Harmony's Wrath

by hahatimeforponies

The Point Of No Return

Dhoof.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash tossed a heavily bruised, groaning Trixie on the ground at Twilight's feet. Her cape in utter rags by now, and all three of them were caked in mud from the alley.

"Ah think we're done for now." Applejack smirked.

"For now." Dash chuckled, and the two of them bumped hooves.

"Ugh. I hope you didn't get carried away..." Twilight kneeled down to inspect Trixie's injuries. There was nothing obviously too severe; no large gashes, no open fractures, no horn damage. Plenty of bruises however, and she seemed to have a little trouble standing. Her hind right leg was particularly tender, and she was very reluctant to put weight on it. Twilight furrowed her brow, and pulled a book from her saddlebag. "Let's see... osteomancy, osteomancy... here we go." Everypony else watched silently, for reasons ranging from contempt to just plain confusion. "Variation of stone magic... no... aha!" Slapping the book closed, she lowered her head by the trembling Trixie's hindquarters, and both her horn and the sensitive leg lit up in a soft glow. To their audience, nothing was happening, but in Twilight's vision, Trixie's leg became translucent, and the profile of her bones showed up in soft white glow. Notably, the shin-bone was snapped in two about halfway along its length. Yep... that's a break alright. Looks pretty clean though... maybe if I... She intensified her gaze, and the glow grew more intense. Slowly, the remaining bone started to shift viscously, and meld together again. Careful... careful... She kept up her concentration, gradually fusing the two pieces together again. Once it looked okay, she stopped. She wasn't sure if it would hold, but the alternative was much harder to deal with - if she kept the spell going for too long, or let off an accidental surge in energy, she could fuse all the leg bones together into a single, stiff central rod, rendering the leg useless, or worse still, turn the whole leg into pure bone.

"What... what's going on?" Trixie bleated, visibly terrified.

"There, your leg should be able to cope with regular use for the time being... now, about your other problem..." Twilight pulled open Magic of the Body again, flipping first through the index, and then back through the rest of the volume. Hmm, these are an interesting pair of spells. I'm definitely keeping this book. She closed her eyes and lowered her head again, and her horn lit up. Again, it looked like nothing was happening... until Trixie started to grumble and lurch around, and after three deeply unpleasant seconds she collapsed the floor again, clutching her head in her hoof.

"What the hay was that..." She rasped, her tone markedly more pained than it was a moment ago.

"That was a little thing the author of this book likes to call 'instant coffee'. It accelerates the metabolism of blood alcohol, so the target sobers up rapidly. Or, it can be stopped halfway through, leaving them in the peak of a hangover." Twilight smirked. She wasn't accustomed to this kind of callousness, and didn't intend to become so; however, she couldn't help but derive a trace of cruel satisfaction from this situation.

"Augh... what do you want from me?" Trixie barked, trying to cover her head in snow to soothe the headache. It didn't matter if it made absolutely no sense; it was something. Twilight looked up to the roof of the adjacent building, and Trixie's sword slid from it. Twilight suspended it in mid-air between them.

"How much do you know?"

"What? About the sword?" Trixie narrowed her eyes. "Are you telling me you came all this way, chased me across the rooftops, beat the hayseeds out of me and gave me this agonising headache because you want to know about a sword?"

"It goes deeper than that. You know as well as I do."

"Alright, if you absolutely must know, and won't leave me alone until you do..." She sighed and rubbed her temples. "It was years ago, when I was a young filly. As you must have somehow figured out, I grew up this grotty little mudhole called Hoofington. I always knew I had a thing for magic, but being all the way out here, I had to teach myself a lot of my magic, and I never got particularly far. Not much beyond smoke-and-mirrors, as you uh... might have guessed. I was about to give up on the whole thing and try my hoof at something else, when one day, I found this old box in the basement. I didn't know where it came from, and I certainly wasn't going to ask my father about it - the less said about him the better - and that's where I found this..." She pointed a hoof at the sword. "... and this..." She propped herself up on her forehooves and held out the small, stone trinket that pinned her cape around her neck. "... along with some old notes about their supposed former owner. It was somepony called... what was it... Bride... Brew... Bree! Bree Hornblende. I can't remember many of the details about the story now, and I figured it was all a fairytale. But, it inspired me to give the magic another shot, which eventually led to my first show under the 'Great and Powerful' title, and, well, this." She smiled weakly and twisted her body a little, raising her flank ever so slightly. "Happy?"

"Hmm... well, Trixie, I have a little news for you then." Twilight lowered the sword to the ground, and pulled another book from her bag - a plain volume, embossed simply The Birth of Celestia. "That wasn't a fairytale."

"Wait, how do you... what? I..." Trixie stammered.

"Have you got somewhere warmer we can do this? This might take some time."

---

"Luna?" A silky-smooth voice called from a hallway in the upper levels of the palace at Canterlot. A long, white horn prodded open a door to a darkened room. "There you are." The horn was followed by a graceful white nose, and the first locks of an immense, gracefully waving mane, coloured in all the hues of a sunrise - hosts of soft blue, green and pink. Inside, a second figure was slouched by the window, looking out over the city's skyline, the spires of the nearer buildings silhouetted against the moonlight reflecting on the snow in the distance. Partially obscured by one of the palace's buildings were the colourful lights of an airshow, the dull roar of which could be heard from the window.

"Oh sister, you always know where to find me!" She chuckled in a mildly juvenile tone, turning away from the window. Nearly always.

"Is everything alright, Luna?" The owner of the nose and horn pushed her way inside, and the door creaked open. The hallway's candle-light framed her in the doorway. "You've been cooped up in here all day."

"Oh, it's... nothing. I've just been tired is all." Luna rubbed her head affectionately against Celestia's side, only about shoulder height to the larger alicorn. Celestia smiled warmly and reciprocated, brushing her neck along Luna's mane.

"Alright. Rest well then." She smiled, and Luna scampered back to the window and curl up again. She stayed to watch her drift off, the movement of her chest outlined in the moonlight. After a few moments of silence, the door closed again, and Luna was alone in the darkened room once more. Before this night is through, I'll rest quite well.

---

Underneath a sky aglow with colours and contrails, four young fillies huddled together behind a bakery, trying to take advantage of the meagrest warmth from its extractor fan; respite from Canterlot's icy streets.

"So cold..." Sweetie Belle whimpered.

"So tired..." Scootaloo yawned.

"So hungry..." Applebloom grumbled.

"Maybe we should go home..." Dinky moaned.

"If you wanna walk all the way back to Ponyville in that, be mah guest." Overhead, a bright orange flash lit up their shivering forms against the wall, nestled in the snow.

---

"Ah, horsefeathers..." Rainbow Dash muttered under her breath, looking at the horizon. She was lagging a little behind the group, just a length or two behind Applejack, herself another length behind everypony else. Applejack was just about close enough to hear the murmur. She cocked an ear, looked over her shoulder, and slowed up a little.

"Huh? What's wrong, sugarcube?"

"What? Oh, nothing." She put on her bravest smile. Applejack saw through it like a bad disguise.

"Aw now, you know better than to try 'n' lie to me." She chuckled, and hung back until they were walking together.

"Heh..." Dash's smile weakened, and then faded to a sigh. Lifting in to the air for a moment, she pointed a hoof at the horizon, where Canterlot was just about visible against the mountain. Upon closer inspection, some bright flashing lights and streaks could be made out over the city.

"What... I don't get it."

"The Wonderbolts were performing in Canterlot tonight. That's the end of their show right there." Dash grimaced.

"Oh... ah betcha were hopin' to get there before it ended?"

"Eeyup."

"Eh... sorry, ah guess..."

"Don't worry about it AJ, it's not your fault. It was a long shot anyway." Rainbow gazed bleakly at the last of the lights as they faded away. "It just woulda been nice."

"Y'know..." Applejack started, a little uneasily. She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts before proceeding. "... it's mighty brave of you to do what yer doin'. All horsin' around aside, ah... ah'm really gonna miss you." She sniffed, doing her best to keep her straight face.

"Don't... don't be like that. I know you're gonna miss me. Everypony's gonna miss me." Dash sighed, staring at the snow as she walked. "But... I don't regret anything. It's been a good life. Good adventures, good times..." Then, she cracked a faint but earnest smile, and looked back up to Applejack. "... good friends." The earth pony's lip quivered, contorting into the weak, reciprocating smile as their eyes met. "You can start crying now if you want." Applejack needed no further instruction; she thumped her forehead into Dash's shoulder, and proceeded to weep softly. Rainbow whoofed a little at the hefty shove, and tenderly lay her wing over her sobbing friend. Good friends.

---

Up ahead, Trixie continued to pace around Twilight uneasily. Spike slept soundly on Twilight's back.

"Have I told you recently how insane this is? I'm not sure I've made this quite clear to you. We're still heading to Canterlot, so you probably haven't grasped just how crazy what we're doing is!"

"If you want me to undo that hangover relief spell, you're going the right way about it." Twilight grumbled. Trixie sighed, and tried to keep herself calm.

"Okay then, just level something with me." She paused, trying to articulate the tumultuous thoughts in her head. In the end, all that came out was a single, exasperated word: "Why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Twilight replied bluntly, still looking dead ahead. "Equestria is in chains. I thought we'd been over this."

"Well, to run with your metaphor, they're pretty plush, comfy chains." Trixie looked over at the other unicorn. Twilight just kept walking. "Look, let me put it this way. Right now, you have just about everything you could ever want in life. Equestria today is safe, comfortable... safe... and what you're doing is 'liberating' us to this harsh, violent place where we're constantly under attack from all kinds of monsters! And you're not just content to go there by yourself, no! You have to drag everypony along with you into this! And then, to top it all off, you have to banish Princess Celestia - the Princess Celestia - to another plane in order to do it! Have you lost your mind?"

"Everything except truth." Twilight retorted grimly. "Not that you'd know about that."

"But... banishing Celestia. Has this at any point registered as 'drop-dead, horseshoes-on-head crazy' with you?"

"Look, I'm trying my best to stay rational about this, I don't need you bringing sentimentality into this!" Twilight snapped. After a few moments of shy silence, Trixie continued;

"... who said anything about sentimentality?"

"Huh... I guess I'm getting a little absorbed in my own thoughts again." Twilight chuckled, forcing a light tone to her voice.

"But that just raises further questions! What could possibly be rational about this undertaking?"

"Hey. We're trying to do the right thing here. It's not easy and it won't be easy to live with, but dammit Trixie, it's the right thing to do." Twilight huffed and turned away from Trixie, moving about a length or so ahead of the rest of the pack.

Fluttershy had overheard bits and pieces of this scattered explanation, hovering (with considerable effort) above them throughout. When Twilight broke away, she swooped in and kept march alongside her.

"What's wrong, Twilight?" She whispered, leaning in close. "I can tell something is."

"It's... it's fi-" The unicorn caught Fluttershy's incredulous expression out of the corner of her eye. She was only kidding herself. "It's not fine..." She sighed, and spent a few seconds putting some words to her feelings. She'd rather be quick about this; before long, Trixie would start pestering her again with the same questions. "To be brief... it's about Celestia. I've been so close to her for most of my life, and then this comes up... my whole worldview is just gone. I'm not sure what to believe in anymore. I'm just going by a few vague morals and the seat of my saddle here." She sighed, gazing bleakly at the path ahead. "Celestia's been like a mother to me, and to learn she's been deceiving us all... I feel betrayed, I feel lied to, I feel..."

"Twilight..." another voice called from the opposite side to Fluttershy. "Have I told you today how crazy your idea is?" Absolutely typical.

"You know what, Trixie? Adventure. Mother-bucking adventure. There's your reason. You get to put your name on a story saying 'I helped free Equestria!', and you don't have to make it up. Happy?" Twilight snarled. Trixie was slightly taken aback, but flattered enough by the idea not to be offended. Fluttershy sighed and frowned at the ground. It wasn't much of a vent, but it at least it was a vent.

Urp. Without warning, Spike made a guttural noise from his stomach. He jumped awake, clutching Twilight's back. In the mightiest of adorable little bodily noises, he emitted a hearty burp, shooting a small jet of flame from his mouth, accompanied by a scroll. He burbled a little, and immediately settled back down to sleep. With a raised eyebrow, Twilight plucked the scroll from the snow and unfurled it, reading it in her head as she walked. As she reached the bottom, a wry smile spread across her face.

"It's from Luna."

Comments

[Royal Brisk]

It's incredible to find a story that just seem to grab onto you and not let go. I was originally going to read just the first chapter to see how it was like and decide if I wanted to read more of it. 3 hours later here I am at the end of the current chapter in the story.

[Lium]

Still not enough for me.

[CDR]

The story coninutes, down rapid avenues. . . . .
They foward their venues, and hope for good news. . . . .

Their pace has quickened, their blood, it thickens. . . . .
They are not stricken, even though it sickens. . . . .

By the dawn and the night, by the pale moon's light. . . . .
By the sun's burning light, this story is set alight. . . . .

Cringes slightly. I'm not sure if that is any good or not. I hope it aleast sounds a bit relavent. In all honesty though, I whipped those up in less than 5 minutes. For me that is a freaking miracle, cause frankly, I suck at writing. Anyway, epic story is getting more epic. I'm mentally drooling for more. More. MORE. MORE! I WANT MORE STORY!!!

[Super_Big_Mac]

45004 That comment, paired w/ Pinkamena looking so bored in your avatar made it just that much more hilarious!

[Super_Big_Mac]

45497
The story continues, it's pace fast.
The characters driven by a forceful past.
The longest of journeys cannot last.
And in the end, it'll be a blast.

Whether for good or for not,
These mares continue to trot,
So they can remove the blot,
That is the Princess in Canterlot.

Read this all day, and again all night.
It's intense, and yet does not instill fright.
I'll read it all through by flash or candle's light.
And look towards the end, and at the past, still bright.

[JOEBLACK]

So, anyone else thinking Nightmare Moon is in control and this is just a plan to get rid of sunbutt? Not impossible I think.