Time to Fight
Flames tickled Twilight’s horn as the green wax coating it slowly crawled off, drip by drip. She held her breath, determined not to freak out about the fire that was so close to her head.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Spike or anything. After all, he’d managed to free everypony else’s horns with no damage, but at the same time she couldn’t help but worry for the safety of arguably her most important body part. To his credit though, he was keeping the flame relatively small and manageable, even if that did mean slowing down the process.
Eventually Spike’s fire receded, letting the rest of the goo drip from Twilight’s horn harmlessly. She breathed a sigh of relief and tried to call upon her magic. To her delight, her horn sparked to life with a familiar glow.
“Thanks, Spike,” she said, standing all the way up. It was a relief to be able to call upon her power again.
Vinyl gave him a pat on the back. “Ya did good, Dragon Dude.”
Lyra smiled at him, rubbing her still slightly-warm horn. “Thanks a bunch.”
“Aw, you’re welcome.” Spike took a bow, basking in the praise.
Shining glanced to the exit, clenching his jaw. “Okay, we shouldn’t waste any more time.”
Twilight nodded. She had no idea how Cadance was holding up, but she knew she had to get her out of Queen Chrysalis’ grasp. Except…
“Do you have any idea how we can beat her?” Twilight asked. Shining turned to her with a questioning gaze. “It’s just… she already seemed pretty strong and that changeling told us she only gets more powerful when she feeds off love.”
Shining frowned slightly at that fact, but quickly reversed it for a hopeful smile. “Don’t worry too much about that. We’ve got the element of surprise after all.”
“Yeah, but she’s got the Element of Magic. And Honesty. And Kindness. And Laugther. And—”
“We get it, Vinyl,” Shining and Twilight simultaneously cut her off.
“Sheesh, sorry.” Vinyl raised her hooves in mock surrender, acknowledging her joke’s poor timing.
“Okay, everypony follow me and keep your voices down,” Shining told them as he stepped forward and pressed his body against the wall. “We don’t know how many of them could be waiting for us on the other end of the tunnel.”
“Oh, before we get going.” Twilight lit up her horn, digging around through her saddlebags. She withdrew a sheet of paper and a fresh quill. Spike blinked in surprise as the items floated his way. “Spike, I need you to send the Princess a letter. I don’t know if she can offer us reinforcements or not, but she needs to know what’s going on.”
Spike nodded. “Do you want me to ask about that other message, too?”
Twilight’s memory briefly flashed to the burning scroll from earlier. “Yes, please.”
“You’ll have to write it on the go,” Shining told him.
“Uh… I’m not too good at running and writing.” Just as Spike was finishing his sentence, he was wrapped in a lavender glow. Twilight lifted him up and onto her back, giving him a small smile.
Shining was already moving, so Twilight started after him. As she made her way into the tunnel, she heard the scratchy noise of writing fill her ears. She quickened her pace to match her brother’s near trot and shot a glance back to look at her friends.
Lyra was right at her heels, with Vinyl, Octavia, and Bon Bon right behind her. Derpy was bringing up the rear, forced to gently tug Nightmare Moon into the tunnel’s entrance.
Twilight frowned. She knew Nightmare would slow them down—or alert the nearest changeling of their escape, just to mess with her—but there really wasn’t much of a choice for them at this point. Her head swiveled back around to the front to focus on her uphill climb.
They were approaching the exit of the tunnel. Twilight remembered that just outside was the massive chamber they’d woken up in. She started digging through her memory for the precise tunnel that the changelings had carried Cadance away to.
Shining stopped when they reached the top, risked a glance out and then threw his body against wall. “Changelings,” he whispered.
Twilight followed his lead and pressed her body against the wall. A few thumps behind her let her know her friends did too. “How many?” she mouthed, not daring to talk.
Shining pressed his lips together, clearly not eager to open them again. Instead, he tapped his hoof twice onto the ground.
Just two then. Twilight narrowed her eyes. They could handle two, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was making sure that they didn’t attract any other changelings, or let one of the two slip away for that matter.
“Psst, Twilight. Watch your head.”
Twilight blinked at the sound of Spike’s voice, but what he was about to do suddenly clicked in her head and she lowered it. A moment later, green flames danced above her head, turning his letter into smoke. It wafted away, flying out the tunnel exit and far into the main chamber.
“Hey, what was that?”
Twilight cringed. The changelings had seen it!
Two black bugs walked into her field of view and she breathed a sigh of relief that their heads were turned the other way, craned to watch the disappearing smoke.
Actually... Twilight smiled as she looked over to the confused changelings. That might’ve been just the distraction we needed.
She nudged Shining, who nodded in reply. He’d noticed the same thing.
Cautiously, he stalked out of tunnel and Twilight followed. With her magic, she took Spike from her back and set him on the ground behind the tunnel wall. She held up a hoof to her friends, silently asking them to wait as she crept forward.
“So… that was weird, right?” The first changeling asked his buddy.
“Yeah.” The second changeling scratched his chin as the last of the smoke dissipated. “Did someone light a fire or something?”
“Doubt it. I think maybe it was a smoke signal.”
“That would require a fire, genius.”
The first changeling turned and playfully punched his friend’s shoulder with a laugh. “Yeah, well you—” He froze, eyes widening as he caught sight of Shining and Twilight. “What the—!”
Shining fired up his horn, snapping a magenta shield around the two of them. All sound was cut off, leaving the two helplessly shouting in the bubble. One of them began pounding his hooves against the wall of magic, to no avail.
“What should we do with them?” Twilight asked. She made eye contact with one, earning what looked to be a hiss.
Shining eyed the tunnel they’d come from before looking back at the changelings. “Well to be honest, these guys look pretty overworked. They could probably use a nice, long nap.”
Twilight smiled. “Sounds good to me.”
Shining’s horn flared slightly, and two slits opened up in the bubble, each barely bigger than a golf ball. The cries from the changelings inside assaulted their ears and Twilight winced, hoping there weren’t any more nearby to hear them.
With a sharp burst of magic, Shining Armor fired two beams through the holes and directly at the screaming changelings. They struck and the changelings froze in place. Their mouths were stuck open in silent screams, but their legs could no longer balance properly and they fell to the ground like rigid planks of wood.
Twilight blinked in surprise as Shining allowed the shield to fade away. “What kind of spell was that?” she asked, inspecting the frozen changelings.
“It’s a paralysis spell,” Shining replied, approaching them as well. “It’s standard for all guards to learn, not to mention pretty handy for stopping ponies—and changelings—in their tracks.”
“Interesting.” Despite the situation, Twilight couldn’t stop her brain from latching on to this new spell.
It must be a variation of a typical magical blast. Perhaps it utilizes an electromagnetic pulse to overload the neurons in the brain? Or maybe it targets the muscles directly, that’s probably less harmful to the subject. But what about—
“Twilight.”
She blinked, torn from her thoughts. She turned to see her brother already dragging the two changelings back to the tunnel. Her eyes widened as she realized she had left herself out in the open. Twilight scurried back to cover.
The girls were looking at the changelings nervously as Shining dropped them down.
“What do we do with them?” Lyra asked.
“Well, they’ll be out of it for a while, but we should probably make sure they won’t be a problem when they come to.” Shining’s brow creased in thought.
“I have some shackles you could use.” Nightmare Moon held up her chained forehooves with a wry smile.
Shining glared at her, narrowing his eyes. “No.”
“Yeah, no,” Twilight agreed
Derpy offered Nightmare a consolatory smile. “It was a nice try.”
Nightmare grunted, setting her hooves down. “I hate all of you.”
“Love you too, Nightie.” Vinyl grinned, earning a raspberry in her direction.
“Back to the task at hoof.” Shining nudged the two changelings. “Any bright ideas?”
“Actually.” Vinyl looked from them to Shining. “I might. You said they’re out cold, right?”
He nodded and Vinyl got a wide grin. “In that case…” Her horn sparked to life, enveloping the changelings in a blue aura. She gave them a gentle nudge and sent them sliding down the tunnel. Twilight watched as gravity did its work in bringing them down to the holding cell.
“Out of sight, out of mind.” Vinyl held her head high with pride.
Shining shrugged. “Well, as long as they don’t wake up…”
“Or hit their heads on the way down,” Derpy said, stretching her neck out to see the two black figures better as they slid out of view.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine, Derpy.” Lyra patted her back.
“All right, let’s get a move on. Cadance is only one more level above us.” Twilight looked to the myriad of tunnels in the chamber ahead of them, focusing on the one in the far corner. She was fairly certain that’s where Cadance had been dragged off to. Hopefully there were no other twists or turns, otherwise they’d get lost pretty quickly.
Shining poked his head around the corner once more before motioning them forward. Everypony moved out, the only noise being the clinking of Nightmare’s chains.
As they moved toward the tunnel, Twilight felt a nudge in her side. She looked over to the source and saw her brother.
“By the way,” he said while never taking his eyes off the tunnel. “It was a short electrical charge to the base of the spine.”
She blinked in confusion before remembering his spell from before. Then confusion struck her again. “How’d you know I was curious?”
Shining looked at her and smiled. “Because you’re you.”
“Ah.” Twilight snorted. “That makes sense.” Shining nodded and trotted forward to take the lead, while Twilight continued her pace and stayed in the center. For a brief moment, she glanced at the ground and muttered, “A short charge to the spine… I’ll have to remember that one.”
When they reached the tunnel, Twilight had to crane her neck up to see the end. The slope was far steeper than the last one and at the very peak flashes of green light leaked through.
“Why does it have to be so steep?” Bon Bon asked with a huff.
“Probably because all the changelings have wings,” Twilight noted. “It’s less of a burden to them than to us.”
“Not for me!” Derpy spread her wings. She took a moment to roll her neck on her shoulders and stretched out, likely because it had been quite a while since she’d last flown. When she’d decided her muscles were at optimal stretchiness she took off, flapping her wings and gaining altitude.
“Just be sure to stay close to cover,” Shining advised, not wanting to come between a pegasus and flying.
“Will do, Chief.” Derpy gave a salute and hovered close by, hugging the wall.
As for the rest of them, the trek uphill began. It wasn’t bad starting off, at least that’s what Twilight told herself. She didn’t actually want to believe that she might be out of shape, but the burning in her calves followed by shortness of breath begged to differ.
She glanced up enviously at Derpy. Why can’t I have wings too?
A scream of agony, though faint, cut through the air. Twilight’s entire body stiffened, along with Shining’s and her friends. Their pause didn’t last any longer than a moment though, as Twilight returned to climbing up the tunnel with renewed determination. Lament my inability to fly later, save Cadance now.
She made it through the rest of the incline without complaint, though her calves would undoubtedly make up for lost time tomorrow. Looking back, Twilight realized that she’d ended up leaving everypony else in the dust in her haste.
Shining was the next one up, with Spike riding on his back, likely having transferred there after the slope had become too much for him. Derpy gingerly hovered up after him, and Vinyl, Octavia, Lyra, and Bon Bon followed.
Twilight waited a bit, but didn’t see Nightmare Moon appear. She tilted her head over the edge and saw the dark alicorn struggling to climb the back half of the hill, her chains not allowing her to take a big enough step up. Nightmare kept trying though, muttering to herself about how she planned to make slopes illegal when she became ruler of Equestria.
Derpy landed next to Twilight, taking note of the situation. “I’ll go help her out.”
Twilight nodded and Derpy spread her wings again to reach Nightmare. Twilight turned her focus back around to the flashing lights from the other room, just in time to be utterly horrified.
Chrysalis stood in the center of the room, flanked on all sides by changelings. Her eyes were glowing a sickly green comparable to her horn. Bound to the back wall was Cadance, slumped to one side while fighting to stay awake. Her mane was a tousled mess, her eyes bloodshot in contrast to Chrysalis and she shook pitifully.
Just then Chrysalis’ magic flared and tendrils of magic were ripped from Cadance. Her whole body seized and another scream escaped her mouth.
Twilight tensed and was about to take a step forward, but a hoof on her shoulder stopped her. She glanced back to Shining, whose expression told her to wait. Twilight ground her teeth together, reluctantly agreeing.
“I’ll create a distraction,” Shining whispered. Everypony had to strain to hear over Cadance’s screams. “You guys free her once I get Chrysalis out of the room.”
“Be careful,” Twilight told him.
“Yeah,” Vinyl seconded. “We can’t have our first date if you get captured by changelings again.”
Shining hesitated, not sure how to react to that. Eventually he just shook his head. “Well now I’m weighing my options.”
Twilight shoved him lightly. “I’m serious. Be. Careful.”
“Don’t worry, Twilight,” Spike said, patting the top of Shining’s head. “I’ll take good care of him.”
Twilight’s stomach lurched. “Are you sure you want to go too?"
“Aw, I can handle it, Twilight.” Spike waved his hand dismissively. “I’ve survived this long after all.”
“Heh… yeah…” Only because you haven’t actively been looking for danger. Twilight sighed. She very well could order Spike to hang back, but now really wasn’t the time to get into an argument like that. Besides, his fire could be very helpful for Shining’s efforts of not dying.
Just then, the flashing lights around the corner stopped and Cadance’s cries of agony ended with a violent gasp for air.
Shining Armor took a deep breath. “Here we go.”
Spike barely had time to grab hold of Shining’s mane before the two of them rocketed forward. Twilight risked poking her head around the corner to see.
Galloping forward, Shining charged up his horn and fired off as many beams as he could. The running threw off his aim, but he still managed to strike three unsuspecting changelings before the group as a whole took notice.
Chrysalis turned to the intruder, recognition sparking in her eyes, followed by hatred. “You!”
Cadance weakly held up her head. “S-Shining…?”
Shining grinned, halted his run, and fired a bolt of magic directly at Chrysalis. As it sailed through the air, Chrysalis returned his smile with a wry one of her own. Her horn sparked to life and Shining’s attack stopped dead.
Before he had any time to react, Chrysalis wrapped him in a magical hold. Her green aura tightened around his body, eliciting a sharp cry from him.
Chrysalis glared heinously. “So you’ve managed to escape, eh? And then you stupidly ran right into my grasp again. I can’t decide which was the worse choice to be honest.”
“Probably the latter,” Shining admitted. “But it wasn’t as stupid as you think.”
Chrysalis raised her eyebrow, opening her mouth to retort. Before she could get a word out, Shining’s own horn flared. He released a burst of magic so powerful that Twilight felt her bones rattle.
Chrysalis’ hold was shattered, but only barely. Shining had used a lot of energy just to break it and as he fell to the ground he showed clear signs of exertion.
“You’ll have to do better than that if you want this prisoner back,” he taunted through sweaty brow. He whirled around and darted to a random tunnel, obviously hoping Chrysalis would follow.
Except she didn’t take the bait.
With her fangs barely covering a hiss, Chrysalis pointed out a group of changelings. “You, after him!”
They pounced into action, aiming to tackle Shining when all of a sudden Spike poked his head out. With a deep breath, fire spewed from his mouth, forcing the changelings to either cower in fear or become barbeque. They chose the former.
Shining seized this opportunity to dart into the tunnel, narrowly avoiding a beam from Chrysalis’ horn that tore through the cave wall.
“After him!” She shrieked in anger. The Queen firmly planted herself in front of Cadance, taking it upon herself to guard their meal ticket.
Dang it. Twilight sucked in air through clenched teeth. They’d been banking on Shining luring her away from Cadance so they could save her, but even the best plans didn’t survive first contact and theirs was far from the best. He couldn't turn back now, though, so it was up to them
“The rest of you, go check on the others,” Chrysalis snapped at the remaining changelings. “If he’s out, they probably are, too.”
“Yes, My Queen.” The rest of the changelings scurried into a group, heading right for their tunnel.
Double dang it. Twilight motioned with her hoof, telling her friends to press up against the wall as best they could. The changelings were almost on top of them, so their only option was to fight.
The first changeling ran into the tunnel, passing Twilight, Vinyl, and Lyra before stopping. In fact, he was moving so fast that he probably only noticed them because of Derpy trying to push Nightmare Moon up the last few steps.
It stopped dead, turned, and tried to open its mouth. That was when Twilight charged up her horn and fired at it, giving it a sharp shock to the spine.
She watched as it twitched and went still. For a moment its balance held before gravity seemed to realize that this shouldn’t continue to happen and dragged it down. Twilight allowed herself a soft smile, grateful that her first try at that spell had been a successful one.
And then she was punched in the face.
An entire squad of royal guard ponies were surrounding one stone statue in the middle on the Canterlot gardens. They all had their spears drawn and pointed and had been holding this pose for quite some time. Possibly hours. None were exactly sure why they had been called, but they knew it must’ve been important as the orders had come straight from the Princess herself.
The Princess who was just shooting a beam at a cracked stone statue for… reasons.
Celestia had neglected to tell her guard the exact nature of their presence here; namely that it was they were the last line of defense to stopping a raving lunatic chaos god from escaping. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them, it was more along the lines that she was too terrified to speak anymore for fear of her concentration slipping.
The veins in her forehead were undoubtedly pronounced at this point, even more so than the sweat running down her face. She strained to keep her magic going, but knew she couldn’t keep it up for much longer. The cracks were already spreading too far and the chaos they contained was leaking out, fighting her for control.
The crack running up the chest of the statue split deeper and she grunted. Her magic was doing its best to stop him from escaping, but at this point she was doing little more than slowing him down and at great cost to her own energy. It was inevitable at this point. In truth, it always had been, but she’d hoped that the Elements would have been restored long before his escape.
And now Equestria was about to become the plaything of a madman. Again.
“Princess?” The familiar voice of her advisor tore her away from her impending doom. Celestia didn’t risk looking back to see, but she heard her advisor all the same.
“Excuse me, pardon me, coming through. Uh… please watch that spear, if you don’t mind.”
She’s pushing through everypony, Celestia realized. Trying to get to her for some unknown reason.
“Princess!” Inkwell finally appeared in the bottom corner of her vision. Celestia looked to her, silently asking what she wanted. In response, Inkwell held up a small, rolled up scroll. “A… A letter just came for you.”
The tendons in Celestia’s neck tensed. “Inkwell, I know you’re only trying to do your job, but I’m in the middle of something very important right now. I cannot spare time for—”
“But it arrived by smoke,” Inkwell said, cutting her off before she could order her away.
“Smoke?” Twilight. “...All right, you may continue.”
Inkwell offered a little smile. “Thank you, Princess.” She unfurled the scroll, the statue gaining a few more cracks in the meantime.
Celestia winced at this fact, but was still patient in waiting for Inkwell to clear her throat. “Dear Princess, so… funny story: we lost the Elements.”
“WHAT?” Celestia jerked, nearly losing her control over her spell.
Inkwell flinched, but kept reading. “We’ve also been kidnapped by these freaky bug-pony things called changelings that dragged us underneath the Everfree. They also kinda destroyed your last letter to us before we could read it. We’re trying to escape now, but the situation is reeeeaaaally bad. If you could send help we would really appreciate it. Thank you. Sincerely, Spike.” Inkwell looked up from the paper. “Uh… Princess?”
Celestia was doing her best not to freak out, but twitching eyelids and clenched teeth only went so far. She took a deep, shaky breath that absolutely didn’t blazon how panicked she was to everypony around her.
The crack on the statue snaked further up, this time making its way to the neck of the creature. Celestia bit her lip. Her best guess was that they had an hour before it was all over. There was no time to send a rescue party for Twilight.
“Inkwell…”
Her assistant looked at her with a worried frown. “Yes, Your Majesty?”
Celestia closed her eyes, knowing it was over. “We’re screwed.”
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I know how Twilight can screw this up even more: She gets the ingenious idea to summon Cerberus from the gates of Tartarus to mow down the Changeling army while her and the Elements take on Discord and Chrysalis who Twilight inadvertently pushes together and they find true love in a villainous partnership
pretty much yeah.
have fun fleeing the castle!
So there's a good news, a somewhat good news, a somewhat bad news, a bad news, a very bad news, and a terrible news.
-Good news is that Twilight and the others have escaped their prison and have made it to the chamber where Cadance is being held prisoner.
-Somewhat good news is that the unicorn ponies now have their magic free.
-Somewhat bad news is that Twilight got punched in the face and did not expect other changelings to attack her.
-Bad news is that Chrysalis still has the elements and has an army of changelings surrounding her.
-Very bad news is that Cadance is in a bad condition due to Chrysalis sucking up her love energy from her body.
-And the terrible news is:
Yep! Equestria is doomed!
Well this went well, when wreaking the worlds working weather.
Sounds like it's boss rush time. On the plus side, Cerb's not been set loose, so no Tirek for a fair while, Sombra's still on ice, and Glimmer's under the radar for the moment, so it's only three bosses.
slope?
Ohohohoho man... just, this is perfect, LOL...
We're screwed.
Nice job!
7033527 Actual Spoilers for the next chapters
7033527
And Tirek escapes while Cerberus is busy, obviously.
You know, at this point Celestia should probably just tell Twilight to release Nightmare Moon. Honestly, the situation is so bad that there's not much that she can do to make it worse.
7034025 Well yeah, that was implied.
7034035 Equestria's version of The Godzilla Threshold?
Heh heh. This alone was worth the price of admission!
7034572 The “Deranged Alicorn Tyrant ” threshold.
Great. They'd have been better off handing them to Trixie .
Vinyl! Too soon.
Aye...
Two, OK then.
Clever Spike.
OK, good.
Nice work.
Nice try, but no.
It was. Also, conSolatory.
That explains it.
True.
Well, since this is probably the Season 1 finale, wait 2 seasons if all goes well and you will grow a pair.
Eeesh...
Heh.
Chrysalis is Kylo Ren?
Damn.
Ouch...
Damn...
Oh this will end poorly...
Never good...
Pretty much, yes.
7034035
"Let them fight!"
Another enjoyable chapter. Good job.
Patience, Twi.
7035297
Cheer up, Tia, it could be worse. I mean, Sombra and Tirek haven't attacked.
... yet.
7038976
Yeah, kinda expecting that to happen soon myself.
7038976
You moron! You activated the jinx card!