Agents of Discord

by KittyrinnAiko

Chapter 73: Aftermath

The orderlies had Aerie sit on a stool in a large shower. They rinsed her off and had her good and sudsy by the time her Princess Luna burst in.

“Aerie!”

“Hi, mom. How about a boost?”

Splat! Yes, foamy hugs go splat.

“Princess Luna?” One of the orderlies asked.

“We are from a different dimension, but yes.”

“Well, I’ll be... Um…” The orderlies had to wait as Princess Luna locked horns with Aerie and powered up her horn.

“Better?” Luna asked as she drew back.

“Much. Thank you. I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’d a hunch you’d need me. Word is you took on Queen Chrysalis.”

“I did. After decimating the hive they’d set up under the mountain along with rescuing Twilight Sparkle, Cadance, some leather wings, and some guards. They might have had to fight their way out too, but I doubt there were many left after I got finished.”

“You did?”

“Hoof daggers, a large smithy hammer made of Uru, and a mining lance that I whipped about with my telekinesis. They made the mistake of hanging us up in an old armory.”

“Damn, girl!” Luna said while taking a half step back. “You are way too little to be the Tank of the party.”

Aerie couldn't help but laugh at the gamer reference.

Back in Canterlot, ruin was the theme for the day. Fortunately, most of the carnage was lings that had either crossed paths with Aerie or hadn’t cleared buildings during the purge. As for Twilight, just as soon as Cadance and Shining Armor’s spell had ended she’d gone to a potted plant to cough up the gunk that still lingered in her lungs and vomit. When she’d finished, she got up, ignored the shocked ponies around her, and left the room. No, she wasn’t leaving. What she had in mind was to go down to the apothecary to mix up something that would help clear her lungs.

“What’s the password?” demanded a disheveled guard.

“I don’t need no bucking password!” Twilight shouted at him and then walked around him. “Damned lings infiltrated us and probably know all the bucking passwords. Just start clean up.”

No pony else challenged her, and she arrived at her destination a short time later. Medical staff were in and out as casualties were being brought into a nearby clinic. She didn’t say anything to any pony there, as she entered, nor did she say anything to any pony when she started getting out and mixing ingredients.

“Miss, you can’t just… oh dear Celestia, you’ve been cocooned.”

“I am…” Twilight had to stop as her body was wracked with coughing. “I was Princess Celestia's Faithful Student.” She didn’t wait for a reply, finished mixing, measured a quarter cup, and drank it. She was immediately hit with more coughing, but this time it wasn’t as bad. “Quarter cup to every pony that’s been cocooned. Ah, yes, much better.” Her voice which had sounded harsh at first but had softened. “There is a group of ponies in the Royal Audience Chamber who were cocooned with me. Including Princess Cadance.”

“Princess Cadance?”

“She’d been replaced by the queen of the changelings. If Princess Celestia had only listened to me… No, that’s probably not fair. It was already too late.”

“Some pony sounded the alarm.”

“How’s that?”

“When the shield broke it was pandemonium. The Canterlot guards were useless, and I found myself being carried aloft.”

“How did you get free?”

“All seemed lost, and then the Night Wing arrived. Coming down the mountainside.”

“And the Night Wing arrived,” echoed another.

“Coming down the mountainside,” said a third.

“Outnumbered fifteen to one,” Offered a guard who was getting his left wing put in a cast. Ponies were beginning to line up in the hallway many on stretchers. “When the battle'd begun.”

“I’d been cocooned,” Twilight offered as ponies out in the hall echoed, and then the Night Wing arrived, coming down the mountainside. “I missed all that. We’d been rescued… by an alicorn, I’d never met. They wore red and black armor and dived into the lings… I’ve never seen such ferocity in a pony. She was like a Timber Wolf.

Nearby another injured guard was muttering, “dedication, dedication, fifteen to one…”

“Alright, I get it,” Twilight said, the sound of ponies breaking into song filling her ears with heavy metal.

“When the Night Wing arrived.
“A cry for help in time of need, days of siege outnumbered and weak, send a message to the sky, wounded guards left to die, would they hold the line or will the city fall. Dedication, dedication, outnumbered fifteen to one … when the battle begun… and then the Night Wing arrived, coming down the mountainside…” Epic guitar music playing...

“Get this up to the Audience Hall. I’m going to make more. I have a feeling we aren’t going to have enough, but we’ll make do with what we have.”

“Yes, mam.”

Twilight turned and began making a second batch glad that there was something she could do. She could take solace in that her friends… were they still her friends… hadn’t been cocooned like she had. During the mad drive to get Cadance to Princess Celestia, to… to do what? To prove that she had been right? No, Chrysalis did a fine job of that once she was assured of her victory. Cadance and Shining Armor undid that invasion in one full sweep. Not that Twilight had been ineffective. Oh, she’d done her fair share of blasting as she expressed her anger and frustration with every bolt. And with every step, following that Night Mare. Only now did she remark on how that pony had gone from a creature of the night to an alicorn with glistening white wings. Even her mane and tail had been white. And the armor, it had transformed with her. A spell Twilight planned to research just as soon… just as soon as the crisis was over and she’d found out what had become of Aerie.

The last thing Twilight had wanted was an escort. Not when she had her friends. In the end, it was the escort who’d stuck by her side. And it was the escort who’d whispered in her ear, “That’s not Cadance. We’ve got to find Cadance, and expose that fraud.” That was it, the reason she’d taken Cadance straight to where the wedding was. That and she had to stop that wedding. Even if her brother wasn’t her BBBFF anymore, she was not going to allow him to be hoodwinked by that hussy.

When the aid arrived at the Audience Hall it wasn’t hard to figure out which ponies had been cocooned. Those who’d been in the underground chamber, and subsequently joined the drive to get to Princess Celestia were now lounging about the grand hall, their energy all but spent now that the battle was done. Princess Cadance was the first given a share of the elixir. She thanked her but didn’t think to ask from where it had come. As for Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash, they’d been anxious to find Twilight only to get drafted into helping with the injured.

Aerie and Amore had a good meal after being cleaned up, and Aerie took a good long nap afterward. Amore had flopped down on a lounger out on the porch that surrounded the place.

“So how are you doing? I’m Dalia,” offered the nurse who’d helped them to the infirmary. “Would you like anything? I could get you an iced tea?”

“I, um… I’m fine.”

“Are you sure… hang on – you, yes you!” One moment Dalia shouted at some ponies who had been, just sort of nonchalantly, passing by while taking plenty of furtive glances. “You’ve no business being here. Get!”

Amore let out a sigh.

“Well, you can hardly blame them. We aren’t even supposed to be interacting with the local inhabitants and then boom, not one but two alicorns drop into our laps.”

“You mean it’s not because… because they heard about who I am, was?”

“Honey, we all know about curses. No one will fault you and the majority of them haven't a clue what goes on outside the walls.”

“This is an enclosed… hermitage? I was wondering why I wasn’t seeing any foals?”

“Hermitage? Oh, right, I suppose it might look that way. It’s sort of a science station. Outpost of the Akkadian Republic. Formerly the Akkadian Empire, but it was decided to just drop the Empire thing and just make it a republic. Or just Akkadia for short.”

“Um… I’m sort of an Akkadian princess. I thought the Empire collapsed, centuries ago?”

“Well, technically it did. Equestria is possibly the last outpost. A number of us living in the land of the Angles, or Anglo Saxons, known as England these days, decided to return to the islands of the gateway and reestablish the colonies. Our princess is Princess Kitsumi Nova Silverwood Swan.”

“That’s quite the mouthful… hang on… this is where the portal is, isn’t it? Can I see?”

“You know about the portal?”

“Probably just as well I’d lost track of where it was.” Her cheerful mood had soured on the thought of what could have happened if Chrysalis had found it.”

“We might go this evening when it cools down. It’s generally a lot hotter over there. It’s in the Tropics. You’ll need permission – not because of anything you might have done while under a curse, we just have rules about ponies from here going there. Generally what we do is we fix up lost travelers and then return them to their home after erasing their memory of this place.”

“I don’t really have a home. Not here at any rate.”

“Aerie!” Luna called as she flew down and glided to a landing on the deck.

“She’s still asleep,” Dalia informed her.

“Great… On the one hoof, she needs her sleep after pushing herself like that, but on the other hoof Kreacher won’t let me in without the password.”

“Who’s Kreacher? What house?”

“House in Ponyville.”

“Ponyville, you flew to Ponyville? But ponies that come here aren’t supposed to just come and go whenever they want?”

“The house in Ponyville connects to the House in London.”

“London?! There’s a connection to London in Ponyville.”

“No one told you? Then again it’s probably confidential so just forget you heard it.”

“Probably just as well I didn’t know about it,” Amore said in a sarcastic tone.

“Connects to Canterlot too. In two different dimensions, this and ours. What? Oh, Aerie and I aren’t natives of Gaia. We are from a different… and you should probably forget I just said that. It’s just that, she’s caught in the middle. She was not protecting one world, not two, but three. I can’t help but think Discord destroyed Nova Silverwood’s foal hood for this specific day. She went into Canterlot expecting she’d just be there to support Twilight, and now here we are. Sure, Canterlot is a mess, but Chrysalis is no more.”

“I see,” responded Nova Silverwood. She’d quietly approached and overheard everything Luna had just said. “And as far as I can tell, everything happened exactly as I remember from my history books. Keeping in mind the foal-appropriate books left out a lot of the gritty stuff this is looking like a classic case of the butterfly effect. My Discord bumps me into another dimension, I work my way back only to find I’m now in the past. I move to another nearby dimension that seems to be tethered to my home dimension to keep from affecting my timeline. Aerie shows up, I help her, and in so doing she’s eliminated two threats.”

“History books?” Dalia asked. “Timeline?”

“Yes, dear. I’m actually from the future. That rule about no contact is in place because I’m scared to death I’ll disrupt my timeline somehow.”

“We are all tied together,” Luna offered. “And Aerie and I have no qualms about meddling. Just don’t tell us what’s supposed to happen.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Just one thing that you might be able to help with.”

“And that is?”

“Queen to Queen’s level three?”

“It’s a Star Trek reference. The answer was Queen to King’s level one.”

“Ah, maybe I can get into the house now.”

“Did she…”

“Gave Kreacher orders not to let anyone in from this dimension who could not give the correct response, and I went out the door not knowing that.”

Mrs Silverwood cracked a smile and couldn't help but chuckle. “At least she made sure to take precautions.”

“And I still haven't retrieved her purse. It’s got her phone in it. Any chance I can get one of those fancy new phones?”

“I suppose that if you’re going to be traipsing about England I better.”

“Think I’ll get going and give it another try.”

“You aren’t going to wake her?”

“She needs her rest.”

“Something you might want to know before you go.”

“And that is?”

“Aurora called me a little while ago. The CMC received letters from Hogwarts.”

“Ho boy. Explaining that one to their families is going to be fun.”

“If they don’t want to let them go, and I wouldn't blame them, just send a reply saying that they’ll be going to my school. Eques Academy. Keeping in mind I’m just throwing that out to give them a way to say no without drawing anyone's curiosity.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. After the day Twilight and the elements have had, I’d expect them to say no. Just explaining it is going to be a challenge.”

“Oh, and I was going to invite Aerie and Amore to dinner. Have Aerie stay the night. It’ll do her some good.

“Mind if I tag along?”

“Sure, why not? We’ll be having dinner at seven. Over on the other side.”

“Dumbledore will be apoplectic.”

“Oh?”

“He stuck another tracker on her.”

“Suddenly in the Caribbean will certainly have him scratching his head.” The two had a good laugh, Luna took off and went back to Ponyville, and Nova Silverwood found herself explaining to Amore what they were talking about.

Author's Note:

Several lines talking about the Night Wing elude heavily to this song.

Comments

[ToMahkAros]

Sweet Song choice there mate!

[Dontar]

good chapter, love how everything is coming together

[rendomstranger]

Another tracker? Dumbledore really is the biggest fool in existence, isn't he? I cannot even begin to imagine how badly that is going to go for him. Not that I expect that tracking spell to last more than a week or 2. At this point, Aerie doesn't even have a reason not to remove the tracking spell right in front of Dumbledore's eyes. Not when everything related to Riddle should be taken care off before the school year even starts.

I mean, there is the ring but we all know that Dumbledore is going to try something stupid once he finds it. As should Aerie. So no need to go along with his schemes in the hopes of destroying the ring. Just keep a note in a different dimension in case Dumbledore tries to cover up that he has the ring and everything should be fine. After all, he can only cover up knowledge about the item. Not that he has an item that needs to be destroyed. At least, I don't expect a fool like Dumbledore to be smart enough to think of that.

[midnight arrow]

great chapter

[KittyrinnAiko]

11765532
Prisoner of Azkaban... Sirius Black is free. Mr Malfoy is not.

Dumbledore - still wants to insert himself as the savior of wizardkind.

It shouldn't be too hard to guess what I have in mind.

[harts fire]

Dumbledore just does not know when to give it up.
yep he will enjoy having the CMC at Hogwarts.

amazing story.

[KittyrinnAiko]

11765983
Oh, that's not Dumbledor's doing. That's Princess Celestia. Nova Silverwood's Celestia. If Isolde had been the only Akkadian it'd been too easy to figure it out. Instead, we get four Musketeers, and the person formerly known as Draco just sort of vanishes.

[harts fire]

11766289
this is vary interesting.

[Theresa hall]

11765532
Actually there was one item she was working on when the came up whether she can get it before is the question. Because in the story the book as a weapon of jealously and stupidity was given to ginny but now there is no Harry to get stupidly jealous over.