Imbalanced: Legacy of Light

by Nameless Narrator

29-1: Light at the end of the world

Gem caught herself whistling in the crisp air. She loved travelling through the northern tundra, and even walking around within viewing distance of the guard camp was similar enough to let her mind wander as the dusting of snow and cold earth cracked under her hooves. What she was pondering was the possibility of staying put here for indeterminate amount of time. The camp was growing, fortifications were being built, and the occasional group of ponies in various armors was joining the garrison. In the meantime, specialists from United Orders were erecting magic barriers, preparing alarm spells of all sorts, and practicing something doubtlessly magical Gem didn’t understand under the guidance of Twilight Sparkle.

The thing was… Gem didn’t want to be here. Of course, she wanted to be of help in case of any attack, to call her hive for help, but she didn’t want to be here for weeks or months, which was likely to be the case with the camp becoming more and more scary-looking. Any enemy would think twice before attacking a place with three alicorn princesses ready to kick ass, and the fourth one within calling distance. Unfortunately, Prominence wasn’t going to let this go, saving the world and all that.

Oh well, all Gem could do was wait and see if Flow or anyone else would be stupid enough to try to fight head on or try to do something in secret. Tomorrow, when she would lead Three back home, she would grab some proper chemistry gear from the dwarves, set up some security around her tent, and work on her potions with the added knowledge of Twilight. She hadn’t had much experience with the princess of Magic, namely the least of all alicorns, but Gem knew she was a sucker for any new discoveries, and Gem’s mysteries of alchemy were unparalelled.

Maybe the extended stay here wouldn’t be so bad…

The faintest touch of a hive link crossed her mind.

A changeling from my hive, and it’s not Three.

She tried to touch the link, and it withdrew. Unfortunately for whoever was trying to keep themselves hidden, Gem was the current infiltrator expert, and she quickly connected to the link despite the resistance, and was about to reach into the mind of the culprit when-

She woke up lying in the snow with a migraine threatening to squeeze her eyeballs out of her sockets. Her internal clock was showing that barely two minutes had passed since her knockout, and she didn’t dare let time pass at normal speed in case whoever had done this to her wanted to escape. Her passing out hadn’t been a contest of will or changeling ability, which meant it had to be magic, magic protecting a hive link with the signature of her hive.

“Seven,” she mumbled, unsteadily getting back on all fours.

She turned invisible, and after another bout of headache she gently touched presumably Seven’s link. He was still around, and while she couldn’t get into his head to see why he would protect himself like that from anyone including her, she could sure as hole find him.

It had taken around ten minutes before she spotted Seven doing something hidden in the snow-dusted brushes. Getting to him unnoticed was easy, Seven had always been a changeling to lose awareness of his surroundings when he was concentrating. However, even after a minute of careful observation, Gem had absolutely no clue what he was doing. Her best conclusion was that he was marking a spot on the ground.

The mental protection magic had to be an automatically triggered spell. There was no reason for Seven to deliberately hurt her.

“Hey, Seven, nice weather we’re having, right?” she said, not dropping her invisibility just in case.

“Gem-” he turned his head on reflex.

A fraction of a second later he vanished, and his hive link disappeared completely.

Fortunately for slightly puzzled Gem, there was only one place he could have teleported off to, and she wasn’t willing to let this go without a proper explanation. She had no idea whether or not time was of the essence, but Seven had recognized her and disappeared anyway, that was suspicious enough. It was time for a serious love enhancement of her legs, and she bolted ahead so quickly she would barely be visible to a normal pony even as a blur. Three would be okay with Harriet, and Prominence had met him on occasion when Gem had taken him to Canterlot.

The only time she stopped was to grab few fully charged love crystals in the tunnel connecting the hive and the Crystal Empire from one of several stashes along the way the changelings kept stocked. She wasn’t as fast as her mother nor as love-efficient in regard to physical enhancements, but even with that disparity she was going to make the usual day and something worth trip in few hours. She also decided to keep her hive link presence as secret as possible just to surprise Seven again and ask him some serious question.

As soon as she reached the underground dwarf pony city of Brauheim, she turned invisible again, drained the procured love crystals completely, and followed the faint tug of Seven’s mind directly to the hive underneath. She had expected Seven to be in his usual haunt which was the top floor library of the castle, not inside the final checkpoint of the escape tunnel from the hive itself the dwarves didn’t know about.

He wasn’t alone.

The door to the checkpoint wasn’t closed. There was no need, because there were no changelings in the vicinity, and dwarves weren’t allowed this far into the hive. Curiosity winning, she poked her invisible head through the crack, and froze.

Her father was there, Seven was there, and they were both talking to that slimy traitorous scumbag hippogriff who sold them to slavery in the first place. With a scowl, Gem turned visible, slamming the door open.

“Dad, don’t trust a word that… that evil bitch is saying,” she growled towards Desert Shade.

She heard a whoosh behind her, and Two appeared with the crackle of lightning and her mother in tow.

“Two, mom? What’s-”

“You followed Seven, didn’t you?” asked One with certainty, closing the door behind her.

Seven just sighed while Desert Shade frowned at the changeling king present.

“You know what to do,” said Des, nodding towards Gem.

“Yes yes, we’re ready,” the boss sighed.

“Don’t fuck up,” was the last thing Des said before heading out the rainforced steel door on the other side which slid into the wall on its own, and closed after she passed through.

“Mom, dad, what are you doing?” asked Gem again, “That mare nearly got me and my companions killed, and I’m pretty sure she’s working with a guy by the name-”

“Flow,” boss finished the sentence, making Gem freeze, “I know, trust me. All of us here do. Two,” he nodded towards the smaller infiltrator by Gem’s side who pulled out a set of istrium bracelets as well as a necklace.

“Put these on,” said Two.

Gem considered refusing, but in the end had to admit that there was no way out of the situation. They could easily force her, and aside from her father who had his istrium belly plating all three other changelings present were wearing those as well. In light of that, she put everything Two gave her on, and braced herself for any kind of mind control magic, which had to be the only reason her family would deal with Desert Shade.

Nothing happened, so Gem took things into her own hooves.

“Alright, care to explain why you’re dealing with the mare serving literally the worst bad guy the world had ever seen? I mean, a friend of mine saw his intention -magic, don’t ask- and those are the complete wiping out of reality.”

Her dad sighed.

“Honey, I’m gonna need you to stay down here for few days. We don’t have a choice in the matter, and despite me asking nicely, neither do you.”

“Dad?” Gem’s jaw dropped, “It’s because of the pony camp on the surface, isn’t it? The attack is going to happen soon, and you’re helping. You can’t!”

The boss turned away, and said with an almost unnoticeable crack in his voice:

“One, Two, take her away. Dwarf prison, not ours. She could easily control most of you and have you let her out.”

“Come on, Gem. Don’t make this even harder than it is already,” said One, patting Gem’s head.

Gem’s mind raced through possibilities of what could have caused this situation, and had come to the conclusion that some kind of genocidal blackmail had to be the only thing that would make her dad keep this secret from her and go as far as to imprison her. Unfortunately, escape was impossible. She couldn’t mind control One, nor outrun her. Her mother could break her in half if she wanted to ten times before Gem could react. She was much better at infiltrator mental skills than Two, though. Two’s path was mixing magic and changeling infiltration powers to achieve some very interesting and impressive feats, but Gem could probably bend her mind to her will… unless she was using some kind of protective spell like Seven had… which she probably was, come to think of it. It was even more likely that it was her own discovery. Seven was notoriously bad with mental skills for an infiltrator.

In the end, Gem decided that the only option was to test the security of the dwarven prison by throwing her full range of alchemy and mental abilities against it.

It would take a while, but as long as she had her wits, she wouldn’t lose.

***

One walked over to her king who was sitting on the throne in the throne room, eyes closed and head resting on his forelegs steepled together.

“Gem’s locked up, and Seven left to do his part. Speaking of which, do you think the dwarf prison will hold her?”

The boss chuckled to himself.

“I doubt that, but the only way to keep her down here would mean hurting her, and I’m not going to do that.”

“I can, if it’s absolutely necessary. I know how not to make it fatal-”

“We’re not doing that,” boss corrected her, “No hive, nor the world are worth hurting her, One. There are only three changelings I wouldn’t sacrifice for anything and for whom I would endure any threat to myself or the rest, and those are Three, Gem, and you.”

“In that order?” One smirked, knowing the answer.

“It changes depending on who makes bigger mess of things that day, but generally yes,” admitted boss, “Look, Gem is smarter than all of us put together. She’ll know what’s the right thing to do.”

“And what about us? Are we smart enough?” One tilted her head.

Boss stood up and sighed.

“Gather all our warriors, One, and add some infiltrators for faster hive link connections. Maybe the throne mechs as well. I’m not using drones as fodder, and they won’t be of any help against experienced soldiers. Sinew’s minotaurs are already on the way, the council is sending dark guards as well, and Desert Shade said more would be coming.”

“Just out of curiosity, how many do you think will survive the encounter with a group of alicorns?” One could sometimes hit the nail right on the head, “Because I’m sure I could take the rest of the garrison on my own easy.”

“If they destroy Flow, then our problems are gone, and we can try to retreat and diplomacy our way out of all this. If not, then we did everything we were ordered to do, and our involvement ends. Either way, it ends in few hours. Two will be leading the dwarves, Seven… has his job, you’re leading our forces. I-”

“You are staying here!” One pushed her nose against his, “It’s likely we’re going to lose a lot of changelings, and if things fail, we’ll need you to take charge, and so will the dwarves, because those pissed off alicorns will be marching here. I will break your fuc- damn legs if you even start to argue.”

Boss sighed.

“I hate when you’re right about having to send others into danger. I’m going to need Three for- oh no...”

“What?”

“He’s up there in the camp.”

“What? HOW?!”

“I can’t reach him, I can only sense him. He left a message in the hive mind that he went with Gem to cheer someone up.”

“Holes damn it!” One stomped the floor, leaving a crack in the black, stone floor. One of many, in fact.

“Get him back, One. None of us will attack him even on accident, but there are Chrysalis’ changelings up there too, and the ‘others’ Desert Shade was talking about won’t know not to hit the glowing target.”

“Don’t worry, love, I’ll make sure nothing happens to Three,” she nodded before running off faster than even boss’ changeling eyes could see.

***

“And now you have to pluck the strings in the right order. It’s about muscle memory, really,” Harriet was sitting by the reinforced barricade to avoid being in the way of any of the tirelessly working shifts of guards building up the inside of the camp, “Claws help a ton too, though I have seen an earthpony play a guitar with his hooves once.”

Three was sitting in Harriet’s lap, his head poking through the strap holding a cheap guitar around Harriet’s neck who had borrowed it from one of the unicorns who had been stationed here in one of the first groups. The little changeling grew talons on his right foreleg, poked the string to no avail, and then looked up at Harriet’s chin.

“Just pluck it a little like this,” Harriet showed him again, eliciting both a tune as well as Three’s happy squeak. “Don’t push it against the hole.”

“Oooookay...” Three stuck his tongue out in a show of concentration, and then followed Harriet’s example, “Hah!” his eyes went wide as the note rang through the air.

“Good, and now if you do them in the right order, you get a tune,” Harriet nodded approvingly, “Like this.”

She played a short sequence she’d put together in her head on the way here. Having had no formal training, it was short, slow, and had very little flow, but Three seemed to like it, which was all she was going for.

“Can you teach me?” asked the changeling.

“Sure, it goes-” she started replaying it when Three stopped her.

“Can you, umm, put it into numbers? I mean numbers of the strings? I think boss won’t get mad if I use a tiny bit of the hive mind to store it.”

“Sure? Give me a second,” Harriet slowly dictated the string numbers while replaying the tune to herself.

“Alright, let’s try it...” said Three when she was done, and…

...and he replayed the tune perfectly, although slower because he had to position his foreleg for each note.

“That’s amazing!” Harriet patted him on the head, “You can remember anything like that?”

“Eeeeh,” Three scratched his head, “I’m not good with details, I’m not too smart or anything, but this is just small numbers, I can do small numbers.”

“That’s still great. Now all you need to do is to remember pauses and length, because I noticed that while you can pluck the strings in order, there’s more to it.”

“I can’t wait to learn more!” Three suddenly tilted his head, “Huh? Miss Cryo, miss One… One-Twelve. Yaaaay, everyone is here!” he cheered in the end.

“What do you mean?” Harriet looked around and saw what Three meant.

There were equines coming from the south who didn’t look like the usual members of the guard trickling in every day. Her Corrupted eyes could even make out several changelings as well as some really big ponies… amazons?

“Do you mean those guys?” she pointed at the slowly approaching figures.

“Nu-uh,” Three shook his head, “I don’t know who those are, but those changelings feel weird. Two and the others are up the with the minotaurs,” he pointed north.

And just like Three said, Harriet finally had a proper look around, and realized that all guards were quickly donning their armors and spreading orders.

“Three, hop on my back,” she recalled how he came in riding on Gem, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like it,” sudden rise in temperature made Harriet take notice of princess Celestia herself approaching, eyes locked on Three.

“Hello, princess!” Three gave her a happy wave.

“Harriet, what is he doing here?” asked Celestia.

“Gem brought him to cheer me up,” replied Harriet, “Your Highness, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll be shocked if it’s good. No one is supposed to be here, and we’ve had problems with minotaurs before,” Celestia frowned, “As for those guys,” she looked to the group in the south, “Amazons outside of Pine Hills, Silver Sun members… dreamlings… with everything that’s been happening, I doubt they’re coming as friends.”

“I can go ask Two what’s this all about, but she and the others have been all secretive recently. I think it has something to do with that mean hippogriff lady visiting the hive and that masked pony who hurt the boss.”

Celestia’s slow and incredulous jaw drop as she turned her head to Three would be priceless under any circumstances not involving the potential end of the world.

“What do you know?!” Celestia barked at him.

“Eeep!” Three leaned away from her, grasping Harriet’s tentacles for balance, “I dunno,” he shrugged, “I just saw the baddie once through boss’ eyes, and that lady several times afterwards, that’s all.”

“Three,” Celestia grabbed him with her forelegs as her coat started turning black, and her usually calming rainbow mane turned into flames, “I think your hive might be involved in some really bad stuff happening, and I need you to hide here-”

Three jerked sideway involuntarily as Celestia suddenly found herself on the ground, magma pouring from the corner of her torn mouth, and Harriet found herself facing a scarred changeling mare with Celestia’s burning blood on her hoof.

“Heya, miss One. What’s going on? Why did you hit princess-” Three gave her a confused look.

Harriet wanted to back away, but the mare snatched Three using one foreleg with speed she could barely process.

“Three, get out of here,” said One, cocking her leg backwards to… throw Three?

The drone was apparently used to this, so he just curled up into a ball, and yelled a happy “WHEEEEE!” when One threw him northwards so hard he disappeared into the clouds.

“You...” Celestia jumped back on all fours, wiped her mouth, and summoned a halberd out of thin air, “You’re working with Flow.”

“No point in lying when everything will be over in few hours at most, is there?” growled One.

Celestia’s halberd caught fire, and even Harriet as a Corrupted could feel the heat making the snow on the ground evaporate.

“Then I guess it’s time we finished what we started in my old castle,” Celestia flourished her weapon, and didn’t even get through the first twirl as One snatched the floating weapon from the air and rammed its butt through the alicorn’s neck.

Harriet stepped back in horror before growling and lunging at One. All she wanted to do was to buy the arriving guards some time.

Under no circumstances should a punch hurt a Corrupted. Despite that, Harriet knew that the hit to her chest broke her ribs and turned her insides into a smoothie. Deep down, she knew she wasn’t going to die, but the pain was unlike anything she’d felt before even while having her scales flayed.

She could barely raise her head to see the air sizzle around Celestia, but the changeling wasn’t bothered, punch after punch leaving molten grooves in the princess’ black and orange body.

The princess had zero chance to counterattack or even defend herself, and the guards couldn’t approach due to the sphere of heat turning the metal of their weapons red within seconds.

“UNICORNS!” screamed Celestia, realizing that simply being an alicorn wasn’t enough to fight One at all, “SLOW SPELL!”

It was at that moment when a black figure jumped into the fray, catching One’s forelegs with hers, and laughing like a madpony.

“Leave this little upstart to me, princess,” said Nightshade, “Doing this inside my territory would be cheating, but it’s been a looooooong time since I could really stretch my muscles.”

Celestia limped away as quickly as she could, bleeding a trail of magma behind her. Harriet felt a shift of ground underneath her, but the only thing that happened was that flow of corruption turned into a soft pad which moved away with her. She was recovering with each second, but she knew a punch like that would have executed any normal creature on the spot, likely including fully-grown dragons.

Nightshade pushed against One, forcing the changeling to back away with ease, and just with that she knew she was stronger. Green glimmer passed through One’s entire body, only making Nightshade grin harder. She wanted a proper opponent. A proper brawler, not some stupid alicorn-turned-Corruptor Queen who kept escaping, shifting around, and only rarely opting for a contest of strength.

And so, the Protector Queen clashed against the best warrior changeling in the entire world, laughing all the way. None of the guards currently busy fighting enemies surrounding the camp had the balls to step in.

In the same way Nightshade quickly identified that she was physically stronger than One no matter what amount of love the changeling would burn, One was sure after their first exchange that she was a much better fighter in terms of skill. Also, she was reasonably faster and more agile. However, her main advantage was that Nightshade had nothing on her reaction time, so there was no way she could get surprised by the Protector Queen. The problem was that unlike Harriet, One couldn’t harm Nightshade. The Queen was too tough, regenerated too quickly, and would eventually win the war of attrition, although it would likely be long after everyone else currently involved in the erupting battle.

What Nightshade couldn’t know was that One wasn’t there to win. With battle raging on around them and Guard forces barely holding the line against the attackers on all sides, One fought the most difficult fight of her life, one that would put Dusty Satchel to shame. What played into her hoof was that despite the gap in durability and raw strength, Nightshade wasn’t Horatio Cross.

***

Heavy and Cromach were walking at casual pace, knowing that Brauheim wouldn’t escape. Throughout the past week, Cromach had recounted his dealings with the dwarves over the centuries to Heavy. The agreement was that on the outside, for politeness’ sake, it was just business - technology for magic or biological materials impossible to gain underground, but the changeling king knew it was basically Cromach blackmailing him. On the other talon, Cromach had kept his promise of secrecy, and Bucket followed in his pawsteps.

It had been a long trip to be cooped up inside the tunnel, but they didn’t dare leave it. Those istrium jewels had to be useful for something, and no matter how hard they tried to figure out what for, the best they could think of was some connection to the void.

Heavy looked at the ceiling, furrowing his brows. Cromach stopped, looking at his friend.

“What’s wrong?” asked the white draconequus. He knew his senses weren’t anywhere near as good Heavy’s.

“Nightshade is on the surface,” he said, visibly puzzled, “Are you sure we’re so far up north? She rarely leaves her territory.”

“Is that a problem or anything?”

“I can feel a lot of stomping around. There might be fighting going on.”

Cromach pondered it for a moment before saying:

“That’s actually not our business, if you think about it. We haven’t met any changelings going this way either, so I assume our lovely ladies One and Two have informed boss beard about our coming, and it will be difficult to get to the city unnoticed.”

“You can always snap us into a wall and wait until the dwarves mine us,” Heavy snickered.

“Oh har har, smartass-” Cromach froze, “No… oh stars no...”

“What’s going on?” Heavy quickly turned his head from side to side, but the tunnel was as empty as it had been for the past week.

“Nightmare… Nightmare is up there. I can feel that bitch and her divine power.”

“Ooooookay,” Heavy breathed out, “More of a reason to stay down here, maybe?”

“Nightshade is fighting someone, and Nightmare is there. This isn’t some casual scrap with wild Corrupted,” Cromach was talking quickly now, “We need to have a look. Get up there yourself, I’ll teleport. No reason for both of us to reappear inside a block of granite.”

“No worries about that, other than this tunnel it’s soft ground all the way up,” Heavy jumped into the wall, part of his biomass splattering around and then draining into the smooth stone as well.

Cromach braced himself, and snapped his talons.

When he opened his eyes, he was floating above a battleground, a fortified camp under siege from all sides by…

“Dreamlings, amazons, minotaurs, dwarves, ONE, SILVER SUN?!” his eyes bulged, “What the fuuuuuuuu-?” he looked around, feeling Nightmare’s presence, but couldn’t see her avatar. It didn’t particularly matter since she was by definition everywhere, having reached the status of one true god. In the distance, Crystal Guard forces were marching towards the camp side by side with Corrupted, likely Queen Spring’s warriors.

Heavy sprouted from the ground, immediately receiving a red bolt of energy into his perfect backside. Cromach facetaloned, seeing that the bolt had been shot by a Silvermith mech, one of ten led by a changeling sniping camp guards with a laser rifle from the back.

There weren’t that many creatures involved, actually. Two- three hundred at most, but the amount of technology and magic being used was making the fight a lot more scattered and louder than it would otherwise be.

“Minotaurs?” Cromach breathed out, having a look on the northern part of the siege. The huge figures were wearing istrium crystal armors he’d seen only once before, and that had been during Dark Prophet’s rise. Something, some thought that would make everything that was happening clear as day, tried to claw to the front of his mind, but was immediately chased away by balls of fire coming towards him from the ground as the unicorns inside the camp finally noticed him.

“I’M A FRIEND, I’M A FRIEND!” he yelled at them, unsure whose friend he was at the moment. The fighting sides made no sense to him. Eventually, he decided on one thing, and that was that if the amazons and dreamlings were involved, Guiding Light would be around, and she would know what the hay was going on.

However, as soon as he tried to fly around, he felt chill from the ground, and saw it.

A void rift opened in the east section of the camp, and alarms rang so loudly they completely drowned the ongoing battle. The guards knew what it was, because as soon as it happened they pushed hard against the attackers in an attempt to clear space.

From the rift, Flow walked out, wearing nothing but his mask. In response, Luna, Celestia, Twilight, and even goddamn Magnus teleported in front of him. Cromach couldn’t believe the power gathered in one place.

“Neat, isn’t it?” he heard and screamed from the top of his lungs when looked into the white, glowing eyes of Nightmare’s physical equine form made of galaxies. When snapping his talons to teleport anywhere else had precisely zero effect, he sighed and faced the grinning god.

“This is your doing, isn’t it?” asked Cromach, “Everyone against each other, all sides previously trying to defend the world from your creations and you.”

“Believe it or not, I had nothing to do with this,” Nightmare’s tone amused by the massacre on the ground made Cromach’s smooth coat stand on edge, “You mortals are amusing even without constant prodding from me. Look, there goes your coltfriend!”

“Oh great… wearing paladin armor. Shit on my Blaze’s history even more, would you?” Cromach replied, noticing the pointed out unicorn, and knowing that if Nightmare wanted to do anything to him, she would have done so already. He couldn’t do anything against her, “I’ll settle for not believing you anyway, thank you,”

“Your call,” with a shrug, Nightmare flew away, circling above the battleground. It couldn’t be for better view, so it was likely just for show, to be seen laughing at the death and destruction as Equus’ most powerful protectors were tearing each others’ throats out.

He experimentally snapped his talons again, and reappeared right by Heavy Hoof’s side currently dodging barrage after barrage of beam rifle fire.

“Hey, Heavy! Flow is th- ow!” Cromach looked at the mech that had just shot him, shapped his talons, “That should teach y-” the mech turned bright neon pink, “...when the other mechs laugh at you later...” he finished in annoyed muttering.

He waved his arm, conjuring a protective barrier between him, Heavy, and the Silversmith unit.

“What?” Heavy barked out at him, “This is all wrong!”

“Yeah, I know!” Cromach hissed back, “But Flow just appeared in the camp in the middle of four alicorns, and I don’t like his confidence. Come on!”