Harmonics

by ezra09

Harmonics

Before Scootaloo could react, Rosalia had crossed the room. The changeling queen’s horn flared with deadly light, her gaze intently locked onto the pegasus. Scootaloo managed a half step back, wings flaring, the sudden surge of fear and adrenaline shocking her into action seconds too late

Mimic had started moving half a heart beat after the queen, launching herself forward in a wave of green changeling fire that caught Rosalia across the right shoulder. Rosalia, so intent on her target that she didn’t react to the smaller changeling in time, was driven sideways several steps, missing Scootaloo and her friends.

Mimic landed several feet short of the queen, horn flaring even brighter as she poured fire out toward Rosalia.

Scootaloo’s friends reacted a beat later. Spike inhaled and launched his own stream of dragon fire at Rosalia to join Mimic’s. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom backed away from the heat, and Thistleroot jerked back in a belated flinch.

Rosalia pushed back against the flames, shoulder hunched against a pink half-dome barrier. She closed the gap between herself and Mimic, striking out with a hoof once she was close enough.

The blow caught Mimic in the shoulder, knocking her back and extinguishing her flames. With only the dragon fire to deal with, Rosalia was able to push her shield further, snapping it out and knocking Spike off balance. Rosalia leapt forward, coming down with her full weight toward Mimic.

Scootaloo got to her first, tackling Mimic out of the way just before the queen’s hooves slammed into the throne room floor. Scootaloo rolled sideways to her hooves, facing the queen, heart hammering in her chest as she prepared to dodge.

Apple Bloom hit the queen from the other side, bucking with all her strength and staggering her once again. Mimic turned, recovered from Scootaloo’s tackle, and launched herself against Rosalia’s flank.

Rosalia rounded on the smaller changeling, but Mimic was already retreating. She swung a hind leg out as she turned, catching Apple Bloom across the body. She spun back the other way, once again bringing her hooves down toward the earth pony.

Apple Bloom was yanked away by a cocoon of blue and green magic, toward Thistleroot and Sweetie Belle. She landed on her hooves in a crouch.

With a snarl of frustration, Rosalia leapt again, this time back toward the ensnared Discord, opening space so she could face all of her enemies at once.

“Drao cdemm meja,” Nocturne said calmly from where she stood, observing.

Rosalia’s head whipped toward Nocturne, mouth open to retort, but she managed to stop herself, taking a breath to reign in her anger. She turned back toward Scootaloo and her friends, shifting back into a more relaxed posture. Her eyes flicked between each of them as they recovered, no longer eager to rush in since her first assault had failed. She’d lost any kind of surprise, and had fallen back to do what she did best, analyze the situation.

Scootaloo wasn’t going to complain. Maybe if they could stay alive long enough, Discord could work out a way to free himself.

Mimic apparently had similar thoughts. “Queen Rosalia.”

Rosalia’s attention shifted to the changeling for just a moment, and then back to watching the group as a whole.

“The things you told Scootaloo at the hive. Are they true?”

“Uh,” Thistleroot whispered, “is this the time for that?” Scootaloo bumped him with a wing. He looked at her in confusion, then back to the changeling queen. His eyes tracked to Discord, and then widened in understanding.

“Did you stop Chrysalis’s messages to the ponies?” Mimic asked

Rosalia straightened, gaze flicking between the group as a whole and Mimic, and a hint of a smile played at the corner of her mouth. “I did.”

“Why?” Mimics voice was low. Her body was set in a tense crouch.

“I told you once, already,” Rosalia said. “I have watched ponykind thrive for a thousand years while Chrysalis drove the changelings to ruin. Only after changelings were on the brink did my sister seek to do something about it, and in her desperation she attempted to throw away the pride of our species.

“If the changelings are to survive, it will not be out of pity or charity. We will take what we need, as we always have. We will take it from the ponies that have had it so good for so long, and if my traitorous sisters had to fall in the process, so be it.”

Rosalia stepped forward, completely relaxed now. “But I understand the point of your questions. The root of your anger. Was it worth it? Is the pride of the changelings worth the lives lost? The years of hardship that could have been avoided? You personally lost loved ones, did you not? Did they have to die for the good of the hive, like so many others?”

Mimic didn’t say anything, but her horn sparked with magic.

“Foolish child,” Rosalia said. “Do you truly believe your life means anything? That the lives of your families mean anything? You parents’ deaths bought more than their lives ever could.”

“Mimic, don’t—” Scootaloo started, but Mimic had already launched herself forward, changeling fire fueling a reckless charge across the throne room toward the queen.

Rosalia jump sideways and poured pink fire toward Mimic. The blast hit the smaller changeling, the green and pink fires flaring against each other with a blinding intensity, and then Mimic was thrown across the the throne room and slammed into the far wall.

She fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.

Sweetie Belle breathed out a fearful, “No.”

Mimic stirred.

Scootaloo felt a sudden flicker of relief, but it was immediately extinguished as Rosalia turned back toward Mimic, horn flaring once again. She charged forward without thinking, and her friends did the same.

Rosalia spun toward them, releasing her spell in a large sweeping wave of force. It hit Scootaloo and drove the breath from her lungs. She missed a step and fell to the cold stone floor of the throne room.

She saw Spike tumble away to her left. She tried to force herself up and turned to her Right. Thistleroot, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom had likewise been tossed aside.

She looked forward once again.

Rosalia was before her, stepping closer, in no particular hurry. Her eyes were cold. Her horn flared, and a gentle wave of energy washed over Scootaloo.

A sudden, debilitating wave of fear hit her.

She tried to force herself up, but her legs wouldn’t work. She had to fly away, but what was the point? She couldn’t escape. She couldn’t fight back. Rosalia was going to kill her, and there was nothing she could do.

Mimic managed to push herself up from where she’d landed, but she was unsteady, disoriented. She tried to move, but drew back after a single step, falling clumsily to her haunches and clutching her foreleg to her chest.

Scootaloo looked frantically around the room. Apple Bloom. Sweetie Belle. Thistleroot. Spike. All of them were recovering.

Rosalia’s horn pulsed brighter.

There was nothing any of them could do. They had to run. Not that it would do any good. She had to run too. But her legs still wouldn’t work.

Apple Bloom was the first to her hooves. She shook her head, and then turned. Her eyes met Scootaloo’s and widened.

Rosalia had closed the space between them.

Apple Bloom called out a warning and started running, not away, but toward Scootaloo and Rosalia. The shout seemed to rouse the others. Thistleroot and Sweetie Belle followed. Spike had stood on her other side and was running toward her as well. Even Mimic was pushing herself back onto four legs.

Her friends weren’t going to leave her.

Something slipped. The intense fear that had taken hold of Scootaloo vanished, and the light from Rosalia’s horn faded. She scowled, and then reared back onto her hind legs.

Scootaloo’s friends weren’t going to make it in time. They should have run. They should have given up and tried to escape, but Scootaloo knew they wouldn’t. They couldn’t leave her behind any more than she could have left them. They were her friends.

For the second time, Scootaloo felt a spark. It was something bright and warm, the same surge of magic that had given her the last little push she’d needed to complete a sonic rainboom. It was confidence, a surety that she would protect her friends, and that they would do the same for her.

Rosalia came down with both hooves, and Scootaloo knew there would be enough strength behind the blow to shatter stone, but for that one moment, she didn’t care. She pushed up from the ground and met the blow with her own front hooves.

There was a flash of magenta light where their hooves met, and the changeling queen was driven back.

The light faded as quickly as it had come, momentarily becoming a purple dust swirling through the air in front of Scootaloo and then vanishing entirely. She blinked in surprise.

Rosalia landed on her hooves, horn flaring. “No!”

Scootaloo managed to duck aside, but the bolt caught her wing, tossing her aside. Pain coursed through her body as she felt something in her wing crack. She landed on her side, wing sticking out at an odd angle. She tried to move it, but was met with a nauseating wave of pain.

Sweetie Belle was at her opposite side a moment later, helping her to her hooves.

Mimic stood her ground on three legs, the other gingerly held to her body as she unleashed every bit of fire she could muster at Rosalia. The changeling queen staggered back several steps before she could form a barrier between the two of them.

They couldn’t keep this up forever. Scootaloo turned back toward Discord. Hurry up!

She froze. Discord didn’t even look like he was trying to free himself. He was leaning on the far wall, one elbow resting against it. His other hand held a book of all things.

Discord glanced up from the book, smiled, and tilted it so that she could see the cover. The golden and brown binding read “Trotter’s Tome of Reliquary”. It was the same book he’d been reading the night he returned.

He’d read a passage from the book. She could hear it now, as though he were whispering it in her ear. “The law of conservation of magic: magic can not be created or destroyed, only altered from one form to another.”

But the Elements of Harmony had been destroyed. They had been turned to dust in this very room.

In this very room. Scootaloo looked back to the fight.

Mimic was throwing everything she could at the changeling queen, but it was barely enough to slow her down. Rosalia, Scootaloo corrected herself. Mimic was right, she didn’t deserve to be called a changeling, let alone a queen.

Mimic knew she couldn’t hope to beat Rosalia, but she’d come any way. She’d given up everything for those she cared about, first her life in the hives for her brother, and now her chance to run for her friends.

A red dust began to swirl around Mimic. Scootaloo’s eyes widened and she glanced back at Discord.

Discord snapped the book shut, grinned, and winked at her.

Scootaloo turned her focus onto Thistleroot next. Always joking, always laughing, even at his own expense. A blue light swirled around his form, and his eyes widened. He started brushing at it and hoping in place, trying to shake it off.

Rosalia changed, taking her pink unicorn form and releasing her shield. Mimic’s fire scorched the air above her.

Sweetie Belle. The kindest pony Scootaloo knew, willing to try to make even a changeling feel like part of the group. A pink dust began to swirl around Sweetie Belle.

Mimic swept the stream of fire down. Rosalia shifted again, this time into the form of a pegasus, and as she shifted form she also shifted locations, standing two feet to the left of where she’d been. The fire seared the tip of one wing that remained stretched out into her previous space.

Spike. One of her best friends for the past ten years. One of the only ones who knew what she was going through after freeing Discord. He’d learned a lot from his idol, Rarity. He’d even given up his last personal possession to get them into Libiris. A deep purple dust swirled around him.

She shifted into an even smaller target, a young filly. Mimic reacted immediately, closing on her and trying to overpower her with her larger form.

Apple Bloom. She’d always been honest with Scootaloo, whether it was about her feelings, or telling Scootaloo harsh truths when she’d needed to hear them. An orange dust swirled around her best friend.

Rosalia became an earth pony, slamming her forehead into Mimic’s and throwing the disoriented changeling back.

Scootaloo didn’t know when, but as she’d focused on her friends, the magenta dust that had protected her had begun to swirl around her. She knew from her experiences as one of the Elements of Disharmony that magic would activate the rest. She didn’t know how, but she had to try.

She could feel the magic around her, and tried to focus on it. She could sense it, not just with her eyes, not just its physical presence as the purple dust swirled across her coat. She could feel it the same way she felt her surroundings when she flew. The same way she could feel the energy of a storm when she was safely inside.

It was warm, like hot food after hard work. Like a warm bath after a cold day. Like coming home.

She didn’t draw the magic toward her so much as invite it into herself, and the magic obeyed.

When she’d worn the Element of Betrayal she’d been forced to relive the moments that had driven her to that point. She’d seen Rainbow Dash’s decision to send her away from her friends, back to the orphanage, and she’d imagined standing over her idol, their positions switched. She’d seen every tiny slight from those she considered friends, magnified a thousand fold.

Wielding the Element of Magic was much the same. As the energy coursed through her, extending to reach the other five, she felt as though she were in two places at once. She watched Rosalia roll back to her hooves, and she met Sweetie Belle for the first time. She met Apple Bloom a week later, and they became the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

She watched Rosalia’s eyes widen in fear as tendrils of multi hued light connected the elements in a chain.

She spent the day with Spike, after Discord had been locked away once again.

She saw Rosalia become a unicorn again, horn aglow as she summoned every shred of magic she had to fight back.

She sighed as Thistleroot dragged her to tacos and karaoke at his favorite Mexicolt restaurant.

The changeling queen sent a scorching ray of concentrated fire toward them, thicker around than Scootaloo’s body. She could feel the heat of it before it had reached her.

She watched Mimic step up during the riddle game in the Mad Lands, and felt her first flicker of fondness for the odd changeling.

Rainbow light met changeling fire, and the latter was found wanting.

Comments

[Forestfire34720]

Ooh...
But there’s still Nocturne after this. And what happens now to the Mane Six and their connections to the Elements? Are they broken?
Hey, speaking of which, are Scootaloo and Spike still technically connected to the Elements of Disharmony, assuming they still exist?
It sounds like this is coming to an end, too. If not this story, then at least this phase of it.

[117dragon]

i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/219/637/orbital_friendship_cannon_by_aeroytechyon_x-d4a7to1.png

[the other sans]

The blow caught mimic in the shoulder

1. Forgot to capitalise.

[Bloody_Tofu]

Oh ohhhh... this chapter was amazing..,, and such a fricken tease!!!! Uggg way to part 2 the season finally!

[lazyreader19]

Rainbow light met changeling fire, and the latter was found wanting.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy!

*Impatiently vibrates in anticipation of the next chapter*

[Frankie2]

Mimic knew she couldn’t hope to beat Rosalia, but she’d come any way. She’d given up everything for those she cared about, first her life in the hives for her brother, and now her chance to run for her friends.

A red dust began to swirl around Mimic. Scootaloo’s eyes widened and she glanced back at Discord.

Loyalty

Scootaloo turned her focus onto Thistleroot next. Always joking, always laughing, even at his own expense. A blue light swirled around his form, and his eyes widened. He started brushing at it and hoping in place, trying to shake it off.

Laughter

Sweetie Belle. The kindest pony Scootaloo knew, willing to try to make even a changeling feel like part of the group. A pink dust began to swirl around Sweetie Belle.

Kindness

Spike. One of her best friends for the past ten years. One of the only ones who knew what she was going through after freeing Discord. He’d learned a lot from his idol, Rarity. He’d even given up his last personal possession to get them into Libiris. A deep purple dust swirled around him.

Generosity

Apple Bloom. She’d always been honest with Scootaloo, whether it was about her feelings, or telling Scootaloo harsh truths when she’d needed to hear them. An orange dust swirled around her best friend.

Honesty (No surprise there)

Scootaloo didn’t know when, but as she’d focused on her friends, the magenta dust that had protected her had begun to swirl around her.

(Friendship is) Magic.

Rainbow light met changeling fire, and the latter was found wanting.

[Teraunce]

9011358
I did guess right earlier. I'm quite glad they got to wield them.