This Platinum Crown

by Capn_Chryssalid

Chapter Sixty : Pinkamena and Euphoria

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(60)

Pinkamena and Euphoria

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“Fight on!” Luna bellowed, landing with a crash and unleashing a torrent of midnight-blue fire from her horn. “Defend the cannons!” Her tail snapped, cracking like a whip as it swatted a diving yellow changeling out of midair. “Rally! Rally, friends! To us!”

A hundred more changelings, a mix of yellows acting as cavalry and greens at range, hesitated in their pursuit of the routed equestrian artillery ponies. The Princess alone was a threat that could not be ignored. The exposed earth pony gunners had been caught with the unlimbered cannons exposed, it should have been a simple matter to rout them - ponies typically had a much stronger flight impulse than fight - but they had held against the changeling attack long enough for reinforcements to begin to arrive.

Compared to just a few hours ago, the equestrian defenders were being uncharacteristically reckless. Reckless, but also frustratingly unshakable. Some fought on, kicking and screaming and biting, even with half their bodies paralyzed and cocooned. Hence what should have been a brilliant flanking attack turned into a pitched melee, and when that finally turned in favor of the changelings, this mad Princess showed up.

Changelings paused, hissed angrily, unsure what to do.

“The Princess is here!” the call began to spread as ponies turned and faced the changelings. “The Princess!” “Princess Luna!” “Make for the guns, girls and boys!” “Make for the guns!”

Rushing past them, an orange blur plowed into a pair of hesitant changelings.

“Heads up everypony! We ain’t done yet!” Applejack yelled, picking up a fallen standard in her teeth and rising it up for all to see.

“Heck no we ain’t!” A blue flash followed only a second behind, strafing into a mass of changelings before looping up and landing hard next to Princess Luna. She was followed moments later by a flight of pegasi. They were reinforcements from Cloudsdale, Fillydelphia, Manehattan, Deetrot, and a dozen other cities and towns, all answering the call to muster at their flying city and race to the defense of Canterlot. Some had flown hours only to be hastily assigned a flight and squadron and thrown at the city. They courageously harried the changelings from on high, relentlessly contesting the air superiority the shape-shifters had enjoyed over the previous twenty four hours.

Green changelings hissed orders and started to take to the sky to meet them... until a fusillade of magic missiles rained down into their ranks, knocking them back to the ground.

“We’re not too late!” Rarity cried, cresting the rise of a fallen airship’s hull. She was far from alone. A ragged, dusty, motley collection of unicorn nobles and their supporting retinues quickly flanked her, minus their usual trappings and finery but with all their deeply ingrained poise and elan. Their horns wafted in a rainbow of colors, primed to deliver another magical barrage at her order.

“For Equestria!” Rarity cried and spells beat down on the shocked changeling regiment. “For the Princesses!”

Helmeted changeling officers screamed orders of their own - to form up into squares, to erect shields, to break the wheels on the equestrian cannons - most of the well-drilled greens scurried to comply but their yellow comrades did not have their discipline or training. In twos and threes they rushed to engage the unicorns, bounding ahead like the feline predators they were. The reward for their unplanned initiative was to be hit from the side by the pegasi and Princess Luna. The Greens alone with a scattering of other colors tried to form up into protective tercios but the earth pony cannoneers counter-charged into their ranks, sowing confusion. The whole engagement quickly devolved into a wild melee, green blasts flying in every direction as everypony and everyling fought individual duels.

All while the noose tightened around their necks.

Unseen, overlooked in the confusion of battle, a faint red light glowed in the eyes of everypony present.

‘Me.’

. . .

DOOM

DOOM

The subwoofer test rumbled ominously beneath her hooves. A second later and Vinyl Scratch lurched forward over her turntable as the Armored Party Wagon smashed through another burning carriage left abandoned in the middle of the street. Despite her earlier enthusiasm, mesmerized and seduced as she had been by the mobile assembly of flame-throwing speakers, it was just now really beginning to sink in that Pinkie Pie had dragged her off to yet another insane and possibly suicidal adventure.

DOOM

DOOM

The steel plated wheels of the Party Wagon ground into the cobblestone streets of Canterlot. They were entering the middle tier, now, sometimes called the Merchant Quarter. By the Princess.

DOOM

DOOM

The city here looked like it had been fought over by a whole migration of angry dragons. The smashed tower-libraries of mages stuck out over the skyline like dirty, broken teeth. On either side of the road, entire boulevards and shopfronts were in ruins. Fires burned out of control over much of the city, only kept in check by Canterlot’s nightmarishly strict building codes. It was built into the side of a mountain, after all, on top of a thousand years of magical unicorn fortifications.

Acrid smoke hung in the air, nonetheless, lending the morning a pall more appropriate for dusk or fading twilight. The buildings were by and large abandoned as ponies fled to shelters or were captured and cocooned, but here and there, Vinyl’s sensitive ears could make out the distant sounds of cannon fire and magical shot. To the east, past the strange floating gardens she and Pinkie had left behind, formations of tiny shapes spun in midair, chased, crackling with lightning. Sometimes, the ground would rumble, shaking bricks from building facades.

DOOM

DOOM

“Subwoofer feeling good?” Pinkie Pie yelled from her perch atop the Party Wagon. Vinyl glanced back and saw her fiddling with the heavy-duty microphone built into her raised platform.

“Yeah!” Vinyl yelled back, lurching again as the wagon plowed through a crashed chariot, wheels crushing and snapping the golden cross-bar and yoke. “How’d you afford this, anyway?”

Pinkie Pie grinned, giddy despite the grim state of the city around them.

“Flim and Flam,” she answered, motioning to the two unicorn stallions to her left and right. Their emerald-hued magic powered and controlled the wagon.

“They built all this for you?”

“Euporie bound them to me during a party,” Pinkie explained. “But they’d have helped me anyway! Even without the contract!”

“Really? I’d ask how, but you always did have a way with guys, Pinks!”

Pinkie giggled, but didn’t deny it. She braced herself against the sides of her platform. “They didn’t like what Euporie did to them. She’s made a lot of ponies sad.”

“I’ll take your word for it!”

Vinyl’s ears twitched again, this time at the sound of something close by. She looked off to the right and saw a dark insect-like form flying through the air over the line of buildings: a changeling! For a few seconds, Vinyl Scratch just watched it fly through the air. The way it moved, it was so different from a pegasus. The wings buzzed behind it in a greenish blur, the wingbeats too fast for the eye to see. It glanced their way for a second and buzzed lower, out of sight.

A second later, and it re-emerged... with friends. Four more changelings flew behind it in close formation. One of them turned its head and fired off a burst of magic, not towards the wagon, but up into the air. The bolt of magic arced slightly and exploded into a spray of colors.

Vinyl belatedly realized what it was. “A signal...”

“Incoming!” Flam cried.

“I hope you guys built this thing as super tough and super strong and super magical as you promised you would!” Pinkie leaned all the way over her platform’s left side to tousle Flam’s mane, her body contorting in ways that would impress a gymnast. “Or we’re all gonna go to that big privately-catered party in the sky!”

“We had to use every last bit to our name,” Flam assured her.

“But every engineering limit we overcame,” Flim quipped, pulling a lever to accelerate.

“What happens next,” they said in unison, “is up to you.”

“No pressure there at all!” Pinkie Pie gleefully exclaimed, and tapped the side of her microphone. “Vinyl... can I get a beat?”

Nodding, forcing herself to tear her eyes away from the changelings flying parallel to the street, Vinyl floated out a record with a nice heavy bass. Pinkie had said to “go with your gut.” It looked like this whole nutty scheme was going to be flying by the seat of their pants improvization. A tough, repetitive beat rumbled out of the subwoofer and emanated from the huge array of speakers, sending an electric shiver of excitement, anticipation and sheer terror down the DJ’s spine.

“Here they come!”

The first changeling dove straight down, aiming to crash horn-first into the side of the roaring Party Wagon. Pinkie bounced on her hind legs and struck a ridiculous pose as it closed in, holding the microphone up to her mouth.

“Are we loud?!” she yelled, and a pair of speakers swiveled to follow her movements, unleashing a rippling sonic pulse through the air powerful enough to blast the diving changeling out of the sky.

“I said: are we loud?!” Pinkie yelled, bending over backwards and directing another pair of speakers straight up, to pick off a changeling with some sort of bomb. The sonic blast cracked open the grenade and set the explosives off prematurely, filling the air with fire.

Another blast intercepted a changeling as it tried to close in from behind. “Then let’s get louder!”

“Woof! Woof!” Pinkie barked, stamping her hoof in time with the rhythm and thoroughly enjoying herself as the Party Wagon smashed through another fallen chariot, buzzing changeling attackers closing in on both flanks.

“We don’t bite, but our bark is bad!” A pair of percussive blasts cracked the buildings, missing the two changelings to left and right as they went evasive. A third and fourth crisscrossed overhead, dropping grenades. An omni-directional pulse shimmered over a magical barrier as the explosives went off and the Party Wagon blasted through the cloud of smoke.

“Pony from the country!”

A series of sonic booms tracked the dodging changelings as Pinkie sang and pointed, impossibly aiming with her forelegs and tail.

“Adrenaline junkie!”

One of the changelings, a moment too slow, fell out of the air.

“Runt of the litter!”

A second made a sharp turn and zipped in to crash the wagon, head-on.

“But never a quitter!”

Pinkie leaned forward as she sang, in time with the beat, and a double-amped wave of sonic force buffeted the charging changeling. It resisted for all of a half second before being bowled over. It spun, pell-mell, tumbling like a rag doll into the crossed candycanes of a sweets store. Looking back, Vinyl saw Pinkie wince in sympathy but the pink pony didn’t falter in her singing or fighting. Vinyl knew Pinkie Pie wasn’t a violent pony by any means, she probably didn’t even want to hurt the changelings if she didn’t have to, but they had places to be and things to do and if the changelings got in the way then they’d get bowled over, it was as simple as that.

The Party Wagon rolled on.

Another signal went off as the Wagon raced down the blasted and burning streets of Canterlot, this one a glittering yellow. Vinyl barely had time to catch her breath before new shapes crested the rows of stores and apartments on the side of the road. These didn’t fly: they moved in leaps and bounds, jumping across gaps between the buildings with feline grace and confidence. The surviving pair of green changelings pulled up to take higher positions overhead.

“Drums!” Pinkie yelled over the pounding beat. “Vinyl! Up the tempo!”

Expertly switching tracks, going with her gut, Vinyl Scratch whipped out a fresh pair of beats. Behind and above her, Pinkie Pie leaned back as a set of drums inflated out of concealed plates in the floor of her platform. In seconds, they snapped into place. Reaching deep into her poofy mane, the party pony retrieved a pair of innocuous looking drumsticks, giving them a ceremonial twirl for good measure.

“You sure you can play those things?” Vinyl yelled over her shoulder.

“Pretty sure!” Pinkie replied, tongue lolling out as she surveyed the drums before her. “Which one is ‘C’ again?”

Before Vinyl could knock herself unconscious with a hoof to the forehead, Pinkie began to play - not just play, but wail on the drums like some kind of animal. The speakers of the Party Wagon thundered, just in time as the golden changelings began to pounce. Instead of attacking from different angles like the greens had before, they made up for their lack of strategy with numbers and sheer bloody minded tenacity.

Pinkie’s playing redirected the sonic magic in every direction, batting the bestial changelings out of the air mid-pounce or repulsing them before they could get a grip on the Wagon. Some were knocked unconscious when they fell, hitting the ground, bouncing off walls, even in one case slamming into a street lamp. Others landed on their hooves and started up the chase anew from behind.

“We’ve got a lot of groupies behind us!” Vinyl warned.

“Rotate!” Pinkie yelled over the roar of her own playing, and Vinyl almost jumped in surprise as Pinkie’s platform glowed with Flim and Flam’s magic. It lifted up, turned one hundred and eighty degrees, and then lowered right back down. All the time Pinkie kept playing and the speakers around her kept moving and blasting noise.

“Brother?” Vinyl just barely heard, but Flim raised his voice a moment later, “Brother!”

“I see it, Brother!” Flam yelled back.

“What? What do you...” Vinyl’s voice caught in her throat, muffled by the sight before her eyes. Lowering her trademark neon tinted shades down the rim of her nose, she stared.

There before them was more than just another obstacle blocking the street. An entire building had collapsed over the road, crushing some sort of giant worm. The titanic beast was crushed under tons of masonry, a triple-jaw splayed wide open in death and spilling grotesque tentacle-tongues out in every direction.

Beyond the fallen building, two other worms were still alive, dueling with a wing of enraged pegasi. One of the monstrous Tatzlwurms turned around, spied the incoming wagon, and bodily crawled right over the collapsed building and fallen comrade. Abandoning the fight with the pegasi guards, it zeroed in on the Party Wagon.

“Turn. Turn.”

Huge sinewy body undulating like a sea serpent’s, the Tatzlwurm began to pick up speed for a head-on collision.

“Guys?” Vinyl yelled back at Pinkie’s latest coltfriends turned conspirators. “Turn? Turn!”

Still, the Party Wagon rumbled on, until the Tatzlwurm literally filled the entire road. From the front of the wagon, Vinyl could see into the monster’s gaping tooth-filled maw. A dozen barbed tentacles writhed around in the fleshy jaw, snapping and eager to find purchase in soft ponyflesh.

“Turn! Turn! Turn! Turn!!” Vinyl screamed, and moment before they’d have collided with the multi-ton annelid the Party Wagon swerved sharply to the right. So sharply that Vinyl felt her hooves leave the floor and the entire armored wagon itself tilted bodily to the side.

There was a horrible squench as the Tatzlwurm missed the wagon, tried to turn and follow, and tumbled end over end. It ran right into the small swarm of golden changelings chasing down the wagon from behind with predictably messy results.

“Rotate!”

Pinkie Pie swung back around. Her mane was a frazzled mess, stray hairs sticking out at odd angles. A manic gleam in her blue eyes hinted at the chaos she’d left in her wake. Running her hooves briefly through her cotton candy mane, she jammed the drumsticks into her hair just long enough to pull out a can of whipped cream and spray a generous dollop onto her tongue. Slurping it down, buzzed by the pure sugar rush, Pinkie started playing again, her drums melding into the heavy beat of Vinyl’s records.

“Don’t look now!” Pinkie warned her.

“What do you mean don’t look n...” Vinyl glanced back, just in time to see the Tatzlwurm smash through a line of buildings and start down the side-road the wagon had just taken. “GAHH!”

“I told you not to look!” Pinkie giggled.

“Why are you always so literal?!”

Instead of a pack of changelings now, a whole damn Tatzlwurm was on their tail! Vinyl tried not to think about it and faced forward, except even there things conspired to give her an early heart-attack. There were yet more green changelings mustering in the sky overhead in this part of the city and with more signal flares entire units of them broke away to engage the equestrian Party Wagon.

“Guys! Time for some fireworks! Vinyl--”

“Right!” She switched in a new more triumphalist track and emphasized the undertones. In time with the beat, the Party Wagon disgorged clusters of streamers and licks of burning fireworks.

A dozen of them tore in every direction, seemingly at random, but magically guided by the sound and the magic in the music to home in on a changeling target and explode. For a brief and awe inspiring second, the sky lit up with a rainbow of sparkling, glittering lights. Embers from the closest salvo were still hot when they rained down on the speeding Party Wagon. A few of them even fizzled before Vinyl Scratch’s eyes, dimming as they neared her turntable.

Yet more changelings survived, dive-bombing recklessly through the barrage, their horns gathering magic as they accelerated into a crash course. Here, again, Pinkie’s frantic playing paid off: swatting the bombing bugs out of the sky to a furious tempo. Others, Flim and Flam avoided by swerving the Party Wagon left or right. The changelings that made it through and missed made craters in the cobblestone street when they crashed.

A few others were closer to the mark, ripping into or bouncing off of the Wagon’s barrier.

Abruptly, the Party Wagon veered left, wheels screeching and ripping up the road. A shadow briefly passed overhead, followed by a tremendous crash as the Tatzlwurm behind them plowed face-first into a corner deli.

“Not that thing again!” Vinyl cried, hooves covering her head as she groaned.

The Tatzlwurm ripped through the deli as if it was made of so much gingerbread, plowing through two other stores in a mad dash to catch up with the Party Wagon. They had turned down a narrow side-street, one that was barely wide enough to accommodate the armored wagon’s girth. Worse, all Vinyl could see was the front, not the threat from behind. She could hear it, though, even through the roar of the music and the pounding of Pinkie’s drums. She could hear the Tatzlwurm tearing through the buildings on either side of the alley as it gave chase, hear the crunch of masonry as it climbed bodily over the buildings it couldn’t rip right through.

Things got worse.

Trapped in the narrow side street, a pair of changelings dropped from above without warning, slipping right past the sonic blasts and the backup shield. One of them made a grab for Flam, identifying the unicorn and his glowing horn as the power driving the Party Wagon. The other landed a little off target and had to make due with trying to grab the wagon’s resident DJ.

“Freaky bug!” Vinyl yelled, swatting at the changeling as it tried to crawl over her turntable.

It hissed in response, bearing vicious looking teeth. A record crashed over the creature’s head, courtesy of Vinyl’s magic, but still it held onto the front of the wagon. “Pony!” it hissed, reaching for her despite her struggles. “Pony!”

“Pon3!” Vinyl yelled back, leaning over her workstation and hitting it on the side of the head with her hoof. The blow staggered the creature for all of a second, but it was long enough for her to pry one of its hooves loose. The changeling hissed in rage as it fell off the side, crunching against the wall of the side-street.

More hissing overhead heralded another pair of changelings also making a move.

“Hold on to something!” Flam warned, and Vinyl grabbed hold of her turntable.

Breaking out of the side-street and back onto a main road, the wheels on the left side of the Party Wagon braked, causing the entire thing to rapidly spin in place as it drifted forward. The world briefly became a disorienting blur and Vinyl, despite herself, cried out with a less than dignified, “Waa-haaaa!”

For a split second, she could see up and down the burning main street, but then the Party Wagon slipped back into the same side street, just as the other end of the intersection. They were now racing backwards, having thrown the changeling grapplers off with the sudden turn, their front to the oncoming Tatzlwurm.

“Play hard!” Pinkie yelled, still rocking to the music. “Party Harder!”

Vinyl nodded and put her hooves to the turntable. All their speaker power was directed forward now, right into the jaws of the Tatzlwurm chasing them. It smashed through another corner store, spilling streams of designer clothing through the air as it coiled and undulated. Pulses of sound buffeted it, most hitting straight on, others missing as it erratically crashed through the narrow side street.

“Harder!” Pinkie yelled, ducking a black tendril-tongue as it flailed like a whip.

Gritting her teeth, focusing on her talent and her magic, Vinyl felt an eerie calm come over her. Everything seemed to move in slow motion: the whip-like tentacles of the Tatzlwurm, the falling debris, the visible pulses of sound in the air. Even the time between breaths seemed impossibly long. Vinyl allowed herself a private little smile. She’d been in this place before... in this state of mind before... in the clubs when she played, when she was completely and utterly in tune with her surroundings and everypony listening to her.

Letting her instincts - her gut as Pinkie called it - take over entirely, a single pulse of sonic force, not even the most powerful, hit a fleshy brown lump inside the Tatzlwurm’s cavernous maw. In that same slow motion, the gigantic worm suddenly convulsed and tumbled end over end, a hundred hoof-lengths of flesh losing all coordination. Face planting into the street it turned into a rolling ball of muscle, driven forward through tons of accumulated momentum. Bricks, stonework and debris surrounded it like a cloud-like shell, buffeting anything in the fallen worm’s path.

The Party Wagon emerged from the side-street again, back-end first, swerved to the side and out of the way. The tumbling worm-corpse passed close enough for Vinyl to reach out and touch it as it passed by, her hoof reaching out...

Then the moment snapped, the world’s normal speed returned, and before Vinyl could blink the Tatzlwurm crashed into the other side of the street. It was a scene of utter destruction but there was no time to dwell on it. The Party Wagon spun around, wheels churning, accelerating anew.

The park!

This was it... this was their destination!

“We made it!” Pinkie said, and Vinyl glanced back at her. “We finally made it!” The pink party pony looked... she actually looked tired. Pinkie was leaning forward on her drums, an intense look in her eyes as she searched the border of the park.

Rolling closer, they soon saw their first pony.

It was a little earth pony colt with a spear gripped between his teeth. He was followed by more haggard looking ponies, all similarly armed. They were a far cry from the drilled and professional guards of Canterlot or the Free Companies; they were even further removed from the bellicose nobles of Equestria inured towards dueling, confrontation and even violence. These were just common ponies, ponies who on any other day might have been playing in this park or shopping in the stores that had so recently been trashed.

Still, what struck Vinyl the most was the haunted look in their eyes. Their expressions were hard, their eyes narrow with suspicion and anger, their jaws set as if ready to receive a blow at any time. They greeted the Party Wagon like it was an approaching dragon, except any pony with half a brain would run from a dragon. These ponies looked like they would rather charge right into the fire than give up their little patch of ground.

And... was it just her imagination... or were their eyes faintly glowing red?

But Pinkie had said--

“Euporie,” Pinkie said, straightening up.

“So this is it?” Vinyl asked aloud. She pointed past the ponies, into the park itself. “She’s in there?”

“She’s in there,” Pinkie answered, looking to Flim and Flam, the two unicorn tinkerers nodding in unspoken agreement. They could all feel it. Vinyl just felt nervous. Euporie Mosaic. That pony was as terrifying as a Tatzlwurm, all by herself.

“Take us in!” Pinkie ordered, standing on her hind legs and somehow tucking a hoof into her chest like it was an overcoat. “I made you a promise, Euporie... and come heck or high cholesterol Pinkie Pie always keeps her promises.”

. . .

Princess Instar lowered her binoculars in disbelief. “They’re... routing...?”

True, a rout had been just what they’d expected, but it was supposed to be the damned equestrians fleeing, not her own crack soldiers! It was self-evident that the Green Hive was the strongest of all the changeling hives and she, Instar, was the greatest of all the Green Princesses. Yet before Instar’s own eyes, she saw changelings fleeing against the orders of their officers. Officers appointed by her, and she, a Princess and true daughter of Chrysalis herself, Queen of Queens!

This couldn’t be happening.

Half the force she had now had been enough to utterly decimate the entire Red Hive in the Battle of the Shifting Fields back across the sea. Two regiments had been enough to scare the damned Yellows to the negotiating table. Instar had overseen both engagements. She had been born and bred for it: to lead changelings on the battlefield. It was why she was the First among Princesses. Her forces had bested changeling hives with five times her number, defeated monsters from the Sunset Lands, and even stood firm in the face of the cursed Ancient Ones of the changeling race! Their unstoppable army was more than sufficient to overwhelm any duchy or city in Equestria! they were the Unstoppable Swarm, the Will of Chrysalis made flesh!

This shouldn’t be happening. Changelings who had been victorious on every field were fleeing... from ponies! Mere ponies! Like lions fleeing from an army of sheep, it defied all reason and rationality!

Instar cursed under her breath.

“Train all free guns on Sweet Apple Acres!” She bellowed and the signal was quickly passed down the line to the artillery officer in command further behind the lines. “Suppress that entire area! Smash it to pieces!”

Raising her binoculars back up she saw downrange where the damned Terre Rare were securing the strategically important farm just outside town. Arrayed to her flanks, secured and fortified atop buildings and other good ground, changeling cannons thundered in a staggered barrage, hitting the positions that the Queensguard Sixth Regiment had fled from. The artillery quickly put a halt to pursuers running down the routed changelings but that didn’t change the fact that they had disgracefully surrendered that wing of the battlefield.

They had also lost Princess Spiracle, who had been leading the Sixth in securing the high ground of the apple orchard. Spiracle had been a minor princess of the swarm, but a true-born princess and sister nonetheless, and she had gone down fighting moments before her regiment broke and fled. On top of all that, the failure to hold Sweet Apple Acres meant that they had lost all but one road out of town. Instar watched impassively as changeling sappers blew up the lone little bridge between the orchards and the village, passing over a small meandering stream. If they couldn’t use the road at least they could deny use of it to the enemy.

Still.

“They are surrounding us,” Instar hissed to herself.

The great army of Her Highness, Chrysalis, the Queen of Queens, was being caught in a pocket. At which point the only escape would be up, to the air, which would mean abandoning their entire train of supplies, weapons, cannons and more. The army would be reduced to little more than a mob.

To the west, and against all odds, Blueblood Manor still stood overlooking the town. Attack after attack after attack there had been beaten back by the desperate defenders, town militia, royal guards, and the Free Company Dove and Cross employed by Baroness Rarity. The ground was strewn with the fallen like a rotting green and black carpet. Over a night and a morning changeling artillery had gradually pounded down the reinforced walls and magical barriers leaving the manor a skeletal ruin but still ponies hid behind the masonry and in the cellars, fighting like lunatics for their friends and families.

Every demand for surrender had been met with the same laconic response: “Nuts.”

Whatever that meant. Some sort of code for “never” obviously. Damned ponies!

Now the forces of Germaney and Prance were set up in a crescent outside town, having pushed the changelings back ever closer to town with repeated assaults. Princess Furcula and the Fifth and Fourth were being ground down to powder fighting to hold the southern flank amid the farms and open fields. One bloody wheat field had exchanged hooves three times according to the last reports sent from the lines there. Worse still, Instar’s scouts had detected Cloudsdale forces mustering in the rear. There was evidence that the Wonderbolts of all things were among them. The Wonderbolts were showponies, weren’t they? Racers and stunt-flyers! Were the pegasi really committing these spineless celebrities to an actual battle? Regardless, additional forces would have to be detailed to protect the rear and the baggage and to keep the pegasi from linking up with the southern front.

“Princess!” a changeling beside her cried, pointing back. “Princess! Look!”

Instar turned and saw the roiling clouds forming behind her army, right over the only remaining road out of town, the one that just so happened to meander past the twice-cursed Everfree Forest. Cloudsdale. Pegasi. Electric arcs crackled ominously amid the rising, darkening thunderhead and a pair of nascent twisters began to descend like claws from heaven. Tiny specs danced and flew amid the killer weather, directing it, channeling it, enhancing it, riding it.

“Pegasi. Send the rest of our skirmishers in to disrupt them!” Instar ordered, and after a moment’s consideration, settled on one last extreme measure. “Ready the First Queensguard and signal my personal guard as well. I will break the Cloudsdale forces myself! Wait for my signal and begin an orderly withdrawal! The Queen’s Army must survive this debacle!”

. . .

Miles away, the newly minted Captain of the Wonderbolts readied her comrades.

“Even out that tornado!” Spitfire yelled over the din of whipping, roaring winds, her mane beating wildly against her back. She had to signal with her forelegs, but pegasi were trained since flight academy to read signals from their superior officers, even in the middle of a storm. It was all about teamwork. That was the pegasi way.

“Misty Fly! Spread out the lightning! Spread! Don’t cross the streams!” She directed her fellow Wonderbolt expertly, waving with her right foreleg. Just the same, she could see and read the signal from one of her peers to turn around. Glancing back, the Wonderbolt Captain saw the approaching changeling swarm.

There were... a lot of them.

By the Princess, there were a whole heck of a lot of them!

Ponyville literally teemed with the buggers and from on high Spitfire could see most of the battlefield spread out below. Four thousand ponies were down there fighting six thousand changelings across fifteen square miles, and now it looked like one of those six thousands was taking wing and heading in her direction. This far away, it was like watching a cloud of parasprites, except once they were closer, it would become clear that every one of those little black specks was a pony-sized monster out for blood. These monsters were organized, too.

“Like us,” Spitfire whispered to herself, seeing formations within the thousand-strong changeling swarm. “Just like us...”

But there was no time to dwell on that sobering realization.

“It looks like they don’t want to wait for us,” Spitfire yelled to her teammates nearby. Despite her concerns, a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Her blood was pumping, yes, with a little fear, but also with anticipation. It brought to mind a name and face, one Spitfire hadn’t ever expected to see again.

‘Ritter, by all that’s holy, you’d have loved this,’ she thought, but quickly banished the distraction.

Spitfire turned to her right and flicked her tail. Soarin saw it and flicked back. He’d have the Wonderbolts assembled before the changelings hit them. The hastily assembled Cloudsdale Cavalry would be able to handle things themselves under their own officers. They would be looking to the Wonderbolts for courage and inspiration.

For the first time in more than a century, the Wonderbolts were going to fight together, as a team.

None of them noticed the faint red glow in their eyes.

‘Still me.’

. . .

Underground.

“I know this magic,” Princess Celestia murmured, a distant look in the one violet eye not obscured by her mane. “Crystal pony magic...? But how? Who?”

“So that’s the Queen?” “Kill her!” “Hang her!” “Let us at her!”

“Gentle stallions, good mares,” Blueblood tried to placate the mob of ponies. “Please, understand, we need her alive...”

“She’s a monster!” An irate mare tried to push past the thin line of Royal Guards. Forelegs flailing, she was not exactly gentle in trying to beat her way through the guards to get at Chrysalis.

“Ma’am, please! OW! My eye!”

“My dear, please refrain from bruising this young lad,” Blueblood said softly, trying to talk her and the others down while keeping safely out of pummeling range.

“Hey! I’m not a ‘lad,’” Flash Sentry objected, rubbing the bruise on his face and eliciting a chuckle from his older guardspony comrades. He trotted out of the line and sat down protectively between the angry ponies and the corner of the cellar where Cadance despondently tended to the still-comatose Shining Armor. Her color had paled, the result of her suffering from a fraction of the love poison coursing through Shining’s veins, but the Princess of Love had refused to leave her husband-to-be or to suffer anywhere but by his side.

“You can’t keep her from us!” A bedraggled looking stallion yelled, glowering over the shoulders of another guard. “It isn’t right! She needs to pay!”

“She shall,” Blueblood promised, more than a little anxious at the chaos this had become. “You have my word as a Prince and as a stallion. And yes, I know I do not appear to be a stallion at the moment, but still, you have my word!”

Just getting Chrysalis back to their little underground shelter should have been the hard part. All the ponies they had freed from cocoons in Cadance’s original escape were taking refuge there, but they were exhausted, mentally and physically. Surely they wouldn’t cause trouble, or so the thinking had gone. The truth was, nopony, Prince, Princess or Bridesmaid had really considered what the ponies here would think when the royals returned with their unexpected prize. Certainly, nopony had foreseen that the bedraggled former-captives would try and rip the changeling Queen limb from limb the moment they realized who she was.

“As if trash like you are fit to judge me,” Chrysalis hissed in their general direction. Despite her handicap, she fearlessly laughed at the angry mob and favored them with a mocking smirk. “Don’t make me laugh!”

Blinded and bound, the changeling Queen been left under the capable control of Miss Heartstrings. She couldn’t use magic or hurt anypony, not physically, but they’d been unable to do anything to fix her wagging, vile excuse for a tongue. Even under these circumstances, with a thin and weary line of ponies being the one thing keeping her from being killed by a much larger crowd of other ponies, her victims, she just couldn’t resist spitting her special brand of poison. Damn her.

“She has to pay!” Another mare-turned-stallion yelled, and this one Blueblood recognized.

It was Twilight Velvet.

“Evil must be punished,” Velvet declared, and more than a few took up the call. She (currently a he) was Twilight Sparkle’s mother... and an archmage of considerable skill. If she tried to use magic to get at Chrysalis, then things could get very messy. Very, very messy!

“My dear mare,” Blueblood tapped into his most charming and disarming tone of voice. Like before, it was rather ruined by his currently being a mare thanks to Twilight Sparkle’s remarkable new spell. “Please, friends, nobles, country-ponies, consider the situation... I’ve explained why we need her alive several times now. Auntie?”

He turned to his aunt and Princess. Celestia had been quiet for a while now, glaring down at her hooves and lost in thought. “Auntie, maybe a word or two? Something to put minds at ease?”

Celestia seemed to snap out of some sort of funk.

“Nephew?” She glanced up at him. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

Narrowing her eyes at him, she took a breath and trotted over. Even as a stallion, her grace, stature and poise brought everypony to attention, even the most irate members of their little lynch mob. For his part, Blueblood was just glad to see her looking more hale and hearty than when they’d first left. Her physical wounds were the blemishes, the only ugly scars, on her otherwise perfect self.

Scars left on his dear Aunt by the damned Changeling Queen, come to think of it...

The same one at their, at his, mercy. True, they needed Chrysalis alive, but that did not mean her cruelty and evil couldn’t go unpunished. Perhaps Twilight Velvet had a point. Cadance had already seen fit to remove one of the evil Queen’s wings. Who knew what else she could survive having removed? Perhaps it was time to find out? They could start with her--

“Calm yourself, nephew,” Celestia said, softly, snapping the Prince out of his dark thoughts. He blinked, surprised and a little disoriented. Celestia was resting her wing on his shoulder comfortingly.

“What?” he asked, blearily.

“A spell has been cast, above and beyond that used by Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia explained, and leaned in closer to her nephew. “I can see it in your eyes... this is crystal pony magic, the use of a device to magnify and control emotions. How or who is doing it, I can not say, but I can see it.”

‘That’s me. Me. Me. Me!’

. . .

“Prince, Princess, Peasant, you’re all just puppets in the end,” Euporie said to herself, eyes closed as she sat in front of the prototype crystal heart. In her mind’s eye, she could see - or rather sense - some ponies more strongly than others.

It was not a sensory perception tied to magical strength, but to emotional sensitivity. Stretching out her senses into the crystal heart, she could feel how it resonated. The power of the heart was to make a sympathetic connection with ponies. In ancient times, this had been used to spread love and goodwill throughout Equestria and the Crystal Empire.

When Prince Sombra declared himself King and turned to darkness, the legends say he perverted the original Crystal Heart to spread hatred and anger. Other, less jaundiced accounts, say that he tried to use the heart to sap the independence and joy from ponies in order to make them more obedient and compliant. Having read both accounts, Euporie was inclined to believe the latter. Sombra’s own writings were notable for his reverence for an orderly society, a clockwork kingdom that was flawless and eternal like unblemished crystal.

To ward off strife and dissent, Sombra used the heart of the nation to try and turn ponykind into drones and cogs in his machine. First he did this to his own Empire, then, he tried to extend it to the rest of the world. Of course, the Princesses stopped him, ending the alliance that had existed between the Crystal Empire and Equestria at the time. But that was the sad story of Prince Sombra.

“That won’t happen to me,” Euporie said to herself, chuckling at the comparison future ponies might make between them. There were no mighty and immortal Princesses to intervene now. Luna was up and about, valiantly fighting the changelings, but the chance of her tracking down or even detecting the crystal pony magic was negligible; only party-type ponies were so attuned. As for Celestia, nopony knew where she was, but the former Lady of the Sun wasn’t at full power anymore. Neither of them would be crashing this party. Neither of them could stop the new blood-soaked dawn that was to come.

Still, there was one potential problem heading her way.

“This one... the one getting closer,” Euporie said softly, scowling even as her eyes remained firmly closed in concentration. It could only be one pony. “I’ll make you regret coming after me...” Only one pony would dare. “Pinkie Pie.”

. . .

The Party Wagon’s speakers boomed an upbeat remix of one of Pinkie’s own standby Get-the-town-hopping songs.

Luckily, Pinkie Pie kept a stash of them around in Canterlot as well as Ponyville, just in case of Ballad Emergencies. After all, you never knew when you’d have to break into a song and dance routine to save the day from evil. ...or to convince ponies to eat at Sugar Cube Corner because tomorrow was Cocoa Tuesdays. But that last one didn’t really count. Mister Cake was just really enthusiastic about advertising ever since he went to that convention in Baltimare.

The beat was entirely instrumental, but in her head, Pinkie had thought up a few potential lyrics to it to use down the road. Maybe something about smiling? Or candy! Oh! Or balloons! Or balloons made out of candy that you could eat. Was that even possible?!

Plucking her trusty pink notepad out of her mane, Pinkie jotted down a reminder for later.

“Note to self,” she scribbled in incomprehensible shorthand decipherable only to Pie-kind. “Edible balloons? Floating candy? What sort of taste goes well with helium? Look into it!”

Stashing the pad and pen back into her mane, Pinkie tried to clear her thoughts. What had she been narrating to herself about again?

‘Ballad Emergencies.’

Oh yeah!

You never could tell when you’d need to break into song and dance.

‘You thought that already.’

We did?

Pinkie shook her head, stray thoughts falling out her ears. It was hard to think sometimes... or maybe it was too easy to think sometimes? It was hard to think about just one thing.

Vinyl glanced back over her shoulder and Pinkie smiled down at her encouragingly. She stuck out her hoof - hoof’s up! - but Vinyl didn’t seem to know what that was. The offbeat DJ arched an eyebrow at the strange gesture, probably dismissed it as ‘Pinkie being Pinkie’ (a common enough sentiment that Pinkie herself was aware of it) and went back to the records and the music.

She was doing a great job! Pinkie did want to make sure she knew that. Vinyl was great, and a super fun pony to hang out with and be friends with. They’d both come a long way since college.

‘Yes, college.’

Vinyl was from Ponyville but she’d gone to a music school in Canterlot and roomed with some grumpy cello girl Pinkie didn’t know very well. Pinkie had taken all of two courses there too, to train to be a better Party Pony, and she and Vinyl had hit it off right from the word ‘GO!’ They both loved to party; they both loved to get a crowd jumping and happy, Pinkie just focused more on the party thing and Vinyl worked the music angle. But that was fine.

Every party pony did it a little differently after all.

Some focused on parties as a way of keeping their town happy and harmonious. Others were more into music and concerts. Others jumped at the chance to entertain with cultured plays or festive shows or hilarious comedy or awe-inspiring magic. All of them felt the same calling deep in their hearts to a greater or lesser degree. Privately, Pinkie liked to think of it as Equestria’s most important and least formal sisterhood... or was that least unimportant and most informal?

Anyway; Vinyl was great, and she was doing a great job keeping them from being torn apart by the angry mob that surrounded the Party Wagon on all sides. There was that, too.

Pinkie smiled brightly at the crowd that slowly parted before the oncoming wagon.

The park here was stocked full of ponies who had fled from other parts of Canterlot. Many had been given some weapons and whipped into a frenzy to fight the changelings. Pinkie wasn’t sure why: why Euporie was doing this, why she had (probably) been told to do this, or anything like that. What was important was that in her gut, in her instincts, she knew it was a bad thing. That it was wrong. That something had to be done about it.

‘If these ponies fight the changelings like this, a lot of them will die,’ the thought was rational and reasoned. ‘You know that much.’

It was more of her own thoughts, really, but sometimes they sort of lingered like a sweet smell in the corner of her brain and it almost seemed like she had two thoughts rattling around in her skull at the same time. Pinkie thought about that a second. Then again, maybe it was because the smarter stuff, being deeper, heavier thoughts, bounced around a bit - that way it was still floating around when she’d already moved on to new material. Who knew?

“This is a rough crowd!” Vinyl yelled over her shoulder. “But at least they’re not glaring at us anymore!”

“Yep!” Pinkie agreed with a smile and turned to her left and right. “Hey Flimmy! Flammy! You guys like the beat right?”

Flim snorted dismissively.

“We prefer showtunes,” Flam explained, reaching up to his (currently her) face and looking dejected about the lack of a moustache. “Plus a little of the old razzle dazzle to get the crowd going!”

“Ohh! Showtunes are super fun, too! When this is all over, we should totally put on a show together!” Pinkie smiled at him and Flam quickly blushed and turned away.

“D-don’t do that when you’re a stallion!” he-turned-she grumbled. Flam’s horn flickered with viridian light as he kept control over the Party Crasher 10000. “Just be sure to keep focused on what’s ahead. Once you get to Euporie, I’m not sure how much help we’ll be.”

“You guys have already been a huge help,” Pinkie assured them, throwing a big smile Flim’s way, too. The clean-shaven brother rolled his (her) eyes and kept focused on driving.

“Yes, well,” Flim groused, “it isn’t like we had that much choice, given the circumstances. We’ll keep the crowd here under control. You just try not to die. I’d rather not risk reverting back to her control.”

Pinkie giggled girlishly, a strange sound coming from a stallion’s body. “Don’t worry! I totally know what I’m doing!”

“Really?”

“Nope!”

Flim groaned, but didn’t waver in his piloting of the Party Wagon. Pinkie reached way over and gave him a playful pat on the head for good luck. That done, her course well and truly set, she relaxed and rested her front legs over the lip of her platform atop the Party Wagon. They were almost there, and all without having to blast anypony with wubs or fireworks or a party cannon either! Super! Everything had gone just super so far!

In fact, Vinyl’s remixes even seemed to be warming up some of the ponies surrounding them on either side. The sight of a little filly starting to smile nearly broke Pinkie into a giggling fit. The glow in their eyes was fading as the music lifted their spirits. It wouldn’t make the fighting in Canterlot disappear - Pinkie wished it could - but it would clear ponies hearts so that if they fought, they fought for the right reasons.

‘Well, well, that was actually rather insightful. Bravo.’

“Thank you, brain.”

‘Yes, well, don’t start talking to yourself now. Ponies will stare.’

Oh yeah.

Pinkie’s mood, upbeat by default, flagged slightly as a sudden lance of anger struck her. A discordant tone entered the melody of her heart, foreign and sour like a bad note trying to spoil the whole song.

The source of it was straight ahead.

Euporie’s ponies had erected a pavilion around her in the center of the park here. Beneath the canopy of festive blue and white canvas tents she had stacked up loads of weapons and other equipment. Guardponies moved slowly around the perimeter, protecting the other approaches and the sky beyond from changeling attack. Cannons, not of the party variety, pointed at likely avenues of attack. Strange glowing spires stuck into the ground like lamp-posts crackled with strange magic spells.

On top of all that, stretched out between the Party Wagon and the central pavilion was a slowly parting crowd of ponies of all shapes and sizes. Like parting a sea, they retreated to the sides and sat or lay down to watch the confrontation that was to come. It looked like they were going to have an audience for their duel. Pinkie was not oblivious to the irony. It hadn’t been all that long ago when Monee had expressed her annoyance at Pinkie bringing most of Ponyville to watch her fight Rarity.

Past the rows of ponies, Euporie trotted out into the open, naked and unencumbered.

“Pinkie Pie,” she said, not yelled, and yet Pinkie, Vinyl, Flim and Flam could all hear her a quarter the length of a hoofball field away. “That music of yours is ruining my little party.”

“Heya Euporie!” Pinkie greeted her with a sunny smile. “You don’t like Vinyl’s music?”

“Everypony’s a critic,” the DJ quipped.

“Anyway!” Pinkie was still bubbly, still smiling, still bright eyed as she faced the flowing Euporie. “I totally came to stop you! Just like I said I would!”

“So you did,” Euporie agreed, and lowered her head enough to hide her expression. Her wild blue mane began to vibrate, her horn thrumming with raw magic. “You’re the type who always keeps her promises, no matter how crazy they are.”

“That’s right! That’s right!” Pinkie agreed, yelling into the microphone so everypony could hear her. “You totally get it!”

“I do. I keep my promises, too.” Euporie looked up and her eyes were wild and savage beneath the spreading pool of magic emanating from her horn. “And I promised to kill you... so that’s what I’m going to do!”

Pinkie pronked away from the Party Wagon a second before a lance of blue-white magic roared, punching clean through Flam’s magical barrier, popping it as easily as a needle ripping through the skin of a balloon. Pinkie hit the ground and cartwheeled away as a second blast carved a bleeding furrow in the soil, blades of grass and steaming chunks of dirt pelting dozens of ponies watching the fight.

“Keep playing!” Pinkie yelled one last request to Vinyl Scratch.

No matter what, she had to keep playing. Looking back Pinkie saw the DJ covering her head with her hooves, visibly shaken by the fact that Euporie’s magic was strong enough to hit her. The upper platform of the Party Wagon was simply gone - blown to smithereerns. And wasn’t that a funny word? Smithereens!

“Don’t stop for anything!” Pinkie didn’t dare linger on Vinyl or the Flim-Flam brothers for too long. Euporie was braced, all four legs firmly planted on the ground as she channeled magic into her horn. Just like Twilight.

‘Exactly.’

Luckily, Vinyl swapped in a funky track with a nice bounce to it. Pinkie used it, timing her own pronks as she evaded the spears of unicorn magic from the snarling Euporie. Any rational pony watching this fight, if it was a fight, would think it was no contest: Euporie Mosaic was, by all accounts, a genius at magic, like Twilight or Monee. But unlike Antimony, she also had a lot of raw power to throw around, though probably a lot less experience using it in combat. Either way, Pinkie Pie was just a silly party pony from Ponyville. There was no way she could take Euporie Mosaic in a fight.

Luckily, super-duper luckily, this wasn’t a fight.

‘Or, rather, the moment you think of this as one is the moment you’ll lose.’

“Silly brain, just sit back and watch the show!” Bouncing forward, her eyes widened as Euporie’s next beam split in two. “Eeepp!”

Sucking in her gut as she stood upright, Pinkie’s profile narrowed at the middle and expanded at the top. The forked blast passed right past her, missing by inches and exploding as it hit the ground. A pair of ponies too close to the blast cried out in surprise as they tumbled away from the blast.

“How did...?” Euporie hissed. “That should’ve...!”

“Should’ve what?” Pinkie wondered, letting out the breath she’d been holding and returning to her normal shape. “I should warn you: I never lose in a game of tag!”

“Annoying. I can see Berkelium's Blinding Beam isn’t up to task, so what about Berkelium's Blinding Ball?” Euporie asked, and the next swell of magic coalesced into a ball of blue fire.

The ball shot from her horn like a cake out of a cannon, but it was still slower than the beam had been. Pinkie jumped again to avoid it and the ball hit the ground with another ear-shattering boom, blasting out a crater large enough to turn into a sandbox. Even before her hooves hit the ground, though, Euporie was summoning up energy for a second ball. The second released with even more force than before, eliciting a wince from the unicorn who had to brace her hooves and keep still to unleash it.

Flattening herself like a pancake, Pinkie narrowly avoided the second blinding ball. She was in mid-pronk when a light from behind caught her eye. One blue eye glanced back and identified the source of the fire: it was the ball. Somehow, it had turned around and started chasing her.

“Berkelium's Blinding Ball is different than her beam!” Euporie explained, firing off a third round. “Bounce all you like! You won’t escape!”

“No way!” Pinkie yelled back, smiling brightly. “I love dodgeball!”

Abruptly hopping backwards, she spun in a tight spiral, grabbing the first blinding ball with her hooves. Hitting the ground with a spray of grass and dirt like a spinning pink top, Pinkie served low and underhoof, tossing the ball back the way it had first come. Euporie’s eyes widened in surprise, the third blinding ball just leaving her horn... when the first blasted past her, missing by inches and scuffing the side of her left cheek.

For a moment, Euporie just stared, incredulous, the scrape on her cheek hot and raw.

“How?” she snarled between clenched teeth.

“As long as you can catch the ball, you can send it back!” Pinkie cheerfully explained, grabbing the second ball out of the air with lightning quick hooves. She spun in place again and threw this one back over-hoof.

“No!” Euporie growled, intercepting the second blinding ball with a blinding beam that broke it apart before it could get too close. “No! This isn’t dodgeball!”

“It isn’t?” Pinkie asked, grabbing hold of the third ball and holding it overhead. She turned to the vibrating pulse of raw arcane energy in her left hoof and turned her eyes to rest on Euporie. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t know how you’re doing that,” Euporie answered, and dodged to the side as Pinkie threw the ball back at her. “And I don’t care,” she added, starting to gallop forward. “I’ll just crush you with my own hooves!”

“Sounds like fun!” Pinkie cheered, also breaking into a fast trot. “Let’s do it!”

A little predictably, Euporie spun around at the last second and tried to buck with her hindlegs. Pinkie neatly sidestepped the old earth pony trick only to come face-to-face with a rather sharp looking horn. In which case calling it ‘face-to-horn’ was probably more accurate, right?

“Yipes!” Pinkie spun away, Euporie’s horn just barely nicking her forehead.

“You may be an earth pony, but don’t think you have an advantage in a hoof-fight!” Euporie roared and a vortex of magic encapsulated her right front hoof. Standing on her back legs, she delivered a precise backhand that knocked Pinkie flat onto her back.

“I’m a prodigy in every sense of the word! A genius! And what are you? NOTHING!” Euporie was triumphant, her left hoof - also enshrouded with magical power - descending to cave in Pinkie’s pretty pink tummy. Which was totally not cool. Without her tummy, how would she eat stuff?

“Whoops, missed!” Pinkie twisted to the side at the last moment, Euporie’s hoof hitting the ground with a crash. The ground beneath Pinkie’s back cracked, buckled and ruptured.

“Impossible... I hit you...” Euporie fell back a step, still balancing on her hind legs. “How are you even conscious?”

“That’s a silly question!” Pinkie replied, flipping back onto her hind legs as well. “Let’s wrestle!”

“Pink idiot!” Euporie snarled, eyes aglow with magic and rage. Her enshrouded hoof slammed into Pinkie’s chest, a pulse of spent magic blasting away from the point of impact with enough force to rip into the grass at their hooves.

“Blue meanie!” Pinkie retorted, unfazed by the blow. With her own right front hoof, she swung a wild and lazy haymaker at her opponent. It was a blow a a ‘genius’ pony like Euporie saw coming a mile away.

She sneered and moved just enough out of the way to contemptuously dodge the hit.

“Grrgh!” Euporie Mosaic spat, stumbling backwards. Even with her cheek red from the blow, there was confusion and surprise written all over her features. She knew she’d been hit, but couldn’t understand why or how.

Averting her stumble with a hard step, Euporie raised her hooves up to protect her face.

“What the... what was that? How did you hit me?” Euporie didn’t wait for an answer, she surged back into the attack. “I won’t fall for your stupid tricks!”

“They aren’t stupid!” Pinkie yelled back, swinging her hoof like an amature boxer. Euporie was a second too fast. Another empowered blow slammed into Pinkie’s midsection, and a second took her across the jaw. She stumbled, regained her balance, and hit back. Again, Euporie saw the attack coming and tried to effortlessly dodge it. Pinkie’s hoof passed by her nose, missing entirely.

And again, Euporie winced as something hit her in the face.

Driven into a towering fury by the blow and by her inability to see how Pinkie was doing it, Euporie focused entirely on her attack: trying to beat down her enemy before her enemy could do the same. Pinkie juked left and right, trading impossible blows with the unicorn prodigy. Any one of Euporie’s attacks should’ve sent Pinkie flying, or at the least knocked sense into her--

‘Good luck with that.’

--but none did.

Ducking under another blow, Pinkie slammed her right hoof into Euporie’s chest, put her left to the small of her back, and lifted her up off her hind legs. With a grunt and a heave, she picked Euporie up and bodily slammed her down to the earth. As her back hit the ground, Euporie’s magic cracked and lost cohesion, the enchantments on her hooves shattering and violently buffeting her with an arcane backlash.

“This...” she groaned through clenched teeth. “This can’t be...”

“And now! The Dreaded Pink Elbow!” Pinkie fell to earth herself, slamming her elbow into Euporie’s alabaster-white midriff in the process. The genius unicorn gasped at the force behind the silly looking strike - it had knocked the air out of her!

“The three count!” Pinkie announced, fumbling for one of Euporie’s legs.

“Get off me!” Euporie kicked Pinkie away, her voice hoarse. Slowly rising up, trying to get her bearings, she watched with confusion as Pinkie backed away.

It was almost like she was pushing against something. Then Pinkie sprang forward like a rocket, head lowered like a battering ram. Euporie conjured a magical barrier in response.

Except Pinkie passed right through it.

A mat of wild pink hair filled Euporie’s vision as Pinkie crashed into her, knocking her off her hooves. It very nearly knocked her back onto the ground, but Euporie Mosaic was no normal pony. She stumbled back, spun around, but kept on all four legs. Breathing heavily now, she glared accusingly at her opponent.

“Hey now,” Pinkie warned her, grinning as her poofy mane - the same in her own body or a stallion’s - bounced back into shape. She wagged a hoof as if to admonish Euporie’s bad behavior. “No fancy magic in a wrestling match! That’s cheating! Like using a steel chair! You don’t wanna be a heel, now do you?”

“This... I told you! This isn’t a game!” Euporie tensed to leap at her opponent--

“Wait. This isn’t a game,” she repeated, cutting herself short. Reaching up, Euporie wiped a bit of spittle away from her lower lip with the back of her right hoof. For a moment, she just stood in place, looking at Pinkie but also looking past her, thinking, remembering...

‘She’s going to figure it out.’

Figure what out?

‘Figure out why you aren’t a smear of pink paste right now.’

OOOHHHH. Wait, what?

‘Do something you idiot! We should do something! Tell Vinyl to blast her! Order Flim and Flam to do something!’

Can’t.

‘Of course you can.’

Nope. Rules are rules. If you don’t follow the rules of a game, you’re a cheater.

“I get it now!” Euporie interrupted Pinkie’s internal narrative. She eyed Pinkie warily, like a mongoose would a particularly venomous snake it was trying to size up for a meal.

“You!” she declared, pointing accusingly with her hoof. “You’re like Eunomie. Except where Eunomie can control an area with a magical contract, you do it by treating things like a game!”

“A game?” Pinkie asked, blinking a few times.

“That’s right!” Euporie explained, and her smile widened as she saw she was onto something. “And don’t you even try to play dumb! When you caught my blinding ball, you said it was because this was a game of dodgeball. When we fought, you hit me without hitting me because it was wrestling. And my blows didn’t hurt you like they should have for the same reason! And before that, you said you were playing tag, avoiding my magic.”

‘Well. We’re boned.’

Quiet brain. I wanna hear this.

Euporie stood back up on her hind legs and began to laugh, just a little at first, and then uproariously. Raising her hooves up to her face she laughed.

“Oh, Princesses! What irony! What stupidly... unlikely... improbably... BAD LUCK!” Euporie roared, her laughter abruptly cutting out. She looked down at Pinkie with an expression of mixed amusement and anger, her upper lip curled in a sneer and her amber eyes wild and savage.

“Bad luck?” Pinkie asked. “Who?” She looked around and eventually pointed to herself. “Me? How do I have bad luck?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Euporie asked and snorted mockingly. “I bet you’ve gone your whole life taking advantage of your ability, treating everything like one big game in order to gain advantage. To play to your strengths! Very crafty! Very clever!” Euporie clopped her hooves together, still standing on her hind legs. “But today, you ran into one of the few ponies not only able to figure you out but who knows just how to beat you. That’s why you’re unlucky!”

“Oh.”

“Indeed!”

“Hmm.” Pinkie tilted her head cutely, thoughts bubbling around in her head. “I guess you could see it that way... but actually, I think I’m super lucky.”

“Do you?” Euporie inquired, laughing softly. “And why’s that?”

“Because!” Pinkie smiled brightly, and the gesture alone was enough to wipe the mocking grin off Euporie’s face. “Because I finally met somepony who knows me and understands me.” Pinkie’s smile broadened as she explained, “The truth is, I didn’t know that thing you just said: about me using games and stuff. Maybe I knew on a subconscious level, but I never really understood how any of it worked. I was just me and things happened because they happened.”

By now, Euporie’s smile was gone, replaced with a blank stare. “You... didn’t know...?”

“Nope!” Pinkie shook her head. “Twilight tried to figure it out, once, but after a while she decided it was just me being me and gave up. Actually, I was kind of happy at first that she didn’t know how to explain it. My Pinkie Sense and my Pink-Pinkie-Pinkieness makes me special, right? And I guess I kind of liked the idea of being somepony so super special that even Twilight - who is just super duper smart - couldn’t figure out.”

Pinkie crossed her front legs as she thought about it more. “But it made me kind of sad, too, because I can’t stop being me or doing what I do, and I want my friends to understand that part of me not just brush it off as me being silly. That’s what caused all those problems with the Parasprites. Nopony tried to understand me or what I was saying or what I was doing. They just said ‘Pinkie’s being Pinkie’ and ignored me.”

Euporie was still shocked silent, clearly at a loss for words.

“But you know how this stuff works, right?” Pinkie asked, and she was suddenly right up in front of Euporie, on all fours with her neck craned upward, almost nose to nose with the other mare-turned-stallion. “Right? You get it! And that doesn’t make me any less special! It makes me happy! Because that means there’s others like me out there!”

“W-w... w...”

Euporie stood over Pinkie and her lower lip began to tremble.

‘That doesn’t make me any less special! It makes me happy! Because that means there’s others like me out there!’

‘Because I finally met somepony who knows me and understands me.’

‘Nopony tried to understand me or what I was saying or what I was doing.’

‘I finally met somepony who knows me and understands me.’

‘Actually, I was kind of happy at first that she didn’t know how to explain it. My Pinkie Sense and my Pink-Pinkie-Pinkieness makes me special, right?’

‘Somepony who knows me and understands me.’

The noblemare’s eyes watered against a backdrop of growing horror and dew-like tears began to inch out of the corner of her eyes. Her mouth moved to form words, but the words refused take shape, coming out as inarticulate groans. Gasping, Euporie staggered and fall backwards, just barely landing on her front legs. Immediately, a hoof flew up to wipe away the tears and hammer against the side of her forehead.

“You,” Euporie finally spoke, low and strained. “You! I hate you!”

“You don’t hate me,” Pinkie corrected her, slowly trotting closer to the retreating mare. “You’re just scared of me for some reason.”

Euporie kept backing away.

“I can see it in your eyes,” Pinkie said, closing the distance between them. “I saw it then, too. I didn’t know why until now.”

“You saw it... before, too?” Euporie growled, still backing away until both ponies were under the tattered awning of the pavilion. Not far behind the hedonistic mare was a fancy iron pedestal with a strange looking crystal built into it near the top. It had to be whatever was letting Euporie send her bad mojo all throughout the city.

Euporie remembered it, too. She glanced back at it, and then turned to Pinkie Pie with renewed determination. Magic began to build up first along her horn and then like spreading fire all down her neck. She didn’t even say anything more.

She simply struck.

Pinkie grimaced as a weight wrapped around her heart, dragging her spirit down like a lead weight. Clutching at her chest, she felt the blow - the emotional blow - almost like it was a physical nail hammered into her chest.

. . .

“Oh, Pinkamena...”

Daddy towered over her, a pillar of strength, but even a little filly Pinkie could feel the disappointment in his heart. Even if her feelings were wrong, she could hear the tones of dismay in his voice. He sighed and shook his head, looking to the heavens for some sort of answer.

“I’ll do better next time!” Pinkamena promised, reaching out to hug his leg. “I’ll do better! I just made a few mistakes, that’s all!”

“That’s right, Dad!” Marble spoke up from the side, standing in front of her perfectly formed and flawless block of granite.

“We’ll help her get better!” Limestone said, one hoof resting on her own granite block. It wasn’t as nice as Inkie’s or Maud’s, but it was still good enough to make Daddy smile. “Isn’t that right, Maud?” she asked her older sister.

“Pinkamena is too easily distracted,” the young Maud Pie deadpanned. Unlike Marble and Limestone and Pinkamena, she didn’t have a granite block. She was the oldest sister and she’d already proved herself three years ago when she was a filly.

Daddy sighed again, a rumble in his chest that his youngest daughter felt through his legs.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Daddy was sad and it was all her fault! Burying her face in his leg, Pinkie sniffled and promised to do better with the rocks next time. Even if she probably wouldn’t ever be as skilled as Inkie or as smart as Blinkie or as dedicated and passionate as Maud, she could still help! She was still a Pie!

. . .

The lead weight around Pinkie’s heart pulled her lower, down into the freezing waters she tried to leave behind. Her mane began to sag and droop and her eyes stared off into the distance.

. . .

“Pinkamena Diane Pie!”

Mother was scary when she was angry, and boy-oh-boy was she angry.

“Look at this mess! Just look!” Mother gestured with a hoof to the wrecked kitchen. Pots and pans were strewn about, batter was inexplicably caked onto the ceiling and eerie moans were coming from the oven where Daddy was jabbing something with a metal poker.

“I was just trying to make a cake,” Pinkamena muttered, cringing in shame. “It was supposed to be a surprise...”

“Maud!” Mother yelled, and craned her neck to look past Pinkie. “Take your sister upstairs while your father and I handle this.”

“But...!”

“No buts!”

A strong hoof rested on Pinkie’s shoulder and turned her around. Maud was only a few years older than she was, but she always seemed to mature and so grown up. Mother and Father were so proud of her. Not for the first time, Pinkie wished to Celestia that she could be more like her oldest sister and less like... like Pinkamena Diane Pie.

“Well, dear, the good news is that it isn’t getting any larger,” Daddy said, and Mother turned to talk to him about how they were going to clean up the mess. “The bad news is that it keeps asking for ‘fresh meat’...”

“Well you tell it we don’t have any!” Mother snapped, and sent one last look at Pinkamena before stomping over to the oven. “Oh, never mind. Let me at it!”

“Come on,” Maud said, and gently ushered Pinkie out of the kitchen.

“I just wanted to surprise everypony with a cake,” Pinkamena tried to explain, shuffling along in front of her sister as they made their way to the stairs.

“You animated the yeast,” Maud explained on the way upstairs.

“Huh?” Pinkie blinked, and Maud had to give her nudge up the stairs to get her moving again. Her oldest sister wasn’t one for long talks, but she always had a way of explaining things so they made sense.

“Enchanted citrine and powdered graphite in the presence of water and a heating element,” she said, giving her little sister another nudge up the stairs. “Animated yeast.”

“I still don’t understand!” Pinkie cried, and turned to look through the rails of the bannister. She could see into the kitchen, and from across the house, she could truly grasp the mess she’d made. No wonder Mother and Father were always so upset. She was a screw-up, just one big worthless screw-up, no matter what she tried to do!

. . .

The deeper her heart sank, the quicker the bad memories returned, bad feeding on bad.

. . .

The foals in town snickered and whispered amongst themselves whenever she showed up at the town market. While Daddy handled most of the business on a personal basis, Mother still occasionally sold things in town and the family couldn’t eat rocks - despite Maud’s insistence that it was entirely possible to do so if she ‘just got the chemistry right.’

Town in this case was just a small farmer’s market on a long street with a few shops. Almost everyone lived in the farms and everypony was a son or daughter of a farmer learning the family business. Blinkie was the first to spot one of her friends and run off. Inkie headed off by herself. All too soon, even Maud was lured away by some of the older fillies and colts. They were all talking about one of them that got a scholarship to go to school somewhere far away and Pinkie, young though she was, knew that Maud wanted to go to school and learn all sorts of new things about rocks.

Pinkie sat alone, by herself, rolling a rock around under her little hoof.

. . .

“Why isn’t this working?” Pinkie asked herself, glaring at the geode she had grown. Holding the body of rock in her little hooves, she directed her ire towards the vug or cavity within it, where hundreds of little garnet crystals should have taken root and grown.

Marble Pie’s geode was overflowing with brilliant red and orange garnet.

Limestone Pie’s geode was smaller, less prolific, but glittering brightly in the light of the firefly-lantern.

“This is all your fault!” Pinkamena yelled, throwing her geode down and trying to smash it. “Stupid rock! I... I hate you!” She picked it up again and tried to drop it harder, to break it. But it was too tough. She was too small.

‘I can’t even do this right.’

“I hate you!” Pinkie screamed, and rushed to the side of the workshop to fish out a hammer. Galloping back with it between her teeth, she took one last look at her geode. The few crystals inside that she had managed to coax out were all funny shapes and colors.

Just like her.

The wrong shape, the wrong color, the wrong everything!

The hammer came down. “I hate you!” Again. “I hate you!” And again. “I hate you!” And again.

Until it was all in pieces. Until it didn’t matter anymore. Until...

Breathing heavily, Pinkie turned to her sisters’ geodes, safe and secure in their wooden stands. Tomorrow... tomorrow... Marble and Limestone would show them to Daddy, and he’d see - yet again - just how talented and awesome and great two of his daughters were... and how much of a failure one of them always, always, always was. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. Not even a tiny bit of it was fair!!

Hammer clenched between her teeth, she walked slowly towards the geodes.

It wasn’t fair.

. . .

“Awwgh!” Pinkie cried, falling forward, legs turning to jelly. “Oh Celestia...” A mat of loose rust-pink mane pooled around her as she covered her eyes and sobbed. “I’m so sorry... I didn’t mean to...”

Standing over her, Euporie Mosaic was breathing heavily, a sheen of sweat trickling down her forehead. She had to narrow her eyes and blink to keep it out of her eyes.

“I am impressed, your resistance is like nothing I’ve ever felt before,” Euporie muttered, but relaxed at the soft sounds of crying coming from her opponent. Pinkie Pie was broken, emotionally, and that... that was the key to defeating her physically.

“You see now? This is no game,” Euporie said, allowing a small, sinister smile to take form. “I told you that you’d regret crossing me, Pinkie Pie. Wallow in that despair.” Her smile grew a fraction and she stepped closer to loom over her fallen opponent. “For an encore, and as a small mercy, I’ll turn that sadness into rage, and then... I’ll turn you against anypony and anything I choose.”

Despite her smile, she shuddered and her eyes were full of fury.

“Then you’ll see!” she spat. “Then you’ll see what I tried so hard to show you at the party: the lie of it all. You’ll see. Just like I do!”

‘No.’

“No.”

“No?” Euporie whispered, amber eyes aglow with blue magic. “No...?”

Pinkamena choked out a sob but summoned up the will to look up at her. “I feel...”

“Despair,” Euporie said. “I know.”

“I feel...” Pinkie blinked and fixed her eyes on the victorious Euporie. “I feel so... sorry for you.”

Euporie flinched, her upper lip still frozen in a sneer. Even as a stallion, she was a beautiful pony, but only when she wanted to be. When angered, her fine white features turned into a rictus of anger and her amber eyes burned with an inner rage.

“To do this to somepony else,” Pinkie said, and reached out to gently grab hold of Euporie’s front legs. “I’m so sorry. I know you’re sad and you’re scared, but you can still smile...” Impossibly, despite being weighed down with despair and hopelessness, she still managed a weak smile up at her better. “You can,” she promised.

“Don’t... don’t touch me,” Euporie hissed, but didn’t tear herself away. “Don’t...”

. . .

Magical bursts filled the air overhead, fizzling and popping with festive colors to mark the season. At the center of it all, a filly Euporie smiled proudly as the adults watched and lavished attention on the young prodigy. The magical spells weren’t even that hard, not really, but the grown-ups were certainly impressed. They ‘ooh’ed and ‘aah’ed with every snake-like streamer that burst into a rainbow of colors. A few clopped their hooves in applause when a particularly potent spell burst into a stylized sun in celebration of the Eternal Princess.

“Isn’t she spectacular?” Mommy said, proudly, when the show was done and a grinning Euporie stepped down off the stage. Mommy wore the exact same dress as Euporie, just much larger. Apparently adults thought the matching outfits were ‘adorable.’

“My little Euphoria,” Olive Branch said with a smile, patting her daughter on the cheek. “Very good work, dear!”

Euporie looked up to her mother and smiled back, used to the praise. “Thanks, mom. It was easy.”

A long line of adults were soon swarming around them, eager to meet the impressive little filly with the gift for magic and, even moreso, to reconnect with her famous and powerful mother. Olive Branch was the Marquessa of the Equestrian Reach: it included all the country’s lesser colonies but, as a consequence, also oversaw sea trade and other important duties. It had started off as another royal office but had evolved into a loose Duchy in all but name.

Mom was an important pony, Dad, too, but mostly Mom. She was a skilled negotiator, so much so that the Princess herself had praised mother’s skills after the treaty with Saddle Mareabia just last year. Olive Branch was a tall, regal unicorn, at least in her daughter’s eyes. The very example of what a mare should be!

“It is good to get a breath of culture and refinement so far from civilization!” A tall stallion in a tuxedo suit was raising a toast. “To our Good Lady, Olive Branch, and the welcoming embrace of her famous household!”

“Here, here!” Another noble stallion seconded. And then a third.

“Speaking of which,” a tall pink mare interrupted, a strange sort of smile on her lips. “When do the real festivities begin?”

The adults started to laugh and jostle about, amused by some kind of private joke. Euporie just watched them, not quite understanding what was so funny. What, were they drunk already?

“Zephyr!” Olive Branch commanded, and Euporie frowned as a zebra mare made her way through the crowds. Zephyr was mom’s name for one of her favorite servants... a zebra from the Sunset Lands who had been brought to court by a famous explorer.

Euporie didn’t like her.

There was just something... off about Zephyr. All the other zebras who occasionally appeared at Zephyr’s beck and call were the same. They were all creepy. They all felt wrong. It was probably bad that she had nothing but negative feelings towards zebras, but there was just something about the way they acted and the way they looked at you. Maybe there was something to that rumor about zebras being enchantresses?

Either way, Euporie didn’t like her and she didn’t like them. Mom liked them, though. She always kept Zephyr around for some reason or another. Some of the other servants whispered that the two were lovers, but that was silly. Mom already had Dad. Why would she need a lover... which sounded like some sort of backup Dad? None of it made any sense.

“See Euphoria off once the festivities begin,” Olive Branch ordered.

Zephyr, dressed in equestrian silks, inclined her head in respect. “Of course, my Lady.”

Zephyr did what she’d ordered a half hour later and ushered Euporie out of the room. Back in her quarters, Eunomie was pouring over the magical books and trying to cast a simple firecracker spell. She was just so hopeless! But she’d gotten at least a little better over the last few hours. Maybe by tomorrow afternoon she’d actually be able to cast a single firework spell correctly!

Bored watching her sister struggle, Euporie had instead used another spell - one the servants didn’t know she knew - to sneak off. It was high past time she found out what the adults were up to. Whatever it was, Euporie could guess that it had to be good.

Peeking out from behind a curtain, thanks to a spell she had cast on it earlier during the fireworks display, she was able to see through the fabric one-way without anypony being the wiser. Her ears twitched at all the strange sounds. All the adults were wrestling and rolling around and the servants were feeding them and wasting food by smearing it on them and doing all sorts of strange things. Euporie found herself unable to turn away. It was all so... strange. A fluttering feeling in her stomach made her wonder if she’s eaten something bad.

“Pleasure, my friends!” Mom declared, a pony that was definitely non-Dad mounting her from behind. It had to be another one of mother’s friends. She had many of them, after all. They had to be the best of friends to do Mom and Dad stuff with them. “Pleasure is the only true sensation in this world! In the end, all is fleeting and all is dust... unlike our great Princess, all ponies die! And when we do, all we have in that moment are our regrets!” She laughed and poured out her glass of wine onto the floor, moaning and laughing all at once.

“My friends!” she cried. “I promise you, the one thing you will not regret is living life to its fullest! Live for the moment! Live for your pleasure! Revel in it!”

“Friends...?” Euporie whispered to herself, still trying to understand what she was seeing and hearing. “Is this what adult friendships are like?”

. . .

Euporie sat stock-still, her horn flashing involuntarily.

. . .

“Dad’s... dead?” Euporie asked, staring up at her mother.

“I’m afraid so,” Olive Branch leaned over to nuzzle her emotional daughter. Euporie was still too shocked to feel much of anything. How could he be dead?

“He was alive only last night,” Eunomie said, no hint of anything more than curiosity in her tone. “Please explain.”

“Something took him in the middle of the night,” Mother answered, and pulled her daughters in close for a hug. “Don’t you worry, though. Mommy’s here. I’m not going anywhere.”

. . .

Another twitch, another flash of magic. “Liar.”

. . .

This thing wasn’t mother.

It was a monster wearing mother’s skin. Wearing mother’s clothes. Speaking mother’s words. No one saw. No one understood. No one believed.

“You always were clever,” Not-mother hissed, and her smile was razor sharp and full of teeth no equine would call their own. After weeks of letting things go, she had at last cornered her prodigy daughter after dinner. Though only a fraction of her not-mother’s size, she tried not to show fear.

“Your mother is dead and rotting in the ground,” Not-mother said, leaning down and forcing Euporie back up against the wall. “Beetles are eating her as we speak. They’ll eat you, too, if you cause any more trouble.”

Despite herself, despite being a so called “genius,” despite telling herself not to be afraid...

She was afraid.

Euporie cringed away from not-mother, closing her eyes in terror. The sight of those teeth on her mother’s face... it was just too much. To her shame, the little filly felt wetness around her hind legs and realized she had peed herself. That never happened. Why? Why?

Why was she so afraid, so pathetic, so weak, so helpless? So useless? Her? The prodigy? The genius? The one Mom and Dad were so proud of?

“It would be unwise to harm her,” a deadpan voice interrupted, and Euporie dared to open her eyes. She could see not-mother was looking, too.

“Eunomie!” Euporie cried. “Look out! She isn’t...!”

Not-mother hissed, trotting away from the terrified Euporie and stalking towards her even more helpless sister. Eunomie was an idiot. She had no skill in magic or anything else. It took her forever to learn the things Euporie mastered in an hour. Even their real mother had kept her out of the spotlight to save her embarrassment. Against this monster, what could she do?

“What did you say, little one?” Not-mother asked, flashing that horrible smile again. “What was that?”

“Suspicion will rise if we die or are harmed so soon after father’s death,” Eunomie explained, unflinching even when not-mother towered over her, looking for all intents and purposes like she was a heartbeat from snapping the little filly’s head off as easily as a pony might nip off the head of a flower.

“We are the most valuable aspect of your cover. It is clear you intend to replace her, given your activities over the last six days.” Eunomie looked up at the monster in their mother’s flesh, unaffected by any of its attempts to intimidate her. “If she is dead, then it is too late to do anything about it. The logical thing to do is come to a mutually beneficial agreement.”

Not-mother scowled, but took a step back. Away from Eunomie.

“Yes, true,” she mused, in mother’s voice. “Very well... an agreement, then.”

. . .

Euporie’s mane, a wild and untamed mass of blue, began to slacken. The magic around her horn subsided, too, growing dimmer. “Eunomie...”

. . .

“They’re all liars.”

Eunomie had her nose buried in a book. “Who?” she asked, simply, not bothering to look up.

“Everypony!” Euporie hissed, sitting down opposite her twin. Her head hurt and she felt sick again. A doctore from Bitaly had prescribed some nasty smelling tea to calm her nerves and settle her stomach, but then she’d caught him at another of not-mother’s parties and the next time he visited she’d thrown him off a balcony. The tea was vile and he was vile. They were all vile, rotten, liars to the core.

“None of them can see what that thing out there really is,” she kept her voice low and conspiratorial. It was unwise to talk about it too openly. Not-mother had ears everywhere in the house. “They’re blind and all they do is party and mount each other like animals.”

Euporie clenched her hooves, pressing them down hard into the floor.

“I can’t stand it. I can’t stand any of it,” she whispered, eyes downcast. “Is this all mother’s friends visited her to do? Is this all she meant to them? Is this all there ever was?” She stamped her hoof in agonized frustration and hung her head as the tears came back, staining her cheeks. “What kind of friends are they... friends who can’t see... can’t even tell--”

Eunomie looked up from her book at her sister, but said nothing.

“Damn them.” Euporie sniffed and wiped her eyes with her hooves, smearing her tears over her cheeks. She was crying again. Why? Why did this keep happening? Why was she so pathetic? At least only Eunomie was around to see it. Only her. Nopony else. Nopony else could ever see.

“Damn them all.” She hid her face behind her hooves, her whole body shuddering as she cried. “They’re all useless. I hate them.”

. . .

“Just puppets and liars.”

. . .

“You’re all puppets and liars, dancing to my tune.” Euporie reclined on the chaise lounge, older, wiser, colder. The party was in full swing, with ponies cavorting and laughing and utterly ignorant of the changelings among them.

“A wonderful feast,” the vile creature sitting next to her agreed, in the guise of Lady Tea Leaf. The changeling smiled... the same terribly toothy smile Euporie remembered as a filly. This creature was one of not-mother’s brood.

“Yeah.”

“I can see why my mother keeps you around,” the changeling hissed happily, hardly even bothering with the pretense of keeping up her superficial disguise. “You are a useful pony, most useful indeed.” She took a long, contended breath and looked out over the orgy. “But I wonder... doesn’t it bother you, doing this to your own kind?”

“My own kind?” Euporie repeated with a sneer. Boldly, she snagged the changeling by her mane and brought her in closer until they were almost nose to nose. “Don’t insult me to my face again. Nopony is ‘my kind.’ Certainly not these idiots!”

The changeling trilled angrily, but didn’t dare do anything rash before Euporie released her. The changeling staggered backwards and a fiery green ripple flowed across her surface, smoothing out her disguise.

“Emotions are just food to you,” Euporie said, already setting her attention back on the party at hoof. She gestured at the guests dismissively. “To me, they’re strings, just like the strings on a puppet. Ponies live their lives lying to each other, smiling fake smiles, laughing fake laughs, pledging fake friendships. None of it means a damn thing,” she spat and raised herself up off the lounge chair, “so why not let you freaks eat your fill?”

“Where are you going?” the changeling demanded to know, but didn’t dare try and stop her. Euporie’s mercurial moods were already well known and feared among pony and changeling alike.

“To do what I please to whoever I please,” she answered with a snort. She narrowed her eyes and sent a chilly glare back at the changeling drone. “Don’t get in my way.”

. . .

“Our new father,” Eunomie said, sitting by the side of the bed. “Welcome, father.”

“Looks like she really worked you over, huh?” Euporie quipped, resting her forelegs on the side of the bed. “Well? You still alive in there?”

Alpha Brass lay on his back, splayed out on the wedding bed. The monster wearing Olive Branch’s skin had feasted on him, draining his emotions dry. That’s what it looked like anyway. Euporie had seen her mother’s victims before: glassy eyed broken toys and fawning slaves, their minds twisted around the changeling’s crooked horn.

Their new father, the result of an arranged marriage, wasn’t that much older than his new step-daughters. He was handsome in a Prench sort of way, but not-mother hadn’t been particularly gentle in her handling of him. Eunomie had found him still in the master bedroom, unwilling or unable to move. Olive Branch had left him there to recover while she attended to other business. Maybe she was off to lay a few more eggs with her new love meal.

Euporie rested her head between her front legs, trying to get a feel for this new guy. His emotions were... strange. They were definitely there, she could almost feel where the love had been ripped out, where the hole was slowly filling back in, but... but it wasn’t filling in with love like it should have been. There was something else there, mixed in, turning the hole in his heart black and septic.

You couldn’t tell by looking at his blank face, but...

“I’ll make it right.”

Euporie’s ears perked up at the voice. She and Eunomie exchanged a quick look.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re awake, then, and aware of your surroundings,” Eunomie reasoned.

“Forget that,” Euporie snapped, and leaned in closer to the motionless stallion. “What did you just say?”

He stared up at the ceiling, broken, but not beaten.

“I’ll make it right...” he vowed, softly, weakly, and Euporie could feel the jagged edges of his mangled emotions. She had always been sensitive to the emotions of others. Lord Brass’s emotions were reacting differently to the changeling feeding process. Eunomie was oblivious, of course, but there was an old legend about Arsenic and the poisoned blood of the Terre Rare. Could it be true? Euporie decided then and there to let her sister take care of their new step-father’s body. She would heal his mind, and together... together they would show everypony just how wrong they were.

. . .

“Don’t you get it?”

. . .

“Don’t you get it?!” Euporie reached down and lifted Pinkie up, hooves buried in the short coat that covered her chest. “Don’t you understand? You’re just a puppet! A puppet with strings I can cut or yank any time I want! I saw it right away!”

Pinkie slowly shook her head.

“They were all laughing at you!” Euporie yelled, her vision growing blurry. The flashes coming from her horn were intermittent now, too short, too erratic. “They never liked you! They never knew you! Nopony does! All those times they smiled and all those times you smiled... they were all lies! Why...” She shuddered and gave Pinkie a strong shake. “Why can’t you see that!?”

Slowly, Pinkie’s front legs came up, but not to push away or dislodge the mare holding her by a vice-grip. Instead, her legs fell over Euporie’s shoulders, one over and one under.

“What’s wrong with you?” Euporie tried to squint through her blurry vision. “Why can’t you see it?”

. . .

“I still don’t understand!” Pinkie cried, and turned to look through the rails of the bannister. She could see into the kitchen, and from across the house, she could truly grasp the mess she’d made. No wonder Mother and Father were always so upset. She was a screw-up, just one big screw-up, no matter what she tried to do!

“You will understand one day,” Maud promised, and a comforting hoof rested on Pinkie’s flat, smooth mane. “Just like I did. Just like we all do.”

. . .

“I know what it's like to feel helpless, to feel useless. To lash out.”

Euporie shuddered in Pinkie’s grip, slowly shaking her head. “Shut up.”

“But it’s never too late to be yourself, to make others happy and to be happy. Maybe we are puppets, but our strings,” Pinkie whispered, tightening her hug around the weakly resisting Euporie, “they’re what bind us together... they’re what make life worth living. They might make us hurt, they might make us foolish, they might blind us to what’s right in front of us, they might make us weak... but without them, what are we?”

Euporie’s hooves flew up to her face, to the sputtering magic of her horn.

“Stop lying to yourself!” Pinkie yelled into Euporie’s chest, her hug tightening like a death grip. “Look at yourself! You have strings, too! Are you going to tell me your own feelings are a lie?”

Eunomie.

Alpha.

...Mother.

Secure behind its edifice, the prototype crystal heart cracked clean down the middle with a sound like distant thunder. The instant it did, Euporie Mosaic cried out, her magic burning out of control, shaking back and forth as she pawed at her eyes. Licks of blue fire shredded the heavy canvas of her pavillion tent, striking savagely at grounded lamps and anything else magically conductive around her. Guards and onlookers dove for cover, their trance broken, their eyes wide and free of compulsion. The big tent of the pavilion exploded into a thousand burning streamers, ripped apart in the gale of unleashed mana.

Pinkie’s body shook, too, as she tried to keep a hold on Euporie. The unicorn mare was sobbing, hooves buried in her mane as she screamed, violent whips of magic raging out of control. Pinkie’s own mane, still flat and straight, slapped against her back as pulses of energy threatened to knock her away. All of Euporie’s magic was escaping her, stretched to the breaking point between her own shattered mental state and that of the now broken crystal heart. Euporie was a prodigy, a genius, a powerful unicorn in all respects, but even her magic exhausted itself in little more than a few terrifying seconds.

And when her magic was spent, so was Euporie Mosaic. Her hair fell loosely and limply like a pale blue shawl around her shoulders and back. Her breathing slowed, calmed, her struggles disappeared.

“You... you’ve ruined it all,” she whispered back, whispered to the mare who had beaten her. “No... I... I ruined it.”

Pinkie felt a hoof press against her chest, pushing her away.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Pinkie insisted, but gave Euporie some space if that was what she wanted. The unicorn mare was defeated, mentally and physically, and exhausted to boot. She had her head down, but Pinkie could still see droplets falling from behind the mat of blue hair.

“I did,” Euporie cried, softly. She quickly covered her face with her hooves, trying to hide. “Oh. Oh no. No no no. Don’t look at me. Please - please don’t look. Please.” Pinkie carefully touched the other mare on her shoulder and Euporie’s whole body began to tremble.

“What’s wrong with me? I’ve... I’ve hurt so many ponies... used them... toyed with them. I told myself it was because they were false, that their feelings didn’t matter, that it was all just another way to manipulate ponies and deceive them--” Her voice caught and she gasped for breath. “I knew it was wrong. I knew. But I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop!”

Pinkie remembered standing over a trio of broken geodes, hammer falling from her mouth as it slowly dawned on her what she had done. All the frustration, all the helplessness, all the anger, all the confusion, all the fear and uncertainty and jealousy... even when she began to cry, knowing she had done something terrible, there had been a strained smile on her face. That chapter of her life had been closed the day she got her cutie mark, the day Maud’s promise came true, the day everything became clear. She wasn’t Pinkamena anymore, not really, but Pinkamena was a part of Pinkie and always would be.

Looking up, Pinkie saw the growing crowd of ponies and guards warily circling them, inching closer. The music had stopped. she couldn’t see the Party Wagon, only the faces in the crowd around them. They were confused, too, and afraid. Nopony really knew what had been going on, only that something in them had changed... reverted back to normal. They couldn’t be sure, they couldn’t know, even if they did suspect.

It was that lead weight around their heart.

It was Euporie; she was gone.

Only Euphoria was left.

Author's Note:

This was actually one of the tougher chapters to write lately. All this emotion stuff!
Hopefully it came out alright, though, since this was Pinkie's Crowning Moment in the fanfic, plus you guys know I try to do the Pink Terror justice.

Now (aside from a few more scenes that'll come later) I think I can finally get back to and stay with Rarity in an almost clean streak to the end of the story. We'll see...

Comments

[The Great Derpsby]

Pinkie giggled girlishly, a strange sound coming from a stallion’s body. “Don’t worry! I totally know what I’m doing!”

“Really?”

“Nope!”

That's why I love you, Pinkie. Never change. Or at least change in a way that makes you happy.

[The Great Derpsby]

You know, Celestia's extended family does appear to share a particular curse. One of deeply, deeply wounded egos.

From Luna to Arsenic to Blueblood to Euporie here, they've all suffered from feeling weak, vulnerable, helpless, insignificant. Worthless. And they all turned their pain and rage outward.

I shudder to think what might be hidden in Eunomie's soul. Or Chalice's, for that matter.

[Moongaze14]

Gotta say that this chapter was epic for Pinkie. The Changelings from Ponyville are about to have their final stand and Pinkie managed to redeem Euporie. Gotta say that I liked watching Euporie's past as it gave me a greater understanding of her character. Plus, the explanation about how Pinkie does her impossible deeds and the way she overcame her bad memories and still have the heart to comfort Euporie was awesome. Thanks for the chapter.

[Dravkwn]

Only Euphoria was left.

[Brony Tom]

You know, I was really looking forward to this confrontation. It totally delivered! The parallels there really sealed the deal... just absolutely fantastic.

Also a few spelling/grammar/etc issues I found.

More hissed overhead heralded another pair of changelings also making a move.

Half the force she had now had been enough to utterly decimate the entire Red Hive in the Battle of the Shifting Fields back in across the sea.

But there was no time to dwell on that sombering realization.

[lordofmyth]

this story seems pretty itnersting..... though shining's fate, defintiely of the iffy factor

[SafariJohn]

That was some amazing Pinkie. Bravo!

[RoboRed]

I must say...that entire scene with Pinkie vs Euporie? That was something else, for sure. I really enjoyed it.

[rosebug]

You really hit the nail on the head with the emotions, I don't think I ever thought I would feel so bad for Euporie.
It was an epic chapter overall, Pinkie's games and Euporie's magic made for a fantastic showdown.

[Dramon Creator]

I could say it once, I could say a thousand times, but Pinkie Pie is awesome. Not only in her hilarious badassery, but especially because of her unstoppable determination to always make people happy. You said this was Pinkie's crowning moment, and you delivered spectacularly!

My favorite part of the chapter was without a doubt Pinkie and Euporie's fight, or more specifically, their all out, no holds barred, ideological showdown, wherein the two Party Ponies unleashed all their strength, and laid their hearts completely bare. Best of all, despite everything Euporie has done, Pinkie still made the effort to understand her, and ultimately bridged the gap between them, a moment that captured her character perfectly.

From beginning to end, this was an amazing chapter Capn, and I eagerly await more.

P.S. Pinkamena and Euphoria was great addition to the story, but there are two things I'm confused about: 1.The idea that Pinkie's abilities are similar to Eunomie's contract magic sounds fascinating, but what does that actually mean? 2.While I have a few theories bouncing around in my skull, I have to ask, what exactly does this line mean?

It was Euporie; she was gone.

Only Euphoria was left.

[Crimson Dawn]

This chapter was AMAZING!!!

It was so much fun, dramatic, and funny. You delve into their motivations and I love it.

Even a reasoning for how her Pinkiness works that fits with how pony magic works in this story. Very well done.

This may be her crowing bit of awesome (and what a crown it really was) but I will always look forward to you writing more Pinkie Pie.

[Hoof of Approval]

Euporie... DEFEATED!

Who's next?

[Caliaponia]

Great chapter - I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not just the fact that pinkie won (spectacularly, and, as others have noted very in-character), but also the implications that this has going forward.

Thinking back on the last chapter, Alpha Brass mentions that for all his plotting and scheming, they would have fallen apart had it not been for his coterie of loyal and like minded supporters.

What are the elements doing? Subverting, harmonizing. Making their own alignment, bit-by-bit.

So, gazing into my crystal ball:
It'll be a very close-run thing, of course. Alpha's plans will come to fruition, revealed in all their flawed glory. Seeing the flaws, Twilight will resist, and when he turns for his support to force or bypass her, find that they've been converted.

Anyhow, eagerly looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.

[Serifina]

COngratulations. You actually made me feel sympathy for Euporie. I didn't think that was possible. I am astonished! Amazed! And impressed.

[Aariadon]

(That is all.)

[GBscientist]

Hurray for the Doof Party Wagon! That was an excellent chapter. The emotional points were poignant and the chase scene was very well done and put me even more in a Mad Max frame of mind.

[Caliaponia]

6452922

Heh. So I wasn't the only one thinking Doof Warrior

[Majk]

Eeeyup, you don't buck with Pinkie Pie.

[Xanderfox]

the true mark of a great villain, having a fantastic backstory and motivation that you can sympathize with. Euporie isn't a villain for the sake of it, she's damaged goods, trapped in a horrifying situation that dragged her down and she's been trying in her own misguided way to get out of.

[GBscientist]

6452932 She even sprayed canned whip cream into her mouth.

"And so I pass into Cakehalla, sugary and foamed!"

[Leftover of Saikano]

This is greatness.
Pinkie once again shows us she's THE party pony.

[Biker_Dash]

vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/mlpfanart/images/f/f7/Mother_of_Me.png/revision/latest?cb=20121219171649

That was a powerful chapter. OUTSTANDING!

[Bugsydor]

That ending was beautiful. I totally saw Pinkie's reaction to the bad memories coming, bit that was by no means a bad thing. And congrats on making my heart ache for Euporie. I did not see that coming at all.

only party-type ponies were so attuned

Does that mean that Celestia is a party pony?

I wonder what's going on with everyone's favorite newly minted alicorn about now?

[Fox]

How is there not a game like the first part of this chapter?

"And somewhere high above and a little bit below the wrestling match, Discord Eris giggled like a manic schoolfilly schoolcolt."

That last scene, though, defies critique or comment. Every bit as emotional as was fitting for Euporie's harmonisation.

[SomeRandomMinion]

So if the mind control is broken...does that mean a little wrench has been thrown in Alpha's genocidal endgame?

[Capn_Chryssalid]

6454055
I was wondering who'd get that little throw-in bit, but yes, Celestia is a 'Party Pony Type' (emotionally attuned) just like Pinkie and Euporie (and Vinyl and many others). I figured it made a certain degree of sense.

It looks like quite a few readers felt for Euporie, too, which was the thing I was most worried about in this chapter. Make no mistake: she's been a very bad pony and she's done bad things, this 'harmonization' as Fox put it doesn't absolve her of that. But it does give her a chance to move on and change... if she's willing. I've always tried to frame TPC, despite all the conflict, and the darker parts, as being a redemptive rather than punitive story. Antimony, Yumi, Ritterkreuz, Euporie, none of them were evil, and they've all been defeated, but what stopped them wasn't a physical force, it was Rarity's stubborn nobility, Applejack's trust and Fluttershy's bravery, Rainbow Dash's courage and compassion, and now Pinkie's understanding and insight.

That said, Euporie was a harder case to sell than the others, so I felt I had my work cut out for me making her a character people could read, and dislike, but then feel something for despite all she had done. Aside from Brass, I think only Chrysalis is more odious, good god, has she done terrible things, but maybe even people will feel some sympathy for even the ruthless Queen of Queens if I play my cards right.

[Bugsydor]

6454788
Ooh! Plans!

You've done a swell job with Alpha Brass so far, so I'm confident you can handle Chrysalis just fine.

Also, Cakelestia is the Bestia.

[Glazius]

"We're not so different, you and I" is always awesome when you can say it to Hannibal instead of hear it from him.

[Capn_Chryssalid]

6452468
Ah, yes, I'd meant to get to this yesterday as well.

Just how accurate Euporie's reasoning is, regarding Pinkie's own strange abilities, is still up for debate. But it wasn't just put in the story here for her and Pinkie's benefit. Eunomie, Brass and Chalice as the final triad in the story left to face and overcome. Euporie's mention here is also a segue into how the story will soon tackle Eunomie's own strange abilities.

Essentially what it means, though, is that Eunomie (or Pinkie) have a measure of control over their personal space. Pinkie does this basically unconsciously, whereas Eunomie uses very specific contract formulas. Like here, in this chapter, Pinkie had to follow the rules of the game she thought she was playing. As long as she followed those rules, others were basically forced to abide by them as well. We also saw this back when Euporie carelessly ordered Flim and Flam to serve Pinkie; Pinkie used them against Euporie during the party, and afterwards Eunomie reminded Euporie that nothing could be done about this, since it was part of the contract that bound the brothers to them. The rules have to be followed. In-universe, this sort of thing is a very esoteric but also very powerful form of magic, one usually restricted by the fact that it requires a very regimented and meticulous attention to detail to work (something Pinkie usually lacks).

That final line is a reference to the dichotomy between Pinkie-Pinkamena and Euphoria-Euporie. Euporie was basically stuck in the equivalent of a Pinkamena-state of mind made most manifest by Pinkie's memory of smashing her sisters' geodes in a fit of frustration, sadness, anger and jealousy. Put another way:
Euporie = Pinkamena
Euphoria = Pinkie
So when Euporie is "purged" (or harmonized) she metaphorically became her old self, Euphoria, again.

[RadicalDishonesty]

Man, this chapter was ace. So good.

6455583

Just how accurate Euporie's reasoning is, regarding Pinkie's own strange abilities, is still up for debate. But it wasn't just put in the story here for her and Pinkie's benefit. Eunomie, Brass and Chalice as the final triad in the story left to face and overcome. Euporie's mention here is also a segue into how the story will soon tackle Eunomie's own strange abilities.

Whether or not her reasoning is valid... I think it's strongly in character for her. She sees Pinkie's ability, fueled by Pinkie's joy and unending optimism... as just another way to manipulate others/the world. It's just a game, after all. Hardly something real.

Perfect for Euporie's pessimistic nihilism.

[celelorien]

Someone seriously needs to draw Pinkie on the Party Wagon like the Doof Warrior, ahahaha! Flamethrower guitar and all. An excellent chapter, I seriously loved the epic final confrontation between Pinks and Euporie. I think it's good too that she recognizes that what she's done was Not Okay, so maybe now she can become better than she was. Especially as Not-Mother won't likely be rearing her ugly head any more, seeing as she's a prisoner in a cavern now.

[Lord Xaos]

“Ma’am, please! OW! My eye!”

“My dear, please refrain from bruising this young lad,” Blueblood said softly, trying to talk her and the others down while keeping safely out of pummeling range.

“Hey! I’m not a ‘lad,’” Flash Sentry objected

Aw maaaan. Flash is going to get a badass eyepatch out of this. We'll never hear the end of it.

Anyway, WOW! What a chapter! All these feels, man. All this backstory on Euporie and Pinkie!

And Alpha's promise....."I'll make it right"....I can't wait to read more!

Speaking of which, great job updating these chapters, Capn!

[Forderz]

batter was inexplicably cakes

Should be caked.

Like all twisted individuals, Euporie is the result of a twisted upbringing. From birth, when Olive Branch took a shortcut to get two foals instead of one, to childhood, seeing her mother use her as a prop when convenient, to her adolescence, when her mother was replaced by a monster that fed of her empathy. Pinkie forcing her to see what she had become, what she had and still does despises, for (presumably) the polar opposite reasons her mother did, well, nobody would take having that viel removed lightly.

There are still a few questions I have to her complete nature, but I predict that we will recieve those answers when Eunomie and Twilight(?) throw down.

I can only wonder what secrets Chalice hides.

The best poisons work slowly, indistinguishable from a mundane illness. How long did Chrysalis feed on that poison? How many Changelings will choke on Brass' toxins?

[Leaf Dust]

I don't have the words to express it, really, but this is a wonderful chapter and I really enjoyed reading it. I finally got the Euporie explanation I was searching for, and I'm looking forward to seeing Euphoria's role in the rest of the battle~

[LurkyMcLurkerson]

I have mixed feelings about this chapter.

Not about its quality, which was up to the usual high standard, but whether Pinkie stopping Euporie is a good thing.

Morally speaking, of course, puppeting the ponies to make them crazy-agressive is reprehensible. But, given that they are also currently engaged with an existential threat to the future of ponykind as anything but chattel, maybe we should have put off breaking the crystal generating the berserker buff until after the fight.

We see evidence for and against this position throughout. Fighting when they should retreat, going down kicking and biting is getting ponies killed who might otherwise make it through the conflict. But that same crazy refusal to retreat is also flummoxing the Changelings, who keep expecting their prey to act like the panicky herd animals they usually do.

But what's done is done, no point crying over cracked crystals.

(Also, with all the references in this chapter, I was half-expecting Eunomie to pop up and pwn Pinkie for messing up the plan, with a remark to the effect that "There are... no strings... on me.")

[Otsdarva]

PINKIE! You're no-selling! Don't become like Animal, the heels need their moments too! I loved that she was able to force Euporie to over sell more than Shawn Michaels versus Hulk Hogan.

[Seergun]

YES, Euphoria finally stops beating herself to death for what happened in the past! Can't wait for Eunomie and Chalice to realize this as well. Although, I think Eunomie is already at least thinking about it, Chalice is still completely enthralled to Brass. Also, have to get this out of my system,
F YOU BRASS, GET REKT!!!

[Mercy]

Oh! I didn't know there was a sequel! I better get cracking!
*sees wordcount*
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[Capn_Chryssalid]

6598500
As we see later (with her three bodies) when a piece of her is separated she still physically reconstitutes but her power and magic are diminished. So if someone caught one of the bats then Luna would have to track it down (or its remains) to re-absorb it.

[Malsententia]

6603197

As someone who's been reading the SBC for ages, I knew this chapter was coming well before it actually did, and didn't mind it in the least.

[Mendenbarr]

Hey Capn_Chryssalid

I'm a big fan of this story, and I'd like to ask your permission to use the basic plot and history elements you've created to build a DnD campaign.

[Windburst]

Took me like 3 months, but finally caught up!

[Seraphimus]

that chapter was brilliant, and I can hardly wait for the next one to come out.

That last line was surprisingly powerful, Beautiful on so many levels. "All that was left, was euphoria"

You did a good job of "Humanizing" euphorie, There is a Reason she was the way she was, That doesn't make what she did okay, but it does mean she deserves a chance at redemption.

[Lorthalis of Crows]

I spent the whole day reading this series form start to finish, dreading the moment when I would hit the end of the backlog.

[averagejoey2000]

Oh dear Jesus. I just got caught up in TSC. Time to lose my month.

[Tristar Paramount]

Amazing. Not only do I just now discover there is a sequel to one of my favorites on this site, but it's nearing one-million words. I don't know whether to cheer or cry in despair.

[Lord Xaos]

I love This Platinum Crown! You must continue this fanfic! You must! You must! You must!

[MidnightDancer]

And here I was, just happy to hate Euporie.

Curse you, Cap.

[Alondro]

7000697 Or, like I've been saying for a very long time, they should just set Discord free!

How could he be worse than what's happening now? When he was free he never killed anypony, not even the 6 untrained mares who held the sole means to defeat him when simply offing even one of them would have granted him absolute victory forever. Seriously, he'd probably be pissed at the cherngelerngs for breaking so many of his pony toys and think up some very creative activities for Brass and the rest.

[Lorthalis of Crows]

7205051
It wouldn't be as fun if Discord shows up and deus ex machina's all the world's ills away.