“Ah’m gonna kill her.” Applejack growled out as the door to the castle shut behind her. Tears streamed down her face, but they were angry hateful tears with only a hint of sadness. “We’re gonna fix this-” Applejack told the group. “-or Ah’m gonna kill her.” The mare bucked Sweetie Belle off of her back, letting the filly hit the ground with a thud. “So y’all better decide which one is quicker’n easier. Ah know which one Ah prefer.”
Rarity quickly went to her sister’s side, as did Scootaloo. The two made sure to stay away from the turned unicorn’s mouth or horn, but they had to make sure it was really her. The way the little pegasus pressed close against Rarity’s side signalled that it was also for comfort.
The darkness that permeated Applejack’s words, the malice and spite, filled the entire castle. Most of the adults, except Pinkie and Dash, along with Applebloom had crowded near the door after Elytra and Cheerilee had alerted them all to the danger the siblings were in. They all shrunk back from AJ, too afraid to say anything that might offend the mare and not wanting to upset her further.
The youngest Apple found her way to her sister and clung to one of the sturdy apple-bucking legs. That seemed to cool Applejack’s hot head and brought the last two Apples together in a tight hug.
“Ah...he can’t be gone, AJ.” Soft sobs came from the Crusader as she was pulled against her sister’s chest. “It..we just got him back.” Tears were shed by both ponies. Another in their family line gone, another tragedy at the end of the world.
This felt different from the previous deaths, from everything else. Nopony in town could’ve been saved. Thunderlane had felt unlucky, a bad play on the part of another one of their own group. This was malicious, it felt intentional.
“Why didn’t they just kill him?” Sunburst shattered the somber moment with all the tact of a bull in an antique store. Several glares were shot his way as the stallion pondered upon his own question. “What does it serve?”
“Because they’re smarter than y’all think!” Applejack rose to her hooves again and raised her voice. Applebloom still clung to her last surviving family member for dear life. “Twilight was waitin’ for us out there! She knew where Sweetie Belle was and did nothin’ about it! Twilight knew we would come for her!” There was a beat and her voice fell. “Just like she knew what doin’ that to Mac would do to me…”
“Preposterous.” Sunburst retorted over the continued growls of the monster in their midst. “We’ve seen no signs of intelligence yet from these things. They’re wild animals.” He motioned to the bound filly on the ground who was still writhing and flailing in an attempt to get free. “Does that look intelligent to you right now?”
“Ah know what ah saw!” Applejack spat back at the unicorn across from her. “They coulda overtaken me and Mac at any moment but they held back! They waited!” There were murmurs amongst the others.
“That would explain Canterlot.” The heads turned to the changeling who butted into the conversation. “Oh...right, sorry.” Elytra cleared her throat and bowed her head down and backed away.
“No no, what d’ya mean?” Applejack focused on the bug, which only made the creature wilt even more. “What d’ya mean about Canterlot?”
“W-well…” Elytra cleared her throat as the sound of wings buzzing echoed beneath her shell. “Why destroy Canterlot?” The question hung in the air for a moment before the changeling continued. “I would say it’s full of unicorns, but I think they’re all here by now. So it’s probably empty. Why destroy it? It sends a message.” The ponies all looked at her confused. “It’s visible from everywhere. It’s where your leaders, your biggest military force, and the cultural center of Equestria is.”
“You seemed to have thought about this a lot.” Bon Bon narrowed her eyes at Elytra and stepped a bit closer. “Why?”
“It...it was the plan we had when we invaded.” That earned a few disgusted looks from the Equestrians, ones that Cheerilee couldn’t fault them for. “Take out the Princesses, secure the city, take what we needed and destroy it.” Elytra shrugged. “We knew most ponies would see it. National morale would plummet, we would have full control in less than a week we assumed.” The ease at which she rattled off that plan was a little unnerving, like it was still fresh in her head that many years later. “They already have your princesses, the city’s all dead or headed here, it’s the only thing left.”
“That would take...coordination and communication. These things can’t talk.” Sunburst began to pace. As he walked around Sweetie Belle tried to snap at his hooves when he got too close to her. “Right?” No one had a comforting answer ready. “If…” He shook his head. “Later. Need to focus now.”
“Yes, please. I would like to get my sister back to normal as soon as possible, darling.” Rarity still had a hoof on her little sister, whose growling had not ceased since she entered the castle. “Now more than ever.” The seamstress muttered as she looked at Applejack.
“Ah’m gonna take care of mine…” Applejack picked up Applebloom and slipped the filly onto her back. The two earth ponies gave one last longing look to the door before they headed upstairs. “If y’all need me, don’t.” It took a moment for the cloud of oppressive emotions to finally lift before somepony else spoke.
“So, Sweetie Belle.” Sunburst cleared his throat. “I suppose the first order of business is to remove the inhibitor ring.” He looked to Rarity, a certain sheepishness returning to his body language. “This..may take a while, I’m not sure. If my theory holds, she’ll need to exhaust her tainted supply of magic and have it be replaced by the magic of the castle. If the transformation is also physical, It will be painful.” Rarity bit her lip, but sooner steadied herself and nodded.
Cheerilee grabbed Scootaloo and pulled her away from her fellow Crusader. Even with all of these ponies around, one unicorn could do a lot of damage. The last thing that Cheerilee would ever want is Scootaloo to be anywhere near the unchained horn of one of those things.
“RRRrrraaaaaa!” The little unicorn spat and growled through her improvised muzzle at Sunburst as he crouched in front of her. Sunburst used his hooves to grip the ring and slowly lift it from the sharpened horn of the filly. Immediately Sweetie Belle’s horn lit up with a pale green light which caused Sunburst to duck out of the way.
Instead of a bolt discharging, the filly began to convulse. Her horn shifted from green to a bright blue, the new aura seemed to go into her horn which only strengthened the convulsions. Sweetie Belle’s legs were curling, her eyes screwed shut in pain and blue sparks flew across her body. Her mouth couldn’t open thanks to the rope around it, but it wanted to. She tried to scream as this new magic coursed through her body.
“This is...a lot faster than I expected.” Sunburst stepped away and just observed. Rarity looked horrified, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. The mare’s hooves hovered slightly above the coat of the seizing filly, too scared to touch her but too worried to move away. “Certainly strange.” Sunburst commented once more as he simply looked on.
The magic kept surging, a new blue aura surrounding Sweetie’s horn and surged into her body. As each new swell of magic overwhelmed the body of the little unicorn her body started to change. First her muzzle shrunk back to something more manageable which caused the rope keeping it closed to fall away, and that only let her scream full-throated into the castle.
“Sweetie, it’s okay.” Rarity was crying now, her tears falling onto her little sister’s coat. “I-I’m right here, darling.” The mare’s voice became breathy and started to come out shakily. She was struggling to keep her composure.
“Rrrrr-” A growl built in Sweetie Belle’s throat, but it died as a whimper took its place. “-Ra-rarity…” The little recognition, that one little piece of equinity, was all Rarity needed to finally lose herself and let her composure shatter into a million little pieces.
Rarity finally collapsed onto her little sister and buried her face into the other white unicorn’s fur. The two sisters filled the air with sobs of joy and pain as the magic of the castle continued to surge through the filly and transform her. The others continued to gawk and watch in amazement as over the course of the next several minutes, Sweetie Belle returned.
The little unicorn filly was dappled with sweat. Her eyes struggled to stay open and her chest heaved with effort. Rarity held her sister as close as she could, rocking the now normal Sweetie Belle gently.
“There is a mana pool…” Sunburst once again broke the silence with his musings. “We have to find it. It’s the only way.” Sunburst turned and started to trot away, but then turned back to the group and waved a hoof. “Oh, uh, she should be fine? Stay in the castle, feed, water, yadda yadda. Just keep an eye on her and tell me if anything unexpected happens!”
“Rarity, do you need anything?” Cheerilee asked quietly, just wanting to help however she could. “Anything at all?”
“Time.” Was the only answer she received.
“Of course.” That seemed like a hot commodity at the moment. Who knew how much of it there was to go around, but she would give all she could to the reunited family. “Come on everypony, up to the rooms. Let’s give them some space.” Nopony argued, they just cast glances back at the two embracing unicorns. Cheerilee went to scoop up Scootaloo but only found that Elytra had already picked up the impeded pegasus.
“Mind if I come to your place?” The question from the changeling did start a light blush in Cheerilee’s cheeks, one that was quashed as quickly as it was started. “I figured we could all use a little more company tonight.”
“Please Cheerilee?” Scootaloo pouted and looked at the teacher with wide eyes. Cheerilee sighed when she saw Elytra making the same exact face. She rolled her eyes and nodded at the display of the two, but also silently thanked them for bringing some levity to the rather oppressive atmosphere.
The trio made their way upstairs and to Cheerilee and Scootaloo’s room. The filly was placed on the bed, Cheerilee laid down on the floor and Elytra took up a place by the window. They all just took a moment to destress and leave their problems outside of the room. Distancing themselves from what had just happened was something that needed to happen. Loss was a part of life, now more than ever. They could mourn the loss of Ponyville’s strongest and silent stallion, but letting it fester could only cause problems.
“So what did you do in Canterlot?” Scootaloo was laying on her side with her broken leg propped up on a pillow. She looked at Elytra with a gentle curiosity. “You’ve said you were there for the invasion, so what did you do before that?”
“Hmm.” Elytra bit her lip and took a moment to herself before speaking. “I guess I can talk about it...just know that I’m sorry for what I did, alright?” Dark pink eyes turned to look at Cheerilee. “Know that I’m better than I was.”
Cheerilee was strangely fascinated by the changeling. There was just something about her that was alluring. Maybe it was the times when she came out of her metaphorical shell and revealed herself to be funny and kind, maybe it was just how good she was with Scootaloo and their natural chemistry, or maybe it was something more? She just couldn’t place her hoof on it.
“I was called a ‘harvester’.” Elytra started with a sigh. “I went out into Equestria alone, just usually to small isolated towns to stay for a week and...gather love.” The shapeshifter turned her back to the two and looked out the window. “Short assignments, nothing fancy, use a disguise picked up from a traveller and get what I needed and get out. Hundreds of us got sent out to do this every week. It was never enough to keep everyone fed, never enough to keep everyone happy.” Elytra’s voice fell and she sighed once more. “There was never enough to go around.”
Cheerilee could sympathize with that situation now. Limited food and the only way to get more would be to brave a dangerous world beyond your own home. Yeah, that sounded familiar right about now. It was no wonder why Elytra didn’t seem overly bothered by this life, it was not too far from the world she grew up in.
“I remember the first time I was told about the invasion.” Elytra stayed facing the window, staring out towards Canterlot. “The Queen called me to her throne and told me I had to go to Canterlot to prepare for her arrival. Take the place of a pony there and wait for months, deep cover stuff I’d never done before. I don’t think any changeling had done something like that before.” A bitter chuckle followed. “I found a stallion, a teacher, and took his place. I kept him in a pod in the basement.”
“You were a stallion? Wasn’t that weird?” Cheerilee couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t even focus on the ‘keeping him in a pod’ thing because that one question was bothering her so much. “I couldn’t imagine needing to be a male for a month…”
“I was a drone, it didn’t matter to me.” Elytra turned around. Her horn flashed green and various parts of her body started to change; her jaw became more square, her haunches more slim and feminine, her chest barrelled out like a weightlifter and then it all went back to normal in a flash. “We’re not like you ponies with mares and stallions. There’s no difference between us, I mean I don’t think I was called a female until after the Metamorphosis. Sometimes still I don’t...feel like a female, but I think that’s just my old drone brain kicking in.”
“Fair enough.” Cheerilee easily conceded the point. She had no idea what that felt like and she wasn’t going to argue it with Elytra certainly. Being able to change everything about your body at will was bound to make those kinds of ideas more complicated.
“I’ll admit that I liked it, being a pony I mean. It was the first time in my entire life I felt full.” A small warm smile crossed her features as she spoke. “There was no panic about worrying I wasn’t doing enough, about when I’d have to skip my next feeding so someone else wouldn't starve. Walking down the street was enough to fill me up for a month, that’s just how you ponies are...or...were.” Elytra cleared her throat and sat on the bed beside Scootaloo. “Anyway, I met a mare at a coffee shop by my house. Her name was Sweet Brew, a pegasus with a dark brown coat with a beautiful silver mane…” Elytra trailed off and her smile grew wider at the thought of this mare.
“What happened to her?” Scootaloo leaned in, enthralled by her friend’s story.
“I...well.” Elytra sighed. “When the time came, when the Queen signalled the invasion to begin and Shining Armor’s shield broke, I did what I was supposed to.” The darkness in the changeling’s voice rose and she slumped in place. “Brew and I had...moved in together. I had been there for eight months, I’d been seeing her for seven of those months.” She shook her head as tears started to form in the corners of her eyes. “I finally understood why changelings weren’t supposed to stick around for too long. Handing her over to Queen Chrysalis’ harvesters to be...podded and drained, it hurt. It was the first time in my entire life I had ever felt bad about feeding myself. It was the first time I had ever felt my heart break.” Elytra took a shaky breath. “But I was a good soldier. I knew that once we did our job and the Queen did hers we would never have to do this again. We would be fed until the end of time and I could forget about her.”
“But Chrysalis failed.” Cheerilee carried on the train of thought from the bug sitting before her on the edge of tears. “Your hunger faded but the pain never did.” Elytra only nodded in response. “Did you ever go back to Canterlot? After, I mean, and try to apologize?”
“Yeah, of course.” Elytra wiped her eyes and nodded some more. “Yeah. I sat outside of her place for what seemed like days, just waiting for her. When I finally saw her and told her who I was...well, she didn’t care that much. She didn’t forgive me, but it didn’t seem like she even thought about me after all of that.” Elytra waited for a moment and gathered her thoughts. “I came here to see what I could do to be better, to talk to one of the Elements of Harmony and figure out how I could atone and be a better friend to ponies.”
“Hey-” Scootaloo waved Elytra over and the bug complied, trying to clear her throat of the scratchiness that nested inside of it. “-I forgive you.” Scootaloo got to her three good hooves and gave the bug a big hug.
“Me too.” Cheerilee walked over and embraced Elytra, pressing her cheek against the changeling’s and closing her eyes. “We forgive you and we care.” The warm chitin pressed against the soft fur of the two ponies as hard glossy hooves wrapped around them as well.
“Thank you.” The three of them stood there for a moment, just enjoying the closeness. They all could admit that it felt nice, and in some respect it felt like a long gone comfort they all three had missed. “O-oh. I know.” Elytra finally broke the hug and looked at Scootaloo with bright and energized eyes. “I have something for you, just hold on.” The bug sped off out of the room, leaving the two ponies to stare at each other. Both shrugged and waited patiently, letting Cheerilee think a bit on what just happened.
She couldn’t really blame Elytra for her actions in Canterlot, after all it was just what she needed to do to survive. Could she blame anypony in the castle for basically taking over Twilight’s home? No. When this all ended they would all apologize to Twilight and move on, and Elytra did more than enough apologizing for something that happened years ago.
It was only right to live and let live.
“Scootaloo, close your eyes!” The call came from the opposite side of the door. Cheerilee looked at her charge, who had her head on the bed and her one good foreleg over both of her eyes.
“They’re closed.” Cheerilee confirmed.
“Alright.” The door opened and revealed Elytra pushing a little scooter with her magic into the room. Cheerilee’s shocked expression must’ve caught the bug’s eye because she received a hoof telling her to ‘hush’. “Open ‘em.”
“WHAT” Scootaloo leapt down from the bed with reckless abandon, her bad leg scraping the ground. “My scooter! Where did you find it? How did you get it?!” The filly hopped up on her favorite mode of transportation, one hoof resting on the handles while her bad hoof hung rested gingerly on the raised lip at the front.
“I’ve...well don’t tell anypony, but I’ve kind of been sneaking out at night.” Elytra rubbed the back of her neck and chuckled nervously. “At first it was for supplies, It’s how I got the cider and playing cards. Picked up some more food along the way too. But I found your scooter out by the schoolhouse and I’ve been bringing it back in pieces and putting it back together.” A blush started to form on the changeling’s face, one even she couldn’t hide. “I figured you could use it for your leg instead of being carried around all day.”
Scootaloo’s wings started to buzz but the filly stopped with a pained grimace. Her back was still bruised and working her wings like that was not good for it. So instead she kicked them into a slower gear and scooted around the room, testing the handling of her trusty steed.
“Thank you.” Cheerilee moved over to Elytra and planted a small kiss on her cheek.
Now the big question becomes: How many unicorns can the Castle's mana pool save before IT becomes tainted?
10839192
You're assuming that the only survivors are in Ponyville. Which given the sheer population of Equestria, is EXTREMELY unlikely.
10839206
If that happens, then hell Will follow (hehe see what I did there). But seriously, if all the princesses enter the castle, that’s probably enough to corrupt the mana pool.
Good to see Sweetie back, and so fast as well, but AJ, with all her concerning negativity, does point out a problem. If the monster unicorns and alicorns are at least partially intelligent, does this mean they are partially responsible for the killing and destruction they left in their wake as well?
Hopefully Sweetie can soon give us some insights about how they work.
I don't like the look of this one bit, Twilight is up to something and she's had a whole month head start. Honestly I don't see this whole thing ending well. And how has no pony pointed to the obvious, that Twilight is trying to locate the Mana pool.
10839221
given what we saw happening to cloudsdale, it doesn't give much hope for the rest of equestria. that was already the entirety of that genetic pool drained. with all the way to the crystal empire already being infected, its unlikely there are really THAT MANY left alive for it to make a huge difference. unless it's revealed that somewhere like appleloosa- a desert beforehand, forgoing the effects of the stuck sun on such- or another entirety of a pegasus and earth pony town with no unicorns to cause destruction, it would still not equate to the number of unicorns that could be cured and their genetic pool. if we take just ponyville as a sample, the genetics of it has been severely slimmed down, even disregarding the unicorns. if the tainted magic is fixed, and the unicorns with it, they would still have a much larger genetic influence in the future.
disregarding the possibility of fixed unicorns, then the evidence in regards to an incredibly small genetic pool is still an issue. most of those alive are mares, and unless there's a spell to allow them to have offspring that rarity herself knows or sunburst can teach her to cast, then they would have to wait for flurry to come of age, which could likely take older mares out of the running for genetics, and leaves us with only one stallion for the possibility of genetics...
things don't exactly look bright in that regard.
this was a bittersweet chapter, but a very good one all the same. shipping elytra and cheerilee FULL on now, fuck yeah.
10839230
See, I don't disagree with any of that. It's just your original comment gave the impression that you assumed the only survivors were in Ponyville.
10839206
I very much doubt it can be tainted, the Castle came from that giant Crystal Box that the Tree of Harmony gave Twilight and the Mane 6, which was in a cave deep in the EVERFREE FOREST, my best guess is that the Everfree Forest being WILD MAGIC is a natural magic that can negate the taint that infected the Unicorns and Alicorns.
10839235
it was easier than trying to write a mile long comment about the possible lack of ponies or possibility of others, because until the author tells us otherwise, it is easier to assume the survivors are who we are shown. I wasn't speculating on possible groups of ponies that are surviving. i was stating that, with who we see so far, genetics are a mess for the future.
10839239
Except that it's already been established that the Castle is drawing from a mana pool separate from the other leylines. And it was established that the reason the infection spread so fast was because the tainted magic went into the other mana pools connected to the leylines. The Castle's mana pool is most likely not an unlimited supply, and as a result it is likely that enough unicorns being saved could taint it.
10839230
I am not sure a "population bottleneck" from too few ponies remaining will be much of an issue. A population bottleneck, or smaller genepool, really only affects a species in that there is not enough genetic variety and high enough rate of reproduction to allow for the random mutations+time+natural selection process to enable the species to adapt sufficiently to its environment over time. In an "advanced" society, the ponies don't rely on continued evolution of their bodies to survive Equestria, they instead literally adapt the environment to themselves.
If Unicorns are healed, there is more than enough ponies to prevent incest/inbreeding issues and the genetic defects that result.
Also, there is no reason to believe that there are not other survivors outside of the Castle. Cloudsdale is not the only Pegasi City, and Pegasi overall had more means of escaping entirely. There are entire Earth Pony settlements in remote parts of Equestria. Yakyakistan, Hippogriffs, and other alies outside of Equestria, or friendly species within Equestria (The Changeling Hive, for example) may have even been able to provide exodus or shelter.
Crossbreeding may even happen with outside races if similar enough. So, the species may change, but that isn't the same as dying out.
10838734
sure. The big issue and why that is it, is 13 chapters in is just to late to be changing major details to me. Oh, they're smart and cruel
10839251
I think it's less a matter of how many unicorns they save total as much as how many they try to cleanse at the same time. Sunburst's explanation made it sound like the mana pools are self-cleansing normally, unless there's too many at once to it to purge the corruption before spreading it back out. The bigger problem is how many they can save before they run out of resources to feed and house them.
At this point they must cure Twilight ASAP. She's the only one who might have an idea how to stop this, restart the day-night cycle, and they might actually have a chance to capture her alive. However, even if they pull that off and can cure the majority of the unicorns, I don't know if it's too late anyway. As pointed out already, so many have died that there may not be a large enough breeding pool left to sustain the species safely, and that's assuming they can even feed themselves long enough for that to become a problem. The land is scorched and the plants are all dead, and very few earth ponies left to try growing food or pegasi to bring rain. Even under optimal conditions I see famine in their future.
Hmm... I presume these creatures can communicate through the ley lines, and perhaps alicorns retain more intelligence than unicorns. This may explain the coordination they are able to have while still being compatable with their current potrayal.
As 10839226 said, Twilight is probably locating the mana pool, and with the cheering they did last chapter, they might have already found it. If Sunburst is right in that the central pool will remove the ‘infection’, they might be finding it to isolate it from the ley lines. If he is wrong, they will at least be able to connect the infected ley lines together, in which case allowing communication between all the alicorns.
Of course, given this story’s track record, its probably something even worse.
Totally called Elytra going after her scooter.
Now that the plan worked, I’d love to know how they’re going to get Twilight in there. It seems like a pretty tall order.
10839277
Okay so there have been hints that they're smarter than I've been letting on:
"Hero"
The next time we see Twilight is in "The Bells of Ponyville" where's she's placed in a similar situation
She literally learned from her encounter with RD and adapted the next time she ran into a pegasus.
Then we have "Clipped"
Celestia and Luna didn't kill the Wonderbolts in Canterlot. They followed them all the way back to Cloudsdale in order to find more ponies. Those are not the tactics of mindless beasts.
Then we have the fact that they have been digging a fuckoff massive hole in the middle of Ponyville and more and more of them keep pouring into the town to help, showing that they have some form of organization and communication and they're working towards a common goal. You're free to be think this feels sudden, but I just don't think so
I feel like not telling the others that she has the ability to do this was just really irresponsible and incomprehensibly dense on her part. Like, it was real sweet of her to grab cider and playing cards and a scooter BUT this is an actual life or death situation. She could have done scouting and doing recon for the group to find out if perhaps the unicorns sleep at some point. Set traps. Traveled to Thorax to see if she could get reinforcements.
It is constant daylight as well, so Elytra has basically been doing what the others have been attempting to do but dying and being attacked while doing so this entire time, and didn't even consider offering her services.
Medical supplies, weapons, protection, locating an entire group of Pegasi who were hiding in Sweet Apple Acres this whole time....
I mean. I love this fic but this kind of decision being made by a lead character, and then having it framed as this adorable little surprise, it's very jarring and sort of pulls me out.
10839293
I mean Cheerilee thinks it's nice. How do you think the others will react though once they find out? Especially Applejack.
GOD I want to know what is happening in the unicorns' minds
10839290
Don't forget in chapter ONE where the unicorns were waiting on rooftops to ambush anypony down below. Looking back on it, I should have noticed they were intelligent then and there.
Success! However fleeting it may be. Now all they have to do is tie up every unicorn and drag them into the Castle. How hard can that be?
Sarcasm aside, I'm really happy we got some kind of win, even if it did come at the cost of Big Mac. My only question now is, where do we go from here?
The Castle is able to cleanse the unicorns, but to what end? Can it do this forever? Or only a finite amount of times?
This right here. It looks like the Castle used its magic to clean Sweetie Belle. Since the Castle is running off of a closed loop, it has its own pool of magic. If it uses a bit of it's magic each time it cleans a unicorn, how long before it runs out, or gets "dirtied."
This is a temporary solution to a much, much bigger problem. And right now, "temporary" just isn't going to cut it, not when time is of the essence and every second counts.
"How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!"
They're smarter, they're wising up, and they're clearly not just standing around and waiting for our survivors to make moves. There's already one alicorn in Ponyville, and at the pace things are going (and knowing the survivors luck), the other three are going to be stopping by soon as well. Once that happens, I don't think even the Castle's magic can save them. Even if it does, stepping outside would be a death sentence.
And, on top of all that, there's the big hole the unicorns are digging. At this point, it's safe to assume that they're either digging towards the Central Pool, or are pulling a Tremors and are hollowing out the ground beneath the Castle so that it collapses inwards and potentially severs the loop. Either way, it's not good, and the clock is ticking.
This was nice, if bittersweet, chapter to give us after the last one, don't get me wrong. I loved your world-building with Elytra, and really, really dig your idea of Changelings as a species being non-binary/gender-fluid. It's something I've never seen done before, and definitely something I'm going to be head-canoning for myself in future writings of my own.
I'm just really struggling to figure out how the FUCK they're going to get out of this mess. I'm at a loss for solutions. Anything less than a miracle is not going to cut it at this point. This is not going to get wrapped up in a neat, tidy little bow, that much is clear. Whatever the ending for this is, it's going to be messy.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Also:
So the Castle's mana pool is able to reverse the transformation?
I wonder if they could use this to "cure" the other ley lines. Hell, if they could get Twilight back to normal, that would be a serious help.
10839279
See 10839266 comment, as they do a good job explaining why that is likely a non-issue.
10839206
I'd like to refer to the Big Mac comparison that Sunburst used earlier. I already commented on this earlier, so apologies for sounding like a broken record.
Sunburst theorized that a fully grown unicorn in the mana pool would be comparable to a filly trying to fight Big Mac. He could fight about a hundred or so fillies without breaking a sweat, but then there are the alicorns. If a regular pony is a filly then the alicorns would be comparable to four fully grown Applejacks. Four AJs Vs. One Big Mac, it's easy to see who wins in that fight.
Now, if the castle's mana pool is equivalent to Big Mac, then the Main Mana Pool would be Celestia who could easily trounce a million small fillies. Whatever infected the original mana pool is powerful enough to easily overwhelm the castle's private pool. It'd be like a sumo wrestler defecating in a public pool vs. that same sumo wrestler using an inflatable kiddie pool as a porto-potty. Gross, but an apt comparison in my opinion.
10839290
okay, but a few things. The location of Cloudsdale isn't a secret. So they didn't need to follow anyone to destroy it. Tracking prey back to the den becomes less impressive when you realize they should know where the den was and didn't have to wait to follow anyone back. And why bait a trap, as there seems to be a suggestion is happening, when hostage taking and forcing them to take you in could work just as effectively
What if the unicorns aren't trying to locate the mana pools to contaminate them? What if they're digging because they think the pools will cure them, because it's the leylines that're contaminated?
Theory Time!
Just an idle thought that struck me while I was brewing coffee. We know the Ferals don't eat, right?
WRONG MOTHERFUCKA! They are eating, just not the way a pony would. Think about it, Changelings feed off of love, and Discord's diet consisted of chaos and misery. The Ferals are operating off of the same rules, likely feeding off of the misery and or wanton destruction around them.
They have been engineered to do only two things, kill and spread misery. But hey, that's just a theory, a fanfic theory.
10839337
It's a cloud city, it can, and probably did, move. Spitfire was clearly worried about the only flight capable Ferals finding them, it'd make sense for her to move Cloudsdale and park it somewhere else.
Here's the question: did Twilight want them to grab Sweetie and unturn her? Did she want to test the castle's pool? And if not, how is she going to react when she finds out that it can unturn unicorns? Will she redouble the digging effort or try to assault the castle directly?
Part of me has been wondering if this is all some super long game she's playing. If there was some much, much bigger disaster coming and all of this is somehow actually fixing that even bigger issue before it comes to pass. I mean we've all seen how far she'll go when she goes into Full Twilight mode on a problem or perceived problem. Assuming the map wasn't somehow tampered with when it sent her off to wherever she went, it's possible that it sent her out to prevent a total end-of-the-world scenario by triggering a near-end scenario to fix it or stave it off.
How that would work, I don't really have a solid answer for. Maybe there was already a massive buildup of tainted mana that was eventually going to break loose and taint the pool anyway and she opted to break it loose now when the results would be less severe. Perhaps she hoped that the currently isolated pool of the castle would fix the damage over time. Alternatively, she may have misunderstood her mission and went with the worst possible solution to whatever it was.
10839366
the biggest thing I can think of, if these things are intelligent, they aren't fully the unicorns/alicorns they were. They're lacking a hell of a lot.
10839366
I think I like your theory far better than I do my own.
My theory is what we're seeing is a cross between zombie apocalypse and drug addicts going through withdrawals. The infected/turned unicorns aren't killing the other ponies out of malice or predatory instincts. They can smell the proverbial batteries of clean mana the earth ponies and pegasi have in them, and are desperate to get it because they think it'll cure them. But they have no way of extracting said clean mana and simply wind up killing them in the process.
I haven’t seen anyone else make the comparison yet so I have to say...
I think the feral unicorns won’t attack the castle because they have rabies.
An explanation for that : animals with rabies are TERRIFIED of water. The disease makes them react with violent fear to water sources, because it could rinse the infection away, and make them less contagious.
I feel like the clean mana in the castle is comparable to a body of water. Something deep in there knows it could fix them, so even if destroying the castle would negate that problem, they can’t get past the instinct to stay far away.
(Rabies is scary y’all don’t go reading detailed reports of rabies cases in humans it will scar you for life I promise)
Oh dang, it actually worked. In all honesty, I was expecting something horrible to happen, because almost every chapter has had an “oh crap” moment. I’d say I was hopeful for the future of these ponies, but I think the author’s gotten me too paranoid! But yay, the CMC are back together!
It might be more of an animal-cunning sort of thing. The Not-Twilight doesn't have access to Twilight's memories or intelligence, but it's become a sort of instinctive ability to grasp things. The others are aggressive and predators, sure, but Twilight is more akin to one of those big cats that sets traps. She's not full-on able to comprehend the horror of what she's doing, maybe not self-aware, but she's seen enough to pick up that if two come out together and one falls, the other might come back for it. And she left Big Mac in the open to give it a shot. Could be she doesn't even really recognize AJ and Mac, and if it'd been AJ and Mayor Mare who went out, she'd have done the same thing.
Sweetie Belle? Probably not the first unicorn to get bound up before things went awry. And probably not the first to be visited after the fact. Maybe it's just not worth it to expend the energy to free her.
Or maybe there's enough left of Twilight in there to want to be beaten. That hoped AJ could save Big Mac.... and then, when thwarted, unable to stop from ending it.
glad that it worked and Sweetie Belle is free, now they just have to figure out how to do the same to every single affected unicorn/alicorn in Equestria...
Sweetie can also be considered very lucky here. Even if she can't recall anything from the time she turned, she was tied up that entire time and didn't do anything.
Everypony else on the other hand, once cured, has to live with what they did during that time, be it from being told what happened (and someone most likely WILL say something) or remembering doing it
10839251
Well what if the Mana Pool is connected to the Everfree Forest, which would be WILD MAGIC that can't be tainted, and you also should remember that the Leylines might not link to the Everfree Forest too since that is a place that Ponies could not control the land or weather, the Leylines are most likely linked to area's where ponies are able to CONTROL the very land and weather.
10839337
The infected might not have access to host memories.
The more i read this the more i feel like somebody is attaching strings to infected unicorns and then playing with them
(it can't be discord because hes isn't here)
But is there like a puppet master person lurking around the corner somewhere?
because I doubt one would destroy there own home when they were still living in it. even if there insane so i bet somebody forced the sisters to do that via the infected magic supply
10839493
Possible....It would explain why the unicorns are digging under Town Hall, which would be located roughly half-way between the Castle and the Everfree......
10839454
Alicorns, unicorns, survivors everybody is gonna need a lot of therapy
10839221
Also Apart from the major cities equestria is very sparsely populated
10839551
Grogar maybe?
10839392
That makes sense. Especially in their addled state, I can see them blindly attacking others trying to quench their metaphorical/metaphysical thirst. Or dull the pain that they're probably feeling.
Crazy thought, but what if the infected see themselves as completely fine and the survivors as infected.
10839500
I'm sorry, I don't quite follow what you're saying...
It's been a long day and my mind is a bit frazzled.
10839206
Honestly, I do not THINK the Castle's mana pool can be corrupted. It's a expression of the tree of harmony, pure cleansing magic.
That'd be like saying the tree can be corrupted. And on the subject of the tree, mayhaps they could make a move to find it?
Why was that so... cute to me?
AND ELYTRA IS DA BEST (MLPFiM) OC EVER!!!
I'm loving the theories people are coming up with in the comments. Can't wait to see who is close to hitting the nail on the head.
10839661
You have good taste