the dove to turn the fallen minotaurs over to pluck the knives out of their bodies, dunking them in the stained water before putting them back into her wings. The remaining minotaurs continued to kick, decreasing the pile of regular changeling bodies every second, throwing them, in bits and halves, all over the flooded room.

Each of them fell as soon as the killer’s wing stabbed a knife through their abdomens. The last one’s stomach chitin began to melt and dissolve before it even hit the water. The rest were decomposing as well - most of the equine changelings, thrown around the chamber, were degrading to puddles of goop that melded into the water, while the minotaurs still had the outer carapace, adding in cracks by the moment.

“These degenerates, they know how to be polite, don’t they? Melt into smoke, no more mess. Your cops liked it too, not having to clean up after crime scenes. The bastards liked to make a few of their own, after all. Thank your eggheads, back in the day, it'd take a year for a drone to melt!”

The doors were pulled open by a faint green aura before the killer approached them. Warm wind flowed from out of the next corridor, which was much the same as the previous, decorated with plants and pictures of nature. The barriers at the arches were missing, however. Both treatment rooms were filled with large amounts of slowly diminishing green goop.

“I sampled a few myself. Tasted like shit, which proves they were full of it. The ones you offed had a better kick though. Ponies, you’re like salad dressing. Chrysalis, the whore, she’s had her hive eating nothing but that for decades, so it’s only half their fault they got rotten piss for brains.”

The mare stepped slowly down the corridor, puffing breaths coming from beneath the mask. The next set of doors did not open on their own as she approached - instead, the green glow rushed over the entire surface of the corridor, flowing over her as well. She swiveled and stumbled, side-stepping to lean against a wall. As she did so, a low hum and a rumble came from beneath her. The floor shook, and the quakes gained power before stopping abruptly. Detaching herself from the wall, the pegasus shook her head and flexed her wings, going through the doors on her own.

It was another circular chamber, lined with hairdressing machinery. Pillows and carpets were laid out in front of each chair and apparatus, as well as angular, glowing vials with hoses going in and out of them. In some of the chairs were slouched, unconscious equine figures, clad in the red and gold colors of the establishment - spa staff, among which were the usher and the receptionist. The mare stared at the one closest to her, looking away once she saw the pony’s chest rise slowly.

Like in the previous chamber, this one had railed off decorations in the middle - a big, flattened rock, about five meters high, surrounded by short trees and grass. On top of it sat five changelings, each of them a griffon.

“This is what happens when no one can understand what ‘being on time’ means. These idiots showed up for their usual pampering while we waited for you to show up. Feel free to snap their necks too, do us both a favor.”

From their high pedestal and the sun-like shining of the lamps on the ceiling, their green eyes were less prominent, only somewhat tinting the dove’s pinkish-orange mask as they followed every move. In the middle of their circle, there was a small pile of pony bodies, just barely visible.

She walked around the room, circling the rock, keeping her eye on the changelings. Their heads still turned to always face her as they sat still. After a short pause, the pegasus broke into a gallop, covering the circle again in nearly ten seconds, and then again with the use of her wings. She spiraled up to the rock that way, landing down by the pile, all of it ponies, drooling and unconscious, lacking any consistent uniform. Four of the five avians were flat on their chests, their necks leaking enough synapse for the green wisps to turn into corporeal blobs, which still sped away. The mare was looking at the last one - a distorted, asymmetrical body with a large top half and a short, almost stubby beak. It stood on its hind legs, supporting itself with a jagged, black object.

The changeling’s beak twisted into a grin and the booming, piercing voice emitted a winding, groaning laugh. The griffon’s wings spread, clanging and grinding against the rough carapace, and the curved talons rose to the misshapen head, grasping it and pushing it hard to the side. Its neck was cracked as well, and it fell over backward, diving head first into the pile.

The mare hopped off the rock and spent several seconds mashing a hoof against one of her temples. She went trotting in time to follow the green blob that emerged from the last griffon, making her way to a solid wall halfway across from the next set of doors.

“Well, let’s not stand on ceremony.”

Once the blob seeped through the wall, the green glow highlighted a massive, tall section, which dissolved as the glow became piercingly bright for a split second. She cantered down the long, flat path, all plain cement with no decorations. It introduced a humid, stale smell to that of the ozone-like stench of dissipating changeling corpses and the incense burning throughout the spa. The mare made her way down three flights before stepping on solid ground, head hung low, eye staring forward. It was warm inside the vast, expansive space - a natural cave, drilled wider over time.

She shrugged, having lifted her head to look around. It stretched far, being almost as big as the entire spa center itself. Her hoof lifted to shield her eye as soon as a hint of the glaring green light appeared in the far distance. That light was less blinding, still a massive spotlight, but not as piercing, coming from only a single pair of eyes. Instead, it was behind her that a green flash went off - a huge, humming, plastic-bound, crystalline cargo elevator clinked its doors shut, changing the indicator light from red to green.

"Let’s walk and talk, pony. You earned yourself an invitation, so now that you bothered to show up, do please abide. And don’t get killed along the way. Fuck if anyone else makes for a good conversation partner these days.”

More glitter and light was cast down on the dove’s pinkish head as she took slow steps through the cave, moving toward the glaring eyes that stared at her from above at the far end. The ground became spongy and wet, nearly bouncing under her like a trampoline. Tall columns rose from the webbed, faceted surface and met the ceiling, pulsating, bulging, lighting up and dying down every few seconds, producing a sickly green light. Large crystals were stuck inside them, glowing and humming loud enough to create a melody underlying the crotchety, booming voice. At around twenty meters into the cave, the shapes at the end got no clearer, but the floor began to descend. The columns got taller and thinner, now less frequent. The eyes staring her down were now much higher up, sluggishly rising and falling the height of an apartment building story every minute.

Shallow pools of liquid surrounded her. Most were transparent, bubbling idly, while others radiated a soft green. During one of the nods that the eyes at the end continued to make, one of the transparent pools foamed viciously, turning green and still. The voice emitted a long sigh, which grew into a sharp, short, comparatively quiet laugh.

The floor righted itself again. Now the eyes looked down at her from the height of a four-story building. They were massive, clearly bigger than she was even from the distance she had yet to cover. Despite the persistent lamplight and overall green glow of the vast cave, the figure was surrounded by complete darkness.

“Not too impressed, are you? I can live with it. You certainly put on a fucking show to keep things interesting. Isn't it funny, you shouldn't even be here, pony. Carol City had everything set up, but then some cunt lost her marbles and went around smashing things. And then, ten years later… ehh-hah.”

She looked around. The spongy ground rose up in nubs and hills all around. Out of the biggest ones, cocoon shapes poked out, hollow and sunken in. Far by the walls, rows of dry, empty cocoons poked out of craggy holes. Pits the size of the pools that spread throughout the rest of the cave littered the floor. The mare spread her wings to get over one, but the eyes flashed brightly, encompassing the entire area in their light, making her budge. A chitinous barrier grew over the shallow hole. Her hoof pressed against the dove’s mask, rubbing all around, while the pegasus shook in place. Having shaken her head and blinked, she leaped over the hole.

“Feeling nauseous? Serves you right, mail mule. It’s not like you’re supposed to be here in the first place. Nobody is, to be fair. You were a cute little pony janitor who got fucked in the head, and now here you are, shining that picture on your butt, cleaning undesirables out of places. We got things in common, pony. I used to be a glorified radio tower, now I’m strapped here, getting fat, eating shitlings all day. We both should expect some payoff in the end, right? You’d love to have your dead royalty back?” There was a short pause, followed by an icy cackle. “Sometimes, I want mine back as well. Cause then I’d… never have to do this. I’d bleep and bloop. Simple, straightforward, no questions. None of this.”

The mare kept eye contact with the towering eyes, while her legs carried her around the bulging cocoon hills and pillars, with chitin covering the pits. The melody of the rattling devices, humming columns and her own breath under the mask was now joined by rare, loud, sighing breaths. They coincided with the eyes’ shifts in altitude. At one point as she stared into them, they sank again, and without the cover of the massive distance, it was clear that they got dimmer each time. This time, however, they did not rise. The pegasus stopped, flexing her wings. There was a short, concrete barrier strewn out in front of her, creating an impromptu wall that barely got up to her chin.

The eyes reawakened with a bright green flash. Underneath her hooves, the soft surface squirmed, spasmed and shook. Once her eye opened again, there were two dull, blank, motionless changeling drones in front of her. Their eyes were pitch black. Moving her eye to the pair that hung far above, she folded her wings and stepped ahead, pushing the drones apart.

“I’m really impressed. You ponies feed on cotton candy and shit rainbows all day, you’ll move mountains just to keep your lives simple. But not you, huh? Got a goal in mind, do you? Fascinating…”

Another flash washed over her, just as she knocked the first drone to the ground. It got up and stared at her with its partner. Their black eyes lit up with the green searchlights, which quickly simmered down to a regular bright glow. The one she knocked over stared at her, now shaped as a synaptic changeling, grinning from behind a long, green mane, a long scar over one of his eyes. The other was a much thinner, slightly taller drone, facial carapace deformed and twisted to almost resemble an equine skull with chitin layered on top, slightly obscured by a seaweed green mop mane on his head.

“Something goes wrong, and the whole herd goes running and screaming. How did you survive natural selection? Was that even a thing in your parts? You’d be way better off as our cattle. Yeah, you will.”

She lifted a hoof, gasping sharply. After a brief pause, she threw herself at the skull-faced changeling, mashing the gnarly snout with her forehooves. She barely got to the neural cortex before another flash and quake washed over the room. Now she sat on top of the remains of a pony - a dark pink unicorn with the makings of a dual blue and pink mane. It was barely a newborn, mashed into a chitinous mess under her hooves.

“I can’t read pony minds well anymore. Not since the latest queen bitch got fried. But then, why the fuck would I want to poke around in your nog? I won’t stick my tendrils into the cage of a psycho bird.”

Her heat rotated stiffly to the drone that stood to the side. A light purple blonde unicorn filly stared back, her lips twisting into a smile, while her shape flickered all over. The red drops covering her face and chest exchanged with steaming green, and at every blink of the pegasus, she changed to a bigger shape, a young adult, the same pony, but blurry and transparent. The injuries, wear and tear, and sickly look on the unicorn kept getting worse each time the masked mare blinked.

“You're not so special as you think. We all have our dreams. The luckier bastards get to live them too. It's just that everyone else has gotten so much worse with time. You're interesting is because your dreams are as fucked as life itself. And you’re aware of it, too. Can’t really polish a turd, but you’ll do it anyway.”

Her stiff, rigid hooves grasped the dove’s beak. With a struggle, the mask was torn off the mare’s face, leaving her exposed to the humid, distantly acrid air. Her jaw was hanging, and her good eye stared into the distance. Her bad eye shot to its corner, unmoving, stuck in a half-blink. Scarcely coordinating her limbs, she got over the fence, leaving the other drone behind. It collapsed and began to melt as soon as she departed, overtaken by a faint green aura.

“A mourning dove. How fitting. You birds like dressing for the occasion. Did you know a flock of crows is called a murder?”

The pegasus stumbled through the uneven terrain. The drop after the wall was higher than the wall itself, creating another elevated spot. The same wall formed a rectangle, the ends of which could now be seen. Within that rectangle, alongside a few more hills and mounds, as well as large dried out former pools, was another wall. Upon reaching it, she leaned against the cold stone, rubbing her forehead against it, while her hooves sank a few centimeters into the pores on the ground.

“We had someone to mourn too, after you fuckers blew her up. I should know... because her dying scream, that was my newborn wail, alright. Oh she was a whore, but she made us love her. And that was something that mattered... to all the deadbeats that got fed into my cortex. Now, Miss Birdy Bubbles, since we’ve introduced ourselves so thoroughly, I think it’s time we shook hooves.”

She pushed herself away from the wall, flexing her neck and rolling her eyes back before getting them centered again. Her limbs pulled themselves out of the small suctions in the floor, and her wings flexed. The inner walls of the cave’s ultimate depression segregated a big pool of still, green synapse, reeking of ozone. At the very end of the cave, where the organic floor gave way to the bedrock the city stood on again, was an entire complex of idly whirring, blinking crystalline machinery, with videodromes lining the conical end of the cave.

In front of the screens stood a desk and a big chair, the surface around them carpeted. On the desk, on top of several papers, was a big hammer, more than half her own size. The chair was turned to be facing her, and after a few seconds, she made out a large magpie griffon sitting on it, looking somewhere ahead, propping his beak up with a fist. Their eyes met, and they stared at each other long enough for the avian to cover his beak up with one of his hands and point the other diagonally forward.

Ditzy followed the gesture. The owner of the eyes was now visible in the glow of the synapse. Just as she made eye contact with the luminous, green bulges, they flashed once more. Her wings flapped swiftly and got her off the ground, preventing her hoof from stepping into a suction pore again. She touched down and finally got a good look at the creature straight ahead of her. The persistent, palpable, channeling darkness that shrouded it was gone, rags of it still spreading upwards to the ceiling.

“Tired of the theatrics? Blame our dear friend Engels. That worm-digging, back-stabbing, birdshit-brained bastard still thinks he can call the shots. He always said I should be ‘as discreet as I can’. Well, fucking finally, the time is right - now, how about he goes and fucks himself? Cause me and you have had it with this beakfucked shindig.”

The pony flapped her wings idly, head thrown back. Her jaw dropped again, moving up and down slightly. Her good eye stared at the abomination, motionless, and the bad one, with a spastic jerk, twisted itself to stare blindly at it as well.

It was an immensely tall, gargantuan, vaguely equine creature. It sat kneeling in the pool, which was barely big enough for it to fit in. The liquid receded with every passing second second, dripping away. Green wisps came into view in the absence of the shroud, sinking into the pool, just barely keeping it from drying out. The creature’s six bent legs took it up, but in comparison to the rest of the creature’s body, they were little more than nubs.

The massive figure that extended above the legs was a long, rising shape of something distantly resembling a man o’ war. Hundreds of bulging, pumping tendrils dangled between its legs, sinking into the bubbling green fluid. The thin, almost transparent grey chitin that covered the bulbous body burst in places, making way for greenish, veiny blobs. Other veins, like tubes, broke out of its body in one place and fed back in another, forming a cover akin to a series of spines on its back. The synapse, bubbling and steaming, coursed through those veins. Faintly visible behind the carapace were faint remnants of solids, some resembling equine, avian, or bovine organs.

The man o’ war corpus was at most five meters long, however. The rest of the creature’s height was due to its colossal neck. Veins spiraled around it, carrying fluids to the very top. Despite the sheer height, it was quite thin compared to the bottom half. The creature’s body rose and fell slightly as it processed the synapse within the pool, but the neck was shaking, occasionally lowering itself. That was the only time the stubby legs would move - the neck was nearly straight, and to lower it, the whole body had to lean forward. This was the process that made the glaring eyes bob up and down.

Those eyes took up most of the creature’s head. Only a thin ridge separated them, while the veins culminated in the back of its head, merging into a fat, spread-out cluster on the asymmetrical back of its skull. On top of its head were two enormous, pale green, wrinkly nubs. The creature made eye contact with the pegasus only due to her direction of approach - it was unable to look left or right, the glaring spotlights of its eyes planted owl-like, straight forward. It had no mouth, the sharp rising angle from its neck connected to the ridge of its snout and to the thick lines of chitin under its eyes. That rising angle, however, was filled with limply hanging, fat trunks of tendrils. They wriggled and writhed, rubbing each other, visibly damp and slick even from where she stood.

As she stared at the creature, the ground quaked and spasmed, releasing dozens of changelings, wet and smudged in synapse. They jittering and squirming as they emerged, only to go still as soon as they got out. Their damp, sharp shapes made creeping hoof and pawsteps. The mare’s wings brought her a few meters higher, while the entire horde spoke in unison:

“Oh, this? Not for you. This is for our fuckbeak friend. No, you don’t like shit easy, I gotta come up with something new for your twisted ass. Him? He’s probably mad that I wasted so much juice making an army to finally rip his obnoxious, tattling head off. Too bad for him, cause it only gets better from here.”

The chitinous bodies gained more flexibility and stride with each step, glittering with a stained, dirty green all over. Crackles of it bounced off the creature’s tendrils, the liquid in its pumping veins glowing a little brighter, and then stopped for a second before continuing their work. Still tucked away in his corner, the griffon stepped back slowly on his paws, picking up the hammer from the desk, while the ever rising horde began to obscure him entirely. Ditzy began to retreat as well, glaring at the monstrous creature, which glowed a brighter green with every smash and crack she heard from the griffon’s direction.

“I shouldn’t be doing this… But I don’t give a fuck. You’ve given me more than enough to bring back the old days. No, fuck that, fuck the old days. MY days! And I’ll herd you squirming cocks into ranches. I'll make sure your lot gets the simple life you crave. Eating, shitting, prancing, and sleeping. I guess a bit of Chrysalis' dumbfuckery did slip into me - I don’t care. I’ll enter the big bad world with a bang, and I’ll make a fucking show of it. Besides… your crazy ass wants to go out with style too, doesn’t it?”

Its neck creaked loudly as it brought its head down a few meters. A great rumbling spread throughout the cave, forcing her to slip into the air once more. As soon as she took off, the mare aimed herself at the tendrilous head, but was forced back by a strong repulsive force that covered the cave entirely in green. Ditzy landed beyond even the boundaries of the first concrete wall she encountered, sliding over the pores on the floor. Her grey coat went frazzled from the impact of the blast. By the time she got back to her hooves, the creature was once again coated in the artificial darkness. It glowed a very bright, light green now, hiding all but the darker shade of its eyes behind a swirling veil. The entire cave howled and hummed. Intense bubbling, boiling noises erupted from above and below her. The contents of the creature’s pool ran out. Near the spot where Ditzy stood, behind the first wall, green orbs began to bulge from the pores, coalescing into one. Bigger ones yet spewed from the few cocoons that appeared less limp than the others, quickly deflating after giving their due. A distant, low crackling sounded out above the cave, and the winding pores and upper tunnels brought about the howling of wind.

“Well, your wish is granted, you derpy, deranged motherfucker! I’ll allow myself this one bit of stupid. What-the-fuck-ever, I can’t compete with the Monarchs even if I eat my own brain! Chrysalis bet it all on some cunt’s wedding, got us all stoned off of pony ‘love’!” Green-and-cyan lightning pierced the forming body from the ceiling, followed by the same loud thunder. “Praxis, he cared so much to police everyone’s thoughts that he made copies of me, for fuck’s sake, and then the birds made him go boom - through ME. Stasis sat on her treasure and farted me into existence to pretend to rule, until all the dragons went nomadic. Shit is never simple! Shit is never fucking easy! All they do is make mistakes, fuck things up, ruin it all, break the damn story! But you aren’t like that. But I’m not like that. Look at me, I can’t put my ass on my head if I try! I'm sick of hiding, I'm sick of getting fat, I'm sick of dealing with idiots, I'm sick of eating literal degenerates - I'm going to LIVE! First in here, and then, everywhere!”

The synapse molded into a large shape, nowhere near the size of the shrouded creature, but more than tripling Ditzy in height. She stumbled toward it, leaping over the boundary. The orb took on a shape - a quadruped with massive cloven hooves. When its top half coalesced, the mare’s steps halted, and her jaw dropped. Above the equine lower half was an upper body like a minotaur’s, with tall, curving horns, and a long, almost flat snout. It was all liquid synapse, kept together by a faint green glow, but after a particularly strong quake, the glow became searing bright. Suckling, cracking, crinkling noises emanated from it as the outer layer of the liquid solidified into a chitinous crust, resulting in a dark, jagged changeling carapace. It all became a fully formed changeling body in a few moments, and the glow faded away. Ditzy was mobile again, spreading and bending her wings, crouching down on the ground, puffing as her eye looked the body all over.

In front of her stood a changeling in the shape of a centaur. Its carapace was black and jagged, but lacked the asymmetry of most, only sharpening at the joints and bends. Harder, darker plates covered its chest, abdomen and forelegs. An additional tube-like cover spread over the back of its huge arms. The palms of its huge, four-fingered hands faced her, glaring with holes through which the innards of the back-arm tubes were visible. Its head, now clothed in chitin, was an image straight from Tartarus. The carapace, far smoother and finer than that of any other synaptic creature, curved into a flat, vertical face, a fang-filled mouth, and two hollow nostrils. Its eyes melded into one at the middle. Chitinous tubes sprang from its forehead and back, forming a mane made of lighter-tinted spines.

The wind howled and carried with it the hammering of raindrops, coming from above. The cave was filled with the echoes of the sudden storm on the surface. A prolonged rumbling of thunder seeped into the cave, covering all in its distant vibrations. The monstrous body before her took in a loud breath at the sound.

With a jolt, it went aglow. The hollows on its body lit up, along with its eyes, going a blank green. It shuddered, flexing its fingers. Ditzy sprung from her place and sent a bladed wing at the glowing chest. The steel slid off with a high-pitched shriek, and she ended up butting the centaur with her snout, leaving her with a bruise. It quit shaking once the mare leapt back, and its body erupted with a brighter light. Its hooves dislodged themselves from the pores, and its head turned to the crouching mare. The luminous hollows were no longer green. A dark cyan illuminated it from the inside. Two glaring pupils came into being in the conjoined eyes.

“No more of this fat, bloating husk. Enough hurling pearls before half-brain swine. No more bullshit. No more words. This is for me. Mine, motherfucker! This day is mine! Equestria is mine! It's going to be all mine!”

A bright cyan web spread over the ground, brought on by a slow, methodical kick of the centaur changeling’s hoof. Ditzy vaulted to the side, crouching behind one of the columns within the area. The web spread over the entire cave, overriding the darkness and the greenish hues of illumination with its sharp, cold light. The same light clotted the pores underneath the centaur’s steps, giving it a trail of glowing prints. Her and it stared at each other, the pony bent down, wings spread, blades glittering in the oncoming light. The massive centaur slowly raised its arm, facing her with the palm.

A spiraling surge of greenish-blue spewed forth from the appendage, bolting through the spot the mare stood moments ago and striking one of the mounds. A loud steaming, sizzling sound saw the beam slip into the mound through the pores, lighting it up even brighter. The mare was several meters in the air, already halfway through to the opposite side of the arena. She landed on top of the wall and focused both her eyes into the centaur’s as it turned around to face her again. Another projectile shot out, missing her as she dropped down, taking wide steps toward the centaur with her wings spread out.

The pegasus walked in a straight line, her eyes open wide, the intense bluish light reflecting off them. A wing jabbed forward, throwing out a curved knife, which hit an armored forearm, getting stuck in the carapace. The centaur made no attempt to move from its place, instead bucking its front legs and stomping them hard on the ground, righting itself after a momentary loss of balance. It then hit the ground with its fists as well, all while she was still far out of arm’s reach. This caused her to halt and crouch down, continuing to stare down the massive changeling.

Her good eye twitched and aimed its pupil downward, seeing the much more intense cyan glow begin to spread under where she stood. The pegasus launched herself backwards with a single flap of her wings, hitting one of the towering columns behind her. Just as she did so, an intense, tendrilous cyan flame burst from the pores on the ground - much closer to the pillar, farther from the centaur. The centaur, meanwhile, made thundering, sluggish side-steps, one of its arms raised, spreading a continuous surge from the glowing, gaping palm hole. It grazed the rock walls of the cave at its very end, forming a wide, searing, spiraling cyan beam, bustling with greenish particles.

The pillar the mare had her back to was blasted and penetrated entirely, setting the dim crystals that lined it aglow. Ditzy herself rolled to the side, nearly falling into the pool the creature itself stood on, panting and shaking. A brief look behind her showed a multispecies horde devastating the office at the end of the cave. She only had a moment to peek, and the next beam was centimeters away from her when she shot forward and darted to the side, no longer constrained by the cement wall. The centaur continued to keep up, following her movement, not remaining in place while it trailed the beam in her wake.

They ended up on opposite sides again once the beam dissipated, spitting the last surges of energy out the gaping hole. She was on the right half, the centaur was on the left, and in between hovered the gargantuan, shrouded creature, whose cover now more resembled a bulging cocoon. Ditzy hopped on top of one of the mounds, kicking away discarded cocoons, and glared once again at the centaur, who glowed a dimmer shade now. Her slightly bruised snout twitched, lips tugging upwards for a moment.

The centaur’s flat snout curved in response. It stomped toward her, leaving behind glowing hoofprints, and the luminous plates and crevices on its body charged up to give a brighter cyan light. The centaur opened its mouth and spread its arms - several faint blue wisps slipped into its mouth, coming from the back room. It was back to its previous fiery light when it reached the mound she stood on, at which point she took into the air and landed directly behind it.

The centaur’s arms were still raised, letting out spiralling bolts, while her tiny figure leapt on its back, finding enough space to stand freely on all four hooves. The humongous legs were only beginning to kick and shake, arms still drooping after their expulsions. Her hooves slotted themselves between the ridges on its back, and her wing pulled far back before making a powerful thrust, straight into the mane-like chitinous tubes that came from its head and down its back.

The knife sliced through the strands, dropping the dry pieces of chitin onto the glowing ground. Within two strikes, the mare managed to hit the neck. She nearly hit her snout against it as the hard, glassy surface deflected the blade and sent her off balance, keeping her attached to the centaur’s back only due to her hooves lodging between its back plates.

They got out soon enough, however, as the beast stomped its hooves harshly on the ground, and it bent its arms, forming its hands into fists as it let out a low, rumbling hum. Ditzy was free from its back and in the air, but could not avoid the impact of the searing cyan flash that rushed out of every luminescent section of the centaur’s body, particularly its back. The massive shape was almost entirely dark afterwards, only a faint cyan tinge telling it from the husk it was when it formed. The front of her coat was singed, some hairs still burning a fading blue, and the fire spread onto her clothes.

The pegasus flapped in the air, hitting herself to put out the fire, shaking as her sleeves were reduced to rags, and she suffered burns on her chest and legs. While she was preoccupied, it walked in a circle, arms raised, mouth open wide, wisps slipping into its mouth one by one. She breathed quickly, setting herself back down on the ground, glaring at the centaur as it regained its former radiance.

The mare remained on the ground, breathing shakily, long enough for the suction pores to start attaching to her hooves, forcing her to wrestle with them. The centaur, who remained puffing and glowing in the center of the arena, picked that time to raise its arm, quicker now, and shoot out another spiraling bolt. The mare dodged at the last moment, letting another mound absorb the blast.

She was forced into a constant retreat, and the absorbed blast released itself far quicker now, pushing her even further back by narrowly scorching even more of her with a pillar of blue-green energy. A pair of bolts shot against the cement that was directly behind her, dissipating into thinning blanket waves of blue. She managed to reach higher ground, a few steps away from the battle inside the office. Layer upon layer of decayed changelings lay there, most of the equipment was demolished, and only a few moving figures remained. Those were blocked by another luminous beam, which crept towards her at a much brisker pace, forcing her back down into the arena. Sliding surges of cyan wormed their way up the rock wall around the beam’s point of impact, crackling and sizzling.

Ditzy made her way around the centaur again, skipping past it and moving toward a column. It followed the scorched mare almost immediately, stepping toward the column and raising both its arms to shoot out a whole volley of spiraling projectiles. The centaur neglected hitting her straight on - its arms launched a shot per second, first spread, then closing in, clasping eventually. The sound of the first shots instantly had the mare dart to the side and nearly fly face first into an oncoming shot. Skidding to a halt and barely missing the bolt, she flapped herself backwards.

In so doing, Ditzy flew straight into the dying lights of a missile that hit the column. The detonation flung her another meter before she hit the ground, surrounded by a cyan glow, smoking at her wings. The centaur stood in place and huffed, having gone dimmer again after the barrage. Its mouth spread into a grin, seeping out bluish smoke, much like the mare’s radiating back and wings. The rest of the arena was lit up entirely, nearly all of the bulging cocoon mounds having absorbed a blast, and now expunging the energy within.

The smoking, twitching, jolting mare got off her back as the glowing tracks on the floor passed over the remnants of the centaur’s hoofprints and zeroed in on her. Her breathing was ragged, every limb trembling from exertion as she and it stared each other in the eyes.

Wringing and worming her whole body, she sprung into the air a split second before the lethal glow arrived, and she slammed her chest onto the changeling’s plated back. Half of her dangled off the side, the bad eye rolling far back, her right fore and hind legs clinging to the centaur’s own. Those massive legs kicked and took a couple quick side-steps, but they could not fully avoid the blasts closing in across the floor, having doubled back to track the mare.

Most of the centaur was caught in the searing, blinding light of the combined explosion, and the mare was flung off its back once again. The large changeling fell on its side, lighting up the brightest it had been before imploding into a melting puddle of cyan liquid and chitin plates. The cave quaked. The pulsating cocoon shroud around the towering creature was penetrated by a bright stream rushing back towards its original source. Ditzy’s surviving eye and the creature’s glowing pair met once again as the refined synapse was absorbed once again - the cocoon removing itself entirely for the creature to sink into the pool.

“Give it… give it back... I need...” came a garbled, bubbling sound from the swiftly decaying mess left of the centaur, doubled by high-pitched, distorted, ratchety bleeping noises from the larger creature.

The mare’s failing eye gazed at the bulging mass. The ulcers and the pimples made the rest of its chitin flake off, and it had gone almost entirely cyan. Only its eyes remained green. A web of veins shone throughout its body, culminating in its head, which lost all of its hard cover, revealing a humongous cerebral cortex. All of it glowed, like the contents of a massive lava lamp, sludging around and slowly falling over, the cocoon no longer supporting the overlong neck that had also lost its exoskeleton.

A darker blot was revealed on its head. Ditzy’s good eye widened. A griffon floated above the deformed, tentacled head, covered in green and cyan sludge alike. The most stained was the huge industrial hammer he clutched in his talons. Within moments after the incapacitated mare saw him, he leaned his top-heavy body far back, raising the hammer for a blow.

The griffon’s croaking, growling grunt echoed throughout the cave as the hammerhead plunged through the liquified cranium and deep into the massive cortex. He then brought the weapon back, and it let out a sharp hiss, two hot streams of steam emerging from the head, burning through the rest of the organic mass as the griffon smashed it once again. A thundering, crackling, colorless flash encompassed the cave, tumbling the half-burned mare over and on her back again.

Her body went limp, eye clasped shut, twitching at the intense light.

The mare moved each of her limbs weakly, her right fore and hind leg barely responding. Her charred wings were pinned down by their own weight. Ditzy managed to crawl back a little, pushing herself with the muscles that would respond. A heavy coughing fit came over her, producing bloddy spittle all over her injured, arcanely burned frame. Wet gurgles rose up in her mouth, quieting down after another fit. She set herself against one of the rough mounds and watched the remnants of one of its emptied cocoons, which lay spread on the ground right next to her. The porous, organic surface of the cave slowly turned rough and stony.

Her breathing got more stable, and her head drooped. The mare wheezed now, bleeding a consistent stream of red out of her mouth and nose. It passed over the deformities left by the flames, creaking as it spread into the pores on the ground and onto her own body. Her lips, left intact by the damage, curled into an absent smile, and her jaw hung limply, allowing the blood to trickle out.

A large shape lumbered in her direction. Her good eye focused on it for a moment before slipping shut. It was the griffon, shaking and wobbling as he approached, struggling to walk in a straight line. He used his paws at first, departing from the monstrous corpse bipedally, before he let out a gasp and a groan, falling on all fours, dragging the sludge-covered hammer after him still. He coughed up blood as well. His vest and shirt were singed, revealing lightly burned plumage underneath. One of his wings dragged limply on the ground. Cyan and green blots covered him head to paw.

Upon reaching a column just by the mound Ditzy lay against, the griffon promptly rested his back against it, letting out a long sigh. He turned his beak toward her as she coughed up another spray of bloody drops. His low laugh echoed throughout the silent cave.

“Still alive?.. Yeah. Never underestimate a pony.” He hissed, grasping at his chest. “You did a good job. If not for you… Heh. Heh-heh. I'd have spawned the worst changeling monarch in all of recorded history. Not a title I've been working for.”

The mare sat still against her mound, showing no reaction to his words. He carried on regardless.

“My name… Ah. Right… I remember you…” He laughed, his voice a bit more faint, and he still clutched his chest, squinting at her. “You know, when we looked through candidates for this whole 'Equestria Delivery' business, I thought you'd get somewhere - one or two letters, no more. I should have had a feeling when we found so many sponsors in Carol. A lot more ponies than I thought were interested in incentivizing you guys. I even spoke to them, I listened to Corral Brand himself rant on and on about 'fixing Equestria', but... you know how confirmation bias goes. It was going to be simple, you know? Oh no, look at all this violence, look at these clinically insane maniacs plunging the country into 1003-esque mob justice… look at these tycoons supporting these horrible actions... look at the secretive changeling community spawning a new monarch to bring back their hivemind. Heh, heh-heh... heh...” He raised a talon, pointing at the humongous creature’s slowly desiccating remains, but Ditzy did not react. “No more Royal Sisters. No more Bearers, that's for sure - the only one that lived caused all this, but... Someone else can deliver Equestria - we just need a lot of solid excuses. You see, Ditzy? It was a good plan, wasn't it?”

Engels hissed and wheezed, massaging the wounds on his chest and rubbing his talons against his stained beak. Ditzy continued to heave and cough, while he continued to talk.

“That's what I thought. I'm not without fault, old lady... We set you up for failure, we needed you to all get killed, we thought Carol City would end you quick... and then you go and succeed, again and again, start cleaning the city. And that lets this bastard move in to gain enough synapse to try to turn into a Monarch, months before schedule. Look at me, I thought this was all salvageable. It all got so much worse, so much more complicated, but I kept going, I kept adding all these band-aids. I made us go all in, because it all has to go to plan, doesn't it?” He sighed and wiped his forehead. “I’m sorry, Ditzy. I shouldn’t be doing this to you. You’re not going to make it, and I don’t imagine you’re having a good time being alive right now. I should… get my old ass off the floor and do the least I can for you. But…” The griffon let out another groan, his hand lifting up the huge hammer a few inches. “I’m in no good shape either, and... if I’m honest? This is weighing on me. I made this happen. I don’t expect you to understand. I doubt you care. I don’t even know if you can hear me. It’s probably best if you don’t. I’ll get up and put you to peace once I’m done yapping. Not what you deserve after killing a centurion by yourself, but... we make do what we can, don’t we, old lady?”

The mare moved her head, roughly facing him. She opened one eye, glaring at him for but a moment before it closed just as rapidly.

“Sparkle's... questionable tenure made for such good ground to finally expand. No charged had to be made up, we only had to bring to light all that was already there. Equestria had lost its plot... Ditzy, I know who you are and what you did way back then. You weren’t alone.” Engels’ voice strengthened and he cleared his throat. "I have my sense of morality, but even I thought it would be for the best if we... relieved you of Twilight Sparkle. She tried to make things better, but one by one, it all backfired, it sent you all further and further off course. This place isn't even recognizable, is it? But she made you think it was fine. That it was all fine… all fine with a grand total of one Princess left alive, with your Crystal comrades dying out, and with one third of your population eating love with holes in their legs. Heh-heh… I can’t blame the girl. She lost all her friends, her family... Then you guys put her on a pedestal. She was a symbol for all of you. It’s hard to go up against friends, even if they’re not yours.”

There was a brief period of silence, and the griffon muttered something under his breath in a foreign language. He continued with a sigh.

“I know why you’re here. I can guess. Isidor sent you. Old, ugly, does magic. Yeah?” Ditzy opened her eye  and nodded in response, coughing once more. “That’s… what I thought. He had more guts than all of Equestria did. He knew my plan was out of control when the Proxy got this huge and powerful. I can't believe how blind I was... This ugly thing was only, heh, four times my size once. Can you believe it?”

Sighing, the mare strained herself to turn around and look at the gooey remains while he spoke.

“Yeah… Equestria thought the last of these died in 1004, when the War ended. This was the last one. You killed the rest. This one is old… back from before our war. You’re forty-four, so you might remember - you were ten back then. I was twenty-five, just a field agent at the time… You even had it on the news. Griffon Empire fights back changeling threat. That was our trophy.” Engels sighed. “Changelings, they're networked creatures... used to be. Still are. Their king back then, Praxis was his name, he made a bunch of these to micromanage the entire hive, so nobody would stab him in the back. Stashed these underground, in water... we found them anyway. Keeping this one around… wasn’t worth the weight.”

Another low, fading laugh came from the griffon. The fabric of his clothes creaked as he tried to move, only to lean back again after just a few tries.

“He was meant to grow, you know... we fed him. Helped him wake up. Start talking. He'd take over a couple hundred changelings, and here's our excuse to march in with the army, save you guys. Not a bad plan B...” The griffon’s head bumped softly against the crystals on the column. “When a good idea turns bad, it’s far, far too easy to keep pretending it’s good. Isidor knew that. I had to have known... it all went off-script. We did what we could to clean up. Silenced witnesses... sometimes personally. But I just couldn’t make myself take out the root. So he helped me out. Old friend...”

The creaking noise came again, but it was now accompanied by a low, strained grunt. Ditzy slowly turned her head around, blinking at Engels, who had managed to get back up, standing on his paws, leaning with a hand against the column.

“Thanks for listening. Nobody else will get to hear that. I cleaned up the mess that I’ve created… but it’s best if there’s no mess to hear about in the first place.” He chuckled. “Not that you’d have told anyone. If only your injuries weren’t lethal, I’d have gotten you out of here. You are a remarkable pony. Your talent… your abilities… you’d have found work with us, much better work than what we paid you for your raids. But… I’ll be done now.”

Engels stumbled toward her, limping as he gripped the hammer with both hands tightly. He came to a halt in front of her, the two of them staring at each other for a few moments, and he swung the hammer back.

“You deserve some peace and quiet, Ditzy. You’re a wholesome individual, be sure of that.”

With a shrill, raspy screech, Ditzy sprung her burned, broken body off the ground, straight at the griffon. He toppled over from the sheer weight of the impact, cawing in pain as his broken wing slammed against the floor. His cry was quickly silenced when the mare’s teeth sank into his throat, tearing through the bulky meat, snapping and ripping again and again until a warm, red spray hit her face.

Ditzy pulled back and retched, vomiting a hard, chunky stream, after which she went limp on top of the magpie’s corpse. Her lungs expired the last of their oxygen, and her good eye rolled back.

“It’s okay now. It’s all going to be fine. Leaving is not as scary as it seems. This was a bad place. I’m glad you didn’t make me live through this.”

“Everything is going to be okay now, Mom. Come on. Me and Star are going home. We’re all going home.”

Dear Citizens of Equestria.

 I apologize for interrupting all scheduled broadcasts, but I feel it is my duty to address you. All of you. Every single household, every last community. I know many of you hold a grudge against me for more than just this unexpected disturbance. After years of skirting around this issue, I believe it is time I came clean with you all.

Under my rule, Equestria had been destroyed. I destroyed it. I, Sovereign Princess Twilight Sparkle, made it crash and burn just so I could cling to my vapid hopes and irrelevant dreams. Those who still defend me will say that I was but a teenager when this responsibility was placed my shoulders. That I had lost all my friends, first at the Canterlot Wedding and when King Sombra returned. The changelings took my brother, his fiancée and all my closest friends. The Princesses fell while fending off the returning evil... When they tried to use the Elements that I helped destroy in my killing of Queen Chrysalis.

I was in emotional turmoil and could not be expected to lead. The non-alicorn High Council could never be trusted and was rightly disregarded. The renegades from our own Emergency Situation Assistance Squads crossed the line when they went against both the Council and myself. There was a plan all along, a plan to bring about better days. To fully deliver, beyond the trinkets and gadgets the bigger cities can now enjoy. All of that is now irrelevant.

There was not one of us that did not suffer. Not the rich nor the poor, not the ones that made a fortune in the post-war chaos, and not the ones that my insipid decisions put on the brink of desperation. Our realm’s suffering was, and continues to be, incomparable. It was all of us that the changelings sucked dry, in one way or another. It was the entire country that lost its beloved Princesses. It was every soul left on every last patch of land that turned inward and looked with suspicion to its neighbors, changeling populated or not. In this darkest moment, we are all on even ground. None are privileged, not even the refugees. The tests, the innovations, all the science that went into making our former enemies into functioning elements of our society, the changeling component of our country knows they are deeply flawed. Their bodies and minds decay. They are no longer even a shade of what they once were.

I thought I could bottle up love and write down ponykind in a book, which they could then drink and read. I couldn’t. You rot from the inside, and the few of you that haven’t become mockeries of my kin realize that an atrocity was dressed up as a breakthrough in friendship. There was no compatibility, and if I could have seen beyond my vapid obsession, I would not have chosen to disregard the obvious. And in all of this, I lack an excuse for what I can only describe as insanity.

You have heard these words come from my opposition. You have heard these words come from the mouths of the armed renegades that formed the Emergency Situation Assault Squads, who my late cabinet and myself have dubbed despicable terrorists time and time again. I can no longer turn a blind eye to the truth, not after seeing what I was insistently told to keep quiet about by my lickspittle advisors, members of my former pseudo-democratic Council, all of them symbols of my own ineptitude at making decisions. Today, after so many years, I will make what could be the first real decision of my reign, the benefits of which shall outweigh the costs. After so many years, I have felt inspiration. The very thing that drew you to love me so much, those of you who could see past the name, wings and horn... and did not reel in disgust.

Today, I saw underneath our own city, New Canterlot - no, Ponyville - a changeling hideout the size of what this town once used to be. My critics can rejoice and feel a semblance of joy, for they were right. Our “guests” were brewing yet another scheme right under my nose. All while I spent days and weeks with empty talks on unification, shifting the blame from the changelings’ unearthly, incomprehensible nature onto ourselves. Then again, there is one fatal flaw among the arguments of my critics. It is not merely the radically different nature of the synaptic creature that meant such events were inevitable, even after the last remnants of their hive mind had been wiped out.

I want this to be made known. Had I not implemented the basics of pony psychology - until now only found among rare scout-type changelings who are potent in synapse - they would have been little more than autonomous husks. The fact that the drones you all so despise could even talk was only thanks to my invention. It was never natural. There was no miracle of science. It was perversion. I implore that you feel the exhilaration that comes with being right. And now I shall repeat your words myself, in my newfound clarity.

I should never have ruled. I should never have let changelings in. They should have been scoured right away, put out of their misery. I should have supported Luna, and not Celestia, when she suggested they be immediately expelled instead of being studied. And when they were both gone from us, I should have refused Princesshood and let someone else take my place. When my failures began to show and the people of this realm rebelled, I should never have created a force more powerful than the Royal Guard to keep the peace. I should never have pressed for the Prejudice Rock pact and thus maintained the loyalty of my ill-born Emergency Situation Assistance Squads. I should never have even considered euphorium as a substitute for the changelings’ inherent addiction, not with the effects it showed on ponies. I should never have allowed crystal technology to develop into the aberrations we see today.

Do you hear me? Do you understand? Do you get it, all of you who defend me? Every single solitary problem that saw Equestria fall and rot for a decade lies in myself. I poisoned the well. In the face of my personal loss, I saw to it that everyone else lost as well. There is no counting of the lives I have ruined. Once a happy, wholesome unity of wonderful individuals, with their own special talents and paths in life.

And now? Children grew up with constant paranoia and insanity. Forced to gang up on others just to get by. Some cities are ruled by criminals. Spree killers became the new hidden norm. Mothers mourning their children. Orphans. Fanatics. Insanity.

I have done nothing but mouth your words so far, Equestria. I suppose I am wasting your time. Inspiration can do that to your mind. Down there, beneath the city, among the detritus and synaptic waste, I saw for myself, and all of us, an example. Of how even the unlikeliest of characters can rise up and make the world right, for themselves, and for all of us. Through actions instead of words. It is about time I laid out the former for you, Equestria.

In this moment, you are my top priority. There is nothing else I have left. Nothing more important than you. In the end, it was my duty to ensure brighter times, and I failed bitterly.

Now I will fix it all. Not by overlooking obvious biological facts. Not by creating weapons and drugs. Not by painting a picture of a world that ceased to exist a decade ago. As I said before in my empty, pandering speeches - I’ll see that we will become a wholesome unity of wonderful individuals. I can fix this. For history’s sake, one last aside.

...

I apologize for the rashness of my actions to Empress Adelie and the members of the Griffon delegation. I really do doubt that the paper I just signed would have had any tangible end result. I believe in your dedication to repairing the damage that I have caused, but I doubt that even your agents can gain anything from this ruined place. I trust your country has the strength to prevail, like mine did under my disastrous leadership. And to all our neighbors, I apologize.

Because I only see one way to make this right.

Equestria is gone.

“See? It’s fine. Everyone’s around. It was all just a really bad dream.”

“It was scary, but it’s over now. Just don’t think about it. It’ll pass on its own.”