Sunburn
Greene
"AHH!" shouted an unfamiliar equine voice.
"Ah!" exclaimed Fluttershy in a regular tone of voice.
""Hhhhhhh!" Greene hissed, pulling her cocoon back into herself and dropping to the floor, lowering herself, eyes flashing at the intruder menacingly. He was an earth pony, main color red, secondary color blue. His mark, she couldn't see from her point, but his mane and tail were cut very, very short, the former almost nonexistent. He froze in his place, two sets of green eyes locking. At that moment Fluttershy, still in the throes of panic, fell off the bed in a pile of blankets. At once Greene was there. With a harsh tug on the purple covers, she unraveled Fluttershy, who promptly fell, dazed, to the enmeshed ground.
"Why yes Angel," she muttered. "You can jump off the candy cane forest."
"Who!?" she shouted at the intruder intruder intruder. "Who who who who who?!"
"R-Ringing Bells, miss. I-I was sent by the Princesses to c-call you and Miss Fluttershy to b-breakfast."
Fluttershy got back to her hooves, shaking in anger which was strange strange strange. Greene's glare intensified. "Scared her!" she growled, echoes closing in on the offending equine like a vice.
"S-Sorry," the equine squeaked, backing out of the room. Greene waited until he was out of sight, and then relaxed. As soon as she did, Fluttershy did as well. She dropped to her stomach, gasping from some unknown cause.
"Alright?" Elizabeth asked, worried.
Fluttershy pulled herself up, blinking sleep out of her eyes, and gave Greene a nervous, one-eyed smile. "Y-Yeah. I'm fine. Thanks for, um, asking."
"Breakfast?" she asked. This was her last day in Canterlot for the forseeable future, so she wanted to see the sister alicorns one more time.
Fluttershy shook her head for some bizarre reason that Elizabeth could never figure out. "Right. Let's go to breakfast." She snapped her head up from the ground to look at Elizabeth. "I-If you want to."
"Not hungry, but you are," she rasped, drawing in her warmth again until none was left coating the room. "Want to see Celestia and Luna again."
"Alright, you can, um, follow me. If you'd like to," Fluttershy said, opening the door that had been slammed shut by the terrified servant. Her mane was somewhat ungroomed, but still maintained most of its shape, and her coat was matted in a few spots where she'd slept on it. They walked through the castle silently, passing guards with little more than a glance between them and Elizabeth. She wondered if the one she'd struck and the one she'd siphoned from had recovered. The latter certainly, the damage was purely superficial. The former, though... she was slightly stronger than her Wayward Child, and even he could kill Similars with a single glancing blow. However, she'd been very weak when she'd struck, and it had been an equine, not a Similar. Smaller, but also armored, and different in body. She just didn't know. Hardly hardly hardly mattered, they'd arrived and the doors were open and the smell of plants being eaten made her wrinkle her nose and -
Celestia and Luna were already there, the former eating something she identified as a fluffy white angel cake, the latter eating a light green salad decorated with deep blue flowers and blood red tomatoes.
" - imposed conditions too light. Those... those..." said an unfamiliar male equine on Celestia's other side.
"Temper, nephew," said Celestia's voice, chiding the white, heavily clothed unicorn beside her. All eyes turned to them as they walked in, the guards closing the doors behind them and leaving the five in private.
"Who?" she rasped, looking at the new equine as she and Fluttershy moved to the table, sitting across from the two princesses. She herself was across from the Solar Alicorn, Fluttershy across from the Nightbringer, so Greene was closest to the new equine.
"Elizabeth," Celestia said, gesturing with her hooves. "I would like you to meet my nephew, Prince Blueblood."
Greene's eyes locked with the Prince's pale blue orbs, which immediately went wide. "Prince Blueblood," Greene said as a servant asked a trembling Fluttershy what she'd like. She extended a tendril beneath her feet, weaving it along the ground towards the unicorn. "Hello," she said uncertainly.
"U-Um, hello," he said in a strained voice. Elizabeth didn't like that voice. It sounded guarded. Forced. Like he'd rather say something else. The fact that his eyes kept flicking to Celestia made her more suspicious. "As Prince of Canterlot, allow me t-to formally welcome you t-to Equestria."
Greene continued to look at him, and smiled. She pressed one of her feet to the ground, and extended a tendril of warmth across beneath the table. She poked the unicorn's seat with it. "Purpose talking?" she asked. "Talking before we entered. What was it about?"
Blueblood shivered as her voice buzzed around, but Celestia answered for him. "We were just discussing the conditions we set up with the ambassadors. He was most tolerant of their decisions," she said. Celestia looked over to him and narrowed her magenta eyes. "Isn't that right, nephew?"
"Of course, auntie!" he said hastily, paying his half-eaten, rather fanciful meal no mind. "I have no trouble whatsoever with granting our, ehm, esteemed guest here free movement throughout most of the known world! None whatsoever!" An equine brought Fluttershy her meal.
Elizabeth nodded. This was a strange equine indeed. Very, very broken. Still...
She continued the tentacle's path and snipped a piece of Blueblood's fur, sorting its essence. She pulled the trail of warmth back, and turned to Fluttershy. "Plan today? Last day in Canterlot. Interesting?"
"W-Well, I don't know about anything happening right now..."
Blueblood suddenly withered under stares from both alicorns. "Well, there is the symphony being held in the Beethooven Concert Hall, a-at noon. I'm sure you can find your way there." The alicorns kept looking at him. Blueblood drew closer to Celestia and began to whisper in a voice that Greene was sure Fluttershy couldn't hear. That didn't stop her though.
"Auntie, why can't you have a servant show them there?" he hissed.
"You were already planning to go there today, weren't you?"
"But escorting those... those commoners?" he whispered, an ear flicking.
"Fluttershy is the Element of Kindness and dear friend to my personal apprentice. Elizabeth Greene is the ambassador to the Evolved, an alien species. Tell me, nephew," Celestia said stonily. "What about them is common, were that even relevant?"
"But... but..."
"But nothing, Blueblood! Remember the Gala?" Both of Blueblood's ears flattened. This was the second time she'd heard of this 'Gala'. She needed to ask about that. It sounded rather important. "Now, after breakfast is finished, you'll bring them to the concert you were already planning to listen to. I don't want to hear them speak of anything ill about you, nephew. Are we clear?"
"Yes, Princess Celestia," he muttered, looking down. They pulled apart, and their voices rose. He turned to Elizabeth Greene, and his lips abruptly pulled upwards into a smile. "Well then! We'd better start heading out towards the concert hall!"
"But, I'm still - " Fluttershy said softly.
Blueblood leaped from his seat in what Greene, after a moment of thought, decided was frantic dignity. "Right then. No time to waste. After all, it's commoners who arrive fashionably late." She had no idea what to make of that statement.
"But - oh, alright," Fluttershy said quietly before following leaving her own chair, her meal forgotten. Greene had only a limited amount of time. She probably wouldn't need their essence, but it was better to be safe than sorry. She sent a tendril beneath the table towards Princess Celestia, snipped a piece of her fur and took the essence -
"AHH!"
She screamed and fell back, instantly releasing her hold on the alicorn's essence. It burned! It burned it burned it burned burned burned! It was the Bad Air again, spreading inside her body from her stomach and eating away at her, eating at her Blessing with heat and death and poison and it burned-burned-burned make it stop! It was inside her, what was it? It hurt it hurt it was inside her get it out get it out GET IT OUT!
She tried to get up, but she staggered back a few steps and fell, red and white tendrils angrily lashing around her and cracking the floor. The castle tilted to the side. She thrashed around on the ground, clawing at her stomach to get whatever was burning her out! She'd spat out Celestia's essence, why was she still burning burning burning?!
"E-Elizabeth? W-What's wrong?" A white and purple pegasus approached her, one purple eye hidden behind her mane.
"What is happening to thou?!" Luna was upside down, a giant purple flower growing from her forehead in place of a horn.
"Elizabeth, Elizabeth speak to me!" frantically shouted a pink alicorn.
"Oh do get up, you're dirtying the floor!" said a white and yellow earth pony.
"Blueblood!" both alicorns shouted at the other, bubbles coming from their mouths in the form of various animals.
She rolled over onto her stomach and propped herself up on two hands. She heaved once, twice, and then let loose a glob of blood that she sensed had Celestia's torn-up fur inside it. She hacked and coughed, letting up more of her flesh, and then fell backwards onto her spine, chest heaving with great effort as she still coughed. She rolled onto her side and curled up, whimpering in pain. She felt something, someone pushing at her, but lacked the energy to be indignant.
"Elizabeth!" shouted an equine's voice. Whose was it? She couldn't make it out. "Elizabeth, speak to us! Where is thy pain?" She curled up on her stomach more, breaths coming ragged and strained.
"Unnnngh, ah..." she hissed, rolling onto her back. Luna's worried face was over hers, eyes narrowed. It suddenly dawned on Greene just how close the equine was and she scooted back, panting. She slammed into a wall, cracking it, but at least she was sitting up now. "F-F-Fine," she stammered, rising to her feet, swaying back and forth. A moment later, and her tremendous regeneration had her fixed completely, her perceptions returning to normal. "I'm fine," she insisted, echoes quiet. "Fine. Beethooven?"
Blueblood blinked. "You expect me, the Prince of Equestria, to bring you, an alien being, to a concert by the renowned Octavia Philharmonica, after that pitiful display of self humiliation? What even brought that about?"
"Doesn't matter," she rasped, looking at the equine intently. Instantly Blueblood froze. "Won't happen again. Made mistake. Won't repeat." She walked over to Fluttershy, and gave her a warm, toothy grin. "I'm fine. Relax." She did so, marginally; she stopped trembling and managed to look up, but still gave off the overall impression of 'meek'."
"Elizabeth," Celestia said soothingly, approaching her from the side and making her whirl around. "I know how much being self-reliant means to you, but so long as you are in Equestria's borders you are my subject and as such, I am obligated to care for your well being. You can be honest with me. What happened?"
Greene fiddled with the strap around her waist, thinking. Her eyes roamed from a glaring/nervous Blueblood, to a just plain nervous Fluttershy, to a surprised Luna, and to a worried Celestia. Should she tell them? One of their philosophies was to be honest, but how would Celestia react to learning she'd tried to take essence from her? She knew she'd be furious, to put it lightly. But Celestia was not her not by a long shot but how would she react would she be angry would she even understand? But if she lied, what would she say? The alicorns were centuries old, millennia old. She doubted she'd be able to fool them.
"Sampled essence," she said. "Want to compare. Earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi." She tilted her head, looking Celestia in the eyes. "Alicorn essence... burned. Had to get it out. Safe now. No repeat."
Celestia frowned. "My... essence?"
"Makes you you. Mistake." She shook her head. "Alicorn magic burns my Blessing when it's in them. Alicorn essence burns me when it's in me. Safe now. Promise."
"What were you doing with my... essence, Elizabeth?" she asked warily, stepping back. Luna moved to her side, and out of the corner of her eye Blueblood's tail flicked in irritation.
"Analyze. Compare others." This wasn't totally a lie. After all, she didn't plan to Bless the alicorns, so taking her essence was just more out of curiosity than anything else. "Was curious. What makes you and Luna different." She rubbed her stomach, and shuddered. "Mistake."
"I see. Still, I feel you should take a rest. You were coughing up and vomiting blood just seconds ago." The Daybringer whispered something about cleaning servants to herself. "You're not fine."
"Am fine," she insisted. "Heal quick. Demonstrate." She walked over to the table and grabbed one of the weapons. Not the pronged one, the one with a serrated edge. She brought it to her left hand and, angled so they could see, pressed it in hard and moved it. She barely felt a touch as the blade opened a red line in her flesh. Just as quick as she opened it her healing factor closed it. The knife bent and crumpled under the force she had to put on it to cut her. "Heal quick," she repeated to the jaw-dropped equines.
"We... see," Luna said in awe. "Natural regeneration. We need magic for that."
Greene whirled around on Blueblood suddenly. "Music?"
"You expect me to bring - " Celestia suddenly coughed. Was she sick? " - right away! Follow me, I'll lead you to your seats." Blueblood turned around, letting Greene catch sight of his strange circle-with-lines mark. What in the world was that?
She and Fluttershy followed after Blueblood, the pegasus looking wholly uncomfortable around the unicorn. They made their way out of the castle quickly, but out of a side passage Elizabeth didn't know existed. Blueblood seemed inclined to keep them away away away from the majority of the population, which was fine by her, and he seemed to have an innate sense of direction Fluttershy lacked. At some point, day guards joined them. She bristled, but decided they were more for Blueblood than for her. It made their presence tolerable. Still, her dislike didn't keep her from taking their essence.
The Beethooven Concert Hall was... impressive, she decided. Somewhat open, mostly closed, somewhat bowl shaped. The marble white building - actual marble? - seemed to project noise well. A pegasus in a strange buttoned white and black suit that reminded her of Sokara greeted them.
"Ah, Prince Blueblood. I see you're escorting the Element of Kindness and the Evolved?"
"Yes yes," he said. "Give them a seat in section 4-D, doesn't matter. I'll be headed to my usual. You can, ugh, send their admission fee to my royal coffers."
"Of course, sir." Without further word, Blueblood left, leaving the two of them in the company of the pegasus. Greene could see seats further ahead, arranged in rows and columns with aisles between them. There were many equines here, and on the stage she could see... she didn't know. Strange things of wood that looked like circles melted together, with black fibers stretched across, all of varying size. A unicorn lead Fluttershy and, by extension, herself through the chairs until they found a seat. She shivered as she sat next to Fluttershy, and extended her warmth onto the seat, shifting around it for a moment so her suit's back tubes could find a comfortable spot.
She frowned as the unicorn left them, equines struggling to edge away from her for some bizarre reason. Were they still afraid of her? But that wasn't why she frowned, no no no. She hadn't been particularly sated before the incident with Celestia's essence, but she also hadn't been hungry. Now though, having lost that flesh, she could go for a bite. Or two. Or twenty. She stewed over this. She'd need to eat again. But not in Canterlot; she could wait. Maybe until Ponyville.
"Um, Elizabeth?" Fluttershy asked tentatively from next to her. "Have you ever been to a concert before?"
"No," she rasped. "Bad music late night in Canterlot. Hope better."
"Oh," she said, looking down at her hooves. Elizabeth looked around; the equines were staring staring staring at them! AGAIN! Could they not get the message?!
She hissed at them to ignore them, and they did so. Good.
"Where's Blueblood?" she asked Fluttershy, looking at her.
"Um, I don't know. I think he left us. Oh that wasn't very nice. D-Did I do something?"
"Hmm," she said. "Don't need prince. Can leave." She considered her choice of words with a head tilt. "After music."
"Oh, r-right." Fluttershy relaxed marginally, now that all eyes weren't on them. The echoing echoing echoing background chatter-braying of the equines quieted. All eyes, including Greene's own, were drawn to the stage.
An equine introduced the piece to be played as Beethooven Eight something by some group with key player Harmoni-something. A couple equines walked out and took place around several instruments. Elizabeth tensed. Her first encounter with equine music had been awful. Would this be any better? Some of the equines were male, some were female. The one that gathered the most attention was a gray earth pony female in the middle. She had brilliant violet eyes that reminded her so so so much of her Holy Child's eyes. She also had a strange white thing around her neck with one of those lavish 'bows' on it.
"Music?" she asked as quietly as she could to Fluttershy. Even so, her echoes made the equines around focus on her and 'shhh' harshly. It also didn't help she stood heads and shoulders above them, even while sitting...
... why had she agreed to this again?
"Yes," Fluttershy whispered just above silence. She was sweating through her coat heavily, though Elizabeth suspected it was because of the crowd. She continued to extend her warmth, this time towards Fluttershy, wrapping it under her seat and crawling the tendrils over her body like the blankets on their beds. She tensed but she shushed Fluttershy, who then she relented and allowed Elizabeth to wrap her in red and white tendrils up to her neck. She loosened them so she wouldn't be entirely restrained - she knew how awful awful awful that was! - but otherwise, she kept her warm. The equine looked over at her and gave a small smile, one visible eye grateful.
She returned the smile, and then looked back towards the stage, where some equine was chattering on about the day's events, how this was such-and-such piece performed by such-and-such composer on such-and-such an occasion and would they get on with it already!?
At length, they begun, the musicians moving their bows and plucking strings and... and...
... and...
Elizabeth tensed with a small gasp, her eyes going wide at the sounds.
Then she relaxed and smiled, eyelids fluttering closed.
This was... good music, she decided. She didn't quite know why it was good but... it was good. It was smooth and nice nice nice, but it had jumpy erratic parts that weren't erratic all, that were patterned. Planned. Brass-metal things made her almost jump with their intensity; the building carried sound so well well well, especially for her sensitive ears! She liked this music. She really really really liked it. She leaned back her head and smiled as the pleasant tunes washed over her.
It wasn't like the music she'd heard last night. That had been awful. It had been screechy, wildly jumping between bone-rattling lows and ear-piercing highs. Here, the range of noise wasn't as intense, and the changes were planned and good. Then, the music had been erratic, multiple overlapping layers fighting each other conflicted with each other not Listening to each other and it made her stomach churn. Here though, they Listened. They were ordered, they were in perfect harmony. It resonated in her chest in her head. There, the music had been... fake. Made by lightning and metal. Here it was still made by metal but with the force of the equines to power it. It was so much... better. It seemed familiar to her somehow. Certainly not the music itself, but the overall tone, the type. Perhaps she'd listened to such music Before?
And then... it stopped. She snapped open her eyes, and suddenly she was aware that she'd been humming the tune. She looked at Fluttershy, who was visibly sweating through her coat yet also, upon noticing Elizabeth's grin, gave a small smile of her own.
"Over?" she rasped as the equines gathered began to chat.
"O-Oh, no," Fluttershy said softly as the musical equines began to move away from her sight. Where did they think they were going? "It's just an intermission so that, um, they can rest."
"Rest," she muttered to herself. "Strange to need rest."
"W-Why? Um, if you don't mind me asking, why is that strange to you?"
"Don't get tired," she rasped. "Weak, but not tired. Rest doesn't change. Time does. Weak and fighting, weak and sitting, still get strong. Never tired." She frowned. "Similars get tired." She looked at Fluttershy intensely, who wilted back under her cover of tendrils. "Equines get tired?"
"W-Well, I think you're the only one in, um, the world who doesn't, um, get tired."
"Strange," she muttered.
Fluttershy shuffled under her warmth. She opened her mouth, then closed it. It was a motion that did not escape her. Nothing escaped her. Not the way the equines on stage occasionally glanced out from behind the curtain, or how that curious pegasus was still curious, or how Blueblood was in an elevated portion of the seats and doing his best to pretend they didn't exist. "Yes?" she asked the yellow pegasus.
"Oh, it's nothing," she said, trying to hide both eyes behind her pink mane. When Elizabeth didn't stop staring at her, she relented. "Um, I was just going to ask, if it's alright with you, if you could pull this off? It's getting kinda hot. If you want to, that is."
She nodded, and pulled her warmth off of Fluttershy so that it was only under her own seat.
"Thanks, Elizabeth," she said with a grin.
She nodded, but did not say anything. She settled for staring intently at the stage, waiting waiting waiting for the musicians to resume the lovely tunes. The songs made her feel... happy. Relaxed. It let her forget forget forget her stress, how she had to gather as much essence as she could -
- essence! There was so much of it around, and she had time before the music resumed surely. She extended small, nearly invisible tendrils outwards from her warmth, winding around the occupied chairs. It pressed her focus to its limit to control so many individual, tiny tendrils from so far, but she did it, and then it was relatively simple to take the essence of the several hundred equines here. She categorized it quickly, frowning when she found two more of the anomalies, prompting her to create a separate group just for them. She pulled her warmth back from around the Beethooven Concert Hall until it was once again localized to warming her immediate surroundings. There. That should be enough to be definit... definiti... showing of Canterlot's equines.
Then the musicians came back out, and Elizabeth gave them her utmost attention. They resumed playing, and tension once again bled out of her. Greene let herself be lost in the music, swaying back and forth in her seat and gently humming to the tune. The music continued on and on and on-on-on, for she didn't know how long but if it never ended it would've been too soon. Even sad-sad-sadder, it ended far quicker than never. The music reached a peak in intensity, and then abruptly ended, leading to the loud loud loud stamping of hooves around her. She looked around, unsure what she should do.
Before too long, the equines began to file out. The musicians began to abandon the stage after making repeated bows, leaving in her a panic. They were going to take that music away away away! She couldn't couldn't couldn't let that happen! She had to get to them!
"Stay. Wait," she told Fluttershy before standing up. The equines around her turned to look at her as she pulled her warmth back into her body. She tensed her legs, and then leaped. She soared through the air in a calculated arc, landing before the Holy-Child-Eyes equine.
She jumped backwards. "Ah! Who are you - securi - !" Her shout cut off when she saw who it was. She staggered back on all fours, eyes looking up at Greene, wide in shock and... horror? That made her sad. She didn't like it when others were afraid of her. "I-It's you!"
"Me," Greene repeated. She smiled, hoping to diffuse the tension. "Listened to music."
"O-Oh. W-Well what did you think?"
Greene tilted her head back and smiled. "Happy times. Don't remember, but happy times. Calming. Wonderful wonderful wonderful music." She snapped her head back, looking intensely at this earth pony. "Name?"
"It's O-Octavia, Octavia Philharmonica, pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Greene." Octavia held up a forehoof. Greene took a moment to decipher what her goal was, then reached out to grab it gently, shaking her hoof and taking the essence. Octavia winced and pulled her hoof away, which Greene allowed. She gingerly tapped it on the marble floor. "Celestia, that's quite a grip," she said under her breath.
"Strong," she said, unsure of which of them she was referring to.
"Ri-i-i-ight," said another equine, this one with one of the metal instruments. "Octavia, remind me why we haven't called security on this alien yet?"
She turned to him. "Relax, Full Stave. Remember, this is the ambassador to the Evolved alien race, she is meaning no harm, and I'm sure she was just leaving." Octavia turned to her, the other equines returning to packing away their instruments in preparation for something... something. "Right?"
"Wanted to ask. How often music, where?"
She smirked. Smirked! "You'll have to check with our schedule, Elizabeth. We hardly know them off the top of our head. Suffice to say, I play almost exclusively in Canterlot."
Greene nodded. "Will return." She tilted her head. "Maybe Bless after second music listening."
That made the equine raise a brow. "Bless me?" Oh no, was she going to have to explain it again? "Why, thank you, Elizabeth. I shall look forward to receiving your Blessing."
Elizabeth Greene's face broke out into a wild grin. She was right right right! These equines were better than the Similars! They knew what was good for them. She extended her left arm and rested it on Octavia's shoulder, who instantly went rigid, the first beads of sweat peaking out from under her coat. "Thank you. Rest. Music good, mustn't falter." She turned around and, her mission complete, returned to Fluttershy with a hop, still grinning.
"O-Oh, hello Elizabeth," Fluttershy said, as if she'd been gone for a while. A few of the equines had stayed behind to watch her conversation with Octavia. Some of them appeared to be guards out of armor, but didn't approach. Good. For them. "Do you, um, want to leave now? The Concert Hall doesn't have another, well, concert, for a few hours, a-and, we'd need to pay for that because I lost Prince Blueblood." She shuffled her hooves. "Sorry for losing Prince Blueblood," she whimpered.
She knelt and gently laid a hand on her withers. "Relax. Doesn't matter." She was still smiling. This was a good day. "Want to go out? Wander if want. Go somewhere if want. Don't mind." She wrinkled her nose, standing back up. "Just not wet."
The Kindness Element giggled at that. "Okay. Um, do you want to take a walk?"
"If you want," she rasped. They began to walk, and were soon the primary focus of the streets of Canterlot. A fact that gave Fluttershy no small measure of visual discomfort, but didn't manage to hamper Greene's mood. The music had done wonders for her. She felt... uplifted. Yes, that was the word. She had a spring in her step, each such spring leaving a hairline fracture in the road beneath her feet. Equines largely ignored them, which was good good good, but every now and then one stared, so they were still the center of attention.
"What now?" she asked.
"Well, um, I was thinking maybe we could just walk around. Look for a place to get lunch? I mean, we did spend a few hours at the concert hall and, um, I'm a little, um, hungry."
"Place to get lunch," she said happily.
Fluttershy smiled. "Alright. I think I know where I want to go. U-Unless you want to go elsewhere?" she asked, smile fading.
"Your choice," she rasped. "Know city better."
The smile returned. "Alright."
There was a pair of pegasi, differing genders, flying overhead. A unicorn mother and her child buying what appeared to be flowers in cookies. a twitchy looking earth pony sitting on a bench. The sun was bright bright bright in the sky, but she didn't let that bother her. She was far more bothered by how cold it was. She and Fluttershy walked through the streets, being followed in 'secret' by the curious pegasus and the one-of-each day guards.
Fluttershy lead her down a road, one filled with the smell of plants, though she didn't know if it was for decoration, or consumption, or both.
"So, Elizabeth," Fluttershy began quietly, looking up at her. "I-If you don't mind me asking, what's it like to, um, regenerate?"
Elizabeth pondered that. "Don't... don't know." She looked down at Fluttershy, face neutral. "What's it like not to regenerate?"
"Hmm," Fluttershy mused.
She heard an equine behind her shout, "For Equus!" She whirled around to see the twitchy earth pony - black fur, blue secondary fur, bloodshot red eyes, mark obscured - running at her. Fluttershy backed away in shock. As he approached her, he stopped and wheeled around so that his back was to her, revealing his mark of a... smoke cloud with some silver triangular thing coming out of it. She tilted her head in that short span of time. Was it running to her just to run back? Then he lifted his hind legs and slammed them into her stomach. She stumbled back a step, more from shock than anything.
Time slowed down. She was aware of Fluttershy's eyes going wide. She was aware of the day guards running out of their hiding spots, and of the curious pegasus bringing a forehoof to her face. She was aware of the earth pony dropping back to all fours and looking at her in surprise. But more than anything she was aware that the equine had just ambushed her. He had struck her, he had attacked her.
He.
Had.
Touched.
Her.
She bared her teeth and growled. She pushed off with her legs and slammed into the equine, whose eyes went wide with horror. But she didn't stop there. She grabbed it by its neck and hoisted its head up to her level, and her speed carried her on. She and her assailant sailed down the street, past the unicorn day guard whose horn was lit, and slammed into the wall. She did so with such force that the stone cracked. Still holding the equine, she pulled her hand back and released, sending him tumbling head over tail on the ground before finally coming to a rest.
She leaped forward as the earth pony struggled to his hooves, right hand flying out in a hook. He ducked beneath her wild swing, though it seemed more like a collapse. It didn't matter. The sheer force of her missed attack sent a shockwave through the air that battered him back into the ground. She leaned down with a snarl and grabbed him by the neck, raising him again. He began kicking at her, and she barely felt it but he was still touching her! She panted in anger, her vision red with fury. Her entire body felt like it had fallen asleep, and her vision went from red-tinged to grayscale. Red and white tendrils - looking like gray and white to her - danced around her suit and skin, seeking that which had dared anger her. She opened her mouth to take a deep breath -
"Elizabeth, no!" shouted Fluttershy. At that same moment a unicorn bystander pulled him away from her by move-thought and she, not having expected that, didn't adjust her grip in time to keep him from floating away. A similar, blue aura surrounded her and suddenly she was in the air. Her raw fury slipped away from the surprise; her body got feeling back and her vision returned to normal, but she still kicked and snarled at the air, though she had no purchase to escape the move-thought around her.
Fluttershy ran up to her, eyes pleading. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth please, calm down!" She stopped snarling. "Please, please calm down, it's okay." She stopped kicking, and Fluttershy nodded to a female unicorn, whose horn was surrounded by similar colored magic to hers. "You can let her go now," she said with a surprising amount of confidence. The unicorn nodded and released her magic, dropping Greene the short distance to the ground. She went to hiss and growl at the green-magic-encased equine, but Fluttershy got in between them, eyes intense like she'd never seen before. "Elizabeth Anne Greene, that is enough. You've hurt him enough already. I know he tried to hurt you, but the guard has it handled now, alright?"
"Alright," she responded almost automatically.
"Good." Her gaze softened. "Are you alright? He had hoof spikes on his hind legs when he bucked you."
"Hoof spikes?" Now that she looked at the unconscious equine being tended to by the guards, she noticed there were metal things on his hind legs, similar to the ones Luna and Celestia wore, but with a single tiny metal spike sticking out of their ends. Had he always had them, or just put them on when he saw her? Had he pursued her?
She suddenly understood Fluttershy's concern. These equines were a lot... squishier than her. Something like that metal... "Am fine. Tough, didn't cut. Heal if it did."
She smiled. "That's good. But did you have to be so rough on him?"
She growled in return. "Hit me! Touched me!" she shouted, echoes buzzing through the air angrily and drawing the full attention of the crowd around her.
The pegasus guard approached her, in full uniform and disguise. "Miss Greene, are you alright?"
"Am fine," she said, her anger finally beginning to ebb. "Just... surprised."
He nodded. "It's a good thing we got you two separated in time, or you may have killed him."
"Bad how?" she asked scorchingly.
He sighed. "First off, Equestria's self defense policy doesn't go so far as to include ponicide." Poni... what? "Second, everypony is somepony's son or daughter. Third, if he died we wouldn't be able to question him."
"Questions irrelevant," she rasped, still indignant.
"What if there are others that want to attack you, associated with him? What if there was a good reason for him attacking you we don't know of? We need to perform an investigation on this." He looked back at the equine, and Greene followed his gaze; he was unconscious, the earth pony day guard and a civilian unicorn tending to his wounds while the unicorn day guard kept the surrounding equines from rioting. Out of the corner of her eye, the curious pegasus's eyes were wide.
"Now, I suggest you and miss Fluttershy head on back to the castle. It's getting dangerous out here."
"Defend Fluttershy," she insisted. "Friends protect."
He nodded, the barest hint of a smile on his stony face. "A noble sentiment, but either way your presence is starting to incite a riot." He nudged a head at the increasingly rowdy crowd. "It'd be best for you to clear out before things get heated and any innocents get hurt." She saw more day guards arriving on the scene. "We'll contact you later when we need to conduct the investigation. For now, just clear out."
She huffed, her echoes quieting back to normal. "Fine." She turned to Fluttershy. "Meet back in Twilight Sparkle's tower?" she asked.
The pegasus timidly nodded. "O-Oh! Sure. I guess I can, um, eat lunch in the castle." She took off into the air, slowly flitting through the air as a pair of day guards joined her in escort.
Greene herself leaped into the air, instantly removing herself from the crowd and passing her friend. She landed on a roof and she, with all her strength, leaped off. She hung in the air for a long long long time before smashing back into the ground, completing the sprint back to the castle in record time. She hopped inside Twilight Sparkle's tower and screamed.
How dare that equine touch her?! The nerve! The arrogance! She didn't go around poking them for no reason, did she? No, he didn't either! He wanted to kill her!
She screamed again, and again, and again.
Why did he want to kill her? To hurt hurt hurt her? Hadn't she been hurt enough already? Hadn't she lost enough? She'd felt her children break and burn, she'd endured the freezing chill of the Cold Dark Place, the Awful Poison, the Bad Air, and the Similar weapons! She'd had her blood drawn so so so much and kept hungry hungry hungry. She'd faced her Wayward Child in open combat not once but twice and been slashed, crushed, stabbed, impaled, then Cursed. She had died, wasn't that enough?! But of course it wasn't. In a world filled filled filled with individuals, of course there would be these... these fiends. It was exactly the reason she had to succeed! Well, one of the reasons anyway.
She prepared to scream again, but Fluttershy was there and how could she act like that around her?
She frowned, meeting Fluttershy's patient gaze. "Do you want to talk about it?" she whispered.
"No," she said sharply. She walked over to a corner of the room and sat down. She drew her knees to her chest, linked her arms beneath them and bowed her head. There was the clopping of hooves, and she felt a presence next to her.
"Elizabeth, do you want to talk about it?" she repeated.
"No," she whispered.
"Do you want me to get you something to eat?"
She considered this. "No," she rasped. "Just want to sleep."
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"Yes," she insisted. "Want to go to earth pony nest sooner."
The sound of slightest motion. Fluttershy nodding? "Alright. Sweet dreams, Elizabeth."
Fluttershy was trotting away when Greene opened her mouth. "Same to you," she said, drawing a cocoon of warmth around her and closing her eyes.
She'd been imprisoned. She had died. Wasn't it her turn to have things go well?
***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***
Covert Confidence
She kept going over it in her mind's eye.
What... what had happened?
She'd been following the alien and the Element of Kindness, and this time it seemed she avoided being noticed. They'd gone to a concert hall with the Prince; she'd followed them from the castle. After the wonderful performance by Octavia Philharmonica, she kept following them. That's when everything went to Tartarus.
She groaned, pacing around her house. Tinny was currently out, talking with somepony about just who had been stupid enough to assault the alien without a plan. Everything could be ruined now!
She plopped down on the couch, shivering. She could remember it so clearly. Greene and Fluttershy had been discussing the former's regeneration abilities when they'd been attacked. The stallion had hit her and then time just seemed to stop. The next thing she knew Covert Confidence was furious for some bizarre reason, and the stallion was getting his plot handed to him on a silver platter.
She now knew several interesting things about the alien. Firstly, it was extremely fast. She'd known this before, but only then had she got just a true idea as to how agile she was. She'd grabbed the pony and in the blink of an eye traveled all the way down the street to its bend and slammed him into the wall. Then she proved her strength by tossing him behind her like a ragdoll, halfway back to where they had started.
She shuddered at the thought of what came next. Covert Confidence had nearly compromised herself when Elizabeth, after producing a shockwave with her raw strength, lifted the poor pony into the air by his neck - no small feat! - and she nearly flew down to help him. But then... she'd gotten so angry. She nearly choked on the hatred that had filled her, playing merry Tartarus with her perceptions. It had made her dizzy and hot, her vision blurry and gray. She wanted to murder somepony. She wanted to grab them and rip their legs out of their sockets, to fly up into the sky and drop them screaming to the earth...
... and then it stopped. Fluttershy and the guards had, luckily, intervened and stopped the alien from murdering the poor pony she'd previously held in her grasp. At the same time, the sensation of choking hatred had stopped, leaving Covert Confidence woozy, up until the point the alien had soared past her, back towards Canterlot Castle. She laid there for a few minutes, panting and gasping, before her senses returned to her and she fled before she could be found, questioned, and undoubtedly connected.
This was not looking good. The alien had infiltrated the highest levels of government and gotten into the good graces of the alicorns, the not-outright-scorned graces of Prince Blueblood, gotten the admiration of the ambassadors of the rest of the allied nations, and the friendship of two of the Elements of Harmony. And if that wasn't bad enough...
... she was fast. She was as tall as an alicorn and faster than anything save perhaps the Element of Loyalty, with surely unmatched agility. She could move a web of tentacles around by touch, expanding and contracting it with seemingly no limits. No telling what that did, but Tin Foil was crazy(crazier) if he thought she was going to touch that to find out. Not for all the cherry donuts and coffee in the world. She had a terrifying amount of physical strength, strength she suspected she'd only seen the very lowest limits of even during the fight, the durability to shrug off an earth pony's buck with hoof spikes, and evidently the regeneration to ignore that if she was stabbed anyway.
And that left the... thing she had done. Covert had no idea what it had been. She'd felt what the alien had felt, that was for certain. Such hatred and anger, all directed at a single point. The alien had, by accident and likely without even knowing, distorted Covert Confidence's vision with her very emotions. She didn't know what she'd been preparing to do. She prayed she never did.
Elizabeth Greene had... well, everything on them. She was strong, fast, and durable. She had no apparent defense against telekinesis, but if that... that thing she'd been preparing didn't interrupt it she'd eat her own feathers. She had powerful, powerful allies.
Just how were they going to deal with her? What could possibly hurt that thing?
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i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/5181156608/h19E08546/
That pretty much sums up my reaction when one pony decided it would be a good idea to Leeroy Jenkins Elizabeth Greene.
Anyway, this anti-alien cult feels kind of forced to me. So far they have no reason to be plotting the murder of Lizzy besides "she's an alien, she made friendlies with some influential figures, and she's weird." Granted, Elizabeth is bad news, but they don't know that. They immediately assume she has brainwashed the princesses and Fluttershy without even a shred of actual evidence besides them being amicable towards the alien.
Great chapter, but you should really flesh out the motive of these people, or at least generate something they should actually fear from the alien besides her defending herself with extreme prejudice.
I'm always excited to see a new chapter in Greene's story
.
Makes my day
Bring black watch in or wayward child!
This story is amazing. A most innovative spin on a prototype crossover!
Man, this story is fucking awesome, keep at it bro!
I’m guessing she will figure out at some point, that if she blesses the elements it will let release discord
And that would be bad bad bad
3334588 yes please bring in mercer. That would be such a good idea.
I was hoping that there would be some dead ponies but sadly i was wrong :(
3334181
I agree. Now, don't get me wrong. I think a crazy conspiracy theory group would arise any time a first contact situation occurs but more of their 'logic' would flesh them out more.
Anomalies... Anomalies... What are they?
*Checks tags*
... Oh. I'm stupid.
Welp, that went well.
Cya
Raziel-chan
3334181
Conspiracy theorists rarely operate in a logical way.